by Smith, Skye
Norman men-at-arms from the construction site on the old burgh wall were pushing their way forward through the crowd. When they reached the sorry men, they recognized the faces and became irritated with the crowd, and yelled out at them to clear the square. No one paid much attention to their orders until they started slashing at the folk with the short horse lashes that all Normans seemed to carry.
More men then came down from the wall with pikes, and by using the pikes like a fence, they began physically pushing the crowd backwards. There were startled howls from women and children that were caught in the sudden crush. The crowd was getting angry about the crush. The Watch knew the signs and pushed through the crowd to the streets that were leading more folk to the scene. There they worked hard to convince the folk to turn and walk away from the market square.
Finally the pressure in the crowd eased and the space between folk widened so they could move. They turned away and the square began to empty. The gossip was loud and fast with speculation as to what had happened to the Norman scum.
Raynar turned to some old women passing and said in a knowing voice, "I heard they got lost in the Fens, and the night spirits and ghosts attacked them. They have been scared senseless by the harpies. You wouldn't catch me in the Fens at night.” This gossip swept through the square on the voices of old women.
Raynar took more coins and his supply of mats dwindled. He undid some knots and the last bundle of mats tumbled from Abby's riding saddle. It was a farmer's saddle with a post at each corner and a sheepskin hung between them to create the seat and padding against the wooden frame. The four posts were ideal for tying loads onto it. Only one mat was left attached to the saddle, but it would remain there. That roll was hiding all of his Byzantine weapons, his bow, his arrows, and his sword.
The Watch came towards him with the intention of moving him on, but when they saw he was doing a valid business and saw that his women customers were not trouble makers, they did not disturb him. He heard the clatter of hooves on stone coming from the direction of the wall and he stood on his toes to see. "Ahhh," he thought, "the leaders". Raynar was dressed as a Saxon merchant, and he spoke out to the Watch with a Saxon accent as they were going by. "What is happening? Is that the sheriff? Are those the sheriff's men then?"
"Mind your own business, else clear off," replied one of the Watch. The final watchman to pass slowed near him and said quietly, "The bugger on the grey stallion is the sheriff. Those madmen are his men. Couldn't have happened to a nicer bunch," and he snickered at the misery of others.
Raynar was mentally counting the paces from him to the sheriff. The man was wearing mail, so he would have to be within a hundred paces. He was still too far. With this many folk in the streets a quick escape would be impossible anyway.
As he was counting paces and looking for an escape route, the sheriff struck out with his lash at some common folk that were still in his way. A child went down in the rush to get away from him and his stallion purposefully stepped on her. The mother screamed and ran to her injured child, and the stallion kicked at her, and knocked her down.
The sheriff did not even look down, he just guided his mount closer to the wreckage of what was left of yesterday's patrol. The two mounted men riding with the sheriff gave orders and the men-at-arms started clearing the square in earnest with the blunt ends of their pikes. The slow folk were poked and kicked, so the folk started moving faster to get out of the square. The injured mother and child were dragged across the cobblestones and dropped in a pile of refuse along the abbey's wall.
The street to the burgh gate was now emptying. Raynar’s customers broke off their shopping and scurried away as the men at arms moved closer. Raynar made a show of packing up his mats for reloading onto his horse and was bent over busy rolling up the samples when the men-at-arms reached him.
They poked him with a pike butt, and he obligingly grunted in pain and fell to one knee. "Please sir," he said, "I am packing up as fast as I can. I will be gone in minutes." He received a kick while he was down, but then they moved on towards some curious young men who were swapping nasty jests close by.
Raynar pulled Abby closer to the building behind him and stood between her and the wall so that no one in the square could see what he was doing. He pretended to be loading mats on her saddle, but really he was loosening the ties on that one last mat. His weapons hide. He took a look around, saw no one taking any notice of him, then he pulled the sword handle so it stuck out of the end of the mat roll. He then did the same with the flights of the arrows and finally drew his bow completely out of the mat. He strung it taut in an instant of bull strength, then he slowly with forced lazy movements, pulled himself into the saddle.
He started Abby walking towards the sheriff. No one seemed to be paying him any attention, so with the bow out of sight down the left side of the saddle, he nocked a heavy arrow and pulled it taught against the bowstring, and held both bow and arrow in place with his left hand.
Abby had kept walking slowly all this time. He was within seventy paces now. The sheriff was trying to question the closest of the half-naked men, who was being held up straight by two of the men-at-arms. Another of the half-naked men suddenly started wailing and thrashing his arms about.
Only Raynar could see where the wailer was looking. He was looking directly at Raynar. "Damn, he must have recognized me and Abby from the village battle. He must have been close to Whiteplume when he shot him yesterday. Was that only yesterday?" These thoughts and others raced through Raynar’s mind.
Should he walk away and make his escape, should he stop, should he dismount. As he was staring at the wailer, a man-at-arms took the poor fool and shook him, shook him hard. Abby kept walking. He was within fifty paces now. Down and hidden against the side of the horse he drew the arrow to three quarters. It was as far as he could draw it with just his arms. The rest would need his back and shoulders.
There was a sound behind him, but he had the sense to turn his head very slowly. One of the Watch was calling to him, telling him that he had forgotten some of his mats. The calling was drawing the attention of others in the square. Almost everyone left in the square was a sheriff's man and armed.
This was it. He turned Abby gently towards his escape street and then gave her the signal to be still. He pulled up the bow and drew the heavy arrow. An arrow that only this morning he had blackened the flights with charcoal. Drew it full, felt the aim, and loosed. It was a chest hit that knocked the sheriff back in his saddle. That is all Raynar saw before he kicked Abby to a run and made for the street out of the square.
Two of the Watch were between him and the street, kicking at straggling townsfolk. They would not yet know of the arrow. All they saw was a farm nag slipping and sliding across cobblestones towards them. They both moved as if to stop a run away horse, but then saw the sword glinting in the rider's hand and instead dived to the ground away from the path of the horse.
Raynar made it to the street. The street was a straight way to the burgh gate. He slowed the horse from the open run to a fast trot, and hid the sword back in the mat. The bow was hung on one side over two of the posts. There was a crowd of folk choking the gateway trying to leave the center of the town for the many streets outside the ancient earthwork ring. The earthwork wall now had a new wall of poles built on top of it. He could hear the start of the hue and cry behind him. He did not have time to wade through this crowd.
He started his own yell to mask the yells behind him. "Mad dog! Mad dog!" he yelled, "Coming this way! A mad dog. Clear the gate. Get out of the way lest you be bit!” He was on the fringe of the crowd now. He called down to the men around him. "I have been sent from the square. There is a mad dog loose. Foaming mad. Coming this way. Any with weapons should make ready for him. Don't let him bite you."
Those men took up the call. Men with weapons had them in their hands ready, and formed a line across the street. Women and children ran up the earthworks away from the gate. News of the mad dog reached the
guard at the gate and they opened it wide to hurry the folk through. Raynar was with them.
As soon as he was outside the gate he pushed Abby to a run again. Once he had no one in front of him he pulled slower and turned around for a look. Coming out of the crowd at the gate was a single rider on a huge horse, at full speed, trampling all in his way.
He kicked Abby to a run. There was no doubt that the large expensive horse would eventually run Abby down. Especially since Abby had been working since the morning and the other horse was probably fresh. The rider must have been one of the sheriff's knights from the square. Could he stay ahead of such a rider for two miles.
That was the question. Klaes and two of his men said they would wait for him two miles north of the town. They would be in the copse of trees where they had pulled the injured Normans from their horses and forced them to walk the rest of the way to Peterburgh. The rest of the village men would have headed back to the village with the strings of empty horses by now.
He forced himself not to look over his shoulder. He was counting Abby's strides as a measure of distance. At a hundred strides he would look, and see how much the other rider had gained. He continued the count. At a hundred he looked around. The other rider was closing fast. He would be on him within the mile, never mind two.
Raynar knew that he was no match for a mounted Norman in a cavalry style fight. The Norman was born to it, and had a long sword, and a lance. Raynar had a short thin sword meant for close quarters stabbing. He had only one chance, his bow. That meant stopping his horse and either shooting mounted or shooting dismounted.
If he stayed mounted, then if he missed he could still run with the horse. If he dismounted he could get more shots away. He looked for some cover, any cover close to the road. Something that would protect him from a charging horse. There was a tree ahead. He urged Abby to hurry to it.
At the tree he pulled Abby up hard, and slid from the saddle. Abby was still moving with her excitement however, and he lost hold of her and had to chase her down calling for her to stop. The bow was still on her saddle. What a disaster. The rider was almost on him before he had his bow un-snagged from the saddle posts. Luckily it was still strung. He grabbed for a handful of arrows, but one of the barbs grabbed the inside of the rolled mat and he could not pull them free. He wasted seconds looking around to the rider. The rider had readied his lance and was aiming the giant horse and the spearhead right at him.
In a panic he pounded up with his fist on the bottom of the mat roll. It lifted it up and off the saddle posts and it fell to the ground. Raynar bent low to pick it up. As he did so it came to him that he had just broken the golden rule of fighting cavalry. He had turned his back to the rider.
He felt the razor edge of the spear point graze and cut all the way up his back and lift the stupid hat from his head. If turning his back had risked his life, bending over to grab arrows had saved it. That lance would have spitted him had he been standing. He could not see his injury, but he could feel the sting and felt a stickiness between his skin and his clothes.
Finally he had bow and arrows in his hand. Abby had stepped violently sideways off the road to avoid the larger horse. There was nothing between him and the returning rider. He drew his arrow fully and breathed his aim. He hesitated. The horse or the man. Again in his panic he was forgetting the basic rules of fighting cavalry. Always deal with the horse first. He loosed the arrow and then dived off the road towards the tree.
He was lucky he dived. The arrow skewered the battle horse and it dropped to its knees and slid along the road right where he had just been standing. The horse was now fighting his rider, screaming with pain and trying everything to shake the arrow loose from his breast. It stood again, and twirled, and went up on its hind legs and gave Raynar a shot at the rider. Raynar was slow getting up. As he drew the arrow an intense pain shot through his shoulders and he release the arrow unaimed. It bounced off the horse.
The arrow had little power but it drove the already injured horse absolutely insane. The rider, trying to control the original rearing, now was taken by surprise by the two-legged jump sideways. The horses back legs slipped and the horse fell backwards and on top of the rider.
The horse was dying, but it was kicking and squirming trying to get up. Every twist was wrenching the body of the man half trapped underneath it. Raynar pulled out his thin dagger and did not know which to put out of their misery first. The gods took the decision away from him. The horse suddenly stopped moving and let out a giant breath and was still. With the horse now quiet, he could hear the cries of tortured anguish from the knight.
Raynar walked stiffly towards him, with his shoulders back so as to ease the continuous stinging. The man was sobbing with the pain. Raynar saw that he was still clutching the lance. "You are of the warrior religion then? You want to die armed?"
"Yes," he said. He tried to lift the spear tip to hold Raynar away but he could not.
"I though all you Normans were Christians?"
"The courtly and the women, yes. The warriors only pretend," gasped the man through gritted teeth.
"Why are you trying to kill all Danes, rather than make peace?" asked Raynar.
"We do not trust a Danish peace," the rider gasped between coughs of blood. "So long as there are Danes, there will be rebellion. So long as there are Danes in England, the heirs of Knut will claim England and will cross the sea from Denmark."
"Well said, well ridden, well fought. Do you wish me to leave you for your folk to find, or kill you to ease your pain? It is your choice."
"Will I ever walk again?" whispered the rider.
Raynar leaned awkwardly sideways to look at the damage to the body. "Never."
"Then kill me," the rider sighed. "Use your dagger in the soft spot at the top of the back of my neck where it meets the skull. It is the neatest death, and I am wreck enough."
Raynar did as he was asked. While he was at the man's level he gave the body a quick search for a purse. He found two, plus a scroll holder, and a heavy gold medallion. The man's sword and dagger hilts were bejeweled so he took them too. This corpse had been a wealthy man.
Raynar winced with the pain of every stretch as he strapped his treasure and weapons on the saddle. Pulling himself onto Abby made his back feel on fire. He looked back towards the town but could see no more riders. He hunched his shoulders and held grimly onto the saddle and urged Abby to a run. Every step she took was like the lash of a whip across his back.
His vision was so blurred that he was lucky to make it as far as Klaes and his men. In truth, they found him. They led his mare deep into the concealment of the copse just before a mounted patrol thundered by in chase. When they turned his horse and saw his back, Klaes was startled at the amount of blood that soaked his clothing. Klaes rode up beside him and pulled him off Abby and onto his own horse in front of him.
Once the dust of the patrol had settled they headed overland to a parallel cartway and then turned north back to Westerbur and the island. Just before Raynar passed out he whispered hoarsely to Klaes, "I shot the sheriff, and I killed his deputy."
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The Hoodsman - Frisians of the Fens by Skye Smith Copyright 2010-13
Chapter 8 - The Women of the Island of Westerbur, The Fens in September 1067
"You are awake then," said a sweetly gentle voice. "No, you must not turn over. Inka has stitched your back and you must leave the stitches face up to let them dry. You are weak from loss of blood, but we have cooked and minced a lamb's liver to help your body make more blood. This is whisked liver broth. Sip from it slowly. It is not hot. It is mixed with some fermented sheep’s milk to help you digest it."
Young Raynar did as he was told. It was disgusting in smell and in taste, but as soon as the first swallows were down, his body urged him for more of it. It hurt his back to turn his neck enough to see who was nursing him. She had a sweet voice. One he remembered. "Roas, is that you?"
"Yes, it
is good that you can remember. I will go and get Inka," she said as she rose to her feet.
"Wait, how long have I been asleep?" he asked weakly.
"Four days. We drugged you for the stitches, and then kept you drugged to keep you still."
Raynar was trying to think of something but his mind was numb. Something was missing. What was it?
Inka came in and sat beside him. She touched his forehead and his throat, ran a finger lightly down his back. "You are doing well. There is no pus or smell. The cut was made by a sharp clean blade." She sniffed at his breath. "You are weak, and for reason. I think I will drug you again so that you will sleep soundly and not pull at the stitches I sewed in your back."
"No, no drugs. I want a clear head," he whispered.
"With a clear head will come pain, and then restlessness, which tears stitches. It is better for you if you are drugged." She looked at the stubbornness in his eyes and relented. "So be it. No drug. But if you start pulling at your stitches I will force it down your throat."
"Where is my crystal?" he asked. "I never take it off."
"I have it. I didn't want the women nursing you to see it. Not yet."
"Why do you hang yours from the point?" The question just came into his head from somewhere as if he had asked it before.
"Did the woman who gave you yours, show you how to use it with your touch?"
"Yes, of course, we use the suspended crystal to divine where dis-ease is, and then we clasp the crystal in our hand with the point sticking out of the bottom and use it to push the touch into small areas of the body at a time."
"Like your wound," she said. "Watch me now."
As he watched she took off her own crystal, with the suspending cage around the point and she pressed another crystal into the cage so that now she had two crystals touching point to butt. When she gripped them in her hand they ran from the top of her grip to the bottom. "The pure crystals are never long enough. With the cages on the pointed end, I can connect them together to make up the length. The healing power is very strong."