Hoodsman: Courtesans and Exiles

by Smith, Skye

  "Not at all, Robert. She has been sent with me to Flanders by the Countess Beatrice to have her learn the ways of the great courts of the continent."

  "Learn or teach? Her coy clumsiness has gotten her further with me in five minutes than other courtly women have gotten with me in a month." Robert put an arm under her legs and shifted her weight slightly to give his cock more room to swell.

  "In truth, she is quite clumsy, but that is her youth. There is much polishing required, as well as letters, and music, and manners. The countess hopes that I can find her a suitable tutor in Brugge, but since I do not frequent courts, I fear I have been sent on a hopeless quest."

  "Good, that is settled then," Robert leaned back in the chair and pulled her against him as he did so. "The once mistress of this palace is still in residence and bored to the point of tedium. Gesa can be her student." She kissed him on the cheek and said, "thank you", but with her problem solved, Robert was now giving his full attention to his favourite Hoodsman. "I need to talk business. Can she be trusted never to repeat what she hears when she is in my company?"

  "Robert, she has just come from a rustic country manor, not from Paris or Rome, and besides, she is already obliged to you. Ask it of her and it will be so."

  "Not a word shall cross my lips," she said softly into his ear so that her warm breath tickled him.

  "Good, then listen to me, Raynar. I have been asked to send an envoy to Constantinople. That is simple enough and I have chosen the man, a Greek scholar from one of our oldest monasteries. The purpose of this envoy will be to send news directly to me from Constantinople, both political and business news. His monastery already has the capability to pass messages along through the houses of their order. They move along the route that follows the rivers Rhine and Danube to the Black Sea and then to the great city.

  You must understand my choice of envoys. It was not so much for the man, as for the message service. This monastery has another service. They are a wealthy order, but not as wealthy as they used to be before the Romanized orders began expanding. They say that if I deposit coin with them here, my envoy can be given up to an equal amount of coin there, or anywhere along the way. You see the advantage. The river route is infamous for its robber barons. If I were to send coin with him, he would be murdered for it."

  "This all sounds well organized," Raynar said, "what do you want of me?"

  "I remember from our time together at Cassel that you read and write Greek, and that you know how to keep accounts. Is this so?" Robert asked.

  "Simple Greek, simple accounts, yes it is so," replied Raynar.

  "Simple is better than nothing, and none in my court are trained in Greek and my knights can barely write their name, never mind cipher numbers. The envoy has invited me to visit the monastery to be shown how they do this coin thing. I would be most pleased if you would escort me and afterwards give me your candid opinion."

  "I would be pleased to be of service." replied Raynar with the slightest nod of a bow.

  "Good, then stay overnight in the palace and we will visit the monastery on the morrow." Robert moved as if to stand, so Gesa swung her legs over the arm of the chair, and out of Robert's embrace and placed her feet on the ground. She rose slowly so that she could wriggle some more against him but then she forgot to repress the tomboy in her. Without a thought that she was supposed to be feminine, she grabbed his hand in a strong grip and pulled him to standing.

  He looked at her with new respect. "You are as strong as you are pretty."

  Together the three of them descended back to the great hall, and at the door Robert spoke with a chamberlain to arrange overnight beds in the men’s and women’s quarters, and an escort of guards for the morning.

  "Raynar and Gesa are to have the run of the family wings," he told the chamberlain. "Oh, and arrange an audience with Madam Claire for them." He offered each an arm and they entered the great hall. He left them standing together near the front of the audience and in the company of a group of overly bejeweled women.

  Raynar and Gesa did not stay long at court. The endless petty petitions were tiresomely the same, usually involving two men claiming the same land, or house, or horse, or woman. When the group of women they were with took their leave, most elegantly, and moved into an after chamber where there were refreshments, Raynar and Gesa joined them. It was there that the chamberlain found them and took them to meet Madam Claire.

  * * * * *

  Madam Claire now lived in but one wing of the palace, whereas in Baldwin's time it had been all hers. She kept her own staff, and had her own kitchen. They were shown to a lovely bright room where she was seated behind a desk. There they stood in silence while she finished her thoughts in what she was writing.

  "You wished to see me?" a shaky voice asked as she looked up at them. She was ancient, perhaps even fifty, and her skin was wrinkled and her hair white. She did not look anything like a count's mistress. She looked more like a village ealder, except that she was dressed in cascading volumes of silk and she was wearing paint on her face.

  Raynar told her the same as he had told Robert, almost to the word. Claire rose with the help of a cane, and walked up to Gesa, and circled her. "What languages do you speak, girl?"

  "English, Danish, and Frisian ma'am," Gesa answered politely. Raynar was impressed. He had never seen this girl be so polite to other women before.

  "They are all the same. Do you speak any French or Latin or Greek? No, you wouldn't. Which do you read and write in?" The look in the girl's face told her all.

  Claire looked at him and said with a sigh, "She has so much to learn, where would I begin? I do not have that many years left on this earth."

  "She could help you to live long enough to finish." replied Raynar softly. "She is a healer and knows the old ways, but she does not practice because she fears the Romanized priests."

  "Child," she looked at Gesa, "my foot pains me to the point of crippling me. The physicians bleed it, but that makes it ache the worse. Will you bathe it for me? The pan is there, and you can get warm water from the kitchen." She watched Gesa eagerly grab the pan and leave the room.

  "Has Robert bedded her yet?" she asked of him, "for he will, you know. There will be no stopping him. She is his type. Atrociously young."

  "It took her but five minutes to have him panting to be inside her. He will not have her. She will have him."

  "Is she of noble blood?" she asked.

  "Yes, her father is a Frisian warlord, and her mother was a powerful seer who was burned by Norman priests."

  "Don't vex me, lad. My foot hurts me too much to play word riddles." She stopped talking as Gesa returned with steaming water. Claire moved to sit in a stiff chair. Meanwhile Gesa had Raynar unhook her so she could step out of the costly clothes. In just her thin shift she walked towards Claire and the old woman’s eyes appraised the strong, lithe body. She kneeled in front of Claire and carefully unwrapped the bandaged foot. What was revealed was ugly and smelly. Gesa gently washed the foot and especially the sores.

  "You should not keep this foot bandaged. It needs the air to keep it dry. Also your bandage is too tight and has hampered the healing blood from reaching the sores. Because of this your foot has begun to rot. Unless I can stop the rot, you will be dead in a month. Sooner if you continue to pay physicians." She looked up at the aged face and realized that the aging was due to the pain this woman must be enduring. "Do you mind if Raynar looks at it with me? He has much experience with battlefield wounds."

  She nodded her assent, so Raynar kneeled next to Gesa and inspected the foot.

  "Maggots?"

  "I agree. The sooner the better especially on that one sore where there is much corruption."

  "Then a poultice to draw the poison."

  "No, the swelling is too wide spread. I would soak it frequently in Roman salts until the swelling goes down and the pain is less, and then perhaps a poultice, or perhaps just drawing leaves."

  "What if the poison from the c
orruption gets into the blood before the maggots can clean it?"

  "Again, let the Roman salts do their work. They absorb the poison, and make it hard for fungus to grow."

  "Raynar," Claire got his attention, "you are a healer also, then?"

  "I am a warrior, madam," he replied, "and healing is necessary after a battle."

  "He is a healer," interrupted Gesa, "and he has the touch. I have been trying to get him to practice with it to make it stronger in him."

  "Stand lad, and come closer." The old woman pulled his hand up and hovered it over her left breast and then let it go. She closed her eyes and relaxed so that she could feel whatever was coming to her from the young man's hovering hand.

  Gesa rose and watched him and saw his eyes change color from greeny to blue and she knew that his wild mind was taking control of his senses. He was slowly hovering his hand down from her breast and over her belly and down to the join of her right leg, the bad leg, and he held it there. Her face relaxed and the wrinkles relaxed and for a moment, only a moment, her cheeks flushed and she looked twenty years younger.

  Claire snorted and opened her eyes. "I will train this girl in the ways of the court, lad, but on the condition that you visit with us frequently."

  "There is another condition, ma'am," said Gesa. "My cousin in Oudenburg is with child. If she needs my touch, then I must be free to visit her."

  "Agreed, now go and ask my cook where you can find good maggots. Raynar, go with her. She is too precious to be wandering alone through the lanes of Brugge. And tell my cook to send me more water, this time with Roman salts in it."

  Gesa ran ahead, while Raynar bowed and began to say his thanks to Madam Claire. "How much will you charge for your teachings, ma'am?" he was asking when she interrupted him with a wave of her hand. "She can pay me from her own skills and from her own purse, which will soon enough be fat from the Count's rubies and sapphires."

  * * * * *

  * * * * *

  The Hoodsman - Courtesans and Exiles by Skye Smith

  Chapter 13 - Investigating trade banking in Brugge in August 1072

  "It is exactly what we need, and it exists already," Raynar was excited. For the past hour he had been explaining about the monastery and how it earned from other peoples' coin, to Hereward and Klaes. They still did not grasp the significance.

  "We are holding in trust many treasures that are not ours, yet half of the English lords they belong to may no longer be alive. We took the treasures from Peterburgh Abbey because the abbot was about to break the order's trust and hand them to the King. Now the responsibility of the entrustment lies with us. Some of the treasure is personal, and family heritage, but most of it is gold and jewels of a more normal sort. I estimate that less than a quarter of it is in gold coin.

  Just because we must hold the treasure in trust does not mean that it must remain hidden and useless. There is no reason why we cannot do things with it that will earn. I estimate that the monastery is earning another tenth of all the treasure they have in their vault every year and that is on someone else’s coins."

  "It sounds illegal," said Klaes.

  "It sounds immoral," said Hereward.

  "A monastery is doing it, so it must be both legal and moral. The only difference between them and us, is that they take in treasure from folk who need it in another place but do not want to accept the risk of transporting it. We have taken in this treasure from folk who were trying to keep part of their wealth safe while they were fleeing."

  "But what if the folk whose treasure it is want it back, and you have it loaned out, or have turned it into a mill, or a ship, or a cargo?" asked Hereward.

  "We hold the treasure of perhaps thirty families. What are the chances of more than five of them knocking at our door in any year? That means we can earn from say twenty of those treasures, and hold the rest in reserve for when they knock."

  "And what if the ship or the cargo sink? Then we have lost someone’s treasure," said Klaes.

  "We will buy shares in many ships and many cargos. Most will not be lost in any year, and from the ones that are not lost we earn enough to pay for any that are lost."

  "Illegal and immoral," repeated Hereward grumbling, "How did a monastery get snared into such a scheme?"

  "Pilgrimage," replied Raynar, "or rather the robber barons that prey on pilgrims who journey to the Holy Land. Some bishop called Siegfried led pilgrims to the Holy Land back in '65 and they were set upon by thieves on every path. When he returned he organized the monasteries along the way so that pilgrims would not have to carry gold, and so that the order was paid in advance for the food and the shelter which they offered to pilgrims."

  "Bishop Siegfried." Hereward pondered the name. "I have heard that name recently, but to do with politics. He is either rebelling against the abbots appointed by politics, or rebelling against the child king, Henry of the Germanies. Probably both. Having a child king is causing much unrest."

  "By unrest," snickered Klaes, "you mean that the folk are at the mercy of every knight who wants more land."

  "I used to think the politics of England were complex," Hereward pointed out, "but compared to the politics of these continental Counties and Kingdoms, England is a sleepy place indeed."

  Klaes's tongue beat Raynar's to the response. "If by politics you mean knights and armies stomping across the land and the people, then England used to be a sleepy place. The bastard William has brought this selfsame continental politics to England."

  Hereward was lost in thought, so Klaes changed subjects. "Where is my Gesa? She did not return with you."

  "She is staying with an elderly and wealthy courtier, the Lady Claire, who has a foot that is almost gangrenous. I have come for Gesa's medicine bag, but also to tell you of this monastery so that you can tell Beatrice."

  "And did Gesa enjoy the court and the courtiers?" Klaes asked with a bit of concern in his voice.

  "She certainly enjoyed the attention that she got when she was led through the courtiers by the Count himself. The court itself bored her. She thought that all the wondrous clothes were simply disguises to hide old flabby bodies caused by gluttony and sloth."

  Klaes laughed in a sudden roar. "That's my girl! A healer who measures folk by their health and fitness, not by their wealth and pretenses. I worry about the Count's attentions, though. He is married, yes, but he has a reputation with women."

  "That is why finding Claire was the greatest of good fortune. She used to run Baldwin's court in place of his countess. She knows it all, and she knows Robert. She blew away all of Gesa's dreamy notions by telling her of the different women who attend court."

  "And which does Gesa now see herself becoming?" Klaes asked slowly as if afraid of the answer.

  "The Gesa I just left was enjoying being a healer and a tease," Raynar said in a happy voice. "Claire told us that there are wives and ladies in waiting to be wives. They are of landed families and are bred like cattle. Then there are the servants and bond slaves, who receive sustenance and a little coin from doing the manual work of the court, and whore themselves for extra coin by selling what would be taken from them in any case.

  Then there are mistresses. To create a mistress, a wealthy man must provide her a dowry and wed her to a poorer man who gives up his bed rights, and of course becomes the legal father to any babies. When the mistress is no longer favoured, she is sent to her legal husband to raise the babies.

  Then there are concubines. A concubine is a wife in all things except that she is not legally married to the man. Under church law she has no rights, but under Knut's law she has almost all of the rights of a wedded wife. I suppose that means that most of the English widows that were wedded by rape to Normans are actually concubines, because the Normans have Church wed wives in Normandy.

  And then there are the courtesans. Claire was a courtesan. She was a woman who was an asset to the court and was accepted by virtue of her looks, and talent, and charm. Her role included flirting with many, but b
edding few. Each time she beds a man, she risks her standing in court.

  Claire told us that she amassed great wealth from the gifts of the many who wanted to bed her, though she claims that she favoured very few of them. She admitted to me that at times she was Baldwin's most valuable spy, by which I suppose means that he paid her to favour certain of his guests."

  "Courtesan, then. Gesa has said so often enough. Perhaps she is right," moaned Klaes.

  "Go back, Raynar!" Hereward blurted out, but seemed not to have been listening. "Go back to that monastery and learn more. Perhaps it will serve us in some way, but first we need more information."

  "I plan on doing just that, which means that Gesa and I will be in Brugge for a few more days, and staying with Claire. Oh, by the way, the court gossip from the Danish envoy, is that Malcolm has bended his knee to the Conqueror. Scotland could by now be a vassal state of England."

  Hereward stood and yelled in anger and frustration. "Those fucking milksop English lords couldn't lead an army to a drink of water! How can this be? Odo was on the run and starving. William was overextended and would have been exhausted from the long march. Malcolm had all the English exiles on his side, plus the advantage of defending, and a hundred places to make ambushes."

  Raynar slipped away to find Gesa's things while Hereward continued to rant to anyone who would listen. He knew that the news from Scotland would be the end of any sane conversation, which is why he had left it until last.

  Hereward found him before he could get away back to Brugge on his borrowed horse. "Should I come to Brugge with you?"

  "No, Hereward. Robert wants you protecting this channel to Brugge, especially now that the northern channel to Blankenburg has been silted up by that last storm surge. He is also concerned about spies working for the Normans and the French. He thinks they are amongst the French-speaking Flems who still favour Rachilde to be Countess in Robert's place. He asks that you demonstrate to the spies that the English bowmen are still here, perhaps by holding frequent archery practices in easy view of highways and channels."