by Smith, Skye
There was a panic call behind him. He and the other two bowmen were in open terrain and four riders had broken from the woods and were galloping towards them to run them down. The bowmen in the woods could not take their shots for fear of hitting their own men. The call was from them. "Get out of the fucking way." All three of them dived to the left into a small gully. It was filled with brambles.
The three of them cursed and struggled trying to free their clothing from the long thorns, but the more they struggled the tighter they were held. The riders were passed and they couldn't even make a shot at their disappearing forms. One of the men began to laugh. "Good blackberries," he said, "the sweetest ones are the ones that fall into your hand when you touch them." He passed a handful to Raynar and then all three of them were laughing. By the time they freed themselves they were scratched, torn, stained blue, and out of breath from laughing.
The other bowmen had disappeared back towards the ford. There were purses to snatch and horses and men to finish. One of the bowmen with Raynar said, "Did you see that knight. His friend came back for him, and the bugger skewered him to get the horse. Are all knights bastards?"
"Bastards every one," replied Raynar, "Each that I have ever killed was a bastard. In France they sing songs to praise their chivalry. I always wonder where all the good knight's from the songs live, as I have never met a good one during all of my travels across this kingdom and all the kingdom's to Constantinople and back."
They walked as far as the injured stallion, who was lying on the cartway and trying to reach the arrow to pull it out with his teeth. Raynar heard the ring of a dagger being unsheathed and said, "No. It is a clean wound above the leg. It will heal and this horse will fetch a fine price. The problem is how to get that arrow out of him. Look at the teeth on the bastard. He is battle trained to bite and kick men like us."
"Bah," said the bigger of the bowmen, "it's just a bloody horse," and to make his point he took off his jerkin and covered the horses head with it. "Now, pull the arrow out, and stay clear of those hoofs."
It took three tries and a few bruises but they finally got the shaft and point out. With the point out, they had expected spurts of blood, but it just oozed slowly, so Raynar braved the hoofs once more and washed the wound with ale from his skin.
Mortain's friend was not so lucky. He was breathing but unconscious. The sword had spit him up under his mail and must have hit his liver and a few other organs. Raynar took out his dagger and pushed it hard into the little soft spot where the back of the skull meets the neck. The man died instantly and there was no spurting of blood. They threw the body over the stallions saddle and led them both back to the ford. The stallion was strangely subdued and occasionally would reach around with his teeth and try to pull the dead weight from his saddle.
The ford was a bloody mess, literally. The bowmen were doing a first sweep along finishing dying men and horses and disarming any man who could still stand. Of the fifty men and ten knights who rode into this ford, Mortain and four men had escaped south, and three men had escaped west. All the knights were dead, and Raynar did not ask how they died. All his men sought vengeance against Norman knights. Of the others there were less than ten still fit to walk, and another ten that would live but could not walk.
Raynar called to his men. He wanted any man from a village close by to come forward and be heard. "If we let these men go back to Ludlow, they may seek vengeance on the villagers along the way. It is your choice. Let them go or kill them."
No one spoke up. Finally a Wolveshead spoke. "You said Mortain and four men escaped to the south. They will be back this same day with a squad from Ludlow. Leave these men the clothes they wear, and no boots, and let them wait for that squad."
The local men all nodded and agreed, except for Osgar. Osgar walked up to one of the prisoners and said, "What about this one. He is the French bugger who swore he would go home and keep the peace. Here he is our prisoner two days in a row. He broke is oath."
An arrow flew straight into the Frenchman's heart. The shooter was just another bowman. "He wasn't worth wasting breath over. Come on you lot, get back to work. We need to search for purses, load the weapons and armour onto the spare horses and get the fuck out of here before the next lot from Ludlow arrive."
Osgar looked down at the body at his feet. The dead man still looked surprised. He bent to him and searched him and found a fat purse which he held up. "He was well paid for breaking his oath."
Raynar spoke in French to the remaining prisoners. "When you next see the Earl of Cornwall, tell him that he was ambushed by Raynar of the Peaks, the queen's champion, and once I have killed Belleme, I am coming to kill him."
It was fifteen miles back to Hughley, and it took them most of the rest of the daylight to ride back. The wolfpack that had escorted Henry to Bridgnorth were waiting for them in the village.
"The king asks that we block the highways running south from Shrewsbury so that no one can use them to escape," said the wolveshead, "Apparently the Welsh have not been stopping the cowards, but instead have been charging them a toll." He then began to laugh. "What happened to you, Ray? Did one of them have blue blood?"
Raynar looked down at the blue spots on his brynja, and laughed too. "Tomorrow will have to be soon enough. I am exhausted," he muttered as he walked towards the hut where he had spent last night. He looked at the women who had come out of their huts to hear the news. "I know, I know, there is lots of meirch stew," he looked at Osgar's mother, "please have the women cut some of the horse meat into thin strips and salt and smoke it. We leave tomorrow and there will be a shortage of food where ever we go."
"This is a young man's game," he mumbled to himself as he dragged himself towards his bed. It was not to be. One of Osgar's sisters dragged him away to do the rounds of the wounded.
"This one's fever will not come down," she whispered when they reached a young Cornish man. "He has been raving out of his head most of the day, but now he is too weak for even that."
"Get some men to carry him outside where there is more light, and then remove the dressings. I need to see how the wound knits. Meanwhile I must wash up a bit before I touch him."
Behind the hamlet the folk had built a small weir on a stream to create a pool for washing clothes and bodies. He now walked there to have a quick wash, and found other men already washing themselves, and some older women washing their clothes for them.
He had intended just to wash his hands and face but the women tut-tutted and demanded that he wash all over, and began to tug his clothing from him to wash them for him. He suspected that this was just a scheme to take his long silken shirt from him, but he had always enjoyed being bathed by women. They were needlessly thorough in washing him, so that all would have a turn with the silk. He finally had to wrestle it off an old woman who had stripped completely so that she could try it on and feel the touch of the magic fabric against her skin.
He had to go back to the wounded man dressed only in his long silk shirt because the women were busy washing out the blueberry and blood stains from his outer clothing. Even the silk shirt was stained, but he could not risk letting it out of his sight.
When he finally made it back to Osgar's sister and the wounded man, he bent over him to check the wound. It was hot to the touch and an angry red color with puss seeping from it. "He is a dead man," he grumbled.
"But can't we just reopen the wound and clean it again?" asked the sister.
"Usually yes, but not this time," he replied. See the purple lines radiating outward from the wound. That is blood poisoning."
"So soon," she gasped as if she had failed in her nursing, "I thought that took days and days to start."
"Except if the point was poisoned with pig shit. Then you have less than a day," he reached towards the belt of one of the men who had done the carrying and borrowed his dagger. "Put your sword in his hand," he said as he gently lifted the wounded man to a sitting position and hugged him. "He is yours Woden, send the Val
kyries," he yelled to the sky and then he plunged the dagger into the back of the neck just beneath the bottom of the skull. The man went instantly limp and he lowered him back down to the straw. He wiped the dagger on the dead mans shirt and handed it back to its owner with a nod to take the body away.
He stood and realized that Osgar's sister was weeping and he took her in his arms to comfort her. "It was better this way. He may have lived a week and it would have been a week of intense pain in his joints and in his jaw." He held her gently in his arms with her cheek wetting his silken shirt. He guided her slowly towards her mother, but when she saw his intent she pulled back from his silky chest.
"No," she sniffed, "there are other wounds I must show you. She bent low and blew out her nostrils onto the dusty ground and wiped her nose on her sleeve. "Come. I want to stay busy."
After re-cleaning two bad wounds, and setting a broken finger that had been missed the day before, and after telling the Cornish servant, Cador, what had happened at Stokesay ford, he took a walk in the still night air and looked at the stars. He saw some lights and heard voices towards the closest fields so he walked in that direction.
The men were just finishing digging the new midden for Hughley. They had done a good job. The topsoil they had stripped had been moved to the kitchen gardens behind the longhouse. The poor soil beneath it had been used to cover the old midden, where the butcher remains of the horses and the stripped human bodies had been thrown.
"We will give the old midden to the church," said Osgar, who was walking near by with his mother, "and when next a priest happens by, he can say his magic words over the mass grave."
* * * * *
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The Hoodsman - Revolt of the Earls by Skye Smith
Chapter 28 - Meeting the Welsh at Stretton, Shropshire in August 1102
There were still enough men to make up four wolfpacks, though with but twenty five each. They rode from Hughley west across the valley and then climbed the hill trail on the other side and kept to the ridge leading towards the peak of Caradoc to the south. From there they descended to the crossroads where the Shrewsbury road forked away from Watling street.
Each man had silver coins enough and meat enough to make their own way back to Winchester if need be. They were in high spirits. They had defeated, injured, or killed over a hundred well trained and well armed enemy and they were only missing twenty of their own to wounds and graves.
Raynar on the other hand, was glum and silent. He had never been able to justify the loss of men by the loss of other men. To him the only outcome that made sense was the slaughter of those who ordered slaughter. Yesterday he had let the butcher, Mortain, escape him, so he could justify none of the one hundred and twenty lost lives. In his way of war, only one man should have died, and the rest should still live.
He could not stay glum for long, however, once they began the decent into the valley. The wild hills and narrow vales all around made him feel like he was home in the Peaks. Some of the advance scouts came riding back towards them.
"There are a lot of men in that valley," the first scout reported, "and not just the townsfolk from Stretton, either. They are mounted, and have long bows, so they are either more of Henry's bowmen, or they are Welsh." Since all these men now knew that the King of the English had ridden shoulder to shoulder with them, they all now referred to him simply as Henry.
"See that knoll beside the fork," replied Raynar, "make camp atop it while I go and speak to our Welsh allies." He broke off from the main column and went further along the ridge as the scouts had done. After a hundred paces he heard sounds behind him and turned. His wolfpack had followed him. "No, I meant for you to go down to the knoll with the rest."
"Not fucking likely," said Osgar, "them Welsh are as likely to cut you up for stew as to listen to you."
He did not argue. Wolfpacks of skirmishers were successful because each man was ultimately responsible for his own skin and they knew it. They kept to the high trail until they came across a likely fork down to Stretton. A Welsh patrol rode out from the town to intercept them where the trail first touched the valley. Raynar halted just out of bow range and above them. "Who is in command of the town?" he yelled down to them in Welsh.
"Prince Gruffydd," came the answer from the head of the pack.
"Good," Raynar continued, "send a rider to tell him that Raynar Porter needs a bed for the night."
"The prince doesn't meet with porters. Why do you seek an audience?"
"I am King Henry's tax collector. I have come for his share of the tolls taken on this road."
A rider was dispatched while the conversation continued.
"Bridgnorth Castle has surrendered without terms," said Raynar. "Henry's army is marching to join the fyrd that surround Shrewsbury. Have you been invited to join in the battle for Shrewsbury?"
"I thought that was why you came," replied the Welshman.
"No, I have come to close your toll booth. It is charging too little to let scoundrels and traitors through."
"Well now, that is the secret to a profitable toll. You can't charge so much that no one uses the road."
"How much did you charge the Earl of Cornwall?"
He never heard the answer because the rider was galloping back. "Let him through! Let him through! The prince wants to see him now!" was the yell from four hundred paces away.
Raynar did not wait for anyone’s bidding and made directly for the rider. His wolfpack followed closely with nocked bows held by one hand on the blind side of their mounts. "Put the bows away lads. There is no need. We are amongst friends." Friend was not how these bowmen usually described Welsh raiders.
Gruffydd's headquarters was an imposing fortified manor on a rise above the Roman street. They were all invited into the great hall for ale, but five decided to stay with the horses, just in case. After the prince's welcome to all, Gruffydd led just Raynar into his private chamber.
The prince was asking questions as soon as the door was shut. "How big is the English fyrd?"
"No one really knows," replied Raynar, "At Bridgnorth there must have been forty or fifty thousand before Henry sent half of them home."
"So he weakened his forced before the battle?" asked Gruffydd.
"The men he sent home were farmers armed with pitchforks. He is not weaker for sending them home to their harvest, but stronger for not having to supply them. That does not include perhaps six thousand to the north of Shrewsbury with the sheriff of Cheshire, and my information is old. New men were arriving by the thousands each day."
"And now?" asked Gruffydd.
"And now? Do you mean for the Normans, or for the English, or for the Welsh?"
"Start with the Welsh," replied Gruffydd.
"Get your men out of sight. Send them to protect your old borders along the dyke. English farmers have no love of your raiders. If the fyrd see them ranging, they will chase them into Wales and even the king will be powerless to stop them."
"Good advice, and the Normans?"
"Some of your chiefs will have told you the message Henry gave the lords who side with the Duke of Normandy. They walk away from all claims in England, or they die here."
"So I heard. My spies tell me that Belleme will meet Henry on the highway outside of Shrewsbury tomorrow. You will of course escort me to see it, as my men will be making for the dyke," Gruffydd observed. "Now tell me of the English."
"Fewer lords like Belleme in this kingdom can only be good news for the English. I am pressing Henry to hold vacant the honors and fill the castles with his own sheriffs. It is a logical move that fits with his charter and with the reinstatement of Knut's legal system. Not that I ever expect a king to be logical, but with Henry logic holds more sway than with most I have met."
"Ouch," you hurt me with your words friend.
"Then you deserve to be hurt. Of all nobles to allow passage to Ludlow, why Mortain? You would have done us all a service by hanging him, or at least ransoming him to Henry."
"My scouts tell me he was slaughtered by English wolfpacks near Stokesay," defended Gruffydd. "They said the ambush was so effective they thought at first that the wolfpacks were Welsh, but then they saw that the wolfpack was slaughtering the horses. No Welsh bowman would shoot the horses. We love horses. Horses are good business. We shoot the riders so we can steal the horses."
Raynar bowed to the complement, "We shoot the man if the horse stands still. Those horses were moving, moving fast. Mortain escaped by killing one of his own men so he could have a horse."
"Hmm," mumbled Gruffydd, "to be clear, I was not here when my men let him through. DeLacy was with him and vouched for him. DeLacy has stayed as neutral as he could in this revolt of the earls."
"DeLacy of Ludlow."
"The same," replied Gruffydd. "He is not his father. He is a weakling. Or perhaps he is the wisest of all. Who knows. They all claim that the magic blood of gods run in their veins and therefore they all make claims on thrones."
"I never understood the reverence, the holiness, that the nobility clamor to in blood lines. We all breed animals. We all know the improvements in stock that can be had by carefully mixing bloodlines. But the nobles do not do it to improve their stock. They do it for some other reason."
"Property," offered Gruffydd.
"No, no, beyond that."
"Ahh," Gruffydd's voice went quiet. "As I said, the link to the gods. You are an educated man, Raynar. You know that in all the myths of the old religions the gods would rape comely humans and the spawn were half human, half god. The demigods of legends became the kings and the emperors of men. These Christian nobles look for blood ties to the ancient kings, the ones who were demigods."
"But those kings were in the times before history. They are myth."
"So they trace their blood," continued Gruffydd, "to the greatest kings of history from so long ago that no one can deny they did not carry the demigod blood. Otherwise why did they become so great above all others. The current lot try to trace blood to Charlemagne or to Constantine."
