by Smith, Skye
The King's chamber was already warm, as he had woken at first light to read some letters, so Raynar spent the next hour watching servants pretend to be busy in the Queen's chamber.
He then read one of Edith's books for a few hours and pretended not to watch her while she had her fitting. He then pretended not to watch as she dressed for court. And finally they were ready for her to walk through the palace, to be seen by her soon-to-be subjects.
"Isn't she wonderful?" said the maid. "It takes her less than an hour to dress and prepare. I have never seen a lady prepare so quickly."
Edith's laughter was like soft music. "At the convent you dress in five minutes or less. Otherwise you freeze to death and miss the morning gruel."
They spent the rest of the morning walking, sitting, strolling, stopping and exchanging unnecessary words with unnecessary courtiers, and generally being on display for all to see. The two guards stayed two paces back except when they pushed through doors or groups of people, in which case they went first to clear a space. Edith never left Raynar’s arm, and his other hand never left his dagger's hilt.
The women fluttered around her and kept touching the fabric of her gown. Raynar caused more interest with the men, however, than did the beauty of his companion. He was dressed in some of Gregos' clothes as an officer of the treasury. The other men could not place his face. He did not look nor walk like a clerk, and they all noticed that his hand was light on the hilt of his dagger.
In one of the anterooms, the women flocked forward towards her in such numbers that Raynar commanded them to stop and to back away. The guards carried light spears and crossed them to punctuate Raynar’s command. He then had them come forward five at a time.
After the last five, Edith pulled herself up to Raynar's ear and whispered, "I cannot keep this smile frozen on my face any longer. Take me back to my room before I bite one of them."
He passed the order to the guards and they pushed their way to the door and then through it. They walked quickly down a long hallway and around a corner. They were now quite close to the royal wing of the palace and had left behind the incessant chatter of the courtiers.
The silence was like a sudden breath of fresh air. It cleared his mind and his senses, and that his how he recognized a sound that always haunted his nightmares. The click made by the cocking of a crossbow.
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The Hoodsman - Saving Princesses by Skye Smith Copyright 2010-13
Chapter 8 - The slaughter at Dun Holm in January 1069
The choice of location to build a fortified camp was left up to the huscarls and other seasoned warriors. They chose a low hill outside the burgh walls that could not be used to block the street to the church, or the ford of the river. Hundreds of men can move a lot of dirt and set a lot of stakes in a very short period of time.
The Earls were watching the men digging horse traps when the Bishop rode by with his personal guard and told them, "The latest message is that the Comyn is about a day hence. I am duty bound to ride to meet him and warn him that you are waiting for him.” He felt like a traitor to all these men. He could be causing the death of many. "I am sorry, but I must.” He rode a little further and saw young Raynar marking the places where he wanted archer blinds, and then pacing to mark the shooting range with posts.
Raynar walked towards him until he was close enough to speak privately. "Are your books on the cart to Bamburgh?"
"They are, and I hope to meet those old friends again soon. You do not hate me for what I must do?" asked Aethelwine.
"No, Sire, I cannot judge a man who is being true to his word, even though he be true to a devil. A word of warning. Do not come back with Comyn. Find a country church and stay to pray in it for a few days."
Once the Bishop was truly gone, the men stopped working on the defensive position and switched to setting up the trap at the Bishop's house. It all took thought, because they did not want the Normans to be suspicious. For instance, they did not fix the walls of the ditch that had caved in, because the fresh digging would be easily seen. They did not use as much pitch as had been gathered, because the smell was so noticeable. They did not poison the well, because it would be the first thing the Normans would check. They did, however, make sure that all of the water barrels were empty and all of the fire buckets leaked.
Faggots of wood and dry straw from the barn were stacked around the grounds and woven into the thatch of roofs. Fire arrows and torches were prepared using the pitch. That night the shieldmen and axemen made camp within the defensive fort, while the bowmen and pikemen slept in town. The men who were sleeping in the town were told to keep out of sight until called to battle.
In the morning, all the folk were moved out of the area around the church and the streets that led to it, save for the old folk. The Norman army would expect this. Every village always hid their young from them. As the folk walked away from their homes and businesses, Raynar arrived with a patrol of bowmen and a cart of ale barrels and freshly cut yew branches. He gathered the old women around and showed them how to make hot spiced ale but with a special ingredient. Mashed Ywen needles. The spices hid the bitterness of the poison from the yew.
In every house, from the Bishop's house to the small houses on the streets leading to the church, they left pots of poisoned spiced ale beside each hearth to stay warm. He warned the folk not to drink of it. That anyone who drank it would fall asleep, and perhaps never wake. The folk all nodded knowingly. This town had long ago fenced off all the holy Yew trees so that livestock would not eat from them and be poisoned by them.
Comyn and his army arrived that afternoon. They were preceded by scouts, who were chased out of town by the shieldmen. The main army must have had a local guide, because they did not hesitate at the sight of the shieldmen, but rode directly to the old burgh and the Bishop's house. While some men set up pickets on the ancient burgh earthworks and the old wooden gates, other men walked down the streets and entered every house.
By the end of the day, about a third of the men were billeted in the small houses on the street, another third were sharing the watch and were billeted in the outbuildings, and the last third, including nobles, lords, and knights, had a feast in the Bishop's house with the food stores they captured with it. The hundreds and hundreds of horses were tied in lines along the earthworks, while the carts were left in a row beside the barn.
It was late January, so night came early. The Normans could not cook for so many men in the kitchen behind the Bishop's house, so there were dozens of cooking fires lit within the earthen walls. The old women were put to work cooking for the dozen men billeted in each small house along the street that led to the church.
The men were warm enough, and well enough fed, and were happy not to be camping in the open tonight. The weather was becoming raw and there was talk of winter storms. They drank their warm spiced ale and complained to each other about how the locals always hid their young women.
The evening sky was clear and moonless and the temperature was dropping close to freezing. With the help of local guides, Raynar's bowmen were able to stay hidden on the woodland paths as they crept around and behind the Bishop's house. Up above them on the earthen walls they could see the silhouettes of the pickets against the fires within the compound. There was little fear of discovery for the men with the light at their backs could not easily see out into the darkness.
The bowmen had brought coals and torches and once they were in position in a line facing the huge thatch roof of the Bishop's house, they made small, hidden fires. The fires were to set their pitched points alight. Each man was holding two fire arrows. At Raynar’s command they stepped out of the woods in one long line and loosed their first fire arrows at the huge thatch roof. Their next arrows went to the roofs of the outbuildings. The Normans were yelling the alarm before the first of the arrows struck the thatch.
The bowmen did not stand and watch the flames from their arrows spread. There were armed men runn
ing towards them down the slope. They loosed one arrow each at the running men and then vanished into the woodland to follow the guides further around the earthen wall. After about five hundred paces they were at the closest point to the lines of horses.
The horses were huddled together to keep warm, hundreds of horses in a small area. The bowmen could not actually see the horses because of the earthen wall, but they loosed two volleys up and over the wall hoping that some of them would strike horse flesh. They were not aimed shots, but they should cause enough injuries to panic the horses.
It worked. Horses were screaming in pain and biting and kicking each other to break loose from the crush. The panic in the horses caused panic in the men that were guarding them. Now that the plan was in play, the locally trained pikemen were running towards the bowmen around the outside of the earthen wall's ditch. When they reached Raynar, he and a dozen of them crossed the ditch and ran to the top of the earthen wall so they could see what was happening within the compound.
They did not have to fight to gain the top of the wall. The men who had been guarding the horses were no where to be seen, and most of the men in the compound were running towards the smoking thatch roofs, while grabbing buckets and anything else that would hold water. Raynar signaled for the rest of the pikemen and bowmen to come to him at the top of the earthen wall.
The pikemen now lit their torches, two torches per man, and they scrambled down into and across the ditch and up the slope of the hill. Once on the top they lobbed their torches high. Most landed amongst the horses and now the panic in the horses was complete. They broke loose and began racing in complete panic around and across the circle formed by the earthwork wall. Now mixed with the screams of the Norman horses were the screams of the Normans they were trampling.
The earthwork was now in deep shadow compared to the growing flames that were reaching up from the roofs of the great house and the outbuildings. Now from outside the earthen wall they could hear the voices of the shield men and the axemen and the rhythmic beating of their weapons against their shields.
Raynar called for the pikemen and the archers to follow him around the wall. They had to stay out of the way of the shieldmen. The shieldmen reached the top of the wall just as a host of Normans fleeing their maddened horses and the heat of the flames reached to top of the same wall. Raynar did not stop to watch the two sets of warriors meet. He had to reach the gate and the street with his bowmen.
Once the bowmen reached the gate, which was already thrown open, they turned up the streets towards the church. Their eyes were met with a vision of Hell from the Christian holy books. The local axemen were moving up the street house to house, and pushing any Normans into the street. To the back drop of red and orange flames, half-poisoned Normans were staggering out of the small houses as if they were drunk. One by one they were mobbed by axemen and beheaded and stripped of weapons and armour.
The bowmen picked their way through the blood and the gore and the horror in the streets until they reached the gate. It was being opened from the inside. The men inside, trying to escape the flames and the maddened horses did not realize the carnage of rolling heads and blood that was on this side of the gate.
Raynar ordered his bowmen to let the Normans open the gate, but then shoot them before they could break out of the compound. To the huscarl commanding, or at least, trying to command the axemen, he yelled "Have your men build a barricade along the streets out of anything solid and heavy. My bowmen need something to keep them safe from attack."
The huscarl saw immediately what the bowmen needed, and while he was organizing his men to create barricades, he sent some pikemen forward to protect the bowmen. Meanwhile the bowmen watched, stunned by the horrific sight of the giant roof of the Bishop's house, burning, flames leaping, towering clouds of red smoke.
Thatch roofs start on fire with a smoulder and a lot of smoke. The smoke descends into the building and chokes and blinds the people as they try to leave. The flames begin in earnest when the thatch spreads the fire to the wooden roof supports. Once the frame is burning, the roof collapses and the falling thatch spreads the fire to every inch of the building.
Raynar had never been caught in a burning thatch house, but like every English child, he had been taught that if the thatch catches fire, you crawl along the ground to the door and get out, for if you stay inside, or even stand up, you die. A burning thatch roof was the stuff of nightmares in this kingdom.
The Normans were blinded by smoke and flame and could not see into the darkness surrounding the earthworks, but they knew the enemy was waiting for them outside the walls and outside the gate. They could hear the screams of agony from their men who had tried to escape across earthwork. Someone was still commanding, however, because men were herding the horses towards the gate. Either they were trying to save them, or just getting rid of one more danger to the men inside, or they were attempting to use them to clear the street beyond the gate.
Raynar looked up to see a wall of maddened horses galloping through the gate towards his men. He yelled at them to run to the sides and he thought he was too late with the order, but luckily the men had begun running to the side before the words were even out of his mouth. A hundred or more horses raced passed them, bucking and kicking and screaming.
Behind the horses were the Normans who had herded them. They were making a charge through the gate. Anything to get away from the inferno behind them, but they were standing with the light behind them and immediately became the targets of a hundred bows.
Other Normans were trying to find safety from the horses and the flames and the smoke by climbing the earthwork wall on each side of the gate. They also were silhouetted against the flames and fell to arrows. Raynar sent half his men one way and half the other, to walk behind the shieldmen and pick off the Normans who were climbing the inside of the earthwork wall.
Horses were still running through the gate and down the street in groups of two's and three's. Once the horses stopped coming through the gate, the huscarl and his axemen pushed the barricade they had been creating as cover for the bowmen, into the center of the street to block the gate. Then they formed up behind it, waiting for the Normans to make another break through the gate.
Suddenly, there was a terrific 'whoomping' sound and the entire sky was filled with sparks and flames leaping as if blown by giant bellows. The giant roof had collapsed. As they watched, the flames almost died and were replaced with smoke, huge clouds of damp scalding smoke.
Some local men crossed themselves and cheered. Without the giant flames, the church and its tower were no longer at risk of catching fire from the heat of the house. If the Normans were Christians then they were now dying in the Christian hell. Eventually the word came around the great circular wall that everyone must fall back to the outside of the ditch and stand guard until daybreak.
It was a long and cold night despite the glow of heat from the burned compound. The men left the watch in twos and threes to return to the fortified camp to get their cloaks and warm ale and bread. When they returned others would leave for their turn. Once they had their cloaks they could spell each other off and sleep fitfully on the ground. No one actually slept for the air was fouled with the acrid smell of scorched flesh and burned straw.
As daybreak approached, they readied themselves for the counter attack they knew would come. But it never did. Some of the local axemen, big buggers all, walked up the slope and stood on the wall and then walked along the wall. They waved their axes at the bowmen. Raynar thought they were asking for bowmen to join them and he took half with him up the slope, but the axemen were just making sure that the bowmen knew that they weren't Normans.
The bowmen stood with the axemen and looked down and across the compound. There were men and horses still alive, but not by much. The bellows effect of the roof falling into the house must have sent intense flames sideways through windows and doors to the edge of the earthwork wall all around.
Raynar fell to his kn
ees and was sick to his stomach. "Bad ale!" jested the axe man beside him, but he could not laugh. To laugh meant to gulp the air. The air was putrefied. Shieldmen began to arrive on the wall, and Cospatrick's chief huscarl had them walk between the bodies with their thrusting spears and put men and animals out of the misery of their burns.
The axe men had been promised the armour and went amongst the dead stripping it. The weapons were collected and any metal, but there was not much else to salvage. Cospatrick made the decision to drag the bodies down to the ditch, and then cover the ditch by pulling down part of the slope. In the end a third of the ditch became the gravesite of men and horses.
The collapsed roof smouldered for days until a heavy rain finally stopped the smoke. Men with spades, working under guard, turned over every inch of the soggy mess in the house. There were many bodies, many wealthy bodies. Anything of value was scavenged. Eventually the treasure chest that travels with any army was found and opened. It held mostly silver coin, but there was gold at the bottom.
At the sight of the treasure, Edgar said loudly, "By rights this treasure is Aethelwine's. It will pay the cost of building him a new house."
Cospatrick took the chest, and said nothing.
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He could not face the work of cleaning up the slaughter, so Raynar took his mare and his things to the ford in the river where the air was fresh and clean, and curled up in his cloak to wait for the Bishop to return. When the Bishop arrived Raynar began to tell him about the battle, but Aethelwine held up his hand. "I have already been told," he said glumly as he sat down beside Raynar.
Raynar moaned. "I have just helped men to create hell. I crafted the plan, and it worked so well that we were all frightened. Over seven hundred men, and almost as many horses, screaming in the night in the fires of hell. Am I doomed to the same?"
"You are heartsick with remorse, and so you should be. Do not grieve too long for Robert de Comyn, however. I spent a day with him and he impressed me as a vicious pig of a man," soothed Aethelwine. "Comyn made me realize that England has not just been invaded by southern warriors, we have been invaded by the Romanized church as well.