Temptation for a vigorous young man was ever present: most monasteries-cum-hospices had a nunnery, if not attached, then close by, places where few of the inmates were truly there as brides of Christ. Most women were in such places against their inclination and in many cases in spite of their expressed will, confined by relatives for perceived or real offences, but more often for mere disobedience: a refusal to marry a designated spouse, a defiance of parents, an unwed pregnancy, a wife put aside, or widowhood which might lead to temptation, that too many times attached to a threatened inheritance.
That chastity was not their paramount concern was hardly surprising; that a hearty young giant was often indulged not at all startling. The monks who saw these nunneries and the females they contained, some of tender years, as their personal preserve, took umbrage. Such a thing was to be expected; that they never challenged a man like Robert de Hauteville showed that if they lacked the tenets of their faith, they were not in want of good sense, for he was not one who feared to box the ears of an ecclesiastic.
For a young man who had only very occasionally left the Contentin, travelling south was an education and Robert drank in everything he saw and heard. Monkish misconduct he had known about since he ceased to be an impressionable youth; peasant exploitation he had seen too often close to home, which contrasted with the care Tancred extended to his tenants and villeins, drumming into his boys that if they had arms, equipment and the right to bear them, it could only be sustained on the back of the willing labour of others.
Yet the depth of some of what he saw shocked him: great monastic and dynastic wealth surrounded by the near starvation of those who toiled to keep their masters in luxury; the barons of those great castles who, in their cups, would curse the dukes and kings they were obliged to serve, and this to a stranger’s ears. Some of those chatelaines had made no secret that should this strapping young visitor go a’wandering by candlelight, their doors would not be barred.
By the time he reached the stink of Rome, which was as much created by corruption as human and animal effluent, Robert de Hauteville’s education was complete: it only took a short stay in that den of papal iniquity, a city with three different popes, all of them equally corrupt, competing to control the Holy See, each supported by their own warring aristocratic factions, to complete a view of the world in which he lived, one that was utterly jaundiced. It was there he also learnt of the Norman activity in Apulia — news of their victories had reached Rome — which altered his intended destination: no point in going to Aversa if none of his family were there.
‘Where are you headed, brother?’ asked a sightless beggar at the Appian Gate, a fellow of much experience, who had either been tipped of the approach or knew the sound of a triple set of hooves. Robert’s hounds growled at him until commanded to desist.
‘To Apulia, friend, to seek my fortune.’
‘Is there a fortune there, brother? I sense you are of a kind, one of many who have gone that way. Even if they had gained much, perhaps there is not enough to satisfy.’
The booming laugh that engendered was loud enough to echo off the old and broken walls of the Eternal City. ‘I am Robert de Hauteville, and if there is fortune to be had, then I shall have it.’
‘Then God bless you, brother, and if you come back this way, do not pass by without gifting me some of that prosperity.’
‘Who knows if I ever shall?’
Even sightless eyes can narrow, and the beggar’s did so now. ‘Take the word of a man who can see with empty sockets, brother, a man who has senses more acute than those of priests. I know from your voice and manner, and that which surrounds you, that you shall come back to Rome, and with more horses and a deeper purse than you possess now.’
‘What are you, fellow, a sorcerer?’
The laugh was a cackle. ‘No, brother, happen I am a seer.’
That jest got another booming Norman laugh, turning the heads of all around. Robert’s purse was near to empty, but he liked the prophecy enough to pass over the smallest of his silver.
‘News has just arrived, William, that Prince Guaimar has accepted the surrender of Amalfi. He is busy taking bloody revenge for slights of long duration.’
William, standing by an embrasure, was watching the boy, Listo, practise with a wooden sword. One of the older mercenaries who had come with him from Aversa, a fellow who had been badly wounded at Cannae, had taken to the boy, teaching him not only how to use a toy sword and shield, but how to ride as well. Or perhaps, suspecting he might not see service again, he was looking for a role that would keep him in Melfi.
‘I have said before, Arduin, I have no interest in Amalfi.’
‘But I suspect you do in the other piece of news just arrived.’ Arduin, when William turned, was grinning, in a way that did not please the Norman. He looked too much like a cat who had stolen the cream. ‘We have a new catapan, no less than the son and namesake of that devil, Basil Boioannes. Michael Doukeianos has been sent to Sicily for his failures, where I suspect he will rot.’
‘Then we should be cautious of him, Arduin, lest he has the same ability as his papa.’
‘Who is Basil Boioannes?’ asked Count Atenulf, with his usual vacant expression, he having come with Arduin.
It was a question that astounded William: for a Lombard not to know that name was ignorance indeed. It probably shocked Arduin even more: had not the man in question led the army that beat Melus of Bari and killed his father on the very field where they had just been victorious? But if he was surprised, Arduin gave no evidence of it, too accustomed, probably, to Atenulf’s density to be stunned.
‘No doubt,’ Arduin added, ‘they think to win a prize with the same blood and name.’
‘Has he come with any more men?’ asked William, for that, to him, was of paramount concern.
‘He has apparently come with nothing but his father’s reputation. But the recruiting parties are out again, and they will use the name to gather a host. Also he has the remains of the men who fled the field at Cannae.’
‘Then he had better be clever,’ William insisted, ‘for they could not stand.’
It took several months to discover that the younger Boioannes was just that. Following on from Cannae, William had been cautious in the way he deferred to Arduin, who, though he had praised him for the victory he had achieved, and had taken without a blush the accolades which had come to him, was still rankled by the way he had been so ignominiously superseded at Cannae. Knowing that time favoured the Byzantines, as it always would, Arduin ordered the army out of Melfi and went in search of Boioannes, only to find him as elusive as a buzzing fly.
Every time they got close to him he manoeuvred quickly and efficiently to get clear, sometimes retiring to a fortress — especially when faced with just Norman cavalry — then slipping away from that if Arduin brought up enough men to institute a siege, always with a route open back to the great bastion of Bari. As a campaign it was wearing, especially for the foot soldiers, marching hither and thither with nothing to show for it at the end.
Given that lasted through winter and into the following spring, it became positively dispiriting and the numbers of recruits began to fall as those who had farms slipped away to sow crops while others who had left their trades saw more profit in pursuing them; with plunder they would have stayed, without it they saw only empty bellies, until Arduin was obliged to fall back on Melfi, which only increased the feelings of gloom and the rate of desertion.
‘Better to let them go, William,’ Arduin suggested. ‘If I do they will come back once their crop is in the soil. If I do not…’
That needed no finish: they might not return at all, a thought which made a general become dispirited even more downhearted. He thought a more inspiring leader could have kept them together; a more practical Norman mercenary knew differently: men served themselves, even if they mouthed causes. He also saw the need to ease the man’s mind.