by Smith, Skye
"Is your uncle or any of your brothers coming to your wedding? It would please me to see your uncle Edgar again."
She went quiet and was on the edge of tears. "We have not had word from him in a year so we assume he is still in the Holy Land. None of my brothers will come. They are unwilling to risk a trip so deeply into England because they do not believe that Henry can control his barons. They fear that too many of the barons would try to capture them for ransom." Now she had tears in her eyes. "I am all alone here in this palace, and surrounded by Henry's enemies, and I am frightened to death."
Raynar's voice steeled. "You fear for your life? Tell me from whom."
"Not for my life. I fear that I will make a fool of myself at the wedding in front of all England. I fear that the women of the palace will not accept me. Women can be so quietly vicious. They hate that Henry is marrying me, Edith, a daughter of England and Scotland. There are many daughters of Normandy and France who ache for this throne."
He moved his chair close to her so he could wrap her in his arms and rest her face against his shoulder. He pulled his cloak around her and hugged her. He kept drifting in and out of reality. Was this Margaret or Edith? He had held Margaret just like this after her life had been threatened. She looked like Margaret. She felt like Margaret. Her voice was Margaret's. She even smelled like Margaret. He respected her silence and stroked her hair gently.
"I want you to give me away," she whispered.
"That would cause a rebellion against Henry. I was foolish here at the palace last month, and now the Barons know me as a Hoodsman. The betrothal would be cancelled. There could be civil war. Our folk would suffer, even starve or die," he whispered back.
"I will tell them that both my mother and my uncle Edgar owed you a blood debt," she said.
"That is the truth, and then some."
"If either of my Edgars could be here, they would be giving me away. It would please both my uncle Edgar and my brother Edgar to know that you gave me away in their place," she said.
"But Edith. I am just a freeman, not even a knight. It would be an insult to Henry and to his barons."
"There is no one else. Would you have me stand alone?" Her voice was weak.
"Your godparents?"
"Henry's mother Mathilde is dead. And rather than give me away, Henry's brother Robert would rather have Henry's crown and me as his mistress," she said bitterly.
"Someone from the convent?"
"The bishops have washed their hands of me since I swore I took no vows to Christ," she answered.
"The Scottish Ambassador."
"That bag of haggis farts!" she yelled, then quieted. "Why should I? I have lived in England for most of my grown life."
"Henry himself?"
"That is too akin to betrothal by rape. I want him to ask my permission," she answered.
They went silent again. The room was growing colder. Damn stone buildings. Ill suited to this climate. Too hard to heat. The charcoal was beside the brazier, but adding it to the fire meant disturbing Edith's comfort. Raynar called softly to the handmaiden. "Woman, some more charcoal for the brazier please." The woman was glad of the task. It meant she could warm herself for the moments it took.
"If I am to give you away then I must be sure of this marriage. Do you care for each other?"
"Since I was sixteen. Since my visit that year to the court in Winchester. Cristina's abbey in Romsey was only eight miles from Winchester. William Rufus was king. He was a crude drunkard. One day I slipped away from the nuns to explore the palace, but I got lost in the Royal wing. The guards caught me and took me to Rufus.
He was drunk. He told everyone to leave and then he dragged me to his bed. I was destined to be his next sex toy. One of the chamberlains was worried that if Rufus raped a nun in the palace, it would finish his already strained relationship with the church and the pope, so he fetched Henry. Henry found us, and fought him for me but lost. Rufus kicked him in the face, but the sight of Henry's blood sobered him and he went to get help.” As she told the story, her mouth curled into a smile.
"Henry was hurt yex, but faking that he was dying. Once Rufus had left the room, Henry grabbed me and we raced hand in hand through the palace. We told my chaperone that it was no longer safe for me in the palace, and that Henry must rush me back to the convent. We grabbed some horses at the stable, and we galloped away, but we did not make it to Romsey that day.
About halfway, at a stream, we stopped to let the horses drink. He got down from his horse, and then collapsed to the ground from his injury. I used my horse to drag him along the stream away from the cartway, and then I cleaned the blood from his face, and cleaned his wounds, but still he did not wake. I slept close beside him to keep him warm, and in the morning he was better. I felt feelings for him that I had never felt before. I wanted to sleep beside him, always. I tried to seduce him. I tried everything. But he would not. He with all of his mistresses, would not.
When the palace gossip reached the bishop, he tried to force Rufus to marry me. Eventually Rufus relented and decided that he may as well marry me as anyone. Especially since by doing so he would spite his brother Henry and have his own claim to Scotland.
From that day on, I knew that was my fate if I ever left the convent. To share my mother's fate. To be married to a brute worse than Malcolm. So I stayed at the convent. Even after Cristina died and after Mary rebelled against the place and fled, I stayed. I was trapped. And then some wonderful forest angel spitted Rufus with an arrow, and I was free.
I sent Henry a message telling him to come to me and I would betroth him by rape. He said yes to the betrothal but no to the rape. I am still a virgin. A twenty-year-old virgin. I can't wait to be bedded." She sat up and looked at him. "Oops, I suppose that is not the sort of thing I should be saying to my mother's champion."
She cuddled back down into him, and he told her softly, "Edith, the story you just told was very similar to how your mother and I met." And he told her the story of how he and Margaret first met in Spalding, at Countess Beatrice's manor, and afterwards how they had fallen in love in Dun Holm.
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The Hoodsman - Saving Princesses by Skye Smith Copyright 2010-13
Chapter 6 - With a Princess in Dun Holm in October 1068
Margaret and young Raynar were nearly inseparable throughout their stay in Dun Holm. Cristina was their chaperone, and though she was party to all their happy wanderings she always came between their bodies when the kisses and the groping became too intense. This sometimes meant that she became as aroused as Margaret. Meanwhile the two women introduced Raynar to books, and he introduced them to archery.
Raynar was earning his keep by teaching the local bowyers how to craft the Welsh Ywen bows. He also tried to teach the bow craft to the huscarls, and the pikemen to make them cavalry ready. There was the normal problem of the lack of seasoned Ywen staves, but the bowyers did have elm of length enough. He enjoyed working with the bowyers, and they spent many hours together trying to duplicate the Byzantine bow. As his friend John had found, the secret was in the glue that joined the layers, and they could not duplicate it.
The harvest came and went. The Bishop returned from York. The sun weakened. The leaves dropped. The rains started. Still the word from York was that William's army was still in Yorkshire. The daily wanderings of Raynar and the two women along the rivers and ridges became shorter and shorter with the days, until they stopped due to the lashing gales. Once forced to indoor life, the sisters lost their freedom to the disapproving eyes of older women. All men were forbidden the women's wing of the manor house where they were staying.
* * * * *
Raynar became bored with the inactivity caused by winter. He disliked the damp funk of the rooms that were overfilled with men keeping warm. Margaret, fearing that Raynar was getting ready to leave Dun Holm, took him, and therefore Cristina, to visit the Bishop in the Bishop's grand house near the church. The Bishop had invite
d the two women to inspect his collection of books.
The Bishop of Dun Holm was chief amongst clergy in the northeast. Aethelwine had been a warrior and a lord when appointed, and he still kept his own small force of huscarls and guards. He had wealth and power. He was the keeper of the holiest of relics such as the body of Saint Cuthbert. Over the years he had become a cleric and now he was learned. As he aged he had become less and less a warrior, and more and more a charming and compassionate man.
Despite the wariness of the three young people, the welcome from the Bishop was warm and friendly. He too was bored with the company of damp men, and a visit by two learned women who were striking to look at, was a Godsend. He led them to a comfortable inner room that was warm and dry and lit up like the alter of a church. "My reading room. This house is too big for winter," he said, "it is too cold and draughty. My men camp in the great hall, which has a chimney, and I camp in here with my books and my brazier and hot drinks."
He looked full into Raynar’s face. "You are Edwin's man. The one who advised us to quit York."
"I am a friend of Edwin's man Hereward, sire."
"And are you guardian to these ladies, or confident?" asked the Bishop.
"Both, sire. Countess Beatrice of Lincolnshire made me Margaret's champion and protector, and I will be that until Margaret dismisses me."
"Sire, he has already saved my life from assassins," Margaret said, "And my brother Edgar's also."
"Yet as I recall," the Bishop said slyly, "your mother does not trust him."
"On the contrary, my mother trusts him with our lives. It is me she does not trust."
"In that case you are welcome to use my library while you are in Dun Holm, but you must promise me to treat my house as a house of God and suffer it no impropriety." When she had so promised he gave them a tour of his books. Like all treasure, they were kept in locked chests.
"In this chest are my own favorites," Aethelwine said as he opened the lock of a large chest, "a but you may have trouble reading them."
"They are forced to read and translate for me anyway," said Raynar, "Latin is not one of my languages."
"These are in Greek." Aethelwine looked at the women "Did they teach you Greek at the convent?" They both shook their heads. "I imagine not. The church in Rome does not approve of their people reading the original words. They often tell a different truth than Rome prefers."
"Greek is the language of Constantinople, yes?" asked Raynar.
"It is, but more," admitted the Bishop. "Greek is the language of wisdom and knowledge."
"If I were to travel to the Byzantine," asked Raynar, "would I need to speak Greek, or is it for writing only?"
"Yes, most people there speak Greek," said Aethelwine, "But it is so much more. It is the heart of a rich culture. The songs, the stories, the poetry, the sciences."
"Like Welsh then?"
"You speak Welsh?" asked Aethelwine.
"I do."
"Congratulations, but it will not help you with Greek," Aethelwine chuckled.
"Is there someone in your household who can teach me Greek? A monk, a priest, a clerk?"
"Only me. As I said, Rome does not approve of the language." His eyes roved over the fresh beauty of these three young people and he was content, and he raised a prayer of thanks with his eyes to the ceiling. "I seem to have found a worthy task for the winter. I will teach all of you Greek. And your first word is the word for a pearl." He savoured Margaret's fair face and sweet smile for a moment. "Repeat after me, margaron."
The sisters repeated it, but the lad kept repeating it over and over, and then stared at Margaret and whispered, "Margaron, my lovely Margaron."
Bishop Aethelwine had his own personal sunshine through that cold and dark winter. It came and it went with the threesome. He looked forward to their arrival and savoured the perfumed hair of the women when he bent low to help them with the Greek letters. He enjoyed watching them toy with their food at the table, and toy with Raynar when they thought he was not watching.
He understood why their mother trusted them to this vital young man. Both of them were tired to death of convent celibacy and were in heat to try a man. They would have seduced a less trustworthy fellow long ago. He repented his own dreams each morning. He had so many dreams of these women seducing a Bishop.
When he realized that the way to see more of these women was to see more of Raynar, he commissioned Raynar to train his own guards and huscarls as he was training the Earl's. The two women would come with Raynar each morning, and leave with him each evening. Sometimes all four of them would be together, but when Raynar was training his men, Aethelwine had both women to himself. He was becoming intoxicated with them. He lived for their arrival, and often delegated his duties so he could be with them.
One day Raynar arrived without his women and a cloud passed over Aethelwine's sunshine.
"They help prepare for the feast," explained Raynar.
Aethelwine shrugged off his disappointment. At least he had company. "Since the women are not here, why don't I show you a book that would not interest them." He asked Raynar to lift down one chest so they could open the one beneath it. Inside were some very old books. He lifted one of them out with the care it deserved and laid it on the reading desk.
Together they scanned the pages as he gently turned them. It was a book of diagrams. Diagrams of things that could be made by man. Aethelwine had looked at each diagram before, many times and with wonder. Now he shared the same wonder in the face of this young man.
"What is this book?" Raynar asked, "The only book I have seen that is like it is a book of maps at Repton Abbey."
The bishop half closed the book so that he could point out the words of the title. The words had no easy English equivalent. "It is a book of how to craft the tools of an army. It is how to build everything from forts to war machines to latrines."
"Then it contains the secrets of how to destroy the Normans?" asked a very excited Raynar.
"What I fear more is that it contains the secrets of how the Normans could conquer kingdoms." sighed Aethelwine.
"Do they have a copy of this book?"
"I pray that they never do, but I fear that they may have captured copies of it while mercenaries to the Byzantines," Aethelwine crossed himself. "God forbid."
They continued browsing the book, ever so slowly. "Surely the Norman priests would burn this book as witchcraft. Look at this one. That must be magic," said Raynar.
"It is only magic if it cannot be explained. This book is not of magic. Far from it. If the priests burn this book it would be because it is anti-magic. The priests are in the business of magic, and books such as this threaten their earnings because it explains how things work without magic."
"See this page," Raynar pointed. "This is not a device. It is a mixture of powders." He held the page still while he tried to understand the instructions.
"You will not understand the reading until you understand the symbols," Aethelwine told him. "See the symbols. That one letter represents a word or a thing or an idea. But which and what? I have never had the key to the symbols, and I have never had the patience to create one."
"How would you create a symbol key?"
"Ah, first you must find a diagram that you can understand without the symbols. Take the symbols from that diagram and write down their meanings. Then find another such diagram, and another, and slowly you will create the key, one symbol at a time." Aethelwine nudged the lad. "As I said, I have never had the patience."
"Would that my friend John were here. He is a smithy who crafts and creates. He could explain some of this to me."
The Bishop put a gnarled hand on top of Raynar’s. "I must have your oath that you will not tell of this book to anyone."
Raynar was still thinking of how wonderful it would be to share this with John and did not speak. Then he thought of how dangerous this book would be in the hands of the Normans. "I give you my word."
"To anyone," the Bishop
repeated.
"To anyone," echoed Raynar. "If I find a page to use as a key, may I copy it?"
"I have such a page already, but it is in Latin."
"Can you translate it to English for me"
"Tomorrow. For today let us just browse the pictures and mark the pages that may help you create a key."
* * * * *
For months the Earls waited in Dun Holm for William to follow them through Yorkshire towards the northeast. Meanwhile, King Malcolm of Scotland had been approached and had agreed with the plan of drawing William to the border so that he can be crushed when he was at his weakest. This was a game of patience.
William stayed in Yorkshire and there were a few tales of Norman brutality, but for the most part the harvest was good, and the late fall peaceful. Eventually they learned the reason for William's long stay in Yorkshire. His wife Mathilde had birthed a son at Selby, near where the River Derwent meets the River Ouse. England had a Prince Henry.
In January of '69 the news reached the Earls that a Norman army was on the way to Dun Holm. The Earls packed up the treasures, their families, and their huscarls and prepared to lead William north to Bamburgh closer to Scotland. They were just about to leave for Bamburgh when a message reached them that it was not William leading the army. William had named Robert de Comyn as the new Earl of Northumbria, and it was he leading the army. Moreover the army was less than a thousand strong, meaning even fewer actual fighting men.
Soon there would be three men in Dun Holm claiming to be the Earl of Northumbria. Morcar, who old King Harold had made the Earl to replace his traitorous brother Tostig. Cospatrick, who had bought the title from the regent Odo, while William was in Normandy. And now coming up the street was Comyn, newly appointed by William.