Son of Blood Read Free Page B

to throw his arms around a father he was not sure had regard for him, that led to an awkward interlude.
    As their eyes locked Ademar knew there had to be a whole host of thoughts chasing through both minds, for Bohemund was not a bastard by birth; he had been made so by a decision of his father to set aside and declare annulled his marriage to the boy’s mother. The Guiscard would claim it was brought on by consanguinity – Bohemund’s Norman mother Alberada had been too close in cousinage to her husband, and his father had sought intercession from a compliant pope to set her aside. The young man, as well as his elder sister Emma, would always harbour the suspicion that the marriage had been annulled for political concerns, not for any perceived sin against the strictures of Holy Church, for the gap between the annulment being granted and their father’s marriage to a new Lombard wife had not been long in gestation.
    ‘You’ve raised him well, Ademar.’
    ‘I doubt I could have done otherwise, My Lord.’
    ‘I have heard, Bohemund, that you are a paragon, that you do not act as do those of your age: light in the article of wine, not one to carouse and not yet taken up with women? If that is true I wonder if you can truly be of my bloodline.’
    ‘I have never had cause to doubt I am your firstborn son.’
    The words ‘but not your acknowledged heir’ hung unsaid. Robert had two other sons from his second marriage, as well as a wife who was determined that their firstborn child, not Bohemund, should succeed to the dukedom.
    ‘Then it pleases me that you do not disgrace me,’ the Guiscard replied, before spinning on his heels to look at the walls of Corato.Bohemund, about to speak, felt his brother-in-law’s hand on his arm and glancing sideways observed an imperceptible shake of the head. Robert having walked away to examine the defences more closely, Ademar could whisper for restraint.
    ‘What you want to say should not be aired in public.’
    ‘But it must be spoken of.’
    ‘In private, Bohemund,’ Ademar hissed. ‘Your father is not a man much given to taking pleasure in public humiliation.’
    ‘Have you demanded they submit, Ademar?’ Duke Robert called over his shoulder.
    ‘Of course.’
    ‘And their response?’
    ‘They told me where I could stick the shaft of my lance; far enough, they suggested, so I could taste wood in my gullet.’
    That engendered a booming laugh, one that would plainly be heard inside those walls, this before the Duke called to one of his knights.
    ‘Reynard, tell the Master of the Host to make camp, though I doubt he needs to be so informed. It seems we must prepare for a siege. Bohemund, when my tent is erected I require you to attend upon me so we can talk. Ademar, we will ride round the walls and when that food is ready my son and I will dine alone.’
    ‘What about your prisoner?’
    ‘Lash him to a tree, facing the sun, with no food and no water.’
    ‘My Lord,’ Peter of Trani protested.
    That got him a hard look. ‘Think yourself lucky I do not strap you to an anthill and leave you to rot, which is what you deserve.’
    The ride around Corato was made to the accompaniment of endless jeers from the battlements, the usual insults heaped upon the supposed attributes of Robert’s mother and the various creaturesshe had lain with to produce him, that added to imperfections of his own being, not one of which he had not heard flung in his direction time and again from stouter walls than these. Compared to some of the fortified places he had captured – Bari, Brindisi, Palermo and just a week previously Trani – Corato amounted to no more than a nuisance, yet it was an irritant that could keep his army here for an age.
    The Guiscard had no doubt he could take the place, but the building of siege towers took time, ladders less, but they were not likely to be as quickly successful. This revolt by a number of his own barons had cost him too much time and money already