Soldier of Crusade

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The defenders of Durazzo knew the Apulians were coming and, if they had eased the passage of the first forces that had landed on the Adriatic shore under the French nobleman, the Count of Vermandois, they were less inclined to welcome the next to arrive for the very sound reason that they entirely mistrusted their motives. The knights and nobles accompanying Vermandois had been seen as honest Crusaders, needing to traverse the lands of Romania with no prior aim other than to aid Byzantium in throwing back the infidel Seljuk Turks from the very borders of Constantinople, the ultimate aim to then move on and free Jerusalem and the Holy Places of Palestine from the grip of Islam.

The armies of Southern Italy were different; led by a member of the family of de Hauteville, whose collective military prowess had kicked Byzantium out of Italy, the mounted Norman lances they commanded counted as the most formidable warriors in Christendom. Many of the foot soldiers were Lombards who, if they marched for pay and plunder, would be fully trained to do battle and loathed the old Eastern Roman Empire for the hundreds of years of what they saw as the suppression of their right to rule themselves. Such a combination had breached the eastern boundary of Romania twice in the last fifteen years as invaders not friends and, even worse, they had enjoyed a high degree of success in both battle and conquest.

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