‘They have taken Pandulf’s gold, perhaps they should experience his fate.’
‘What will that be?’
‘To be skinned alive in a public place perhaps, or to have his heart torn from his living body. Maybe he will be placed in a sack with a cat and a snake, then thrown into the nearest deep water. Whatever his fate the world will be rid of him for good.’
‘And your conscience will be clear.’
That brought forth a smile. ‘I am the anointed Holy Roman Emperor. My conscience is always clear.’
Conrad moved over to the table and looked at the maps, pointing the top of the crucifix he was still holding at the city. ‘It is always your way, you Normans. Whatever defeats others suffer you ride away. Perhaps it is time some of your kind learnt the harsh lesson of losing.’
‘What purpose would that serve?’ demanded Drogo.
‘As a warning.’
‘If you insist on such a lesson, Rainulf must oppose you. He will not stand by and see his confreres put to the sword.’
Drogo had to avoid looking at William; this was another gambit which had not been discussed with him, indeed he wondered if William had just made it up. But he could see where it led; the effect would be obvious. Conrad would be anticipating a siege of Capua, no easy prospect, while Pandulf was clearly, judging by the supplies he was garnering, preparing to hold out for a year.
He still thought he had the support of Rainulf, a force it would be wise to keep out in the field, one that could seriously disrupt the imperial host in both siege maintenance and, more importantly, in foraging. Every party sent out would have to be strong enough to face ambush from a Norman force that, challenged by superior numbers, would melt into the mountains and draw off men from Capua. That would extend the time it would take to subdue the place; could the emperor stay long enough to enforce his will?
Many a siege had been abandoned because it just went on too long. Those inside a fortress might be reduced to near starvation, but the men outside faced just as many difficulties, not least the threat of disease which always seemed to affect a host which stayed too long in one place. In any case, holding an army together was no easy task: tempers frayed, supporters became fractious and rationing became more and more troublesome.
But let Pandulf see Rainulf ride as a friend into Conrad’s camp and he would know his cause was lost. Without an external enemy the imperial army could forage far and wide, send away detachments to ease the supply and disease problems without fear that they would be attacked and decimated. And it was obvious that the emperor, thinking on the same subject, and studying that model of the formidable fortress he needed to take, would of necessity come to the same conclusions.
Conrad actually did that. He moved to stand by that wooden model, his finger tracing the various difficulties Capua represented. Pandulf had to be chastised, but how many men would expire to achieve such a need, and what of the possibility, one any sensible commander had to consider, of failure? If he could not show his power to chastise in Campania, the whole of the imperial domains in Italy could be affected; many a noble lord between Rome and the Brenner Pass would think he too could defy the emperor.
‘And what happens to these men?’
‘Many originally served with Rainulf. Let them do so again.’
‘That is a bargain fraught with danger. Did you discuss this with Guaimar?’
‘No.’
‘Then let me speak for him, for I can tell you what he would say. He will be Duke of Salerno and Prince of Capua, but he would not be happy to have in his midst a host of Norman lances powerful enough to depose him any time they wish, which would be after I am no longer there to protect him.’ He looked down at the still-slumbering abbot, and added. ‘I doubt Theodore, saintly as he is, would welcome that either.’
The implications of that were obvious. Montecassino, given the wealth its lands produced, was a tempting objective for hundreds of idle men who had already tasted its riches.
‘Rainulf expressly did not take part in the destruction of the monastery and he will not do so in future. You no doubt find the idea of a Norman and piety incompatible, but it is there nevertheless. Make Guaimar liege lord to Rainulf, confirm Rainulf as Count of Aversa, and I will guarantee he will serve him faithfully.’
‘You?’
‘Rainulf listens to William.’
The look Conrad gave Drogo showed how unconvincing he felt that to be.
‘Rainulf,’ William insisted, ‘does not need me to tell him of his duty to a suzerain.’
‘Is that the same duty he had exercised with Pandulf, to whom he has been loyal these past years? To this I cannot agree.’
‘What if, after you were gone, there were no Normans in Aversa?’ asked William.
Drogo actually growled then; he was getting fed up with his brother doing things on the wing, strategies of which he knew nothing, so that he felt like a fool. What Conrad said next did, however, make him wonder if his brother had the mind of the Devil.
‘If you’re going to ask me for Pandulf’s three hundred pounds of gold so that you can go home…’
‘Not that,’ William interrupted, an act plainly not welcome by the target, as well as a response which deeply disappointed his own brother. ‘Rainulf has been sent an invitation by Constantinople to join the invasion of Sicily.’
‘It surprises me he did not go, given that is your Norman profession, fighting for pay.’
When William did not respond, Conrad looked at him and, after a moment’s thought, smiled, having deduced what fear had kept Rainulf in Aversa. Gone, Pandulf would have taken over his domains.
‘Spare the garrison of Capua, let them join with Rainulf, and we will all go south to Calabria.’
‘That will not last for ever.’
‘It could last for years, long enough for Guaimar to consolidate his position, and who knows what might be had in a rich land like Sicily? Many of us may never return.’
William suspected Conrad was just prevaricating; he would know very well that the primary objective was Capua. Everything that followed from the capture of that and the Wolf would have to be dealt with as and when it needed to be. An added problem he must consider was the very fact that the defenders of the fortress would be Normans, and by reputation they were a race that did not give in lightly; much easier to let them march out and away.
‘Rainulf undertakes to do what you say?’
‘He does.’
Conrad had already decided what he was going to say, but his dignity demanded he appear to think on it for a while. ‘Then return to him and say this. I will be under the walls of Capua in four days. It would be advantageous to our imperial purpose if he was to join me then.’
The journey back was one long whine from Drogo, who chose to harp on about Pandulf’s gold, as though it had actually been offered, enough, he insisted, for their father to build a castle to rival the Duke of Normandy, never mind a stone tower. In reality he was just piqued at being kept in the dark; William had nurtured the plan he had espoused in the company of Rainulf, and Drogo had difficulty in accepting the need he had had to keep it to himself.
Their route took them to the lower reaches of the Volturno, where it ran through a huge flat plain before debouching into the sea. There it was possible to ford the river as long as it was not in spate.
From the outside, the fortress of Capua presented a formidable obstacle. Three sides of the castle bordered the Volturno, which acted like a superior moat, for here the river course narrowed, and fed as it was by the glaciers of the high Apennines, it flowed strong and fast for most of the year and was never low enough to make it easy to navigate. Crossing it by boat was not just hazardous, it was nearly impossible: with the river running in most places along the actual walls there was no ground on which to gather to mount an assault, which allowed the defenders to gather in strength at those few spots where any form of siege tactics could be employed long before the attackers could land there.