Warriors by Jack Ludlow Read Free Book Online Page A

more joining them, it will be of little use.’
    ‘That smacks of you being fearful,’ Rainulf growled.
    ‘I am that,’ William replied. ‘I have found it helps to be so in a campaign. Michael Doukeianos will hear soon enough of our arrival and the purpose for which we are there. He will have no choice but to bring everything he can muster to evict us. Arduin needs time to gather local levies so that we can meet him with an army, and we have to find crossbowmen from somewhere since we will not have time to train them.’
    ‘Let him besiege you,’ Rainulf suggested. ‘Let him waste his strength before your walls.’
    William looked at Arduin, who nodded, bidding him continue. ‘What message will that send out to Apulia, Rainulf? That we are afraid to meet him in the field? The best way to rally support across the province and beyond is to give Doukeianos battle, at a time and place of our choosing, and beat him.’
    ‘We must,’ Arduin added, ‘attack and take someof the nearby towns to encourage him. The quicker he seeks to defeat us the better because of his lack of strength.’
    Rainulf was shaking his head, possibly from the memory of the previous defeat, but more likely because he was inclined to disagree with whatever was proposed on principle. There was no doubt he saw what was happening as a diminution of his standing: orders and actions were being proposed for his men and he was not the one deciding on the tactics to be employed. William could see that Guaimar was paying him close attention, watching his every reaction, knowing that each rebuff was a test of his authority.
    ‘The time will come, Rainulf,’ he said, in an encouraging tone, ‘when Arduin and William have laid the ground for our open support. Every one of us will gain eventually.’
    That was so blatant a piece of hypocrisy that William had to fight not to react, and he was not helped by the look on Arduin’s face, which could only be described as contemptuous, hardly surprising given the cynicism of what Guaimar had just said. Clearly the prince realised he had made an error, had spoken too truthfully about what he hoped for the future, for he added quickly and earnestly.
    ‘Byzantium evicted from our borders can only do us good.’
    ‘So you still wish me to approach the Prince ofBenevento about Argyrus becoming titular leader of the revolt?’
    The positive reply was a stammer: Arduin had brought out into the open something meant to be kept close. It was pleasing to see Guaimar discomfited; since his return from Sicily William had not, until this day, seen the younger man put a foot wrong in the way he had played him and Rainulf off against each other, and he was obviously, given the mention of Benevento, planning to play the same game with his Lombard neighbour.
    Benevento was a papal fief, answerable to Rome, not an imperial one whose suzerain was the Western Emperor in Germany, thus Guaimar could justifiably insist to Constantinople that they were acting alone: he had no involvement in any Apulian uprising and the ultimate responsibility lay with the Holy See.
    If Byzantium managed that which it had done in the past, and massively reinforced the Catapanate, and either defeated Arduin or forced him to withdraw, then no blame – even if there were good grounds to suspect it – could be attached to the Prince of Salerno, and while whoever was sent from the east to chastise Apulia took out their ire on Benevento, he would have ample time to negotiate for a settlement of any perceived grievances with the victorious catapan. The Normans could be explained away as they always were, as greedy mercenaries not under his direct control.
    Should the revolt succeed, Guaimar would, no doubt, claim to have been the magnate to instigate it, and he would thus be able to put himself forward as a future ruler of that dreamt-for Lombard Kingdom. Any other nobleman prepared to contest that claim would know that, through Rainulf, he controlled the