Hoodsman: Ely Wakes

by Smith, Skye

  Raynar pushed the treasurer away from him. "Through the eyes of the saints there is no difference between you and your abbot. You had the wealth and the stores to save thousands from starvation last winter and yet you did little to help. You did not even loan coins to Thorold so he could do the helping, so he was forced into the hands of Lincoln's moneylenders. You even regretted giving Thorold his own coins from his deposit here."

  The treasurer bowed his head. Was it in shame or was he hiding his anger. Raynar continued to chastise him. "You locked up the abbot for thirty days in penance for molesting two children, so what then is the penance for not helping any of the thousands of children that died last winter. You may criticize my Wolfshead ways of vengeance, but at least the king is now using diplomacy rather than the sword to gain peace. What has your Order done for peace lately?"

  He stopped his scolding to listen to the call from Rodor. Rodor was taking Hereward’s men back to Huntingdon to become that garrison in place of the bowmen who were going with John to Ely.

  "I leave you now, brother," Raynar told the treasurer, "and I wish you a good harvest. You see our men. They are all leaving. You no longer have armed men in the abbey for you no longer need them. If you share this year's harvest with the hungry, then you will not need a guard this winter. Perhaps you should pray on the matter." Raynar skipped down the staircase and out the abbey gate to join the men assembled in the courtyard.

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  The Hoodsman - Ely Wakes by Skye Smith

  Chapter 17 - Waltheof arrives in Huntingdon in August 1070

  Amazingly, in three days Huntingdon had gone from being one of the busiest towns in the Fens, to one of the sleepiest. The ships were gone, the bowmen were gone, the trainees were gone, and most of the women had followed them to Ely. Without the ships and the men, the market was gone, and with the market the carts. The entire garrison was just sixty men if you included Hereward’s men who were arriving from Peterburgh.

  John was still there, waiting for his forge to cool completely so he could move it. Waltheof and the Countess Judith had arrived late that morning and Rapenald had removed himself from the manor house so that they could take occupancy.

  Raynar recognized Waltheof as one of the taller lords who had been with Cospatrick in Yorkshire. He was a big man. Bigger than Raynar but not so huge as John. The countess was dark and pretty, though a bit plump, and she was young, perhaps but sixteen. As Raynar grew older he found it more and more difficult to judge the ages of young women. One thing that was not difficult to gage was that she was unhappy with the manor come longhouse, and with the new husband who had been forced upon her by her uncle the King.

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  The men were talking of matters of import to the running of the bailey, and Judith was bored and leaning against the wall by the manor's well. She was enjoying the rare warmth of the sun in this damp and cold kingdom, and dreaming of her mother's rambling palace in Lens which was between France and Flanders.

  She watched a young and comely man wave his excuses to the group of men around her husband, and point to the well. Then he walked over to the well and used the wall for it's little privacy to strip down to nothing so he could wash. He had a nice fit body, with one flaw. A very long scar that ran diagonally the length of his back.

  The local wives pulling water from the well seemed to know the man, for instead of running in fear, they walked to him with their full buckets and slowly poured the water over the man's head so that he could wash. As he turned in the stream of falling water, one of the women could not resist reaching out and touching the long dark line that ran the length of the man's back. It could be nothing else than a battle scar. Was she touching it for luck, or just as an excuse to touch the man.

  Raynar put his breeches back on. Despite a quick rinse in a river, they were still stained black from fighting fires. He looked over to the sunny wall, which would be the fastest place to dry, but there was a Norman girl standing there. "You must by Judy," he said in a light and melodic voice. "The village women," he nodded at the wives, "are all in wonder of your clothes. Would you mind terribly if they could touch the fabric."

  The countess was set aback. This peasant dared talk to her. Then she realized that he was speaking in her tongue, and not only that, but he was much more fluent in French than was her husband. There were so few about that she could speak to, since her nurse had fallen ill in that sordid village of Bedford. She decided to swallow the bitter words she was about to fling at him, and instead motioned the women to come to her. The peasant followed the wives into her close company.

  "Where are your ladies, Judy?" he asked as he turned his face and chest to the sun to dry.

  "We have not been introduced," she replied testily.

  "My apologies," he said and bowed stiffly. "May I present Raynar Porter, Saxon freeman."

  "Thank you, I am the Countess Judith, and never Judy except to my uncle the king."

  "Ah, then your uncle must also want you to be his friend. To me you will always be Judy."

  She stomped her foot and again swallowed a bitter retort, but then the women asked her some questions and she had to say, "No English," in a strained voice.

  "They asked where the fabric is made and what the thread is called," said Raynar softly "And, by the way, they spoke in Daneglish, the local version of English spoken in the Danelaw." He repeated, "Where are your ladies?"

  "It is a thread made from twisting silk with linen. You color each thread separately and then you can weave cloth from it that shimmers but wears well. It is a specialty of Lens. We sell it all around the Mediterranean."

  Raynar translated for the wives except he described the sea as the warm Byzantine sea to the south, and Lens as a county of France. He was about to repeat his question when she answered it.

  "I was the queen's lady. I do not yet have my own, ... yet. My companion nurse is in the last village throwing up. My husband forced me." She stopped and sobbed, "Forced me to leave her as he had pressing business here."

  Again he spoke to the wives. This time he told them that this child was newly wed and alone and away from her family. Her husband was the tall brute standing next to John, and he was rough with her. He lightly touched the beard rash on her neck, and they nodded. He asked them to watch out for her, and to keep her well. They decorated their replies with ribald comments, but they did confirm that they would watch out for her.

  "I will send a message to Countess Beatrice of Spalding," Raynar told her softly, "to come and help you set up your household, and to bring some ladies to help you."

  "You, a porter, would summon a countess," she laughed in sarcasm.

  "She will be here on the morrow. In the meantime I will order your husband to be more gentle."

  She flushed and felt a tightness in her chest. "How did you.... No you mustn’t. Oh never," and suddenly she was flooding tears, "He thinks he was cheated by William because I was not a virgin. He uses our marriage bed as a form of punishment for me. He has told me that he wants a son, and in ninemonth so that my uncle will not renege on his promises of honors. He.. he .. he forces me." Now she was all tears.

  The two wives came and led her away from Raynar and gave him the sourest of looks. Raynar bunched up the rest of his clothes and walked over to the bench where the other men were still arguing over something. They stopped talking while he sat.

  "It is done," was all Raynar would say about the treasure. "I apologize for my appearance. Some roofs caught fire at the abbey and I helped them bring the fire under control. Hot, dirty work. Rodor is still down at the gate organizing the watch."

  Rapenald and John nodded. It was enough of a report for now. "Rapenald, please send a message to Spalding for Beatrice. The young countess needs her help to set up a household, and needs to borrow some ladies until she can arrange for her own. At least one of them should speak some French."

  Rapenald looked at the height of the sun and decided not to hesitate. "
I'll send them now." He strode down the road towards the gate. He was eager to speak with Rodor and to inspect the new men of his garrison.

  Waltheof was florid, "Who are you to be ordering my castellan about on behalf of my wife."

  "Sorry, I thought you would remember me from a muddy field on the north bank of the River Aire. I am Raynar Porter."

  "Ah, you are Edgar's man?" he said controlling his temper. The man facing him was about the same age and coloring, though smaller and cleaner shaven than any Danish leader. Despite his youth he had a confidence and calmness about him that was unnerving to see in such a young man, and a peasant at that.

  "More correctly I am Edgar's sister Margaret's man," Raynar replied, "but since she is the smarter of the two, it amounts to the same thing."

  "Bah, I have met her. She is just another silly woman," replied Waltheof.

  "She is the Queen of the Scots and perhaps the most educated woman I have ever met."

  "Just another silly woman," he repeated.

  Raynar switched to French to keep what he was about to say between he and Waltheof. He used simple words that Waltheof would understand. "Your own silly woman is still just a child. If you wish to use her as a breeding mare, so be it, but you will do so softly and gently and carefully."

  Waltheof jumped to his feet and made for Raynar in a wild temper. He was shocked when something happened that had not happened to him since he was a youngster. He felt himself being lifted off his feet. He struggled against whatever force had such strength and was dropped back to the ground with a hard thump.

  A hand the size of a water bucket grabbed him by the neck of his tunic and lifted him back onto the bench. He heard John's deep voice through his anger and confusion. "Now you sit still and behave. I don't know what Raynar just told you in that devil's tongue, but knowing Raynar you well deserved it, so just be thankful that your heart is still pumping."

  Waltheof looked at the girth of the giants upper arms and decided to sit still for a few moments.

  "What happened last year at the River Tees?" asked Raynar. "You were one of those sent to slaughter William were you not?"

  Waltheof remained silent and instead motioned his personal body guard to come to him. They had not take two steps when the giant standing behind him gave a whistle and his bodyguard were intercepted by five bowmen. "Answer the question, polite like, if you please," said the giant in a soft voice.

  "The long term plan," said Raynar, "was to draw William's army close to the Scottish border and then to slaughter them. What happened?"

  "Winter happened," replied Waltheof. "The Normans stole every woolen blanket and cloak from York north to swath themselves and their horses. Horses don't suffer in the cold as much as cattle. The Normans were all mounted, up off the ground, and kept toasty warm by the horses. Most of our men were trudging through the slush and snow with frozen feet.

  We drew them up to the River Tees where the land gets hilly and better for us and worse for them, but other than to send scouts, the Normans refused to be drawn into hills. They must have known we had ambushes set in every valley. We made the mistake of sending Cospatrick to parley with William. Within a day Cospatrick withdrew to Bamburgh because William had threatened to destroy it or to take it from him.

  Our bowmen were all Cospatrick's men because Edgar and his bowmen had stayed in Scotland with Malcolm. Bloody Malcolm never did cross the border. Later Edgar told us that Malcolm had made a treaty with William at a meeting they had in Cumbria. That explained Cospatrick's withdrawal. He did not trust Malcolm not to take Bamburgh. Anyway, without the bowmen, the ambushes no longer made sense."

  "In other words it was another missed chance of destroying William because no one was willing to take on the risk," said Raynar.

  "It was worse than that," replied Waltheof. "William drove a wedge between Cospatrick and me by promising us both to be the Earl of Northumbria. The only reason he didn't press on and take Bamburgh was the afternoon he spent walking the ancient Roman border wall near the Tyne. On that day he decided that he had little interest in the north lands and he was too far from London.

  By that time I was riding with him trying to gain an Earldom. Instead the royal party turned around and rode the short way back to York, while the army spread out across the landscape and burned and looted. It was as if William decided he would never be back, so he may as well take everything now."

  "The harrowing."

  "Yes, the harrowing, but not like the harrowing that starved the Danish fleet in Yorkshire. The north was already starving because so many armies had tramped across the land. This was not about starving, it was about freezing. They burned everything that protected the folk from the winter. Roofs, walls, firewood, straw. They took the few animals that were left. Like I said before, they took every blanket and cloak. They did not bother chasing the folk to kill them. They let the winter kill them."

  "Thank you, sire," said Raynar as he rose, "I'm for the tower to have a look round. I'll see you at the evening meal,"

  "Is Raynar now a Scottish lord?" Waltheof asked John once he was gone.

  "He told you who 'e is. 'Es a porter from the Peaks of Derbyshire. 'Es also the beloved of the wolfpacks, so don't you go sneaking up to his back 'cause its the most protected back in the kingdom. Men have sprouted a dozen arrows for doin' less." John was grinning ear to ear at the earl.

  "He also thinks that I don't speak French, but I compreny enough to know that you've been mounting the wee one and hurting her. Let me warn you just this once about Raynar. He is the salt of the earth and the best man you could ever call a friend, but he has lost some of his womenfolk to vicious rapes.

  Because of that, he kills rapists as if they wus mad dogs. Doesn't matter if they be peasant or king, theys dead meat." John waved his bowmen away from the earl's bodyguard, and then trotted his huge bulk along the road to catch up to Raynar.

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  The new Earl of Huntingdon sat on the bench being warmed by the sun as he calmed his temper and cooled his blood. Today had not been the welcome he had expected of the arrival of the new lord of landlords. Instead he had found each man, even the guards on the gate, talking to him as if he were just another warrior. There had been no bowing or other manorly behaviour. He was beginning to understand why William and the Archbishop were so fearful of this peasants revolt. Amongst these men, having a title did not make you respected, it made you a target.

  He racked his memory for anything he could remember about Hereward and this man Raynar. He had met Hereward in his youth, but his family was vassal to Earl Edwin's family, not to his father. He remembered the man being a hell raiser in his youth and there was trouble about a seduced wife and an injured husband that had sent him into exile. Somehow he had come back from exile to become Edwin's and Morcar's bodyguard and their weapons master. Now King William had sent him hear to parley with Hereward. William wanted Hereward either on his side, or dead.

  The hint that Raynar had given about the River Aire had triggered some memories, and then it came to him. He was the spy who had brought news of the Danegeld, and of William's flanking maneuver around the Aire. He remember that this man had ordered, not advised, but ordered the English to decamp and retreat to the north. During the retreat north he had heard stories about a bowman who had held the ford at the Aire for a whole morning to cover the retreat. This was likely that same man.

  There were other stories now coming to mind, not from the name Raynar, but from the word Peaks. There were heroic legends still sung about the battle of Stamford, and of the taking of Stamford Bridge. Someone from the Peaks slew the ogre of Stamford Bridge. Was it Raynar of the Peaks. He would have to ask around for any axemen who had been at Stamford. Edwin and Morcar were there, so Hereward must also have been there, and this fort was garrisoned by Hereward’s men.

  And what had the smithy said. Raynar was the beloved of the wolfpacks. Could he be the wolfshead the Normans called the Valkyries Knife. If so, then King William would
reward him well for taking his head to him. Handing him to William would win him more than just this earldom.

  One thing was certain. He would need to trade information about William's plans for information about Hereward's. He would have to placate both sides if he wanted to hold onto this title and the honors that went with it. And, he thought, he would have to get that lump of a girl pregnant soon, but be gentler in doing so. After all. He just had to fill her with seed, not use her like a whore. If he wanted a good banging, he could mount one of the camp women who knew better what they were about.

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  The Hoodsman - Ely Wakes by Skye Smith

  Chapter 18 - The countesses in Huntingdon in August 1070

  The Countess Beatrice arrived in late afternoon of the next day by ship, one of the Frisian cogs. She was accompanied by twenty Frisian oarsmen, ten Frisian women, and her husband Thorold. Klaes, the warlord of the local Frisian's, was the ship's captain. They were cheered by the locals as they made their way from the docks to the gate. This was the couple who had loaned plough teams across the land, and primed the breeding stock, and supplied seed corn, and even food so that the folk could rebuild their lives after the great harrowing.

  They were cheered as they walked through lines of Hereward’s men, who pressed close to clasp Thorold’s arm and bow to Beatrice. They in turn bowed to the new Earl and his countess, though that act quieted the cheers. Waltheof could not take his eyes from the Frisian women who acompanied the countess. Each of them was his vision of a goddess. Tall, lithe, fair, and yet with the tanned skin of peasants that work in the fields. It took him some time to realize that they were all in homespun, not courtier clothes, and yet they seemed so elegant.

  Instead of arriving thirsty and dusty from a long ride, they had made a restful trip by ship. Beatrice was already bored by the formalities and strode along towards the manor house. She walked through the doorway, backed out, and then began giving orders with every breath.