Hoodsman: Hunting Kings

by Smith, Skye

  He looked again at the scroll, and again at her naughty smile, and wondered if he had understood her correctly. He took a deep breath and wondered how to confirm her offer without insulting her if he was mistaken.

  Misreading his delay, she loosened her bodice laces and her neckline to the point where her cleavage became as deep as could be, without her actually falling out of her bodice. The view was spectacular. Her intentions were now quite clear and feeling as joyous as he did, and ready to celebrate, he could not bring himself to refuse her offer of devotions, so he counted out the silver coins into her hand.

  She reached around and poured some sacramental wine into a holy chalice, and kneeled down with the chalice and a cloth in one hand. She tugged at the laces of his fine woolen hose and pulled it down, and then washed him carefully with the wine, and dried him with the cloth, and even that was so erotic that Raynar was already moaning softly.

  After her first few kisses and licks, she looked up at him and said in a sultry voice, "You can have all of me, if I can wear your silk shirt while we do it."

  How could he refuse, but he first cautioned her, "I may look old to someone as young as you, but my seed is still fertile. Are you sure of this?"

  Her bodice was already off, and she was pushing her skirts to the ground when she replied. "Gladwin is off without me at the coronation with his Bishop and they will feast and drink into the night. He will return in his cups and it will be easy for me to make him forget that he is a priest. I will trick him into doing me like a woman instead of like an alter boy. If he brings the Bishop back with him, so much the better. If I gain a child, I will gain a pension for the rest of my life."

  She helped him out of his shirt, and then wriggled into it and began to rub it against her rosy young skin. What was it about the jiggle of young breasts under silk? He was about to complement her by saying that she could seduce a bishop, but didn't because hadn't she just admitted that.

  She led him towards the couch on the other side of the table. "Is this couch alright?" she asked. "I am the only one here, and the doors are bolted, so if you want we could do it anywhere. Ooh, I know, how about behind the church's alter."

  While he was saying over and over that the couch was good, she was pulling him out of the room and down between the pews towards the alter. Though Raynar could never be a Christian, he still respected other peoples religions, and this just did not feel right.

  In the way of the Romanized churches, there were many idols staring at him, including the largest one of the Christian's fertility goddess, Mary. He stopped feeling guilty. Perhaps this was how Christian women made offerings to Mary.

  While she was leaning forward over the alter table, and arching her back, and wiggling her lovely bottom at him, he was looking around at the inside of the church. There was much gilt paint but no actual gold or silver. "This must be a wealthy parish," he said bringing his gaze back to this wonderful woman and the alter beyond her. "and yet the crucifix on the alter is iron."

  She misunderstood and thought that he wanted her to hold onto the crucifix while they were 'worshipping'. His words eventually made it through her wanton desire, her desire to completely cuckold her priest-master in every way.

  "Oh, it's the same in all the churches now," she told him. "The old king, Rufus, stole everything in the name of taxes. The church hated him, and he hated the church. That is why all the priests are celebrating his death."

  "And they think this will stop under the new king, Henry?"

  "Why do you think the priests are already calling him Beauclerc. He was trained for the priesthood, not the battlefield. The churches will thrive under him, you see if they won't." With that she put a finger to his mouth to shush him and she turned and arched her back again. "Now take me, I am ready, oh so ready."

  Two hours later, after she had blasphemed with him all about the church, and after she had forced him to pay an extra shilling just so she would peel out of his silk shirt and return it to him, he was finally allowed to leave the church with his overpriced scroll. She was a woman with a great appetite for pleasure, and he wondered if Master Gladwin appreciated what a jewel she was.

  As he entered Temple Lane again, he was still smirking from ear to ear. It occurred to him that the woman had used him as a form of revenge against her master. He hadn't been the object of revenge sex since the last time he visited Paris. He had forgotten how urgently, breathlessly, wonderful it could be.

  As he continued his leisurely walk back to the Domus, he whistled a happy tune. Wyl hopped down from the roof to open the gate for him and asked him a flurry of questions such as, "Where have you been? So it is good news then? The charter sounds true?" to which he could do nothing but blush. He hadn't given politics a thought for two hours, and had not opened the charter since he had paid for it.

  He forced himself to first wash the scent of the woman from him, and eat something that would fill his stomach instead of his senses, and various other necessities. Within the hour he was sitting on the comfortable couch outside Wyl's quarters, while reading the full version of the Coronation Charter. After wading though half of it, he sat back against the wall and breathed deeply and then motioned to one of the busy orderlies. "Please ask Master Wylie to join me and to bring us some of his private wine."

  Wyl arrived with the wine and two chalices and once he was sat comfortably, Raynar announced that the charter summary said it all. Raynar read the summary version of the Charter out loud, and turned each of the fourteen points into a toast to the death of Rufus. After the last toast, and the last of the wine, Raynar looked at his friend and said "Wyl, the brotherhood must be told, and told quickly. This charter is a once in a life time chance for many of them."

  Wyl could not help his ear to ear smile. "Not only tell them but have a huge feast with ale and stories into the night."

  "Let us not celebrate to soon, Wyl," warned Raynar, "The brotherhood must be told of the charter and how it will effect them, but they must also be warned that these are still just promises. The charter is not yet the law, and any of its promises may be withdrawn. Even if the charter is enacted as is, the Forest Law is not revoked, but just softened to dissolve the Forest Courts and their extreme penalties."

  "In the meantime," Wyl pointed out "the brotherhood must still be warned not to commit any new crimes, or any new acts of vengeance until we know more."

  "As usual you are right. I curse that most of our brothers cannot read." replied Raynar holding up the summary, "for this is a long and difficult message for someone to pass along from memory. I will make up a shorter version to send out and I'll have a scribe make many copies of it. At least that way, if a messenger's memory fails, any other scribe will be able to refresh his memory."

  "Raynar," Wyl had calmed himself, and was now smiling, but with teary eyes, "If Henry makes good on these promises then many of the brotherhood will no longer be outlaws. They can have normal lives again, live with their families, and make a fresh start."

  Raynar winked at Wyl, "Now you see my wisdom in not killing Henry in the forest with Rufus. With this charter Henry has even forgiven me for killing Rufus." He decided not to tell his old friend that a few hours ago, on the gang plank of the royal barge at Westminster embankment, Henry had been but a moment away from death.

  For the rest of the afternoon they busied themselves with interpreting the meaning of the charter from a hoodsman’s point of view.

  If all murders done before the coronation are forgiven, then the hoodsmen must not commit any more murders while they wait for the enactment. Thinking about this made Raynar realize that Henry must be a very wise man for his thirty two years. If it took three months to enact or dismiss the charter, then for those three months there would be very few new murders of any kind in the entire kingdom.

  With the cycle of murder, and revenge for murder, and murder from fear of being murdered completely interrupted, there would be three months of peace in the kingdom. The first peace since before Rufus w
as crowned thirteen years ago.

  With the restoration of not just Knut's in-common law, but also the rule of law, then the folk moots and judgement by peers would re-appear. Bearing witness would mean something again. Penalties would return to their historical balance, rather than being used to terrorize the folk into doing whatever the Norman lords commanded.

  That the Forest Law was not revoked was a disappointment, but at least the vicious Forest Courts would be replaced by folk moots. The Forest Law was created by William the Bastard as legal trickery to seize all wild 'in-common' lands and make him their owner. Even if it were to be revoked in the future, it would take years of local hearings across the kingdom to undo the seizing of the land.

  There was room for legal trickery in the forgiving of debts to the crown. It was only the lords who paid taxes to the crown, though the lords collected what they needed from the folk. Would the lords pass on this generosity. It was not in the nature of Normans to be generous to their folk.

  As for the promises about inheritance, well, those were more well meaning words that would lend themselves to legal trickery. Other than the lords, only freemen inherited and most of them no longer lived on the land, but in towns and chartered boroughs. Still, if there was a future for freemen who wanted to go back to farming, then this would help them.

  The promise that women could no longer be forced into marriage was a vindication of the Hood's ongoing threat to kill any knight that raped a still grieving widows solely to gain her land. Of course, unless there were men willing to defend a woman's honor, what could the woman herself do about it. All they could hope for is that the restored moots used the restored rule of law to protect this restored right of English women.

  The promise that in-common land could no longer be made seignorial was more proof that Henry was wise. Although there was little in-common land left in the well populated shires due to the Forest Law, along England's troubled borders there was much. This promise would rally the border folk towards Henry and away from the powerful barons who treated the border shires like their own principalities.

  The promise that land could no longer be taken by force of arms was well meaning, but since most folk no longer owned their farms, it was a promise aimed at lords. Again Henry's wisdom was evident. Possession of land, by itself, would no longer prove ownership in court or under the rule of law. It meant that lords could stop fearing their neighbors and make peace. Peace and more peace, seemed to be the aim of this charter.

  The promise that lords could no longer pay to stay out of court, when combined with the restoration of the rule of law, was a mighty promise. And mighty risky. Lords would no longer be above the law and they would fear and hate that. Hate it enough to seriously discuss ending Henry's rule abruptly, with an arrow, or a dagger, or poison.

  As for the promise to reign in the corrupt priesthood; few hoodsmen were Christian, never mind Roman Christian. Wylie railed on about the corruption of priests, but Raynar sat with a smirk on his face dreaming about a certain priest's mistress.

  In the end after much discussion, the first message to be sent out to hoodsmen across the kingdom was not complex at all. It was just a few statements of common sense.

  "The Coronation Charter of the new king promises a return to in-common law for all. He has promised to forgive all murders and taxes from before his coronation. Stay hidden, stay wary, keep the peace, and take no more vengeance until the king turns his promises into law, and we again have folk moots."

  It was so short that they didn't need to use scribes to create copies, and they needn't worry about it being too difficult for the messengers to remember. As fast as Raynar could create the copies, Wyl was giving them to his young male orderlies, all of whom were related to hoodsmen, and hurrying them off to visit their relatives.

  One message to one hoodsman would become five messages to other hoodsmen, and from each of them to another five, so that the message would spread from twenty to a hundred, then to five hundred, and then thousands, and all of this within the time it would take one rider to reach a far corner of the kingdom. A week, or a fortnight at the most.

  It was once the messages were sent, and Wyl and Raynar were sitting feeling smug and happy with yet another bottle of French wine, that the gate watch announced the return of Master Gregos, and his protector Risto.

  Risto was first to find them, and looked formidable indeed with two expensive swords hung from his belt. "Here, I no longer need this Syrian blade, Raynar," Risto, with his lack of English or English manners often said please, but rarely thank you. "See, I have borrowed this Salamancan blade from my Embassy," and as he said it he drew his new blade with a flourish and laid it on the table for them both to admire."

  Raynar reached for his old Syrian friend and felt its light weight in his hand, so different from the heft of Norman and English blades. "So Risto, did you enjoy the coronation?"

  "Aye, I did, for we had places on the second barge, and I had a most respectable wife on one side of me who I will surely meet again, hopefully at a more private time and a more comfortable place. I saw you in your funny looking little raft moving ahead of us in the wake of the royal barge. What was that all about?"

  Wyl gave Raynar a hard stare, and Raynar evaded his eyes. "I was returning from delivering our rented ponies back to their owner. The roads were at an impasse through Westminster, so I traveled that stretch by boat. What can I say. The barges were filled with lavishly dressed women. I would have been a fool not to float along beside them and take in the view."

  Though this reply turned Wyl's smile down into a deep frown, it made Risto grin from ear to ear in empathy with his own lusty thoughts. "Here, pour me some of that wine. Don't bother waiting for Gregos. He is exhausted and gone straight to his bed. He asks that you go to him soon, before he falls asleep."

  Raynar left Risto telling Wylie of the size of the bosom on the wife he had sat beside. He strolled through the interconnected courtyards of the Domus and to his own room. Gregos was already out of his borrowed finery, and lying in his nightshirt on the bed.

  "Raynar, thank you for coming." Gregos greeted him in Greek. "I have spent a most interesting day in the company of my ambassador, or rather despite the company of my ambassador, for the man is a peacock in both dress and brain power.

  I did, however, have a long discussion with one of King Henry's councilors, the one who had just been given the task of enforcing the laws of weights and measures. He is most worried about the state of the coins and the men who mint them. Anyway, he has promised to gain me an audience with your new king, this week if possible, perhaps even tomorrow."

  Raynar raised an eyebrow to the news. For a man who was humble in habits and lifestyle, Gregos was a source of constant surprises. He knew there would be more to this news if he kept still and quiet. And there was.

  "The kingdom is at the edge of a financial cliff. The transportable wealth of England has been sent to fund foreign wars. With the scarcity of good coins, the markets are running on barter and credit. The jewelers and minters are charging usurious rates to everyone. Not only to those who trade, and those in trade, but even to the lords and governors, and to the crown itself. I, as you probably know, was the person who the Caliph called upon to clean up the mess in the Caliphate's finances when he first came to power."

  Raynar had not known this but he nodded as if he had.

  "Before I meet with the king I need you to give me the eagle's point of view of what has happened in this kingdom to create such a mess."

  Raynar sat on the edge of the bed, and helped himself to a pot of ale from the flagon beside the bed, and sipped and thought before he spoke.

  "It all began in 1066. Do you remember the year 1066? It was a year that folks in Norway, Denmark, England and Normandy will never forget, but I am willing to wager that you remember it in Al-Andalus as well?" asked Raynar and while he waited for a response, he took a sip of ale to clear the dryness from his throat.

  "No," replied Gregos
, "I don't recall any significance to the year."

  "Ah but Gregos you must. That was the year that the Star of Bethlehem traveled through the heavens again. When the world did not end at the change of the millennia in 1001, the doomsayer Christians blamed a well known error in the calendar. Sixty five years later, in '66, the Star of Bethlehem was threatening to crash to earth, and the doomsayer's were praying to it. You must remember the star. All you had to do was look up in the sky. It was there for months. Some called it the Hairy Star or the Comet Star."

  "Of course, yes I do remember the Moon Star. It was the sign from the heavens that launched the Seljuk Turks across the Byzantine borders. It was the year that Al-Andalus was first attacked by El Cid of Aragon. We have fought a loosing battle against those northern barbarians ever since. The old Caliph took it for a sign that the gods were angry with us for butchering the Jews in Grenada."

  "Well it was a year of prophesies of doom here in England, and they mostly came true," Raynar took another swig, "I was so young and innocent that I thought the star as something wonderful. I lived in the highlands and it was like having more moonlight, but every night. There was no church near the Porter Glade where I grew up, but the priests were frightened the folk with it, to fill their churches. Everyone put off weddings, and business, and other plans, and got drunk every night while they waited for the end of time. The only thing that was not put off was the pilgrimages. Old folk with coin in their pockets were crowding the pilgrimage routes.

  Meanwhile I walked the porterway loaded with lead. The churches were spending their new wealth from the suddenly full churches on new roofs. I ate well and I lived well. I had just been taught what women were all about, so I was looking at the widows who lived around me in a very non-motherly way.

  Looking backwards now, I can explain what happened to this kingdom in 1066, but in 1066 I had no idea. The folk in England were having a long run of good harvests and mild weather. There was a lot of work and a lot of coin to be earned. The kingdom was humming along and still benefiting from the good changes that Knut the Great had made all around his North Sea empire."