Mercenaries by Jack Ludlow

of two men whose trust for each other is limited. All over the field of battle below them and their colourful retinues the dead were being stripped of their arms and what they wore, while some of those too wounded to survive were being despatched by the foot soldiers of the Frankish King. The rebellious brother had fled the field as soon as he saw that his cause was doomed, not pursued for there was no need. Where would he go? Few would offer him sanctuary.
    ‘It’s the oubliette for him,’ said Tancred, to his men, all of whom had taken possession of enemy horses and weapons. The old man had hoped to get to the baggage train of their foes but it was clear that had been plundered by the household knights of the Capetian King, none of whom had deigned to takepart in the fighting, leaving that to the Normans.
    They were on their way back to the encampment, surrounded by equally weary fellow confrères, when they came across Serlo and Robert, leading half a dozen heavily laden packhorses. The boys grinned at their sire, only to cease to do so when his voice thundered out to ask them what they were about.
    ‘Can you not see, Father?’ said William. ‘Our two little robber barons have beaten the Franks to some booty.’
    ‘They were supposed to stay out of harm’s way.’
    William laughed. ‘They are your sons, sir. They do not know how.’
    ‘I’ll tan their hides.’
    ‘Only after we tot up what they have managed to steal.’
        
    The de Hautevilles did not linger, not from fear of Duke Robert’s anger, but because, once they had been paid for their service, the cost of maintenance fell on them and that was cheaper at home than loitering here. They sold or traded what they had taken from the field of battle, as well as most of the contents of Serlo and Robert’s enterprise. Drogo even sold his ransom at a heavy discount to the Constable, given it would be easier for a high official to collect on a prisoner housed in Duke Robert’s castle of Moulineux.
    On the first night they camped back on Normansoil, and after all had been seen to with horses and food, Tancred sat down his boys round a fire to tell them what they already knew: there would be no service in the ducal household, no chance to raise themselves in that service. There were other things of which they were aware, whatever their age: that this had dashed their father’s long-held hopes and the reason – the property on which they had been raised was too small to support them all.
    ‘I had hoped, as you know, that you would win your own advancement. We fought today, and fought well, but who can say what the future will hold?’
    It was William who underlined what his father was driving at. ‘With Duke Robert allied to the King of the Franks, there is little prospect of war service…’
    ‘I have no desire to arm myself with a plough,’ Drogo insisted.
    There was a weariness in Tancred’s voice as he responded to that. ‘I raised you to do what I did, and that is fight. That you can do, but William has the right of it.’
    ‘The duke might fall out with the Franks,’ said Geoffrey de Hauteville. ‘They are not natural bedfellows.’
    ‘How long will that be?’ Tancred replied. ‘One year, two years, ten? The Bretons were our allies today, as well. As for the Angevins, they too are supine. For the first time in my life the borderlands are at peace.’
    ‘Which is why our Duke Robert can go on pilgrimage.’
    That opinion came from his namesake, really too immature to be taking part. It was a measure of Tancred’s gloom that he did not remind the youngest son present of the fact. ‘Jerusalem? He will be gone a year at least, possibly two.’
    ‘He may well come back a monk,’ Drogo scoffed.
    ‘Would that be so bad?’ asked Montbray.
    A period of silent reflection followed, as each son contemplated a life of peaceful husbandry, albeit such an existence would be punctuated by the kind of local conflicts endemic to the Contentin, not