by Smith, Skye
When dawn broke they were beyond Comer on the northern coast of Norfolk. The watch shook him awake, even though he had bedded down just three hours ago. They told him that there was a ship ahead on the horizon heading this way, and that she had triangle sails. His stilled his urge to leap out onto the deck with his looker to spy out the ship, for his first duty was to Blake. The ship could wait until he had bathed Blake's wound in cool salt water, and his forehead in cool fresh water and then made sure that he drank a mix of both.
By the time he reached the deck with his looker, the other ship was but a quarter mile away. Like the Alice, she was flying along across a steady wind and so the two ships were closing the distance quickly. He put the looker to his eye and spied it out. "She's one of Alice's sister ships,” he told the tillerman, "one of the Freisburns out of Wellenhay or Lynn or Fishtoft. When we are close, swing across her bow and put our bow into the wind. She'll do the same."
It happened as Daniel had said it would, and when the two sister ships were abreast and bobbing on the waves, the commanders of each began to hail each other.
"Danny, is that you? You'd better hurry home, for the Christmas festival is nearly finished.” It was Tom, one of the Freiston men who had married into his clan.
"Then why are you lot freezing your asses off out here,” Daniel called back.
"Patrolling as required under our charter from the Eastern Association,” Tom replied. "We've got some militia lads aboard going home to Great Yarmouth, and likely there'll be more lads and a load of powder and shot to be delivered to Boston. Tell the women we'll be home in five days."
"May the moon light your way,” Daniel called out the Frisian blessing.
"May the stars guide you,” Tom called back in a wish for clear weather.
The two crews back filled their mainsails which turned the ships enough to catch the wind, and they were off and away again in opposite directions. Daniel was beaming. That Tom had no bad news to relay to him was the best of all possible news.
At the river quay in Lynn the crew of another sister ship eagerly leaped aboard the Alice to help pole her up the River Great Ouse to Wellenhay pool. The poles were not because of the current, for the river was sluggish, but because the course of the river ran directly into the wind. It was maddeningly slow compared to sailing, and the dozen miles under pole seemed to drag by. There was but two hours of light left by the time the pulled up to the long dock that ran out from the island village into Wellenhay Pool.
The long dock was crowded with well-wishers before they even pulled up alongside. The clan would have gathered for the Frisian Yule feast on December 11, on the shortest day of the year, and that special time would have been for the Wellenhay clan only. This year the village had hosted a second Yule, a Christian Yule beginning on December 25, because the village now had a mutual aid pact with the Christian villages of Fishtoft and Freiston on the other side of the Wash near Boston. Today was the second last day of the Christian Yule, and there were many merry visitors from those two villages still sleeping over.
The many welcomes waited while Blake was carried off the Alice and directly into the communal bath house. The crew went with him, both crews, for even in the January cold poling the ship a dozen miles had been sweaty work. The crew of the Alice were from Dorset and they looked absolutely stupefied when a group of naked women of all shapes and ages scurried out of the sweat lodge attached to the bath house, grabbing robes and shifts and cloaks as they cleared the building to make room for the newly arrived crews.
It was these women that convinced the Dorset men that they must shuck off all of their clothing and wash their bodies clean, else they could not enter the sweat lodge and get warmed to the bone. Back in Dorset they would never have bared enough skin for an all over wash in the winter for fear of catching their death. Here they were pleasantly surprised that the washing water was warm, and then rejoiced when they entered the dry heat of the sweat lodge.
Daniel did not join them in the lodge, but stayed with Blake in the bathhouse to wait for help to arrive. It didn't take long. His wives, Venka and Sarah arrived first, quickly followed by Teesa, his younger step-daughter, who had been slow to arrive because she had been leading the tottering wise woman, Oudje. In his youth it had always been Oudje who would step forward and treat wounds and sickness, but as Oudje had aged it had been Venka helping Oudje, but today it was Oudje helping Teesa. It was Teesa who asked the questions, Teesa who remove the bandages, Teesa who did the touching, and Teesa who sent folk racing in every direction to fetch what she needed. Oudje sat on a stool and occasionally mumbled something to her. Teesa sent her mother, Venka to her house to fetch things.
The communal building known as the bath house was not just for bathing and sweating, for the fires that heated the water and the lodge were the fires from the line of bake ovens that formed the northern wall. So long as the bake ovens were in use there was warmth, and even though these were some of the coldest days of the year, there were so many Yule visitors that the ovens were hot from pre-dawn for the morning bread to the early evening for the last meal before bed. It was therefore wonderfully warm in the bathhouse and Daniel began to feel very sleepy.
Once Teesa had finished asking him questions about Blake’s wounds, Daniel shucked his clothes, washed himself off, and joined the crews in the sweat lodge. They made room for him to lay down on one of the long pine benches, so he could doze in comfort. He was disturbed many times by cooler air as folk opened and closed the lodge door, but he didn't fully wake until he was shaken awake.
"You've been in here too long,” a concerned voice told him; Venka's. "You know better than that. Go and dunk yourself in the pond.” She led him out behind and to the right of the bathhouse, and he joined some others of the crew in dashing into the water. There was a skim of ice on the dunking pond, which explained why his skin suddenly seemed to be on fire. He and the rest of the men rushed out of the pond faster than they had rushed into it, and then laughed and jested all the way back to the enveloping warmth of the sweat lodge.
Once Daniel was warm again he put on the robe that Venka had left for him and went to check on Teesa and Blake. There was a throng of women around them that was so thick he could see nothing. Many of them were visitors from the sister villages. In these dangerous times filled with lawlessness and guns, it was no surprise that all of these women would want to watch and learn about the best way of treating wounds. Oudje knew it all, but Teesa was her apprentice, and it was Teesa who was explaining things as she worked away with her silver tools.
Venka slipped her arms around one of his and mushed it between her breasts, and then kissed him on the cheek. "Rob will be fine, you'll see. Teesa has healing hands, and afterwards Sarah will watch over him like a guardian angel. She still thinks of him as good husband material. Shhh, don't say it. She knows that he needs a younger wife, one who can bear him many children, but she is still hopeful."
"Rob's crew will need robes and bedding and food,” Daniel told her as he presented her with his other cheek to kiss. This was, after all, a Christian festival and wasn't it Jesus who preached to turn the other cheek.
"The food is no problem. The feasting tables are still set up in the long house.” The communal long house was the largest building in the village and served as both inn and meeting hall. "I will have to ask around about robes because the sweat lodge has been in continuous use for a week. As for beds, every space in every house is already taken. It would be easier to find each of them a woman and have them share the woman's bed."
"They may not like that,” he said with a straight face, but could not keep the corners of his lips from turning up. Wellenhay women were fit and comely and enjoyed having men in their beds.
"You may not like that. There is no privacy to be had, not even in my house, not even to properly welcome my own man home. Wait here while I see about some robes for them, or at least some clean cloaks or blankets.” Venka moved off through the women, from woman to woman w
hispering in certain ears.
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The Pistoleer - Invasion by Skye Smith Copyright 2013-15
Chapter 14 - Yule in the Fens in January 1643
"I found it. I finally found it,” Teesa said between yawns as she sat down on the other side of Daniel from Venka at the head table of the longhouse. She reached forward and thieved some pickled herring from Daniel's plate, and then some more.
Daniel smacked playfully at her hand as he asked, "Was it cloth after all?"
"Yes, of course. A round of linen hose about a half inch across. If it had been cotton he would be dead by now. As it is I cannot be sure that the poison is not already in his blood. I cleaned the place where the linen was lodged using a mix of seaweed squeezings and bread mold squeezings, so with luck he will make a complete recovery, except..."
Venka leaned forward so she could see her daughter's face and asked, "Except what?"
"The muscles in his calf may have been damaged by the ball or by all the poking about looking for the cloth. If so, he may have a slight limp for the rest of his life."
"How many ...."
"Five stitches. Very neat, but there will be a scar because the wound has been open for so long. We've moved him into my house, and Sarah is watching over him. In truth she has crawled into bed with him to keep him warm.” She carefully watched Daniel's face as she told him this. Watched for any sign of jealousy or anger. Sarah was, after all, Daniel's younger, prettier wife. Instead her step-father smiled.
"Good, very good,” was his reply. "If she doesn't get him to propose marriage this time, then she has only herself to blame.” Venka and Sarah were both second wives who he had inherited on the death of his brother. Accepting widows into you family as a second level of wife was the Frisian traditional way of saving women from the hardships of widowhood. Sarah finding a new 'first' husband would be a very good thing for all concerned.
The longhouse was filled with the guests from Freiston and Fishtoft, which were villages with histories stretching back to their Frisian origins, but unlike secluded Wellenhay, their traditional ways had long ago been replaced by Christian ways. Two of their elders came up to Venka to ask her a question. Venka was the equivalent of the mayor of Wellenhay. A woman mayor was not uncommon on every shore of the North Sea where the women were often left behind to run the village and the fields while the men were away with the ships or the herds.
"We had said we were leaving tomorrow morning to return home, but...” began one of the elders.
"But now that Daniel has arrived,” Venka finished for him, "you wish to delay your departure for a day so you can hear his news from the south. Of course you may. Need you ask?” Of course they needed to ask. Both of their villages owed a debt to Wellenhay beyond repayment. Four months ago Wellenhay had saved their villages and their men from the king's cavalryers. "Join us now if you wish, though I fear that Daniel is about to fall asleep in his pudding plate."
"Tell your women,” Daniel told the elders, "that we pulled up alongside the Friesburn Six on our way here. That was off the Norfolk coast. The crew said they would be back home within five days.” The elders nodded but did not interrupt for they were hoping for more useful news. "How is it going with grabbing back your common land from the nobs of Lincolnshire?"
The elders smile and one of them replied, "There has not yet been any reaction, but of course, the new earl is still a captive of Parliament. We have done as John Lilburne suggested and have claimed the land as a part of a religious movement, a farming collective."
"How would you like to expand your claims to land that was not originally part of your common?"
"Should others be hearing this?” Venka asked. "Should I fetch more elders?"
"Aye, why not, but only if they are close by,” Daniel replied and then began searching his eyes across the crowded hall. The dim light just made his eyes more tired than they already were, but meanwhile the others rose and went to fetch those they could find. This gave him time to ask Teesa more about Rob. "I did right then, by abducting him from the army surgeons and bringing him to you?"
Teesa had by this time finished all of his roll mops and was sucking her fingers. She still looked like a young teen despite being in her twenties. Perhaps this was because she was wiry thin like a lad, rather than rounded like the other village women, or perhaps it was just because she was sucking on something. "I'm surprised they didn't charge you with witchcraft for using bread mold on his wound,” she replied with a smile. "Even a good lawyer couldn't have saved you from the witch fires if they had seen you using spider webs to stop the bleeding. But yes, you did right. Men often die of blood poisoning even after enduring the pain of amputation."
"I tempted the fates by bringing him here. I knew it would take all of three days, and he could have died on any of those days."
"And he would have,” she told him, "if you hadn't kept flushing the wound with clean, cold sea water.” She was interrupted by the scraping of benches as six elders and her mother, sat down. "Should I stay and listen, or may I go and join in the moon dance around the bonfire with the other young folk."
"You are a seer not an elder,” Venka told her. "Your place is with the dancers."
Daniel waited until the men all had cups of warm spiced ale in front of them before he began. "It is known to you all how the nobs have been twisting our traditional in-common enclosure law against its purpose in order to thieve our in-common land from us. Since this war began you have been claiming the thieved land back by using the other side of the enclosure law ... the squatter law. Those squatter claims rely on our filling in the enclosure ditches on land that was in-common within living memory."
"Yes, yes, everyone knows this now,” said an elder from Freiston.
Daniel shot him a withering look. It had been the men of Wellenhay who had told this man's village about how football matches could be used to thwart enclosure canals, and that had been but a year ago. Yet the misuse of Knute's in-common enclosure laws had been going on ever since the French Normans had stolen England's crown. That was centuries ago. Centuries of the nobs thieving the common land of the villagers. And this man dared to pretend that he knew about it all along. He had to control his temper before he could continue his telling. Seeing that he was having trouble controlling his temper, Venka moved closer to him and entwined her arm in his and patted his hand, secretly, under the table.
"Captain John Lilburne suggested that to protect our reclaimed commons from legal trickery, we must hold the land in the name of religious collectives so that the lawyers of the nobs must weave through the complexity of religious law before they can argue the land title."
"Yes, yes, go on,” the elder urged impatiently.
Venka's hand released Daniel's and moved over to stroke the inside of his thigh. His temper was replaced with another kind of emotion. "In the south near the town of Farnham, I met some Lincolnshire Familists who had taken this plan to its next logical step. They had squatted on a bishop's land.” For once the elder was silent. Daniel stared at him and said, "The logic is obvious. Why don't you explain it to the others while I go and get more herring. My plate is suddenly empty."
"I, err, that is,” the elder stumbled over his own thoughts. "They will never be able to hold that land. They have no claim. They have no right. They are from Lincolnshire. The land was not thieved common, not within memory.” The elder shrugged and went silent.
Daniel smiled at the embarrassed know-it-all and sat back down. "Forget the land for a moment and think instead of the politics of parliament. The Presbyterians control both the parliament of Scotland and of England. Presbyterians despise that the king's appointed bishops are the political controllers of the church and its wealth. Why do you think that the king's wars with Scotland were called the Bishop's Wars. The king wanted to appoint bishops so he could take political and financial control of the churches, and the Scottish Presbyterians told him 'Not Bloody Likely'."
&nbs
p; Now the elders around him were beginning to nod. All except for the know-it-all who was afraid of again being called on to explain something.
"If parliament wins their war against the king, then the bishops will be finished, defrocked, perhaps even executed, starting with Archbishop Laud.” Daniel looked around. "The bishop of Ely, Matthew Wren is in the tower with Laud.” Everyone was hanging on his words now. "The bishops are wealthy men for they control the income of the cathedrals and the Episcopal churches, plus their castles, palaces, and lands. Once there are no more bishops, what happens to all that wealth, all that land?
Some of that wealth is already being looted. When the king's officers capture a town they loot the townsfolk, which includes raping the women. When parliament's officers capture a town, they loot the cathedrals and the bishops' palaces. In Winchester they used the cathedral as a stable for their horses. So, think about it. Parliament is thieving from the bishops, but they can only thieve the portable wealth. What about the land?"
Some of the elders now wanted to speak. You could see the excitement in their eyes. They had put Daniel's clues together, and were bubbling at the mouth trying to keep their peace until he was finished speaking.
"Now about those Lincoln Familists that I met near Farnham. They are a religious commune; communists. They have squatted on unused land. Land belonging to a bishop, and unused because the bishops are in hiding or in prison, so much of their land is lying fallow. Farming is the least of a bishop's worries these days. If parliament wins against the king, and the bishops are no more, then who will have the strongest claim to the land that the Familists are working? Eh? Eh? I would say those Familists.
First off, since the bishops will have lost their claim to the land, then who else can claim it. The parliamentarian nobs will try to claim it, but they are Presbyterians so they likely won't make too much trouble for any religious communes who are actually working the land.