by Smith, Skye
"Ray," the call came again. A knight was being held down on his knees by a group of pikemen.
"Edgar?" Raynar called back. Could that be Edith's uncle Edgar. It was. "Edgar, what the hell are you doing here, and fighting for Robert?"
Edgar tried to rise but was pushed back onto his knees by his captors. "I was gambling that if Robert won, that I could save Edith from harm. If Henry won, then Edith could save me. All I had to do was survive the battle."
Raynar looked closely at the pikemen. There was no way they were going to surrender a valuable prisoner to him. There was no way that Raynar was going to leave his old friend Edgar in their hands. "You lot English?" he asked the pikemen in English.
"Yeh, so what," one of them answered back in West Country lilt.
"Thank you for saving this man's life. Of course, the king must have sent you to find him and keep him safe."
"Whats'at, Whats'at yous say."
"Why, just thank you for keeping the Queen's uncle from harm. She will probably reward you herself. Since her mother and aunt have already paid the boatman, Edgar here is the only one of her elders who is left. So thank you again."
"The Queen's uncle?" the man looked at the other pikemen. "You're flippin' jestin'. Say you're jestin'. We wus countin' on a good prize for capturin' him."
"And you will have it, but not for capturing him, but for keeping him safe. Now help him to his feet and clean him up a bit. We should go and present him to the king."
Edgar had taken an injury, so the pikemen helped him up onto Raynar’s horse and they led him towards the king. They had gone not fifty paces when they found another group of men with a noble prisoner. This one was Mortain. He was on his knees and looking at his captors with contempt.
When the pikemen leading Edgar found out that this was 'thee' Mortain, they just stopped and stared. One of them spit on the man, and that act almost started a fight amongst all the various guards. Raynar stood between them and calmed things down.
"He burned my village," the pikeman said. "The menfolk wus off helpin' Henry in Shropshire, and he arrived demanding to be fed. Feeding them wasn't enough though. They wanted more than that from our women. Our women refused so they were beaten into it, and when they left, they fired the village. I lost a wife and a daughter to the fire."
Raynar translated the story to the Cherbourg men who had captured Mortain. They had similar stories about the harrowing that Mortain had reeked upon the Cotentin villages for the last five years.
"What's goin' ta 'appen to 'im now?" the pikeman asked.
Raynar replied in both English and French. "He is King Henry's cousin. He will be stripped of lands and power and will either be allowed to retire in comfort in a manor house, or will be forced to become a monk."
"T'ain't fair," said the pikeman, spitting on Mortain again. One of the Cherbourg men gave Mortain a good kick but was pulled back by he friends.
Raynar reached for his Valkyrie knife and held it out by the blade where all could see it. "This is a magic knife given to me by an angel. Her instructions were to use it to do revenge on rapists. Mortain raped one of my women, so I should use it on his balls and let him bleed to death." He watched Mortain's face grow grey with horror at his words. "Unfortunately, he is not my prisoner."
The English pikeman reached for the knife, but was beaten to it by one of the men from Cherbourg. The Cherbourg man must have been a fisherman, for in a flick that you could barely see happen, he made a sure cut through both of Mortain's eyes and the bridge of his nose. Mortain screamed in surprise and then pain and then horror as the world was no longer a bright place. He was blind.
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"What now?" Raynar asked Henry after Henry had officially pardoned Edgar and welcomed him to his side.
"All of the noble and knightly prisoners will be sent to England and locked up. Except of course for Robert. He must come with me and my army as we go from castle to castle, town to town, to order them to surrender and make peace."
"Belleme escaped," Raynar pointed out he obvious. "He has over thirty castles. This is not over."
"La Fleche is chasing him. Once he chooses one of his castle to hold up in, we will lay siege, forever if need be. His own castle can be his own prison. The rest of his castles I will pull down. In truth, I foresee that next year a lot of castles will be pulled down. It is time that the ruling class of Normandy began to live with their folk, rather than despite them."
"It sounds like you will be spending a lot of time in Normandy. What of England?"
"I have Edith to rule in my place," Henry replied. "Take Edgar to her. He can help her."
"Edgar?" Raynar whispered questioningly. Edgar was a charming man, and of royal English blood, but he was a bit hapless.
"You take Edgar to her," Henry repeated. "You, Raynar. You go to her. You stay in England. You stay near to her. You keep her from harm. Edgar can keep you company."
Raynar bowed to an order that he was most willing to obey. An English queen would rule England with English laws while Henry cleaned up the mess in Normandy. How wonderful. He backed away formally from his king.
"I will need to keep the Royal Archers here with me in Normandy for a few months," Henry continued. "At least until everyone has sworn to me, and every castle surrendered. I will send them back to you say, five hundred at a time. Pay them out and send them home."
"You are disbanding your archers?" the news stopped Raynar in his tracks. English bowmen had secured Henry's throne for him, time and again, for six years.
"It is the only thing that all of my nobles agree on. They insist that once Normandy is secure, I must disband my archers. Now go. Go to England. Go and protect my family."
For some reason Raynar suddenly felt sick to heart and sick to his stomach with foreboding. His healer sense was bristling like it did in the forest when it sensed an ambush ahead.
"Oh," Henry remembered something else. "And you will be taking my nephew Stephen with you to visit his cousins in England. You know him. He is my sister Adela's boy from Blois.
Raynar cursed himself for his stupidity back in Laigle when he had sent a quick prayer to the fates to keep that little bugger on this side of the Manche. Asking the fates to keep Stephen away from England had only served to bring the little bugger to the notice of the Wyred Sisters. Bah, the Norman child, Stephen of Blois, did not matter. Henry had a legal son and heir in little Adelin, and other sons by his mistresses, such as the very likeable Robert.
Standing there staring back at Henry, he felt a joy building inside of him. The English had survived the Norman conquest of the two Williams, and those horrific times were now over. Finished forever. England again had rule of law, despite the old style Norman barons and their feudal, slave master ways. Just as the Dane-glish lords had been replaced by the Norman lords, now the Norman lords will be replaced by Norm-glish lords.
The Norman misrule of England would fade away into history. Those Normans who did not want to live under English style rule of law, and under an enlightened Henry and his English queen, would be banished. Even here in Normandy, under Henry's guidance, English rule of law will eventually replace Norman rule by might, and the long suffering folk of this Duchy would thrive as their serfdom was undone.
THE END
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The Hoodsman - The Second Invasion by Skye Smith Copyright 2010-13