Hoodsman: Popes and Emperors

by Smith, Skye

  Raynar kept his criticisms to himself. These religions based on faith in the Desert God were always illogical. Why should this one be any less so.

  "The Roman priests call us Gnostic," she continued, "because we believe in the duality of God, but we are not. We call ourselves the Good People, because we try to live as Christ lived, and how he would have wanted us to live."

  He was glad of the month living with Sarah, a descendant of Christ, because she had already explained these churchless Christians to him. "Ah, you are the Good People, where men and women are equal, and sex is forbidden." He thought back on the folk in the hall. There had been children, but not many. "I was told that there are no wives or husbands here, for there is no marriage."

  "It is not that simple," she replied, "there is no contract of marriage because there is no possession. Many folk live as couples or groups, but without any contract. But enough of that. Do you want to hear my reading of your future, or not."

  "Yes please," he said, and felt a sudden chill right to his spine, "No, well, No, alright. Yes, Yes tell me."

  "All of your grief and your guilt," she began after a deep breath, "points to a day on a frightening battlefield when you were but a lad. A day when you shot William's horse out from under him, but then did not finish the man. You blame the deaths of hundreds of thousands on your own cowardice that you did not take William's life at that time, though it would have cost you your own.

  Ever since then you have been hunting William, trying to correct your cowardice on that day by killing him, and every time you have failed because you could not kill him without it costing you your own life. Every time you fail, you feel even more guilt, and more shame, and more regrets."

  He was speechless. Could this blind seer truly read his thoughts, for there was no other way that she could know of that day at the Battle for Hastings road when he shot William's horse. Or did he speak of it in his sleep? He could not remember. "Is there more?" he croaked fearfully.

  "Your mind, your very fine mind, is twisted because of your grief. You must admit to yourself that the past cannot be changed. It can be forgotten, it can be lied about, but it cannot be changed. You must stop trying to correct the future by trying to correct the past. Killing William was a solution to a problem from long ago, but it may not be the solution to a problem in the future. All life is ... now, here, this. We are, all of us, only what is now, and here, and doing this."

  "So what is your advice?" he asked, suddenly feeling like a small child being scolded by his mother.

  "This is not my advice. It is the advice of your hidden mind."

  "Which is?"

  "Every day you are changing your mind. You have more than one home and family. You are torn between visiting them and your desire to go and hunt William again. Your choices are very complicated."

  She was right. Everyday he was torn between Huntingdon, Brugge, and Caen. "Tell me more," he pleaded.

  "Blood soaked letters will lead Odo from your land and allow Canute to free your folk. Does that make sense? Who is Canute? There is such a tangle of thoughts around this one thought that your own mind cannot focus on it."

  He closed his eyes and tried to find this thought in his mind. Of course. It was so simple. Odo, the evil regent of the English, wanted to be Pope. To do that he must leave England and take an army and a treasure with him. Already the Norman garrisons in England had been reduced by William to fight his battles with the French king, and by Guiscard to fight the Byzantine Emperor.

  When Odo leaves England, the Norman garrisons will be so weak that they would barely slow down Canute and his army of Danes, Frisians, Saxons and Flems. England would be freed from the Norman slave masters very quickly. He must get to Winchester and deliver the priest's letters to Odo. They are the promises from the Pope and from Guiscard that will encourage Odo to leave England. He should have allowed the priest to escape with his letters.

  He wanted to think this through but she was speaking again. "So you see. It is more important to kill Odo than to kill William. You must not allow Odo, the demon walking the earth, to become the next Bishop of Rome. With him as Pope, the evil that has befallen your land will spread across Christendom. This you must not allow, so you must stop Odo."

  Her words drifted through his own disjointed thoughts and half laid plans. What had she said. He thought back on her exact words, but they made him want to scream in frustration. He had just seen with brilliant clarity, a plan to free the English, while she had seen with brilliant clarity that he must instead save other peoples from sharing the fate of the English.

  It is never easy, is it? She had had solved one dilema. He would not go to Huntingdon, Brugge or Caen. Instead she had given him a more twisted dilemma. Save the English from the Normans, or save all of Europe from Odo. Help Odo to become the Pope, or kill him before he became the Pope.

  * * * * *

  That night he was so weak and tired that nothing could keep him from sleeping. Not the crowded hall where most everyone had bedded down together to keep warm from the mountain's winter winds. Not the snores, the farts, the whispers, the giggles, the folk creeping out to pee, the opening of the door to the wind.

  Not even the young woman who had bedded down beside him and who kept rubbing her bum against his crotch, trying to get a rise out of him. He couldn't even turn away from her because he had to keep his newly stitched side facing up. He slept, and he dreamed, until first light when the woman beside him shook him awake and pressed his face into her breasts. That just made him fall into a deeper sleep.

  As people got up, and out of his way, he crawled over closer to the fire to get warm so he could sleep some more. No one took it amiss. They knew him as the exhausted stranger who had been wounded on the road. He was shivering so, that one of the local women was cuddling close to him, to warm him under both of their cloaks.

  Noses. He began to dream of noses. The folk in the hall were of all shapes and sizes and coloring but they all had one thing in common. A stately nose. A handsome nose. A noticeable nose. None of your cute button noses from the North Sea in this hall. A hand squeezed his cock, and he suddenly realized that he had to pee in the worst way. With an apology, and a wave at his things to make sure that the woman who had squeezed him would stay and watch his stuff, he was away out the back door.

  When he returned, Giselle was sitting with the woman by the fire, watching his things, ugh, listening to his things. He tried to test her, by ignoring both of them and walking by as if he didn't know them. Giselle called after him, "Are you blind, Raynar. We are here by the fire."

  "Ah, did you come to check my wound?"

  "Yeh Giselle. He had chills all night, he did," said the woman who had slept next to him. "I tried to keep him warm. You should probably have a look see.” Neither woman seemed to notice anything strange in asking a blind woman to look.

  Seeing the woman who had warmed him all night in the clarity of daylight, made him regret not being more awake in the night. In truth, looking around the hall in the light of day made him realize how colorful everyone was. In English villages, the people dressed in natural colors, shades of dun and brown. It made no sense to go to the expense and trouble of dyeing homespun. Here all the homespun was dyed in every color imaginable, and bright colors too. Dyed homespun faded quickly.

  "Come to the back room with me," said Giselle. The other woman was the first to stand and led them both there, and then stayed to help.

  Or more truthfully, stayed to try on Raynar's silk shirt. Her comely shape was distracting him from Giselle's well meaning touches. Every time she wriggled in and out of the loose silk and pulled it tight to get various looks, she had his full attention. After his fifth appreciative moan, Giselle asked her to leave the room. Raynar had to leap forward to stop her from walking away with his shirt.

  "Forgive her," said Giselle, once the woman had dressed and left them. "Just because we disapprove of sex, does not make it go away. She was trying to take advantage of you beca
use you are not of our faith. The good news is that your wound has knitted again. I would suggest that you do not travel today or tomorrow, and that when you do, that you tie a wide sash over the wound like a bandage, to keep pressure on it."

  He wondered how she knew all this just from touching and non-touching, but said his thankyous. "I will leave today, but I will not press the day. The men have told me that the ride is not hard so long as I stay in the river valley. I will not climb out of the valley until tomorrow."

  "If you are leaving so soon, then I will go with you in case you need tending."

  He looked at her with dismay. Despite her kind offer, he could not imagine taking any cripple with him, because she would slow him down. And crippled she was, though only in the eyes. "Ugh, thank you, but I am a healer too. I can take care of myself."

  "No, I will go too. I am needed in the holy town of Le Puy, and we will reach there tomorrow."

  "I have only one horse, and .."

  "I have a pony. We will reach Le Puy tomorrow. If you leave without me, I will simply follow you, alone, just me and my pony."

  "But your women?"

  "They are not my women. This is not my village. I am from Le Puy. I came here a month ago to help Unna with the birthing of twins. Twins are special beings so we do everything we can to help them to survive."

  "I , I, that is, we, well, it wouldn't be proper. A young woman like you, with a stranger like me."

  "Pah. I have no fear of you. I have read your mind, remember," she laughed. A pleasant laugh, soft and gentle. "Besides, if the village vamp can't seduce you, then plain weird Giselle certainly won't be able to. When do we leave? I am ready except for having my pony saddled."

  * * * * *

  * * * * *

  The Hoodsman - Popes and Emperors by Skye Smith

  Chapter 29 - The journey to Le Puy in December 1081

  Raynar could not remember ever enjoying a ride with a woman so much. Well, not since his travels with Anske, and perhaps Judith. The valley was scenic, the mountains rugged, the villagers peaceful, and even the winter clouds begrudgingly clasped close to the peaks and allowed them to ride up the valley in the weak December sunshine. They rode side by side and talked continuously.

  The Voie de Regordane was a trade route, that had been used since the ancients had used it to transport tin from Cornwall to Rome. It was still a trade route, and therefore was smooth enough, gentle enough and wide enough for carts. The main trade along it was still minerals. Minerals moiled from these Cevennas mountains ... copper, gold, silver, lead, clay, alumen, potash.

  "What is alumen?" he asked.

  "A mordant, you know, a fixative for dyes," she replied. "But you are asking the wrong person to explain the coloring of clothing. I know the explanations that have been told to me, but I really don't understand them. Let's see, there are plants that give colored dyes. Woad gives blue, weld gives yellow, and madder gives red. From these three colors you can make any other color. If you mix the dye with alumen and piss, the dyes become brighter and longer lasting."

  "I understand," he replied. "Of course. It must work as a better mordant than the ash of juniper needles. And that explains why the madder red of the clothing in the village has not faded away. Of course."

  "Well I don't understand. Never have, never will," she moaned. "So tell me. Are you now on your way to kill Odo. How will you kill him?"

  "I try to do my killing with an arrow," he replied. "It gives me the chance to kill from a distance, and therefore have a better chance of getting away."

  "A poison arrow? The hunters in these valleys use poison arrows, that is, they used to before they swore off killing.” She stopped talking and held on to the saddle horn as her sure footed pony went down a steep slope and across a tiny ford, and then back up the other bank. Her pony was her eyes to keep her safe. A seeing eye pony.

  "Why did I expect us to be talking of healing and faith and visions?" he chuckled. "Not poison arrows."

  "I have been in your mind, remember. I fear Odo because of your fear of Odo. I fear what such an evil man will do as the Pope. I am against killing but even I must admit the logic of killing one Devil to save thousands of innocents. Innocents such a my Good People. The Papist priests hate us, and would destroy us given half the chance."

  They took a rest at a wayside that reminded Raynar of the Porter's Glade where he spent his childhood in the Peaks of Derbyshire. There was shade from sun and wind, and some simple huts if you got stranded between villages, and porter's benches so they could relieve the weight of their baskets, and a few carts and carters, and water and grass for animals, and a few women selling food at a rough table of hewn logs.

  It was a friendly bunch, because the road was not busy in this, the winter wet season. A porter told him that he usually carried lead ore, but none of the mines worked during the wet season because water made the mines too dangerous. The carts were empty, and the carters in no hurry. Giselle was given food and drink, and was not asked to pay. Raynar, as a stranger, was charged triple, but was served in the best and biggest bowl, and his wine was poured from a special skin.

  "Raynar, come," Giselle called to him.

  He was already walking towards her. She was sat eating at a table with three rough looking locals. He nodded to them, and took their measure before he sat. Out-of-work miners or porters could easily be footpads-of-opportunity in the off season.

  "These men are hunting," she told him. "Quite naughty of them, but they swear they do not kill the deer. Listen to what they say." To the locals she urged, "Tell him. He is an archer too. See his string fingers."

  As soon as one man had checked the calluses on his right fingers, he was welcomed to the table. One of them pulled two vials from a pouch and stood them in front of Raynar. "Here, take a look and a sniff of these, but don't touch it with your fingers.” Then he un-stoppered them using the edge of the cloth they had been wrapped in to protect his fingers.

  He looked and sniffed. One was like a pale slime, the other a dark oil. Once smelled of chalk, the other of bitter plants.

  "The bitter one is a poison made from rendering aconit and renoncule," the man told him.

  When Raynar shook his head, the man described two plants. Finally he nodded. In English they were monkshood and buttercup. He had heard of both of them being used as poisons. In England pigshit or yew oil were more common. He had never heard of mixing the two. He told them so.

  "Ah, well the aconit by itself is too strong. The two together make the animal dizzy for hours before the poison kills it. We just follow it while it is dizzy until it mis steps and falls and kills itself. I mean, you know, we aren't supposed to kill it, but there's no harm if it kills itself by accident, is there now." The man pointed to the cloth. "Don't get it on your skin else you will poison yourself. If you do get it on your skin, wash it off right away with wine or vinegar."

  "And the other. The light colored poison?" Raynar asked.

  The men looked around to make sure no one else was listening. "We aren't allowed to kill men either, even if they deserve to die. The light colored one is for them. Makes a wound that will close over, but it won't heal inside. Constant pain and fever, forever. Like if your point hits him in the leg, it's like you've broken his leg. Get it?"

  "What is it?"

  "You ever been in a deep mine or a cave?"

  "Yes." Raynar replied.

  "Its the slime from the cave wall. You know, the ooze that glows in the dark. The more glow, the better it works. Just scrape it off and dry it out a bit so it sticks better to the point."

  "And it doesn't kill?"

  "Well, not with a flesh wound. I mean, if you pop the guy in an organ, well yes, he probably would die. We go for the leg or the bum."

  "So what do I do if I graze myself with the point?" asked Raynar.

  "Open it, clean it, and wash it out with mineral salts," replied Giselle. The hunters all nodded. She thanked them, and then said, or rather ordered, "Give the vials to my fr
iend."

  The hunters stared at the blind wisp of a woman thinking they had misunderstood. "Why?"

  "Because I asked you to," she replied. "I have seen it used in a vision, and it was far away from here."

  "Oye," said the man with the vials. "you'se the Oracle of the Stone, then, yes?"

  "Yes, now give them to him."

  The man pushed the vials, the cloth, and the pouch he was carrying them in towards Raynar across the table. "You be careful with them. Keep them stoppered tight, and don't use the cloth or the pouch for anything else. They are all poison. Here take my vinegar skin too, just in case you get some on your skin."

  Another hunter added, "The vials are thin, so you can't dip a full hunting point into it. All you need is a thin barbed point to burrow under the skin."

  Despite the forced gift, Raynar was very aware that the gear that a hunter or a traveler carries is usually not valuable in coin, but was invaluable in what a pain in the ass it was to replace it while on the road. As quietly as he could, so Giselle would not see, he pushed his decoy purse across the table towards the hunter.

  The hunter, ever so quietly emptied the purse, and then put the two largest coins, and the strange non-silver Venetian medallion back into the purse and ever so quietly pushed it back to Raynar with a salute. The deal was good. Good for both sides, as all good business should be.

  Back in the saddle again and riding side by side, Raynar asked, no, pointed out. "So, not a healer, not a seer, not a poor wisp of a blind girl. None other than the Oracle of the Stone."

  "Ah, so then you have heard of me.” she said demurely.

  "No, but those hunters had. You should have seen them pull back from you, like you had the plague."

  "They were killing things. They were afraid I would punish them."