by Smith, Skye
Many hours later, when he was still in a dream like state, Inka took him to the watch tree. This was the tallest tree on the island, and had a watch platform near to its top. There were other women on the platform, for this was a special day for the worshipers of the moon goddess. It was full moon. Together they sat and chanted as the sun went down, and at the same time, the moon came up.
After the moon had been chanted up, the others left to go and eat, but not Raynar. Inka would not allow him to eat because that would interrupt the magic of the mushrooms. Instead she took him on another tour, but this time in the light of the full moon. It was a magic time, and Inka enjoyed seeing it through his eyes as much as he did. Eventually she could not keep up to his mushroom energy, so she fed him smoked eel which grounded him.
The mushroom tour was something he would remember all of his life, for it changed him for ever. He realized that there were only two types of people in the world. Those who could still feel the world through the wondrous senses of a child, and those who no longer could.
Raynar shared a hut with ten young people, of both sexes. He was still feeling the mushrooms so he was too sensitive to sounds and smells to sleep there, so Inka took him back to her hut, and again raised him to a high that allowed him to feel the surge of the goddess inside of him. Long after she was asleep his mind was still buzzing with visions and half thoughts.
The night was filled with whispers and low moans as men and women spooned each other in their beds. There was no privacy in the shared huts, so spooning and cuddle fucking was usually all that happened. In the daylight, however, there was privacy in the forest and in the long grass.
A woman would occasionally invite a man, or men to follow her away from the groups that were working, or playing, or simply relaxing, and into the tiny and hidden meadows away from the eyes of others. Roas would sometimes choose Raynar rather than Gerke, which always made him fearful of how Gerke would react, and yet Gerke never seemed to mind.
He had seen this kind of "bush" coupling at spring fetes where young women aroused young men and allowed themselves to be taken in order to force a betrothal. But on this island, this was not just for breeding or betrothal. Mostly it was for the breathless enjoyment of it. Sometimes he saw women lead one man away, and return with another. Sometimes he would come across couples in passion in the long grasses, and the woman would be reveling in it more than the man.
The communal meal seemed to be where women organized such things amongst themselves. One evening he was shocked when Roas announced to the other women that she was finished with Raynar. It was only after hearing the words, that Raynar realized how much time he and she had been spending together. For the next few days he felt hurt by her constant rejection of him. The other women noticed and understood and comforted him until he was over the hurt.
Two women, more than the others, comforted him. One was Anske, the older sister of Roas, who was not as slim, but in any other culture would have been comely to the extreme. In this village she was ordinary. The other was Edeline, one of Gerke's sisters. Life became good again.
Perhaps the island women had been teasing and coupling simply to make good use of the dry weather, for in the next week the first of the hard rains fell, and the fens became a very different place from the paradise island of summer. For instance, there was no dry place outside for the privacy of coupling. The fine, silty soil turned to mud. Everywhere there was mud. The paths through the fen grasses no longer held the weight of a man, and the villagers become boat people. Everything was done by boat.
The huts were built on the mounds built by their forefathers, what the villagers called terps, and between the terps were dykes which kept the flood of rain water away from the vegetable plots. The huts themselves were mostly newish and dry. In the summer, when the women had moved to the island for safety from the Normans, their first action had been to burn any old or abandoned huts that were sitting on the terps, and build them anew.
The huts were simply made from materials so light that even children could build them. They were fast to erect so the solution to an old hut, or a hut infested with insects, was to burn it and build it again. The rushes used for the walls and the sedge used for the roof were plentiful and shed water. The hole in the peak of the roof was open in good weather to provide light. In wet weather it had its own small rain cap above it so that smoke and damp air could freely escape up and out of the hut.
In the wet season, life moved indoors, including cooking. Small peat-brick fires in the center of the hut produced much heat and little smoke. Smoke and steam flowed up and out of the hole in the roof and took with it the damp air of the hut. Almost the entire floor of the hut was covered in layers of matting which were for sitting and sleeping, so you were never on the damp ground. Staying dry meant staying warm.
After a week of rain, a most amazing event occurred. A mass of fish called salmon swam past the island. Some beached themselves, some leaped into the boats. The villagers harvested them with fish traps and baskets. Inka showed Raynar which to keep and which to throw back. They threw back the healthiest fish, and the ones fat with eggs. The Frisians carried the wisdom of a breeder into everything they did, even to fishing the natural stock.
Some of the fish harvested were already dying and their flesh was soft. The soft flesh was cooked immediately into stews. Most of the flesh was still firm, however, and the firm flesh was dried very slowly in the savoury smoke of fires kept low with poor grade peat. The entire village worked the salmon, and everyone began to smell of fish, and then the channel and channel banks also began to stink.
Once the salmon had passed by, the dark side of the salmon bounty began. The sea gulls and carrion birds, the rats, the mice, and the flies all wanting to feed on the stinking mass of putrefying fish flesh along the banks of the island. That is when the heavy work began. Cleaning up the mess, and floating it downstream to the eel ponds.
The longer that Raynar lived in the Frisian village the more he saw of the balance of good and bad in their life. What was good was very good, and what was bad was very bad. The fens contained food and building materials in abundance for the taking, but the cost was living with the damp. In the wet season, if it wasn't raining there was a heavy, icy fog. The sick and the frail died of the damp from fevers that filled the lungs with slimy bubbles.
The ships earned good coin at whatever they were used for, but in an instant one could be lost with all hands to storms or to raiders. They loved their children, and yet at birth the seer must decide on whether each newborn would be allowed to live. A deformed child, or one from parents who were too close in blood to have been breeding, was rarely allowed to live.
Though at first the village had seemed lush and abundant to Raynar, as he lived with them longer he saw that their way was at the whim of the gods. No, not the gods. At the whim of the Wyred sisters that wove the fates together. Most precarious of all of their ways was their learning and knowledge. This was all passed on through spoken word. There was nothing written, nothing read, nothing safely stored in scrolls. Their library was in the minds of the ealders, where it had been for centuries.
* * * * *
After all their defensive preparations, the Peterburgh Normans never did return to seek vengeance. Hereward visited the village about once a month for a gossip. The year '67 had been a hard one for the absent King William. There was news of local rebellions across the south from Dover to Exeter to Cornwall and the entire Welsh border. Dead King Harold's mother, Gytha, and two of his sons were taking cities, as were the Princes of Gwynedd, Bleddyn and Rhiwallon ap Cynfyn, with the help of a band of outlaws led by an outlawed land lord named Eadric.
Hereward was frustrated that the Northern Earls were in Normandy with William. If they had been in England, they would have supported the southern rebellions, especially the dead Harold's kin, and by now the Normans would now be abandoning their beloved battle horses and looking for ships to go back to Normandy.
While the Ea
rls were in Normandy, William's half brother, the Regent Bishop Odo, had tried to replace Morcar as the Earl of Northumbria with a warlord called Copsig, who was one of Tostig's men. That did not sit well with the Northumbrians who had hated Tostig. The news was that Copsig had quickly lost his head, and Osulf of Bamburgh immediately tried to replace him.
The gossip was that Osulf was responsible for the beheading, and that was believable because Osulf, in turn, was felled by an arrow of vengeance. Prince Cospatrick of Bernicia was now Earl of Northumbria, a title which he had bought from Odo.
Hereward’s brother, who was the local lord, had not only gained a harvest peace from the Norman sheriff in Nottingham, but that peace had now been extended until spring, or until the King returned and said otherwise. The Northern sheriffs were no longer raiding villages, and were content to keep their motte and bailey projects going, albeit more slowly. The reality was that the North was unimportant to the Normans compared to quelling the rebellions in the South.
The extended peace was good news for Klaes and his rain-sodden village. His folk were feeling safer now, and were moving from wintering on the damp island, back to their dry land village. The most important word was dry. They repaired the few roofs burned by the Normans. They retrieved their herds and flocks from the north and set them on their own pastures.
Eventually, almost all were living in the dry village despite its lack of defenses. The dry village huts were more like the wattle and daub houses of the Saxons, but larger. There were longhouses, winter houses, where many people could hide from the winter storms and keep each other amused with stories and songs and laughter through the long winter evenings. They all hoped that the peace would last until the wet season was ended and the island village was dry again.
Save for the stink of the crowding, Raynar thoroughly enjoyed spending the winter in the longhouses with these handsome and vibrant folk. They were pleasant and entertaining company with a culture rich in stories and poems and songs.
In a Saxon village, the largest house was the lord's manor. It belonged to the lord and his family, and any that shared the warmth were by his invitation. In a Frisian village the largest houses were longhouses, communal to the entire village. The large houses looked the same in both types of villages, and the function was akin, but Raynar far preferred the customs of the longhouse to those of the manor.
* * * * *
* * * * *
The Hoodsman - Frisians of the Fens by Skye Smith Copyright 2010-13
Chapter 11 - Hoodsman in the Palace, Westminster in September 1100
By morning, Gregos, the injured old Greek, was still in a deeply drugged sleep. The physician came and went without him rousing, but did not give him more drugs. He had slept enough, and by tomorrow he needed the patient awake so he could ask him of his pains, and have him pass water.
By noon, however, Gregos was awake and thinking clearly enough to talk in Greek to Raynar and Risto. He dictated the names of those who plotted against the life of King Henry to Raynar. Raynar wrote them down in Greek, letter by letter, but backwards. The effect had the look of a formidable code, however, it meant that Raynar would need to personally take the message to the Henry, as Greek was not one of Henry's tongues.
Raynar made sure that Gregos was comfortable, and then sent for Wyl as he crossed the courtyard to go to his own room. He opened one of his large chests and searched for clothing most inappropriate to a Norman palace. By the time Wyl arrived, Raynar was dressed as a forest verderer complete with hood and boots. He was wearing his sling belt, his Syrian sword, a quiver of arrows, and had a Welsh longbow slung over one shoulder. At the look of fear and anger from Wyl, Raynar reached for his best and thinnest cloak and wrapped it around him to hide the forest garb.
"Have you lost your senses Raynar?" Wyl hissed. "We have always made a point of not looking like hoodsmen around the Domus. We don't need that kind of attention."
"I will be leaving through the stables behind the Domus," spoke Raynar as he stashed a heavy purse, "for our main gate will be watched. Those watching us will be on foot. Mounted, I will leave them in my dust and reach Westminster Palace before they have time to organize horses and stop me."
"What!" Wyl said keeping his voice under tight control, "in those clothes, to the palace. The guards will not allow you entry, even if they don't spear you on sight."
"I will keep the cloak tight around me until I am past the guards," Raynar swung around to face his friend again. "But yes, that is exactly the effect I want to have. I will ask for the same clerk as with yesterday's message, and follow the same process at the palace and the audience rooms. The King will hear my words, and the words will save his life, and he will know that it was the Hood that saved his life.
What is more important, the lords in attendance in the palace will also know that the King was saved by the Hood. That message will fly through the kingdom faster than we could send it, and will reach other ears than just those of our brothers.” He smiled at his old friend. "I agree that it is brash, but do you think it foolhardy. Do you think that I should rethink it?"
Wyl was silent for a long time, and then told him, "Do it. The reigns of the two Williams are finished now, and we need their terrorism to be finished with them. Our folk need better treatment from this new king. The brothers need to be able to walk again as free men, and live with their families, and grow crops. Do it, but get thee gone before I change my mind."
Wyl walked with him to the back of the Inn's main yard and through the connecting door to the stables and the stable yard. It was also behind a high wall. While the groom saddled a sure footed pony, Raynar motioned to the junior hoodsman who was on watch on the board walk that ran along near the top of the wall. The eighteen year old hoodsman leaped down easily from the planks to stand beside him. It was the Frisian lad.
"Sikka, are you good enough with that bow of yours to hit a running man in the leg?"
The pride of the young man willed him to say yes, but the question was serious enough to be given a serious answer. "Can't say yes or no for I've never tried it, gov. Why would I want to do such a thing?"
"I am about to mount that pony and ride hell-bent to the embankment. I don't want anyone to stop me or follow me, and yet if someone does try to stop me, I don't want them mortally wounded. A leg shot would be best. Or one in the bum, so long as it is not too high. What do you think. Can you do it?"
"I'll give it a go," the lad said, and then he climbed the ladder back up to the board walk and began preparing his bow.
The pony was ready, and Raynar mounted it. The moment that the groom and Wyl swung one side of the gate open, Raynar was through it and racing towards the embankment. Luckily this cartway was a dead end and had therefore never been cobbled, which meant that the pony could fly without fear of slipping or tripping on a cobble.
A hundred paces from the gate, two men rushed out from behind a shed. One had a sword, the other a cane. The fast moving pony made for the far side of the one with the cane. The man stood ready to hit the short pony a hard one across the face with his cane, but then he saw the flash of steel as the rider drew a sword.
He turned on his heel and yelled to his partner with the sword to do something, but his partner was rolling on the ground grasping his thigh and pulling at an arrow shaft. He turned back to the pony, but it was too late. The pony had not slowed at all, and the riders boot hit his chin hard enough to break teeth. Then came a feeling like a red hot poker had been pushed through his leggings, and he looked down at the sight of blood spurting out from around an arrow shaft.
"Ahhh," Raynar yelled in pain as his ankle and knee felt the jarring from hitting a face with his boot. He didn't look back, but kept pushing the pony to keep it running. Striding ponies like this one had two paces, a striding walk that ate up miles without bouncing the rider to pieces, and a gallop that was more like the leaps of a deer than the gallop of a horse. They didn't like to gallop and would take anything as a signal to slow down.
<
br /> They swung wide around the low wall at the end of the cartway, where it met the road along the embankment, and kept up the pace until they were passed Temple Lane. He wondered if the lad had loosed any arrows. He had heard some yells of pain but was too busy keeping his saddle to look around. Once he was beyond the last of the Roman ruins, he allowed the pony to slow into a striding walk, and they reached the palace without further incident.
The cover of the cloak got him all the way to the final guard post, but there the longbow gave him away. He was ordered out of the saddle and then the guard pulled open his cloak to see what other weapons he had. As Wyl had foretold, the guards reacted badly to the verderer's clothing and the longbow. They dragged him into the guard room for questioning.
Raynar did not resist, even when they disarmed him. When an officer arrived, Raynar simply said that he had a message for Captain Henry. It was the signal that he and Henry had arranged to warn that the Domus was under attack. The effect was immediate. The officer ordered Raynar re-armed, and began issuing orders for men and horses.
Raynar calmed him, and told him that there was no attack, but that he had a message for the King's ears only. He named the treasury clerk who served Gregos, and suggested the clerk as the fitting guide to take him to the King. The captain snorted that they would need no interfering clerk.
Since he was accompanied by the captain of the guard, his passage to the audience waiting room was not blocked, despite being armed, and despite having his hood pulled forward to hide his face. He noticed that the lords who were awaiting the King's pleasure had all been disarmed and their arms were under guard in the ante chamber.
There was a sudden hush when he walked into the waiting room. Every eye was upon him. The words 'Brotherhood' and 'Hood' and 'Wolfshead' reached his ears as he passed through them. The language of this court was French, which he spoke and wrote, but today he pretended to know not a word of it.