Hoodsman: Frisians of the Fens

by Smith, Skye

  One of the young orderlies had been sent up to the roof to watch Temple Lane for the return of the attackers. When he was relieved by another, he came and reported that the Holborn street people had stripped the other attackers bare before the physician had arrived.

  By the time the physician was being escorted back to his own house, the sun was low and the September heat was gone from the day. Wyl had calmed the other tenants of the Domus by telling them that the attack was an assassination attempt on a treasury official, and was not the work of footpads or raiders.

  Wyl and Raynar then sat together and allowed their battle fury to calm. They enjoyed the cooling air of the courtyard as if it were a sweet delicacy. It was a very pleasant place to wait for the inevitable knock on the gate from the Holborn Watch. As the Innkeeper, Wyl would have to explain the bodies in Temple Lane, and pay a good bribe to have them disposed of.

  "Perhaps you should not stay, Raynar," warned Wyl. "for the King's men will probably come and they will be asking many questions. Questions that may have no easy answers for you."

  "I will stay," replied Raynar. "I am too old to run from trouble anymore. Besides, this time we can tell the truth. Gregos rents a room at the Domus, and he was attacked in Temple Lane, and the staff of the Domus protected him. We even captured one of the attackers for them to question."

  He closed his eyes and frowned. "If I had not been taking my afternoon nap at the time, perhaps Risto would have fewer wounds, but then again, if I had been out doing errands, he may be more wounded than he is. And how did you beat me to the roof with that game leg of yours?"

  "I was reviewing the accounts in my strong room," explained Wyl, "it has no windows but it does have a high vent through the outside wall to the street. It is also the room where we store weapons. I heard the ring of steel on steel and knew immediately that there was violent trouble in the street.

  I grabbed a bow and a quiver and my hunting horn. It was me blowing the warning horn as I hopped towards the stairway to the roof. From the roof I saw Gregos stumbling up the lane towards the Domus and I saw Risto being backed up the lane holding off the attackers with that Salamancan blade of his. My God, that man can fight. His sword is so light and so fast that the attackers' broad swords seemed to be as clumsy as axes.

  It was me who ordered the door opened for Master Gregos. You know the rest. I am happy to know that you still have the strength to string that Seljuk bow of yours. You may have noticed that my own longbow is now one of the light training bows. I no longer have the strength of arm or back for a full bow."

  "Speaking of bows, I think you should invite a few of our brothers to visit the Domus for a fortnight or two. Say four. Four bowmen of the Brotherhood of the Arrow should be able to defend these walls, and they could share the occasional watch. Are there any still in London?"

  "Hmm," thought Wyl, "Many of our older brothers live in London but they all have profitable businesses. They would come if I asked, but would not be pleased by the invitation. However, their sons would welcome the chance of some excitement, and being merchants sons they would know the sword as well as the bow. Wait for me here while I send out a messenger."

  Wyl rose from his seat and stretched his leg. He limped over to one of the older orderlies and spoke quietly to him. He fished something from his purse and gave it to the man. The man was gone through the door in the gate within a minute. Wyl limped back to his chair. "Done," was all he said.

  About an hour later the watchers returned with the messenger who they had escorted to the palace. The messenger was bubbling with excitement as he reported to Wyl. "I did what I was told. I asked for the clerk. He wanted the paper, but I wouldn't give it to him. I said it was for the King's hand only and that it was from Master Gregos."

  The lad's face was pink from excitement. "The bloody clerk was going to turn me away, but then I told him that Master Gregos was badly injured and may be dying, and that this paper was from him with urgency." He looked over at the watchers, as if needing confirmation. "The palace, it is so rich. I though the Domus was rich, what with stone floors and tile roofs, but the palace. It ..." He was interrupted by Wyl asking him to get on with his report.

  "Oh, yes, well the clerk took me in tow, and we left these two at the gatehouse, and the clerk and I went inside and I had to wait in this big room filled with lords and ladies in fine clothes. The clerk was a cleric or a monk, but his habit was not of homespun, it was of fine cloth. I alone in the room was in drab cloth. Thank the gods that it is still warm and so I wasn't wearing my winter woolens...." He broke off again at the look in Wyl's eye, and got back to the report.

  "The clerk whispered to another court officer and that one came to me and demanded the paper, but I wouldn't give it to him. He waved some guards over to have them take it from me so I ran behind the clerk and kept saying that it was for the King's hands only, louder and louder. Everyone in the room was looking at me, and the clerk was no longer whispering, so the court officer waved the guards back and he disappeared through a doorway.

  When he came back we were taken through another doorway and down a very narrow passageway that seemed like it was inside a wall, and then through another doorway into what looked like a guardroom. I was very afraid. I thought that I was going to be beaten for not giving the paper to the court officer.

  There was a big table in the room and another court officer was sitting at it reading a pile of papers and occasionally writing something. I hadn't realized that the clerk beside me had bowed from the waist until he dragged me down and he whispered that I was a fool not to bow before the King. Well, how was I to know? He wasn't wearing a crown and he wasn't wearing a long cloak.

  Finally he looked at me. The King, I mean. He looked at me and held out his hand. I put the paper in his hand." He looked again at the watchers. "My hand actually touched his, but I wasn't struck by lightning or anything. He read it, and then made some marks on another paper and read it again. He asked about the health of Master Gregos, and I told him he was bad hurt by swords, and then he asked where Master Gregos was, and I told him, and then he waved me and the clerk away. The clerk gave me a coin, and led me back to the gate of the palace, and here I am."

  "Nothing else" asked Wyl.

  "Nothing, but let me tell you about the palace and the people and the clothes," offered the messenger eagerly.

  "Another time. Go and eat. I am sure that they are waiting for your story in the kitchen."

  As the lad and the watchers made for the kitchen, Raynar went to check on the patients. All were asleep. The physician had left a sleeping potion made from the sticky bitter sap of poppy pods. It was working. Gregos felt feverish, so Raynar dampened some linen bandages with clean water and put the cool cloths across his forehead and neck.

  By the time he returned to the courtyard garden, Wyl was sitting with four young men. The sons of the Brotherhood. Junior hoodsmen. Wyl made the introductions to Raynar and each of the young men had a second name that he recognized. He was wrong to think of them as the sons of hoodsmen. They were grandsons.

  Raynar suddenly felt very old. Grandsons. They were so young. Seventeen or eighteen, and with no experience of battlegrounds and slaughter. He chuckled to himself. He himself had been just eighteen and inexperienced when he had killed King Harald of Norway on the hill above Stamford Bridge. That was thirty-four years ago.

  He sighed. Few of those years had been good years for him, or for most Englishmen. Thirty-four years of heartache, and loss, and hunger. None of these lads were hungry however. They were sons of successful Londoners, and London wasn't England. London was a wealthy city-port unto itself.

  Wyl took the four lads on a tour of the Domus. The Domus was originally built to be quarters for a brotherhood of monks. Across the lane were the extensive ruins of a Roman temple, which was to have been rebuilt as a Christian abbey. These quarters were built using the original Roman foundations of the ancient quarters for the temple's priests. The layout, therefore, was Roman and
very Mediterranean.

  From the street, this residence was hidden by high walls, which well protected the insides from all intruders, including cold wet winds, noxious smells, and the hum of the city. Inside the walls, however, the spacious rooms were built around interconnecting courtyards. Instead of hallways there were covered breezeways, and covered porches where you could sit outside but be protected from the English rain.

  It was now an Inn called the Traveler's Domus where most rooms were rented by the month or by the year. That wasn't just because Wyl was a fastidious innkeeper, but more because when you left your room to go traveling, all of your possessions were locked up in your room, and waited safely for your return.

  Many of the tenants had homes in other places but used their room at the Domus as their home when in London on business. The Mediterranean flavour attracted clients who knew the Mediterranean and appreciated the simple comforts of this style of architecture. It was an oasis of cleanliness and calm, on the edge of a filthy and chaotic London.

  The monks had planned it and built it well, but then had been refused permission to build their abbey by King Knut who felt there were already too many Christian temples around London. The order of monks moved on to find another location for their abbey, and the rights to this land, and the land of the Roman temple, had been in dispute ever since.

  Wyl held the lease on this building and the stable yard next door from Repton Abbey. The monks there had been concerned that if it was used as an inn, then it would eventually be used for sinful purposes. For that reason, the lease came with a covenant that no woman could ever enter the building compound.

  Besides being an oasis of comfort in London, it was also a crossroads of information. Some of the men who stayed here had business ventures in the corners of the kingdom, and the corners of the Mediterranean. Many a new venture started with a handshake in these courtyards. Many a night was spent listening to the stories of travelers and warriors.

  A few of the private rooms contained the treasures of that tenant's lifetime, such as Raynar's. They were safely locked up and secured while the tenants were away on their next venture. The rooms were secure because the walls and the gate were easily defendable, and could be held by very few against many. Even by four junior hoodsmen.

  When Wyl came back from giving the junior hoodsmen a tour, he had one of them with him. A tall thin fellow with a face almost too pretty to be a man's. "Sikka, here, thinks he knows you," he told Raynar who was sitting in the garden with his legs elevated while he kneaded the old muscles.

  "My grandfather told me of you," said the lad. "You are Raynar of the Peaks, yes?"

  "Aye, I am that, and who was your grandfather?"

  "He was Klaes of Westerbur. He was a sea captain from the Fens near the Wash, back when the Frisian's controlled that area of the kingdom. You know, before..."

  * * * * *

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  The Hoodsman - Frisians of the Fens by Skye Smith Copyright 2010-13

  Chapter 2 - The Frisians near Burna, Lincolnshire in September 1067

  Young Raynar had spent two months in Abby's saddle. The comparative speed and ease of travel enabled by the mare was a joy. He was becoming a better horseman, but still not skilled enough to shoot his Byzantine bow from a moving horse. He kept practicing with Abby but the slightest odd movement on her part would send his arrow wide.

  Raynar had spent most of his life as a porter, moving great loads by foot, and then trotting unloaded to the next job. He could eat miles quickly on foot when lightly loaded, but nothing in comparison to the miles he and Abby had journeyed that summer and fall of '67.

  All of Hereward’s men were on the same mission, and had been sent in every direction from Hereward's brother's home in Burna. Their mission was to warn all villages within raiding distance of the Norman-held town of Nottingham. The folk had to know that the Normans were seeking food, animals, young men, young women, and above all else, riding horses.

  The villagers had to be warned to move their horses out of the raiding range of Norman held towns, or to sell their horses to traders who would take them to the North. They had to be warned to keep a watch for the Norman raiders. They had to be prepared with a good hiding place for the young men and young women and for any valuable animals. They had to know that resistance by anyone would mean their death. They must hide their armour unless they were willing to die in it.

  Most of the Hereward's men were still in Nottinghamshire, but Raynar and a few others had been called back to Burna because there was a new Norman sheriff in Peterburgh. He guided Abby down across a ford and up the other bank. This was the beginning of the Fens, low lying land with many streams and ponds and much swamp and marshland. The roads and soil were dry now, and the crops ready for harvest, but he had been told that the soil turned to mud and the roads were not passable once the rains began.

  He did not like this flat low land. There were no hills or ridges where you could have a look around. He was forced to climb trees to search for the smoke that would lead him to the next village. There never seemed to be a bee line between villages, for there were too many wet places and the paths went around them. Ahead, he could see the line of trees that marked the beginning of the Fen forest. The edge of the forest ran north and south in an almost straight line, however there was no knowing how deep the forest was at any point of entry.

  The smoke he was looking at did not need him to climb a tree to see. It was billowing high in the sky and thick. Someone's field or roof was on fire. He did not race towards the billowing smoke, but approached it carefully. The other advantage of being on horseback on this flat scrub land was that he could often see above the bush that grew beside each cartway.

  He came around the next corner with Abby at a walk. The cartway now ran along the edge of the forest. There were armed men on the road but looking the other way. They were not Normans, but that did not mean that they would be friendly towards him. He hailed them from a bowshot away, and they turned. They signaled him to hush up, dismount, and come closer. Most did not turn away from what they were watching at the other end of a stone wall.

  The men were angry and discussing something heatedly, but in hushed voices. They were all tall men with broad shoulders. A very large man approach Raynar. He was wearing a Viking style leather jerkin with metal rings hung from it, a brynja, just as Raynar was. On his belt he had a sheathed sword and in his hands was a long handled battle axe. Raynar took a guess that he would be a Dane so he spoke Daneglish. "I am a friend. I come from Hereward of Burna with a message. I saw the smoke and thought you may need some help."

  "Come," the big man replied in Daneglish. "Come and look at our village.” The rock that had been cleared from the ploughing fields had been used to bed the road and the wall along it. From a distance he had thought them a dozen men, but here, close up, he saw the truth. Only four were grown men. The others were boys, tall for their age, but boys of an age to be trusted to watch herds, but not much older. They were peering over the wall and through the bramble bushes. Raynar joined them and took a look.

  There were Normans in the village. They had a few villagers in a central common, and two of the smaller buildings were on fire. "They are asking our folk where the horses are. Our village is known for breeding horses. The big black ones with long mains and tails. They have killed two of our folk and have lit some of the houses on fire hoping that someone will talk."

  "There were some harsh whispers from some of the men around. Raynar tried to listen but the language was not Daneglish or Danish. It was another form of English. It almost made sense, but not quite. The big man was watching him listen and said, "They are speaking Frisian. It is an Anglish tongue. The boys want to attack before more of our folk are killed, but the men do not. The Normans are too many, and they fight mounted. They would cut us to ribbons on open ground."

  He saw the question in Raynar’s eyes. He explained further. "We had boys watching the ancient street, yonder, so we knew they wer
e coming. Most of our women have fled to the safety of our marsh village. Most of our men have fled with our herds, north, to hide them. We lot came here to block this cartway and slow them down, but the bloody idiot Normans got lost and took the wrong turn off the highway and came here from the north."

  The man beside them said in Daneglish, "There were a few still in the village carrying the last of our valuables away. A few old ones, and a few children. They seem to be threatening to kill one of the ealders if he doesn't tell them where the horses are. They will surely kill the children unless we do something."

  To which another replied, "They will kill us all if we attack them. The old ones, the children, and us. They want our horses and our women. We should go to the marsh village, or take the last of our stock north. There is nothing we can do here. Nothing we can do for those folk."

  The big man explained. "We have an older village deeper in the fen forest. The women have been there all week cleaning it up so that we can move there. It is on a marsh island and has always been our safe place in times of raiders. If they came for our horses and our women, then they will be disappointed. The bastards are angry. We fear they may kill everyone and burn everything."

  Raynar looked at the road where the men were hidden from the Normans. "Are you sure they do not know you are here. They could be trying to make you angry enough to attack them."

  The big one said, "We are angry enough. We are just not that foolish. We would be cut down if we charged them. It is open ground. Besides, what can the boys do. Slings against mounted warriors. What can we do. Axes against mounted warriors."

  "If some of them, just a few, charged you. If they came down this cartway. Could you kill them all?" asked Raynar.

  "We are four and some boys. If say, no more than six came and were trapped between these walls, we could kill them. Our business is horses. We know how to fight men on horses. How to bring them down. Our losses would be small, and they would lose all. But there are too many of them. We may kill all of the first attack, but a second attack would finish us."