‘Not Arduin, Excellency, but the Prince of Benevento.’ That finally brought Michael Doukeianos out of his seat, his face so suffused with fury that the captain recoiled, his voice rising in panic. ‘The Normans have allied themselves to Benevento, and asked that he lead them in Apulia, since Prince Guaimar refused, even to the point of denying them any supplies on the way to Melfi. It did him no service. I am told they stole them anyway.’
The catapan had not resumed his seat and he walked to look out of an opening in the chamber, away from the interior so that his face was hidden. Beneath him lay the port of Bari, full of shipping — but none of that was his own — and surrounding that a town full of people, while behind him, standing and waiting while he ruminated, were the men he had not consulted about appointing Arduin. The sun shone on the sight before him, but not in his heart. He realised now the magnitude of his error: with three hundred Normans in Melfi he would struggle to retake it, but he knew he must try.
Yet he also knew he had been lucky: first in the fact that the Normans were there unsupported by Guaimar, by far the most powerful of the Lombard magnates. Had the Prince of Salerno done otherwise the whole Catapanate would be in jeopardy. He had also found out what was happening well before the news would have filtered down to him overland, so he had gained vital time.
Arduin would not be expecting a response for many weeks, and his first task would be to raise foot soldiers from the surrounding land and they would have to be trained. He still had some proper soldiers, his own personal troops and bodyguards, as well as some of the hastily conscripted levies from Bari with which he had put down the recent rebellion; with luck he might surprise the traitor while he was away from Melfi and get between him and the fortress.
If he could do that and he was weak, he would make Arduin pay for his treachery. As for the Normans, they could be bought off: they always put coin before loyalty to a cause — anyone’s cause.
But that brought forth another concern: mounted and already well trained and armed for war they could move swiftly and anywhere, which included the coast, which must be protected at all costs. If Byzantium held the port cities it held a firm grip on Apulia, but they were a rich and tempting prize for men who loved to plunder.
‘Captain, to which port are you bound?’ Doukeianos demanded, turning round to face a roomful of blandfaced officials, some of whom had served half a dozen previous catapans.
‘Ragusa, Excellency, with a cargo of oil.’
‘Forget that. You will proceed to Constantinople under my orders…’
The man’s hands were suddenly open in protest. ‘Your Excellency!’
‘Oil commands a good price there too, so you will not lose, and I will reward you for the service. You are to take a despatch which will be written speedily telling the emperor of what has occurred and asking for reinforcements.’ Then he looked past the bowing captain, that being enough to send one official off to compose the necessary document. To another he demanded, ‘Get me a list of what levies we still have under arms.’
‘Excellency.’
The command to a third was just as brusque. ‘I want a message sent by sea up the coast, first to alert the ports to the danger, and then a rider sent on to Troia, to the garrison there. They are to send out patrols to scour the border with Benevento. I want to know what kind of support the principality is providing in arms and men.’
A stream of other instructions followed, with the required officials departing to obey. It was an element of the efficiency of the Apulian administration that he had in his hands a paper outlining the message he wished to send to Constantinople with less than half the sand run through the glass, one which he perused quickly before, satisfied, he appended his seal. Quietly, he told the man holding the wax and candle how much to pay the captain for the service required, then ordered him, once the man was on his way, to return on his own.
With everything that could be put in hand complete, Michael Doukeianos sat down to compose a message to be sent to Salerno, one in which he imparted that he understood the constraints under which Prince Guaimar struggled, and also that he was appreciative of the stand he had taken, as well as the steps in informing the Western Emperor. He also wrote that he regretted his own concerns prevented him from offering to bring to Guaimar’s aid the kind of force which would put his rebellious vassal, Rainulf Drengot, in his place.
He stopped and smiled then: the last thing Guaimar would want to see was Byzantine war vessels filling his bay. Then he went back to composition.
The fulsome praise which followed was to the prince’s sagacity in the actions he had taken, as well as his caution, plus an assurance that once he had dealt with Arduin and recovered Melfi he would be content to leave Campania in peace while he sought to enforce redress on Benevento, albeit he would have no choice but to ask the men Drengot commanded to return to Campania.
Reading it over twice, the young Byzantine general was satisfied that it implied that which he intended: if Guaimar wanted to take part in the dismemberment of Benevento, he, as the representative of Constantinople in Southern Italy, would welcome him, and given that occupied Normans were better than idle ones, such a course might distract them from mischief in his own domains.
He knew the man who had sealed his despatch earlier was waiting and he called him over, sanding and sealing his own message without allowing the fellow to have sight of it. ‘This is to go by ship to Salerno, to be placed in the hand of Prince Guaimar and no one else. See to it.’
The message found Guaimar under the walls of Amalfi. Not that he himself was engaged in trying to subdue the place: on land that fell to Rainulf Drengot, who led his Normans as well as the foot soldiers the prince had raised in his fiefs. Likewise at sea, a trusted admiral was responsible for ensuring no ship entered or left the harbour and he had placed stout booms across the entrance to ensure that task was carried out.
To subdue the place would take time, perhaps till they were starving — it had stout protective land walls — but that he had. If he had ever thought he might have an enemy who could trouble him, the response from Michael Doukeianos was everything for which Guaimar could wish. Both Naples and Gaeta, his other trading rivals, were either only too happy to see Amalfi humbled or too afraid of his Normans to intervene. To amuse himself, given he had little to do but inspire the besiegers by his presence, he spent time making lists of those enemy citizens he would hang from the walls, some of whom had troubled his father before him, while also dreaming of one day being acclaimed as a king by his fellow Lombards.
CHAPTER NINE
News of that siege naturally travelled east, but it was of no concern to either Arduin or William de Hauteville, except that it kept Guaimar and Rainulf busy. When word came of the approach of a Byzantine army, William was occupied, with the aid of his youngest brother, supervising the reconstruction of the walls of Lavello, which, on inspection, had proved be in a more sorry state than those of Venosa.
Michael Doukeianos knew of the occupation of Melfi by the Normans, knew of Arduin’s betrayaclass="underline" he was heading their way to set matters right, the size of his army unknown. The messenger, a Lombard from Giovinazzo, had set out to warn of the intention, without waiting to assess numbers, but the fellow was certain the catapan could not be far behind: had he not moved like lightning the previous year to crush revolt?
Arduin was travelling throughout Benevento, well to the north, seeking Lombard volunteers, too far away to make any decisions affecting the urgent problem, leaving William to make them instead. He sent word at once to Drogo at Venosa, to Humphrey and Geoffrey still in Melfi, all three to join him while he despatched Mauger with a small party of horsemen to ride down the southern side of the River Ofanto, the route he suspected his enemy would take, to warn of their approach.