Hoodsman: The Second Invasion

by Smith, Skye

  "Oye, monk," one of them called out. "Your last horse is lame."

  "Praise the lord," Raynar said pushing his arms into the air, "I have been cheated by a horse trader." The jest, for horse traders were renowned cheaters, earned him a pot of ale from a big carter.

  "Monk," the carter said after Raynar had blessed both pots, "would you sell me one of your horses?"

  "But I just bought them in Southampton," replied Raynar.

  "Aye, and I just bought a fine horse there myself, as did a lot of us. But on the road I was looking at your string and thinking, so what happens when I find a good price for my fine new horse. Do I pull the cart myself. It was a mistake to trade my cart nag for good horse. I should have kept my nag, and paid the extra coin for the good horse. You see, I too was cheated by a horse trader. He talked so fast promising easy profits, that I didn't think it through."

  "But, I just bought them, and paid good coin for them."

  "I understand that. I'll give you more than you paid."

  "Well my cheapest will be the last horse. It is limping, but it may not be lame. It may be just a thorn." With that both men lifted their pots to signal to the ale wench that they were taking them outside but would be back, and went to have a look at the lame leg.

  "The horse is fucked, sorry, I mean ruined, brother," the carter said as he stood up. "She's walking horse meat. What about the gray. You can see by the rub spots that she's a trained cart horse." They easily settled on a price, and the coins were exchanged out of sight of the hungry looking serfs.

  When they were back under the alehouse roof, Raynar took their pots to the keg master to have them refilled. "Why are all the serfs sitting about your house?"

  "Not the house mate, the crossroad. There's towns in all four directions. They just need a ride. Trouble is, none of these carters will carry them. Too risky. They's runaways. Besides, there is no work for them in the towns. It's not like last year when all builders were hiring go-fers. This year nothing is being built."

  "They look hungry."

  "Can't be helped," the keg master replied and then looked up at the monk, "and don't you be guilting me into feeding them. I've no food to spare. The only crop that is in is onions, so today’s meal is onion stew."

  "How would you like some meat to put in your stew?" Raynar asked in a soft voice. He had the man's full attention. "One of my horses has come up lame. If you will butcher it and cook it, you can have a quarter to pay for the effort."

  "And what will you do with the rest?"

  "You will feed those hungry serfs."

  "You're a fool monk, but you have a good heart. So be it. It will take an hour. Your ale pots are on the house."

  With the promise of meat to be added to the onion stew, none of the carters left, which meant that the keg master was already profiting from the lame horse. It was a pleasant day, so Raynar and a few of the carters walked outside and along the line of ragged folk and told them that they were about to be fed. While everyone waited for the food, they had a good gossip. It wasn't long before monk Raynar had a crowd surrounding him.

  One of the carters had asked him if he knew what the word anarchy meant. The carter had heard a priest speaking to a lord and they had used the word to describe what was happening in Wessex. Raynar's knowledge of Greek meant that he new not only what the priest meant by it, but what the true meaning of anarchy was. Serfs and carters alike were listening.

  "What the priest meant was that there is no rule by lords, and therefore no rule by force. To priests and lords this is a fearful thing, because wealthy men always fear times when brute force does not protect them and their privileges. To understand what anarchy really means, think of a word that rhymes with it. Monarchy. That is rule by a king. Anarchy is rule by the people."

  "So the priest was actually saying was that Wessex is now ruled by the people," the carter said.

  "Yes, at least until the Normans come back and take control again. I just watched King William and Regent Odo flee to Normandy in their ships. The carters just saw the Norman army leave. They won't be back soon, perhaps not this year or even next year, but when they do come back, they will come back first to Wessex.

  If I were a runaway serf, I would head north and get out of Wessex. If I had a horse and a cart, I would head north and get out of Wessex. When they come back they will come as slave masters again, and they view all English as slaves."

  "Fine for you to speak of what you would do if you were a runaway serf," said a ragged man holding a very thin child. "Have you ever tried to run away. We were so hungry we had no choice, and still I am amazed that we have not been found and taken back by our lord's whip-master."

  "Be more polite to the man who is feeding you," scolded the carter. "Besides, what whip-master? We just watched hundreds of whip-masters and manor guards boarding ships and leaving. There can't be many left."

  The serf glared at him, "Whoever is left has weapons and a horse. They can run us down, they can threaten our lives. We are no match for the Normans who are left, even with all your fine words like anarchy. The people do not rule. The whips rule, the hunger rules, and as ever, the man with the gold makes the rules."

  "What if," Raynar interrupted, trying to hold a thought together until there was quiet. "What if, I mean, um. If you try to take the weapons off a mounted man, he will hurt you. If you take his horse away, then he cannot catch you to hurt you. Any serf can outrun a man on foot in armour."

  "Didn't you notice, monk, the serfs are weak from hunger. They cannot run."

  "Then eat the horse."

  "Aye, we all thank you for sharing your lame horse with us."

  "I meant eat the Norman's horse. Eat his horse, and your belly is full, and he cannot ride it to catch you."

  This caused gales of laughter from everyone. The penalty for a serf bold enough to kill a Norman's horse was far worse than being hung for stealing a horse.

  "No, don't laugh, I am serious. I didn't say steal the horse, or kill the horse. I said eat the horse." Again his words caused gales of laughter.

  "Shush, all of you. This is no jest. The only crop ready to eat is onions." Everyone groaned. They were sick of eating onions, literally. Too many onions made everyone ill. "You, carter, how many onions does it take to kill a horse."

  "A dozen, maybe more."

  "And yet horses love onions, and would eat all you give them. Why not allow your lord's horses to accidentally get into the onion fields. By morning they would be all dead and it would not be your fault. You didn't steal them. You didn't kill them. You didn't poison them, and better than that, you have a claim against the lord's dead horses because they have eaten your onions. Horses pre-seasoned with onions for the pot."

  This time there was silence, followed by whispers, and then chatter and then more gales of laughter. Much later that day there were still pockets of laughter every time they ate another spoonful of horse onion stew. While they ate, they asked this foxy monk for more of his shrewdness.

  "This anarchy will quickly become a bad thing if it is completely lawless," he told them as they ate. "The lords and the priests only know one type of law, Norman law, but the elders and the monks know the old law. Knut's in-common law that worked so well for us folk before the Norman's invaded us." Everyone spat on the ground at the thought of the invasion. "Look to the elders and the monks to make judgement if there is wrongdoing. Listen to them when they explain the laws that worked so well for us in the good old days."

  His next words met with moans. "You runaway serfs should go back to your villages." Endless moans. "There is no work for you in the towns, and therefore you will be worse of there than on the farms." The moans grew fewer. "The crops are almost ready for harvest, but this year there is a difference. This year the manors don't have the whip-masters to make sure that most of it goes into the manor's barn. This year you will be able to keep most of it for yourselves, that is, so long as you keep feeding on horse onion stew."

  Once the renewed laught
er had died, a carter asked. "You said we should all move north. Why is that?"

  "Because you have just heard the news that the manors of Wessex are short of armed men. The manors north of the Thames have been short of armed men for a year or more. There is much untilled land in the north, and no lords to keep you off it. The northerners were never ground into the dirt by serfdom as you southerners have been. Instead they were killed. There are empty farms there for all those who want to work the land for themselves."

  "So what you are telling us to do," a serf called out, "is go back to our manors, and eat the horses, and harvest the crops, and take the seed corn north to plant in fields of our own. You are saying that if we stay here, eventually the Normans will come back and make us serfs again. It is a lot to think about."

  "Oye," a carter called out. "Is it legal to just settle on an empty farm and start working it?

  "Not under Norman law, no. Under English in-common law, yes. Under Knute's law, empty unused land becomes in-common again. Anyone with a just use for it may claim it under squatter's rights. When you find an empty farm, go to the closest monk, an English speaking monk, and ask him. He will explain what you must do to claim squatters rights in that hundred."

  * * * * *

  By the time Raynar reached Winchester gate, he was leading only one horse, but he had a purse full of small silver coins. Once through the gate, he hurried across the town to John Wheelwright’s compound. It was deserted. He hurried to John's mill down in the water meadow by the river. At least the mill had a watcher.

  "They've gone," the watcher told him, "all packed up and gone. All the northerners who were working his carts went with him. Took the carts and went."

  "When?" Raynar asked expected to be told that they had left when Odo had been gathering his army to him. The army that had just left for Rome.

  "Oh months and months ago. As soon as all work on the new Minster stopped. No coin to pay the carters or the masons, see. Well, all work in Winchester soon dried up, but John's men, see, they still had their carts, see. They could follow the work. Some went to London, most went straight north. To that Abbey that they carried lead for... um... Repton. Yeh, they went towards Repton."

  That explained why he had seen none of John's carts on the highway. He was dumfounded by the news. He had been counting on John and his carters to get a message to Flanders. An urgent message that the invasion of the Danelaw could begin. If the Danish fleet hurried and made the crossing before the winter storms, then there was nothing to stop Canute from sweeping all the way down to London and then Southampton.

  The watcher usually slept half the night in the mill and half the night in the compound. He asked Raynar to sleep the night in the compound, so he didn't need to make the switch. The compound was a lonely place without the sounds of Marion in the kitchen and her boy, John's boy, playing with the rough northerners who slept there overnight when they were in town.

  All of Raynar’s connections in Wessex were through John. John and his carters. Northern hoodsmen all. Without John, he felt like he was alone in a strange kingdom. He slept fitfully, rolling his options around in his head. He had three.

  Race to London, where hopefully the carter compound at the Temple was still in business. With their help he could send messages all over England, while he himself would find passage on the next ship north, or better yet, to Flanders.

  Race north to find John. He would either be in Repton with Brother Tucker, or home in the Derbyshire Peaks. Brother Tucker would know, and he would be at Repton Abbey as he was now the prior there. John could then send messages all over England, while Raynar rode for the Fens to board one of his own ships to take him the Flanders, or better yet, to Denmark.

  Race directly to the Fens and board a ship, and send his Frisian friends out in every direction to take messages across England while he took one of his own ships to Denmark. This was the choice he decided on, because Canute needed to know about Odo as soon as possible if he was going to gather a fleet and cross to the Danelaw before the winter storms.

  The next morning he made an early start with his two remaining horses. There was no food in Marion's kitchen. There was nothing in the kitchen. He rode sleepy and hungry but determined until hunger forced him to stop at a crossroad alehouse. He was now forty miles from yesterday's crossroad where he had donated a lame horse to feed the hungry. A full days walk.

  A full days walk and yet the stories from yesterday's crossroad had preceded him. He had always been amazed at how quickly naughty gossip spread out along the highways. It had traveled forty miles and more while Raynar slept. Everyone in the alehouse was laughing about horse onion stew and every so often a group of men would shout out in unison, "Let them eat horse!" and then roll about in drunken laughter.

  Since the original story was only a day old, Raynar knew that the other, similar, stories were all made up and not real, but that didn't make them bad stories. He enjoyed listening to them, such as the story about some serfs who had refused to let some lord leave his manor, while they ate his horse. Without his horse, the lord was afraid to leave his manor, and had barricaded himself in.

  The carters seemed to believe every word. It made sense didn't it. Take away a Norman's fine riding horse, and he was no different from anyone else. Since Regent Odo had lured away their guards, the lords were dependant on their walls for protection. Leaving the safety of the walls on foot would have been foolhardy because they were so hated.

  The next day, the day that Raynar crossed the Thames, every ale wench of every alehouse in every village that he passed through was proudly crying out to him that they were serving the finest horse onion stew, fresh and hot off the fire. The recipe for defeating the Norman serf masters was spreading out in every direction, and anarchy was spreading with it. Rule by the people, not rule by the wealthy and powerful.

  He made a point of speaking to everyone he met along the way. He even offered rides to interesting looking folk on his spare horse. To the townie merchants he traveled with, he spoke of how the towns in the south of France were not run by lords, but by the merchants. That they were called communes, and every two years worthy merchants were elected to make decisions for the town.

  To the monks and the elders he told of how anarchy would become lawlessness unless elders and monks helped the folk by explaining Knut's laws, and helped to bring back the English moot courts.

  To the folk on their way to church to pray, he told of how in the South of France they had done away with priests because they were unnecessary. Any good man or women could lead others in prayer. Any good man or woman could teach morals and give blessings.

  To the lords and especially the priests that he met, his message was different. Flee, he told them. Flee for your lives. Leave for Normandy as soon as you can. Both William and Odo have deserted you. Flee.

  It wasn't until he was well north of the Thames that he saw his first lynching. A lord who had pushed his cock into one too many village virgins. He didn't actually see the lynching, or the mob that did it. All he saw was the naked Norman swinging too and fro on the end of a rope strung over a tree limb, with his own sausage between his teeth.

  Just before he stopped for the night he watched a priest burn. He was told that the pyre had been built by order of the priest to burn a midwife. The midwife's sons had objected, strongly objected. He shared ale with the men who were toasting the priest and told them that in the South of France, the priests were seen as agents of the Devil, and were often burned as warlocks. The story was welcomed by nervous folk who were now having second thoughts about burning a man of God. It gained him a warm bed for the night, and a good bowl of horse turnip stew, the onions not yet being quite ready to harvest in this valley.

  When he reached the Fens, he did not announce his arrival, or stop to visit with all of his friends. That would have delayed him for weeks, especially if he paid his respects to his business partner, Judy in Huntingdon. Or as others called her, Countess Judith. He rode directly for
Lynn. There on the docks surrounded by men he had led in wolfpacks during the Ely rebellion, he explained what was happening with William and Odo and the Normans in the South.

  He sent them on their way to spread the message far and wide, and especially to John in Repton. That done, he jumped aboard the next ship leaving for Flanders. It wasn't even one of his ships, but the captain knew him as a fellow captain and ship owner and pumped him for his news for the entire passage.

  * * * * *

  * * * * *

  The Hoodsman - The Second Invasion by Skye Smith

  Chapter 9 - The first invasion of Normandy in April 1105

  "Well you were certainly right about this galley," Henry remarked as he looked out over the gunnels of the Mora at the Saire valley of the Cotentin and the village of Barfleur. "There is nothing on the sea that can touch it. Do you think we should make more of them?"

  "If I convert another longship, and then it is captured, then what?" replied Raynar. "Someone will then have a ship the equal of the Mora. No, not yet. Wait until every captain of every ship on the Celtic Sea is making good business because of you."

  "But that is now. No ships opposed us on this crossing. The coast of Normandy is mine. Every fishing village, every port. By tomorrow my fleet will arrive in Normandy and with them five hundred oarsmen-archers."

  "Ah, but will they be welcomed ashore?" asked Raynar.

  "True, after what you did to the Mora, adding these ugly outrigged decks," Captain Thomas spoke up, "we are more likely to be lynched. The Mora was built in Barfleur as a gift from my mother to my father for his invasion of England. The folk here are very proud of her, or at least, they used to be proud of her before she became an ugly ducking."

  They all laughed. The Cherbourg peninsula had always sided with Henry against both his brothers William and Robert. They stuck by him even when he was on the run from his brothers. They stuck by him when the Cotentin had been ceded to Robert in the treaty of Alton. They stuck by him through all of the vicious harrowings that Mortain and Belleme had heaped upon them to vent their anger at being exiled from England by Henry.