prospect to people who toiled as long as it was light to get from the soil that which was needed to both maintain themselves and satisfy the demands of their overlords, nothing less than the sum of their dreams – a life free from the threat of famine.
These were not the fertile plains of two harvests a year, which lay to either side of their lands, but the mountains where the soil was shallow and supported by hard rock, the weather more fickle. There was never truly enough, for if times were good the populationgrew to consume whatever the land produced. But there were also those bad years, of blighted crops and endless foul weather, times when cattle and flocks were ravaged by maladies for which they had no cure, so that people came close to, and sometimes even succumbed, to starvation.
‘And, my friends, with this garrison in place, I can ask – no, demand – the castle be well supplied, food that would be there for you, should nature fail you.’
‘We must talk, topoterites .’
Arduin nodded: the use of that title indicated he would get what he wanted.
William waited until the castle had been vacated, watching as the locals made their way back to their homes, few willing to exchange a glance with these mailed giants who would now live amongst them. They were stocky folk in the main, of truncated height to a Norman, but it was easy to see they had a strength brought about by endless toil; that is, those who were not too bent by the same condition of life to stand upright.
Despite sharp commands from angry parents the children could not contain their curiosity, and were much taken by the horses, for in this part of the world, where oxen did the burdensome work, the possession of such a beast was only for lords and masters. Nor could the younger females stop themselves from throwingwhat they thought were discreet glances at such tall and striking men. For that they got parental blows, not hard words.
Watching them, and the contrast with their nervous elders, William thought back to his father’s demesne in the Contentin, to the serfs and tenanted villeins who supported the de Hauteville family, people whom his father saw as his responsibility. The indigenes who had occupied the land before the Norsemen came were not dissimilar, hardy folk inured to endless toil and the need to eke a living from the soil. Yet his forbears had intermingled with them, married their womenfolk and bred children by them, and they had also protected them in an uncertain world. Could he, and the men he led, not do the same here?
‘Mount up,’ he called when the last of the townsfolk had passed.
Riding up the wide, winding causeway that led up to the great gates of the Castle of Melfi, itself with a defensible wall, William found himself increasingly impressed by an edifice he had only previously observed from afar. Imposing from a distance, with its great square keep and hexagonal corner towers, it became more formidable still at close quarters, where he could see how soundly it was constructed, from the stone bridge that spanned the moat to the twin curtain walls that contained a killing zone between them.
An attacker must cross that narrow, high-archedcauseway to even attempt to take the outer wall, then get through a gate to be faced by yet another ditch with a raised drawbridge. Caught between the two they would be at the mercy of anyone on the inner wall and they would need a great effusion of blood to overcome the defence. Those walls and towers were made from the hard stone of the mountains in which the castle was sat – rock so hard the walls could not be undermined – and they were well buttressed to withstand assault by ballista, while being tall enough to make firing anything over the top near impossible, the whole edifice high on a hill that dominated the town below, as well as the valleys that led to the east and west.
Overlooked by the even higher peak of Monte Vulture, that too was part of its defence: no
These were not the fertile plains of two harvests a year, which lay to either side of their lands, but the mountains where the soil was shallow and supported by hard rock, the weather more fickle. There was never truly enough, for if times were good the populationgrew to consume whatever the land produced. But there were also those bad years, of blighted crops and endless foul weather, times when cattle and flocks were ravaged by maladies for which they had no cure, so that people came close to, and sometimes even succumbed, to starvation.
‘And, my friends, with this garrison in place, I can ask – no, demand – the castle be well supplied, food that would be there for you, should nature fail you.’
‘We must talk, topoterites .’
Arduin nodded: the use of that title indicated he would get what he wanted.
William waited until the castle had been vacated, watching as the locals made their way back to their homes, few willing to exchange a glance with these mailed giants who would now live amongst them. They were stocky folk in the main, of truncated height to a Norman, but it was easy to see they had a strength brought about by endless toil; that is, those who were not too bent by the same condition of life to stand upright.
Despite sharp commands from angry parents the children could not contain their curiosity, and were much taken by the horses, for in this part of the world, where oxen did the burdensome work, the possession of such a beast was only for lords and masters. Nor could the younger females stop themselves from throwingwhat they thought were discreet glances at such tall and striking men. For that they got parental blows, not hard words.
Watching them, and the contrast with their nervous elders, William thought back to his father’s demesne in the Contentin, to the serfs and tenanted villeins who supported the de Hauteville family, people whom his father saw as his responsibility. The indigenes who had occupied the land before the Norsemen came were not dissimilar, hardy folk inured to endless toil and the need to eke a living from the soil. Yet his forbears had intermingled with them, married their womenfolk and bred children by them, and they had also protected them in an uncertain world. Could he, and the men he led, not do the same here?
‘Mount up,’ he called when the last of the townsfolk had passed.
Riding up the wide, winding causeway that led up to the great gates of the Castle of Melfi, itself with a defensible wall, William found himself increasingly impressed by an edifice he had only previously observed from afar. Imposing from a distance, with its great square keep and hexagonal corner towers, it became more formidable still at close quarters, where he could see how soundly it was constructed, from the stone bridge that spanned the moat to the twin curtain walls that contained a killing zone between them.
An attacker must cross that narrow, high-archedcauseway to even attempt to take the outer wall, then get through a gate to be faced by yet another ditch with a raised drawbridge. Caught between the two they would be at the mercy of anyone on the inner wall and they would need a great effusion of blood to overcome the defence. Those walls and towers were made from the hard stone of the mountains in which the castle was sat – rock so hard the walls could not be undermined – and they were well buttressed to withstand assault by ballista, while being tall enough to make firing anything over the top near impossible, the whole edifice high on a hill that dominated the town below, as well as the valleys that led to the east and west.
Overlooked by the even higher peak of Monte Vulture, that too was part of its defence: no
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