Hoodsman: Popes and Emperors

by Smith, Skye

  In farm houses, the lower stone part was used for stables and storage. It was a simple arrangement that made the house more secure from fire or attack. The stone walls of the ground floor, when used as a stable, needed no windows, and the heavy door was barred at night. The staircase up to the wooden house above it was from the inside of the stable. The wooden house was a man's height off the ground and there was no purchase outside to climb up to any of the upper windows.

  Language was becoming a big problem, or rather, understanding was becoming a big problem, for none of them knew these local languages. Luckily, it was obvious that the four of them were pilgrims, or at least poor travelers, and so a hot soup was served to them with no comment by the house wife, and they were offered an area of straw floor as a bed. She even supplied the stub of a candle, but it gutted before they had finished their soup, and the blackness of the windowless stone stable left them nothing to do but sleep.

  They were woken before first light by more soup, and what can only be described as a polite invitation to leave and keep traveling. Their questions about the state of the mountain pass, the Tauern Pass, were not understood, or not answerable, or both. Through sign language they learned that there were more places to sleep along the cartway through the pass. The fact that there was a cartway, complete with the ruts of recent cartwheels, made up their mind to keep walking south.

  Now when they passed through deep shadow of the hillsides or the trees, snow covered the cartway. There were still wheel tracks, and the foot prints of four oxen and at least two men. The cart must not have stopped in Radstadt for the tracks were not fresh, and yet not as old as yesterday. It must have passed through Radstadt after they had gone to sleep, and then kept moving along the valley to the pass.

  Seeing as the cart was drawn by oxen, that walked at a pace of less than half of a man's pace, they expected to see the cart ahead of them at each turn of each corner of this valley. Just as the valley bottom began to climb more steeply and the valley narrowed, there was a toll barricade across the road and beside it a stable-down, rooms-up house. As with their soup and bed last night, their poverty was obvious and they were waved around the toll barricade without anyone asking for coins.

  Now that the cartway was climbing, the air was getting colder and they could see their breath. They pulled up their deep hoods and pulled their cloaks close around them and walked at a quicker pace to keep themselves warm. No longer did they gander about at the breathtaking scenery while they walked, as they had to keep their eyes on the road to avoid a mis-step. Three miles from the toll booth, there was a widening in the valley, but then the valley turned and narrowed again.

  The cart they had been following was stopped up ahead. "Must be another toll barricade. Heads up lads," Raynar called out softly. His senses were tingling, trying to tell him something. He had a healers touch, which was like another sense. Besides divining sickness and dis-ease, the extra sense also helped him when he was hunting because it sensed things that were hidden.

  It was like when people tell you that they have a bad feeling in their gut about a decision or a situation. His extra sense was like that but more focused. When he was tracking animals, he instinctively seemed to know where to look for spore and tracks, without even looking. Of course, it was the nature of human intellect not to trust the senses by themselves, and so he often wasted time looking for what he knew instinctively was there.

  "Something is wrong here," he called out softly. "Why would there be another toll barricade? There has been no other way joining in. And where would the toll keepers live. I see no house.” They kept up their pace but now were watching for signs of ambush. They were almost upon the cart when they saw the first sign of trouble. A crimson patch of blood in the snow.

  Raynar yelled out over and over in some of his few Latin words "pax, peregrinans, peace, pilgrims," and in his only words of Italian, "pace, pellegrino," over and over. There was no sign of men at the cart, and there was certainly no toll barricade.

  "Two men, to the left, in the trees," Flint called out softly.

  "Another two to the right. No sign of bows," called Ned.

  "No bows, that's the good news," Buck said as he ducked low to see under the cart. "The bad news is that there are three bodies under the cart who aren't about to move.” He heard a bumping against the side walls of the cart. The cart was fully covered like a moving tent. He lifted the back flap and looked in. There were two women tied and gagged and lying squeezed between some trunks. He told the others what he had seen.

  The others did not look back at him. They had their backs to the cart and were watching intently for the shadowy figures to break from the trees. Raynar called out to them again in Latin and Italian. When the men did come out of the trees they were waving swords and axes at them but keeping their distance.

  Through a lot of sign language and pantomime the men in the trees made their message clear. The pilgrims had a choice. Continue up the pass unharmed. Stay at the cart and be killed. Turn back the way they came and be killed.

  "Makes sense to me," said Buck. "There are four of us and we are big, and we came up on them fast, so we are fit. If they fight us, some of them may be injured. If we walk away, they are safe to finish robbing this cart. They cannot allow us to walk back down to the toll house, and raise a hue and cry after them, so they want us to continue up."

  "Agreed," said Raynar. "This is none of our business. We are pilgrims in a strange land. Who knows who these men are. They could be the bishop's men." The Bishop of Salzburg was the law in these valleys.

  "Yeh, right," said Ned. "There's bodies under the cart and women tied up inside it. This ain't no farmer's cart, and they must have paid some good coin to pass the toll gate house. Bishop's men, not likely. They are footpads."

  "If we were on our way home to Brugge," said Raynar, "then I would rescue these women, even if it meant killing the footpads. I can't risk a rescue now. Not when we are so close to Venice. Come on, let's walk away. If they attack us, then that will change things."

  There was renewed thumping against the sides of the cart. Raynar ignored it and walked passed the double team of oxen and then quickened his pace. The lads kept calling softly to each other that they weren't being followed, and that there were no other men in the trees. No signs of other ambush.

  Three hundred paces ahead the valley and the cartway took a jog and as they turned with it, the trees beside the cartway hid them from the cart. Without any order every one of them did the same thing. They rushed to the trees on the inside of the jog, and then carefully doubled back through the densest bush to see if they were being followed. They weren't.

  "Footpads," Buck whispered as he watched four men come out of the trees and run towards the cart. Once to the cart they were quick to drag one of the women and some of the chests out of the cart. While two of them were breaking open a chest, the other two were ripping the clothes off the woman.

  "They'll be humping them women for the rest of the day," Raynar said with a grimace. "Come on. We can't afford to get involved."

  "Yeh, right," said Ned. "We have a scroll to deliver to some effing Abbot.” Despite his sarcasm, he turned to follow Raynar.

  "You two go ahead," Buck called after them. "Flint and I will stay here for a while longer and make sure we aren't followed."

  Raynar stopped and turned and stared at them. He knew what they were really planning to do. "Not today lads. Hop to it. We are all leaving together. Now."

  Buck shrugged his shoulders and followed. Flint was more stubborn. "Oye, does that mean we have to throw our Valkyrie knives into the bush."

  The words stopped Raynar in his tracks. Slowly he turned and faced his men. They stared at him, waiting. "You buggers," he said. Carrying a Valkyrie knife meant that you were sworn to protect women and children. He pulled his bedroll from his shoulders and kicked it open and pulled out all four arrows. Then he put his knee into the grip of his staff and curved it so he could string it. The other men did t
he same.

  "Ideas?" Raynar asked as he removed the foot end from his staff to set the dagger blade free. He motioned to the other men to take notice of where he was hiding his scroll pipe beneath a fallen branch. There was no need to tell them that any survivors of this foolishness must deliver it to Venice.

  "We are drawing the arrows cold," Buck whispered, "and on a clumsy bow, so we won't have much accuracy at range. We have to keep to cover as long as possible before we take our first shots.” The others nodded. It was a basic plan, but they kept thinking it through in case there was a better one. Meanwhile they kept to the trees and back tracked towards the cart.

  It was slow going over rough and rocky ground but the angle of sight was with them. The trees, though thinly spaced when looked at from close up, created a solid blind from the angle of the cart. As they came closer, they slowed. Silence was now important. They were all hunters, but now they were hunting the most dangerous animals of all, men.

  Buck pulled Raynar back every time he tried to lead. Raynar was the best shot with these bows he invented and fashioned, so he needn't be as close as the others when they made their first shots. Ned was now in the lead. He signaled for stillness. A hundred paces. Every pace closer, every tree closer, lessened the angle of sight from the cart. At any moment they would be spotted.

  Ned called the shot. They all waited for him because he had the best view. They all had their first arrows drawn almost fully, and sighted. Their other arrows were stuck in the ground beside their right legs. All four of the footpads were now in view on this side of the cart. Ned loosed, then Buck, then Flint. Raynar held back waiting to see which targets the others had chosen.

  One of the footpads dropped with an arrow in his thigh. The other two arrows missed flesh and hit the cart. Two of the foot pads were running to get to the other side of the cart. The last was running towards the woman, probably to use her as a shield. Raynar's arrow pinned the man's upper arm to the side of his chest. Too bad it was his right side else it would have punctured his heart.

  Three more arrows were now in the air. Two of them hit a footpad who was so stupid as to run directly away from the bowmen, rather than to the side, or from side to side. The footpad who had stopped the first hit, was too stupid to stay down and crawl under the cart. He took another arrow in the back as he hopped towards cover.

  There was now only one uninjured footpad. "Cover me," Buck yelled out. "Don't let him get near the woman. I am going to circle around the cart and finish him.” Flint followed him. They trotted around the cart with arrows fully drawn.

  The footpad made a break towards the woman. The woman at least had been smart enough to drop to the ground and roll behind a bush. Despite leading their target, both Ned and Raynar missed him. Just as he got to the woman, two arrows hit him in the back and he fell on the woman. She began screaming and screaming and screaming but they were the screams of fury and terror, not the screams of pain.

  Buck and Flint reached her first and rolled the corpse off her. Raynar and Ned checked the other footpads. All three were still alive, barely, at least for the moments it took them to put them out of their misery with a quick stab of the Valkyrie knives into the soft spot at the base of the back of the skull. In this way the blood stopped pumping immediately so they could carve out their precious, irreplacable arrows from their bodies without getting splashed with blood.

  Flint was finishing off the last footpad and retrieving those arrows, while Buck lifted the distraught woman to her feet and then held her up as he walked her slowly towards the cart. As Raynar and Ned came up to them, Buck was talking to the woman, trying all his languages. He shrugged.

  She was still sobbing, and was trying to use her hands to hold her torn clothing together and protect her modesty. It wasn't working. Her clothing was too shredded. All she was achieving was to draw the men's eyes to her firm breasts. The battle energy was surging through the veins of all of them, pumping blood and strength. Now that the immediate danger was over, and their senses relaxing, much of that blood was pumping into their cocks.

  Raynar shook himself away from watching the woman and climbed into the cart and cut the other woman free of her bonds. She stared at him and did not move or say anything. Her heart was beating so hard that he could almost hear it. Her stare was one of terror, so he decided to leave her be for now.

  When he pushed his head back outside, the other three men were gathered around the tattered woman trying all of their languages on her. It was only a matter of time before her attempts to cover her self would stir too much lust in them, so he yelled at his men to leave her be, and to drag the bodies out from underneath the cart. As they did that, the woman began screaming again, but this time not from terror, but from heartache.

  Seeing as they were so close to the frontier of the Greek Byzantine Empire, Raynar felt stupid that he hadn't tried speaking Greek to this woman. Now she was sobbing so hard and bending over the bodies of her three men, that she wasn't paying attention to the Greek words he was calling to her. A woman’s voice came from behind him, from the cart, in halting Greek. "Is everyone dead?"

  Raynar asked the lads who had dragged the bodies from under the cart, and then replied, "Yes they are all dead. Your three men, and the four footpads." He called to the lads to search the bodies and collect valuables and weapons.

  "Assassins," stated the woman. "Not footpads, but assassins. What they could steal..." her Greek was improving with every phrase, as if she were pulling it out of some long ago memory. "What they could steal and any pleasure they could steal from us women before they killed us too, that was all a bonus over what their master would have already paid them."

  He turned and helped the woman to climb down from the cart. Inside, when she had stared at him in terror, she had seemed much older. In truth she was younger than he. Possibly thirty. She immediately saw that the other woman was not decent, and that her peep show was putting both of them in danger around these rough big strangers. She pulled off her own cloak and went and wrapped it around the other woman, and then stayed with her and whispered comforts to her.

  Raynar walked over to the chest that had been dumped out onto the ground and pushed the things back into it. Mostly women’s clothing. Costly women’s clothing. He had to sit on the lid to close it over the jumble he had made of it all, but once it was latched he could drag it back to the cart. Ned helped him to lift it up and into its place.

  "Madam," Raynar called to the weeping women in Greek, "we must not stay here. These assassins may have brothers. The daylight is wasting and we need to be through the pass before the sun is much higher. Please get back in the cart and we will take you and your cart to the next house." The older of the women did not argue or hesitate. She pushed her ward towards the back of the cart, and then allowed Raynar to help them climb up.

  The lads needed no orders from him. They were seasoned skirmishers. One took point, with arrow nocked, one walked behind, and the third pulled at the lead ox. Raynar did a final scan around to see if anything had been missed. The tattered woman pushed her head back outside and yelled something and clawed at the air behind her.

  The other woman poked her head out and looked down at Raynar where he was busy knocking an arrow while walking. "She asks what of the bodies of her husband and his men?"

  "My men have collected all the valuables from all the bodies and that is inside with you. The bodies must stay where they fell. I will not risk our lives for the sake of the dead. Winter cold is kind to the dead but not to the living. The next travelers will see what has happened and eventually the Bishop's men will take care of the bodies."

  "So be it," the woman replied, "I am Maria and my sister is Magda. I will tell her your words, ugh pilgrim."

  "Raynar," he said to her. "I am called Raynar. We are English."

  "They make them pretty in England then, pilgrim Raynar," she replied, and then began explaining things to Magda.

  Raynar dropped back so that he could talk to Ned in the r
ear. "What did you make of the bodies? You searched them. You took their weapons."

  Ned thought for a moment before he spoke. "The three under the cart. I would say one was a lord by his clothes and his sword. The other two his menservants, and though they carried swords, I doubt that they were trained warriors.

  The footpads worry me. Something doesn't fit with them. They were dressed as badly as us, but the clothes were clean, and did not smell. Not like us. Their axes and swords were standard stuff. Good cheap tools. But their daggers were costly. And there were no packs. For sure they could have left their gear in the trees, but why? Once we had carried on, and had left them with the cart, they should have brought their packs to the cart.

  And something else. There is no escaping this valley with such a heavy cart. It must stay on this cartway from end to end. Why didn't they at least pull it off the road and hide it while they searched for valuables and fucked the women. And they left the oxen hitched. Valuable animals, them, if for nothing else than meat and hides. Hide the cart in the trees, and then take the ox to their hideout. That would be sensible."

  "I agree," replied Raynar. "There was no sense to what they were doing beyond staging a robbery. The women are Maria and Magda. Magda is the one hanging out of her bodice. Maria corrected me when I called them thieves. She called them assassins."

  "I have a bad feeling about this," mumbled Ned and turned and walked backwards for a ways while his eyes searched the trees behind them. "If there were more assassins, would they be behind us or ahead of us."

  "Thieves would just wait in the trees until an easy prize came up the road. A crime of opportunity," Raynar thought aloud. "Assassinations are planned and in cold blood. My feeling is that these ones came up from behind. Remember the blood in the snow well behind the cart."

  "Shit, Ray, that means that if there are more of them, they will be ahead of us, just in case the first attack failed. Now I understand why you left the three who were assassinated. If there are more behind us, they would see that their job is finished."