by Smith, Skye
John went to see about the cart, and as soon as it was ready and sitting in front of the house, the women and children came out of the house. For the first time ever, Raynar saw his two sons. They were as alike as twins, though each was from a different sister.
His first thought was that they looked nothing like him, but then they did not look like their husbands either. They still had baby fat in their faces, so the contours were not yet showing. They were pushing three now, and had that mischievous energy that exhausts mothers.
Two hours later Raynar was again telling of the Dead and Bed policy, and of old Hugh's wishes, but this time to the brother. It turned out that he was an ealder with the local court. They left the women in the house, and together went to talk to his huscarl and his farm workers. Raynar was urged to tell the longer version of all the facts including a more detailed explanation of the legality. By the end of Raynar's words, the brother was fuming at the perversion of English common law.
In attempt to calm him down, Raynar told him, "Sire, this year the Normans are still busy taking the land of lords who are already dead. Your lands are safe, for now, so long as you don't bring yourself to their attention. By making trouble for them, you risk having a fatal accident. Then your own widow will become fair game for some Norman knight.
The best action you can take is to fore warn all of the land lords and all of the rich widows. If the widows and children are safe from violence, then even if the Normans grab their land through escheat, they can submit a petition and claim title after a year and a day."
"Be honest Raynar," said the lord, "Do you believe for one moment that an English petition to a Norman controlled court will win."
"Sire, I am a peasant without land," replied Raynar, "To me what is most important is the safety of the innocent, not the safety of the land. The petition is a different battle for a different day. Things are quickly changing, and the future is not ours to see."
John and Raynar were invited to stay for supper, and to stay the night. It was not from politeness. The lord and the huscarls wanted to hear the stories of the battles, and the news from the south. What could they do but stay.
During the cleaning break, when the great hall was being cleared of food, and the women were leaving to make way for other men who would hear the stories, Sonja dragged Raynar upstairs to the manor's private quarters. The children were being put to bed in the children's room.
The two sons were already asleep. Sonja pulled him into the room to watch them sleep. They were fair haired and rosy cheeked and curled together in their bed like two robins in a nest. Sonja whispered into his ear, "So now do you believe me? I told you no lies that last day at the river pool. They are both yours."
Britta came closer so she could add her whispers. "Don't they look like twins. That is how we got away with it with our husbands. That is how we planned it. We knew that if our husbands, the lord and his son, saw they were like twins, then they would accept them immediately as being of their blood. Men are such fools."
Sonja snuggled closer to him. "You must promise to never tell them, or Marion, or John, or anyone. You can visit them. They can visit you. You can teach them, but no one must ever suspect that they are not Sweynson's. That knowledge would hinder their petition for their inheritance."
Raynar took Sonja into his arms and kissed her forehead. "It will be as you wish." Britta moved closer and joined the hug. The three of them hugged and swayed and looked down at the two cute robins and no one wanted to break the magic. Eventually it was the sound of approaching footsteps that pushed them apart, but they were still looking flushed and dreamy when the Lady of the Manor walked in.
"Raynar," she announced, "they are looking for you in the great hall. Please tell my husband that we women will not be joining him this evening, in order that they can start the men's stories earlier."
The men all slept in the great hall that night. There was no sense in leaving as it was almost dawn before Raynar was too hoarse to continue talking. The kitchen staff woke them with steaming bowls of porridge at the very same benches where they had guzzled the lord's ale. It didn't take much to convince the two lads to stay another night.
* * * * *
That second afternoon, while John was proving to the huscarls that no one but he could use his bow, Raynar took a hike to see if he could find the trail down the ridge to the river pools below. The many trails through the fields of long grass and the scrubby bush, made for many false starts.
It was when he heard a woman's voice, faint on the breeze, that he found a trail to the top of Stanage rise and followed it to be close to the edge and there he saw Sonja. She was standing on top of one of the giant split boulders that made up the edge. She was forward on it so far that another step and she would be over the cliff to her doom. With her arms spread like the wings of a bird in the wind, she was singing to the heavens.
He stopped still behind her and out of her sight, and watched the lovely young mother for the full length of her devotion to the goddess. It was a scene as described in legends. The tall stones, the comely woman, the fabric of the dress stretched against her curves by the wind, her long fair hair floating behind her. He could not hail her, for he feared frightening her into losing her balance.
She did not see him until she was scrambling down the back of the giant stones to gain the bank of soil behind them. Then he called to her. "You are a fool Sonja. Not a day after we place you safely in your brother's house, you flaunt yourself on Stanage Edge so that the whole valley below will know that you are here alone and unprotected."
"It is Britta who is the widow, not me, not yet," she replied stiffly. "Why are you here. Are you spying on me, or just eavesdropping on the prayers of a woman."
"I came looking for the trail down to the pools. You know, 'those' pools," he said pools twice to remind her of the tryst they had enjoyed while bathing at the pools, not once, but many times three summers ago.
She pointed south along the edge. "The trail down is that way two miles, on my husband's land, not my brother's."
"I know. I got distracted by your song, and the vision of you standing like a goddess on the edge."
"Which goddess?" she asked. She knew he was a porter who worked for an Abbey. He should be a good Christian. What would he know of goddesses.
"My goddess," he replied, "you." He held his hand out and grasped hers to help her to leap down from the final stone. Then he held tight to steady her after she landed. Even once she had her footing, he did not let her hand go. Instead he used it to draw her into his arms. They stood there swaying in the sun and the wind and felt each others chests swelling with each breath. The view of the peaks from here was spectacular. It was a choice place to talk to a goddess.
"I was singing to my mother," she whispered. "She died here, you know, in a sudden ice storm, while trying to save our sheep. At the time I wanted to build her funeral pyre here, right here, at the edge. My father was bullied by the priests into paying to have her buried under Christian blessed soil where her flesh would rot and her spirit would moulder underground. He was out of his mind with grief at the time, and he has regretted the decision ever since."
She took him by the hand and led him to some soft spring grass that was ringed by bushes and out of the wind. He looked into her eyes. They were not blinking. The pupils were huge. "Are you still with the goddess?" he asked, wondering, willing to believe any answer that she gave. Living with healers in a sheltered glade in the peaks had taught him that women sometimes had visitations.
"Rancid rye oil," she explained. "Old stock that's only use is for oiling furniture. I was using it to oil the staves of our brooms to stop them from splitting, but I must have touched my mouth with my fingers. It has happened to me before, so I recognized the feeling and was not afraid.
It can be quite frightening. You see dream visions when you close your eyes, and when they are open you see everything as if you were looking through a crystal. You must know how my eyes are seeing
right now. You always wear that healer's crystal around your neck. You must often look through it."
"I have heard of this thing with rye oil. All bowmen have, for we use the same oil on our bows, but it has never happened to me. So the visions happen when the oil touches your mouth?"
"Lips, tongue, the inside of the nose, any place with inside-outside flesh. A touch can be magical, but a few drops could be poisonous so never drink it or cook with it. It can destroy your mind. With me, when it happens, I seek the outside away from others, and I seek a view."
She sat in the soft green grass of spring and picked wild flowers from the rings of them growing in the grass. When he sat beside her, she turned to him and kissed him, an ever so gentle fairie kiss, but on the lips.
"Are you still seeing as if through a crystal?"
"Yes, and there is music in my head." she replied softly, and kissed him again.
"Do you want to be with the goddess again?"
"It is too late," she replied. "Already the feeling of the Rye Oil is leaving me."
"Lie back in the grass and let me put you back with your goddess," he said. Once she was laying on her back, he pushed her skirts out of the way and began to kiss the inside of her thighs. She moaned and grabbed his hair with both hands and pulled his face closer into her.
After she was done, she was so happy that he did not try to mount her, but just let her relax until she was less sensitive. He was moving his hand ever so slowly, but not touching her. She felt a glowing warm tingle between her legs and more and more of her was feeling it. The tingling sensation became stronger, more like a vibration as if it were a sound that she could not hear, just feel.
Now it was spreading up through her womb and into her chest, and she could hear herself moaning, and the moans were vibrating, and the grass around her was sparking green and the leaves around her were outlined in white, and the sky, the sky, oooooooh. She was flying, flying in the sky, flying with the birds.
Raynar pulled his hand further away, so that she would not touch it, and thereby stop the 'healing nontouch'. She was in ecstasy now. When her muscles relaxed again, she would feel the goddess inside of her. All this as Gwyn had taught him only three days ago.
Sonja was in the goddess state now. Gwyn had told him that in such a state her mind left her body and floated above the ground and she could hear the voices of the spirits that were in every living thing. Now that Sonja was in this state, his only role was to make sure that she came to no harm.
Sonja was pulling at her clothes, irritated by their feel, their touch, and so he helped her out of them. Naked she crawled through the soft grass sniffing at the wild flowers and talking to any butterflies or bees that she met. She stood and began to twirl about slowly, looking out over the views of the peaks. Then she twirled faster and faster, all the while laughing, and he caught her before she could fall.
She acted as if he had appeared out of nowhere. She pushed him back down into the soft grass, and sat on him and pinned him down with her hands pushing on his shoulders. He looked up at her, all blushing flesh and curves and wild hair and that knowing smile. She was magnificent. A goddess.
And then he became afraid. Nothing like this had happened with Gwyn. She had just laid on her back, seemingly asleep but making slow writhing movements and talking to the spirits. This different energy that Sonja was feeling, must be from the rye oil.
"Shh," she said softly and let him sit up. "Take of your clothes so that I can feel your skin against mine."
He did as she asked, and when he was as naked as she, she pulled him to her and began to rub her skin all over his. The effect of such erotic rubbing was immediate, and she pushed him back down on the soft grass and had her way with him. Once he was done for, she rolled off him and lay in the grass, as if asleep, only she was speaking to someone in a very soft voice.
He watched her and tried to remember the words that Gwyn's mother had seethed at him just days ago. What had she said. "He is a man, a comely man, so of course he will abuse it." He sighed. Was what he had just done to Sonja, abuse?
Afterwards they walked slowly and arm in arm for most of the way back to the house. When they were close to the house she asked him to go to the barn, not the house, and then she let go of him and hurried ahead alone. She disappeared into the house without looking back. The men in the barn all gathered around him, urging him to tell more stories.
The next morning, a late morning after another night of stories and songs and ale, John and he begged their leave of the lord, and shouldered their weapons to go. In public they could not hug the two sisters goodbye, but they each gave long hugs to Marion to pass on to her mother and her aunt.
Raynar's last words before following John out of the gate were aimed at both Sonja and Britta. "You must stay in your brother's manor. Go anywhere else and you may be abducted. No markets, no walks along the edge, no bathing in river pools, no working in the meadows. You stay in this house, or at least closeby. Do you understand?"
The two sisters said nothing, they did not even nod, but their brother said, "I will make sure of it."
* * * * *
* * * * *
THE HOODSMAN - Hunting Kings by Skye Smith
Chapter 18 - The Fairie and the Giant, Nottinghamshire in May 1067
Running archery matches at village fetes was more like play than work. They had just packed up from holding their first match at their first fete and had moved the cart to a place that a local had told them of. It was a lovely glen with a fresh forest stream and a bathing pool, so they went no further, and set up camp.
'They' meaning young Raynar, John, and Gwyn. John had convinced his dad that this was the best way to sell their last load of metal arrow points for a profit. Thus the cart was heavy with the barrels of shaped metal. Gwyn had convinced Raynar that the peak's medicinal herbs would sell well at the fetes, especially the one that helped women escape pregnancy. Besides, her mother was still making her life miserable at home over her showing him how to bring forth the goddess.
At their first fete, a friendly tinker had told them that the village fete's around here were all on different days and he told them the village names and the dates. There were a half dozen merchants with carts that followed the string of fetes throughout the season.
The archery match at the first fete was not well attended because no one knew ahead of time that there would be a match. Afterwards they had all agreed that John must go ahead to the next village to spread the word that there would be an archery match. He must meet with the elders to organize the field, and set the rules of the match so that the word could spread to the surrounding farms.
John was a head taller than a tall man, and a shoulder wider, and his upper arm had the muscles of a normal man's thigh. This meant he was always noticed, and was always treated with great politeness in an alehouse. He had a pleasant but big voice that a town crier would envy, and this he would use to call the news of the match as he walked to the next village.
Unfortunately John always looked a bit like an ogre. Not just because he was so big, and had a grizzled beard, but because he was always so grimy. Honest grime from his profession at the forge, for sure, but sometimes quite frightening to behold.
Raynar watched his two friends across the forest pool from where he was sitting. Gwyn had scrubbed at John for an hour, cleaning the ground in forge soot from his arms and legs and hands and face. Now she was cutting his hair and beard, and trying her best to make him look less like an ogre.
It was breathlessly funny to watch Gwyn, who was small and wiry with the whitest skin and the darkest hair in the Welsh way, scrubbing and scolding the huge blonde John as if he were a dirty child. It was late spring and the sun and air were warm enough that there was no hurry to their bathing, which was a good thing as John's skin had probably not been scrubbed at all during the winter.
It was so funny that Raynar had almost drowned while he was watching Gwyn clean John. He had started to belly laugh at the sight, a
nd so John splashed him, but the splash caught him just as he was gasping for breath, and he had swallowed half the pool by the time he found his feet and caught a breath again.
Gwyn, though small, was a formidable lass of the same years as the lads, so therefore much older. She knew the ways of women and of men. She had a healers touch, but more, she had a healers knowledge of sickness and wounds and plants and roots and balms and salves. She and her mother had been at the Porters Glade almost from it's beginning, as her Welsh father had been injured in a mining accident about four years after the accident that crippled Raynar's father.
Unlike most of the Welsh miner's wives, when Gwyn's mother had been widowed, she had not returned to Wales and her kin. She viewed the glade as a hospital or a healing spa, and took charge of the other sick and injured miners. Gwyn had learned healing from her mother at the bedsides, while Raynar was learning of sheep in the high country, or becoming a man on the Hope Valley Porterway.
Gwyn and Raynar were friends and sometimes lovers, and they were as kin to each other. She had forced Raynar to teach her letters and numbers so she could serve as the factor of the glade during Raynar's absences. Now he watched her as she teased John sexually. John was not just big of arm and leg. He was hung like a mule, and Gwyn was spending much too much time cleaning his sex.
"You must be careful with this shaft of yours, John dear," she said as she realized she needed two of her dainty hands to measure its girth. "In Wales, a warrior names his sword so that the bards can sing of them. This horses cock of yours deserves such a name." She rubbed it pretending it was still dirty. "The Prince of Gwynedd's sword is called Widowmaker. I think I shall call this reward stick of yours Widowpleaser."