by Smith, Skye
"Well you owe me. You made me believe you had secrets worth telling. Instead you must tell me what you took to the abbot on your first day here. I know it was something from your scroll pipe."
"The abbot," Raynar whispered, as he cuddled his face into her breasts, "warned me that you were a spy for Emperor Henry, and to absolutely not tell you."
"A spy for Henry? I may be friendly with him for the purposes of trade, but a spy, never. All trade that crosses borders also involves the trading of information and favours, but I would never betray Venice."
"So then why were the assassins trying to kill you in the Alps? That day of my first meeting with the Doxe, you met with him before me. What did you take to him?"
She stroked his hair gently, which had the effect of massaging his cheeks with her breasts. "You tell me what you gave to the abbot, and I will tell you what I gave to the Doxe."
"If I do, will you keep it secret?" he asked, between moans of pleasure.
"A secrecy pact then? All right. You go first."
"I took the abbot a list of English lords names, and their identity codes, and the amounts that they can draw from his monastery's treasury."
"So what? I have seen that list. You have cheated me," she said, though deep in thought.
He tickled her. "You can't back out. Tell."
"I carried an agreement between Emperor Henry and the Doxe. If Venice refused to support the Pope in Rome, or his Norman henchmen, then Venice's trade shipments would again be allowed to travel across the Germanies to the North Sea."
"So who were the assassins?"
"The Pope's men, of course. Magda's husband thought we had outsmarted them because we were just another Venetian trading family returning home from Regensburg after having our trade shipments turned back. Some spy in Henry's court must have told them the truth. They would have raped and tortured Magda and I until one of us told them about the false beam, and after they were finished with us, they would have murdered us."
"Ah, then Ned was right. He said at the time that they were false thieves. They just weren't behaving like footpads."
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The Hoodsman - Popes and Emperors by Skye Smith
Chapter 13 - The call to arms in Venice in July 1081
As a place to be forced to wait for the English Varangians to march from Constantinople to the Adriatic Sea, Venice was not a bad choice. The four Englishmen were never bored. On the hot days, they stayed in the shade and drank white wine and watched the elegant daughters of the rich merchants walk about. On the cool days they borrowed a narrow boat, and explored the canals and the islands while drinking red wine.
Every large island had a church, and so long as you landed on the church's dock the locals would allow you to land. Once on shore, Raynar would show his citizen's medal and then use his friendly manner and his clumsy Venetian words to win the locals over. This was important if you wanted to be granted permission to use their narrow private canals as short cuts.
Guiscard had sent the Venetian envoy back to the Doxe with a promise that Venetian ships could freely pass through the Straits of Otranto, so long as they passed on the Apulian side, not the Illyrian side. Despite this assurance, no galleys left Venice for Egypt. The Doxe would not allow it. Meanwhile men were being trained in fighting, and ships were practicing strategies, and everyone was impatient for word from the Emperor in Constantinople.
When it came, there was no public announcement. Instead, all boats large and small, were ordered frozen at their docks to isolate Venice from the mainland. All citizens in fighting fit were ordered to the ships, including Raynar, and then the fleet set sail. Emperor Alexius had granted the Doxe's request. If the Venetian fleet destroyed the Norman fleet, Venice would have free trade across the Byzantine.
Raynar had been assigned to the flag ship by the Doxe himself. The Doxe was the admiral of the fleet but not the captain of the flagship. Buck, Ned, and Flint shipped with him. Maria's brothers and almost every other man on their island were called to their ships. There were many tears and many last hugs.
Of note was that Magda was very slow in letting go of Ned. When Raynar asked Buck about this long goodbye, Bucks answer was simple. "Give over Ray. He's been bonking her for a month now, ever since the day she stopped wearing black."
Raynar had managed to gain all four of them some armoured jerkins and the Byzantine bows that he preferred, but they still took their pilgrim kit, clothes, and crooks with them. He couldn't save the other three from hard work, however. They were trained and strong oarsmen and so they were assigned to oars.
The fortress city of Dyrrhachium was under siege by Duke Robert Hauteville of Apulia, Calabria, and Sicily, also known as Guiscard. His second in command was his son Bohemond, who had already proven his worth by capturing a beachhead in Illyria and then taking the port town of Avalona.
For months, while Doxe Selvo had waited for word from Alexius, Guiscard had been using his small fleet to ferry every able man and able horse from Apulia to Illyria. The latest intelligence was that there could be as many as twenty thousand men in the siege, and over a thousand of them were Norman heavy cavalry knights, complete with strings of battle horses.
Dyrrhachium was being defended by the experienced Byzantine general, George Palaeologus, whom Raynar had seen on the galley at the Arsenal in Venice just two months ago. Those two months had allowed the Normans to complete their ferrying, so now their ships were patrolling the straits watching for the Byzantine navy. Word had come to Selvo from the Venetian folk on the island of Corfu, that Guiscard had landed there and set up a spy post to watch for Byzantine galleys and a base where Norman ships could take on supplies. Corfu was south of the straits of Otranto.
The eastern coast of the Adriatic was dotted with islands, and every island had folk on them that benefited from trade with Venice. Their reports told Selvo that there were no Norman ships sailing northwards. Since all of Venice's boats had been frozen to the docks for the day that his fleet sailed, it meant that there would be no spy ship fleeing ahead of him taking word of his fleet to Guiscard.
Selvo's plan was to sail along the eastern Adriatic, just out of sight of the islands there. It was over four hundred miles to Dyrrhachium, and he hoped that the speed of his galleys would catch the Norman fleet by surprise. It took the largest of the galleys two days to row the four hundred miles, but the smaller ships lagged the large galleys and by the time the largest closed on Dyrrhachium the fleet was spread out, and the wind was against them and they were loosing light.
The Admiral Doxe ordered a halt and, at Raynar's suggestion, had the lead galleys rafted together so they would not be separated by darkness, waves, or wind. As other ships arrived, they also formed rafts, and the rafts were linked by tow lines. Unfortunately the rafted galleys drifted close enough to Dyrrhachium that they were spotted by the Normans, and a dozen Norse style longships rowed out to meet them and parley. The good news was that the smaller ships had not yet arrived, so the Normans would have counted the Venetian fleet as just nine large galleys.
Guiscard had sent his son Bohemond on one of the longships to do the talking for him, which displeased the Doxe, for he had hoped that Guiscard himself would be on one of the longships. Capturing Guiscard so early in the battle would save many lives.
On seeing the Norman longships, and how they were manned, the other captains came to understand why Raynar had suggested the rafting. The longships were manned for boarding other ships and were not weighed down with extra decks and supplies for a long voyage. They were a serious threat to any Venetian galley that strayed away from the fleet.
If, however, the Normans tried to board the rafted ships, they did not just have one crew to beat, but all of the crews of the raft. This because the crews of the raft could jump from one ship to the next to help repel the boarders. Seeing this, the Norman longships behaved themselves. Since there were no stray ships to capture, there was nothing to be gained by the Norman ship
s spending the night on the water and it was now almost sunset.
Meanwhile Bohemond and Selvo did talk. As Selvo said later to his captains, it was all posturing and nonsense. Bohemond claimed that he was acting on behalf of the prior Byzantine emperor, Michael, who had been deposed by Alexius. He gave notice that they were invading Illyria on Michael's behalf, and that Venice should join them in this endeavor as Michael was the true emperor.
Selvo told his captains that as far as he knew, Michael had become a monk and had given up any claim to the throne. The only outcome of the parley was that Bohemond told them that he would return in the morning to further discuss Michael and a lasting peace with the Venetians. Raynar trusted the word of Bohemond as much as he trusted the word of any Norman lord in England ... not at all ... and this he told to Selvo.
All night long, as the smaller ships arrived, they were rafted to the others. There were so many ships that the captains decided to angle each ship against its neighbour, so that the result was a large circle of ships, all with their bows pointed outwards. This huge raft was like a floating harbour where the smallest of the ships and any landing boats that were be towed, floated safely inside of it.
Everyone felt so safe, not only from the Normans but also from the sea, that the exhausted men who had rowed in shifts for two full days an nights, actually had a good feed, and a good night's sleep. The captains, meanwhile, hopped from ship to ship so as to gather on the flagship and discuss what the morning may bring.
The only words that Raynar told them was, "Never trust a Norman. I expect a trick tomorrow. Keep your bows and arrows hidden until they make the first move. Their first move will be to raise their shields, and then they will grapple you and board you. You must defeat the shields with stones from your ballast, so that your arrows can defeat the men."
The strategy they would follow was suggested by Selvo himself. There were a lot more ships here now than Bohemond had seen yesterday. Though the nine large galleys would not be a surprise to the Normans in the morning, the number of smaller ships may still surprise them. Before they lost the cover of darkness, he wanted all of the late coming ships to disappear out to sea and stay hidden in the morning fog. His own flagship will stand alone and wait for Bohemond's next parley. The other galleys must be ready to rush to his aid in case of trickery.
It was not the plan that Raynar would have used if he had been in charge. He would have sent the smallest ships, crammed with men, into the harbour under cover of darkness to burn or disable every ship that was not well guarded, and then just as quickly, leave. He didn't even get a chance to mention it.
Selvo had told his assembling captains that the outcome that he wanted from this battle was for all of the Norman ships to be captured intact, and turned into Venetian ships, and for all of the Norman seamen to be drowned before they could harm a single citizen.
While the exhausted oarsmen slept, Raynar led the flagship's riggers, the men who worked the mast, down into the bilge. They were to bring up the ballast stones that were of a convenient size to be used as missiles against Norman shields, and line them up along the gunnels in easy reach of the oarsmen. The stones they chose had to be heavy enough to do damage when dropped on shields, but light enough to be easily lifted by one man.
Venetian riggers, like all riggers everywhere, rigged a block and tackle to do any heavy work. So it was that they unlashed the loading spar from the mast. This spar was used in port to lift and swing net loads of heavy cargo, and tonight they used it to swing a net down into the bilge to put the stones into. There was a heavy round of a log in their way, so they lifted that out first.
"What in Thor's, I mean, heavens name is that?" Raynar asked pointing to the short heavy log with spikes pounded into it. He was told that it was a pile driver. Venetians were great believers in the use of log piles, not to create forts as the Norman's used them, but to create islands and canals. They were constantly driving piles into silt and mud, and this spiked log was the tool they used to do that.
It was a waterlogged, and thus heavy, cut of a thick log about a yard in length, with spikes hammered into it to serve as handles. Men would stand around it, holding it by the spikes and lift it, and then drop it onto a pile, over and over to drive the pile into the mud. While the riggers were moving stones, Raynar had a long talk with the riggers mate. A talk that was punctuated by evil snickers.
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Just after sunrise, a call came from the lookout above them. Norman longships had been sighted leaving the harbour and were coming this way. A dozen of them, all large and carrying many men.
Selvo had his flagship move away from the other galley's and waited for the Normans. The Norman flagship came straight towards them. Selvo's oarsmen had shipped their oars and were staying low but peering over the gunnels at the approaching longships. Raynar, from the steering deck where he stood next to Selvo and the captain, kept yelling at the seamen to keep their bows and stones hidden.
Bohemond's ship hailed them to say they were coming alongside so that the two admirals could bargain, and the hail back to them told them to come alongside but to show no grapples. When the two steering decks were close, the parley began. Bohemond demanded things of Venice that were ridiculous, such as they must become supporters of the deposed Emperor Michael, and stop supporting the Emperor of the Germanies, Henry.
When Selvo refused these things, without even thinking about it, Bohemond gave a signal and as one, a hundred shields were raised all along his ship to form a wall and a roof, and the men safe behind and under the shields waved their weapons and began to yell to raise their own courage. With that signal, another Norman longship suddenly turned and raced towards Selvo's ship on the other side. They were about to be boarded on both sides.
There was no time to look around and make sure that the other Venetian galleys had seen this maneuver and were coming to help. Raynar gave a piercing whistle to gain the attention of the rigger's mate at the mast, and then yelled, "NOW" with every breath in his lungs.
The riggers jumped to their work. High above them hanging from the loading spar was the spiked pile driver. Now its lines were released and it dropped from that height as the spar was swung in an arc. The effect was devastating to those holding the shields in the center of Bohemond's longship. It cruelly smashed through shield after shield, man after man, along the longship until it raised above them again at the end of its arc, stopped and then came back at them again.
Meanwhile every oarsman had lifted a heavy stone and chucked it at any shield they saw. The shields were now down, or crooked, or knocked asunder, and then the oarsmen show their bows, and their arrows. The Normans were not facing six or eight archers as they probably expected, but forty, and at short range. The Normans began to die.
The steersman was the first Norman hit, and him by four arrows from the four Englishmen holding Byzantine bows standing on the galley's steering deck. While the Venetian oarsmen shot into the Normans closest to them, the Englishmen used skirmisher tactics and targeted the leaders. There was carnage and blood and screams of terror in the longship, but already the other longship had come along their other side and was throwing grappling hooks.
Raynar whistled again to get the attention of the riggers, and waved and pointed, and the rigger's mate had his men slowly and carefully swing the pile driver around to the other side and the new attacker. The galley's oarsmen on that side had watched their brothers and cousins so easily destroy almost the entire crew of the Bohemond's longship and now they were cheering the rigger's on. They wanted their turn.
The swinging pile driver again did its grizzly work, knocking down shields and men in every direction. The Englishmen’s heavy arrows were already clearing its steering deck, even as the oarsmen were lifting their stones. Then the hail of arrows began. The Norman crew was being slaughtered. Never had so many men been slaughtered so quickly by little twists of lead.
On both longships now, the oarsmen who were not wearing armour, were leaping i
nto the sea to escape the storm of arrows. The warriors in armour were tunneling under fallen shields. They could not take their armour off without being killed, and could not leap into the sea without it sinking them to the bottom.
Selvo was standing on his steering deck laughing to the gods and looking all around him. Everywhere the galleys were tangling with the longships and everywhere the longships were in trouble, deadly trouble. From his vantage of safety, protected by the large rectangular shields carried by his bodyguards, he saw already that this was a great victory, and all in the span of a half of an hour.
The longships not yet engaged came alongside their stricken sister ships to take off the survivors under the cover of their shields. Raynar yelled to the bowmen not to waist arrows on the new ships because they was no way of defeating the shields. Concentrate instead on finishing the men in the close ships.
The rigger's mate tried to use the pile driver to defeat the ship that had come to rescue Bohemond. The riggers lifted the spiked log high and then swung the spar as far out towards the new ship as possible, and as they did so they let loose the line that held the log high. The pile driver fell and swung outwards with tremendous force, but just as it line taughten to force it to arch out towards the shields of the rescuing longship, the line snapped and it pummeled through some men and hit the hull of Bohemond’s ship hard enough to make the entire ship shudder.
Bohemond had been taken onto the new longship, and seeing that his rescuers were now also in danger, he order the grappling lines to be axed, and for the oarsmen to push them further away from his stricken flagship. Many armoured men were thus left stranded on his old flagship.
They were calling and pleading for Bohemond to come back and pick them up, but then a new call began, in Norman French, from the survivors of the arrows. "She is taking on water." The crash of the spiked pile driver had opened the lapping of planks and water was pouring into the ship.