by Smith, Skye
She had been about to recite from the gospels, but those were not in few words. She sat silent and thoughtful for a long while, because this man was not a Yehudim, not even a Christian, and so would be easily confused by religious talk. Eventually she said, "Sharing. His wisdom and vision were based on everyone sharing. Sharing the work, sharing the proceeds, sharing the hunger, sharing the abundance. As sharing increases, other sins decrease."
He was about to make a jest about sharing wives but he held his tongue. She was serious, so he gave 'sharing' serious thought. He thought about other villages where he had lived that were like this one. In the Frisian villages of the Fens of England, so much was shared. The men were wild adventurers, stubborn warriors, and yet the villages were calm and peaceful. Was that because of the sharing?
Just as he had asked her for understanding - using few words, now he phrased a simple question that would tell him much about this village. "Who raises the children here? The mother and father?"
"The mother and the village," she replied quickly.
That told him all about the level of sharing in these damp villages. No wonder they seemed so much like a Frisian village. "What do you do about the men who take selfishness to an extreme? The ones where everything is always about them. The ones who are never saddled with guilt for their own evil doings."
"They don't stay long in our villages," she murmured. "not when their evil can be so profitable elsewhere."
"Not just elsewhere," Raynar grumbled. "Selfishness is profitable everywhere."
* * * * *
Sarah knew the exact moment that she lost Raynar as her live-in companion. It was one day when he waded waste deep into the water to help the other men with the fishing nets. His wound had knit well, and was no longer moist, and no longer pained him or itched or caused fevers. She knew that tonight as they ate the fish he had just helped to catch, he would tell her that his time here was finished.
Almost immediately she felt the loss, and was sad. He was such a wonderful man to live with. Undemanding, gracious, patient. While she was teaching him the ways of D’Oc, he was teaching her the ways of D'Oui, and most of all, some of the skills of a courtesan. Her daughters-in-law were so jealous. Think of it. Living with a man who could take her, an older peasant woman, and teach her the manners and grace of a palace court. She had even learned to eat with her mouth closed, and not to speak while she chewed.
Once he was gone she promised herself that she would once again copy the Gospel of Magdalene. As a child, like all children in this village, she had been taught how to read and write Hebrew by copying this gospel, and others. For a month she had been learning about Freyja, and Raynar had shown her Freyja’s hand in everything that happened in this tidal lagoon. It was time for her to return to her own faith.
That night they sat with those men from the village who traded horses up and down the River Rhone. They planned his route for him and drew him a crude map of a trade route called the Voie de Regordane. The map named the line of villages that ran northwest from here, and on it they circled the names of the villages that were friendly to strangers.
An elder returned the two scroll pipes to him, and he took the scrolls from the priest's pipe and added them to his own. The elder even translated the three Latin letters for him. The passport of the Pope was a simple request of assistance to the bearer. The agreement between Duke Guiscard and Bishop Regent Odo stated what Guiscard expected in terms of ships, men, and coin in return for supporting Odo's bid for the papacy.
The agreement between the Pope and Odo should have been simple but it went on and on with flowery words and grand titles. The Pope would agree to Odo being his choice as his successor so long as Normans continued to protect Rome's interests from Emperor Henry. The largest scroll by far was the tabular list of treasures and pilgrims, but that was self evident.
Early the next morning she watched patiently while he put on his silk shirt, the same silk shirt that had stopped his wound from being much deeper and dirtier. The sword had not cut it, although his habit had needed stitches. She went with him in the boat that took him to the horse grazing field at the edge of the lagoon. There she helped him to tie his bedroll, with the hidden arrows, to the saddle, and once he was mounted, she passed him his crook-staff.
She waved as he turned the horse to ride away, and then she quickly turned her back, and ran sobbing back to the boat. The men who had rowed them here were still giving him last minute advice on the route, but she was finished with him. She just wanted to get back to her hut and shut out the world. The men went on and on telling him that he would be safer traveling through the Languedoc and Limousin counties, since now he spoke some of the language. Then he was gone.
* * * * *
* * * * *
The Hoodsman - Popes and Emperors by Skye Smith
Chapter 26 - To Caen in a galley in March 1104
To Henry's credit, the docks along the River Itchen at Southampton were very busy. And not just with the rebuilding required after the massive windstorm last year. Since Winchester had been the capital for so long, the roads north from Winchester were in good shape, and so the carts carrying food from the north were moving the loads first to Winchester, then to Southampton, and then by ship along the south coast.
Food supplies, and seed corn were vital in March. Whatever food in the South that had been spared by or saved from the great wind, was now gone. Eaten over the winter by hungry people who were huddled, cold and damp under makeshift roofs. Even the seed corn will have been eaten by now.
Raynar nodded to some carters he knew from Winchester. They were big men, and strong of back and shoulder. Only if you looked closely at the fingers of their right hands you could tell that they were not just carters, but men who practiced with Welsh Ywen bows, longbows.
"Watcha, Ray," the one with the bushy red beard called out. "Any message for John?" He meant John Wheelwright of Winchester. No one had called him Little John since the Ely Rebellion.
"You can send my love to Mar, and tell them that I will be in Caen for a few weeks."
"Will do," the carter replied, rubbing a long finger along the side of his nose. Then he got back to transferring his barrels of seed corn from cart to coastal ship. There were Nobs approaching. It was always best to look busy when there was Nobs about. They tended to get mean when it was not just them that was doin' nothing.
Raynar leaned against an empty cart and looked out over Southampton Water. It was calm and it sparkled in the morning sunlight. He also could see the Nobs approaching but he ignored them. Perhaps if they didn't recognize him they would say something interesting to each other, in French and loud enough to overhear.
"Raynar," a large man older even than Raynar, called out. "Henry told me you were coming with us. Well met.” It was Robert Meulan, the Earl of Leicester, who was Henry's right hand, and one of the more trustworthy old Normans in the kingdom. Trustworthy because he lacked the vicious streak that other Normans bore with pride.
"I haven't seen you since Shrewsbury," said Raynar reaching out his arm to grasp the old knight's. He would have said more, but he then saw the other elder who was walking behind Robert. "Gregos Demetrious!" he cried out with joy, "and Risto. So who is watching the kingdom's treasury if you are here?"
"Don't ask," Gregos replied, "else I will speak badly of the decision in front of the king's man.” With these words he nodded towards Meulan.
Meulan laughed. "Roger of Salisbury and Herbert of Winchester. Henry has set two foxes that hate each other to watch each other and the Treasury."
"But why are you here Gregos?" Raynar asked, not bothering to ask the same question of Risto whose arm he was now grasping. Risto was Greco Andalusian just like Gregos, and one of the finest swordsmen in Cordoba. He was the loyal bodyguard to the old wizard of coin and accounts.
"I am being loaned to Duke Robert to see if I can bring some order to his treasury."
They all nodded. Gregos had cleaned up the financial mess left by the prior kings
William, the Conqueror and Rufus. With the full support of Henry, in Gregos first year at the treasury he had brought the minters to heel by forcing them to mint silver coins of standard weight and purity. He had even forced them to swap the new, true coins, for the shoddy and impure coins that they had minted under Rufus.
That by itself had attracted assassins to Gregos's back, but then he had continued his work by bringing the moneylenders and bankers to heel by introducing the system of tally sticks that effectively made the kingdom's treasury its own bank. Since the treasury would accept large tax payments only in the form of tally sticks which they themselves had issued, it meant that the cost of running the kingdom was being paid for with tally sticks without the need of leaving a share of every transaction in the pockets of bankers.
The tally sticks were now entrenched in the running of the kingdom. Those bankers who had sided with rebellions to rid themselves of Henry's rule, and therefore the tally sticks, were now either in cells, in exile, or had heads rotting on pikes. It was a fitting end for the greediest minds in the kingdom.
Henry, who had crowned himself, and for two years had feared that the crown would be torn away from his shaky claim by his enemies, was now secure on the throne. His Coronation Charter and the rights enshrined within it, had gotten him through the first four months. His marriage to Edith, a princess of England and Scotland, with her ability to call out the English fyrdmen, had gotten him through the first two years of rebellions by Duke Robert and the old style Norman lords.
This old wise man from Cordoba had now glued Henry into his throne with stable coinage, and a treasury that was no longer being bled dry by bankers. "Did Duke Robert ask for your help, or is this Henry's idea?" Raynar asked the old Greek. Old, perhaps seven years older than Raynar.
"It will be good for the both of them," Gregos replied. "Though I fear I am now too old and weak to pull off the same miracle a second time.” He held his side, the side that had been slashed by an assassin in the pay of the bankers. That was about a year ago now, but the wound still bothered him. "I may not come back. When the Duke has no more use for me, perhaps I will take young Risto, here, back to Al-Andalus. Certainly before next winter. I don't like English winters."
Risto was ignoring them. He had recognized the two big carters unloading onto the next ship and was walking towards them to speak to them, or rather to see what quality of ale the men had in their aleskins. Watching him walk away, Raynar again had misgivings about leaving Edith's side while Henry was crossing the Manche. He had not known that Gregos and Risto were also to be away.
* * * * *
The crossing from Southampton to Caen on the galley 'Mora' was fast. Ridiculously fast. A hundred and twenty miles as the crow flies in under twelve hours. That was with two shifts of forty oarsmen-come-bowmen per shift. A full complement for battle readiness, for there was no knowing what kind of reception Henry would be given in Normandy.
This was Henry's first trip to Normandy since seizing the throne after his brother Rufus had been killed in the 'hunting accident' in the Yten Forest. Though the half Norman, half English younger lords of England mostly preferred Henry on the throne, the full blooded older Norman lords of both England and Normandy had always supported Duke Robert and ridiculed Henry.
And no wonder. Duke Robert was a weak man, easily cajoled and controlled by his barons. Robert was a crusader and therefore was a supporter of the law of 'might is right', and a supporter of the belief that Normans were the master race. Robert was also well connected to the Norman nobles who ran the south of Italy and Sicily, having married into those families.
Henry, on the other hand, believed in the rule of law. That no men, not even the Norman master race, were above the law. In England he had rolled the Norman laws back to the English laws, and the courts back to control by elders. He was ignoring nobles when filling offices such as chamberlains and sheriffs and instead filling them with men he was picking out of the dust. Commoners some of them. He had even rolled back serfdom, and was against slavery, and a lord could even be punished for bonking his serf women.
For reasons of security, the Mora tied up at the fishing village of Ouistreham where the River Orne emptied into the Bay of Sallenelles. If they rowed the galley the eight miles up the river to Caen, the ship could have been trapped and surrounded. Sitting at the village dock, the galley was unassailable, what with eighty bowmen aboard, and with plenty of cover for them. Moreover, there was no way of blocking it from escaping to the sea, and no ship afloat on this coast that could catch them once they were aweigh.
Messengers left immediately for Caen to tell the Duke that they had arrived. Duke Robert came to them the next morning and was in absolute shock when he saw his father's ship, the Mora, so transformed. Everyone pointed towards Raynar, and the Duke shook his head. Every time he turned around, this peasant of an Englishman was involved.
The royals took over the local church, the largest building in the village, and began discussions. Discussions mostly about what to do with the baron Robert of Belleme and his equally evil cousin and supporter, William of Mortain.
Belleme and Mortain had been driven from England and exiled by Henry, and they were savagely attacking with fire and sword the folk bordering their Norman estates. They were harrowing, that is, pillaging and burning the villages and crops. Belleme, the devil that he was, was subjecting all the knights and other persons whom he could capture to death or mutilation. He was so cruel that he would rather torture his prisoners than get richer on the ransoms offered for their release.
Belleme's own brothers, Roger the Poitevin and Arnulf, had also been wealthy earls in England, and had been richly endowed with great honors through the influence of their father, Earl Roger. Because they had sided with Belleme in England they had been exiled by Henry and were also now in Normandy. With such men loose in Normandy, evil deeds were increasingly frequent, and there were daily reports of atrocities. Many villages were already depopulated and churches had been burnt to the ground along with the people who had fled to them to take refuge.
Almost all Normandy had risen against Belleme and united in one sworn bond to resist him, but this body could offer no effective resistance against such a bandit without a responsible head. Belleme was crafty and strong, and he had already collected great wealth in the thirty-four powerful castles that he had built to support his rebellion.
Belleme was so out of control now, that even his brothers Roger and Arnulf were fearful of him and had approached the Duke with offers of peace. When Belleme eventualy found this out, there would be hell to pay. Already he was doing mad things like hacking the limbs off the envoys that the Duke had sent to him.
After listening to the Duke's woeful tales of these monsters, they took a break for some wine. Raynar cornered both Henry and Meulan and stared at them accusingly. "I'll only say this once. I told you so. You should have killed them all at Shrewsbury and have been done with them. Now you must take responsibility for yet another harrowing. Think of the folk who have died, and died horribly, and for nothing."
"Ray," said Henry, not meeting his gaze. "If it had been up to you, half of the nobility of Normandy would have been skewered in the forest at Alton. That is not my way. I would rather turn them to my side or hold them in my prison, than to take their lives."
"You still don't understand, Henry," scolded Raynar. Meulan flinched at the tone that was being used to a king. "Some men are evil to the bone. There is no redemption for them. They feel no guilt, no remorse. They believe they are better than everyone else. If you accept them, forgive them, then they can be a good friend to you. If you do not accept them, then they will always be your enemy. No, it is worse than enemy, for they will go out of their way to do evil to you and yours."
"You exaggerate," Henry replied.
"Odo, your half uncle, was like that, and you know this. Mortain is his full nephew, and shares his blood and his evil. Belleme is out of control here in Normandy, and I fear what he will do when
he finds out that you are here. He wishes evil on you, Henry."
"You mean he may send assassins?"
"Oh he will have planned more evil for you than just a clean kill," Raynar replied. "How much would it cost him to have your new son's throat cut, or Edith's? The man is a monster. A devil walking the earth, just like Odo was. Just like...” He stopped talking before he said too much.
"Say it, go on, say it. Just like my father," Henry's temper was fraying.
Raynar took a deep breath and calmed himself. "Your father harrowed, burned, slaughtered over a thousand villages, perhaps even two thousand. Your brother Robert is sitting back in the safety of his castles and allowing Belleme to do the same. Can't you see. Robert is afraid. He fears being captured by Belleme. Belleme the Impaler."
Meulan, one of the Norman's finest generals, spoke into an embarrassing silence. "I too fear Belleme, that is, being captured by Belleme. I will go and speak with Mortain, and to Arnulf and Roger, and try to convince them to go back to their homes and be peaceful, but I will go nowhere near Belleme. Not without a full army around me including a few hundred of Raynar's bowmen."
"Stay out of it, Henry," Raynar told the king. "You have thought so hard, worked so hard, taken so many risks to bring peace to England. Belleme and Mortain are the problems of Normandy. It is the Norman master-slave culture that created them. The solution to them must also be from the Norman culture."
"But Ray, I am Norman."
"No, you are the King of the English. Robert is Duke. Robert is Normandy and bows to the King of France. Belleme is their problem.” Raynar closed his eyes and sighed and spoke from his heart. "Evil so great as Belleme must be fought with evil. Fighting him will turn you evil. You will become that which you fight. You will come to Normandy with good intentions and return to England filled with evil."
"We have already beaten Belleme once," Henry replied.
"In Shropshire he resigned to stay alive," Meulan pointed out. "It was not you and your army that made him resign, but the sixty thousand fyrdmen with vengeance in their hearts that roused to the call of your English queen."