by Smith, Skye
Apparently the wealthiest miller in the area had died in a suspicious accident, and had left a very young wife with an infant son. One day later, the second son of a local knight had betrothed the widow by rape and claimed the miller's wealth in his trust for the infant. It was a typical Norman strategy to gain wealth.
Just after Henry had been crowned, the young widow poisoned her rapist husband, and had admitted as much to the priest. The priest had announced to the parish that she was therefore a witch, and should be stoned. Instead, the brother of the dead miller and his wife and family had moved into the miller's house to protect the young widow, now twice widowed. He had claimed her as a second wife, and had bedded her to ensure that he could claim any child she may now be carrying as his.
The knight in question was the senior knight sitting beside Eustace, and the count immediately requested that he absent himself from the judgement, which he did and went to sit with his own wife and family. Eustace looked like he was suffering from a very bad headache, and it was made worse by the cackling and snickering of the old man dressed as a king's tax collector.
Timing of the crimes was everything, and Eustace was silent for a time while he worked out the implications of the amnesty and the change in laws brought on by the charter. Finally he spoke. "Whether the miller died by accident or by murder is of no bearing to this case. The murder was pardoned by the charter.
The wife has admitted that the poisoning was in revenge and to stop the constant rape she was suffering even after the betrothal. The betrothal by rape was done before the charter and therefore she was legally wed. There is no provision in law for a wife to charge her legal husband with rape. Because she has admitted murder for revenge, there is no case here for witchcraft despite the use of poison.
The miller's brother, however, has taken to bed a woman who would have been in the trust of the knight's family after their son was poisoned. For that crime he has the choice of paying the knight ten shillings, or having his own wife willfully and joyously spend a night in bed with a male of the knight's family."
A voice called out from the benches. It was the brother's wife, a big woman, not unattractive, who was holding the now three-year-old son of the accused widow. "Do I get to choose which male?"
"Yes," replied Eustace.
"So be it. I'll take the teenage lad for a night then. And joyously," she announced. Her husband frowned, but then smiled at not having to pay ten shillings. The crowd that was now forming in the back of the hall all broke out into laughter.
Eustace looked at the knight and the priest sitting beside him. "Do you agree with my findings so far?" After some thought everyone was in agreement, and he told the clerk to write it all down as a confirmed ruling.
"That leaves the poisoning of the husband, and the matter of who becomes trustee to the son and heir. As it was murder most foul, though perhaps justified in the eyes of many, and since it was done after the amnesty, I therefore concur with the priest's penalty. The widow is to be taken out into the market place where she will be stoned. If she survives twelve stones, then she is free and she can continue as trustee and guardian to her son. If she does not survive, then the knight becomes such."
There were howls of outrage and joy, jeers and clapping, and of course, a horrible sobbing from the widow. Raynar had been hoping that Eustace could have found a loophole to dismiss the charge, as the widow had been as much a victim as a murderess. He stood and signaled his bowmen to create a space between the mob and the court and the widow.
The ealders were pleading with Eustace, but Eustace ignored them and announced that the court was permanently adjourned and that next week the court duties would be taken over by the moot. He then stood up and pushed his way through the angry ealders and made his way towards Raynar.
"That was not well done," was Raynar's comment.
"It had to be so. I needed the Normans to be satisfied so that they would agree to adjourn the court. She is to be pitied, but the community as a whole will benefit greatly from this court of landlords being replaced by a moot of ealders." Eustace motioned to the knights to walk the sobbing widow out into the market place to face her punishment. One knight began to drag her roughly, but he was pulled away from her by a large Frisian bowman who shielded her from abuse and led her slowly forward.
The news had reached the market place before the widow emerged, and the area around the pillory was already cleared in readiness. The knight's men-at-arms were selecting heavy cobblestones to throw at her. The poor widow now had her son in her arms and was covering him with teary kisses as she half-walked and was half-carried towards the pillory.
When Mary found out what was to happen and why, she went absolutely mad with rage. She ran to the pillory and looked out at the crowd that was pressing forward and yelled, "I forbid this vile punishment on my feast day! As a Saxon Princess, and as your Countess, I pardon this woman!"
The priest made towards her, shouting that she had no authority, but quickly stepped back again when he saw more than a few yard-long arrows being nocked into long bows and aimed at him. "You have no authority," he repeated in a more gentle voice, "the judgement was made by the Count, so only someone above the Count can pardon it."
"I am a Princess of England, sister to the Queen of the English," she hissed back at him.
"You are a woman. You have no say in this," replied the priest with a smirk at bettering her. He motioned to the men-at-arms to pick up the stones and commence the punishment.
Mary looked at her husband, who shrugged, and at the evil greed in the faces of the knights, and at the interest and curiosity of the mob now eagerly expecting to be entertained by a good stoning. She skipped over to where Raynar was standing and gave him a look that pleaded that he intervene. He whispered to her, "Think about it, love. You cannot stop this, but you can thwart it."
She was still staring at him, thinking, when there was a scream from the widow as they took her child from her. The widow moaned, holding her stomach, and then she pulled the pillory’s slop bucket closer to her so she could shit herself with some privacy by squatting over it with her skirts spread around it.
When the widow was finished, she stood and made two steps to stand in front of the pillory and then leaned back against it so she would not fall down from her sudden weakness. The first man was tossing the first heavy stone up and down in one hand, waiting for the signal to throw it at her.
Mary grabbed the hilt of Raynar's light Damascus sword and ran over to the man with the first stone and pointed the blade in his face. "I will skewer the first man who throws a stone," she hissed. The man dropped the stone but then angrily brushed the blade out of his face with one arm. He stopped, half-done, and froze in place. The arrows that had once been pointing towards the priest were now pointing at him. He very slowly stepped backwards and away from the Princess.
"The Charter declares that we are again ruled by Knut's laws," yelled Mary at the men-at-arms. "This punishment must be by twelve of her peers." She looked out at the crowd. "Am I right in this?" The shouted answer was unanimous. Twelve peers.
"Then hear me well," yelled Mary. "This woman has been found guilty of murdering the man who foully raped her. Twelve peers means that twelve women who have suffered rape must come forward, and swear they were raped and by whom, and then pick up a stone and throw it." Her words were repeated over and over by the crowd, and women began pushing their way forward through the mob to gain the throwing stones.
Mary looked at the women moving forward. There were many more than a dozen, and some of them looked very eager to throw stones. She held up her sword and shouted, "I claim the first stone!"
She looked at her husband, and blushed, mouthed the word 'sorry' and then picked up a stone and said in a clear strong voice, "I, Mary of Dumfermline, swear that I was abducted and raped by William, Count of Mortain and Earl of Cornwall, may he be damned to hell for eternity." There was absolute, stunned silence in the crowd.
Mary turned towa
rds the widow, pulled back her arm and threw the stone with all of her anger and her might. It made a direct hit on the slop bucket and chipped some wood loose, and spilled some of the slop onto the ground.
A market woman claimed the next stone and told of her gang rape by Norman soldiers during the civil war caused by William Rufus claiming the throne. Her stone flew with such force that it stove in the side of the slop bucket.
The slop bucket got a vicious stoning that day, as woman after woman cried out her own shame in front of witnesses and let loose at it. Two of the women were very young, and accused the priest of raping them. The last of the twelve, however, caused a hush in the crowd. She was the aged mother of the murdered man.
She looked at the widow as she hefted a stone and then told her, "My husband, your true Saxon lord, died while fighting alongside the princess's uncle Edgar to hold London Bridge against William the Conqueror. As a young widow, that knight over there, betrothed me by rape to gain my estate. The man you poisoned was my son by him, and I loved him despite all his failings." With that she aimed the last stone at the widow's head.
The woman was old and weak, and the cobble stone heavy, and she lobbed it to give it the range. It was a feeble throw. The young widow did not even duck, she just reached up with both hands and caught the stone, and then looked at it, the last stone, muddy in her hands. "You have the right," she told the old woman and she walked the stone back to her and handed it to her. "Here, try again." She backed cautiously away and to the pillory, and then closed her eyes in prayer, and sobbed.
Her sobbing was the only sound in a mob of hundreds. The old woman lobbed the heavy stone again, and shattered what was left of the slop bucket. There were howls and cheers and the spontaneous dancing and the joyous whirling of a hundred skirts. In the center of it all, the twelve women who had admitted publicly to their shame, hugged each other, and hugged the now free widow.
The priest and the knights were instantly moving towards Eustace with angry words, but they could not close on him because a phalanx of tall bowmen formed around him immediately. "All of you shut up!" Eustace yelled and they were instantly silent.
"King Henry carefully crafted his charter to put all of this violence and vengeance behind us, so that we can all start afresh. It is men like you who are thwarting his intentions. Look what you have just caused. My own wife has admitted in front of witnesses that Mortain raped her and cuckolded me. Thank you very much. You know what that means. I am now obliged to challenge him.
I can promise you one thing. If I am forced to fight him, then when our armies line up, you lot will be the first into the battle." He stared at the men until they looked down at the road. "And you, priest. Two of my young wards have this day accused you of rape. I will give you one hour to quit this town before I tell their kin that the punishment I will levy against anyone who cleanly gelds you will be one shilling, and one shilling only."
The priest stared at him, first thinking, and then overwhelmed with panic. He began to run towards the church, so Eustace sent two bowmen after him to make sure he did not take anything of value with him when he left town.
Raynar pulled Eustace away from the dour Normans before their tempers had a chance to simmer into vengeance. "Well, it looks to me like this day's festival will be even larger and louder than the last. I have no idea yet where we will sleep tonight, or if we will sleep tonight, but the women of your estates seem to be very happy with you."
They walked slowly through the market, every food stall offering them samples. A group of the ealders had bought some barrels of ale from the alehouse and were walking through the crowd with jugs of it, pouring it freely into every cup and bowl. The offer of free ale was separating the crowd by sex. The women were dancing and gossiping in the open space near to the pillory, while the men were drifting to the edges of the market square to lean against any handy wall while they drank free ale and watched the women cavort.
At one point Mary took a breather from dancing and came to find her husband and steal a swig of his ale. As she danced towards them through the throng, she touched the folk as she moved through them, and they returned the touch but only to her long dangling sleeves. It was a town of smiles, and they were all for her.
She glugged the last of Eustace's ale and sent him to find more. While he was gone she beamed at Raynar and asked, "Are all of the towns along this coast so open and ready to enjoy?"
"Malduna and Witham are special places because the Honor was in trust to the king directly. They are more or less self-ruling. There are not many Saxon towns like them because everywhere else the Saxons have been forced into serfdom. Further north, however, there are a lot of Frisian villages that you would enjoy as much as here. The ones your bowman escorts hail from."
"Have you sailed all of this coast then?" she asked him. "All of the North Sea?"
"As far as Scotland and Denmark to the north, and south along the Normandy coast as far as Bretagne."
"Then you've been to Caen?" she asked in wonder. From his stories, Raynar had spent most of his life as the sworn enemy of Caen. "I can't believe it. You. Were you a prisoner there or something?"
"I escorted your Uncle Edgar when he traveled there to surrender himself to the Conqueror. It was not the proudest moment of my life, so I rarely mention it."
"He surrendered?" she asked. "I thought he was captured."
"Well, the first time that he was taken to Caen was by William back in '67, and he was more or less a prisoner. I was talking about the second time, in '74. He thought that by surrendering it would stop the Normans from slaughtering more of the Dane English in the North.
You see, Edgar was never much of a leader of men, not a good one anyway. Leadership was forced upon him by others. He was more of a rallying flag to the exiles who had fled from the Conqueror to all of the ports of the North Sea. I suppose the idea came to him when he was shipwrecked for the second time on the Danelaw coast. Did he never tell you this story?"
"Well, he told us of being shipwrecked," she replied, "and having to make his way back to Scotland overland. You say he did that twice?"
"Yes, twice. Once before the Great Harrowing, and once after. The first time he was helped along from Daneglish village to Daneglish village by the farmers and the fisherman and the foresters. The Danelaw was a rich place then. Well-settled and well-populated and the folk were strong and healthy because they ate well and played well, like these folk here.
The second time was after the Normans had raped, murdered, and burned their way through the Danelaw. The army then withdrew and left the folk to face the winter without food or shelter. In a few months, that land of wealthy farm villages, had been turned into an empty wilderness. This meant that Edgar had a dreadful time getting back to Scotland because there was no one to help him, and no food, and no shelter. By the time he finally made it back to your mother in Scotland, he was completely depressed and distraught. He blamed himself for the devastation of the North."
"But it was the Normans who slaughtered all those innocents."
"Of course, but they were punishing the folk because the exiled lords kept running away from battle and setting traps for them. If he can't punish the lords, then the Conqueror punished the folk. The English lords knew that the Norman reaction would be harrowings, because William had already harrowed Maine and Bretagne before he ever invaded England.
In any case, Edgar decided that the only thing he could do to lessen the suffering of the English folk was to surrender ,so that he could no longer be used as the rallying banner for the exiles. Try as we might, we could not convince him otherwise. Hereward and I had already decided to fight William on the continent, in hopes that would force him to move his armies out of England."
"Which is how you ended up fighting against Eustace's father in Cassel."
"Yes, umm, you didn't tell that to Eustace did you?"
"Oops," she said. "Well, he asked me a lot of questions about you after he recognized you as THE Captain Raynar.
"
"Well, stop it," he scolded as he hugged her close and then swung her around in time with the music. "Those are my stories to tell, not yours. You could get me killed."
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The Hoodsman - Courtesans and Exiles by Skye Smith
Chapter 28 - The English exiles leave for Constantinople in June 1074
Ten of Edgar's exiled lords and their retainers, all dressed as pilgrims, were this day starting out from the monastery at Brugge on their way to Constantinople. Edgar had brought Raynar with him to the monastery to ensure that the banking arrangements were settled correctly.
Each of the ten English lords had left half of his treasure at Oudenburg in Hereward's keeping and had deposited the other half at this monastery. When they reached Constantinople they could draw against their monastery treasure, and if they needed more, Hereward would transfer more to the monastery.
Edgar was upset to be losing ten of his English lords, but they had spent seven years in exile already, a year and a half of which had been with him at the grand fortress at Montreuil sur Mer. It was clear that there was no hope of the exiled lords ever reclaim their English honors. If they were destined to be mercenaries, then they may as well be mercenaries in the Byzantine as in Montreuil.
Even Edgar had to admit that they were just Philippe of France's mercenaries. Despite helping Philippe to regain the holdings that his father had lost, and making Montreuil a thriving port that competed with Calais, the king had still not assigned his exiles any knightly honors. Edgar himself was still just the castellan, a post usually filled by a mere knight and not a prince.
Edgar shook arms with the ten lords and waved to their forty retainers, each of whom wore homespun clothing and a simple wooden cross hung from their necks. Edgar and Raynar sat in the morning sun with their backs against a monastery wall and watched the exiles walk eagerly towards the east. Their journey would be by river boat and by foot until they reached the Black Sea, and from there by ship. It would take them two months, God and thieves willing.