Warriors by Jack Ludlow

Author:Jack Ludlow [Jack Ludlow]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9780749010706
Publisher: Allison & Busby
Published: 2010-09-08T04:00:00+00:00

Normans were used to moving at short notice, less so the Lombard levies that had remained, but all were long gone, accompanied by the locals, by the time the catapan’s banners were sighted from the battlements. Given the constraints he had laboured under, the losses suffered by his predecessor and the difficulties of recruitment, he had assembled an impressive host, and it was soon obvious he had brought along not just fighting men but artisans skilled in the construction of ballista and the like, who immediately set to work, so that the sound of hammering and sawing floated up to the stout walls.

Left in command at Melfi, with a stiffening of Normans, but mainly a garrison of Lombards, it fell to Humphrey and Mauger, standing on the curtain wall which overlooked the narrow entry bridge, to refuse to accept terms. They listened in silence as the normal threats regarding no quarter were shouted up at them, restraining the men they commanded from any overt displays of either jocularity – showing their bare arses – or expletive-loaded insults, merely acknowledging the message and telling the Byzantines to do their worst.

By the time the party sent to present those terms had returned with the expected refusal, Basil Boioannes knew that his enemy had flown the coop. The men he feared most were outside those walls, not inside, and he was also committed, far from his base at Bari, with a set of shrinking options, the least palatable of which, given the fate of Michael Doukeianos, was withdrawal.

The next morning, he issued instructions that his artisans should keep toiling, with enough men to keep them safe staying behind. Then, once his host had been fed and blessed, he marched them away from Melfi, heading north, knowing that his approach would be observed. So be it: let them stand or flee, but the Normans had to be beaten or driven away.

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