Mercenaries (26 page)

AUTHOR'S NOTE

This novel, set around the time of El Cid and the Norman Conquest, is the first in a series that will chronicle the achievements of a remarkable family. Eventually seven of Tancred de Hauteville's twelve sons travelled to Italy to take service as mercenaries. What they achieved in that troubled land is simply astounding.

As a military leader, William of Normandy had all the wealth and resources of his extensive dukedom with which to conquer England: the sons of Tancred had nothing but their imposing presence, their swords, their lances, their horses, their martial prowess, plus their considerable intelligence and guile. They entered a land of rich fiefs and city-states that brought to Europe all the luxuries of the Levant, a territory, since the break-up of the Roman Empire, that had
seen conquest, rebellion, tyranny and had suffered, for five hundred years, ruthless exploitation.

They challenged first the power of the Lombards, then the authority of the Pope, next the supremacy of both the Holy Roman and Byzantine Empires, and finally the Saracens to create a society more important for European civilisation than the Crusades. If the germ of the Italian Renaissance came from anywhere, it came from what they had created.

In telling this story, I am aware that it is one unfamiliar to most readers; few people even know of the exploits of the Normans in Italy and Sicily, and in the writing I have, quite deliberately, combined some of the real-life characters and the acts they performed, in order to keep the narrative exciting, while creating others.

I have made Guaimar a more central character than he was in reality, but he was heir to Salerno and it was he who persuaded the emperor to act against the true-life Pandulf of Capua; Berengara is an invention, but Rainulf is real, as is Conrad Augustus and the Abbot Theodore.

At the kernel is historical truth and the actual deeds of the brothers de Hauteville, heroes to those who served for and with them and deserving of a more recognised posterity.

D.D.

J
ACK
L
UDLOW
is the pen-name of writer David Donachie, who was born in Edinburgh in 1944. He has always had an abiding interest in the Roman Republic as well as the naval history of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, which he drew on for the many historical adventure novels he has set in that period. David lives in Deal with his partner, the novelist Sarah Grazebrook.

By Jack Ludlow

T
HE
C
ONQUEST SERIES

Mercenaries

Warriors

Conquest

T
HE
R
EPUBLIC SERIES

The Pillars of Rome

The Sword of Revenge

The Gods of War

Written as David Donachie

T
HE
J
OHN
P
EARCE SERIES

By the Mast Divided

A Shot Rolling Ship

An Awkward Commission

A Flag of Truce

The Admirals’ Game

An Ill Wind

Blown Off Course