After performing several knee bends and back stretches to loosen his muscles after four days of riding Alan entered the luxuriously-appointed stone-built Hall, ordered the water in the large wooden tun barrel in the bathing house to be heated and wolfed down a meal of pork stew. An hour later he was soaking in the warm water, bathing properly for the first time in a month and allowing the warm water to loosen his tired muscles.
That evening Alan spent time with Faran receiving reports on progress in his several estates in the Hundred and issuing instructions. On the morrow he would ride to Great Bentley in the morning to view the progress of the horse-stud and in the afternoon see Toland the Thorrington headman and his assistant Erian.
Alan was up before the dawn, broke his fast and arrived at Great Bentley not long after dawn after a short ride. As with all horse-training establishments, activity was by that hour already in full swing. Alan discussed progress of the stud with stud-master Brunloc and the Norman horse-trainer William of Amiens, and was delighted to hear that the spring foaling was now complete with the addition of 74 new foals, both here and at the original establishment at Ramsey. The latter remained under the stern hand of the aged expert stud-master Roweson, who continued to keep a close eye on his former apprentice in the operation of the new stud at Great Bentley. These foals would in three years time be available and trained to either replace losses amongst the horses currently used by Alan’s men or to be sold at the horse markets of London, Winchester and Colchester. Specially bred and war-trained horses were almost unknown in England and each horse would bring a price that itself would more than cover the very high wages that Alan paid William the horse-trainer for his specialist services.
The mid-day meal was eaten leisurely in the company of Toland and Erian, who reported social and economic news of the village. Being spring there were a number of marriages to be celebrated, in some cases as a matter of urgency to ensure the nuptials were finalised before the birth of a child. There had been several deaths, and more births. The astarting of the woodlands to increase arable land had progressed well. There had been damage to the salt-pans in the winter storms and Alan was advised the repair work had already been completed to correct this.
The following day Alan, Leof and a ten-strong party of mounted huscarles led by Ranulf, who had all been left behind when the others marched on the northern campaign, rode south for London, covering the nearly seventy mile ride in a little over nine hours including meal stops. Alan had spent so much time on horseback over the last few weeks he was beginning to think he had forgotten how to use his legs and that his backside had died and gone to hell. The last couple of miles passing through the crowded city streets of London had been frustratingly slow with pedestrians, carts and wagons moving at a snail’s pace and road traffic being forced to trickle through narrow gaps between vendor’s stalls and the crowds of customers they attracted.
Arriving at Holebourn Bridge Alan dismounted from the rouncey he had ridden, handed the animal over to the stableboy Tiw, and then strode into the Hall. Anne was sitting in the Hall with Bjorn, the captain of the merchant cog Zeelandt which was owned by Alan and Anne. The huge old man with shaggy hair, beard, following moustache and twinkling bright blue eyes, watched as Anne, with an exclamation of delight, rose to kiss and hug her husband. After a long lingering kiss Alan turned towards the old Viking sea-captain, his arm around Anne’s shoulders tucking him in to her side. “God Hael, Bjorn! You are still alive I see, you old sea-pirate. How went the voyage?”
Bjorn snorted in feigned disgust at the defamatory, but formerly true, appellation of ‘pirate’. After a sip of ale while Alan and Anne were seating themselves together on a padded bench he replied, “Well enough, you young whippersnapper. I had to use those big cross-bows of yours on a pirate out of Guernsey. He must have been a new man and not heard about us. He never will now! I must get the men to practice more, it took over a dozen shots at less than a hundred paces to set him on fire using those fire-arrows of yours.” He was referring to Alan having placed a small ballista aboard the ship, mounted aft, and the special bolts he had fashioned that each carried a pint of incendiary material akin to Greek Fire, and which he now kept a close secret. Bjorn continued, “And then, damn me, on the return off Finistere we get becalmed and the tide nearly takes us onto the Penmark Rocks, just out from Quimper. You could see the crabs on the rocks waving to us by the time the lads used the oars to sweep us clear. I nearly shat my pants! How have you spent your spring?”
Despite Alan’s homecoming a simple though filling meal was served, there still being two days remaining in Lent and Anne being religiously observant. This comprised a Barnacle Goose pie, not considered to be meat as it was believed to reproduce from barnacles. Alan spent an hour or so describing the northern expedition and his part in it. “So apart from killing a few guards and a few men who were probably spies, my men did very little. The only fighting that happened was slaughtering a few rebels in York, men who had been too drunk or too stupid to run away, and we were asleep miles away at the time,” he concluded.
“So nothing was resolved?” asked Anne.
“Not so you would notice,” replied Alan. “York was retaken, which was necessary as whoever controls York controls the gateway south to the Midlands. The king wasn’t able to bring the rebels to battle. The leaders fled back to Scotland or overseas. There are virtually no towns in the north to take or hold and the push towards Durham was defeated by the weather- or some are saying by divine intervention.”
“I’ve heard that after Eastertide the queen and most of the ladies of the court will be returning to their family and friends in Normandy and the queen will visit her family in Flanders,” said Anne.
“Hmm,” replied Alan thoughtfully. “While the king has a strong grip on the duchy, we Normans are always a fractious lot and given to internal brawling. That’s why the king returns to Normandy each summer to sort out those arguments. Flanders is no longer quite as friendly as it was before. Philip of France is just old enough to think he needs to do something to show off his prowess, and the Angevins have resolved their civil war with Geoffrey le Barbu fighting his brother Fulk, and Geoffrey being the loser and being imprisoned last year. Fulk le Rechin would be more than happy to try to assume William’s overlordship of Brittany and Maine and try to recover some of the land and influence his duchy lost during Geoffrey’s reign.”
“It’s like a barrel of tar being put on a smoldering fire,” commented Bjorn. “The smoldering fire can be contained and the barrel of tar is in itself harmless. But when the tar boils the barrel will explode and the conflagration will burn down the house. At the moment the tar is heating and starting to bubble.” He took a gulp of ale and continued. “Talking about tar, I met a Norwegian merchant when I was in Bordeaux. He told me that last month he tried to buy Stockholm tar in Denmark. None was available for love or money. The Danes had bought every barrel available.” Bjorn noticed the frown and look of incomprehension on Alan’s face. With a sigh he continued, “It’s easy to see you aren’t a sailor, boy. The Danes have suddenly decided to refit their fleet. All of the ships at the same time. The captains of their longboats are all very independent-minded men. Why would they all decide to do that at the same time?”
Bjorn indicated to the servant to bring him another quart of ale and wiped the froth from his moustache. “That made my arse itch, so I called in at several French ports on the way back, instead of seeking a quick trip. That’s why I ran into problems off Penmark Rocks, being outward bound from Nantes. I met a ship captain from Haarlem, in North Holland, in a tavern. After I’d poured a few drinks into him, he told me that word was out in the Baltic for the ships to avoid the east coast of England this summer. The word is being passed by the Danes to those who are their friends.” By now the light of understanding had dawned in Alan’s eyes. Bjorn nodded. “The Danes are coming this summer, and in force. Perhaps as many as a hundred or more ships. I’d suggest you look to your defenses in Essex, b
oy. And stop having Birgitta and Stormsvale sailing into Colchester and Ipswich if you don’t want them sunk.”
It was typical of their differing areas of responsibility that Alan and Anne had different immediate concerns at this news. Alan’s thoughts turned to what would need to be done to protect his estates from attack. Anne considered how best to re-arrange the mercantile business to minimise any loss and to perhaps reap some profit. After discussion with Bjorn it was agreed that Birgitta, which plied the route from Ipswich to Narvik in Norway, taking copper, tin and cloth north to trade for whale oil, Stockholm tar and herrings (the fish being dried, salted, smoked or pickled) cease that route immediately. A disruption of the trade across the North Sea would mean higher prices for these goods in both directions, but only if they could be safely transported.
Bjorn suggested that one ship travel between Narvik and Flanders. Anne suggested Rotterdam or Haarlem, but Bjorn had advised that they were too far north and too close to the route that the Danes would take to raid England. He suggested instead Oostend, a small port town in northern Flanders. His reasoning was that the Danes were always raiding the East Baltic and if they were also to start large-scale raiding on England that they wouldn’t seek conflict with other countries. After all, they had to have somebody to trade with. He was sure that trade between Norway and Flanders would be left alone. The goods could then be carried across the channel from Oostend to London, a distance of about eighty miles by a second ship. Stormsvale was currently undertaking the Haarlem-Colchester-London route and could easily enough ply between Oostend and London, probably undertaking three voyages for each one that the other ships in the fleet undertook. With a crew composed of Norwegians and Flemings, whatever ship undertook the northern route could masquerade as belonging to either country, with probably Norway being the favoured choice. But that ship could not be Birgitta as she was well-known in the North Sea as being English. After discussion it was agreed that Zeelandt would sail under Bjorn between Narvik and Oostend, Stormsvale between Oostend and London and Birgitta between London and Bordeaux. The ballista would be removed from Zeelandt and placed on Birgitta. Bjorn would rely on bluff and pretence, rather than force.
“Is London safe?” asked Alan.
“From the Danes?” asked Bjorn, his forehead creased with thought. “No. England has no navy and nothing to stop the Danes from raiding where they wish. You’re right, they will probably raid London once, maybe twice, during the summer and take or burn every ship in the harbour. The city itself would be safe behind its walls, but your house here… Well, maybe it’s far enough away from the river. Considering that, it may be worth having Birgitta home-port at Southampton. That should be far enough away to be safe and it’s the closest port to the capital at Winchester, so the wine should sell easily enough. That spreads the risk to the ships as far as we can.”
After Bjorn had left Alan and Anne slipped quietly into the nursery to see baby Juliana. Alan smiled in satisfaction to see the chubby girl, now with auburn hair like her mother, fast asleep and sucking her thumb.
The next day, Holy Saturday, was supposedly a day of prayer, rest and reflection. However, Bjorn had told Alan and Anne that both Zeelandt and Stormsvale were in the port and intending to unload into the warehouse on Fish Street that day, so that the crews could enjoy the celebrations of Easter Week starting on Sunday. As Bjorn had put it, “Sailors aren’t much good at praying unless there’s a storm or pirates are coming up astern.”
Alan rose early and penned a letter to the Chancellor Herfast advising of what they had heard and their conclusions, well aware that management of intelligence information comprised putting together disparate pieces of information to form a picture. Leof was dispatched to deliver the letter to Herfast’s office at Westminster.
Later Alan and Anne strolled arm-in-arm through the relatively uncrowded city streets towards the docks near the bridge. The air near the docks was considerably less fetid that usual, with most of the noisome trades such as tanning and fulling being closed for the religious holiday period, and to walk past those workshops without breathing the stench of urine and faeces made a pleasant change. At the docks the usual smells of mud, rotting vegetation and piles of discarded refuse overpowered the clean scent of salt air.
Both Zeelandt and Stormsvale were alongside the dock, and with the tide being out the decks were much lower than the wharf. Both ships had windlasses standing on the wharf, being used to lift the barrels from the ships and onto heavy wagons standing nearby on the wharf, which were then trundled off to the nearby warehouse. The large tun casks, each of over 250 gallons, were winched up by the windlass, whose arm was then swung across to allow the cask to be placed onto a wagon. The wagon was then hauled away and at the warehouse it drew up alongside a ramp onto which the barrel was rolled and pushed down the ramp and into place in the storage areas. With only fifty casks per ship the unloading process would not take long, except for the few smaller casks of precious spices and olive oil carried by Zeelandt. Before sailing the ships would be loaded with other goods from the warehouse, mainly bales of cloth and iron-bound wooden crates containing ingots of copper and tin.
The captain of Stormsvale was provided with instructions to undertake a single voyage to Narvik. There he was to fill up with as much whale oil as possible, tar if it was again available, and return as quickly as he could. No space was to be wasted on herrings. Preserved fish of one type or another were always available from somewhere, but whale oil for lamps and tar for caulking ships could only come from the north. Anne was sure that within a few months the price for those commodities would be sky-high due to scarcity. Zeelandt would also head north for its next voyage. Anne’s Jewish business manager Jacob was present, Easter of course not having any significance to him. Anne sat with him in the small and dingy office at the warehouse and provided instructions as to the change of trade arrangements, and the change of crewing so that most of the Norwegian, Flemish and Dutch sailors were on Zeelandt, and for Jacob to take ship to Oostend to make arrangements there for the use of the facilities of that port instead of Haarlem.
When back at the house at Holebourn Bridge Alan and Anne ate a mid-day meal that was again simple and plain, and unusually sat alone instead of with several members of the household with them. The reason for that soon became obvious when Anne smiled quietly at her husband and said, “I haven’t had the opportunity to tell you of my own news. You are to be a father again in November.”
Alan had been taking a gulp of ale and nearly choked, spraying ale- but managing to turn his head to avoid hitting Anne. “Praise be to God!” he said, taking her hand across the table and kissing it.
“Hopefully a son this time,” added Anne.
Alan waved his free hand in a dismissive motion. “It matters little,” he said, although both knew that was not true. “As long as both you and the child are healthy. You know how delighted I am with Juliana.”
Anne smiled again in appreciation of the comment but knew that her main function in life was to produce at least two, preferably more, healthy boys as heirs. Girl children were only useful to built political relationships through marriage, and cost a significant amount in dowries.
After the Easter Vigil, the whole household attended the Easter Mass at St Edmund’s Church just outside Newgate. When able to do so Anne attended Mass at the church on most days. With several donations of vestments and the funding of a stained-glass window she was seen by Father Edward as one of his most important parishioners, causing him to call to visit weekly when he knew that Anne was in London. The simple and moving service lifted all their hearts. Unfortunately, heavy rain had begun to fall while they were in the Church, and so it was with damp, if not wet, spirits, they returned home.
Alan spent a pleasant hour or so in the nursery with Anne and Juliana, who was now sitting up, paying attention to what was happening about her and generally smiling and gurgling happily. She held a bead rattle in one hand and a piece of sea-coral in the other, fashi
oned into a teething ring for her to chew to assist the emergence of her milk-teeth. The coral had been a gift from Bjorn.
At mid-day a sumptuous meal was served with the whole household seated in the Hall, except for the kitchen and serving staff. Bjorn and several other of the sailors who didn’t have local family had also been invited, some 26 seated at three tables. Wilda the cook had again shown her ability to produce delicacies when required. Having attended at Mass herself together with the other servants, knowing the simple tastes of the soldiers, sailors and servants who formed most of the diners and knowing that after Lent any rich food would be most welcome, she had limited herself to two soups, roast pig, a mutton and herb stew, pork pies, braised spiced pork in almond milk with mushrooms, four different dishes of accompanying vegetables, followed by apple pie, strawberry tart and mixed cheeses, all accompanied by fresh white wheat bread and freshly-churned butter. Osmund recited, from memory, two long poems in English. Bjorn regaled the diners with his reminisces of his visit as a young man to the Holy Land, describing strange places, strange people and unusual customs.
In the late afternoon a slightly tipsy Alan accompanied his wife upstairs to the family’s private rooms. With her pregnancy Anne had again resumed minimal consumption of alcohol, as she had when carrying Juliana. While she didn’t insist on Alan doing the same as he rarely drank to excess she had little sympathy with his complaints when he did so.
Winter of Discontent nc-2 Page 24