Hoodsman: Courtesans and Exiles

by Smith, Skye

  "I remember you from when you lived in our village and showed the women how to craft and use your Welsh bows." The maid was staring at Raynar as if Beatrice did not exist. "That was four years ago and I had not yet had a man. I am hurt that you do not recognize me, for I used to follow you around."

  Raynar stared at her face and imagined it before it had become womanly. "Gesa, Gesa." He stood and spread his arms and she almost leapt into them. "How could I recognize you so grown? You are no longer skinny and horse-faced." She pressed her body hard against his and he realized that she was very grown.

  Beatrice threw a cloth at her to get her attention. "Enough, take the food and plate back to the kitchen, and take this ale away and bring us wine." She pulled him down next to her again. "Will you stay with us?"

  "I would love to. Klaes has my ship for perhaps a week while his men copy the steering for use on his other cogs. My men stay at his village, but those with kin close by will be off visiting."

  "Then you must promise to stay unnoticed in Spalding." She looked at him sharply and he nodded his understanding. Beatrice looked at the now closed door and said, "She will be scratching at your door tonight. Will you take her into your bed?"

  "She is too young," he replied

  "Ahh, then you are looking for a companion, and not a wife to breed with, for she is prime breeding age. Do you want me to find you another widow like Roas perhaps? Must she be Frisian?"

  He gently pinched her nipple. "Still the matchmaker, eh. Haven't you given up on me yet? There are Frisian women in Flanders. I will choose the widow of a seaman for myself. One with a hard head and big tits."

  "No you won't. Some flouncy skirt from Robert's court will turn your head - your heads, and turn you into a milksop," she teased. "Would I like Flanders?"

  "Flanders is a culture under attack, as ours is under attack here. All the northern cultures are under attack from the manorial states, the Romanized states, of the south. They pretend they are bringing the true Christianity, but in truth they are bringing slavery. It bothers the Pope greatly that most northerners are freemen. Flanders is now the border between the freemen of the North and the serfs of the South."

  "So there will be no peace there?" she asked.

  "Armies have crisscrossed Flanders for years, ever since the great Baldwin died back in '67," he said thoughtfully. "My heartfelt hope is that with Robert the Frisian as the new count, Flanders will know peace again for a long time. Unfortunately, this hatred that Southern nobles have for freemen and their push to beat them and turn them into serfs, will continue long after Robert is in his grave."

  Gesa returned with the wine and sat again and drank some. In the way of young women she added honey to hers to sweeten it. "Who is the seer in your village now?" he asked of her, and she started her happy chatter again. She drank deeply and her nose turned rosy, and eventually Beatrice sent her to bed. Before she left them, she came around the table to pour more wine, and in doing so pressed a young firm breast against his cheek.

  Once Gesa had left them alone, he said, "Tonight I will have to be in a drunken sleep and bar my door to keep her out of my bed."

  She leaned forward to allow her bodice to fall open so he could see down her cleavage. "Then sleep with me," whispered Beatrice teasingly, "it won't be the first time we have shared a bed."

  "It would be the first time it was not a communal bed. A first time for just the two of us. Do not tease me with this, woman. I love your husband like a father."

  She dropped her hand to his lap and knew from the hard mound she found there that she had teased him enough and she must speak of something else to pull the blood back up to his other head. "Why do the Frankish nobles that already have so many serfs, hate that we northerners are free?"

  "Hmm, I used to ask the same thing, and I asked it of the pious monk who is building a new church in Oudenburg. He told me that just as Frisians see themselves as herders of horses, the Frankish nobles see themselves as herders of folk. Even their god's son described himself as being the shepherd of flocks of folk. He also told me that it was all pretending, or did he say pretense?

  They pretend they are kin to their god's son, and therefore have the right to be the shepherds of men. They pretend so hard and pretend to each other so well, that in their own minds it has become true. It angers them that the northern freemen do not take kindly to being herded. The freemen consider themselves as the equals of those nobles in every way except mammon. The nobles hate and fear them for it, and will not stop harrowing them until they are beaten and become as docile as flocks of sheep."

  "Mammon?" she asked, "the priests here use that word as the name of a devil. Do you mean there is a devil in the nobles?"

  "The monk told me that 'mammon' is just an ancient word for 'riches' and was never the name of a god or a devil. Is he wrong?"

  "Next time say riches," she scolded. "But I agree that the nobles are led by their greed. Their greed for land and for treasure."

  "I was only half listening to the monk, talking with him to improve my Flemish while I helped him to set stones in a wall. He was listing the seven deadly sins and described how the culture of the Frankish knights seems to be built on committing all of them. It was because the Frankish knights do not yet control Flanders, that he came to Flanders to build his church."

  "I have heard of the deadly sins," she said and looked at the wine jug she was about to pour from and set it down again. "They are all about pride and greed and gluttony and lust. Yes, every knight I have ever met, lives an overabundance of all of them."

  "The monk spoke in riddles. Nothing was simple with him. Apparently there are both old and new lists of deadly sins. The old one is all about lying and false witness and trickery."

  "Ahh," she said as she decided to pour more wine after all, "the knights do try not to lie, though that is not the same as telling the truth. Often they craft their words carefully so as not to lie when they are hiding the truth."

  "He told me something else about mammon that greatly bothered me because I am not a lawyer or a judge." He said this softly, as if embarrassed to admit his ignorance. "He told me that the Franks are making a subtle change to the moneylender law, and that the change will make it easier for them to turn freemen into serfs."

  "Save that discussion for Thorold. He understands law for he was the shire reeve of Lincolnshire for a dozen years. He has sat in judgment and has argued with lawyers and won." She shuddered at a thought. "I don't know when to expect him back. He rode to Lincoln with King William and he has still not returned. It has been almost a month now. I have had no words from him for over a week. The last I heard, he was doing a survey of ferries on the Humber, at the king's request."

  "Well then, he is working at something he enjoys, and you should not worry about him," he said giving her a squeeze. "But who then is running Spalding and Lynn and the estates?"

  "I am, but I am always so tired now that I must trust others and delegate most of it.. Thankfully, and thanks to you and Hereward, there is no shortage of stalwart and trustworthy hoodsmen in both places. In truth, the whole of Lincolnshire is enjoying a blissful peace. I call it the peace of the bow, because in every village there are Welsh bows and men who know how to use them."

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  The Hoodsman - Courtesans and Exiles by Skye Smith

  Chapter 6 - Meeting Gesa in Spalding in July 1072

  Beatrice was thinking that it seemed so long ago since Raynar had organized the first wolfpack of hoodsmen and had begun taking back the English farms and manors from Norman knights. So much had happened in a year and a half.

  She smiled at the comely young man and said, "Waltheof has told me that there are still very few Normans in residence between Lincoln and Saint Albans. The Normans who escaped the shallow graves of the last rebellion are not anxious to return. I suppose that they still fear your wolfpacks."

  "Aye," he admitted, "we left most manors to be run by the twice-widowed Engli
sh mams, but men from the packs did stay behind to help them and to guard them. How did you just put it? Stalwart and trustworthy. Those twice-widowed women have good men about them now, and as you said, they know how to kill knights with Welsh bows."

  "Twice widowed? Twice widowed?" Her face brightened "Oh, I see. First a widow of an of Englishmen killed by the Normans. Then a wife by rape to a Norman who claimed the land. Then widowed again by your wolfpacks. Does that mean that the land reverts to English hands again?"

  "For now, but for how long depends on Norman legal trickery. Unfortunately, King William's half-brother Odo is chief Justicar and in the past he has twisted our laws many times to serve himself and his brothers." He yawned, and moved as if he were going off to find a bed.

  "So what is this change in the moneylender laws that you mentioned?" she asked. She wasn't really interested, but would ask anything to keep him close by a little longer. She really, really wanted to spend the night with him.

  "Well, under Knut's laws that are in-common all around the North Sea, if a man owes money, that is based on his oath, and his oath is a personal bond. If he has trouble paying it back, then he becomes a peon, or a bond servant, until the debt is paid. It is much the same in Frankish law. The difference is that a North Sea debtor's court would never agree to the taking away of the man's ability to pay the debt. Under Frankish law the moneylender can take anything to pay a debt, including that which earns for the man."

  "You mean that if a miller cannot pay a debt, they can take his mill. If a farmer cannot pay a debt, they can take his fields. Why that is monstrous!" she exclaimed. "They take away his ability to pay the debt, and yet he still owes the debt. Why would a court allow such trickery?"

  "That is becoming the new normal in Frankish Christendom. How did the monk put it, ahh yes, the path of a freeman to serfdom passes through peonage. I find it unfathomable that such a subtle change in law can undo long traditions of possession through hard work."

  "Yes, it would undo the laws of possession, wouldn't it?" She pursed her lips. "Here in Lincolnshire, if a farmer needs to borrow, he asks it of the manor first, and then of the monastery, or, as a last resort, a moneylender. With such a change to our laws, over time the manor estates and the monastic estates would grow and grow at the expense of freeman farmers." She sat back in disgust. "And is it the same law for knights?"

  "It is the same law but it hardly applies to them. A Frankish knight's wealth is from honors. Much of the land they manage is not actually theirs, so it cannot be taken from them to pay their debts. Besides, when a noble borrows, he borrows large. They do borrow coin locally as the farmers do.

  In Brugge, there is a new type of moneylender setting up their shops. These new moneylenders are only one part of a company of moneylenders. When a noble borrows from him, the cost and the risk is not just to that one lender, but spread across the whole company of lenders. The monk told me that these new moneylenders are connected to lenders in a dozen other cities from Brugge to Constantinople."

  "Now this interests me." There was a sparkle in Beatrice's eyes. "Klaes tells me that Brugge is booming under their new Count. Meanwhile, Thorold and I have become more and more worried about our future here in Spalding. The Normans are land greedy and eventually they will steal ours, or at least most of it. Klaes wants us to put any new wealth into things other than land."

  "Listen well to Klaes. His village has many ways to earn other than from their land. Farming and herding from the land, but also fishing and trading from the sea. He owns ships and earns by carrying cargo for others. He risks his ship, while the others risk the cargo." He watched the smile grow on her face. She knew this better than he. "Am I right in thinking that those are mostly your cargoes?" he asked.

  "Of course. Because our Frisian seamen helped to win the Battle of Cassel for Count Robert, it is now easier, safer and more profitable for us to trade with Brugge than with London," she answered, wiggling her wine goblet, "and in Brugge we buy things at a lower cost than we can in London," she pinched at her fine woolen shawl, "and sell things at higher price than we can in London."

  "Am I missing something? It sounds like you already earn from things other than land."

  "We are still heavy with land on this side of the sea, and light on trade on the other side of the sea. Klaes says that we should sell the land that we are most likely to lose to the Normans, before they can take it from us. We could use that coin to buy some wineries on the continent and thus increase the Brugge portion of the earnings from our trading."

  "So will you live in Brugge or in Spalding?" he asked cautiously. He now understood why all the questions about Brugge and Flanders.

  "Since there are risks to living in either place, we will live in both," she said with the finality in her voice of someone who had just made a decision long coming, and she slammed her goblet down to make the point.

  "So why are you so interested in the company of moneylenders?" he queried, angling his head and wrinkling his nose as if he smelled a fart.

  "Because if they are the way of the future, then perhaps we should join the company. We have coin to lend, and we need coin wherever we make trade. It would be foolish to always be moving the coin from place to place. Too risky." She looked at him and gave him an innocent smile to hide the shrewdness of her mind. "So are you coming to bed with me, or are you going to wait until Thorold offers me to you?"

  "It is not sharing the bed that worries me. If there were a need for warmth or protection or comfort, then we would already be cuddled against each other. We have no such need and I fear our desires will lead us to trespass against Thorold."

  "Oh but love, I do have the need for comforting. Without Thorold, I am being dragged down by worry and responsibility. That and this new baby." Her face started to redden. "Is it me, then. You have shared women before. You have lived in Klaes's village where such sharing is common. You shared Roas with Hereward when she lived in Ely."

  "It is different, Bea. You are the longtime wife of a man who is not Frisian, and who sets store in old-fashioned ideals such as fidelity."

  "This is Klaes's son in me," she blurted out, and then covered her mouth with her hand. "You must never tell."

  "Klaes is not me. Klaes carries Thorold's blood, and I would wager that Thorold was in the bed with you at the time."

  "You knew. How many others know?" she was on the verge of tears, or perhaps panic.

  "I suspected. Everyone who knows of Thorold's wounds must suspect it, but no one speaks of it."

  "It was to be you. In Selby, when we were all living in two rooms during the great flood. It was to be you because Thorold and I both cared for you, and because you were determined to leave us and go and get yourself killed." She kissed him full on the mouth. "But then Anske fell in love with you, and you with her, and the moment slipped away from us."

  "Klaes was a better choice than I. He carries Thorold’s bloodline."

  "Yes, but it was with you that we first formed the idea." She kissed him again and lingered longer on his lips. "There, it is all said, now come to bed."

  "Women," he sighed, "does logic always escape them? If I couldn't bed you before, it is doubly so now. I now need both Thorold's and Klaes's consent before I would mount you."

  "Ohhh, Raynar, you make me want to scream and weep at the same time. I want to slap you and say that you need only my permission to be one with my body." She moved away from him on the bench. "But though it sounds very modern, it is far from the truth. You are right, of course. If you share my bed, you also share Thorold's." She looked at him. "Damn you for being right."

  "So the next time you sleep with Thorold," he asked, "will you speak of this?"

  "Well, not the next time, but perhaps after a week. So tonight will you open your door to that teenager, Gesa?"

  "She is your charge," he said. "It used to be that those in your service would ask your permission first."

  "I have three island women serving me and today all three have
asked my permission to sleep with you. I said no to all of them, but Gesa, well, she is willful and does who she pleases. She asks forgiveness, not permission. She has an appetite, that one. An appetite that I cannot control. All men respond to her. If she could control her appetite she could control men."

  "Now you have me intrigued. Would you be angry if I submitted to her just out of curiosity?"

  "Not angry, no," she whispered. Should she forbid him or encourage him, she asked herself. If she forbade him then she would be two-faced about wanting to share partners. If she encouraged him, then he would have Gesa while rejecting her. She hated the feeling of rejections. Hah, all women hated the feeling of rejection. What a dilemma.

  An idea came to her of how to beat the dilemma. "I will wager you one mark of silver that if you leave your door unbarred, she will come to you and you will not be able to resist her."

  "Countess, you are one wily wench. If I want her, it will cost me a mark. That is more than a dockside whore makes in a month. A mark is too much to pay for a silly girl who is not even a virgin, so you will lose your mark."

  "I dare you to let her in your room tonight. If you let her in, you will want her, no matter the cost," she laughed aloud. "Believe me. When she turns her charm on you, you will forget everything except for how much you want her wrapped around you." She instantly regretted her words. She had just dared him to do exactly what she was trying to prevent. He was a man. Of course he would take the dare. So much for her clever idea of how to beat the dilemma.

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  The Hoodsman - Courtesans and Exiles by Skye Smith

  Chapter 7 - Seduced in Spalding in July 1072

  Young Raynar bathed and groomed himself well before going to his bed. He did not bar the door, and before he had the chance to snuff his candle, the door opened ever so quietly and Gesa slipped into the room. The candlelight showed through her night shift, which was just a little tight on her growing and developing body.