The Lady for Ransom Read online

  How can I describe that smile? It was very friendly, understanding, and a little mischievous, as though you had been up to something you ought not, and he knew all about it; but as he also had been misbehaving your secret was safe and he would back you if there was trouble. He seemed to welcome us, not merely as faithful warriors who must obey his commands in the field, but as confederates in an amusing enterprise.

  After he had greeted his lady he stood while the warriors came up one by one to swear fealty. We have no other form by which we can promise to obey a leader, but I wish some Count or Duke would invent a less binding substitute; for the perjury which ensues must greatly increase the population of Hell. Homage, fealty and allegiance are very properly due to a lord who gives land to his follower; a man who by rebellion imperils his fief has some encouragement to remain loyal to his oath. But a hired soldier swearing lifelong fealty to a commander who offers him pay or plunder for the duration of the campaign swears what he knows to be false; and this makes it easier for him to break what is actually the vulgar meaning of the promise, by deserting without notice to a more liberal paymaster. Even the Romans, who so frequently rebel against the Emperor they have chosen, reproach us with this levity; they have a saying, ‘the race of the Franks is unfaithful by nature’, and it has enough truth to make it sting. But all these warriors who had been engaged for the siege of Palermo swore fealty, putting their joined hands between the hands of Messer Roussel; because that was the only way in which they could enter his service.

  After first the knights, and then the Norman sergeants, and finally the foreigners who did not know the obligation they were undertaking, had knelt singly before their new lord and gone back to stand by their horses, Messer Roussel walked down the line to inspect mounts and equipment. I stood on the left, holding my two chargers, and I stiffened and bit my lip when I saw he would inspect these horses also. They were fit and clean, because I had tried very hard and I do know how to manage horses; but at an inspection every commander must find fault with something, just to keep his men on their toes, and so far Messer Roussel had made no complaints. I feared to be turned adrift in that lawless camp, or at best given a flogging and told to do better next time; just because it was unwise to anger a real warrior and yet discipline must be maintained. He halted before me, looked the horses up and down, and ran his hand over the flank to find if any dirt came away. Then he gathered a handful of loose skin, to judge the beast’s condition, and turned on me that charming smile.

  ‘You are a good horsemaster, young man,’ he said in rather stumbling Italian, ‘and I see from your chausses that you can ride. That is all a sergeant does, and I wish they could all do it so well. You carry a knife. That makes you a warrior. Why did you not swear fealty?’

  He seemed to mean what he said; even if he was making fun of me it was in a friendly way. I answered in French:

  ‘My lord, I have no mail. But one day I will be a rich sergeant.’

  ‘Oh, you are a fellow-countryman? You must have set out young on the pilgrimage to St Michael. The way to get mail is to kill a hero and strip him of his arms, but I might lend you a sword until you win a better. Come, lad, do you wish to follow my banner?’

  There, in front of everybody, holding up the whole parade, he held out his open hands for me to put my clasped hands between them. I flopped on my knees, and gave the oath which I kept so long as he lived. I have never sworn fealty to any other human creature, and when I made my vow as a laybrother it was only the second oath I have sworn.

  When I rose he seemed about to pass on to inspect the baggage-train. But I feared he would forget me, and his steward would not give me the sword. ‘My lord,’ I said with a rush, ‘I speak Greek and Italian as well as French, and I know enough metalwork to repair damaged mail. Let me join your household and look after your arms.’

  ‘Why not, if you want to,’ he answered very graciously. ‘My page is dead of camp fever, and it will be useful to have a linguist always in my tent. Can you read? No? What a pity. But the hilt of this dagger has worked loose. Bring it to me tomorrow firm enough to trust my life to, and you can leave those horses and be my page. It would be wasteful to give you mail which you will outgrow in a year, but you should start practising with lance and shield. Now I’m busy. See you tomorrow.’

  Many people, when they heard I spoke fluent Greek, inquired at once whether I could read, and regretted that I could not. But no one ever offered to teach me, and I could not pay for lessons. Now my Abbot says I am too old to learn. I am sorry. I would have had a much more interesting life as a young man if I could have been employed as a real envoy in Messer Roussel’s complicated negotiations, and the choir-monks here seem to enjoy the psalms they read much more than we who learn a few prayers by rote.

  For six years I served Messer Roussel in the bloody wars of Sicily. My lord was not himself an independent chief; he followed Roger fitzTancred, one of the six original Hautevilles, and a younger brother of Duke Robert the Weasel. But our band swore fealty only to Messer Roussel, and if he had wished to join another leader we would have followed him. You are familiar with the course of that slow and bitter conquest, in which we were finally successful after many setbacks and disappointments. My own dear lord once led a victorious charge when even Roger and the famous Serlo shrank from the throng of infidel horse who dared us to come on. But it was not the kind of war that will be remembered by posterity. There were too many hangings of hostages, broken oaths, and massacres of the defenceless, for a gallant knight to win immortal fame in it. I grew up in a tough school, but it did not make me a hardened scoundrel, as it might easily have done; it is nothing to be proud of, only the Grace of God for which I must always be thankful, that even by the winter of 1069, after I had seen so many ugly things, I could still be shocked by brazen wickedness.

  I was then seventeen, and had risen to be chief page to my lord. I saw that his mail and weapons were in good order, though I did only simple repairs myself; but the armourer had to follow my instructions if there were new scales to be fitted to the mail or new rings to the hauberk. In battle I remained in the rear; I wore no mail, to spare my horse, but I carried sword and shield; for it might be my duty, if my lord was unhorsed in the mêlée, to ride through the enemy and see him safely mounted on my horse. Luckily that had never yet happened; Messer Roussel was a gallant knight, and several times his horse was killed under him; but his men always backed him up, and by the time I arrived there was never an enemy within reach. I slept at the door of my lord’s tent and ate the remains of his dinner, which meant that I was better lodged and better fed than the common sergeants. It was a job with no future, for an unarmoured page cannot win fame in battle, and so knighthood and eventually a fief; but while it lasted my comfort was the envy of my comrades; and no youth of seventeen worries about a penniless old age.

  But the great advantage, in my eyes, was the constant companionship of my master. Messer Roussel took his family on campaign, because there was nowhere in all Italy where he might leave them in safety. The lady Matilda had now borne him two sons and a daughter, real fair-haired Franks who would make handsome young corpses or rule great fiefs if they lived; there was a great household of men and women, from Lombard waiting-ladies of good birth to the infidel slaves who pitched the tents; and I, connected with weapons though not actually a warrior, had an honourable position in it. In an emergency I would do anything that had to be done, but in normal times no one ever asked me to wash dishes or gather fuel. I lived more softly than if I had finished my apprenticeship and become a skilled smith.

  My lord had no secrets from anyone who spoke French; probably he would have been just as free with the infidel slaves if he could have spoken their language, so it was not really a compliment. But it was pleasant, all the same, to sit in a corner of the tent, polishing a helm, and listen while he discussed his plans with my lady and the knights. My lord and my lady were very good friends. They were both brave to recklessness, but with a saving com
mon sense which showed them exactly what risks they were running; neither had a home to go back to, or any preference for one patch of ground over another, though they were determined to get hold of a fief somewhere and found an enduring house of fitzRoussel. My lord was very generous with his followers; he plundered with avidity, but scattered his treasure as soon as it was gathered. My lady was more careful, and that was the only subject on which they sometimes disagreed. Messer Roussel would say there was no point in heaping up gold in a land so ravaged by war that no merchant dared to bring luxuries for sale, and that if he was known to be wealthy someone would cut his throat for his goods. The lady Matilda answered that occasions sometimes arose when a mule-load of money would buy a way out of a tight place; but she was really thinking of the more settled conditions in which she had been brought up. Sometimes an infidel chief would offer to free a captive for ransom; but usually he did not keep his word; after the silver had been weighed out the captive would be hanged all the same, and the world would laugh at the simplicity of his family, who were now impoverished as well as bereaved.

  The excuse for all our warfare was that we were rescuing Christian lands from the unbelievers, but religion did not in fact play a great part in our lives. Even in my youth I liked to hear Mass whenever I found myself in the company of a priest who had been silenced by excommunication; but there were not many of them about. It was fifteen years since Pope Leo had excommunicated the Patriarch of Constantinople, and since then many of the clergy had incurred the anathema from carelessness or ignorance; the clerks who wrote Messer Roussel’s letters were often out of communion with both Rome and Constantinople. Sometimes our band halted near a cathedral or monastery on a feast day; then we would attend the principal Mass in state, to show which side we were on. I think the lady Matilda believed nothing, and would have gone just as cheerfully to a ceremony of the infidels, from politeness or convenience; but Messer Roussel, though a sinner, would have faced martyrdom. He had been baptised, and he was not a deserter.

  We were a very happy and united household. My lady saw that we did our work, and punished the lazy; but we were so fond of Messer Roussel that very little supervision was needed.

  In Advent of the year 1069 we were wintering in Calabria, camped in a substantial stone-built village; though since it contained no manor-house my lord lodged in his handsome tent, which could be heated with braziers. One evening I was crouched in a corner, binding waxed thread round the hilt of a sword; in another corner the steward clicked his abacus as he divided our plunder into fair shares for the Christmas livery; an infidel groom had brought in a mare to give birth to her foal at the far end (the infidels always try to arrange that a warhorse shall be born in a human habitation; they say first impressions are important, and that a horse born in these conditions will be friendly to the human race); Ralph, my lord’s seven-year-old son, was teaching his five-year-old sister how to hood a falcon, while little Osbert crawled on the floor and various servants hung about to tend the torches or separate the dogs when they began to fight. But otherwise there was no one in the tent except Messer Roussel and the lady Matilda. We were unusually private, and convenient to receive a messenger.

  He came in a fortunate hour; for my lady was complaining that we were poorer this Christmas than we had been a year ago, and urging my lord to think of some new venture. Messer Roussel always listened to advice, and answered courteously. I put down my work to hear what he said, and he smiled to include me in the conversation.

  ‘We have had a very bad year,’ he began in his friendly voice. ‘Not because this is a bad country to fight in, but because we share the misfortunes of a weak leader. Twelve years ago, when I made my pilgrimage to St Michael, the six sons of Tancred were on an equal footing; it was by chance that I swore to serve the lord Roger. But nowadays the Weasel has outdistanced his brothers; he takes all the profit of the land, and my lord must put up with his leavings.’

  ‘Then you must leave Roger, and swear fealty to the Duke,’ said my lady. ‘Or gather more men and make war on all the fitzTancreds. They don’t help one another, and you might set up your own County.’

  ‘I don’t like to desert poor old Roger, who has never done me harm. He is very unhappy to see his brother surpass him in everything, and it would break his heart if his own men joined the Weasel. I may go right away, to some other land; but if I stay in Italy I could not ride against Roger’s banner in the field.’

  ‘You could make yourself independent, without fighting him.’

  ‘Perhaps, my dear. But where will I find an army? There are plenty of mongrel mercenaries, outcasts from every nation under Heaven, but brave Norman horsemen no longer make a pilgrimage to Monte Gargano. Every Norman who would rather fight than plough now crosses the Channel to serve Duke William in England. No, the Weasel is too strong to be overthrown, and too greedy to leave anything for his brothers. Would it be better to try our luck in England, where we must obey Duke William, or in Spain, where the infidels are powerful but there might be room for an independent County?’

  Just then a sergeant came in, leading by the ear a dishevelled-looking man in a linen tunic. ‘This fellow crept up to your tent and tried to wriggle under the flap, my lord. He says it was only to deliver a message in secret, and when I searched him I found no weapons. So I spared his life. Shall I sit him on the brazier? Then he would tell the truth, in few words.’

  We all crowded closer, leaving our various occupations. If they were going to burn a spy until he told all he knew it would be a pity to miss the comical expression on his face at the beginning, before he screamed himself senseless. But Messer Roussel would have none of it.

  ‘Let go of the poor brute,’ he commanded. ‘If everyone who comes secretly is tortured to death I will never get warning of the plots of my enemies. I was not expecting a message, but people do in fact send them secretly, and the first of the series is bound to be a surprise. Here, you, drink up this wine, get over your fright, and then tell me your news, now, while I am alone.’

  The messenger looked in surprise at the score of people in the tent, and I guessed he had been reared in Romania; for my mother had told me that where she came from even those of the middle sort, skilled craftsmen like her first husband, had a private room which strangers did not enter. She never got used to our Norman custom of doing everything amid a crowd of interested bystanders. But compared, say, to a Christmas drinking party, or a council of war, Messer Roussel was more or less alone.

  ‘Noble lord,’ the man said in stumbling Italian, with a Greek accent, ‘I was told to deliver my message to you personally, and to make sure that the lord Roger brother of Robert did not hear it. But it is not very secret; your household may hear. The Emperor wishes to recruit Franks for his army, and he ordered the Catapan of Bari to send his letter to a suitable leader. The Catapan chose you, since you are already thinking of leaving Italy. Here are the letters. When your clerk has read this one, which is in Latin, I can explain more fully.’

  ‘Well, that seems quite friendly,’ my lord said with a flash of his charming smile. ‘Roger fitz-Tancred would not like it if he knew that in Romania he is called nothing better than “brother of Robert”; but that is the only mistake you have made so far. Naturally the Catapan would know that I intend to leave Italy before I have made up my own mind; his spies tell him everything. This, I suppose, is the official letter from the Imperial Chancery. What a handsome bit of painting! Since no one here can decipher it I shall hang up all those gold-haloed saints as an ornament in some chapel. Master John, what do you make of the Latin version?’ He threw it across to the steward, who puzzled over it for a few moments in silence.

  ‘This is not a letter from the Imperial Chancery,’ he said in the end. Of course a clerk does not as a rule read out a letter written in Latin, for a layman might not understand it; he paraphrases it in Italian or French, and you have to trust his honesty and intelligence to give you the right meaning. ‘It purports to be sent by one Crispin
the Bestiarius. Is that the man in charge of the Emperor’s wild animals?’

  I saw the chance to display my qualifications. If we were all going to Romania now was the time to remind them that I spoke Greek.

  ‘Try “Vestiarius”, Master John, an official of the Emperor’s wardrobe. The Romans cannot distinguish between those two sounds.’

  ‘That’s it, of course,’ the steward agreed. ‘Crispin, some sort of courtier. He says they have a new Emperor, an experienced warrior who appreciates the worth of Frankish horse. Next summer they will campaign against the Patzinaks and he is authorised to take into pay a troop of three hundred well-equipped and well-mounted Franks, with rations but no pay for a reasonable proportion of followers. He would prefer to enlist an organised band, and he asks the Catapan of Bari to send his letter to a Norman knight with about the right number of men. Then follows a long passage about rates of pay, the oath they must take, and conditions of service in general. I can’t tell you that off-hand. I must work it out on my abacus.’

  ‘There you are, Matilda,’ said my lord with a grin. ‘Romania is a richer country than England or Spain, and once we are over the Adriatic I cannot find myself fighting Roger fitzTancred, to whom I swore fealty.’

  ‘Besides,’ my lady interrupted. ‘Romania is a wide realm. If you go carefully you may win a fief far from the City, which would be practically independent.’

  ‘That’s as may be. I keep my oaths. We’ll see when the time comes. Now take the messenger to the kitchen, young Roger, and see him well treated. If I accept I must work out some way of exchanging hostages with the Catapan. How all my friends would laugh if the Emperor hanged me as a brigand when I thought I was about to take service under his banner!’

  So I missed the interesting free-for-all discussion which ended in Messer Roussel accepting the offer; but at the same time I was promoted to be a kind of confidential interpreter, trying to find out over a jug of wine what was in the minds of properly accredited envoys.