‘I cannot answer for the actions of my predecessors. All I can say, sire, is no man likes to be a subject.’
‘Yet you beg to be mine.’
‘I beg to have righted a great wrong, and if the price of that is an acknowledgement of a title you already possess, then I am happy to accede to it.’
‘You have still not explained to my satisfaction why you failed to send any request to Constantinople.’
Guaimar was hoist on his own petard and he knew it: he had tricked Ascletin, who had played his perfidious part and it had produced the opposite effect to that intended, making Conrad cautious instead of bold. There was no point now in telling the man the truth — he was not inclined to act regardless and anyway he would not now be believed, even if he had to try.
‘I acted on the advice of my archbishop. Indeed it was only through his good grace that I could make the journey, for he funded it. You will readily understand his reluctance to have a Byzantine fleet in Salerno Bay.’ Conrad’s eyes bored into his, and they seemed to be saying that he had deceived him too. ‘Am I to understand that you will not come to our aid?’
‘I have not decided.’
‘And if Pandulf takes Naples as well?’
‘That may alter things, but we would have to see.’
‘He intends to fight Byzantium.’
An inquisitive look demanded more information, which Guaimar supplied, and when he had finished Conrad actually burst out laughing. ‘You will never learn, you Lombards. There’s not one of you who is not wedded to betrayal.’ He saw Guaimar about to protest, and he cut him off. ‘And before you tell me that you are the exception, let me tell you that I will decide nothing until I know what it is I might face.’
‘Berengara, I am bound to ask you how much influence you think you have with Conrad?’
‘I may have a great deal, Guaimar, as long as he has not been gifted that which he so desires.’
So she was still chaste; her brother was not sure whether he was pleased or disappointed, and then he felt like a true scrub. As he asked the next question, so embarrassing to posit, he knew his face was slightly flushed.
‘If you…would it? Do you think you could persuade… the emperor to act?’
‘How tongue-tied you are, Guaimar, when talking of trading my virtue.’ He could see by the wicked smile that she was teasing him, and she was enjoying it too.
‘You would have to think Salerno worth the price.’
‘Revenge,’ she spat, ‘is worth the price. Your father was my father too. The emperor wants to bed me, and my maidenhead is an added attraction. I think I could extract a promise from him to help us before it is surrendered. Could I get him to keep to what must be said in private after the event, I do not know.’
‘How practical you are.’
‘Does that disappoint you?’
‘I still think of you as…’
Another snapped interruption. ‘I am no longer your little sister, Guaimar. I know what must be done, and I will undertake to do it.’
‘When?’
‘Given his eagerness, as soon as his wife or one of his clerics is not looking, which is not often.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘Why be sorry?’ she replied coquettishly, ‘I shall be like the mythical Helen, and launch a thousand spears, if I can hold him to his bond.’
‘Damn that swine, I’ll rip the skin off his hide. I’ll sow him in a sack with a cat and snake and throw him into the nearest harbour.’
Both recognised the angry voice, shouting in the echoing corridor outside their apartments. Guaimar was convinced as he digested what was being said he was going to be the victim of those threats. The door was flung open with a resounding crash and Conrad stood there, his eyes on fire, boring into those of the young man.
‘Do you know what that bastard has done?’
‘Sire, I…’
‘He has laid hands upon the Abbot of Montecassino, that’s what he has done. He has thrown Theodore, a man whose election I personally approved, into his dungeons.’
By now Conrad was in the room, kicking any object that came within reach of his boot.
‘When I lay hands on him he will wish he had never been conceived. I want you at my council in the morning. The host will be summoned and I will march south and crush that swine like a gnat.’
Then he was gone, still raging, still shouting, his voice fading as the distance increased, leaving them to exchange a look of relief.
‘Well, brother,’ Berengara said, ‘it appears my virtue has been saved.’
‘And by the Wolf himself, of all people.’
The door was flung open again, to be filled, once more, with Conrad’s stocky frame and puce countenance. ‘And by the way, you treacherous young swine, you can forget Byzantium. That Michael you call a callow youth has sent his whole fleet and army to conquer Sicily.’
‘I did not set out to deceive you, sire…’
Conrad cut right across him. ‘Of course you did, and if you had not, I would have had you for a fool.’
The so-called Empire of the West was nothing like that which had existed in ancient times; it was a loose agglomeration of states, the rulers of which elected one of their number to be Holy Roman Emperor. Conrad had his own lands and his own feudal levies, but to bring together an army large enough to subdue Pandulf, and stamp his authority on Campania, required the whole resources of the empire, and that took time to assemble.
Having got what he had come for, Guaimar was now suffering the tortures of Tantalus, so slow did it all seem, yet even he had to acknowledge that to march south with a thousand lances, and to gather more on the way, required an organisation of staggering complexity. The sheer provision of food and shelter for the men, and the amount of fodder and pasturage required for their mounts, beggared belief, and that only increased the further south they travelled and the greater the size of the host became.
Any plans that were laid had to do with that, not battle, and Conrad was in constant dispute with imperial vassals about the measure of their contributions in terms of lances provided, the money payments due after their days of feudal service had expired — as they must on such a campaign — the amount of forage and food their lands should provide as the imperial host crossed their domains, and that had paled when set against the prickly personalities and endemic feuding of powerful lords accustomed to be the masters of the world in which they lived.
The army camped outside Rome, and Conrad took the opportunity to enter the city and overawe both the leading families and the populace. Benedict, with imperial protection, was for once at liberty to travel around the city without fear of physical assault, and given such liberty, and the fact that he was as much in fear of Conrad as grateful, he was able to satisfy the emperor regarding any ecclesiastical appointments that were outstanding throughout his own domains; in short, Conrad got the archbishops he wanted.
Berengara had thoroughly enjoyed the progress, unlike her impatient brother. Still pursued by Conrad, and still denying him that which he sought, she was, as a seeming intimate of the emperor, also being fawned on by Ascletin and every ambitious noble in the imperial entourage. Many showered her with praise; the Pierleoni showered her with gifts, which she took with a smile that hid her deep dislike. When Guaimar sought to chastise her for this, he found himself put down like a disobedient dog; his sister was in full womanhood now, and not to be told what to do by her brother.
Finally, south of Rome, with the papal contribution of paid-for foot soldiers, as well as healthy contributions to the costs of the campaign wrung from the likes of the Pierleoni, military matters began to assert themselves. As they had marched, the news that had come from the south had not been good; they had barely left Germany before Pandulf had attacked Montecassino and stripped it of its most precious possessions: priceless books, plate, church ornaments, as well as a considerable chest of money.