Hoodsman: Popes and Emperors

by Smith, Skye

  "I toast the rebirth of the Mora," Henry said, "may her enemies flee her in terror.” They all glugged it down and let it burn. "My that is good stuff. Not for women though. I don't think they would like it. What do you think."

  "I think you should pour some more."

  As Henry poured he said, "Did you know, Thomas, that back in '66 when your dad was captain of the Mora and took my dad across the channel to fight at Hastings, Raynar here was just a lad and was on the battlefield."

  "Ah," said Thomas, and then saluted Raynar with his cup, "then you saw the greatest battle ever between the English and the Normans."

  Raynar was about to make a toast to Edith, but instead he stopped in mid thought, and instead said, "Aye, I did see the greatest battle ever between English and Normans, but it wasn't at Hastings. It was outside the port city of Dyrrhachium, that the Normans now call Durazzo, on the east coast of the Adriatic Sea. The battle for Hastings road was small compared to the battle for Dyrrhachium."

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  The Hoodsman - Popes and Emperors by Skye Smith

  Chapter 11 - Romancing Maria in Venice in May 1081

  Oh damn, Raynar thought, here he was stuck in Venice sharing a bed with the lovely Maria waiting until he got word of where the Varangians were so he could deliver this list of names and amounts to them. Oh damn he thought as he rolled out of bed and walked out onto the balcony to look over the roofs and islands of Venice. It was a good thing that Maria's room faced North, and that the roof was of fired tile. The rooms that faced south were too hot for his liking.

  It was just May and already there was mid day heat like he had never experienced before. It was lovely to always be warm, after growing up in the cold peaks of Derbyshire and becoming a man in the cold damp islands of the Fens. Despite enjoying the North facing room, he quickly dressed and moved to his seat on the balcony of the South facing room. Mornings overlooking the canal were something to be cherished. There was so much to see, and always something so strange as to need Maria to explain it.

  Maria was more than a lover now. She was his language teacher. This because he had described the Frisian culture of the North Sea to Demetri at the shipyard. How because the Frisian villages were easy to defend because they were built on islands, the men could go off on their ships and trade. For centuries their ships had been so important to the North Sea trade, that the Frisian language had become the language of trade in every port. So widespread was it, that the Great King Knut had chosen Frisian as the base for the in-common language of his North Sea empire.

  Demetri had told him an almost identical story about the Lombards who had migrated south from the North Sea coast with the retreating Roman Army and had settled on the islands in this lagoon and had founded Venice. Their town was so easy to defend that the men went off in their ships and traded all around the Mediterranean. Eventually their language, Venetian, which was a cross between Saxo-Frisian and Ita-Latin, became the trading language of the Mediterranean and was spoken in every port.

  Every morning after Maria and the cook had done the days household purchases from the market boats, he would have his language lesson on her bed. Of course, so far as the rest of the household was concerned, the animal moans that came from her room sounded nothing like Venetian, but that was just her way of rewarding him for remembering his previous lesson. It was a reward system that was teaching him the language very quickly.

  The passes through the Alps were all open now, so Maria's brothers were off on trading missions. The house would have become a house of women, if it weren't for Raynar and his three English bowmen. They were paying their way by doing all the manly work that the women usually had to hire tradesmen to do.

  Today, after rolling about in bed conjugating verbs, Maria finally decided to tell Raynar her secret about the cloth that she had hidden so well in the cart to bring over the Alps to Venice. Of course it was not about that piece of cloth. Just as she had listened in disbelief while Raynar and Demetri had bargained nails and scrolls with the price of ships, she had to explain to him why the roll of ordinary looking and feeling fabric was worth many ships.

  "I could understand you hiding fine jewelry so well, but when is a bolt of cloth worth more than fine jewelry. That is madness. I felt it. It was just linen, not even silk."

  "Only the wealthy can afford silk," replied Maria, "so the market is small. Regular women folk can't even dream of silk but they do dream of linen, but even linen is beyond their purses, and besides, linen needs constant tending to look good. Regular woman are a huge market. That is the magic and the value of that cloth."

  "I still don't understand."

  She sighed. She was hoping for another turn. "Do you know where Alexandria is?"

  "Egypt, but I don't really know it. I've just heard of it. Mussulmen, Saracens."

  "Alexandria was founded by a Greek, and then it became Roman, and then Greek again, and yes, now Saracen. Back when Venice was young, one of our captains learned that the body of Saint Marco, our patron saint, had been left in Alexandria when the Greeks were last pushed out. He sailed there and stole the body and brought it to Venice."

  "Ah, of course, no, I still don't understand." He began to stoke her thighs meaningfully.

  "With the holy body, they brought back some things that they found in the market. Spices and cloth. That was the start of our trade with the Arabs for spices from the Indies, and with Egypt for cotton cloth and thread."

  "So is a cotton like a sheep?"

  "It is a plant with fuzzy seeds. You pull and twist the fuzz into thread."

  "Ah, of course, no, I still don't understand." He was now kissing along her thighs.

  "Cotton makes cheap cloth because it does not wear well as clothing. Within a half a year it is either thread bare, or it rots in the damp and you can push your finger through it. Linen is tough and wears long, but it is expensive and it wrinkles easily. My cloth, my cloth worth more than jewels, is a sample of a woven cloth using a cotton warp and a linen weft."

  "Ah, so you have invented a new type of cloth that is... "

  "More affordable and better wearing and has a bigger market. It is worth many ships to Venice, but no I did not invent it. In Egypt they call it barrakan. What I have done is found a weaver in the Germanies to partner with. I supply the cotton, he supplies the linen, he does the weaving, and we will both sell the cloth. He in the North and me in the South."

  "Many ships," he said, lifting his head just as he was about to kiss even higher than her thigh.

  She sighed in disappointment. "Many ships. How many silver marks would I have if I made one mark profit from every woman in southern Christendom? Hundreds of thousands?"

  "You are so smart and you will become so impossibly rich that you should be rewarded. Why don't I go down to the kitchen and fetch us some breakfast?"

  She grabbed his head by his hair and told him, "Not yet. First find the goddess in me.” Then she none too gently pushed his face down between her legs, and then laid back to enjoy.

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  He absolutely despised people who were always posing as someone important when they were not. This waiting room was filled with overdressed men and women who were trying to look important. Poseurs all. Luckily Maria had come with him to defend him against the advances of any of the wayward women that were brought to Venice by young Venetians, and then she stayed with him while he waited.

  Finally his name was called and they walked arm in arm into a room of the Doxe's palace that he had never been in before. It was the room used by the Council. The highest court of which the Doxe was the chief justice. The ceremony was swift. He was sworn to protect Venice, and then a medallion of citizenship was hung around his neck on a bright red ribbon. He gave some polite bows, but was pulled along and out a side door by a clerk to make room for the next new citizen.

  Maria explained the clerks words. "It is just a formality to allow any of the Council to have the chance to veto your citize
nship. Keep that medallion safe and wear it when you are not with me."

  Raynar held up the medallion and had a closer look at it. It was a coin slightly larger than a silver shilling but of a different metal, perhaps a mix of silver and tin, and with a small hole in the top so that it could be strung. On one side was a pressing of the Doxe's head in profile and the word Venice, and on the other side was engraved '1081 Cittadino Capitano Raynar di Bruges'.

  "Since you do not speak our language," said Maria, "and you do not look like a local, be expecting to show that to the Guardia when they ask you about your weapons. You can always keep it in your purse with your coins. It is a different size and a different metal, so you cannot mistake it and use it for a payment."

  They walked out through an empty corridor and had not made it to the street before an armed man called to them, "Are you Cittadino Raynar?"

  Raynar turned to him with a wide smile and held his new medallion out away from his neck for the man to see, and replied, "Why yes I am."

  "You are hereby summoned to military duty beginning one hour after sunrise tomorrow at the Arsenal." And with that, the man clicked his heels, spun on them and marched away.

  Maria did not know whether to laugh or cry. Laugh because Raynar had become a citizen of Venice so that that he could walk about armed, and the other side of that coin is that he could not refuse a call to arms. Cry because this meant that they would be separated, for most military service in Venice was aboard ships.

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  Raynar was early to his first muster. He was wearing a brynja that Buck had found in a market stall and had paid little for. It was the Norse seamans jerkin made with a body of sheepskin where the wool had been felted, and then onto the sheepskin had been sewn rawhide strips that held light hollow rings of cheap metal.

  As armour it was better than nothing and would slow a slash from a blade or an arrow point, though it would not stop a spear or sword thrust. The true advantage was that it would keep you warm even when wet, and if you fell overboard, it would float you long enough to remove your heavy weapons belt and find something to raft upon. Staying warm was not going to be an issue on this hot day.

  The other men at the muster were mostly oarsmen and young lads with little or no fighting experience. He was pushed towards a clerk with a register by one of the young lads who was patient enough to listen to his poor Venetian. The clerk looked down his list of names and then shook his head. He wasn't on the list.

  "Perhaps I have the wrong day, or perhaps it is under Captain Raynar rather than Citizen Raynar."

  The clerk gave him a look like he had two heads, and pulled a completely different scroll towards him. A much shorter list of names. He was told that he had come in by the wrong gate, and to report to the Shipwrights house for further instructions. At the office he was told that he should have been on the docks ten minutes ago. He ran, but of course, he was still late.

  The dock was filled with captains, and one admiral, the Doxe. He called to Raynar in Greek, "Good, you have arrived just in time. My captains wish you to show us how the Norman longships fight."

  He walked the last bit along the dock to catch his breath. Moored stern inwards at the dock were everyone was standing were two ships. One was the Norse ship that had been converted into a galley and the other was an unconverted Norse ship, but a smaller one. A coastal and river ship. This was obviously just the Doxe putting on a show to fill his Venetian navy with confidence.

  "What is expected of me?" asked Raynar after bowing to the Doxe.

  "You command the Norse ship, and you try to escape us."

  Raynar walked to the edge of the dock and looked along the small ship. It was like an early version of one of his small Frisian cogs, the ones that ran cargo between Flanders and the Fens. There were ten oarsmen and two on the steeroar, and four other crew to take care of the sail riggings.

  He walked further along the dock until he could look along the galley and guestimated sixty oarsmen. While thinking he turned to Selvo, the admiral-Doxe and said. "If this ship is to pretend to be a Norman fighting ship then I will need a dozen shieldmen armed with fighting hammers and axes, and of course, a translator who has seen service as a mate or a captain."

  An hour later, after light refreshments and much back slapping at the successful conversion of the longship, Raynar stepped aboard the small ship with his larger crew. His translator was a young captain with a weather-beaten face, a badge of honour amongst seamen. Selvo and his captains were on the galley following them. Both ships were to row North out of the Arsenal and do maneuvers in the lagoon to the North of Venice.

  As his oarsmen rowed, Raynar, through the translator, gave instructions to the shieldmen, and then to the riggers, and then to the oarsmen. Luckily the steersmen were fishermen and well knew the lagoon. "Put us upwind just in front of some shallows," he told them, and the steersmen looked behind them at the looming galley that was following them and snickered.

  Both ships were clear of other shipping now, so Raynar ordered the oarsmen to double time. The small ship shot forward, but of course, the galley had done the same thing and was closing on them at a terrific rate of speed.

  Just about when they had the bow of galley about up their arse, Raynar yelled out his first set of orders. The steering oar was twisted and swept, all the starboard oars were shipped, and the port oarsmen kept rowing. The little ship spun like a top to face the galley. As soon as it had spun around, all oars were shipped and the shield men formed a roof with their shields and all of the men dived under their cover. Raynar helped the steersman to correct the course so that the bow of the galley would just miss them.

  And then the small ship hit the galley's forward most oars on one side. There was a horrific sound of splintering oars and screams from oarsmen up on the outrigger deck as they were thrashed by their own oars. The bow of the small ship hit one after another after another but by the sixth, Raynar and the steersman had the bow pointed away from the galley and they just clipped the seventh and eight and ninth and then were free of the galley's oars.

  Two things now happened simultaneously. The galley began to turn towards them because half the oars on their close side were out of action, and Raynar’s crew ran out their oars and began to pull on their oars for all they were worth. The small ship leaped ahead, giving the steersmen more control over the course and with Raynar's help they turned the small ship quickly back towards the hull of the now slowing and turning galley.

  The small ship was now racing around the stern of the galley. At Raynar's order, the starboard oars were lifted while the port oars still pulled and the bow of the small ship crashed into galley's rudder and stopped dead in the water. Immediately some shieldmen ran to the bow with battle hammers and axes and attacked the shackles of the rudder and smashed them. Before the two ships drifted apart, the rudder was useless to the galley.

  Someone was paying attention on the galley because they had reorganized the oars and were steering with them, but it was too little too late. With a few hard strokes of the oars, the small ship had slipped over a mud bar, the same mud bar that the galley now ground into before coming to an oozing stop.

  Raynar told his crew to ship oars and take a breather. They drifted along, everyone watching the galley, which was now aground and helpless in the mud, and being pushed against the bar by the gentle wind. Raynar tried out his newly learned Venetian by yelling out the equivalent of, "Well lads, I suppose we had better go and tow them off that bar, else their wives will box their ears for being late for supper."

  After some breathless laughter, they rowed to the windward side of the galley and took a tow rope. It took them two hours while the tide rose, to pull the galley free. Once that was done, Raynar gave command of the little ship to the translator and climbed aboard the galley.

  There were thirty captains aboard the ship, but only one of them was the skipper of this ship, and he was looking panic stricken as he stared at Selvo, the Doxe admiral, who was stomping up
and down the deck in a foul temper. Raynar caught up to Selvo and asked him to call his captains to him, and then to serve as translator.

  Selvo gave him an angry look, but he agreed and called his captains together. His angry comment to Raynar was, "Speak to them in your foul Greek. They are all fluent, by necessity."

  Raynar looked at the skipper as he spoke, but his words were for all of them, "This should have been an easy win for you, but you lost because of two things. You were facing an experienced captain in a very maneuverable ship, and you could not thwart his maneuvers because you had no archers."

  "We did not bring archers," shrugged the skipper, "because we did not want anyone injured in a practice."

  "Your oarsmen, are they not archers?"

  "No."

  "Ah, then they are galley slaves," Raynar replied, "and so cannot be armed."

  Selvo answered for the skipper. "There are no galley slaves in Venice. All oarsmen are freemen, and most are citizens of the city."

  "So they can be armed, then?"

  "Of course. If this were not a practice then they would carry cudgels and swords for use when boarding enemy ships."

  "So if the oarsmen are not archers, then how many archers would this ship carry?"

  It was the skipper who answered, "If the ship was expecting trouble, as many as four in the bow and four in the stern."

  Raynar was shocked and amused by the small number. Since every crewmember on any of his own ships was an archer, his smallest ship in the Fens had more arrow power than this galley. "When I rammed your oars, and then your rudder, did you notice that we created a shield roof over our oarsmen to protect them from missiles from above. We expected at least to be pummeled by stones.