Hoodsman: Hunting Kings

by Smith, Skye

  That night, Garth met the boat and helped him secure it in front of the hut. He looked at the crook-bow and the arrows tucked under the gunnels of the small boat, and said, "I saw you with your bow yesterday in midstream. You did not have it there to protect us, or the boat. You were watching the Normans. Do you have a blood feud with one?"

  "That I do," replied Raynar, "but I could not see the man." Raynar was hungry and wanted to walk towards the hut.

  Garth held him back and kept talking. "You go in to Aelfled, and I will sleep in my boat again. I am getting better now, and I should help more with the boats so as to rebuild my strength. You are a good man Raynar, and good for her." Garth got in the boat as Raynar got out.

  Raynar bent to push it out from the bank so that Garth would be securely surrounded by deep water. Garth laid a hand on his shoulder and whispered, "She cannot bear you a child. That is why such a fair and comely woman is still unmarried. She was to be married but she had a miscarriage before the vows were said. The midwives told her that loosing the baby had hurt her inside, and she was lucky to have survived it." He motioned Raynar to push. "You have treated us fairly, so it was only fair that you should know this."

  Raynar watched until the boat had turned in the current and tugged the anchor. He felt sick for Aelfled. She was young. She was a nurturer. She had the instincts of a healer. She was born to be a mother. She was barren. It made all of his own frustrations seem petty. He went to her, and they ate, and they loved, and his decision was made. He would stay here and keep watching and listening for news of William, and meanwhile fill Aelfled's life with as much happiness he could.

  * * * * *

  * * * * *

  THE HOODSMAN - Hunting Kings by Skye Smith

  Chapter 10 - Hunting a King, Westminster in August 1100

  Though the coronation crowds filled the highway to Westminster, the cart ride was fast, which meant bumpy. By the time Raynar dragged his tired old bones back to Hammersmith again, he was butt sore from the plank seat, and dusty from the chalky road. When the carter stopped at Hammersmith's ferry dock, the cart was swamped by people in fine clothes hoping to be passengers for Westminster. Raynar gave his seat to someone's grandmother, and he got down. His but was so sore that he would walk the rest of the way to Westminster.

  On a whim, he went to see how this morning's boatman was coming with his freshly painted punt. On the way he bought a couple of pork pies from a pretty little girl with very muddy feet and legs. People who made their living from the Thames always seemed to have muddy legs.

  "Oye, so it's you agin," was the greeting of the boatman. He was filthy from the pitch he was using to caulk the bottom of the punt. Not that the pitch itself was filthy, but it was so sticky that once you had some stuck to you, dirt also stuck to you.

  "I brought you a pie," Raynar said holding one of them up for him to see.

  "One of Mattie's?" the boatman saw him shrug. "Pretty girl with a skirt not much passed her knees and muddy legs? Good, her mom doesn't skimp on the meat. Ta, I won't refuse a good pie."

  "So ow'sit'goin'?" Raynar replied in the same London accent as the boatman. He had a talent for mimicking accents. It was a gift that had saved his life more than once.

  "Ready to test. Let's finish our pies and then since you're here you can help me to flip her and launch her."

  "Any luck renting her out?"

  "Not a chance. Look at me. I'm all sticky. No one in fine clothes wants to be rowed by someone covered in pitch."

  After enjoying the pies, they flipped the punt by using some flotsam timbers as leavers, and then used the same timbers as rollers to push it into the water. It floated, high and dry. Despite it's age, it looked quite good with its freshly painted stripes.

  "How did you come by it. This is a punt for calm and shallow waters."

  "Found it floating down the Thames, didn't I. But I agree, not a good boat for this end of the Thames. Too many waves, too deep for poling."

  They both clambered aboard to see if it stayed dry under load. "Would it make it down to the River Fleet?" The Fleet was the closest public dock to Temple Lane and Wylie's Domus Inn.

  "Definitely, well maybe, so long as there were say, only three people."

  "Would you rent her to me, ugh, without an oarsman. You can pick her up at Fleet Dock tomorrow."

  "Sorry gov. Got to work tomorrow. I'll sell her to you though."

  They settled on a price that was twice its worth, but still not much for a boat that floated, and Raynar clambered aboard and poled it into deeper water so he could use the oars. It took him a few bad strokes to get used to the clumsy oars, but then he was away, downstream towards Westminster. It was amazing how quickly the skill of rowing and poling returned to him. It was as if his body had it's own memory of the movements of a punt and adjusted immediately.

  As he got closer to Westminster, the river became busy with moving boats, and tangled with anchored ones, but in the shallow draft punt he easily moved around the larger boats because he did not need to fear running aground on a mud bank.

  In the shallows he preferred to pole the punt, because then he could stand high and see where he was going. When he rowed his head was low and his back was faced to where he was going.

  There were many boats and barges filled with people in finery, all floating down the Thames and keeping their ears pealed for the peel of bells that would tell them that the floating coronation procession was about to begin. Some boats seemed sedate and formal, and some were party barges carrying wealthy looking men and fancy looking ladies. At each barge he slowed and stood still with his pole and glided along while peering at the folks, hoping to see someone he knew.

  At one barge a page reached out and passed him a scroll, which he reached for and took, just as another page scolded the first for wasting one of their scrolls on a boatman who would not know how to read. It was their words that reminded Raynar that he had had brought a change of clothes for the Coronation. It was past time to put them on.

  To a chorus of naughty calls from the fancy women on the closest barge, he ignored his modesty and changed into his best clothes. The calls became even more naughty once he was dressed in silk and very fine wool. The women were quick to realize that he was not some impoverished boatman at all, but a man of means. Raynar smiled at the women on the barge, but the smile was empty because he was lost in thought.

  He was wearing a silk shirt on the outside today, in the Norman way. Usually he wore silk next to his skin, to save his skin from the irritation of other rough fabrics. Hereward had told him long ago that silk against skin worked like a kind of armour, by wrapping itself around any point that was pushing against the skin. Even if there was a puncture, the wound was cleaner because of the silk.

  Norman nobles all owned and wore silk, though they always wore it as outer clothing, so as to show it off, rather than hidden next to their skin where it would serve a useful purpose. Norman vanity sent barrels of English coin to the east in trade for bolts of silk. It was still rare and expensive here in England, in truth so valuable that it was never displayed in markets, so most folk had never seen it, never mind touched it.

  A Byzantine warrior's silk undershirt was one of his first battlefield prizes at the time when he first met Hereward up in Yorkshire. The canny lord had also been right to warn him about silk's wanton effect on women. It had happened many times since, that when a woman discovered his silk shirt, just the touch of it would lead her to ask if she could try it on, which would mean undressing, which would lead to a bedroom, where she would try her hardest to bargain his silk away from him.

  Due to Rufus, the finances of the kingdom were in such dire straights that silk was more expensive than ever, and women were less expensive than ever. He looked at the people on the party barge, but now instead of scanning faces, he scanned for silk. His hunch was confirmed. This was not a barge of Norman lords and ladies, but of merchants and mistresses.

  * * * * *

  The tall to
wer of the abbey at Westminster was visible up and down the river. Beginning at the Chelsea embankment, and all around the bend of the river at Westminster there were decorated barges berthed and double berthed and triple berthed. The wine flowed on the barges, as did the women. Though in the rest of England, the women wore drab respectable colors, in London the influence of the continent had made bold colors into the latest fashion.

  How different London was than the rest of the kingdom. People here were well off, and had ready coin, and clothes and food. Out in the countryside, the poverty was crushing, as was the hunger, and everywhere there was a lack of coin. It was as if London was part of some other kingdom, or perhaps a kingdom unto itself.

  The river's boatmen were doing a roaring trade ferrying folk from one bank of the Thames to the other, and along the embankment to Westminster. As a man alone poling this punt, people assumed he was a boatman and hailed him. Guards at the many docks assumed the same of him and ignored him. Even as he poled up to the royal dock at Westminster, the guards ignored him, assuming he was dropping off or picking up passengers.

  The royal barge was tied to the royal dock and the attendants standing on it were alert and waiting. The king would probably walk to this barge from the Abbey once the bells of the tower were peeling the news that he had been crowned. He poled along in the shallows until he was not thirty paces from the gangplank of the royal barge.

  The fields between the abbey and the embankment were empty of people. There was a string of guards on each side of it to make sure that no one walked into the empty area. Of course! When the abbey emptied of nobles and dignitaries, and followed the new king and his procession out of the abbey, this was the empty space reserved for them. There were more than a dozen large barges wharfed against the embankment upstream from the royal barge.

  The coronation organizers had little time to prepare so they had kept everything simple. The new king and his chosen lords and their ladies would walk out of the abbey, across the empty field where they could be seen and cheered by the crowds surrounding the abbey, now thronging behind the line of guards. Then they would walk across the gang plank in two's and three's, which was all it was wide enough for, and then be seated on the royal barge, with the king sitting in the raised throne.

  Henry had no wife, and it would be doubtful that any of his mistresses would be on the royal barge, so that was why his throne, alone, was raised up. Meanwhile all the others that had attended the abbey ceremony would then cross the now-not-so-empty field and fill the barges that were wharfed upstream.

  The royal barge would slip its lines first and be taken by the current slowly down to the White Tower. The sweeps on the barge would be for steering, for the current was strong enough to do everything else. The other dozen official barges would then slip their lines, one by one, and follow the king. The masses of boats and barges that Raynar had just passed coming from Hammersmith, had now caught up and were drifting out in mid channel with a good view of the royal barge and the empty field and the great doorway of the abbey.

  Raynar looked again at the royal gang plank. Wide enough only for passage in two's and three's. The new king would walk across alone, possibly followed by pages carrying the ends of his coronation cloak to keep it clean. His mind clicked. He had him. This was it. He should have killed Henry in Ytene Forest when he killed his brother Rufus. Wylie had even said as much.

  This was his second chance. A bow shot of merely thirty paces to kill a man who was walking alone without interference or shields or armour. And him with a Seljuk bow that had almost as much killing force as a longbow, and better accuracy at short range. He had even practiced with it today.

  He could loose two arrows before anyone even knew what was happening. A third if necessary. Then some fast poling to get the barges between him and the armed guards on the embankment. Then row hard across the river, and mingle with other boats as he did so. Land on the other side and run for it. He may even be safe on the other side before anyone gave chase. Easy. Do-able. Now.

  It would work. Henry would be as dead as Rufus, and the Norman lords of this kingdom would slaughter each other to gain each others wealth and estates. Unfortunately, that would make Robert the king for sure, but not until he reached England. He may never make it this far. It was a very dangerous route through the Italies and the eastern counties of France, especially for him, the son of William the Bastard. Besides, Robert much preferred warm sunny France to cold wet England.

  "Oye, what are you doing down there?" came a voice from up above.

  He looked up and faced a guard staring down at him from the embankment. The guard could see down into the punt and everything in it, including the bow. Ah, this then was the flaw in his plan. Keeping this position until the king arrived. Or perhaps even staying alive until the king arrived.

  "Wait where you are. I'm coming down." The guard had his sword drawn and was down to him while his words were still floating in the air. He strode through the shallows with no care for his boots in the muddy water. "You've got a bow in that boat. Give me a good reason why I shouldn't split you open with my sword?"

  The guard was speaking French, so not a guard then, but a squire. A son of a Lord taken into the king's service to earn his knighthood. He replied in his best French. "My apologies, squire. It was foolish of me. I see that now. It is a child's bow. A present for my young nephew. Would you like to see it. It is well made even if it barely launches an arrow."

  "Slowly then, pass it to me."

  Ever so slowly Raynar passed the squire the bow. The bowstring was attached but the bow was not sprung and therefore it was in its unstressed C. He watched as the squire held it and pulled at the string with his sword hand.

  The squire laughed at the weakness of the draw. "You were cheated in the market." He handed the bow back and then stared at the fresh painted stripes on the punt that matched the fresh stripes of the royal barge. He looked at the old man in the costly silk shirt, and in a voice more respectful of a wealthy elder he asked, "Now, sir, what are you doing here?"

  Raynar had to hold off on his explanation because the bells of Westminster were peeling, soon to be echoed by every bell in London, then every bell along the Thames, and eventually the bells would be echoing in every corner of the kingdom.

  After their ears became accustomed to the bells, the squire moved closer. Unknown to this squire a few other squires had walked up to look down on them. The cacophony of the bells had stopped the new ones from yelling down to them, and since the colors of the punt were right, and everything seemed to be peaceful, they walked on.

  "Sir, what are you doing here?" the squire asked again as he moved closer and spoke louder to be heard.

  Looking down into the boat, and thinking fast, Raynar picked up the scroll that the page had passed to him from a barge up river, and handed it to the squire. "I pulled over to the shallows to read this. One of the royal pages just gave it to me."

  The squire took it and unrolled it and looked at it. It was gibberish to him. This elder had said he could read. He handed it back. "It is in English. Can you read it? Can you translate it for me?"

  Raynar had put the scroll down and forgotten all about it when he had been changing into his best clothes and exchanging suggestive banter with the mistresses on the barge. The sultry ones who had watched him change and had coveted his silk shirt. He held the scroll up to the light. It was a cheap copy, and none too neat, as if it had been copied in a great hurry.

  "It is entitled A Summary of King Henry's Coronation Charter." Of course. Hurried because they would have made hundreds of copies of these within the last day or two.

  "Go on. The lords are all arguing about the charter. Go on, read it to me," said the squire.

  Although it must have seemed to the squire that he was stumbling over the letters, or over the translation, in fact Raynar was stumbling over the contents. They took his breath away.

  "It is quite long. I will tell you the main points. Ahem.

&nb
sp; * All murders done before the coronation are forgiven.

  * The Rule of Common Law is to be restored more or less back to Edward the Confessor.

  * The Forest Law is to be restored to the original of William the First.

  * All debts to the crown such as unpaid taxes are forgiven, excepting fees due on inheritance.

  * It is no longer necessary to purchase your inheritance from your lord.

  * A woman or a widow can no longer be forced into a marriage.

  * Common land can no longer be made seignorial.

  * Land can no longer be taken by force of arms.

  * Lords can no longer pay the crown to be exempt from court justice.

  * Priesthoods can no longer be bought.

  * A Priest can serve at only one church.

  Should I go on. Those are the main ones."

  The squire had to shake his head no, because his voice would not have been heard over the approaching blare of trumpets. Instead the squire made it clear with his arms, that the punt must be moved away and soon, and then he hurriedly backed out of the ooze, and looked with dismay at his fouled boots. At the next blare he climbed back up the embankment to regain his post.

  The loud murmur of voices from the barge bespoke that the king was almost upon them. Then the voices went suddenly quiet, a sure sign that the king had arrived on the dock. Raynar looked down at the bow. All he must do is bend and pick it up, then press it into shape over his knee and position the bowstring to hold the tension, then nock one of the killing arrows and shoot. The time was now. Do it now.

  The gangplank was bouncing. Do it now. Pick up the bow.

  Costly fabric dyed royal purple came into sight. The king was in view, an open target, thirty paces away. Pick up the bow.

  He couldn't. He could not kill Henry because then his Coronation Charter would not be enacted. The first three items of the charter, alone, would mean that all of the hoodsmen who were outlawed or in hiding could go back to their families and stop living rough in the forests. His mind was in a turmoil.