by Smith, Skye
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"The nuns are calling it a miracle," said Fulk to the men at his table. "The battle for Mantes was a rout. A complete victory for the Normans with little cost. The town and the garrison destroyed with few casualties on the Norman side, and yet, instead of sweeping my smaller army our of their way and marching on to capture Paris and the throne, they retreated."
"I wouldn't say little cost," Raynar pointed out. "My men savaged the wealthiest of them."
"The garrison commander told me that not a single Norman fell in battle," Fulk replied. "There were no Norman corpses amongst those we buried, but of course they may have taken them with them for burial in Norman churchyards."
"I saw you walking on the fields along the marsh. That was where we fought. What did you see there?"
"Dead horses," Fulk replied. "Just dead horses. No injured men or corpses. Now that you mention it, there was something very strange. La Fleche pointed it out. All of the dead horses were of the finest breeds, and mostly stallions. Very strange."
"Did you count them?"
"Perhaps forty, more or less," Fulk exclaimed and poured himself some more wine. He ignored La Fleche's empty glass. The man drank too much, and too quickly.
"That would be my guess," Graham spoke out. "We are skirmishers. We attack the leaders first. That explains the stallions. And we don't leave men and horses on the ground crippled and in pain. We put them out of their misery as soon as we can."
Fulk chewed on the wildman's words. In effect the man had just told him that they had put forty nobles out of their misery. "Let me be sure of what you are saying. You were fighting on foot, with knives, against battle horses and costly armour. Against the leaders of an army of twelve thousand? Perhaps the priest was right and there was witchcraft. Ray, can you confirm this?"
"Aye, those that were not put out of their misery were taken away by their own side, but many of those would have had mortal wounds. Not from our knives so much as from crushed organs from when they fell and were trampled. Including the Conqueror."
There was silence around the table. Two of Fulk's fancy women were giggling about something, but even they noticed the change and went quiet. The news that William, Duke of Normandy, King of the English may have a mortal wound took everyone’s words away from them. Their minds were racing through scenarios of what would happen in France and England if the Bastard died.
A smirk crossed Raynar’s lips at the effect of his words, "So Fulk, we have done your army's work for them. You had better race back to Paris to sober up the Bastard's son Robert. Drag him off whichever courtesan he is bouncing this week, and put him on a horse in front of an army so that he can go and claim his throne before his brothers do."
Fulk’s eyes were wide open and unblinking. He looked around nervously to make a note of which of his men had heard this news. "This news must remain a secret for now. Do you all understand?" After everyone in the room was sworn to secrecy, he looked back at Raynar. "Are you fit enough to ride?" his voice barely above a hoarse whisper.
"No."
Fulk glared at his women. "Go and order your cart to be harnessed, and your bedding thrown into it. You will nurse this man all the way to Paris and deliver him into Gesa's hands." They didn't move. "Don't giggle. Jump!" he yelled.
When the women were gone, Raynar asked, "Are you sending messages to Flanders and Montreuil that the Normans are retreating Mantes, hopefully back to Rouen. They will need to watch their borders and the Vexin."
"Should I be? Of course. Then yes."
"These two men are to accompany the messengers and carry my own message to Flanders. I will need writing tools to compose it."
An hour later, Raynar was lying on the bed in the back of a costly cart, pulled by a team of costly horses. The scent of the women's perfume had finally taken the smell of wolfs piss out of his skin and clothes. He passed a sealed note to each of the men, all of whom were staring longingly at the expensive women, Fulk's women. Two of Fulk's stable of spies.
There were five men now, and so he had written five messages. Erik had been fetching the horses and the two men who had been guarding them, and they had arrived in time to share the last of the meal. Only six left out of a pack of thirty. Usually wolfpack casualties were counted on one hand, or even one finger. The thought depressed Raynar but his men were in a good mood, being more than half way drunk on the finest of French wine, and in the company of the finest of French womanhood.
"Hand these messages either to Hereward in Oudenberg or Count Robert in Brugge," he told them. The men could not read, well maybe Erik could. He hadn't told them what message they carried, and they never asked. It hadn't taken him long to scribble five copies of, "Give this brave man a house and a wife and something to live for."
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The Hoodsman - The Second Invasion by Skye Smith
Chapter 31 - The Conqueror dies in Normandy, September 1087
Fulk's two fancy women were well known at the palace of King Philip and Queen Bertha. The women's orders were not questioned, their access was not questioned, and their injured ward was not questioned. With a nod they requisitioned a stall of the women's bathing house, out behind the kitchen, and there they washed the grime from their own bodies, and the grime and stench from his.
They were not yet finished the last rinse when the draperies were flung aside and Mistress Gesa swept into the space in a cloud of silk and scent. Fulk's women as near as stood to attention at the sight of Gesa despite their nakedness. She was, after all, the queen's confidant, the queen's bodyguard, the queen's spymaster, and therefore the most powerful woman in the palace. She was also tall, fit, strong, fair, and strikingly beautiful.
The sight of Raynar's entire left side being black and blue and angry looking stopped Gesa in her tracks. She was also a Frisian healer, and perhaps a seer, though there were a few in the palace who dared to whisper of witchcraft. Well, even if that were true, who better than a witch and a poisoner to keep the French royals safe from witches and poisons.
"Cover yourselves," she said motioning to the two women. "I have brought a litter and my guards to carry it." Once Fulk's women were modest, she clapped her hands and called out to her guards. Two enormous Frisian men came in carrying a chair swung between poles, and set it down beside Raynar. They both grimaced as the sight of his wounds, but said nothing as they wrapped him in linen and helped him to sit in the chair.
Before Gesa followed the men out of the stall, she tarried long enough to say her thanks to the two women, and to pass them a purse. "Report to me later," she whispered. "in the usual place." It would not do for Fulk to find out that these two honey-pot spies of his, were actually hers.
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"You can have my bed," Gesa told Raynar after her two guards had taken the litter out of her bed chamber. "I am sleeping with Philip and Bertha these days." At his raised eyebrows and sly smile she replied, "What? Bertha is enormous with child, so it is my duty as her confidant to keep Philip well milked, you know, to keep him away from the palace women."
"I didn't say anything," Raynar choked back his laughter. Philip had become king young, and after marrying Bertha he had taken hold of his power by pensioning off all the elder statesmen and sending the elder nobles on their way. He had replaced them with the next generation. The generation who would inherit, who were already inheriting. Such a young court had quickly become a flesh pot, especially with Fulk as Philip's right arm. Fulk's appetite for seduction was as legendary as his reputation as a general.
While Raynar made himself at home in the most comfortable bed he had ever burrowed into, Gesa dragged a chest out of the corner, and unlocked it and opened it. "These are the clothes you left here the last time," she told him. She had barely said it when a knock came to the door and she went and opened it, just a crack.
"Gesa, you must pack and come with me," said a familiar voice, but not familiar enough for a name to come to Raynar's mind.
&nbs
p; "Go with you where?" Gesa replied, keeping her foot behind the door so the crack could not easily be widened.
"To Rouen. My father has been injured. He is asking for you. He no longer trusts his physicians, not after how my mother died. You healed him last time, and he wants you to heal him again."
Raynar reached under Gesa's pillow and felt about for one of the throwing daggers she always kept there. The man at the door was Robert, the Conqueror's eldest son. Gesa often kept company with him, or rather, he with her. He craved her company whereas she just used him as a source of information and power.
"You will recall," Gesa said softly, with an edge in her voice. "that before I healed your father last time I made him swear that he would set Earl Morcar and Edgar Aetheling free; that he would never again harrow villages; that he would wage war against warriors only, not against folk; that he would become a champion of the edicts of Cluny which protect women and children and travelers. He has broken all of those oaths. He deserves to die. I will not help him again, ever!"
"You must come with me," Robert pleaded. "If I go without you, he will be angry with me, yet again. If he is mortally wounded, then I cannot afford for him to be angry with me. He may strike me from his will and pass on everything to my brothers."
"When you get to Rouen, and know more of what is going on with him, then send it all in a message to me. If your father sends me his own assurance, then perhaps, just perhaps, I will travel to Rouen."
"But that may be too late," Robert pleaded, pushing at the door.
"Then you had best hurry, cherie," she opened the door enough to allow his head through and then she kissed him full on the lips. "Now go, and hurry. Fulk will still be in Mantes. He will supply you with an honor guard, a formidable one." Robert stole another kiss and then left and she closed the door. No sooner was it closed than there was a knock at the other door. The door which connected to the queen's chamber. This one she opened wide immediately.
"What did you tell Robert?" asked Philip as he strode into the room. He walked directly to the bed, a bed he knew well, and pulled back the covers so he could see the extent of Raynar's wounds. "Jesus, Ray, if you survived the fight, then I dare not think what the other fellow must look like."
"The other fellow was William the Conqueror," Raynar replied with a tiny white lie to a king.
"Shhh," Philip waved his hand to add urgency to the shush. "Never admit that to anyone, anyone! Especially if you have hurt my Duke of Normandy unto death. You must always be just the witness to how his was injured and nothing more. How bad is he?"
"Better than an even chance that he will die. His organs were likely ruptured by the blow deep inside his belly. There will be no fixing them, so if they do not heal by themselves, then he is a goner. We will know within a few weeks at most, depending on how much his physicians bleed him."
The king leaned forward to his ear and in the slightest of whispers said, "Thank you, English. I owe you."
"You already owed me your life, and now Paris. How much more can one man owe another?"
Philip stepped back, "What are my dispatches from Mantes not tell me? Was it not a victory for my army, though a costly one?"
Raynar waited before answering because Bertha, looking as big as a house with her next child, had entered the room and he was painfully moving sideways in the bed to make room for her to lie down next to him. "Bertie, you must be carrying triplets," he said in awe of her size.
"It feels like it," she replied, "though Gesa assures me not. With each child I swell up more, and it takes me longer afterwards to lose the weight." Having been brought up in Frisia, the queen gave no thought to her near nudity, or that she was laying down on this bed with someone other than her husband. "What have I missed?"
"Nothing," Raynar said, smiling sweetly at her and holding her hand as he continued his report to Philip. "Fulk sent me in person to do the telling because he feared telling his couriers the truth. As I have said, the Conqueror is injured, perhaps mortally, but still he rode unassisted away from the battle field, and then recalled his army. All of it. All twelve thousand."
"Twelve thousand?" Philip whistled in awe. "Then the early reports were not exaggerated. But then I don't understand. Fulk led less than four thousand, and few of them knights or professional warriors. They were all we could scrape together on short notice, with Fulk's purpose only to delay the Conqueror from reaching Isle de Cite while couriers went out to every French castle to draw the knights to Paris.
If William was injured yet still seated, then why would he retreat from Fulk's rabble? He had the numbers, the professionals, the weapons, the siege engines, and the speed to catch us unprepared. Was there a holy visitation? Did angels stay his military glove?"
"Not angels," Raynar began his story. "Far from angels. I led an English wolfpack onto the battle field. Seasoned and vicious skirmishers every one of them, and each with a deathly hatred of Norman nobility." He told the full story of his men, so the royals would understand the bitter hatred in their souls, and then how they had landed at Montreuil and had hunted the Conqueror's barges all along the Seine. When he came to a description of the slaughter of Mantes, he left out none of the gore."
Gesa listened to the entire story with a hand over her mouth and rocking back and forth while she sobbed. She had lived through a Norman harrowing as a child in Ely, and Raynar's description of Mantes brought her childhood memories to her eyes and into her tears.
"So the only part of the Norman army to suffer any losses was the party of nobles and royals?" Philip confirmed. "But how was that possible? They would all be well trained in warcraft and weapons and be protected by battle horses and steel armour. Peasants with bows and knives. Thirty men with bows and knives in the middle of an army of twelve thousand. Impossible!"
"In the middle of such an army, they felt secure, invincible. We attacked low and hard from the Seine marshes." They were looking at him in disbelief. How could he ever explain what had happened. "Last time I was here you entertained your court with a fabulous group of acrobats, ummm, the Flying Karamov brothers or something."
"Yes, I remember them," Philip replied slowly. "They could leap so high and do back flips from their brother's shoulders while they juggled knives."
"Exactly. Then think of them doing those kinds of feats while killing nobles with those knives as they leaped from horse to horse." Raynar didn't bother telling him the secrets of the wolves and their use of wolf piss, and the wild and violent panic of the stallions that was so deadly to the noble riders.
"Merde, I see. I understand. Acrobat assassins suddenly appearing in the middle of unwary nobles out for sport. How many did they kill?"
"Perhaps forty of the nobility. Of all ages, but all chosen by the fineness of their horse and armour."
"Merde," Philip repeated with a sigh. "Now it makes sense. With the paymasters slaughtered, the mercenaries could no longer trust that they would be paid. With their liege lords dead, the knights would be relieved from their oaths." Philip stood and looked like he was going to leave the room in a hurry. "Merde. It was not a retreat, but a recall. As soon as the dead lords are replaced by their kin, and the oaths made anew, they will be back. Aiiiee, the Vexin. William will give the Vexin up for looting to the mercenaries to keep them happy."
"That is why Fulk has sent out scouts to follow the Normans, and did not himself return to Paris," Raynar told them. "He has army enough to protect the Vexin, so long as his scouts give him good information."
"So I must not recall my own messengers to the castles," Philip sat on the end of the bed and stroked his wife's bare feet. "The knights must still all come to Paris, just in case. Oh how I wish I had trustworthy spies in Rouen. I wish I knew what was going on there."
Gesa winked at Raynar without Philip seeing. She had just sent the best spy possible to Rouen. The conqueror's son. The man who for ten years had waited for William to bequeath Normandy to him. Her tame nobleman, little Robert.
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>
Raynar slept the sleep of the dead in Gesa's grand bed. Nothing could keep him awake, not even Philip's howls of sexual arousal from being milked by two women in the next room. What did eventually wake him was someone shaking the bed.
"Gesa, please wake up. You must help me." The voice was like the whisper of a child, or a very young woman. "It's me Gesa, Bertrade Montfort. You must help me."
By slowly moving his arm, his one good arm, Raynar found the hand she was shaking the bed with, and then grabbed her wrist in his clamped fist and held her from fleeing while he said, "Gesa is not here. I am her, um, uncle Ray. I will not harm you. I am horribly injured from battle and she is healing me, so stay calm, and do not wake the household by screaming."
Luckily the chirp that was the start of a scream had not blocked her ears, for she cut off the scream after the first chirp, and calmed herself and her voice. In a tremble she whispered, "Where is Gesa?"
"With the king, and it would be inappropriate for a young virgin such as you to interrupt them."
"But I need her."
"You need her help. Perhaps I can help. What do you need?"
"My father is missing, believed dead at Mantes," she sobbed, "I fear for my family, my brothers."
"Where is Montfort and what was your father's standard. I have just come from Mantes."
"Montfort is halfway from here to Mantes. His standard is interlocking points of purple and orange. Did you see him? Does he live? Is he injured?"
"I, I, cannot remember. I will have to sleep on it and dream about it. Please light a candle."
She did as he asked, and in the flicker of the yellow light saw him with the linen pulled up just to his privates. His other side was inflamed and angry, the whole side. "Oh, oh, is it painful?" She looked for a blooded wound but could not see one.
She was wearing a leather coat of the finest scraped hide, and she smelled of horse. "Very painful, girl, else I would drag you into this bed and have you." She was divinely pretty. "So long as you are not a virgin."