‘The men he employs?’
‘Many of them were once in my pay, yes.’
‘You have influence with this prince. It shames you that he has this man in here.’
‘It pleases Pandulf, and that is all that matters. Now I must go and see what the Wolf intends to do with his troublesome abbot.’
William and Drogo, once they were back above ground, were sent to the kitchens, to get food and wine, so missed what happened in the great hall. Rainulf told them on the way back to Aversa.
‘Abbot Theodore can argue till his face goes blue, and quote Holy Scripture all day. The Prince of Capua claims he is the rightful suzerain to the monastery lands, so he will be forced to agree.’
‘And if he does not?’ asked Drogo.
‘Then he will need all the faith he has in God. Pandulf will not be gainsaid. He will have the revenues of Montecassino, whatever it takes.’
Rainulf was right: the news filtered down to Aversa. The Abbot of Montecassino, having made a second visit, was thrown into Pandulf’s dungeons, stripped by the prince of his title. The monks voted for another abbot, but Pandulf just ignored the appointment. Word also came from Capua that men were needed to help Pandulf assert his rights to the property of the abbey, the reward promised being in sequestered land instead of money payment. This request was not put to Rainulf, indeed much effort was made to keep him in the dark, but he knew what was afoot when men began to leave his band and head north.
‘The promised rewards are good,’ said Drogo, as he groomed a horse; he always with an ear closer to the ground than his brother.
‘You think we should join Pandulf?’
‘Do we owe loyalty to Rainulf?’
‘No, Drogo, but a man who throws into a dungeon an abbot of such age is not one I would wish to take employment with.’
‘Not even for land of your own?’
‘No.’
As a conveyance, a servant-borne litter was a rare enough sight to raise the eyebrows of William and Drogo, though it was noticeable that many of their fellow mercenaries knew what it portended: the arrival of the Jew. Those with no interest in the services he provided shrugged and carried on with their training, but others began to put away their weapons, the first of those making for their huts.
The arrangement meant that the Jew, after he and Rainulf had sorted out their own business, took over Rainulf’s quarters, and was given a list of what was due to each man. If they had acquired any extra of their own they tended to exchange that in Aversa, and as long as it was not property that should have been declared to their leader, nothing was said. The Jew would then undertake, for a fee, to get an agreed sum back to Normandy, by methods regarding which no one enquired. No doubt Rainulf knew, and that sufficed.
The Jew, who introduced himself as Kasa Ephraim, William found a pleasant individual, with a relaxed, reassuring voice, a man accustomed to calming the fears of fellows nervous of parting with possessions seen as hard won. He had his fee from Montesarchio, which was substantial, added to the gold with which Pandulf had sought to bribe him and Drogo, which should meet the obligation he had made in the letter he had had composed by the scrivener, yet he would have been the first to admit that the handling of money was to him a strange thing. Coin had been rare in Normandy; barter as a means of exchange was more common.
‘Will they actually see gold?’ he asked.
‘They will, as long as they journey to Rouen to collect it, for the people I deal with would not travel with such in a place where they could be robbed. The risk of that must fall to those you send to. All they will get is a message saying there is a sum to collect.’
‘No one will rob them!’
Having counted out what William gave him, Ephraim responded with a slip of paper on which he had written the sum that would be commuted. ‘If you take this to the scrivener, he will tell you what my charge is for the service.’
‘I can read it,’ William replied, in a voice that showed he was not entirely happy to see a third of his funds go in payment.
‘You read?’
‘And write.’
‘Many of your fellows do not,’ Ephraim smiled, ‘so I see I must explain to you the price of the service I offer. Understand that all these messages must be sent many leagues, and those who carry them must be paid. The person who will give out the money on my bond must also earn from his endeavours. However, if you are unhappy, I will happily give you back what you have brought and leave you to seek some other means of transacting this business.’
‘No,’ William replied. There was only one other means: he or Drogo going all the way back themselves.
‘I did forget to add, that I too am a man of business. Some of what you pay will come to me.’
‘You have others waiting,’ said William, determined not to show gratitude.
He was summoned to attend upon Rainulf once the Jew had left, not just in the litter now but with a strong escort as well, given the accumulated funds of the mercenaries was considerable. Sitting at the end of his table, as usual with a goblet of wine in his hand, Rainulf eyed him for a few seconds before speaking, and when he did his voice had in it a tone William had not heard before: the man was not gruff this time, he was almost friendly.
‘It will not surprise you to know, William de Hauteville, that if correspondence can go to Normandy, it can also come back.’ William shrugged, not sure how to respond. ‘When new men come to me, I make a habit of sending home with my Jew to find out about them.’
‘And this you did with Drogo and me?’
Rainulf nodded. ‘I do not care if a man is a murderer, but I do care if he is a thief, for a man who steals once will do so again and that means trouble in a company like mine.’
‘So you have found that you have no fears with us.’
Rainulf sat forward. ‘But I have found out other things.’
William could guess what they were. ‘If they do not trouble you, I would put them out of your mind.’
‘What, your bloodline?’
‘My bloodline is my affair.’
‘Did you run away, de Hauteville, you and your brother?’
‘No.’
‘Yet when you heard of the death of Duke Robert you came on. Why not turn around and go home, or were you too afeared of a seven-year-old bastard?’
William smiled, which he was glad to see upset Rainulf as much as it had upset others. ‘You said I should leave honour behind, Rainulf. That I will never do.’
‘How noble.’
The smile vanished. ‘The business you have mentioned is that of my family and it is none of yours, and think on this Rainulf: if I am not given to the betrayal of an oath my father made, one that I will not explain, my honour is an asset to you, as it is to any other lord.’
With that, William spun on his heel and stomped out.
The next piece of news to arrive told of the death of Odo de Jumiege, and here the brothers discovered that, although Rainulf had a say in who stood to replace him, it was the men he would lead who had the final word. William was unsure if he was put up because there was no choice, or because Rainulf thought him qualified, but stand he did and his election was unanimous, word having spread of his leadership at Montesarchio.
Both brothers would have said that their relations with Rainulf were subject to a certain amount of strain, yet it seemed this elective elevation changed matters. Or perhaps it was the knowledge he had gleaned from Normandy, added to the fact that even after Pandulf had tried to bribe them, and the carrot of land had been dangled before them by secret messages from Capua, he and Drogo, unlike some fifty others, had stayed with the Lord of Aversa.
‘Well, William de Hauteville, my Contentin ruffian, I long to see how you will handle your battaile.’