by Smith, Skye
The local folk were gathering from farms all around to play, but mostly to watch, and the women from Wellenhay joined the watchers. All of them were moving rather slowly this morning. A shout and a rousing cheer went up when an equally large crowd approached along the other side of the canal from the direction of Fishtoft. The path they used ran along the top of the levee created with the silt from digging out the canal.
In every male hand on both sides of the canal there was a tool for digging or moving earth. Well almost every hand, for Daniel had advised his host that any man in the village who owned a pistol should shove it in his belt, and rather than do the digging, form a guard ... just in case. He himself carried his exquisitely tooled double barreled dragon in his belt. He took this opportunity to call the half dozen locals with pistols towards him so they could discuss what they would do if the Sheriff’s men arrived carrying muskets.
The pistols of the locals were old fashioned, but at least they had flints rather than match chords. Daniel, as usual, had loaded his pistol barrel with a single shot, and his dragon barrel with a mix of bird shot, lye, and sulphur. The purpose of such a mix was to create a great putrid stinging cloud of noise and confusion. It may blind a man, but never kill one. The local men all agreed that no one would shoot a ball unless it was to save a life. If a warning shot was needed, Daniel would fire his smoke breathing dragon.
The family who collected the hated bridge toll lived in a small house beside the bridge on the other side of the canal. Up until now, the tollman had not shown his face. It was a game he played with the folk from Freiston. He usually only emerged to collect the toll for carts, for carts had no choice but to use the bridge. If he tried to collect the toll for folk and animals on foot, they would simply cross the muddy ford beside the bridge, and yell abuses at him. On seeing the gathering crowd the tollman ran across his bridge towards the village elders standing near Daniel. When he was within hailing distance asked, "What is happening?"
"Football match," was the terse reply.
"On which side of the bridge? Which village will I be collecting the toll from."
"Neither," was the terse reply.
The tollman could live with that. This was normal so long as no carts crossed. He would just hide in his house and pretend to see nothing of what was happening. "What are the tools for? It's Sunday today, the day of rest."
"Standard football rules,” came the reply. "The pitch must be leveled of mounds and holes for the safety of the players before the match can take place. The common needs some work." To this reply, the tollman simply nodded and then walked back over the bridge to hide in his house.
A call came across the canal from the Fishtoft crowd, "There are dykes on both sides. We'll push this side in, and you push your side in, and we will meet in the middle." There was a rousing cheer from the crowds on both sides and they set to work. The dyke mounds were freshly dug and not yet packed down under their own weight, so with a hundred shovels on each side, the work of filling in the ditch went quite quickly. It was always much more work to dig a ditch than to fill one in.
It was no time at all before a twenty foot stretch was completely filled in and the two sets of villagers met in the middle. There were handshakes all around and pots of ale were shared while they caught their breath. Next they began expanding the filled stretch from twenty feet into thirty, then forty, and that was about when the tollman came running towards them and told them, "I have sent my boy to fetch the Boston watch. What were you thinking, you fools. I just hope you all have enough coin to pay the bonds that will keep you out of Boston gaol."
Both sides ignored the man and kept pushing the mound of silt into the canal. By the time the Boston justice and his constables arrived, at least a hundred yards of canal had been filled in, which was the minimum length of a football pitch. Everyone ignored the justice's protestations and kept on with their filling, so he sent a constable back to Boston to fetch other agents of the king and the engineer of this drainage canal.
When these new men arrived to bolster the justice's authority, Daniel's host began to curse long and hard. "I thought he was in London. Dammit, now there will be hell to pay."
"What? Who?" Daniel asked.
"Rob Ritchie, the effin Earl of effin Lindsey. The king's chief agent on this drainage project. The man who hired the engineer."
Daniel was about to ask which of the men was the Earl, but he didn't need to for it was obvious by the quality of the horse that one of the men was riding. Daniel's advice to the village elders was, "Ignore him, but stop any more filling and start the game right away." They agreed with the advice and began yelling the same to the men who had organized the match.
Eventually a man produced the ball, and the game began with a simple high kick into the center of what used to be a canal. Immediately twenty young men from each village raced towards the ball and the game was on. The elders had moved off the pitch and were walking over to stand closer to the bridge, and Daniel followed them. If there was any trouble it would come from the bridge.
"I like a game of twenty aside,” Daniel remarked after cheering a good long run and a thumping tackle. "It makes for an exciting game. Thirty aside is too many." Two little girls brought him a goose liver pie. Now that the canal filling was done and the game had begun, the village women were getting on with the other necessity of a village match, the treats. The pie had a feather light pastry and a touch of fennel and was delicious. He said so to the little girls, and they giggled and gave him another of their mother's pies, and then continued their rounds handing out pies. The wee ones looked so cute in their Sunday pinnies carrying their grown-up baskets and doing grown up work.
The justice, backed up by Earl Lindsey, rode over the bridge and began to yell at the village elders from Freiston. Most of the words were covered in spit, but their general meaning was clear enough from odd phrases like 'riot act', 'breach of the peace', 'a month in gaol', 'punitive fine', 'laws against vandalism', 'cost a fortune'. "And I want the organizers of this unlawful assembly to step forward so they can be taken back to Boston for questioning,” was the summary from the justice. He was being extra forceful to impress the Earl.
"But there is no breach of the peace, and no unlawful assembly,” Daniel interrupted. "This is just a football match. You and your men are welcome to join in. It is an open game. Or your men could challenge either of the sides. We have a spare ball if they wish to practice before they begin."
"Filling in the drainage canal was an act of vandalism."
Daniel whistled and shouted to the game's referee to have him come over and speak with them. The man handed his pea whistle to his helper, and then trotted across the common. He was a giant of a man, but a fast runner for someone so heavy set. It was his job to wade into scrimmages and to physically pull men off each other before anyone could be seriously hurt. He stood a full head taller than Earl Lindsey, and his shoulders were a foot wider.
"The Earl thinks that we should not have filled in the Canal,” Daniel told the big man.
"But, it was necessary,” the ref replied. "My position as referee is a solemn undertaking, and I am obliged to walk the pitch before any match to ensure that there are no dangerous hazards. Such hazards must be fixed prior to any play. Those are the rules. How can anyone say that the Canal was not a hazard?"
"Fool, you could have moved the pitch to one side of it or the other,” Lindsey hissed.
"But it's tradition. A challenge match between two villages is always played on a grazing common, for a fifty running men would churn up any planting field. Besides that, a game with this many players must be played on a wider than normal pitch. I don't see the problem. Football has been played on this common for hundreds of years. I myself have been the ref on this same field for twenty." The ref winked at the elders, but only with the eye that the Earl could not see.
"You heard the referee, my Lord. The fault lies with your engineer, " an elder said politely as he made a polite bow. "He should have
run the canal along one side or the other of the common and not through the center. I see no reason for the play to stop, for the canal is already filled. Have your engineer find a different course for it."
Lindsey's engineer stepped forward. His cheeks were purple with rage as he said, "I cannot simply divert this canal around the common. The bottom of the canal runs at an exact grade. Water doesn't flow up hill you know." He turned his back to the villagers and faced his paymaster. "Pah, this is just another planned obstruction. Just another rebellion. Call in some musketeers and force them to put right the damage they have done."
"You know nothing of this place,” the elder hissed at the engineer, but then spoke more pleasantly to the Earl. "We have a right to play football, and by long tradition we play it on this common. Everyone in Boston knows that except for this foreign engineer. Perhaps, my Lord, you should have hired a local man instead of a Dutchman. The fault is not ours. A football match is not an obstruction, not a rebellion, and is certainly not an unlawful assembly. Except for the game itself, this is a peaceful gathering and well within the Laws of the Realm. Look around. There are more women and children here than men."
Lindsey stared at his man, the justice, and was exasperated by the man's silence. "Say something, do something."
"Sire, there is nothing I can do,” the justice mumbled fearfully. "What they say is correct. If I press the issue by reading the riot act over a football match, then the word will quickly spread and every village elder and justice in Lincolnshire will speak against my decision. The king would not thank us for that, for it would make him look like a fool at a time while he is in peace negotiations with the Scots. The Scots play football too. Everyone plays football."
"The Scots only think they play football,” the ref pointed out. "They run like girls in those skirts of theirs." At the jibe laughter broke out amongst the village men and that laughter was tainted with ridicule.
Like all aristos, Lindsey hated to be ridiculed. He stared angrily at his own men, the justice and the engineer and sneered. "You two, get out of my sight. I want both of you in my office at my manor at eight in the morning. Now get out of my sight." The two men turned their horses and made for the bridge. "As for you,” he pointed at the village elders, "you haven't heard the last of this." With that said he turned his huge hunter towards the bridge to follow the justice.
All of the women had drawn close to hear the arguement and when they realized that they had won, they jeered and laughed at the Earl's back. Lindsey's temper flashed at the ridicule. Some cute little girls ran up to him to offer him a pie, and without a thought to their safety he kicked his horse faster and ran them down.
On seeing the kiddies being trampled some of the women wailed, some screamed, and a few of the Wellenhay women followed Teesa's lead and grabbed up the closest spades and ran after the vicious bastard with the intention of doing him and his horse an injury.
The wave of disbelief and intense hatred at such a callous and immoral act made Daniel react without thinking. He pulled out his dragon, cocked the dog of the pistol barrel, and aimed it at the horse. All he need do is wound the horse to slow it down, and his women would catch the bastard and hack at him with the spades.
The gnarled hand of an elder pushed his gun arm down. "Nay lad. Not here, and not now. He is a favourite of the king so any injury done to him will be visited back on my village a hundred fold."
The elder was right, of course, and Daniel felt the fool, but still he could not lose his anger and his disgust at the Earl. The mother of the two pie girls was holding them in her arms and sobbing irreconcilably, so their injuries must be terrible. He went and took a good look at the kiddies and their mashed bodies so he could remember the sight for another day. "One day, one day soon," he assured the elder, "I will blow that man back to hell where he came from."
"Amen to that, and the sooner the better," replied the elder as if to seal the deal, but he did not linger to say more, but ran off in the direction of the bridge. "No, no, let them go!" he yelled over and over. He was yelling to the footballers, who had stopped the game when the kiddies had been trampled and were now running towards the Boston men to do them harm. "Let the only violence today be on the Earl's head. Let them go."
Some of the Boston watch had fallen down in their hurry to escape, and were watching in terror as the burly footballers charged in on them. The elders words slowed and then stopped the charge, and just in time. Now there was other trouble. The women of Wellenhay had caught the tollman and Teesa had pulled out her eeling knife and was making threatening motions with it like she was going to skin him alive.
"Nay girl, put the knife down. Let him go! The man is one of us,” the elder yelled to her. Once the tollman was freed, the elder asked him to fetch his cart to carry the kiddies into Boston to the physician.
The tollman agreed but added, "More should go to Boston than just the mam and the kiddies. Some of the elders should go and swear out a complaint against Lindsey for this violence."
"Why bother. No judge in Lincolnshire would ever dare to hear the case."
"Aye, that is true, but the complaint will be an official record and you'll be able to use it in your own defense, should the need be." With that, the tollman sprinted to his house to fetch his cart.
"I thought he was Lindsey's tollman?" Daniel asked the elder.
The elder explained, "He led the first rebellion against this ditch, for it carved away his orchard. He was tried and sentenced to three years, and the bond for his release was a small fortune. Lindsey paid the bond on his behalf and then commissioned him as the tollman, but that was only so he could use him as a spy."
"Effing king and his effing nobs,” Daniel cursed. "I hate how they twist good men into doing their evil." The elder nodded in agreement and then walked over to speak with the footballers. Daniel followed him.
"Since the justice and the watch are now on their way back to Boston, this match has served its purpose. I declare it a tie. Now the real work begins,” the elder told them. " You all hate this canal because of the bridge toll but the toll is not the worst of it. Dozens of smaller drainage ditches lead to this canal, and wherever the smaller ditches completely surround a field, that field will be lost to us through a claim of enclosure. We must fill in enough of the smaller ditches so that none of our common fields are surrounded. To your shovels, men, and get to work."
A footballer called out, "And once we've filled in all the smaller ditches, then should we fill in this canal downstream of the bridge, like we did upstream?"
"Umm, yes, no, wait a moment," the elder replied and then discussed it with the other elders from both villages. The consensus was no.
"Do NOT fill in the main canal downstream of the bridge!" the elder bellowed out to everyone on the common. "Plugging it above the bridge is good enough. Fishtoft has challenged us to a return match on their common for next Sunday, so next Sunday we will fill all of the small ditches that threaten their common fields with enclosure. When those are filled, then we will knock down the sluice dam that was keeping the tidal water out of this main canal. Think of it. This canal will be filled by the tides up to the bridge so we will be able to bring our small boats right up to the main road of our village."
There was silence while everyone gave some thought to these words, and then a growing murmour while they discussed them with their neighbours, and then they began laughing and cheering. Some good would come out of the drainage ditches after all. Now in a very good mood, everyone grabbed their tools and went off in groups of five and ten to make sure that all the small ditches were filled in.
* * * * *
The women had convinced six young men of Freiston families to come back with them to Wellenhay. None of them were the eldest sons, and since Freiston was now a Christian village where the eldest son inherited the family home and land, there was nothing much to keep these men at the village. The women promised them work on Wellenhay's new ships, and more. Although each of the lads likel
y told their families that the women needed their help on the oars, in truth, the wind was blowing steady out of the north, so once the sail was set, not an oar was dipped all the way across the Wash.
When the Freisburn sailed up the Great Ouse and passed Lynn's quayside, Wellenhay's four new ships had already been fetched away to the village by the clansmen. There was no reason to stop in Lynn so they continued up the river and into the channel that led to Wellenhay. Once tied up at the dock, the six new lads were immediately given a tour of the village, not so much to show them the village, as to show them to the other villagers.
"I'm envious,” old Cleff told Daniel. "Those new lads are going to be well pampered and well humped until they agree to be husbands. Ah, those were the days."
Daniel smiled at the thought of how the young folk would enjoy themselves, but in truth he was more interested in what progress had been made on the first Bermudan conversion. He stepped into a punt, steadied Cleff as he followed him aboard, and together they poled around a bend to reach the deep pool where their main ship, the Swift, and three of the ships they had just bought were anchored. They poled between them to reach the mudflats which the village used as a dry dock.
There were now two ships dragged onto the flats. One was a new one from Boston and it had men scrambling all over and under it. The other was the very first ship they had bought and its conversion was almost complete. Aboard it were a few women of various ages sewing the sails. Anso, the big man who had commanded the Freisburn while Daniel had been in the Americas, stood up from amongst the sewers, yelled out a greeting, and then slid down a ladder to reach the soggy land. "I'm glad you're both back,” he called. "Before we floated her I wanted you to inspect the fin keels."
All three men walked along the hull to look at one of the two angled keels and Cleff began thumping the hull where the keels were connected. "Seems sturdy enough,” Cleff said, but continued to thump every few inches all around it.
