Thus, the command naturally devolved to William and, in truth, Rainulf was glad; his bones were getting too stiff for what his men were about to face, a campaign that could last years. There was another reason, too: having set aside Pandulf’s niece as his wife — she had been sent to a nunnery — he had taken a new young mistress, and was busy, with hefty bribes, trying to get the Pope to annul his late union so that he could remarry.
Just as William and Drogo de Hauteville had once learnt to bear arms, then had been shown how to fight in everything from a skirmish to a real battle, now they were about to observe the difference between that and a campaign. The mere act of getting three hundred Norman lances, by sea, to where they would fight, was a monumental task, given they had to transport their horses — none would trust to be supplied in Sicily — mounts which had to be got on board ship and once on board, fed, watered and cared for.
Some went up the gently sloping gangplank without trouble, not distressed by its gentle swaying; most reared and bucked at that, as well as unfamiliar sights and smells, setting their forelegs and refusing to budge. Hooding, so they could not see, was the most common way to overcome their fears, but with many they were obliged to turn to mendicant monks and their concoctions of herbs.
A mix put in the animals’ feed sedated the most troublesome and once on board each was placed in a narrow stall, fitted with sturdy straps so they did not suffer when losing their footing with the motion of the vessel. Kept occupied with quantities of hay, they fared better than the men who rode them, most of whom were green at the gills before the ships made deep water, which led to many a jest about their Viking heritage from the two de Hautevilles, too used to boats and an Atlantic swell to be affected.
With a fair wind and well-worked oars they made the Straits of Messina within two days and were gifted a sight of the ancient city they were about to help besiege, one that gave the channel its name. The straits might look like nothing, just over a league in width at their narrowest point, but it was a formidable piece of water with strong tidal flows, the legendary stretch of sea where the Greek hero Odysseus had faced the twin perils of Scylla and Charybdis. As they sailed down the coast, William, speculating on an opposed landing, was struck by the lack of beaches that were not overseen by high hills on a shore dotted with stone watchtowers. Sicily, for all its proximity to the mainland, would be no easy nut to crack without local help.
That the Byzantines had and the bulk of their army was already ashore, having landed in the territory of a Saracen emir who saw advantage in cooperation with his one-time enemies. Getting their mounts off their ships was no less hazardous than loading them, worse in many ways without a quay, which meant the ramp to the shore was much steeper, in need of constant sanding to provide a sound footing. Once they had got their horses onto land, William led his knights through a ravine between high surrounding hills, to a valley where the army was assembled. It was there William and Drogo met the man who would lead them.
It was rare for William de Hauteville to have to look up to anyone but, in the person of George Maniakes, he was in the presence of a real giant, a man near half as tall again as he. He had the frame of the biblical Goliath and a manner to match, being brusque in the extreme, with unfriendly eyes under a flat, wide brow and below that a nose which seemed to spread over half his face. Fresh from success in Syria, where he had achieved great victories in command of the eastern imperial armies, something he was keen these Normans should know from his own lips, he was cocksure of his ability. Neither de Hauteville brother was bothered by this display of conceit; they would judge him in battle, not in his pavilion.
Yet it was worrying that he clearly despised his admiral, quite happy to call him an idiot in the presence of strangers. Stephen had the task of sealing off Messina to seaward and it was clear Maniakes did not trust him to do so with any zeal, while the composition of the army did not inspire much faith either, being mainly made up of Bulgars and levies from the cities of Apulia, mostly Italians but including Lombards, both races who bitterly resented their service.
The cream of the force, the anvil on which Maniakes was sure he could crush the enemy, lay in the Emperor’s five-hundred-strong Varangian Guard, the men of Kiev Rus. Huge and blond, with fearsome moustaches, they were fair of skin like their Norse cousins and bore huge axes as their fighting weapon. They were led by Harald Hardrada, a brother to the King of Norway, who could still claim to be a Viking and looked like one, a legendary fighter whose fame had spread far and wide throughout Christendom.
Hardrada had taken service with the guard on his way back from Jerusalem, and rose by sheer ability to the command. It was they who would lead the army to besiege Messina, the first objective, because it would provide, given its harbour and the proximity to the mainland, a secure base for supplies and reinforcements; Maniakes could safely advance from there on to the major emirates of Syracuse and Palermo.
‘I would wager it is the Varangians and us who will do the work,’ said Drogo, as he watched them pass, heading for Messina, their axes across their shoulders.
‘I’m glad they are on our side,’ William replied, and he meant it; these were the very same axemen who had defeated the last great Lombard revolt, including Rainulf and his brother, at Cannae.
As the last axeman passed, William fell in behind them, followed by the companies he now commanded.
It looked as if it would take a year to subdue Messina — it was a city of great strength which had been given much time to prepare — a siege of starvation more than relentless attack or enemy sortie. The sea was blocked to them, so few supplies could get through to the city, and that was a situation in which mounted Norman warriors, doing no more than foraging, were wasted, though it took William several months to persuade George Maniakes of this. He was a difficult man to like: a good general maybe, but a man of sudden temper, so convinced of his own superiority that he saw helpful suggestion as disagreement.
‘Let me take my men and ravage the countryside.’
‘To what purpose?’
William replied with an exasperated growl. ‘We are of little use here if you are not going to try to breach the walls. Every day we hear rumours of forces being gathered to oppose us.’
‘Rumours,’ Maniakes trumpeted, looking down at William. ‘As if these Saracens can ever agree to combine, they’re worse than Lombards.’
William would have agreed they were little different when it came to tribal loyalty, but that did not obviate the possibility. ‘Left alone they will.’
‘You are paid, are you not?’ Maniakes growled. ‘Be content with that.’
‘My men are fighters and they want more than just pay. If you keep them here they will grow feeble, and when you do need them, when we move from here and perhaps meet an army in the field, you will require them at their best.’
‘I command here, de Hauteville.’
It annoyed William, the way Maniakes used his name; it annoyed Drogo even more, which was why he had been left out of this meeting. Big as Maniakes was, Drogo would still try to fell him. Yet he was right, he was the general in command, able to manage the endless trouble he had with his Apulian, Calbrian and Bulgar levies and keep his army tight as a fighting unit. William did not want to add to his difficulties, to seem insubordinate. He knew, even if he had never personally experienced it, that an army could quickly fall apart if the leadership was not stable.
‘No one disputes that, George Maniakes, but I command my men. You have your Varangians, who are great fighters, and your Apulian and Bulgar sheep to hold the lines. The garrison shows no sign of emerging to take issue, but if they do, let the axemen deal with them.’