by Smith, Skye
"Girl, uh, Teesa,” Susannah said, "you come with me. The upstairs maids will see to you."
The kitchen girls waited until they heard two sets of footsteps on the front stairs and then they all broke into gasps of whispered giggles.
"Hold your tongues,” Cook said with an edge. "Her ladyship now has a full sized doll to dress and to play with. That will keep her well away from my kitchen and that is a good thing."
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Susannah's appraisal of Teesa was that she was but a country bumpkin and nothing more, but that appraisal quickly went awry. For one thing, when the maids asked her to strip to nothing and stand in a washing pan placed before the fire so they could damp wipe her clean and towel her dry, the girl was completely at ease with her nudity.
And why not at ease? She was tall and lithe and muscular and the padding of a woman had not yet hidden the sleekness of her youth. And that was another thing, her muscles. They bulged and rippled underneath her skin as they would in a young man. And her skin. The maids kept trying to rub off what they thought was tannin from her buckskins, but it wasn't. It was her natural skin color, though darker where touched by the sun on her neck and lower arms.
Susannah was becoming more and more interested in this ship's urchin. "You spoke in tongues in the kitchen,” she said softly. "Remember, after I said 'geese'. What were they?"
Teesa was using a large towel to keep the cold air of the room away from her naked back while she warmed her front before the fire. Her skin was tender from how hard the maids had rubbed at it but at least she was clean. "Oh, I sometimes forget the English words for things so I try them out in my cradle language, Old Frisian, and in my other language, Dutch. I always confuse 'gooses, geese' because it is 'goes, gaes' in Frisian but 'gans, ganzen' in Dutch. Where I really get confused by English is with the French words in it, for I don't speak any French."
"Ah, so you must have attended a Puritan school where they taught Dutch as the second language, rather than a Church of England school where they would have taught you French."
"Oh I didn't go to ... I mean ... yes, that must be it. I speak some Danish too, but only the words that come from Frisian."
"So you are of Frisian blood then?"
"Anglo Frisian,” Teesa corrected. "My ancestors owned the ships that brought the Angles to East Anglia, you know, the ones who pushed the Latins back to Greece."
Susannah chuckled at the confusion of history but she understood what the girl was trying to say. History had been one of her passions ever since the children had married and had left home to start their own households. It seemed that Teesa's bloodline was older by far than the Norman bloodlines of William the Conqueror's reign, even older than the Danish bloodlines of Knute's reign, and older than the English bloodlines of Alfred's reign, and perhaps even older than Angle bloodlines of Wuffa's reign. This girl's bloodline may stretch back a thousand years. Incredible.
She had first become interested in history as a girl, when her father had been appointed as the Lord Mayor of London. She had wanted to trace his bloodline for him. It disappeared barely two hundred years ago, yet this chit of a girl knew exactly where her bloodline began. What had she said? The Frisians who had ferried the Angles to East Anglia. Incredible.
The maids returned and over their arms they carried a white linen smock and a black wool bodice and skirt, and some linen underthings. "Not those,” Susannah rejected them with an upheld hand. "Bring me some of Frances' silk gowns, those ones we packed away." The maids scuttled away mumbling under their breaths.
"And don't you tut tut me. Frances is in London with Anne, and by the time she returns she will shun anything but the latest of London fashions." Frances was her youngest step-daughter. Anne, the eldest, was long married to Edward Montagu who would eventually be the Earl of Manchester. With the maids gone, Susannah smiled at the young girl warming herself in front of the fire. "So how do you know all this about your ancestors, child?"
"Our village has elders and seers who pass on the history and the traditions, oh, and keep recent bloodlines too, you know, so that babies aren't born with six fingers. I suppose you could think of them as walking, breathing books."
Susannah shuddered at the mention of six fingers, an all too common blemish in the babies of the aristocracy. "Tell me more of what your seers told you about your ancestors. Umm, do you mind if I write down some of what you say?" She had always thought that the wisdom of women elders should be written down. History books all seemed to be written by men about men, and so much was left unwritten.
Teesa nodded and then said, "So do you want ... me ... to ... speak ... more ... slow....ly?"
Susannah laughed loudly despite herself, and told the girl that she could write quite quickly. The loud laugh, however, brought the maids running to see what was the matter. They found her with tears in her eyes and her sleeve stuffed in her mouth. "What did this guttersnipe do to you ma’m?" one of them asked as she pulled at Teesa's towel to spin the girl around. "Did she hurt you?"
"Ugh, nothing at all. I had a tickle in my throat. Everything is fine. Oh good you found some of Frances' things. Give her those silky unders for a start, so she doesn't catch cold. Teesa dear, please keep telling me of your history while they dress you."
Teesa spoke absent mindedly because she was staring at the colors and touching the fabric of the items of clothing. So this was silk. It was so tightly woven and from such slender threads. No wonder it cost the earth. "But I only know what our seer told me. Umm, do you know where Denmark is? All of the folk that moved south into England came from around Denmark. The Jutes from the thumb of Denmark, the Saxons from along the Baltic Sea, the Angles from the base of the thumb and the Frisians from the Waddensea coast.
"Yes, I understand,” Susannah said as she scribbled. "keep talking." Then to the maids, "No, not the green one. I think the turquoise gown will bring out her eyes."
"Our seer told me that the Latins that ruled in Britain all left at once in order to defend France from the waves of northerners moving south in search of the sun."
"So your seer must call the ancient Romans 'The Latins'. At the time France was called Gaul."
"I'm not sure. When my seer speaks of Romans she usually means the Pope."
"Forgive my interruption,” Susannah didn't want to confuse the girl before she finished relating her seer's version of history. "Tell me more of what your seer taught you."
"Everyone was migrating south. They had no choice because the summers became so short that even barley would not ripen. The Latins were fighting back and holding up the migration, which caused a famine in the northern tribes and they began to fight amongst themselves.
The Jutes and the Saxons had pushed south into the land of the Angles, and the Angles had fled in front of them and were hiding in the wetlands of the Frisians. The Angles were drylanders, and good customers of the Frisian trading ships. In those days the Frisian ships carried cargoes all over the North Sea just like the Dutch ships do today, so it was the Frisians who first knew when the Latins had moved out of Britain. They told this to the Angles and convinced them to move to Britain rather than competing for food with the rest of the folk moving south on the continent."
"So the Frisians were the main traders of the North Sea?" Susannah asked, still scribbling furiously.
"Of course. That is why the trading language of the North Sea was Frisian, and why English is so much like Frisian. Now where was I? The trouble was that the Angles were drylanders. They had no ships to cross the sea. Well, the Frisians didn't want them in Friesland so they loaded them on Frisian ships and took them across the sea. After a few more long cold hungry winters, the Jutes and the Saxons followed the Angles to Britain."
"Did the Frisians ferry the Jutes and the Saxons too?"
"I don't think so. The Jutes lived on Danish islands so they would have their own ships. The Saxons had lived on the Baltic Sea so I suppose they would have had ships as well. Ouch, not so tight,” Teesa comp
lained to a maid who was pulling at laces."
Susannah put her plume down and stood and walked around Teesa with a critical eye, "Smooth it down at the back." The maids did so. "Yes, she will wear that one to luncheon, and perhaps the green one tonight. They will both need a few stitches to tighten the bust. One of you do that while the other goes and finds some matching shoes that will fit her." Susannah read her last scribble. "And all this was because the winters were getting longer, or rather, because the growing season was getting too short for the crops to ripen. Very interesting."
"Did I mention that the sea froze over. You can't catch fish when the sea is frozen over. So where are you going to move to now that the times of endless winter are coming again?" Teesa asked innocently. "My clan is thinking of moving to the Caribbean because it has nuts as big as your head that hold magic water that keeps you healthy."
"Times of endless winter? Coming again?"
"Year after year of longer winters. It has already begun. You must have noticed. Our seer says that if we stay in England we will suffer generations of long winters, and with the winters ... famine, and with the famine ... wars and plagues. She says that everyone will become greedy and evil. You know, like in the Bible." Her best friend Bridget Cromwell had been teaching her to read from the bible, that is, until they had found a copy of Romeo and Juliet to use instead.
"The four horsemen of the apocalypse,” Susannah murmured. "The conqueror rides the white horse and claims power, and his swordsman rides the red horse and brings war, and his banker rides the black horse and causes shortages and famine and disease, and his slave master rides the pale horse and brings hell on earth."
Teesa jumped, "Ouch, you pricked me with the needle." She sucked in her stomach, not that there was much to suck in. "I suppose that all makes sense if the conqueror on the white horse is the endless snow. Snow and ice do conquer all. Was the quote about the horsemen from Shakespeare?"
"No, the book of Revelations. Ah, the shoes," Susannah set her plume down and capped her ink. "Try them on dear and see if any of them fit?" She stood and told her maids to go and fetch her own gown, for it was time that she were dressing. "Do you read your bible every day, Teesa?"
Teesa almost blurted out that she was a Frisian from the wetlands so she worshipped Freyja the Moon Goddess rather than the God of the desert lands, but she stopped herself just in time and said what everyone in her clan always told to nosy Christians. "We are Anabaptists."
Susannah wondered if that was a yes or a no, but was too embarrassed to ask and show her ignorance of another's faith. Her husband claimed to be a Presbyterian Separatist, but she was sure that it was just his ploy to excuse himself from accompanying her to the Cathedral services, or any church service for that matter. The man worshipped grand ships, fine wine, and young women. She watched as one of the maids French braided Teesa's long yellow hair so that it draped fetchingly over one shoulder.
Oh dear, young women just like this one. "Teesa dear. Listen carefully. Sometime today, probably in the evening when my husband is in his cups, he will ask you to spend the night with him in his bedchamber."
"Ew, yuck. He's so old."
"No, you must not say that. That would be hurtful for any man to hear from lips such as yours. Instead you must say 'Thank you sir, but first I must go and ask Lady Susannah's permission'. Can you remember that. Say it." The maids were giggling so breathlessly that they had to turn away. Susannah glared at them. The bitches had all been in his bed.
"Thank you sir..."
"Curtsey while you say it. A little one, like this." Susannah held the sides of her skirt out, and put a foot backwards and bent the other knee.
"Thank you sir, but first I must go and ask Lady Susannah's permission." She stepped on the hem of the gown and began to topple over, but the maids steadied her and she tried again.
"Good, very good. That is called a delicate refusal. He is not insulted, and you are not committed."
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The Pistoleer - Pirates by Skye Smith Copyright 2013-14
Chapter 16 - Dealing Guns at Rochford in November 1641
"Well it's good timing on the twenty pistols,” Warwick admitted. "That means I can expand my local trained band here in Rochford, but you brought only thirty five muskets ... for London? I need ten times that number, and soon, just to begin training the newest members of the London bands."
In case his own men did not know, Daniel told them that a Trained Band was a local militia that could be called up to form an army, if an army was needed. He also told them that because of the threat to Parliamentarians posed by the army that the King had assembled to fight the Scots, many MP's were now recruiting their own trained bands.
The men barely looked up from their soup, and if they did look up it was to admire the cutlery, plates, and serving dishes, all heavily made of pure silver. One of them did ask, "I thought that threat was over once they offed Strafford's head."
"Our king,” Warwick explained, "fears that the parliaments of London and Edinburgh may force him to sign more bills of attainder like the one that finished Strafford. One for Archbishop Laud for sure. He therefore has yet to disband the army that Strafford raised to fight the Scots. They are in York awaiting the outcome of the Peace Treaty discussions with the Scots."
The explanation had given Daniel time to think about his next words. "These guns were all that we had left in our village warehouse after a summer of trading. Business has been brisk here in England. I have another warehouse in Holland and that is where the rest of the muskets are stored." He gave his men the bent eye to warn them not to mention that they had no such warehouse in Holland. "While I am in Holland I may be delayed while I spread the word that you are looking for gunsmiths willing to move back to England. So, do you want me to deliver these thirty five muskets to London, or not?"
"I see your point. Delivering the thirty five will delay the arrival of more. Ahh, here are the ladies." Warwick stumbled to his feet and lifted his fourth cup of Genever to toast their arrival.
Daniel and the Earl's four lifeguards joined him on his feet, but the Wellenhay men kept shoveling soup as if it would be taken away from them if they were to stand up before it was finished. Daniel nudged the man next to him, and he nudged the next, and so on until the tablecloth was swimming in soup by the end of it, but they all did stand and lift their cups. None of them recognized the tomboy huntress, and there was more than one whistle and sigh at the sight of the gorgeous woman with the Lady of the house. Warwick's sigh was the longest of all.
Teesa was so delighted by the reaction of the men that she did a little dancy spin to show off how the silk swirled, and then she said. "Oye, 'ere I am all decked out as fittin' the fancy tableware, and there you are still in your pirate clobber." Only then did they recognize her, but they all stayed on their feet until she and the countess were helped into their chairs by the valets.
Eventually only Warwick still stood, swaying and staring, swaying and staring. "My God they make them pretty in your village, Daniel."
"Aye, but Teesa chose to became a tomboy,” her cousin called out, " 'cause the rest of our women are so much prettier than her."
"Teesa,” Daniel called her name and wagged a finger to stop her from throwing something or breaking something expensive over her cousin's head. Everyone went back to slurping soup, except for Teesa for she was terrified of slopping anything on her silk. Instead she tasted the fine white wine, stirred in some sugar and tasted it again, then gulped it down and reached for the bottle.
"Allow me, my sweet,” Warwick said as he filled her glass almost to the brim.
"Behave yourself Robert,” Susannah hissed softly to him. "She is an innocent."
Teesa leaned forward to sip down the level of the wine so that she could stir in the sugar without slopping any on the tablecloth. Only when she reached for the sugar did she see the brown stains on the tablecloth in front of each of the Wellenhay men.
The second course was venison, the deer kind not the boar kind, carved and served by a valet. "I haven't had venison since Cape Cod,” Daniel said as he relished the flavour, and the fresh plum sauce it was served with.
"We had some in September,” the cousin said, "do you remember Teesa?"
"I should,” Teesa replied. "I bagged it, gutted it, and carried it to my punt, no help from any of you lazy buggers." At this the valet dropped the serving spoon in the plum sauce and purple stains joined the others on the tablecloth.
"Teesa,” Susannah scolded. "A lady shouldn't say such things." In truth she was trying to hold back her laughter at the thought of this enchanting beauty actually doing such things.
"Oh right,” Teesa replied. "I suppose it is kind'a foolish to boast about poaching venison in front of an Earl." She turned to Warwick and asked, "Are you a justice as well as a grace?"
"In this village only,” Warwick replied and then just stared. My God what a woman. If she would stay on for the winter, it would make life in this backwater of Essex almost bearable. He could go hunting with her in the morning, boating and fishing with her in the afternoon, dazzle the dandies into envying him at the dinner socials, and then at night in bed, bury himself deep inside of her.
Susannah read his face like a bible ... the chapter on Sodom and Gomorrah. "Robert, stop staring and eat. She will still be here after lunch. I have asked her to keep me company at the second sitting for the gaes hunters. By the way, Teesa tells me that they are doing it all wrong."
Daniel also read Warwick's face. He lifted his cup first to Teesa and then to Susannah and said, "Teesa is a born huntress. Her senses are keen and she can move through the bush without being heard or seen. Her mother and I are very proud of her. Did she tell you that I married her mother after my brother went down with his ship."