Finally, on the 3rd August after meeting with the tradesmen and making the agreed payments, Anne met with the house staff and advised Frithswith that she would not be retained as cook as both her culinary skills and temperament were lacking. The cook was paid off and Aitkin instructed to find another cook to commence when they returned, with Aitkin being given a purse of pennies for the next three months wages for himself and his children. After leaving the house they collected the apprentice glassmaker and the metalworker, who rode on a small cart pulled by a donkey that carried the purchases which to were being taken to Essex. They departed from Aldgate at mid-morning, each man leading a spare horse, on what would be a leisurely but uncomfortable two day ride to Thorrington. It had started to rain heavily.*
CHAPTER TWELVE
THORRINGTON AUGUST 1067
The next two days spent on the road were wet and uncomfortable. Alan rode wearing a large square of oiled cloth with a central hole for his head and a leather wide-brimmed hat, which together kept most of the rain off his upper body, although water ran down the back of his neck. His woollen trews were soaked and rubbed uncomfortably against his legs as he rode. Anne, her maid and Leof travelled in the cart, with another large piece of oiled cloth keeping most of the rain off them. The others rode soaked and miserable, sitting like wet sacks on their mounts.
They saw few other travellers in the Great Forest. The huge beech, oak and birch trees, resplendent in their summer foliage, formed a virtual canopy over the winding and now muddy track that formed the roadway. Water dripped from the trees and lay pooled in the ground from the constant rain.
The horsemen rode at the edge of the road on the firmer ground, while the poor cart-horse plodded on up to its hocks in mud in the middle of the track. Even after emerging from the Great Forest traffic on the road was slight as most travellers were clever enough to wait for better conditions before travelling.
When on the afternoon of the second day they rode into Thorrington they saw a cog, a small trading vessel, floating on the Alresford Creek. Like most of its kind it was a single-masted ship, rather short at sixty feet at the waterline, wide and shallow-drafted, rounded towards both ends and with a stern-mounted steering-oar. At the moment the ship was partially empty and rode high, showing above the waterline five strakes each of a plank of oak twelve inches wide.
Unusually for such a ship it was fully decked rather than having a half-deck, making it a proper sea-going vessel. Orvin had kept his word and also sent a good crew. These simple ships were usually manned by a small crew of three, but for this longer and more difficult voyage he had recruited a crew of six, including an experienced trading captain named Bjorn from Oslo, who claimed in his many years of sailing, both Viking and trading, to have sailed as far as the Levant. Orvin’s letter highly recommended the man and attested that he had the usual good navigation and sailing skills of his people. He also mentioned that Uncle Lidmann had made arrangements with an agent in Exeter and that the required tin ingots had been bought and were awaiting collection.
Both Anne and Alan were taken with Bjorn’s gruff no-nonsense manner, long red hair and weather-beaten features. He expressed himself delighted with the ‘Zeelandt’, declaring it as a “trim and weatherly ship, and as good as any of its kind I’ve seen.”
Orvin had also sent six young men, described as ‘being of good repute and looking for adventure,’ to act as guards in addition to the six crewmen.
Knowing Alan’s intentions, Baldwin had for the last week been training all the men with the short-sword (except Bjorn, who had his own single-handed battle-axe), with Warren training them on the four crossbows that they had in the armoury. Some of the newly purchased cross-bows would also form part of the equipment for the ship when they arrived.
Alan had given up on his idea of putting war-boats to sea, as that would not protect his ships on the high seas or on foreign coasts. When Alan explained his alternative intention of arming the ships to fight off pirates Bjorn was delighted, saying that having a dozen men firing cross-bow bolts and waving swords was likely to deter all but the most determined of pirates, except of course the Norwegians and Danes.
Alan gave a small smile and told him to move the ‘Zeelandt’ further down the creek on the tide so it was out of view of the village. Bjorn gave a non-committal shrug and did as he was told.
After spending the evening and most of the morning tinkering in his work-room, Alan had what looked like a huge wooden cross-bow put on the back of a wagon and driven down to where the ship was beached on the low tide. Baldwin, Warren and Aldwin tagged along to see what was happening, but Alan gave instructions to all the other villagers to stay away.
“What’s that?” asked Anne.
“That’s one of the ballistae I’ve been telling you about,” replied Alan, as he had the machine dragged across the mud on wooden boards and then hoisted onto the foredeck of the ship, where it was bolted in place. Several small barrels and two dozen spear-like projectiles, most with an enlarged head about eighteen inches long and four inches wide made of absorbent lambs-wool, were carried across to the ship. He had a dozen wooden boxes and crates set up along the shoreline, some sitting just in the water. One box made of four-inch thick oak was placed 200 paces away.
The dozen crew members looked intrigued.
“You pull on these spokes, which puts torsion on the bow arms like this. Then you load the bolt like this.” Alan slipped a plain metal rod four feet long and two inches wide into the slot. “You adjust the sights like this, which give you the range- although it fires with a very flat trajectory so a little inaccuracy doesn’t matter, and you pull the trigger, like this.” With a loud ‘thunk!’ the ballista discharged and the thick wooden box disappeared in a shower of splinters. “It has a 500 pace range,” he concluded.
“Gruss Got!” exclaimed Bjorn. “Not even Vikings would take on a ship that is blowing holes in their hull like that!”
“Now, for when they are really determined!” Alan measured out equal amounts of powder from two of the small barrels into an earthenware pot about the size of a bucket and spooned in some thick black pitch, stirring thoroughly.
After recharging the ballista he took one of the large-headed projectiles. “We’ll see if this works. I’ve never done it without heating the mixture in a cauldron so that it turns into a liquid.” Alan dipped the lambs-wool into the mixture and put the projectile in place. He lit the pitch, which burnt with a dull flame, then carefully aimed at a box that was just starting to float on the incoming tide and pulled the trigger. The shot missed the box by several feet, but when it hit the water it exploded in a shower of flame that blew the box to pieces and threw burning material thirty feet in each direction.
Everybody, including Alan, was stunned. “Well, yes it did work! I didn’t think you could light a fire to heat the caldron and make a liquid on a boat in the heat of the moment when you’re under attack. The thing that you must not do is allow any water into this pot. The water causes the fire. This requires the greatest of care, or you send your own ship up in flames. What’s really good about it is that if the shot hits the target ship, they’ll throw a bucket of water on it to put out the pitch that’s on fire, and blow up their own ship.”
Bjorn looked at Alan with the greatest respect. “You are an evil man,” he said with a happy grin. “With this, I could send the entire Moorish fleet to the bottom. But I prefer the iron bolts. They’re safer and more civilised.”
Alan was a little surprised to hear a Viking calling himself civilised, but let it pass. He had the second ballista brought down and bolted onto a wagon, with the oxen and driver then being dispatched back to the village. Three of the guards practiced with the incendiary mix from the ballista on the wagon, and three with wooden spears in lieu of the more expensive metal rods from the ballista on the foredeck, swapping over after an hour.
Towards dark Alan showed the crew the procedure for cleaning up spilled incendiary powder. “Smother with dry sand and
scrape off.” He then mounted the second ballista on the stern of the ship, which with the incoming tide was now floating against the riverbank, and covered both engines with large pieces of oiled canvas. “Hopefully you’ll never need to take the canvas off,” he said to Bjorn.
“I don’t know- I wouldn’t like the voyages to be too boring!” replied the Viking with a laugh.
‘Zeelandt’ was partially loaded with a dozen barrels of whale oil, used for lighting; barrels of pickled and salted herring; bales of dried herring and a dozen barrels of Stockholm tar. The ship would have to be reloaded at Exeter when the two tons of tin ingots were added, which would be placed at the bottom of the hold as ballast. On return she would carry 160 barrels of fine French wine, twenty tuns.
Unfortunately, with the lateness of the season she would only get in one voyage before being laid up for winter. Bjorn sailed at midnight to catch the tide.
The glazier and metalworker both finished their work the next day and departed together on foot on the road back to London.
Orvin had sent word of the other boats that had now returned. These were the ‘Birgitta’ from Danzig and the ‘Stormsvale’ from Lubeck. The crew that had sailed to Hamburg had sold the ship and cargo as instructed, but had been unable to buy a suitable ship and had hired another ship to bring them back to Ipswich. Orvin had arranged a crew and cargo of wool and fabric to Bergen for the ‘Stormsvale’, with an intended return cargo of herring and whale oil. ‘Birgitta’ needed some work to make her fully sea-worthy, as she was from the eastern Baltic and only had a half-deck. Due to the coming of autumn and the imminent onset of the storm season, Orvin had dispatched ‘Stormsvale’ to Bergen, with a stated hope in his letter that this was acceptable.
He also advised that the net amount received from the sale of the three ships and cargos, after allowing the cost of purchase of the two replacement ships and his percentage was?1,927 15/ and 3d. This was in addition to the invested profit from the sale of the first ship and the financing of the ‘Zeelandt’ voyage.
Anne spent an enjoyable evening going over the figures and calculating that their current worth, excluding the value of the land that they held, was?3,010 5/ and 6p in cash, three substantial trading cogs, two with cargos in transit and eight longboats sitting in Barfleet Creek doing nothing. Which she then proceeded to nag Alan about. Each ship was worth?50 and was sitting there doing nothing.
Alan had spent the evening going over the manor accounts for the harvest which had just been completed, which he was sure that Anne would eventually get to. It had been a good summer harvest with above average yields.
Alan’s one third of the village’s cultivated land had yielded twice as much grain and hay as the usual full year harvest from the two field system, although Kendrick’s theft made the validity of the previous figures questionable. The autumn crop in the second field was likely to sprout at any time, given the heavy rain that they had received. Alan had also instructed that the land just cleared at Thorrington of the summer crop be mown for what hay remained, and ploughed and planted with alfalfa. This would be the fallow-field next year and it would be interesting to see what an early start would have on its use for grazing the following year.
Then he examined the training records of the soldiers, both the full-timers and the fyrdmen, sorting who to talk to- Hugh, Baldwin, Warren, Roger, Owain or Brand- for confirmation as to which troops either deserved promotion or required additional training. Owain called in and gave a personal report that all the contracted longbows had been received and that the training meant that they now had 50 archers who could hit a man-sized target at 200 paces half the time, with half of the men being able to do better and at longer range.
“You really enjoy dealing with that merchant stuff, don’t you,” Alan asked Anne, watching her go over the business accounts by candlelight as they ate a late supper.
“It’s fun, and as a merchant’s daughter I like to turn one shilling into two- three or four times a year, so at the end of the year each shilling is worth a pound. It’s like a game and whether you won is determined by how much is in your strong-box. Owning assets confuses things and creates responsibilities. You like to do your ‘lord of the manor’ and your ‘warrior leader’ things as well, don’t you?”
“Yes, but that’s my responsibility and what I am. I’m happy for you that the merchant expeditions seem to be working out, and I don’t have the traditional aversion to merchants that most ‘nobles’ do.” Here he pulled a face and placed a derogatory stress on the word ‘noble’. “But frankly it doesn’t particularly interest me, although the money is helpful in paying for what I want to do.”
“And what do you want to do?” asked Anne.
“Right now, take my wife to bed and spend the whole night making fierce love, After all, we do need an heir.”
Anne grinned shamelessly and said, “You must admit we have been trying hard these last few months and I’m not sure you are ‘up’ to it. But let’s give it a few more tries,” she said as she stood and placed her land on her lover’s arm and walked toward the bedchamber.
Autumn passed in a period largely of idleness on the part of Anne and Alan. Alan instructed that on his land the usual autumn slaughter of animals would be abbreviated to the minimum and that some of the additional harvest of grain and hay would be fed to the animals over winter. He was keen to build up his sheep, cattle and swine herds, and the annual autumn slaughter prevented this. The horse studs had performed well, and a new generation of larger and stronger animals were on the way and would be ready for use in two to three years time. He told Anne to shut up about the longboats, they were doing no harm beached in Barfleet Creek and he had some ideas about future use.
With the harvest gathered the village-folk were working at a slower pace, threshing and winnowing the grain. Men used flails to beat the heads of grain of wheat, barley, rye and oats that were in turn spread on the stone-flagged threshing floors. This was then swept up and winnowed by the women and older children, placing the grain/chaff mixture on large flat trays then tossing the grain into the air to allow the breeze to blow away the chaff, with the clean grain then being placed into the several village granaries, including that located in the bailey of New Hall.
Chaff was placed in bags. Straw was made into haystacks. Vegetables were dried and placed in sacks, particularly beans and peas. Other vegetables were placed in cool dry baskets or in salted brine. Herbs were gathered and dried. Root vegetables were dug up, cleaned and placed in dark dry cellars against use in the coming winter.
Livestock was driven to market, particularly the cattle. A few cows were slaughtered and pickled as corned beef or smoked as jerky. Some swine were sent to market, others were slaughtered and cooked, pickled or smoked as ham, bacon or spiced smoked sausages, or more rarely as the more exotic delicacies of northern Europe. Sheep, which had been shorn previously, were corralled and about half their number either sold at market or slaughtered for food. Winters in East Anglia were often bitter and protecting and feeding livestock was difficult, so much of the village livestock was sold or killed each autumn. Fish were caught and smoked or pickled. Fruit was dried or preserved as jam, or occasionally in the case of the New Hall preserved in olive oil, honey or was candied, Anne taking advantage of the items she imported.
Winter was coming and the main effort of the Hundred was to ensure that there would be adequate food to see them through to the following harvest. Alan also had additional shelters built for the extra livestock he intended to retain over the winter.
Anne, with a free hand from Alan whose only instruction was ‘diversify’ based on the advice he had received from Orvin, bought ‘futures’ in wool and tin with part of the available funds, and a minority stake in a tin and copper mine in Cornwall. Alan couldn’t understand the concept of buying wool or tin that didn’t yet exist, but let Anne go ahead as she seemed to know what she was doing and was using only a small part of their available capital for this speculative vent
ure.
September brought a shortening of the days. Sunrise was half past five in the morning and sunset at seven in the evening. With the pressure off and most men trained, and to not make an issue of the number of men he had under arms, he transferred ten huscarles to Ramsey, where Hugh was also training ten apprentice Wolves and ten of the sons of the local thegns in cavalry tactics. Ten Wolves and Warren went to Bradfield, and another ten to Brand at Great Oakley. This kept the former estates of the Kemp brothers well under control and didn’t tax the accommodation facilities of any manor.
Alan retained ten trainee Wolves and ten huscarles. Each manor also acted as a training site for its own fyrd members and those of other villages. The fifty longbowmen had completed their training and returned into the local communities, only reappearing two mornings a week for training and practice. Between his own eight manors Alan had 250 properly armed and reasonably trained fyrdmen and expected to be able to count on a further 200 from those villages that had fought at Wivenhoe earlier that year, and whose thegns had received weapons and armour as part of their booty.
With the slowing of the labours of the agricultural year and the completion of the traditional task of fruit-tree pruning, Alan had the geburs of Wivenhoe prepare a defensive bailey, or burgh, at the village against future attack by the Danes and all the peasants of Wivenhoe assisted.
They were reluctant to do this, but Alan pointed out their traditional labour obligations to build and maintain the burgh (fortified place) of the village and that the work was for their benefit as there would be no manor lord in residence. The work involved digging a six-foot deep ditch around an area at the edge of the village, about an acre in size, the spoil being used as breastworks with a palisade of wooden stakes mounted above, to give the peasants a place of retreat if unexpected attack came.
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