Crusade

‘Go well, Edgar. When we meet again, I expect to hear all the stories in detail and anticipate that they will include many tales of conquest — over fearsome warriors and dark, lusty maidens.’

‘I will try my best, Robert,’ I answered with a laugh, before turning to weightier matters. ‘Try and humour your father a little. The loss of your mother may make his temper even more difficult to control, but he is becoming increasingly isolated and will need your wise counsel and support.’

‘Perhaps, my friend… I’ll make the same pledge as you’ve just made to me — I’ll try my best.’

PART THREE

Roger the Great

12. Adela’s Scars

Yet again, Robert was generous in allowing me to recruit a sturdy captain, six men-at-arms and sufficient silver for our expedition to Italy.

We travelled slowly, paying our respects along the way to all those to whom it would be an insult not to — and to many more who may, one day, be useful to us. We were treated with the greatest respect, much of it a result of understandable curiosity about the events we had lived through and witnessed.

Along the way, Sweyn and Adela repeated many times the stories they had heard about the impressive castle at Melfi in Apulia and of the worthy deeds of Hereward’s good friend Roger Guiscard, Count of Sicily.

The Guiscards were typical of the Normans of their day. Roger’s father, Tancred de Hauteville, had been a minor noble with a small estate near Coutances in the Cotentin Peninsula of western Normandy. His only real claim to fame was that, by two wives, over a period of almost thirty years, he sired a large brood of fearsome warriors and beautiful daughters — fifteen offspring in all. His daughters married well above their station in the Norman aristocracy, and no fewer than eight of his sons became counts. Roger was the youngest of them all.

Roger’s older brothers — William Iron Arm, Drogo and Humphrey — led the Norman mercenaries who gained control in southern Italy in the 1040s and, in turn, became Counts of Apulia.

Robert Guiscard, the ferocious sixth son of Tancred, still ruled in Melfi, where his reputation as an intimidating host even to his friends and allies persuaded us to continue on to Sicily, where we knew we would receive a much warmer welcome from his younger brother, Count Roger.

Sicily was unlike anything we had witnessed before. We had seen the wonders of Italy in Turin, Florence and Rome, where the ancient buildings made everything in northern Europe seem so new and brash. But Sicily had, until Robert brought it back under Christian rule only ten years earlier, been occupied by Islamic rulers for 250 years. The architecture was breathtaking, the food exotic, the languages incomprehensible and the customs mystifying.

We wallowed in it — especially Sweyn and Adela, who had during their childhood heard so much about the intoxicating world of Islam and the ancient cultures the Muslim people cherished.

Apart from Sicily’s more intriguing qualities, it was also as hot as a blacksmith’s furnace. We arrived in July 1084 with the temperatures soaring to the point where much of the middle of the day had to be spent in the shade with the necessity for minimal effort of any kind.

Roger’s court was at Palermo, a vast city of great wealth and antiquity. We had never seen so many people; it was much bigger than the great cities of Normandy and France and made Rome look like a small town. The buildings — the Ancient Greek and Roman temples and amphitheatres, the Moorish palaces and mosques of the Muslims and the new Norman fortresses and churches — were so numerous and on such a grand scale that it was impossible to count them or to appreciate their grandeur fully.

Palermo was like a crossroads of all the cultures of the world. Its cuisines, languages, religions and races were so varied, its people so diverse, it was difficult to imagine that they could live happily side by side, but they seemed to. We spent several days gawping at the dark-skinned Muslims and their veiled women, enjoying food rich in spices and exotic herbs and vegetables, and listening to strange tongues such as Arabic, Greek, Hebrew and Berber. Some traders by the port had skin as black as charcoal and came from lands far to the south. They had brought spices so pungent their aroma hung in the air for miles around.

We were soon told that Count Roger had left Palermo to inspect his new castle at Mazara, an important port on the south-west tip of the island. Palermo’s garrison commander advised us not to travel, as the route was treacherous and under threat from Muslim warlords still resisting the Norman presence. As Roger was not due to return to Palermo for several weeks, we decided to make the journey. We had the comfort of seven highly trained men and felt secure in being able either to defend ourselves or to outrun any adversary.