Raising what conscripts he could, he bypassed that great port city, it being too strong, and force-marched his men on to Ostuni. Normally this hill town, perched on a rocky outcrop half a league from the Adriatic, was a place no serious general would have troubled to capture, and it was one that had shown no stomach for either intrigue or revolt in previous decades. That, against the likes of George Maniakes, was not enough to save it.
Poorly defended, with no garrison, a broken-down watchtower and cathedral atop the mount on which it stood, and with walls much-pilfered for house building, fortifications that had not been maintained for decades, it had no chance of resistance and the citizenry knew it. Envoys bearing gifts of food and wine were sent out as soon as the Byzantine force was spotted moving up the coast accompanied by a small fleet of supply ships.
Pitching his tents in the narrow strip of land between the outcrop and the sea, George Maniakes received those envoys and took their gifts just before he personally, with a sword big enough to match his great stature, took their lives by lopping off their heads in a quartet of single blows. Then he sent his men into Ostuni with instructions to show no quarter, and for once, that was an order strictly applied. Every man found was killed, the women of all ages raped before joining them in death, so that the narrow steep-stepped streets of the town ran with great effusions of blood.
Those children who had not fallen to blows from swords, knives and clubs were brought out onto the plain, the older ones set to digging a pit deep enough to hold their bodies, one they were thrown into as soon as it was completed, joined by the younger children down to toddlers, the earth they had toiled to remove thrown over them to suffocate them while they still breathed, their tears and wailing wasted on the ears of the tyrannical general who had ordered this massacre.
Houses and the cathedral were torched after being despoiled, everything of value going to Maniakes’s men, for they were wise enough to torture the people who might have something to hide before despatching them to meet their Maker, and for those who resisted, the mutilation of one of their children or the brutal deflowering of a pubescent daughter was usually enough to loosen parental tongues. Livestock was driven out to be slaughtered on the beach, those not roasted and eaten were salted and barrelled to provide supplies.
As always — and it was a mystery to those who had pillaged Ostuni — there were some who survived their efforts at total eradication. Forced to flee the inferno of their burning dwellings, and with fires too good to waste, many were roasted alive over the flames so recently used to cook food. Maniakes ordered that half a dozen be spared, young men who could travel with speed. These he ordered out of his camp, with food and water, to travel in all directions and tell the surrounding towns and villages what they could expect.
It is probable such places thought it a warning not to resist. It was not that: for most it was a notification of the coming storm. Town after town, and every hamlet in between, saw the same treatment, and as George Maniakes marched up the coast, sending raiding parties inland where there was something to pillage, assaulting towns with his whole force if they warranted the effort, he turned the province into a desert in his wake.
The roads of Apulia were lined with rotting bodies swinging from the trees, with the cadavers of women and children putrefying by the roadside. The message was not for those little towns and rural settlements, it was for the port cities that had the ability to defend themselves: do so, and this is what you will face — utter and complete destruction and death.
It took time for the news to reach Melfi, and that came with the first of the port cities to submit. Monopoli, originally, in antiquity, a Greek settlement and still mainly that in sentiment and religion, was too close to the mayhem in its hinterland, too aware of the fate it faced, to hold out, lacking the military mind and judgement that would have advised it do so, for in truth, even if it was not large, it was rich enough to keep its walls in good repair and George Maniakes did not yet have the forces or equipment to take a place of that size.
But the terror, allied to the Greek inheritance that went back to pre-Roman times, worked its devilish magic, and the bloodthirsty catapan was shrewd enough to offer to spare them chaos, thus underlining his message to those further up the coast. Yet every able-bodied man of the right age in Monopoli now found himself a soldier in the service of Byzantium, and the treasury of the port was plundered as a means to pay them.
For Arduin, when he heard what was happening, the problem was acute: previously, marching his men to fight had involved no extended distances. To stop this new threat required him to take his volunteer milities far from their homes, families, and more importantly for the majority, their fields. Yet to do nothing was to watch Apulia burn and Maniakes get stronger, for it was obvious that each port up the coast would follow Monopoli and submit as soon as they saw the Byzantine host outside their walls. Something was needed to inspire them to resist, and also encourage his army to fight far from its home. In the new titular leader, Arduin thought he had the answer.
‘William, this is Argyrus, son of the great Melus. Landulf of Benevento has finally relented and sent us the leader we require.’
William nodded and looked the young man up and down, noting that he seemed, just by the look in his eye and the way he held himself, to be a better prospect than that idiot, Atenulf. About the same age as the newly arrived Robert, he was not martial in his bearing, being slim of build, but William had to remind himself that it was an error to judge Lombards, Greeks or Italians by the same yardstick he applied to Normans.
‘I bid you welcome, Argyrus. I hope you are aware that it was you we looked to before the Prince of Benevento sent us his brother.’
‘Arduin spoke with me then, and I will not hide from you that I was made angry by the prince’s decision. Not that I could make that too obvious: I was, after all, a guest in Benevento.’
A strong voice and not lacking in wisdom, thought William, certainly clever enough to keep his head on his shoulders: for guest, read near-captive.
‘With Argyrus as our leader, William,’ Arduin crowed, enthusiastically, ‘the men who have volunteered will march anywhere, to the ends of the Earth if need be.’
That piece of hyperbole was taken for what it was, a way to flatter this new talismanic arrival.
‘You have heard of the depredations of George Maniakes?’ Argyrus nodded. ‘Arduin and I have thought on how to counter him; I wonder if you have any notions of your own.’
Unlike Atenulf, who would have been floored if required to answer to his own name, the young man replied with speed and precision, yet so quickly that William guessed he must have been primed by Arduin regarding what to say. That mattered not, it was only important that he grasped the essentials and agreed with them.
‘Maniakes is marching up the coast, gathering strength with every place he subdues but does not destroy, yet we have to hope that Brindisi and Bari will hold out as they have done so often in the past. Not even George Maniakes is going to devastate the two greatest sources of revenue in Apulia, even if he had the force to breach their walls, which I doubt he could yet muster. Our aim is a revolt which will rid South Italy of Byzantium for ever, is it not?’
William nodded: he and Arduin had discussed this often, and though they had their differences, they agreed on that.