Hoodsman: Forest Law

by Smith, Skye

  "You mean funding, ugh, coin?” asked Philippe.

  "Nah, I hold the key to our English treasure chest. There is coin a plenty. Perhaps if I tell you the plan and show you the documents you will understand."

  Philippe motioned for him to continue.

  "Here in France,” John began, "you have better carts than we have in England. Carting is becoming a good earner in England because the nobs, I mean the Norman nobles, are in a building frenzy. The problem is that the materials the nobs use are heavy. They strip entire woods of trees to build baileys. They quarry stone for foundations. They loot ancient Roman ruins of dressed stone to build walls. This is all heavy stuff and the farm carts of England are straining and cracking trying to carry it all."

  "You are a smith,” replied Philippe, "Of course, you have come here to buy some of our best carts and take them back with you to England so that you can copy them, and make good business."

  John was emptying a scroll pipe as Raynar translated the king's words. Raynar grabbed at the papers and complained, "Oye, these are mine."

  "No they are not. You gave them to me. I just forgot how to read the key is all. I need you to show me again."

  Philippe asked "What did he say, what did you say?"

  "These are smith diagrams that I copied out of an ancient book one winter when I was trapped in Durham. That is a town in the north of England where the snow can be deep in winter.” Raynar unfurled the paper and showed Philippe. "See, here is a diagram of an axle. To understand it well enough to build it you need to understand this code down here.” He looked from the diagram to John, "John you fool, this is an axle for a mill wheel."

  "Aye, and can you think of a stronger axle to put on a cart. There are other diagrams too, but they all take too much metal. Fine if you have the finances of an army, but regular carters can't afford so much metal. This axle uses metal only at the touch points. Metal and grease. As long as you use grease heavy enough that it won't melt with the heat from moving the load, then you can move very heavy loads indeed."

  Raynar translated and Philippe became interested again. "But this code is not Latin, and yet the documents look Roman. Look there, that must be the mix of metals you need in the forge."

  "I don't speak Latin, so I made up my own codes,” said Raynar.

  "Ah, now I understand why John is here. Tell him he is welcome to use the palace forge to experiment."

  "What else would a Royal Smith expect,” replied John in halting French. Philippe smiled remembering the joy of last night's banquet and why his head was so heavy today.

  "How did you sleep last night?” Philippe asked. The palace was full, and until the chamberlain could make other arrangements, John had been given a bed in the bunkhouse with his English guard friends.

  "Not good. The beds are long enough, but there was no privacy, no peace for sleep.” John had Raynar translate.

  "You mean the shift changes, but you have been a warrior, you must be used to that."

  "No, I mean that it seemed like every serving wench in the palace was trying to get into bed with me."

  "They are just curious,” replied Philippe, but there was envy in his heart.

  "Well their curiosity meant that none of your guards got any sleep.” replied John.

  Philippe was silent for a while and then spoke, "I think I have a solution. Since I returned from Bretagne, my wife's mother is no longer sharing her quarters. Gertrude has been assigned her own chambers but they are not in the royal wing and therefore they are not guarded as well as they should be.

  This has always worried me because she is such an obvious target for abduction. Would you accept a commission from me to be guardian to the Countess Gertrude. You would sleep in her anti chamber and guard a bolted door from the inside.” Philippe pursed his lips in thought while Raynar translated. "Yes, that would work well. Though you have been here but one night, my guards already seem to trust you, and the English guards would follow your orders without question."

  "So be it,” replied John. "But I will take the commission from her, not from you. I will make vows to her, not to you."

  "That is fair,” replied Philippe, "I would want it no other way. Let us go and speak with her and I will show you the quarters that you will be guarding.” He saw the men look at each other. "Ah, you two have more to say to each other. Continue, for I have dispatches at my desk to read,” he pointed across the room, "until you have finished."

  Raynar switched to Daneglish so that Philippe could not understand even if he heard. "So what is the full plan, John?"

  "Ever since you've been running ships to Huntingdon,” replied John, "I've been running carts from the Wash to Nottinghamshire. It gives a good living to the men who helped us at Ely, the ones who no longer have villages or families. We own the carts and horses, while the carters keep most of the earnings."

  "Yes, it has been working well,” admitted Raynar. "The men are bowmen so they can protect their own loads, especially valuable loads like wine. They also have the use of the horse if we need them to assemble them again as a wolfpack."

  "You are over here so much that you don't know the half of it. What we began with ten carts and horses is now more like a hundred. Aye, it is good that these men are earning, and that they have horse and bow, but there is more. They hear news, they carry messages, they protect each other if need be, and they are the only carts that do not fear to use the forest cartways."

  "So why the new carts, then?” asked Raynar.

  "Not new carts, new axles."

  "Why the new axles then?

  "I told you, there are profitable loads that are too heavy for the carts,” harrumphed John impatiently.

  "Bull shit, I've seen oxcarts deliver all those loads."

  "Ox carts are of no use to us,” John glance at Philippe and lowered his voice. "Our carters must stay with horses so they can answer our call. Horses can't pull these loads on normal axles. We tried two horse teams, but that increases our costs and their pace is fast enough to break the axles."

  "Now I understand,” confirmed Raynar. "Speaking of carters, did you make it down to Winchester yet? Much Miller wanted your help, remember."

  "I did, which is why you didn't see me this summer. I went not just to Winchester but also to London."

  "You've been to London!” Raynar exclaimed, "I've never been there."

  "Aye, I escorted Brother Tucker to both cities. The good brother is now the purser of the Repton Abbey, and he needed to review the accounts of their houses in both places. It was a long journey by cart, but it served us all well. We are now running the carts that deliver Repton Abbey's lead to Winchester and to London. Lead is as valuable as wine and Brother Tucker liked that our carters were all dangerous men and could defend the loads."

  "So you use Much's stable in Winchester. That works.” said Raynar thoughtfully, "What stable do you use in London?"

  "Ours. Much is in London right now setting it up,” replied John.

  "But the land. It cannot be cheap in London, and no one would deed it to an English peasant."

  "Brother Tucker arranged for it. Their holdings in London include an old Roman temple. The land is cursed with ancient gods so the monks do not use it except as a quarry. Tucker gave us permission to build a stable there since it would lower his load rates for the lead."

  "Did you like London?” Raynar asked wistfully. "I've always dreamed of going."

  "Stinking den of thieves,” commented John. "Best thing that could happen to it would be for it to burn to the ground. Fuckin' rats so big that they chase the cats. The bridge is a wonder though. Typical of them greedy buggers that they aren't keepin' it up. They don't even clear the snags from the floods. The snags have become dams, so when the tide ebbs, the water boils beneath it."

  "So much for business, you said you had personal news,” Raynar said more softly. He feared news from home. It was almost always tragic.

  "Well it's personal and it's bigger than personal,” John looke
d at Philippe but the man was still busy with his dispatches. "That bastard Conqueror has been appointing more sheriffs. We have a new one in Nottingham called Peverel and he has his greedy eye on the lead mines. There's a new one in Cambridge, a weasel called Picot, and he has his greedy eye on all the manors your wolfpacks cleared of Normans back in the times of Ely."

  "They are allowing the families of those Norman's to reclaim the manors?” asked Raynar.

  "Not likely. The Conqueror has plumb run out of lords. He sent them all to Bretagne, and from the sounds of the celebrations around here, he must have lost a lot of them to the Bretons,” John smiled at the Norman's bad luck. "No, the sheriffs are claiming the manors for back taxes. They want the deeds for themselves so they can put their own men on them. I have a bad feeling about it."

  "What about the peaks. Are the sheriffs claiming the mines too?"

  "No, but that bugger in Nottingham says that the cartways are his, and the mines must pay a toll to move their loads,” John had come to the part that he worried about telling. "Some of his knights have got their eyes on Britta and Sonja's manors."

  Raynar went icy quiet and then stood. "Are they in danger?"

  "Not yet, but it's only a matter of time."

  "Then I will pray for the sheriff's widow."

  "Peverel is one of the Conqueror's own bastards,” said John.

  "Then I won't pray very convincingly. What did you say his name was?"

  "William Peverel. I guess the Conqueror was bonking someone else's wife. The woman you will widow is Adeline, but she's just a teen with a new baby."

  "You stay clear of it John. Leave it to me. You stick out like a sore thumb, and if you are ever outlawed we'll have no legal face to run the carting business."

  "I asked Alan to keep a watch over the sisters.” said John, and Raynar’s face lit up in thanks. "Oh, and I've sent a message to Wylie in York to see what he thinks of running a stable there."

  "He'll be too busy with the Scarlet Man Inn,” replied Raynar. "It is a good business and well run by his family."

  "I doubt it.” muttered John, "I doubt the family had the coin to rebuild after the Normans burned York."

  "He would have asked us for the coin if he needed it."

  "Transport and news is still difficult to the North. He may not have known that it was us running the rebellion in Ely. If he did know, he probably thinks we were strung up by the Norman army that took Ely. The North is still in a bad way, Raynar, even if Lincolnshire is on its feet again."

  When they eventually finished their discussion, they looked over towards Philippe. Philippe was working diligently on a scroll. He looked in their direction and said, "Did you know that before I came of age, my protector was the previous Count of Flanders, Robert's father. I spent much time around Brugge."

  The king went back to his writing. "Raynar, how many men did it take you to close the Seine?"

  "Three wolfpacks, about a hundred men."

  "Including the men that guard me now?” asked Philippe.

  "Yes"

  "Some have told me that they like Oudenburg. I remember Oudenburg. It must have changed. It used to be a sleepy hamlet. They tell me that there is a strange monk, Arnold of Soissons, who is building a grand church there without the permission of the bishop, and on land that belongs to some foreign lord."

  "I believe that is so, yes."

  "They also say that there is no free land left in Oudenburg for them to build houses on, and because they have no houses, the local women will not marry them."

  "It is a problem. Hereward is pressuring the count for a solution.” He didn't explain who Hereward was. Philippe would know well enough from his spies.

  "Come here both of you and witness my signature on this scroll."

  Raynar walked over and looked down at the scroll. "This is a deed."

  "I know,” said Philippe. "It is the deed for the land the monk is building on. I am the foreign land lord. I need you to witness the endorsement. Don't bother to read it. It says that the monk gets half the land for his church. The other half is to be divided into one hundred parcels each large enough for a house, to be assigned by Raynar of Oudenburg to men of merit. Sign there, and there."

  * * * * *

  It would be an understatement to say that Gertrude was most pleased by the choice of her new guardian. She willingly accepted John's oath. She immediately began making plans to go shopping in the market throngs of the left bank, a place that had been forbidden to her before John was assigned as her guardian.

  Philippe was equally pleased. No longer did he have Gertrude nagging at him to release Raynar and his men from their duties so they could take her back to Brugge.

  Bertha was not pleased. "She is too old for that man and that horse cock of his.” She had no delusions that her mother would not be riding John before many suns had set. Though Gertrude and Robert lived together peacefully and profitably, neither were known for their fidelity. For instance, Gesa had been her step father's mistress before she came to Paris, and that was with Gertrude's approval.

  Gesa calmed Bertha's worries. "He is big and his tackle is big, but he is well experienced with women and I have never heard any woman complain of roughness by him. My mother lived with him at Ely for more than a year, and that through violent times surrounded by violent men, and never did she complain of John, well, other than that she could not keep him clean."

  "You have had him?” asked Bertha.

  "Never,” replied Gesa, "I will never bed any of my fathers."

  Bertha wondered how many fathers Gesa had. "You bed Raynar,” Bertha pointed out, "regularly."

  "Ha, Raynar is not one of my fathers. Klaes, Thorold, and John are my fathers. Raynar is more like a brother or perhaps a teacher.” She sensed that Bertha was day dreaming and she turned her face to capture her stare. "No, you may not take either of them. You must remain faithful to Philippe, at least until you bear him a son."

  * * * * *

  * * * * *

  The Hoodsman - Forest Law by Skye Smith

  Chapter 17 - A visit home to Peaks Arse, Derbyshire in May 1077

  The winter had begun early and wet and windy and lasted long, but now that spring was well unfolded, the days were continuously hot and dry even here in the peaks of Derbyshire. Alan had brought Raynar the back way to the forested heights above the Porter's Glade, halfway between the mines at Peaks Arse and Hathersage.

  "Who would believe that the forest would be like tinder already after such a winter,” whispered Alan.

  "It was the same in Flanders,” Raynar whispered back.

  "I heard that King Philippe and Duke William have made peace now. That is bad news for England. The battles in France were keeping the Normans and their bastard Duke away from us."

  "It was Frank against Norman against Frank for six months in Bretagne,” replied Raynar. "It was bloody and many on both sides were killed and maimed, so it was inevitable that a truce would be called. Perhaps with the truce, William will pay more attention to the evil of Regent Odo and put a stop to the continuous theft of lands and folk. At least Ralph the Breton and his young wife Emma got their own back at William for their exile from Norfolk."

  Raynar stopped talking and pointed to a large man, a Norman in armour, down in the glade. "Besides, by the time the bishops realized that their church earnings were suffering and brokered the peace, the damage had already been done to the armies on both sides."

  Alan looked hard at the Norman and shook his finger no. "What about Judith's new husband Robert? John tells me he is the Conqueror's eldest son."

  "She is still his concubine and not yet his wife. She stays in Brugge for she fears abduction by either the Franks or the Normans. He spends much time riding between Paris and Caen trying to arrange for her to be able to visit Huntingdon without being raped into wedlock. As for Simon, the husband that King William selected for her, I have heard nothing new since he was frightened by a flight of arrows and quit Cambridge for London.
"

  Raynar had seethed with anger yesterday evening when they had first arrived at this viewpoint. His childhood home, the Porter's Glade, which had served as spa and hospice to his dying father and to many other injured miners through the years, had been cleared by Sheriff Peverel's men and turned from a place of peace and healing, into an armed camp.

  His initial anger was now calmed, but his mind still wanted vengeance. Another man came out of the shadows and Alan whispered "That's him. That's the one who has been sniffing around Sonja. Peverel himself rarely leaves Nottingham any more, not since the Hoodsmen of Sherwood threatened him over his habit of abducting local girls for his whorehouse. He now depends on the Busli family to do his dirty work. That knight is one of theirs."

  As they watched, two porters were dragged in front of the knight. The knight stepped forward to one and ground his boot into the man's bare foot. The grimace and the screams of the porter were instantaneous. The other porter tried to rip himself away but he was held by the guard and the knight crushed his foot as well.

  "That is the punishment for not paying the toll,” whispered Alan.

  "Bastard,” seethed Raynar quietly. "How can a porter earn the toll or his bread if he has a crushed foot."

  "At least he doesn't cut them. The foot will be well enough in a week."

  "Well enough for limping and begging but not for carrying a load of lead. He may as well slit the man's throat as take his livelihood away from him.” Raynar watched a while longer. "Is he the only one that wears that red mantle?". Alan nodded. "Always?” Alan nodded again. "Does he hunt here?"

  "Most mornings,” replied Alan, "There is a seven point buck that he lusts after."

  "Hmm, do you know his water hole?"

  "Close enough."

  "Then show me. I need to borrow his horns."

  * * * * *

  Alan again saw the red mantle flash along the forest trail, so he held the deer skin tight around him and ignored the smell of blood from the buck's head that he was holding up above his own. His short sword was jammed tightly up the neck and into the skull to create a handle to hold up the weight of the rack of antlers. He heard the hoofs behind him closer now, and began to run down the path.