The Conqueror (The Bloody Hand Saga Book 5) by David Pilling

Author:David Pilling [Pilling , David]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2023-10-31T16:00:00+00:00

15.

Robert Guiscard was a great commander. It still pains me to admit that, so many years after his death, but there is no point in denying his skill. He was, perhaps, an even greater soldier than William the Bastard, another man I despised and admired.

In those winter months, one thousand and eighty after Christ, all the odds were stacked against him. The Venetian and Roman fleet guarded the straits, so he could get no help from Italy. His own army, already suffering from disease and want, was constantly harassed by the men of Dyrrachium. We often sallied out to cut up his foraging parties, and lobbed their severed heads from the battlements.

Some were taken as valuable prisoners or hostages. Once, I captured a rich Norman count, and thought I had made my fortune. But the fellow died of his wounds, curse it. At least I had his fine horse and armour, and a beautifully made sword with a single gemstone, red as blood, set in the pommel. I have it still, among the detritus of a long life.

The besiegers spent a miserable Christmas, holed up in their sodden tents, while we feasted and drank inside the city. It was a hard, cruel winter, and Guiscard's men died in large numbers. As many as ten thousand of the footsoldiers perished, hundreds of knights and horses. The stench of their burning flesh hung in the air like a poisonous fume.

Come the spring, when the storms at sea had ended, Guiscard made one effort to break out. His workmen had built a few more ships over the winter, to replace those lost in battle, so he had a sizeable fleet again. Guiscard sent it out, loaded with fighting men, to try and smash through the blockade. It was beaten, a second time, and the few survivors chased back to shore.

Now, I thought, it must be over. Terror Mundi would have to sue for peace, and take whatever terms Alexios saw fit to offer.

Fool! I should have known, from so much bitter experience, that Norman warlords do not give up, ever. Once their mailed fingers are curled about a land – someone else's land, of course – there is only one way to prise them loose. Kill the owner and all his men, bury them ten feet deep, sow the ground with salt.

Guiscard had plenty of tricks left to play. To escape the Venetians, he had the battered remainder of his fleet hauled up onto the banks of the river Glycis, where his army was encamped. A drought had set in, so the water virtually dried up and left his ships stranded.

From the walls, I watched Guiscard's inventive mind at work. He had posts fixed along either side of the river, and lashed together with a fence of wattle. Behind these his men placed rows of trees, cut down at the root, laid flat and heaped with sand. In this way they changed the course of the river and collected the remaining trickle of water in one place.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.