Given where all this had happened, in this high country, they were likely to be of shepherd stock, at the very least peasants from a hard-won farm. Their background made no odds: if they had tried to kill him, they should be punished. That they had no idea of his name and position meant nothing: his dress and the fact that he was mounted and armed marked him out as a person from a far superior station in life. The other obvious fact added to his quandary: they very likely spoke a mountain dialect of some language of which he had no knowledge. He had a requirement to find out what had occurred and why, and that could only be achieved by taking them back to Melfi, where there was likely to be someone with whom they could communicate.
The girl finally spoke, in a stream of words that made no sense to the man standing over her, but then, if he knew not precisely what was being said, there was no doubt it was not a fond greeting. The words tumbled out in a stream of what sounded like bile, and whatever she said set the boy-child to tears, which tumbled down his cheeks making furrows in the filth. William swept an arm down and grabbed the boy with enough force to detach him from someone he expected was a sister rather than a mother, which turned what sounded like invective into spitting screams.
Making for his horse, William threw the boy over the front of his saddle and swiftly mounted, aware as he did so of his back being pummelled by the girclass="underline" she was certainly a feisty creature and despite what had occurred William could not help but smile, which when aimed at her, sent her into even greater paroxysms of fury. Shouting to silence her he set his mount into a walk, knowing that she would follow: if she had gone to that much trouble to save the boy before, she would not abandon him now.
The sight of the great warrior, William Iron Arm, riding slowly through the steep streets of Melfi, broke the indifference the locals had adopted as a way of reacting to the Normans. The boy, who had fallen silent long before, seeing or sensing the curious people, began to wail loudly once more, again in an incomprehensible tongue, as if by doing so he could persuade them, the townsfolk, to free him. The girl, having walked and cursed for too long, was now too exhausted to utter a word.
That wailing attracted even more of the locals and before long William had a trail of townsfolk at his rear, and he was aware of much angry muttering; what was the boy saying he had done? The crowd stopped walking, if not carping, as men came down the causeway that led up to the castle to observe at close quarters a sight to which they had been alerted by the sentinels, all tall Normans eager to see what it was their puissant leader was doing with these two grimy creatures, and those who had known and served with him long enough to be aware that he was a man who could take a jest began to praise him for the capture of such dangerous foes.
Laughing out loud, William replied, ‘Have a care I don’t let this boy loose to scratch out your eyes. Now do me a good turn and find someone in the town who has some knowledge of the mountain dialects.’
When the men around him would not cease to laugh, he barked the same request as a command, which was quickly obeyed, a pair of Normans barrelling down to demand help from the still-gathered crowd. That took some time and persuasion: no one in Melfi wanted to enter the castle for fear that, with the devils at present in charge, they would never re-emerge. The gap gave time to enter the keep and dismount; it also gave his brothers, who had no fear of him at all, a chance to take over the ribbing.
‘You like them dirty,’ hooted Humphrey, quite failing to make humorous what was intended as a jest. ‘What is it to be, the boy or the girl?’
‘I think you should wash the girl,’ said Drogo, who had an eye that could see something to attract him under the dirt and rags. ‘Perhaps I should throw her in the trough.’
‘You’re welcome to try, brother,’ William replied, holding the wailing boy-child by the scruff of his smock. ‘Me, while I will do battle with any Byzantine who comes near, will leave that to men of more courage.’
‘You fear a slip of a girl?’ asked Mauger, approaching her, only to recoil, to the accompaniment of much sibling mirth, when she went for his face with her outstretched nails, that before she spat at him.
‘Has anyone taken a woman yet?’ William asked.
Even Drogo de Hauteville was forced to deny that, and he was the most salacious of the brood, never happy to sleep alone.
‘There are some matrons in the castle kitchens,’ said Humphrey.
‘I’ve seen them,’ hooted Geoffrey, ‘arses like a plough horse and arms akin to tree trunks.’
‘Just your sort, then,’ Drogo retorted, nodding to indicate that behind his brothers, the men who had gone to find someone who understood the local dialect had returned with a very unhappy-looking local, an elderly fellow of greying locks and, judging by his clothing, some prosperity, who had knowledge of both Greek and Latin.
What followed was something of a revelation: there was not a Norman present who thought themselves loved, but in interrogating this girl — the boy, indeed identified as a brother, was too young — the level of hate was enough to induce a degree of increasing anger, given that all present could hear what was being imparted. The girl did nothing to deny trying to kill William, and was only too happy to say why, making very uncomfortable the fellow who had to relay her words, while no doubt trying to hide the fact that he wholly shared the sentiments.
No crime was left unmentioned — if this adolescent had never seen a Norman, she had heard of them — even if it emerged in a stuttered, inchoate way: rapine that included the torching of crops and stored food, the chopping down of vines and olive trees, the slaughter of livestock, theft, the torture of innocents, the hanging and mutilation of men, women and children, with those not so treated left to starve over a foodless winter, and, if any women survived, to bear, the next year, the bastards caused by forced conception.
It was the tale of every invader who ever lived, for those listening knew that a Christian army from east or west would behave no differently and the Saracens were worse: war bore down heavily on those who had no part in the fighting, but it seemed, in this invective, the Normans were seen as more troubling than others, nothing less than a plague. Eventually it ceased: it seemed either the girl ran out of hate and breath, or there were no more crimes to list.
The poor interlocutor, who expected to pay a heavy price for his explanations, now stood with his head bowed, afraid to look a single one of these Normans in the eye. William, throughout, had been recalling some of the thoughts he had mulled over earlier in the day. Personally not overly bloodthirsty, he knew the fellows he led to be guilty of much that had been said: had he not seen them do these very things on more than one occasion? Had he not in Sicily, to deny his Saracen enemy the means of sustenance, laid waste the land and let loose his men to cow the populace?
‘Hang her from the walls,’ Drogo said, ‘and her brother too.’
‘How do they live?’ William asked, for that had not yet been put to the girl.
Gently the old man enquired, to pass on that the pair came from a family of goatherds, though they had long since lost all but two of their herd.
‘The rest of the family?’
The furious shake of the girl’s head, and the way she dropped it when that was posed, required no translation: they were very likely orphans, so William looked directly at the old man. ‘These things that have been said, you share them, do you not?’
‘My Lord…’
‘I am not your lord, fellow,’ William snapped, taking hold of his sword hilt to drive home the risk the old man was taking: he had no desire to hear either platitudes or untruths. ‘But I will have an answer and it must be an honest one.’
The words that tumbled out were not wholly coherent either, being spoken by a worthy trying to avoid condemning himself to the fate Drogo had suggested for the two youngsters. Yet they were similar, albeit mixed, unlike the girl’s invective, with many an apologetic caveat. It met what William desired: it told him of the depth of distrust, if not loathing, he and his men faced locally.