‘And?’
‘If that is the purpose, we cannot stay in his service.’
The head in the doorway was there only long enough to pass on the message that Rainulf wanted to see him. Responding to the summons, William found Rainulf at his large table with the contents of Montesarchio’s coffers spread out before him, piles of coins and valuable objects: plate, jewels and a gold crucifix that might well have been stolen from a church. Of the previous owner there was no sign.
‘I take it you think you have done well?’
William shrugged. ‘That is not for me to decide.’
‘You should have killed him.’
There was no need to ask who Rainulf was talking about. ‘Why?’
‘Look at what is here before you. If only you and I knew…’ Rainulf did not finish the sentence, because the implication of that was obvious too. ‘And having paraded him through half his lands every one of his subjects knows you spared him.’
‘So Pandulf will get to know?’
‘That’s right, and the Wolf will also find out how much he had in his coffers down to the last denier. Dead, we could have had half of this and he would never have known.’
‘He surrendered.’
‘Do you think I did not speak with him? You asked him to surrender, you allowed him to surrender, and all you did to his bonded knights was take away their weapons and send them away. Let me tell you,’ Rainulf continued, his voice rising, ‘William de Hauteville, you have not done well, you should have slaughtered every one of them!’
Given William did not reply, Drengot continued. ‘Such notions as you displayed should have been left behind in Normandy. Here we fight, not for honour, but for profit.’
‘You would cheat Prince Pandulf?’
William knew it was a feeble thing to say, and he deserved the sneering response his remark provoked.
‘I would deceive a man who would sell his own mother. He would have given to me a twentieth of that which we gave to him. As it is, we can only take a tenth of this.’ Rainulf was almost talking to himself, when he added. ‘A man like Montesarchio can be expected to lie about a sum like that, but not half.’ Then he looked hard at William. ‘Learn, de Hauteville. Money!’
To conclude that Rainulf was greedy did not take William very far, after all he had the revenues of Aversa as well, but then he did have a large band of mercenaries to feed and occupy, as well as a paymaster who was no doubt slow to meet his debts. Added to that, from what he had heard of this Pandulf, from the men he had ridden with, and the prisoner they had taken, what Rainulf said about him was an understatement.
‘I wish Drogo to accompany us to Capua.’
Rainulf did not answer for a while, playing instead with a gold coin. ‘Why?’
‘It would be of more interest to me, Rainulf, to know why not?’
The mercenary leader just shrugged. ‘So be it, we leave at first light. Make sure your equipment is clean, I will need to present you to the prince.’
William paid a visit to the scrivener, to have composed a letter to send home to Hauteville. He could read and write, having been taught the rudiments of both by his Montbray cousin, but the fellow Rainulf kept, once a monk, had a gift for composition, which transcended William’s ability to put in a missive words easy to find when speaking. Somehow the fellow seemed able to convey thoughts better than those who used his service, though William had asked him to avoid his more flowery allusions, knowing Montbray would smoke that the source was not his cousin.
There would be rewards from the spoils of Montesarchio greater than mere pay, and he wanted to have in advance the words that would tell his family not only of their progress in the fighting line, but the fact that soon there should be sufficient funds transmitted to pay for the next two brothers to join them. He had no doubt that Rainulf would accept them into his service; they were good fighters. He also urged Montbray to use the service in reverse, and let both him and Drogo know how things progressed in Normandy and, that done, he went to the hut of Odo de Jumiege, to perform a duty he would have undertaken earlier if he had not been summoned by Rainulf. Odo’s woman, the mother of two children, must be told how her man fared.
What he saw in her black Italian eyes was fear, and the way she clutched her children to her reinforced that feeling, for William did not seek to give her false reassurance. Her man may well recover and be what he once was, but the possibility of death had to be accepted, as well as the notion of a wound so serious: Odo might never be able to return to full service. Troubled as he left her, he wondered what became of the concubines of his confreres, for it was axiomatic that when men fought, some were severely wounded or died.
Outside Drogo’s hut, he heard what had become commonplace: raised voices, as his brother sought to control a young and spirited girl, thinking it was remarkable how much, and how quickly, Drogo had mastered enough Italian to keep an argument going. Not wishing to enter, he just shouted the instruction for the next morning.
The brothers had passed through Capua on the way south, it being on the Via Appia and having the only bridge between the city and the sea, but they had not stopped, except to water their horses at the public trough. This time they rode in some splendour, William in a new red and black surcoat which, like the others, he had only donned on the limit of the city. Rainulf was more magnificent still, his garment bearing his coat of arms as Lord of Aversa. Not needing to humiliate the Lord of Montesarchio, he had been allotted a horse, though he arrived at Pandulf’s palace covered in dust, his face growing more and more gloomy the closer he came to what could not be other than an unpleasant fate.
The gates and walls of Pandulf’s castle were guarded by Normans, and it was pleasant to find themselves greeted in French and engaged in conversation by mercenaries who, they were eager to tell, had taken direct service with the prince. William was curious: given the numerous fighting men he employed, why had Pandulf not sent his own men to bring in their prisoner? But he decided against enquiring.
Also the look on Rainulf’s face as he regarded these men was not one of fondness, and it was curious the lack of communication he had with them and they with him, given their shared birthright. It was Drogo, in his genial, chatty way, who nailed the reason: most of them had at one time served Rainulf, only to switch to a prince who paid a higher stipend and had no desire to depend on another for his protection.
In the courtyard they found the mounts of another party, the acolytes and donkeys that turned out to be those of the Abbot of Montecassino and, on entering the palace, they found that aged cleric in audience with Prince Pandulf, one that was clearly not proceeding well, given they entered a chamber in which voices were wont to echo to the sound of angry shouts. Marching behind Rainulf, William and Drogo had an arm each on the Lord of Montesarchio, aware that behind them came some of Pandulf’s men.
‘The Pope has no say in the matter!’ Pandulf yelled.
The voice that answered was soft and emollient. ‘We are all beholden to Christ’s Vicar on Earth, and it is to him that any excess funds from our humble monastery must be commuted.’
‘What you send to Rome is a pittance compared to what you bring in.’
‘Nevertheless, we are not part of the diocese of Capua or any other.’
‘And me, Abbot, am I nothing?’
‘It is to be hoped, my Lord, that you are as much a son of the Church as you are lord of your domains. But I must say again, those domains do not include the Monastery of Montecassino.’
‘You would deny me, Theodore? Might I remind you that the archbishop of the diocese you stand in is, at this moment, in my dungeon.’
‘And he is in my prayers,’ the abbot replied, his voice somewhat firmer. ‘I do not seek to defy you, Prince. I merely seek to lay down to you the bounds of your fiefs. The monastery is church land: it is not subject to any temporal overlord, and never can be.’