Hoodsman: Ely Wakes

by Smith, Skye

  Gwyn pulled Raynar's hand gently towards the door. When she was in the sunshine she turned and mouthed the words, "we, tonight," and pointed to the bench under the apple tree, and then she walked away.

  Raynar spent most of the day telling the news and telling his stories to Eadric. Gwyn did not return. She knew he was healer enough to care for the dying man as well as she. Eadric spoke little, but when he did speak it was about his own personal devil, William FitzOsbern, the Earl of Hereford. He was a rich French Baron with his own powerful army which was now almost equal in strength to King William's. "Not that the earl's army is growing larger, but more because some fuckin' freemen are culling the kings cavalry with heavy arrows."

  He stayed with Eadric until he was called to the great hall for the evening meal.

  * * * * *

  When Raynar first saw Prince Bleddyn he was carrying one of the Hood's heavy arrows and looking at it thoughtfully. He arrived at the palace just before the evening meal and in the company of a wealthy clergyman who turned out to be an envoy from the Earl of Hereford. The envoy was Walter, the long time bishop of Hereford. The bishop was not amused that the very group of men who were the cause of his visit, were also guests in this palace, and invited to the same meal.

  Rodor, Alan, Raynar, and the ealders they had rescued, as welcome guests, were seated at the table closest to the Prince, Princess, and the bishop. Rodor and Alan were entranced by the palace life around them, and Raynar was fully busy translating and interpreting and explaining things to them. Each had his turn to stand and introduce himself the royal table.

  When it was Rodor's turn to stand, Bleddyn tossed him the heavy arrow. "Is this yours?" he asked. Rodor confirmed it. "It was taken from the body of a Norman knight. There is no doubt then, that the Bishop's complaints are about your band."

  "I would have admitted such freely. I am proud to serve your majesty by saving your subjects from death and slavery at the hands of the new Earl of Chester."

  "I recognize the work of this point. How is John the Cewri? Tell him our widows miss him, and he is welcome to run our forges again at any time."

  "He is well, sire. He is busy training every axeman in Lincolnshire in how to belittle a Norman knight." Rodor held up the arrow to make the point.

  When it was the ealders' turns to be introduced, the bishop became very uncomfortable in his seat. Their stories were of how of the Earl of Chester was continuing the harrowing, the burning, the killing, the slaving, that by treaty with the Earl of Hereford was to have stopped. What they told could not be denied by the good bishop, but he could not keep his peace.

  "Sire," he said in his Earl's defense, "this was done by the new Earl of Chester who is Flemish and perhaps did not understand the treaty. I will visit him when I leave here. However, the larger issue is that a large wolfpack from Lincolnshire has ranged through Shropshire and has killed many men."

  "Sire," Raynar now stood to speak for himself rather than as translator, "the bishop's information is wrong or has been colored by the words of the Sheriff of Shropshire who was with the Earl of Chester. Methinks that sheriff should have known of the treaty even if Gerbod did not.

  I am a porter by trade, and I was on my way to this palace to visit a good friend when the kind freemen of Sherwood Forest warned me that Gerbod, the new Earl of Chester, was bringing violence to Shropshire and offered to be my escort. None of us are from Lincolnshire. As for the wolfpacks, I hear tell that the farmers of Lincolnshire have a good planting this year thanks to the peace brought to the common folk by those wolfpacks. Perhaps it past time that Shropshire and Cheshire had wolfpacks of their own."

  The bishop was canny, and looked for mistruths in Raynar's words. If he could find just one lie, then all of these words would be discounted. "What friend do you visit here in this palace?"

  Raynar visibly gulped back an honest answer. Eadric's presence was a secret. He was looking foolish by his delay.

  To his left there came a wondrously sweet sound of a harp. A melody so clear and true that the entire house stilled so as not to miss it. The harp stopped but the silence continued hoping for more. "He came to visit me, sire. We are childhood friends," then Gwyn started the melody again and stopped again. "Sorry to interrupt. I was just tuning my harp for later." The house erupted in cheers.

  The princess Haer spoke to introduce Gwyn the Seer to the bishop. The bishop crossed himself and kissed his crucifix and tried not to look at the petite beauty who was dressed in a flowing gown that was shimmering with golden threads. Gwyn pointed to the heavy arrow in Rodor’s hands and motioned to Raynar to bring it to her. He did so and was rewarded with a soft touch of her hand to his as they passed the arrow.

  Haer herself carried a bright candle lamp towards Gwyn and held it so that all in the room could better see the Seer as she first stared at the arrow, and then closed her eyes and held it with both hands. Gwyn was first silent and then opened her eyes and spoke, "Bishop, I had hoped to send a prayer to the heavens for the man who was slain by this arrow, but it is not possible. This arrow was last used to kill a horse. A large Norman battle horse that was about to trample a five year old Welsh girl who was running screaming for her life."

  There was pandemonium in the great hall as the bishop leaped to his feet and while holding his crucifix high to protect himself from the witch, backed away from her towards the doorway to the kitchen. A guard stopped him for he had not asked for the prince's permission to leave.

  Bleddyn could not resist some theatrics. He stood and pointed his entire right arm at the bishop. "Go to Gerbod and tell him that he is to repair the roofs he has burned, and to replace the sheep he has killed, so that these good folk can return to their villages. If he does not, then I will invite the wolfpacks of Lincolnshire to come and punish him. You are dismissed."

  It was unfortunate for the Bishop that he left, for the meal that was served was made savoury by the new spices from the east now available if you had the coin, and by the harpist who played between the evenings stories, who was as skilled with harp and voice, as she was clever.

  After telling one of his own stories, Raynar made his excuses to Bleddyn that he need go and sit by a wounded warrior's bedside while there was still time. The prince invited him to a hunt the next morning, but Haer interceded and told him to sleep long tonight instead or rising early for the hunt.

  Late that night Gwyn found him at Eadric's bedside. She did not comment on the half chewed Yew leaves on the bed beside Eadric's left hand or on the sick man's ancient Saxon throwing axe gripped in his only hand. She just put her fingers to the man's neck to check for life, and then pulled the cloak up over his head.

  She led Raynar to her own hut on the other side of the orchard. They slept together and felt the comfort of each others touch and closeness, but nothing more. They woke late, and Raynar blessed Haer for uninviting him from the hunt. Hunting at first light in June meant drinking through the short night and hunting without sleep.

  "I am now a member of an order of mystic men and women who are chaste," she told him when she could no longer ignore his hard morning shaft against her belly. He moaned in disapointment at the news, but she continued, "but it is more a guideline than a rule." She kissed his widening smile. Between making smiles they talked much and cried and laughed and giggled. She knew that he was hiding some enormous sadness from her, but that he would tell her of it eventually.

  "How did you know about the battle horse and the girl from holding the arrow?" he asked. "Does it come in a vision. Is it like a dream, or do silent words dance in your head?"

  "Well first you use your normal senses to try to understand what you have been asked," she began. "Then you close your eyes and focus your mind and your healers touch until you can feel the earth's vibrations. But of course, if you see horse hair stuck in dried blood on the point, then you know it was used to kill a horse and you make the rest up." She punched him in the shoulder and he tickled her until she begged for mercy.

 
He still was not talking about it, so she prompted him. "Alan says that you now kill your prisoners." It was enough. He told her of the wounded prisoners he had spared, and how he had helped to cure them, and then when they got well again, how they had escaped. How they had carried away and raped and killed his wife. "I feel no guilt in killing so many knights and their men. Anske was a wondrous angel, like you, and a better person than any of those I have killed since."

  They talked for hours until a knock on the door interrupted them. She covered herself with a cloth so fine as to hide nothing of her shape, and then opened the door.

  Haer entered quietly and sat on the end of the bed and stared at the well formed young man. "Mmmm," she said and smiled at Gwyn, "you are charmed, aren't you, to have grown up with this one." She slowly pulled the covers down so she could see more of him. "My husband would speak with you. I thought it better that I come to tell you, and ask you to leave this hut without being seen. Some believe that a Seer looses her powers after she has a man."

  "Perhaps that is only after she has a man that she has never had before." He pointed for Haer to pass him his clothes, but she just smiled. She wanted him to stand and reach across her for them. When he did so, he felt her touch on his legs, and paused politely while she finished exploring him with her hand.

  She laughed and pushed him away and said to Gwyn, "Some woman has taught him to be soft and gentle. Was that you?"

  He left the company of the women, and slipped from Gwyn's hut that was surrounded by herb gardens, into the orchard and then made his way towards the great hall. Haer caught up with him and took him to her private quarters instead. He had a bad feeling that she wanted to explore his body some more on her own bed, but he needn't have worried. Bleddyn was waiting for them on her bed. His hunting clothes were in an untidy pile beside the door, and he wore only a long sleeping robe. He looked like a man who needed sleep in a bad way.

  The three of them, and no other ears, exchanged news for some hours. Bleddyn sat up on their bed, sometimes half snoozing from too much ale and too little sleep the night before. The hunt had bagged some venison, so he was well pleased with himself, but he promised his wife that he would bed down early tonight. Since the Englishman was not broaching the subject, he finally did. "I have thanked Rodor for saving my people from the Earl, and he tells me that you have business with me."

  "John sent me," Raynar answered in Welsh, "we need Welsh bows, a lot of Welsh bows, if we are to expand our fight against William. We have nearly exhausted our own stock of seasoned staves. I came to ask you for either more staves, or bows, or both.

  A lot more. John is turning axemen and oarsmen into bowmen. There is an endless supply of axemen due to the Great Harrowing. Men that should be sheering their flocks this month have no flocks and have no family and have no village, and they need bows to get them back."

  "You shall have all that I can spare. How will you get them to the east?"

  "That is why I came with Rodor and the hoodsmen of Sherwood. We intend to travel lightly and quickly. We will not use carts, but pack horses. We will split into three wolfpacks and go different routes overland away from the highways."

  "What of Gerbod's ransom, all that armour, all the battle horses? With those you could become a lord in Wales," the prince asked, trying not to sound interested in them.

  "We need bows, not armour. The men of Sherwood have already split the coin. We will trade you the armour and the expensive horses for the staves and bows."

  Haer disappointed her husband by being sincerely honest. "That is a poor trade Raynar. Each man's armour could easily be traded for fifty bows at the market."

  "I know," replied Raynar, "but I do not speak of just the staves and bows that we will take with us, because we will need to send for more. If we still pay too much, then so be it. Use the extra that you gain to help those poor folk who we rescued. They have nothing, and will need to be given the means to start farming again."

  "So you are paying in advance for the next time you send men to pick up more staves and bows," replied Haer. "It is a good plan."

  "Hmm, I suppose," said the prince. "But tell me. If you had not captured all of this armour, what then? How would you have paid for the bows?"

  "I expected you to make a gift of them to me. After all, the bows would cost you little, compared to the peace they would cause along your border when every Norman is pulled away to defend London."

  "Hah, I like you lad. Well the men I will give the armour to will drink to your health many times, and so will I." The prince hoped he would not to be chastened by his wife for asking the next question, "When are you leaving?"

  "The sooner the better. And we will need the help of your scouts to get three wolfpacks across the border without being seen. We will need no escort once we are in England."

  The prince was snoring gently when he finally left the room. Haer left on his heels and walked with him so she could say, "Let Gwyn rest so she can sing again tonight. Come with me to meet my armourer so we can arrange for your load. And don't worry about trusting my husband. I will make sure that you are credited the true worth of the horses and armour. As you said, Wales is better off, even if we give the bows away."

  He pulled at her arm to stop her under a spreading apple tree that gave them some privacy. He raised his hand and held up something glittery for her to see. "Here, Gerbod was wearing this clasp. I think it suits you better than he." It was a very feminine clasp meant for holding a cloak in place. The clasp and fine chain were of silver, but the settings for the precious red gems were of gold.

  Haer took it in her hand and held it up to the light and watched the sparkle of the gems and the gold. "Why, it is lovely, and as you say, not meant for a man, especially not that fat little ass. Why thank you." She smiled warmly at him and kissed his cheek and then the corner of his lips.

  He saw the joy that the bauble gift brought to her eyes, and knew it had been the right thing to do. He did not know it's worth, likely a village or two, but if it kept Haer, and therefore Bleddyn as their allies, then it was worth the gift. Especially since it had cost him nothing to take it from Gerbod.

  On his last day at Mathrafal, Gwyn took him to explore the glens and the ridges around the palace. They played like children in the river pools and the long grasses. They watched the birds fly below the ridges that they climbed, and soar ever higher on the warm winds.

  "I worry that I am losing my lovely Raynar of the Peaks," she told him as she strolled through a meadow of wild flowers, "losing him to Raynar the Wolfshead. Raynar Porter was a talented healer. Even Raynar of the Peaks was still a healer. When he was forced to fight, he would target leaders, but spare any of their men that retreated. This new wolfshead is killing the leaders and their men, which is the Norman way, the way of armies and conquerors. Have you become the same as your enemy?"

  He didn't know what to say. Many of his friends were telling him similar things. Now even his childhood friend.

  She saw his face grow glum, and so she dragged him down into the grass and began to kiss him. That led to other things. While she was riding him in a patch of sweet scented clover, she told him, "You need to take another woman into your heart." She paused and it caused him to spasm in pleasure.

  "Not me. It cannot be me. Get yourself another Frisian woman. They are your equals in all things. You are your best as a man when you are trying to impress a woman. You will regain the old Raynar by trying to gain the love and respect of a woman who knows you well. Become again the son that every woman wants to bear."

  Raynar opened his eyes and looked up at her faerie face with her elfin grin. It was hard to believe that this impish girl of his youth was now the Seer of the Court of Powys. Had she seen visions of his future? Should he ask? Would she tell? Probably not.

  * * * * *

  Alan, Rodor, and Raynar each took one wolfpack and one third of the bows. Each wolfpack was led to a different safe crossing of the border where they were assured there were no Nor
mans within miles. Alan took the northern route because he knew it from before and wanted to visit his village in the Peaks on his way to Huntingdon. Rodor took the middle route, back the way they had come, so he could visit Sherwood. Raynar aided by his maps, chose a more southerly route. The direct route to Huntingdon. It was the fastest route, but also the most dangerous as it took him close to Ludlow and to Worcester and to Northampton, all of which were well garrisoned.

  Each wolfpack led ten pack horses and each packhorse carried two well covered bales of bows. Each bale contained fifty bows or fifty seasoned staves. If all the pack horses reached Huntingdon, John would be able to put three thousand new bowmen into the field. Of course, if the Normans ever found out about these pack horses they would roust every man from every garrison to scour the highways for them. That was why they weren't using the highways.

  Alan had no difficulties in reaching Tideswell in the Peaks Forest. His route led him just south of Chester, but the Earl's men were smarting from their heavy losses and were staying within the town walls, while Gerbod ate and drank profusely and blamed his men for what had happened. Only once did they see a patrol and it was after they had climbed the first hill leading to the peaks, so they didn't worry about it. There was no way a patrol would follow them into the Peaks forest.

  Rodor did see a patrol to the north of Shrewsbury, but as soon at the patrol saw the mounted bowmen they raced away towards the town. Out of caution Rodor change directions and headed straight north for the last two hours of good light before making camp, and made camp while there was still enough light for his scouts to double back and watch their trail. The next day they traveled north some more until the reached the safety of the more rugged land of Derbyshire, then they once again turned east. This route actually took them through the fringes of the Peaks forest, but it also took them north of Nottingham in safety, and into Sherwood without incident.