by Skye Smith
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Hereward was in charge of sixty of Earl Edwin's skirmishers. They included some of Mercia's finest archers. These skirmishers were a special squad of mounted light infantry, and reserved for special assignments. The disastrous battle at Fulford had left but thirty of them fit to ride.
"Stop bleating at me, Raynar. The decision has been made. That wasn't some old man who likes shiny armour in there. That was the king. He has specifically ordered you to Stamford with me. The abbey's business no longer exists, not now." He looked across at his injured men, all capable men, and then added, "For you, at least."
He raised his voice and called a name, "Wacker." A middle-aged man with a crutch looked up at him. "Wacker, you can write, can't you?" . The man confirmed it. "This is Raynar, he is on a mission of God and needs your help." He looked back to Raynar. "Go and tell Wacker what he needs to know to find your abbey's carts. Hold on. Did you get your map back? May I borrow it?"
While Raynar was talking to Wacker, Hereward called in his able-bodied men and started his briefing by telling them of his adventures the day before. Once Raynar had returned, they began planning the next adventure.
Hereward, Raynar, and two men who well knew East Yorkshire sat close in around the map, and a dozen others sat in a close ring about them, and the rest in an outer ring. The topic of discussion was 'how to get to Stamford'.
They had to move fast, so that meant horses. Horses they had. But then the need for horses created other problems. They could not use the highways that passed by or through York. They may be patrolled by the Norse. That meant they must ride cross country to find an empty place to swim the River Ouse, then more cross country to find empty place to swim the River Derwent.
The men who knew the countryside swore that it couldn't be done without being seen. The mission would fail the moment they were spotted. They would be immediately assailed and the same rivers and open country would be the death of them all.
Raynar still did not want to go at all. He wished he was back in his highlands rather than surrounded by rough stinking men wallowing in this muddy lowland. He knew nothing of the countryside, the horses, the rivers, the roads, or of skirmishing tactics. He sat like a lump staring at the map and wondered if he should give his place in front of it to someone more useful. Meanwhile he was being protective of his precious map for it was getting smudged by all the dirty fingers.
Raynar stopped focusing on the lines on the map, and as he did so he had new vision. "Hereward, stop talking, you are all talking in the same circles. Look at the map but don't focus on the lines. Look at the finger smudges instead. "
"Sorry lad, we are making a bit of a mess of it," said the man sitting next to him.
"Of course," Hereward said with a new awareness. "Put your thoughts into words, lad."
Raynar did just that. "All of the smudges are in only a third of the area around York. They are bounded by the Ouse which runs straight south and the Roman street which runs slightly north of east. What about the rest of Yorkshire? Look at the area that has no smudges. The place that no one has been pointing to. The Norse may be limited in their thinking, too. They will be watching for our scouts as we cross the rivers south of York, where all the smudges are.
What if we keep well to the west of York until we are well north of it, and then ride east until we come to the Derwent and then turn south and follow it to Stamford? It is further, but we would be able to ride fast and straight. Both the rivers will be shallower and easier to cross to the north of York and probably not guarded." There was silence all around. He felt a bit foolish and said in a lower voice, "Well, it was just a thought." And then the chatter began, and suddenly everyone wanted to speak at once.
Raynar gave up his place and wandered back to where Wacker was sitting with the other walking wounded. He knew something of healing, and knew that most of the wounds would be better off for some basic care. Otherwise some may suffer a slow death, either from poisons in the blood or from starvation because they were no longer healthy enough to make a living.
He began by sitting with each man to look at their wounds and give his advice. Half of them needed nothing more than the cleansing of their wounds with wine or vinegar. Painful, but not complicated. The wounds of the others were internal, or were already turning into weeping sores. He asked two of the healthier wounded to go and find some wild burdock plants.
When he asked if anyone had a skin of wine, he had his pick. These men had listened to Hereward’s stories of how he had avenged their fellow skirmishers, and were eager to share a drink with him.
He then demonstrated to each wounded man, and to the men who were helping him, how to patiently remove all particles, all dirt, and bathe the wound, and then how to cover it or wrap it in burdock leaves or cabbage leaves or kale leaves. After the first two treatments, those who supplied the wineskins stopped complaining about the waste of their wine.
He had done four by the time Hereward came looking for him. Not only did Hereward bring the map, but also a skirmisher who looked about the same age as Raynar.
"Wylie, this is Raynar. He is not trained as a skirmisher. You will ride with him and teach him and train him as we go. Find him a standard selfbow and a quiver of standard arrows. He already has a horse and a role and a pack. Show him where we store our food, you know, nursemaid him."
Hereward suddenly realized that he was interrupting Raynar as he was picking a shard of something out of a deep wound, so he shut up and bided his time. Once the wound was clean he spoke again.
"Raynar, we've chosen a way north around York and will be away within the hour. I'm to the Earl to show him our route. I will try to steal another copy of your map. Did you hang onto that short sword, or was it with the armour?" Hereward walked back up the rise to the Marquee as soon as Raynar replied.
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THE HOODSMAN - Killing Kings by Skye Smith
Chapter 18 - Walking to a Coronation, Basingestoches in August 1100
Gregos looked towards a village of low houses made from mud, sticks, and thatch. "How primitive. Truly this land has lost the knowledge of the Greeks that was brought here by the Romans. How did you put it? Ah yes, the knowledge retreated with the men who knew it. That explains why there are no Roman-style brick and stone buildings."
"Yes," replied Raynar, "the ancient northern peoples had no use for Roman buildings. They were fleeing from years of cold weather and failed crops. In Al-Andalus stone buildings keep the people cool in the heat, but the Romans that live in stone buildings in England must have been cold, damp, and miserable.
The Northern folk build small houses with wattle walls and thatched roofs. They keep you warm and dry in the winter, especially if you bring the animals inside on the coldest days. Stone houses with slate or tile roofs are always cold and drafty."
He pointed to the bed of the road. "The Roman streets survived better than their buildings. They were well placed and well built and are still in use. See, we are walking on one now. English roads wind around streams and hills and farms, whereas Roman streets are straight. Be warned, however that the streets are not like those of Al-Andalus. The folk never knew how to fix them, so the walls have crumbled and the beds have sunken and the bridges have collapsed. Despite that, they are still the fastest highways in England, especially in wet weather."
"Yet the Normans are building of stone again." Gregos pointed to a manor in the distance.
"The Normans, bah. They are as ignorant of Roman knowledge as the English. The difference is that the Normans have seen the wonders of the Constantinople, and they have sent home eastern masons to build for them. Those masons don't even need to quarry and dress the stone. Every Roman ruin in England has dressed stones for the taking."
Raynar pointed to a stone tower just coming into view on a hillside. "The reason that tower is being built there, is because there was a Roman ruin there. The Romans chose the best locations to defend valleys, streets, and border
s. From the Roman ruins the Norman buildings grow. The Normans are opportunists, not visionaries."
Gregos's mind was racing ahead. "So the churches are being built from the ruins of temples, and the manor houses from Roman domus, and in the same locations. So the Normans are rebuilding the Roman empire in England."
"They are trying to," replied Raynar, "but their priests are still suspicious of the wizard knowledge of the ancients, so they are not doing a very good job of it. The Normans build selfishly with no thought to the greater good. For instance, they do not understand the importance of clean water for keeping the folk healthy. They would rather build castles than aqueducts. We need more men like John of Winchester in this kingdom. Men who want to make life better for all."
"The John of Hathersage from your stories," Gregos asked, "is he the same man as John of Winchester?"
"I thought I said as much. He is my oldest friend. The experiences of our youth glued us together for life. John has a knack for creating simple solutions to solve complicated problems. People that don't know him think of him as big and therefore slow-witted. They couldn't be further from the truth."
Raynar had to swallow his next words and leap onto the low wall beside the road to dodge being run over by a galloping horseman, who was cutting around a slow-moving ox cart. What could have turned into a nasty accident, instead turned into a pleasant hour as the driver of the ox cart invited them up to sit on his straw and rest their legs for a mile or two.
"Bloody lordlings," complained the carter, "they have been racing up and down this road all morning. They think they own the bloody road. They forget how slow an ox cart moves and always misjudge the distances when passing by. See that one in the big hurry? He will only be going as far as the next manor. Not that he will be welcomed. The place is barricaded and there are crossbows in the upstairs windows. I'm taking this load of straw back home because they refused me their cartway to deliver it."
"Who are they defending their houses from?" asked Gregos. When he caught the odor of the peasant, he looked at Risto with a wrinkled nose and shifted to the upwind side of the carter.
Without Gregos behind him, the carter could move further back into the cart and talk to them face to face. "From each other. They are afraid of other Normans, afraid that the Normans from the next valley will ride up and kick them out. There'll be a new king soon, and whoever holds that manor will have first claim on it. If I were them, I'd be locked in, too. With the sheriff's men busy protecting the sheriff's holdings, the local manors are on their own."
He pointed after the horseman, now almost out of sight. "That bastard was from the next manor along. He isn't going to visit this lot, he is going to spy them out, count their numbers. If they don't have enough men to hold it, then he will be back with a force of men to turf them out."
"And they are so afraid that they barricade themselves in?" Gregos asked in astonishment.
The carter snickered, "Even if their manor was safe, the lord and the lordling won't be walking past any thick bushes any time soon. No one believes that the king died in a hunting accident. It was a hoodsman's arrow that did for William Rufus, and none too soon. If there are hoodsmen about, then no lord will tempt the fates by coming out in the open. The hoodsmen only target the lords, and the buggering lord at that manor deserves an arrow more than most."
"The hoodsmen? " Risto was having trouble following the peasant's English.
The carter threw a small stone at the oxen to hurry their pace. "Well, there doesn't need to be an real hoodsman, does there? Any local with a belly of ale courage or a lot of anger could take a shot. All you need is a bow and some charcoal to blacken the flights of your arrows and a deep hood to hide your face. There's enough men hereabouts with ample reason to take a shot at that lord."
He lowered his voice though there was no one in earshot save his passengers. "Me included, but I can't risk it cause I've got a family. I was born a freeman, you know. Norman bastards stole my dad's land and my freedom. Demanded their rent even though the crop failed, and when we couldn't pay they took half the land, so we couldn't pay the next year, either.
Dad had the choice, stay a freeman and be run off his land for us all to starve, or take the serf's oath and stay on the land. Bastards. Wouldn't let him be a tenant farmer, would they? Once my dad was a sworn serf, the rest of us became serfs too, and all our get, forever."
"So you are a serf?" asked Gregos.
"Serf," the carter sneered, "I hate the word. The church and the lords call us that to make believe that we are kin to the land, but we are treated as slaves, so slaves we is. They take my daughters you know, the Norman lords do. Every time their cousins come to feast they round up the young women for serving. Serving food and ale is just the start of it.
After the Norman women are sent safe to their beds, and the men get drunk, our women have to serve all right. Bent over the table for anyone to take. Bastards. First time they did it to my oldest, she hadn't even blooded yet. My family had to tie me down for three days to save me from doing something stupid, like running myself onto a Norman sword."
Gregos made shocked and knowing noises. "But this valley is lush, the soil is good, the crops are rich. Life should be easy."
The carter snickered. "Life is easy for them that's born to the manor. That's because they take and they take and they take from us that work, so they can look rich and play high and mighty with other Normans. My lord just spent a full gold piece on a cloak. It would have fed a family for a year, and he spent it on a cloak."
The carter threw another stone that bounced lightly off the back of the ox. There was no change of pace. Oxen walked at the speed that oxen walked at. "Take, take, take, and they give nothing back. They have few enough demands from their side of the serf oath. They are supposed to defend us from raiders and from hunger. Yeh, right.
None of 'em knows shit about farming, crops, or hunger. To them a day well spent is a day that they can ride around on a horse that costs more than a farm, and whip the lads for resting in the shade during the heat of the day, and bonk any woman that catches their fancy. Bastards, all of them."
"Are there any tenant farmers left around here?" Raynar asked.
The carter punched the air as he answered, "None. A few refused the serf oath, but that was long ago when the wars had killed off a lot of the men. That’s your only hope, you know. Hope the wars kill enough men that you can do a runner and hope to find work in a town for a year and a day without being caught."
They passed another cart going the other way and the carters blocked the highway long enough to trade gossip. The local accents were so thick that they may as well have been speaking Gre..., umm, some other language. Afterwards the carter looked at Gregos. "Here, maybe you know. I was just told that the big bugger what runs all those wool drays out of Winchester is looking for carters and needs them yesterday. You've just come from Winchester. Is it true?
Raynar was yet again shocked by how quickly news traveled the highways. He motioned to Gregos and Risto to hold their tongues while he answered. "If the big bugger is John Wheelwright then yes, he is looking for carters. But it may be only for this wool season."
"It's too late for me. I'm too old and I've got mouths to feed," said the carter, "but I've got two sons who are big enough to make their own way. With the lords all cowering and no one watching, and the sheriffs men not on the highway, do you think they could make it to Winchester without being caught?
They could work on them drays out'a the city until their year is up. That big bugger plays fair with his carters, they say. With both lads working maybe they could buy their sisters away from Norman lust. Course they couldn't risk doin' a runner if it weren't true. Our lord would lash the skin off them if they wus dragged back. "
"Then they will loose their skins," Raynar replied, "for two lads in farm rags would be picked up by the city's watch within a day." Raynar thought out the situation. A farm lad doing a runner to Winchester would need town clothes, a to
wn haircut, and to stop speaking like a farmer worker. Impossible.
The carter was also deep in thought. Risto passed him one of the aleskins that Mar had sent with them. The carter took a suck, and swallowed hard. "That's bloody city piss water, that's what that is." The carter chuckled and reached down beside him. "Here, have some of mine," he said passing a very large skin over.
The ox cart was slower than walking so once they were well rested and a bit groggy from sucking on the carter's aleskin, they thanked the carter for the ride and dropped off the cart to walk. The ox cart was quickly left behind even at a walking pace. Once they were out of earshot Gregos spoke. "His ale was like drinking bread. And who are these hoodsmen. I never heard of them until two days ago, and suddenly they are on everyone’s lips."
"I told you before. There is a rumor that they executed the king," Raynar replied.
"So they are assassins. Who do they work for?" asked Gregos.