Hoodsman: Blackstone Edge

by Smith, Skye

  "Is there no help for them?"

  "In normal years, they could ask their lord or their church for help. Not this year. The English lords have their own problems, and the Norman lords want them as serfs. The church is now run by Normans, who also want them as serfs."

  "No help at all?"

  "The Lindseys will survive and return to their lands. Thorold will make sure of that, so long as the Norman sheriff does not stop him. That is why it was so important that Sweyn makes his camp in Cambridgeshire rather than Lincolnshire. That is why I have not thrown those rapists out of my hall. Thorold needs them as a source of breed stock and seed."

  She was enjoying being held in his arms. She understood why Anske was set on him, even if she must share him with the phantom Margaret. This simple comforting embrace in his arms as arousing her. She pushed herself out of his arms. She made to kiss him full on the lips, but came to her senses just in time to turn her neck and brush his cheek with her lips. She quit his arms immediately and turned away from him so that he would not see the flush in her face and neck.

  "I know of nothing that will help those from north of the Humber," she said, "not beyond Holderness and the riverbanks. No help for the rest. No hope for the rest. There is nothing for them but serfdom and slavery, and to provide rude sport for men like those bastards in my hall." She sat on her bed. "Leave me to my rage, Raynar. Go and listen to them boast, but if you do go, don't take any weapons with you."

  Hereward intercepted him at the door to the hall and hustled him back outside. "Their stories are dull. Come, let us sit in the sun and you can tell me of your hunting adventures in the Peaks." Hereward had seen first hand Raynar's usual reaction to the abuse of women. It was always violent, and often fatal.

  Raynar told him the short version of what happened at Blackstone Edge, as if he was giving a military report. He named none of the men. That would be was against the creed, even to another member of the brotherhood. "The last I saw of William, he and his army could have been slaughtered by a hundred bowmen. Unfortunately, not only wasn't he slaughtered, but he took Chester and has left a strong garrison there."

  "And William's infantry, the French mercenaries, any word of them?"

  "The men of Sherwood gave me news of them," replied Raynar. "They turned back from the peaks with the carts and moved south towards Nottingham. By the time they got to Sherwood, they had already been picked to pieces by any axemen that had survived the harrowing.

  Rodor sends word that the Normans no longer control the highways between Nottingham and York and Lincoln. They have too few men in those garrisons to do other than hold the baileys and control the towns. The highways have been left to the survivors of the harrowing, at least for now."

  "That matches what I have learned in the South," said Hereward. "William is desperately short of fighting men, but to attract more knights and warriors, he needs coin and honors to bestow."

  "By honors, you mean land?"

  "Yes, land. And there is only one source of more land. Keep taking it away from the English."

  "And the coin?" asked Raynar.

  "I suppose from the same place they raised the Danegeld. From the churches. The latest of the Norman priests that have been sent to replace the English priests, well, they are not even men of the cloth. Most of them are injured warriors. Ignorant and illiterate."

  "Ah, so they are William's tax collectors then, and nothing more."

  "After William fled back to Winchester, I expected the Normans he had left in the North to reap what they had sowed," Hereward explained. "The Great Harrowing has clearly shown William's intent to the farmers and the folk. He is no longer battling the English lords. Now he must defend himself from every man in the North. The reports from across Mercia and Northumberland say that Normans and their henchmen have been ambushed, murdered, hunted, and robbed. That is why the Normans now hide in their baileys." He paused.

  "But, you were about to say but," Raynar interrupted the pause.

  "The Normans have withdrawn behind their walls or are taking furloughs in the south. The Normans are no longer easy targets, so the English have started to fight amongst themselves for whatever has been left. There is bad news from the South. The English in the south are afraid of being overwhelmed by the English refugees from the North. William has been able to recruit garrisons of English in the South to protect the South from the English of the North."

  "There have always been Englishmen who have accepted his coin."

  "These do it from fear," replied Hereward. "Fear of being displaced on their land by refugees willing to accept serfdom in order to be fed."

  "How is this possible?" asked Raynar. "Surely the southerners must hate the Normans as much as we do?"

  "No, No they don't. Not as we do. You yourself showed us William's strategy when you discovered that Writ from the sheriff in Peterburgh. Destroy the Dane English, the Daneglish, but spare the Saxon English. William's war has always been to replace the leaders of this kingdom. Knut the Great spent thirty years making sure that the leaders were all Danes or Daneglish. Williams war is with the Daneglish, not the Saxons. From the point of view of the Saxon peasants of the South, their Daneglish lords have been replaced by Norman ones."

  Raynar thought about this, and then observed, "The Saxon peasants live in the south, and the Daneglish live in the north, so he has harrowed the Daneglish to make them move south, and he has armed the Saxons to repel them." Raynar went silent. "Do you think the harrowing was planned in this way, for this outcome."

  "I cannot say. If so then the man must be the devil himself, to do such evil with the intent of sparking an evil reaction." Hereward's voice was low and solemn.

  "I have read a few writings of the eastern ancients," Raynar said. "One explained that both leaders and followers can react, but only leaders can act. I begin to understand the meaning of these words. Now is the time to act, not react. Reacting will serve William's plan, and not us."

  "We must ask the impossible," replied Hereward. "We must spread the word that English must not prey on English. Then we must ask for a miracle. We must ask Sweyn and his Danish fleet not to prey on the English."

  "Hah. That will be a miracle," sniffed Raynar. "That is all he has done since his fleet arrived on these coasts eight months ago. He has hardly hurt the Normans, while he has raided his English allies repeatedly, and has accepted a Danegeld that was stolen from the English."

  "You see now the importance of putting the Danes in Ely. It is the one place where he will be forced to raid Normans and take from Normans and fight Normans. Normans in the baileys, Normans in the towns, Normans on the highways. My hope is that eventually the Danes will weaken the Normans so much that the English can finish them."

  "And Sweyn's hope is that the English will weaken the Normans so much that the Danes can finish them," Raynar stared hard at his friend. "And you wonder why I have sworn off being any part of the armies of nobles."

  Raynar stretched in the sun. Every spring he realized how much he wished winter did not exist. He looked at Hereward. "Both William and Sweyn need men and coin. This kingdom cannot provide much more. In four years it has gone from a land of plenty for all, to one of little for anyone."

  Hereward thought about Raynar’s words and then said, "We are a kingdom of farmers. Our well being and our wealth have amassed from years and years of careful farming and careful husbandry and careful saving. What was amassed has been used up in these four years, and is not being replaced. Half of the farms have been harrowed, and half of what is left has not yet been planted. The farmers all tell me the same story. Why do the heavy work of planting, if it won't be yours to harvest. These bastard Normans want the earnings but refuse to do the work to create them."

  Raynar nodded in agreement. "The only work a Norman wants is to wield a lash. That is their method of farming. Lash the farmers to force them to plant, allow them to bring in the harvest, and then lash them to take it from them. Have you noticed how they all carry lash
es, pretending they are for their horses. They seem to enjoy taking the lash to the helpless, as if it were sex or something."

  Hereward was again glad that he had not allowed Raynar to hear the stories in the hall about trading food for a good fucking. If Raynar had listened then for sure some of the guests would have met with nasty accidents on their way home.

  They were interrupted by the thunder of hoofs as four strikingly handsome horses careened into the yard and were pulled up smartly by their riders. A child leaped from the lead horse into the arms of the stable hand yelling, "We won, we won. Anske and I beat all the men in a race from the giant oak to the gate."

  Another horseman leading a colt came through the gate at a more sedate pace and yelled out, "Raynar, you are still alive. I have won my wager that you would return!" It was his friend Gerke, the husband of Roas, and the man who had taught him how to sail a ship.

  Anske was riding one of the horses. She whipped her head around and looked straight at Raynar. He rose and walked towards her. "May I help the lady dismount?" he asked politely. Asking Anske if she needed help with a horse was akin to asking a horse if it needed help making manure.

  She did a one handed spring out of the saddle and landed an inch shy of his toes and put her arms around his neck. He looked at her farmers tan and her disheveled hair and her boys clothes and still she was the most striking beauty he had ever known. "How have you been, my lovely wife." The words slipped out of his lips and he was hearing them with his ears before he realized he had said them aloud.

  The child Lucy had been skipping towards them to get a Raynar hug, and she heard his words. "He called her his wife!" she yelled excitedly. "Raynar told Anske she was his wife." She turned in mid skip and made for the kitchen to be the first to tell it to the other women. Raynar blushed from his toes to his ears at the laugher from mounted men, all of whom had at one time or another been his shipmates.

  Only Gerke was not laughing. "You will be careful with my sister-in-law's heart sir," he said in a serious tone. "She is an innocent virgin and I will not have you seducing her with your sly words."

  And then everyone began to belly laugh and it was Anske's turn to blush from toes to ears. Virgins were as rare as two headed calves in Frisian villages.

  Beatrice came running out of the kitchen with the cook, both of them brushing flour from their hands. Little Lucy had a handful of each of their skirts and was dragging them towards her colt. "Anske, tell the serving women that they are sleeping in my quarters tonight. You and Raynar can have the women's room to yourself." She stopped talking as she realized that her assumption may be pre mature. "That is, of course, if that would please you." She did not need to say it twice. Anske was leading him away from the other men and towards the women’s room.

  * * * * *

  The English lords and their guards stayed overnight as the guests of the countess, but left for their own homes after they had broken their fast the next morning. That signaled a flurry of activity by the women of the household and more than a few village women besides. They had mere hours to prepare for their next guests, Sweyn the King of Denmark, and two of his sons.

  Anske kept Raynar in bed until noon, and he would have been there longer had not Thorold and Hereward wanted to brief him on the meeting they had arranged with Sweyn. The rest of the manor was a hub bub of activity, so Anske dressed and went to help, which left the men with the peace of the women’s room for their talk.

  Thorold was a talented administrator, while Hereward was a talented strategist. Thorold posed the problem. "The only way we can reverse the damage done by the harrowing is to grow food, a lot of food, and to supply breeding stock for every farm animal, especially sheep. Ducks, chickens, pigs, cows, horses, and any other beast would be a help, but if the farms have sheep they can survive another winter. Sheep give milk and meat and wool and skins.

  Between here and Lincoln any village that was not so effected by last winter's battle madness, is already planting. I have sent out plough teams, horse teams all. They are well manned and guarded. I plan to send out harvest teams as well. We will have many fields of crops by June. While the crops grow, the farmers can do the tending, but once the harvest time closes I fear that the farmers will need protection again. Our folk will not survive another harrowing from the Normans. Our villages will not survive another raiding from any army, fleet, or band of outlaws."

  "The point you are making," observed Hereward, "is that we need to enforce a peace if we are to convince folk to trek back to their homes and start over. You are no longer the Shire Reeve of Lincolnshire, Thorold, how will you enforce a peace, especially upon Normans?"

  "Exactly. That is the problem, my problem," replied Thorold. "That is why I have invited Sweyn to visit. The folk of the Danelaw are as kin to him, and wish to be his subjects. He sent his fleet here last year to claim it on his behalf. I must convince him that if he wants to be king, then he must start acting like a king. He must protect his folk, not prey on them. You see now why I wished to talk this through with the both of you before Sweyn arrived."

  "Ahh, you need to build a strategy that will get Sweyn thinking as if he were already our king." Hereward absent mindedly played with a beaded bag that was on the table near him. "Raynar, do you have your maps handy? Do you have one that shows the lands south of Ely?"

  Hereward kept talking while the other men looked through the rolled maps. "We don't need to protect each farm if we keep everyone away from them. I mean keep every armed man away, whether they be Norman or Danish or outlaw. Ely is a good start. That puts the Danes away from our richest farming areas. Because Ely is in Cambridgeshire, Normans will be drawn away from Lincolnshire and Nottinghamshire to strengthen the garrisons that stand between Ely and London. That puts the Normans away from our richest farming areas."

  "The outlaws are no problem," interrupted Raynar. "All they want is food and a cause to follow. Recruit them to help the Danes make raids towards London. That takes them away from your farms as well. Those that cannot travel to Ely, can still be useful by making trouble for their closest Norman garrison, so the garrison must stay close to their town or their bailey. Nottingham is a good example. There are enough Welsh bows around Nottingham to keep that garrison from riding out towards your farms."

  "Peace for the English farmers," said Thorold. "That must be the rule. The Danes must not break it, and neither must the outlaws. They must let the English farmers go about their business, but they are free to do anything they want to the Normans. Rob them, cripple them, anything."

  "Why do so say cripple?" asked Raynar. "Why not kill?"

  "I was a Shire Reeve for almost twenty years. Killing creates new problems out of old ones. Gaoling or crippling lets you control the old problem without creating new ones." He watched Raynar wince. "Believe me. Killing should be saved as a last resort." He laughed at the seriousness of Raynar’s look. "I think that your vengeance against William is still worthwhile, Raynar. I will gladly help you to kill him if I can. After what he did last winter, I wish him to answer to his desert god as soon as possible."

  "Bah," said Hereward, "his Pope gives him holy forgiveness in trade for land for his monasteries."

  "Do you think that is why the Normans follow the Roman church?" asked Thorold. "So they can buy forgiveness?"

  "One of the reasons. Another is that the Roman church approves of the serfdom that enslaves most of their flock from one end of their Holy Empire to the other."

  They spread out a map that showed the land from Cambridge to London and from Colchester to Northampton. "Look at all those Roman streets," Thorold said. "Cambridgeshire is criss crossed with the damn things. To cripple the Normans we either have to cut those streets or take away their horses."

  Hereward said softly, "Fine, then that is the first task for the outlaws that we recruit. Steal horses from the Normans in Cambridgeshire. If they can do that, then every horse is a double win. A Norman doesn't have a ride, and a Dane or an Outlaw does."


  "Raynar, if I find you the paper and inks, can you make a few copies of this map. Of itself, this map gives us an advantage both with harrying the Normans and with making plans with Sweyn."

  "As you wish. I will need three different colors of ink, and paper of this size, and also twice this size. I will work on them while Anske sleeps tonight."

  "Ah, is that what Anske was doing with you last night. Sleeping," laughed Hereward, "I suppose I should be more respectful of the lass. A knight is supposed to honor all women."

  Raynar looked at Hereward, "What? When did you become a knight?"

  "Ah, now, you hadn't heard. My uncle Abbot Brand died, so Peterburgh Abbey has a new abbot. A Norman turd called Turoldus de Fecamp. It was by the kings order, not by the monks election, and my uncle expected such trickery so his last official act before he died was to knight me a protector of the Abbey."

  "This may all sound unimportant to you, Raynar," interrupted Thorold, "but this new Abbot is bad news for this part of the kingdom. Peterburgh is the richest and best defended of the Abbeys. Many of our English lords have left their treasures there for safe keeping. Now this Norman turd arrives with twelve score warriors and claims control. He himself is more warrior than churchman."

  "My uncle made me a knight so that I could be sworn to protect the interests of the monks. He knew the King would not allow an election of an abbot, and that he would appoint one of his cronies. Because I am so sworn, the monks can trust me with Abbey business."

  "This interests me greatly, sire." Raynar made a mock bow to his friend. He rarely respected the politic of groveling to knighthood or title. He usually met such men on the battlefield, where they needed his help more than he needed theirs. It had unnerved and enraged many a noble when he, a peasant, had looked them in the eye and had talked to them as their equal.

  "One of the messages that Thorold kept for me," Raynar continued in a more serious tone, "was from the monk who is the paymaster at Repton Abbey in Derbyshire. He needs to see me urgently. I recall from the time I spent working for Repton as a porter, that it was a holding of Peterburgh Abbey. It may be that this monk, Brother Tucker, has worrisome news about what is happening in the Abbeys."