by Smith, Skye
Because of this, Sweyn had not taken the ships back to Denmark as his brother had promised William. They had spent all spring raiding from the Humber to the Thames and now wanted a Danish fleet base on this side of the sea and halfway in between. The Humber had been a disaster because an army could approach by land to all the safe havens.
They needed a safe place to keep supplies, and fix ships that was not only safe from storms but also safe from the Norman's land based armies. A place that would not need many men to defend it.
The Fen ports around the Wash were an obvious choice. They had a mix of cultures, Danish, Frisian, and Angle, but they all spoke Daneglish, the Danish version of English. Better still, after last winters Harrowing of the North, all of them would prefer Sweyn as their king rather than William.
All winter, Danish ships had been provisioned along this coast in return for protection against William's out-of-control knights. The sailors even came for shore leave amongst the villages of this coast and were treated well by the men and better by the women.
"Why is this Saxon peasant even attending this meeting?" asked a lord from Wisbech.
"He is my guest," defended Thorold. "He knows more about fighting Norman Cavalry than anyone in this room."
"He has my confidence," Hereward spoke up, "these are his maps that we are using to do are planning with." This would have been stronger praise if any more than a handful knew how to read maps, or even read.
"I am not saying don't help Sweyn," Raynar continued. "What I am saying is don't let him center his army in one of your existing farming or fishing villages, and especially not in one of your port towns. Where ever he chooses as his new base for his southern fleet, those pockets and storehouses will be emptied first and those folk will suffer next winter. When he abandons it for another Danegeld, then that place will suffer William's vengeance."
"So you have said. Have you another plan or are you just a nay sayer," said another man from Wisbech who also resented the presence of a peasant.
Raynar was about to show them on the map, but then realized that it would be better to make them a plan on the table. He asked them to clear the table and to pass down the stack of cups. Each cup was a major town. He took cold charcoal from last nights brazier and drew the coastline, the wash, and the highways. Then he took some spinning yarn from a rush basket on the far table and used it to mark the rivers.
"Here we are in Spalding. There is Burna, Lynn, Peterburgh, Huntingdon, and Cambridge. Yes, yes, and Wisbech." He pointed to each as he named them, and pointed out the rivers through each and the highways to each. "William has built and garrisoned baileys at Huntingdon and Cambridge.
If Sweyn makes Spalding his base, then just look at what land will eventually become a battlefield. You Thorold, your folk, and your land will be devastated by any battle. What we need is an equally good place for Sweyn to be centered, but it must be closer to Huntingdon and Cambridge, and have no farmers or folk."
He looked at the faces of the lords. Thorold and Hereward already knew the answer but they were keeping quiet on purpose. They wanted it to be someone else’s suggestion so that it would be more acceptable to all. Unfortunately the rest of these English lords seemed to be as dumb as posts.
"Right, Sweyn's main need is a deep all-season river for his ships. Supplies, positioning, everything is about his ships." Raynar pointed out that there were rivers from the Wash to both of William's baileys, the Cam and the Great Ouse. He pointed out that both rivers flowed into the Wash near to Lynn, or Bishop's Lynn as the churchmen called it. He also marked the place where they joined."
Finally someone else spoke. It was a lord from Lynn. "The Cam joins the Great Ouse just south of Ely. There is not much in Ely save an Abbey and some eel fishermen."
Hereward reached over and put a cup on the table to mark Ely's position. "Aye, good thought," he said with a smirk, "depending on the eel season there can be an entire town of fishermen living in tents or on their boats. There are enough eels around Ely to feed an army."
Raynar sat down with relief. Thorold poured him some more wine and gave him a wink. The lord from Wisbech was now doing all the talking. "So if we sell Sweyn on using the Great Ouse as his way inland, then Sweyn's fleet can protect Lynn from land armies. I have been to the Abbey at Ely. It is on an island surrounded by many channels.
The river is the main highway, although the ancients once built a street to connect it with Cambridge. It runs along the top of a dyke. Cut that street and William could never attack Sweyn because Sweyn would control the rivers with his ships."
"Williams cavalry would be fucking useless in those water fens," interrupted the other lord from Wisbech, "as would any armoured men, or his siege engines. This is brilliant. Sweyn's men could feed themselves from the eels or from raiding south into Cambridgeshire, rather than us having to feed them."
"There are two drawbacks that Sweyn should know about," said Klaes, and everyone groaned, "the Roman streets. Huntingdon has a bailey because three Roman streets from the south merge there. William's cavalry moves like the wind along Roman streets. If Sweyn wants to control the streets or move south towards London by land, he will need horses to move his army with."
"Well stated," replied Hereward, "and yes, we must tell him that. Spare horses are in short supply after such a hungry winter. And the other drawback?"
"Dry summer weather," Klaes answered. "If we have a long dry summer, with low summer tides, then the water fens around Ely dry up and the rivers become too shallow for their ships to maneuver the snags." He knew Ely well. He had just come from scouting it.
Raynar stowed his maps in their pipe and finished his wine. Thorold gave him a nod and he left the hall. He had hated being dragged into a meeting with useless, do nothing, lords. Now, after four years of fighting Normans, he trusted the English lords less than he trusted the Norman ones. At least with the Norman lords you could always assume they were the enemy. With English lords you could never tell.
He walked through the yard to the kitchen shed to get something to eat. Beatrice was there organizing a meal for the guests. "Ooh, aren't you the sulky one," said the very wide cook. "Anske still not back then. Well I would drag you to bed and put a smile on your face 'ceptin' the countess wants a dozen partridges dressed."
Beatrice looked around and stared at him. "It's your own fault. You should have sent word that you were coming. Don't fret so. Anske will be back tonight. They've no reason to stay long in Westerbur once Lucy has her new horse." Lucy was Beatrice's young daughter. Anske was his lanky Frisian lover. "And don't even think of riding there to escort them home. Gerke will see to their safety." Gerke was Anske's brother-in-law, a Frisian ship's captain, and one of his closest friends.
"You need some more time on the island. Time to heel." She pushed the cook back to her partridges and then brought him a chunk of this mornings bread lathered with the cream from the butter churnings. "Your soul is still hurting from looking after the refugees of the Harrowing of Yorkshire."
"You did more of it than I," he whispered back, "What of your soul?"
"I did my best, and that was all I could do, and that was enough to keep my mind in balance." she whispered. "You did your best, but you hated yourself for not doing more, for not killing you know who. Now you live haunted by your own blame," she leaned forward and took a bite of the bread from his fingers, "whereas no one else blames you at all."
She and her husband Thorold had lived in close quarters with he and Anske for almost six months, through some of the most trying times of her life. The most trying times of everyone’s lives. He was closer to her than a brother. He was like a son to her husband Thorold. Almost as close to him as was Klaes. She smiled at the thought of Klaes. He was a capable Frisian warlord, and had times been different she would have been his wife, rather than his step mother.
"The island is paradise this time of year," she smiled at him. " Even more so since the Frisian women are living there while the men are away buyi
ng horse stock. " The island was a naturally fortified Fen village that had been one of the earliest Frisian settlements way back when the ancient Angles were first migrating from across the sea. "Though I doubt Anske will share you with the other women any more. She has stopped looking for a husband, you know. I think she believes that she already has one." She and the cook laughed aloud at the look of alarm on his face.
He pressed closer to her ear and whispered, "If I survive William, then I will fill her with children. Until then, I can make no promises. A woman should marry her future, not her past. I am a past with no future."
"She cried for a week when you left her in Selby to go hunting William in the Pennines. Is it Margaret? Do you still love Margaret? You still wear her signet ring. Is that why you won't open yourself to Anske?
You must forget Margaret. She is married. Forced upon her of course, but whether you like it or not she is now the Queen of Scotland and probably has a son in the oven by now. Forget her." Beatrice stroked his cheek with her hand and left a smudge of flour. "Forget her. If you cannot be with the one you love, then it is all the more reason to love the one you are with."
"I have no future Beatrice. I am a porter by trade. Porters cannot afford wives, or roofs. You see me dressed well and carrying a fat purse, but they are ill gotten gains from despicable violence. I live well from the coin of men I have killed."
"Do you think that Anske wants you for ever and ever? Fool. In her village, Westerbur, the women say fare thee well to their men every year for many months. Most return, but always there are some that do not. Sometimes an entire ship does not. They do not marry for life like Christians, they marry for the season. That is why the children are the children of the village, not of the husband." She bounced across the kitchen to help the cook pull a large tray from the oven. The aroma of fresh bread danced in the hot air.
"What do you think about this one, eh," she said to the cook, "he calls himself a porter. Too poor for our Anske. What porter have you ever met that can speak five languages and can read and write in most of them, and do sums, and draw maps, and can kill a Norman knight from a galloping horse at a hundred paces."
"Beatrice," scolded Thorold as he came into the kitchen shed to see how the meal was coming. "it is stupid and dangerous to say such things when there are strange ears in the yard."
She blushed and dropped her eyes demurely. "His excuse for not being husband to Anske is that he is a porter and cannot earn enough for a family."
"Hrumph, a simplistic excuse that fools no one, especially not Anske. It does not excuse you from bleating about his skills like a washer woman at the river's edge." Thorold was old enough to be her father. At one time he had been the most powerful man in Lincolnshire. He still was a powerful lord, but no longer Shire Reeve. There was a Norman sheriff in Lincoln these days. A sheriff who never ventured far from the castle that he was building there.
"Lad, follow me to my quarters," Thorold said as he juggled some hot bread between his fingers so he wouldn't burn them. "I have some letters and messages for you. They have been collecting for some time now, awaiting your next visit to Spalding."
They walked to the next house. This fortified manor was created over time by building three long houses and a barn around a central yard, and filling in the perimeter with pale walls that could be manned. Since Raynar had been here last, Thorold and his men had dredged the surrounding ditch. Ditching in the Fens meant creating a canal, as you could not dig more than a foot down without water oozing into the hole. Also new was a watch tower on the corner of the wall facing the Welland River.
Beatrice had once told him that sometimes she felt more like an inn keeper than a Countess. At first he though it a complaint, but he soon learned that she loved to play hostess to folk from afar. Thorold had a grand house in Lincoln, but she rarely lived there. She preferred this, her family home near the busy North Sea port of Spalding. Her guests here were far more interesting, and when there were no guests, she was the well loved matriarch of this prosperous small town. In Lincoln she was just another wealthy woman living in a big house.
Thorold pulled a package of mail from one of his locked trunks and handed it to him. He poked the brazier to encourage flames, and then used a stick to light some candles. "Stay here until you have finished them. There is light and privacy. I must return to my guests in the hall before Klaes and his clumsy tongue create enemies out of them."
* * * * *
* * * * *
The Hoodsman - Blackstone Edge by Skye Smith
Chapter 14 - Messages from afar in Spalding in April 1070
The letter young Raynar opened first was in Margaret's hand. In it she explained how King Malcolm of Scotland had just returned from the failed war against William for York, and had been chased into Cumbria, where he and King William had finally met face to face, and had discussed the future of the North. During the meeting William claimed that her brother Edgar was a traitor and an oath breaker, and he wanted him returned to London.
Poor Edgar, thought Raynar. When Edgar had been just a lad of sixteen, King Harold Godwinson and his brothers had been butchered in the battle for Hastings road. The bishops had used Edgar as a political place saver. They named him king for a few weeks to stop any other competent English warlord from being named king. That gave William the time he needed to surround London and demand the crown. Effing bishops.
She went on to explain that the price of Edgar's safety had always been her marriage to Malcolm. Malcolm was an uncultured beast of a man, but she could not fault his desire for her. He was genuinely smitten by her, and he demanded she sleep with him each night. She is pregnant by him and is due in the fall. Though she never wanted to be a queen, now that she is one she will work hard to be a good and active queen, and will work to bring the true faith and some better table manners to this kingdom.
The letter was in her hand but not her words. She must have written it knowing that it would be read by others, perhaps by Malcolm.
The next letter he opened was from Margaret's elder sister, Cristina. It was in her hand, but unlike Margaret's, it was also in her style. Her words flowed like poetry, and described Margaret's unhappiness at having to relent and marry Malcolm to save Edgar. Once committed, Margaret had thrown herself into the role, and now that she was with child, she seemed to be enjoying marriage more than she cared to admit.
She went on to say that Edgar had finally returned from the Humber, though he had lost many men and his ship. He sent his thanks for the return of his archers just in time to rescue him outside of Lincoln.
It was after this that the letter truly became poetic. She was trying to convince him to come and visit with her in Scotland. Now that Margaret was married, she could finally declare her own love for him.
It went on and on in terrible verse and worse choice of words. It bothered him as he read it, because it did not make sense. Cristina cared for him and would have slept with him for reasons of pure lust, had it not been for Margaret; but love him ... never.
At the end she repeated Edgar’s thanks for timely return of the archers.
* * * * *
There were two other messages.
One from Hereward telling him to wait in Spalding until he returned. This was redundant as Hereward had already been in Spalding when he had arrived.
The other was from his friend John Smith. He had no idea how it would have reached him here. He had left John only two weeks ago in his home at his father's forge in Hathersage. Since then he had visited Sherwood on his way here. He would have to ask who had brought it. After reading it he realized that though it was supposedly from John, it was actually from Brother Tucker from Repton Abbey. It said simply that it was urgent that he visit Repton Abbey.
He stood and snuffed the candles. He turned to leave the quarters, but had not taken many steps when Beatrice came into her room cursing and swearing under her breath. "Oh," she said, startled that someone was there, "ahh, you've read your mail." She blocked his w
ay hoping he would tell him any news.
"Why were you cursing?" he said instead. "Just now, as you entered, you were making my ears turn red."
"It is those guests, those men, those horses asses who are in my hall. They are swilling my wine and boasting about how many women they have porked this spring. They are all married with daughters, and it disgusts me that they use needy women so badly."
Raynar gave her a blank stare so she explained.
"The shires from Lincoln to London are filled with the hungry homeless from last winter's harrowing. Women outnumber men by at least two to one. They are hungry. A man can pork any of them for a few mouthfuls of food. So that is what those lords have been doing, and they are in my hall bragging about it." She moaned in frustration and then growled in anger.
He put his arms around her and comforted her. "I know. It drives me wild when I see our folk so desperate and so distressed. We worked so hard to save those we could at Selby. Save them for what. For serfdom. For slavery. To be porked for the crumbs from a table. What I don't understand is why they have not yet gone home. The weather has been fair for more than a month, and still there are few folks on the highways moving back north."
"Move back north to what, Raynar!" she said, still angry, but then she calmed her voice. "Oh, I am sorry. You just arrived and have had no time to talk to Hereward or Thorold. You do not know."
"Do not know what?"
"The aftermath from the harrowing. The winter was long and hungry for the farmers. They have eaten their breeding pairs, eaten their seed corn. It is a long walk home and there is no food to the north. Nothing is being planted. Wild and dangerous men are ranging across the land looking for food. Any of these things would make it difficult to start over. All of them at the same time make it impossible."
