Hoodsman: Courtesans and Exiles

by Smith, Skye

  "Not long in these swells," Raynar told him. "See, it turns on the crest of each wave. If there are no swells it holds a course well enough."

  Klaes laughed. "These waters without swells? Not in my lifetime. The sea funnels ever narrower from here to Calais and then opens ever wider on the other side of Calais. The wind does the same."

  "Do you trade past Calais?" asked Raynar.

  "Not for years. The captains of Normandy and Boulogne guard that trade jealously, and allow nests of coastal raiders to have havens along their coast in return for them harrying northern ships. You would need to travel in a fleet to keep those pirates from mischief." Klaes nodded north. "There is plenty of trade from here to Scotland and Denmark. When you need coin, you trade with London. No sense in looking for trouble further south."

  "It is true that there are more ports on this sea than I will ever have time to visit."

  "Soo," Klaes wondered aloud, "it's a trader you have decided to be, then. You could have fooled me what with the size of your crew. For trading you could handle this little beauty with ten men. You have over twenty, and every one of them a bowman with killing skills."

  "That is because it worried me that you were running wine in the season of raiders, and with so few men. Perhaps I should charter my ship as an escort. Since the Anske can run close to the wind, and since it has small castles both for and aft, it is perfect for the job."

  "Bullshit," said Klaes and he dropped his voice to a bare whisper. "You think me a fool. I know you are making this trip to dig up the treasure you and Hereward took from Peterburgh. So be it. Your secret is safe with me, but you would be wise to time your departure to follow me back to Brugge, so I can be your escort."

  They were losing the light and the cogs were drawing closer to each other. For safety, they would raft the ships all together for the night. By first light they would see the Wash. Rafting was one of the benefits of not traveling alone. Two hulls lashed together lost their tendency to roll at every movement of the sea. Raynar knew this even from his time as a ferryman on the Thames. He had often wondered why shipwrights did not make twin-hulled ships. He had seen ancient drawings of Roman ships with twin hulls, and Christendom was now copying Rome in all other things. Why not ships?

  When they stopped to lash the ships together, they put the Anske and the other smaller ship inside, and the two largest outside. The stability of the four hulls lashed together was such that they used full sail on the two outside ships, and used Anske's rudder and both leeboards to keep the course true. The raft was so stable that men visited across the ships and there were stories and song and even some crude and sometimes rude dancing.

  First light showed them how well the raft had sailed. They were already well inside the Wash. They all ate together before loosening the lashings and pushing the ships away from each other. The Wash was foul with shifting banks and sand islands and narrow channels that were best approached in single file.

  Only once did another ship take notice of them. It was flying Norman pennants and swung about to have a look at them. Raynar had a dozen of his men duck under the castles out of sight so that he seemed to be manned as a trader. The Norman was an old-fashioned longship, manned for trouble. It sailed close enough to have a good look but no closer. The four cogs looked like innocent traders. Besides which, the crescent bow design sewn into the sails warned the Norman that there were bowmen aboard. For whatever the reason, the Norman longship lost interest and turned south.

  * * * * *

  As was usual for her, Countess Beatrice greeted the ships on Spalding's docks with the rest of the village women. Klaes's ships sailed under her pennant and so she had first choice of the goods for her share, but she would have come even without her business interest. These were her men, from her villages, and they were her women's lovers and brothers and cousins. They had been gone just less than a fortnight, but each time they left she waved, and each time they returned she welcomed each one ashore with a touch.

  Needless to say, the countess was well-loved by her folk. Unless she was entertaining nobles, she dressed in homespun, although with a flare of scarf or bonnet that made her noticeable in a group. She also knew ships and left the welcome of the Anske until last so that she would have more time to inspect it. She knew by the name who to expect as the captain, and when Raynar leaped down onto the dock she danced eagerly into his arms.

  Her husband, Thorold, was like a father to Klaes and to Raynar, but she never played the part of their mother. Far from it. At times the village gossip was that she had taken one, or the other, or both as lovers. Raynar had his own suspicions about Klaes, but for his own part, he would never cuckold Thorold with her. She knew it and used it to her advantage. In private she used her body to tease him mercilessly, full well knowing that her virtue was safe. It was a pleasant game.

  Her daughter Lucy was now riding high on Klaes's shoulders and they were walking down the line of ships, with him telling her what orders to give, and her yelling them out in her most grown-up voice for all seamen and dock workers to hear.

  There was more of Beatrice to hug than the last time he had hugged her, months ago, when he and Hereward were hiding from Norman patrols and waiting for the dark of the moon to set sail for Flanders. "Bea, are you with child?" She giggled in answer. "When are you due?"

  "Before the winter rains. There are a lot of growing bellies in the Fens this year. It is as if the goddess Freyja wants to replace all the folk that the Normans have killed." Beatrice was a Christian to her acquaintances, but a pagan to her close friends.

  "Thorold must be joyous." He knew from living in the next room to them for many months that they were always trying for children. Thorold shared a common trait of many noblemen, however. His balls had been crushed by decades of bouncing on hard saddles. Raynar, like everyone else in the village, would suspect it was Klaes's child, but no one would put a tongue to such gossip. Thorold was too well-respected for that. Besides, Klaes was Thorold's love child from his wilder youth. Who better to seed Thorold's new child?

  Raynar smiled to himself. In the culture of the Fen's Frisians there was no such thing as a bastard. The Frisian villages were still communal, and life and law revolved around 'sharing'. This was very different from Norman manorial villages where life and law revolved around 'owning'.

  Communal villages in the Fens still survived, if only because the Normans did not want the swampy land for themselves. Formal weddings were rare in communal villages. Children were raised by the village, and were fathered by whoever was living with the mother that season.

  He had often wondered why King William was so determined to destroy the communal villages of the Danelaw, when he himself had always hated being a bastard in his own culture. If he settled here in Fens, the name calling would be meaningless. Raynar spat to reverse the wish. He didn't want William the effing Conqueror anywhere near the Fens villages.

  Beatrice looked across at the wolfpack of seamen who were making short work of unloading the Anske. "They cannot stay, Raynar. Not here in Spalding. I have sent women to the church to make lengthy confessions, just to keep our two new priests busy, but that will give you but an hour."

  "The new priests are Norman?" asked Raynar.

  "Of course, and spies for the abbot," she replied. "Take your ship and your men and hide them in the Fens waterways, but come back and visit with me after dark."

  And that is what they did. Raynar well remembered the channels to reach Klaes's winter pool, and still remembered the trick of hauling the sunken lines to pull the floating islands of reeds and bush out of the way and open the mouth to the pool. There were two small ships already there, but lying on their sides on the tidal mud while men worked on them. He recognized them as two more of the ships that Hereward had bargained from the Danish fleet when they had deserted Ely.

  There had been a dozen ships in all that the Danes had left them. Seven of them were useful on the rivers and bays, but too small for open ocean. The three lar
gest were the ones now in Flanders. These two were the size of a small cog, but had the lines of a karvi and the workers seemed to be raising the low gunnels, and replacing loose or rotten clinker boards.

  There were two punts pulled up, which would be how the workers came to and fro from Klaes's island village of Westerbur. Raynar did not need to hail the men. They had been on alert from the first moment a strange ship entered the side channel that led to the pool. When they recognized Raynar they relaxed. Off and on over the years, Raynar had lived in the village with these folk. The sisters Anske and Roas were of this village.

  The workers were pleased with the name of his ship. Two women offered to take some of the Anske's crew to the village in their punts so they could return with the larger skiffs to carry the rest of the men. Raynar waved them on their way, but stayed behind to discuss Klaes's wishes with the shipwright. The men from the Anske scrambled to be the first in the punts with these two women. They were ordinary-looking women for this village, which would make them stunning beauties in Mercia or Wessex.

  The Frisian villagers made a goodly part of their wealth from raising the best of animals. They knew the secrets of good breeding and their sheep and cattle and horses fetched the highest prices at markets. They had bred themselves following the same breeding rules as they used with their animals, with the result that their men and women were tall and handsome with honey-colored skin and fair hair and eyes.

  It was only by living on damp islands in the fens that their villages had survived for hundreds of years through the Viking era. These villages had everything a raider wanted. Strong and comely young folk for slaves, handsome horse stock, an abundance of tasty food such as eels, and stores of bog iron for making ship's nails and other fittings that were resistant to rust.

  The Normans had been the worst of the raiders so far. With Norse raiders they could hide in the fens until they left, but these Normans came and then never left. Klaes's village had given up breeding animals for now. Such breeding had to be done on the drier fields inland from the Fens marshes, which made the stock too hard to hide from Norman patrols. When they couldn't earn from raising animals, they earned from fishing the eel pools, and trading with their ships.

  * * * * *

  * * * * *

  The Hoodsman - Courtesans and Exiles by Skye Smith

  Chapter 4 - With the Boulonnais near Favreshant in January 1102

  "No way," said Henryk looking out across the calm water of the Swale. "That is not a channel, it is all shifting mud and sand."

  "Reminds me of the Fens around the Wash or in Flanders," Raynar said, feeling almost homesick, but not quite. He was cold and damp and had been looking forward to a night under a dry roof, a manor even. "I agree. It would be foolish to try to get closer to Favreshant without a local guide." He stepped around Eustace and leaned out from the castle to better see the shoreline. "It looks like there is a seasalt works over there so there must be a dock, and if there is a dock then perhaps we can pick up a guide."

  It was a sea salt works, and there was a dock of sorts, though not in good repair. And there was a guide, though not in good repair. He was dressed in rags and stank of old oysters and Mary would not have him stand at the same end of the ship as her. He did know the channels and mud bars though.

  "Why you goin' ta Favreshant den. Is peculiar?" the guide asked.

  Raynar tried not to breath in through his nose as he replied, "The man with the woman is the new lord. He's come to have a look-see. So is this channel open in all tides?"

  "Not the low. A look-see at the bitches, then?"

  "Did he say witches?" asked Henryk, crossing himself.

  "What do you mean, the bitches? Who is living in the manor?"

  "Odo's woman and her daughters," came the toothless cackle.

  "You mean Odo, as in Bishop and Earl Odo? The Conqueror's step-brother? But he is long dead." Raynar knew this better than anyone else, but never spoke of it. Some things were best left secret no matter how much you wanted to brag or tell the story or scream out in glee.

  "Well, I didn't say 'e was dere, did I now? His last woman is dere with her daughters. Nice to look at, an' all, but supreme bitches, every one. Watch out for the guard. You can't work for bitches without some of it rubbin' off, now can yee."

  There was no dock in the tidal stream that led towards Favreshant, so they stopped at a solid-looking bank, and the guide told them of a passable bridal path that led to the manor, but did not want to lead them along it. He kept holding on to the paw of some furry beast that was hung by a lace around his neck while he chanted some anti hex prayer.

  The bowmen grabbed their long bows and quivers, while Raynar joined them with his recurved Seljuk bow from the Holy Lands. The arrows for his bow looked like toys in comparison to the other arrows. While they hurried along the bridle path they used sign language and stayed quiet. First there were huts, but poor huts, perhaps seasonal huts and this was not the season. It was January, and it was damp and cold, and everything was tinged with the grey of doom, in the way of winter starkness.

  Next there was a landscape of flat marshy land leading to a slight rise that caused an island of dry land, similar to the Frisian village islands of the Fens. The bowmen were feeling like they were at home. All of them were crew from a Fens Frisian ship that had been docked at London. Some of them were sons to men who had ranged in Raynar's wolfpacks long ago when Ely rebelled against Norman brutality.

  Feeling like they were at home meant that they were reading the natural signs of the marsh, seeing the natural trails that most men could not see. Seeing where they could step without being dragged under the ooze. Feeling their way, and staying hidden as they approached the dry island and the buildings built there. The main buildings were surrounded by a pale wall made from sharpened logs. They made for the gate.

  A strong feeling of deja vu was sweeping through Raynar's subconscious. How many times had his wolfpacks crept up to a Norman fortified manor and tricked them into opening the gates, and then slaughtered all the Norman men within. Countless times.

  But not this time. This time would be more difficult. They definitely did not want to hurt anyone, but at the same time, they did not want to be hurt themselves. Yes, they could bring Eustace and Mary here to the gate and demand that the gate to be opened to the new lord, but what if they were answered with crossbow bolts instead.

  "Ideas," he whispered.

  "We need the gates opened. What about the guide? He could offer to sell the kitchen oysters on the cheap? It's oyster season, you know."

  Oh how Raynar enjoyed the company of young Frisians. So practical. They all waited while a bowman hurried back to fetch the guide.

  * * * * *

  The cook was yelling to someone to open the gate so she could inspect the oysters. The guide was standing alone right in front of the gate, holding a sack of tree bark, and saying they were the plumpest of his oysters. As soon as the Cook walked through the gate, a bowman raced from the shadows and pushed at the gate and threw a small log in the crack to stop it from closing. Then another bowman was there, and another.

  The Cook would have screamed, but the guide was holding his new-to-him dagger to her ample stomach and telling her not to. He kept whispering to her that there was no harm meant, but that the new lord needed to get into the house. Once she was calm he pawed her breast, which earned him a cuff across the head despite his knife.

  The man who had opened the gate for the cook was not so lucky. He did yell a warning and was pummeled for his bravery by the three bowmen who now controlled the gate. Now it was Raynar's turn. He walked carefully passed the bowmen who now controlled the gate and he took a look around. He could hear, no, see, no, feel, that is, his hunting instincts made him somehow aware that he was being watched.

  He called out in French, "We mean you know harm. We bring a message from the new lord of Favreshant. What do you wish as surety for my words of peace?" There was whispering but he could not hear the words.
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  A man's voice called out, "You did not think to approach from the London road and make your presence known first at the inn?"

  "Sorry, but we came by ship. Now that we are here, we will not close this gate until we have spoken our peace."

  A man, perhaps a steward, came forward slowly, nervously. He was carrying a crossbow. It was pointed at Raynar. "Say what you came to say."

  "Eustace, the Count of Boulogne is on the ship with his new wife. They wish to talk to the tenant about this estate. Nothing more than that. There will be no changes to tenancy. Could you please point your bolt to the earth? You are making my own archers nervous, and nervous archers makes for nasty accidents."

  There was more whispering, and the steward lowered his aim. "Tell the count's wife to come forward and speak with us."

  "Only once you are disarmed and no longer a threat to her safety," replied Raynar.

  "I am here now," came a voice from behind him. "I am the Countess Mary of Boulogne, and this is my husband's honor. Do not be afraid. Come forward and greet him with respect."

  Raynar's senses sharpened. The foolish girl had put them all in danger. He made some signals to his men with one hand behind his back. The signal for 'kill at any false move'. "Please," he called out, "now that the countess has shown herself, my archers can no longer risk harm coming to her. Please come out and show yourselves, and without arrows or spears. Oh, please believe me in this."

  There were whispers, and the steward slowly put his crossbow down on the ground. Afterwards, the household staff came forwards out from the doors and shadows. They were all unarmed. A few minutes later, three women dressed almost as nuns came out into the yard. Raynar walked up to them and between them looking for weapons. Then he walked slowly and carefully into the manor and called out to see if anyone would call back.