Hoodsman: Queens and Widows

by Smith, Skye

  There was a scream close by and he saw the youngest nun being held down on the bed of the wagon by one man while another man explored under her habit with his hand. The fat nun launched herself at them men yelling for them to stop, but was too panicked to say it in any language but French. She was pushed away.

  "Stop,” yelled Raynar weakly in Gaelic, for these were Scottish raiders. "Your queen, the beloved Margaret, will curse you for soiling nuns."

  The words had their effect. The man who was doing the groping climbed into the cart and came closer to him to look at who spoke. "Tell me one good reason why I should not split you head to cock with my axe,” ordered the man.

  Raynar's mind was cloudy. He was trying to remember the few phrases of Gaelic that he had learned in Scotland. He gave up, and instead switched to the Welsh he had learned as a child. "Who am I speaking to, or was your father too embarrassed to name you."

  The man chewed the words in his head. The words sounded right but made no sense. "You don't look like a highlander. Do you speak Danish?” and then "Do you speak Danish?” in Danish.

  Raynar switched to Danish. "Who am I speaking to, or was your father too embarrassed to name you."

  The man holding the girl roared with laughter, and even the man above Raynar cracked a smile. "I am Gregor Nesbit, of the clan Nesbit, and if you are wise you will kiss my feet little man, for you are now my slave. My, aren't you a pretty one. Maybe we will use you like a woman instead of this wee girl."

  "The Nesbits, I thought they were the proudest clan of mighty horse thieves anywhere along the border, not sneaks that rape little girls. Your mother must have mated with a Norman."

  The man holding the girl again laughed aloud and let her go, and she scurried away from him and into the arms of the fat nun.

  "Now you must answer. Who are you?” asked Gregor.

  "I am Raynar of the Peaks. One of Queen Margaret's spies in England. I was captured and tortured, and left for dead, but these good nuns nursed me back to health and were trying to get me to the border."

  "You,” Gregor said in English to the piggy nun. "Yes you, who is he?"

  "His name is Raynar,” the nun replied in bad English. Even she had realized that these fierce barbarians were Scots. "He is your Queen Margaret's man. He was badly beaten and left for dead. We have been nursing him.” She looked up at the fierce monster dressed in his furs and holding his bloody axe. "If you must take a woman, spare the child and take me instead."

  Gregor looked down on her, and his scowl became a smile fit for children. "We are the mighty Nesbits. We do not rape nuns.” He looked towards Raynar. "You, Raynar, can you ride? We are too deep into this kingdom to drive slaves and sheep before us, so we will rob this lot of their treasure and horses and then ride back to the border."

  "I may be able to ride a short stride pony, but a galloper would kill me."

  "Then get dressed and gather your things. Do you want these nuns along to nurse you?"

  "Leave them in peace. Leave all these folks in peace. There is nothing to be served by killing them. If you leave them alive you can rob them again next year."

  "Hah, that is what we raiders always say to Malcolm's army, but they never listen.” Gregor stood tall on the wagon and made a wide circle above his head with his axe. Men everywhere began searching carts and clothing, and unhitching horses.

  Within the hour the band of raiders were away, and riding north. There had been no short stride ponies to be had, so Raynar had chosen his old sway back beige. With one swipe of his axe, Gregor had removed the horns from Raynar's saddle so that he could lean forward over the horses neck to ease the pressure on his back.

  For the injured it was thirty torturous miles north to the great Roman wall. Luckily for Raynar, the Nesbits were spread out and stealing every horse they came across as they rode, so the actual pace north for him was in fits and starts. Despite this, by the time they passed through the wall, the great wall, the pain was written clearly across Raynar's face.

  "You're done, mate,” said Gregor with one look at the face. "Those hills ahead are the Cheviots. They will kill you."

  Raynar’s breaths came in gasps and he spoke between them. "How much further will you take these horses."

  "Just far enough to hide them from the Normans. We were sent by King Malcolm to steal the Norman horses before he marches south."

  "Malcolm is coming south?"

  "I thought you knew,” said Gregor glaring at him. "Why else would his spy be gathering intelligence south of the border?"

  "I am the queen's man, not the kings. I come with intelligence from Normandy and Flanders.” Raynar said, but from the look on Gregor's face, he had to assume that the man new nothing of geography beyond his own valleys. "They are kingdoms across the North Sea where King William of the Normans comes from. He has great troubles there, and has taken a bad wound. Malcolm should have moved his army south months ago."

  "Aye,” replied Gregor, "that may be, but we have a harsh mistress in these hills called winter. The Cheviots still have snow on them. You are finished riding. We must find you a roof and a bed, somewhere safe where you can heal again. I will send riders to the queen to tell her where you rest. Will she know you by name?"

  "She will."

  "So be it.” he whistled to two of his scouts, and when they had come he asked "This man needs a roof and a bed and a midwife to tend him, and soon. What is near to here, safe from the Normans, and can be reached quickly from the Scottish side.

  The two scouts discussed it, and then said. "No better choice than Barrasford on the North Tyne. It can be reached from the north down the river valley, or by Dere Street, or by the Devil's causeway. What makes it the best choice though, is that many old women have fled to Barrasford to escape the witch fires of that Roman Bishop in Dun Holm. Normans are not welcome."

  "Good, take him there and leave him in someone's care, then use Dere Street to ride to Dunfermline and tell the queen where he is."

  "The king and his army are closer,” offered the scout. "The queen may be with him."

  "Hmmm, no, the queen will be with her children at Dunfermline. She will not leave her youngest ones."

  "And how will we find you again, Gregor, once this message is taken?” asked the scout.

  "Accept the queen's hospitality and bow to her wishes. If she does not need you then find us with Malcolm's army."

  * * * * *

  The fever was back, but this time he was cared for by women who knew healing. For a week he had trouble focusing as far as the low and smoke blackened thatch roof above his head. Every time the old darling of a crone came to cool his forehead and wet his lips she scolded him with, "You should have known better than to ride again before you had healed” and "Those Nesbits are not to be trusted, I am amazed you still have your purse and sword” and "You were a fool to trust yourself to those brides of the desert god. Their ignorance of healing spreads evil."

  The fever finally broke and then he began to mend again. He still was worried about his sight, but that could have been due to the darkness. The cottage walls were of dark stone from the Roman quarry nearby, and it had no windows and the door was always shut.

  One morning he stirred from a fitful dream to the scent of flowers and the touch of silk against his cheek. A face came through the blur. The same face from his dreams. "Margaret,” he said softly.

  The face turned suddenly angry and pulled away from him. "My sister is far too self important to visit sickly peasants.” a cold voice snapped at him. "Get out of bed you lazy cur.” He felt his cloak being whisked away from him. "Ohh. Ohh, oh forgive me.” He felt his cloak been drawn gently over him again. The woman must have seen the bruises around his waist. Now that he was healing, the bruises looked their ugliest and the red, black and blue discoloration had spread even to healthy skin.

  Raynar pushed his memory to remember Margaret again, but this was not Margaret. She had said sister. And then his memories returned and he found the name. "Cris
tina, how beautiful you still are. I thought I was with the Valkyries.” One of the crones came and raised his back and pushed a folded fur under it to hold him prone.

  Cristina took the crone's arm and asked, "How long until he can be moved to Dunfermline?"

  "Where is that, then?” asked the crone.

  Cristina looked at the woman in surprise that she had not heard of the great palace of the Scots. "Three full days by horse. Six by foot. North through the hills."

  "If you had a cart with a soft bed, then he could leave now. By horse, another two weeks. By foot, another month."

  "Then by cart. Where can I get a cart?” Cristina asked of all the old women in the room, but they all shook their heads, so she went out side and called the same question to others waiting there.

  * * * * *

  * * * * *

  The Hoodsman - Queens and Widows by Skye Smith

  Chapter 11 - With Margaret in Dunfermline, Scotland in May 1079

  It took five days by cart to reach Dunfermline. Cristina never left his side. She had come with the two Nesbit scouts, a troop of the palace guard, and a nun who was old in mind but not in body. Because of the cart, they returned to Dunfermline by a slightly different route than they had come, but still the road was torturous and sinewy, like most in the Cambrian hills.

  Cristina and Raynar had passed most of the time by sharing stories, though Cristina had done most of the talking. Often his stories were told by him giving short answers to her long questions. The days passed quickly through the endless chat, which was merciful considering Raynar's condition. After a few days, Raynar knew what was happening with Margaret and her family in Scotland, and Cristina now knew what had happened to Raynar in Ely and Flanders and France.

  The last leg of their journey, the ferry over to Dunfermline, brought him to tears. During the endless delirium of the cart rides north from Sheffield, one of his deepest desires was again to see the sea. He had dreamed of once again standing on a ship and feeling the swells pulling at his knees, and his greatest fear was that he never would again.

  The castle that guarded the harbour had changed greatly, as had the palace further inland. To be sure the palace was still organized with many separate buildings used as guest houses, and still looked like what it was, a monastery with a new use, but the great hall and the royal wing had been expanded and improved.

  The great hall, for instance, was no longer a large longhouse, and the court that was held there was no longer a group of wild men sitting at rough benches swilling the king's ale. Now there was a polished stone floor, and wooden paneling, and costly draperies, and carved furniture to replace the rough hewn timber tables. The continent had come to Dunfermline with all of its finery.

  Raynar chose to walk into the great hall and be presented to the queen on his own feet rather than on a litter. He did this by putting much of his weight on Cristina's arm, and using a stick on the other side. Margaret's mouth smiled at him, but her eyes showed her concern and her deep breaths controlled her desire to fling herself into this man's arms. "My court welcomes you Raynar of the Peaks. You have been absent for too long. I hope we can help you to mend your body during your stay here."

  The courtiers all around feigned interest, but truly had none in a peasant, and an injured peasant at that, and wondered that the Lady Cristina would allow such a man to even touch her. Margaret looked at the pudgy faces around her and lost her patience. "This court is dismissed for two days until this man has briefed me on the happenings in other courts in other kingdoms. Everyone else may take their leave, immediately."

  She made a motion with her finger to a tall chamberlain and two guards came forward and half carried Raynar to the royal quarters. As soon as everyone other than he and the two sisters had left the room, and the door was shut, she walked to him, tenderly put her arms around his neck, and gave him the gentlest and longest of kisses. Cristina's fidgeting finally broke the kiss.

  The two sisters, who had once been so similar in face and body were now very different. Cristina, the elder, looked much younger. She was still slim and fit and her skin was still taught and fresh looking. Margaret, in comparison, looked much older, had a care worn face, streaks of grey in her hair, a stoop in her stance, and a lumpy body.

  "I am so sorry to come to you broken and needy, Margaron love,” he said using his lover's name for her, which was Greek for Pearl. All this time he was stroking her hair gently. "It was none of my doing. I was set upon by assassins."

  She pushed herself back and looked him in the eye, "Not Malcolm's doing?"

  "No, not Malcolm. Just some petty Norman knight who has been raping and killing to the north of Nottingham. I had taught him a hard lesson, and promised more to come, and he was defending himself."

  "Good, come, you can use Duncan's room, for he is with his father. Help me Cristina. He can barely walk."

  That night Margaret had a comfy chair carried into Duncan's room and set down beside the bed, and there she sat in watch over him for the entire night. During this time Raynar met all of her children, and was even woken to the sound of little Alexander gurgling away at her breast. Cristina then arrived with tubs and buckets of warm water and shooed her away to get her breakfast while she washed the injured man.

  "You are still a handsome man, Ray,” said Cristina softly as she dried him. "I often regret allowing Margaret to have you to herself."

  The statement was not very true, but Raynar knew better than to correct the fond memories that women gather around themselves like armour.

  "It was never meant to be, love,” he said quietly. "The choice was yours, and at the time you were almost a bride of Christ. It still can't be."

  She threw the damp linen to the floor. "Damn it. She has a husband now, and five sons. In comparison to hers, my life is barren."

  "Margaron and I spoke long into the night. I told her what you have already heard from me, and she told me endless stories of your work here in Scotland. The priories, the convent schools, and hospitals, and orphanages. Your life is far from barren. Ask all those who you have helped, and they will tell you."

  "It is her money, and her patronage, and her land, and therefore her credit."

  "It is your hard work, and skill at organizing, and energy, and vision. So Margaron told me. She says that while she has spent years in the fuzzy world of milk madness, you have transformed Dunfermline, and the church here in Scotland."

  Cristina finally smiled, not at him, but to herself. "It was a lot of work, but I had a lot of help from other women."

  "And you are still comely and healthy,” said Raynar, "and can still have children of your own."

  "No, not that, though my body is willing my mind is not. I will love Margaret's as my own, for I refuse to become the drudge of some smelly husband. You see, I would not be allowed to wed a real man like you. I would be given the choice between a courtly milksop, or an elderly tyrant. No thank you."

  Margaret came through the door carrying a tray of food and drink. Cristina looked at her in dismay and could imagine the gossip that this one act would give wings to. The queen personally waiting on the new peasant visitor. Ah well. No worse that the gossip given wings by her bathing the same sickly peasant. Bah, she would tell the chamberlain that both sisters owed this man a heavy blood debt, and simple courtesy was all that he asked in payment. If Scots understood one thing well, it was the holiness of a blood debt.

  * * * * *

  Just before sunset of the fourth day there came a great commotion from outside his door and when the door opened he could hear the weeping and pleading of women. Malcolm, King of the Scots, charged into the room with a wicked long dagger in his hand. The two sisters, in a flurry of bright silk, were on his heels, but he slammed the door in their faces and shoved the bolt home.

  "Good afternoon, Sire,” Raynar said, "you will forgive me if I am not quick to stand and bow."

  "Show me your injury,” Malcolm ordered with a sneer. When he saw Raynar fumbling with the
linen, he reached forward, grabbed a handful of it and tugged it to the floor. "Bloody amazing, that fucking Walcher. Assassins did that? Near Dun Holm?"

  "Assassins, yes, but well south of York. Hired by the Busli clan to get rid of me, by accident."

  Malcolm removed his own jerkin, shirt and britches. The bruises around his waist and lower back were older, and less coloured, but were the same. "Six weeks ago. Near the border. Luckily a picket came to my aide. He is in Valhalla now but he took one of them with him. I was unconscious for days, but my men got one word from the bugger before he died. Walcher. The Prince-Bishop of Dun Holm."

  "I doubt that we are the only ones so attacked, but we may be the only ones who survived,” said Raynar, stiffly sitting up so he could inspect Malcolm's bruises more closely. "The Norman method of taking control requires that many men and children die in accidents. The church cannot condone murder, so it must look like an accident. With me they used something dull but heavy like a round stone. They knocked me from my horse, and then pounded my midsection with it. They did not need to kill me there and then. If I had not known the healing arts, I would have died in the arms of my loved ones, by accident."

  "Are you healing now?” asked Malcolm.

  "Yes, but for the first week I was slowly dying. A dose of the salts purged the damaged organs, and then I began to heal. But the healing is taking its time, and not being able to lie still has lengthened it."

  "The same, the same with me. An old crone near the border saltzed me and I shit blood and vinegar for a few days and then I began to heal.” Malcolm went suddenly quiet.

  "Sire, please order ale and food from the women, so that they will know that I have not fallen on your dagger."

  Malcolm walked naked to the door, unbolted it, walked through and yelled for ale and food. There were titters of relief from the other side of the door. He walked back to Raynar. "Before the women come, does your, you know. Does your cock still stand when you see a breast."