by Smith, Skye
They waited in silence until Waltheof had gathered his weapons and had left the longhouse.
"The Normans will not yet know that I just stepped off a ship with four wolfpacks. Should I take them and capture the bailey at Cambridge, or do we trust the breaks in the causeways, and the control our ships have over the waterways to stop him?" asked Raynar.
"He can occupy Cambridge without breaking the peace, whereas if we take it we break the peace," replied Hereward. "Even if there is fighting in Ely, I would prefer the peace hold together for the rest of the Danelaw. It serves us better if there is no fighting at Huntingdon, Bedford, Spalding, Peterburgh or Burna. It serves the folk better if all of Lincolnshire can farm in peace this season."
The rest of the men agreed.
"No problem. We can hold Ely for ever if need be, so long as we do not run out of arrows." stated Raynar.
"We would be hard pressed to hold Ely against a fleet," Hereward pointed out. "We must send messages to Sweyn and ask him to keep William's ships away from the Wash."
"Should we call some men back to Ely from their villages?" asked Raynar. "The wolfpacks that returned with me will now want leave to go visit their families and villages. I cannot deny them."
"Let them go," replied Hereward. "It will take few men to hold Ely so long as we are not attacked by a fleet. And in any case, it is better for the folk if the hoodsmen and their bows are spread out across the Danelaw to secure each village and ensure that the peace is kept. If the Normans try to raid Danelaw villages this year, they will be met with heavy arrows rather than with timber axes."
Thorold was listening to strains of singing floating on the breeze. "Since there is nothing more we can do until William comes, I suggest that we join the feasting."
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The Hoodsman - Ely Wakes by Skye Smith
Chapter 30 - Keeping the Conqueror out of Ely in May 1071
The men in the three punts were using poles rather than oars so that they could glide silently in the still waters. There was no talking amongst the three bowmen in each punt. The eel fisherman in the first punt was giving directions by hand signals. The mist was white and thick and cold.
The eelman held up his hand and those with the poles stopped pushing. The punts were eventually still. The bowmen all had heavy arrows nocked and were peering through the mist, but there was nothing to see but the shadows of high rushes.
They listened again. The sound of horses was from the left and the eelman pointed them that way. Young Raynar was getting a headache from the glare of the sun on mist. All the bowmen were wearing the brimmed hats used by the eelmen to keep the sun from their eyes, but even that did not help much.
The eelman held up his hand again. The punts coasted. He was pointing straight ahead. There was the bank of the Roman causeway. The pole men gave one last tiny push to turn the punts broadside. The sounds of hoofs and voices were louder now, and then louder still.
Raynar started to make out some words. He turned his ear and forced himself to think in French. A bodiless voice was saying, "Just another hundred paces. They have pulled apart the causeway and have scattered the stones into the bog. The gap is perhaps only twenty paces, but it may as well be the Manche. They have a watch tower on the other side with bowmen, but so long as we do not try to cross they do not shoot. Our men talk to theirs. Trade insults and jests."
Now a second bodiless voice spoke, "Have you tried filling the gap?"
"We lost ten men to arrows as soon as we tried that."
"When they had Cambridge under siege, how did they cross the gap?" asked the second.
"They had a bridge deck built onto two small barges which they pulled away when they did not need to cross. Since we put guards on the causeway, the barges have disappeared. They must have floated them closer to Ely."
The bowman next to Raynar touched his shoulder and gave him a questioning look. The other men were looking too. The horsemen were leaders, why not kill them. Raynar motioned them to be still and silent.
"This fucking fog. I rode all this way and I can see nothing," said the second voice.
"There is nothing to see," replied the first, "As I said, the causeway has been broken. It is water channels and bog all around. There is no passing the gap when there are bowmen on the other side, just as they cannot pass with us here. Ten archers can hold the causeway against a thousand."
"His majesty will not be pleased with my reports. Is there no good news I can tell him? No other way?" asked the second.
"There are three causeways. They have broken all of them. This Akeman Street runs directly from Cambridge to Ely so it may as well be the one we use. If we had small boats we could try to outflank the guards, come up behind them."
"Excellent," said the second voice in a lighter tone. "There must be boats in Cambridge. We can outflank them by boat, and have workers and carts loaded and ready to fill the gap once the archers are slaughtered."
"Sire, I have neither the authority nor the men to try this plan. It would be a breach of the peace."
"The king will be in Cambridge tomorrow. He wants a plan. This is a plan. He is bringing a thousand men and he will want to use them quickly to make use of the surprise."
There was more, but the voices were growing too quiet to hear over the noise of the hoofs.
Raynar motioned to the pole men to back out, and to back out silently. They did not speak until they were back on the Ely side of the gap. "What did they say?" asked the bowman next to him.
Raynar shushed him and told him to call the wolfpack together. The man cupped a hand to his mouth and held his nose, and the eerie sound of a loon drifted from him and out through the mists. Almost immediately his men began to gather.
Once all thirty were present, Raynar told them, "William arrives at Cambridge tomorrow with a thousand men. There is a good chance that very soon, within three days, there will be a surprise attack on this gap in the street and the tower that defends it. They will send men in boats to land behind us, towards Ely and then slaughter us so that they can fill in the gap."
Wulfric, the Wolfshead, laughed aloud, "I hope they come in good boats. We could always use more."
Another man spoke out , "They won't be wearing armour. They will be fearful of drowning if they fell in. We won't even need to use heavy arrows."
"We can track them by sound and then pick them off when they try to land. Block their retreat with our own punts," said another.
"They'll never come," said another, "what bugger what knows the Fens water is going to guide those mother rapers."
Raynar called the eelman to him. "If you were looking for boats and a guide in Cambridge, where would you go."
"The alehouse in the market, nowhere else," replied the eelman.
"Are the eelmen there all Danes?" asked Raynar.
"Danes, Frisians, Angles. Most of them have stopped selling in Cambridge since the siege was lifted. Fuckin Normans always pay too little and then thump you if you complain."
"Would they know the bridge with two arches? The next bridge towards Ely on this causeway."
"Course," replied the eelman, "the deep water under the arch is an eel pool."
"How would you like to take a load of eels to Cambridge tomorrow?"
"Wouldn't," the eelman replied, "long way to punt to get short coin for good eels."
"What if I paid for the eels first."
"Come orf it Raynar, speak clear now. What do you really want me to do?" asked the eelman.
"I want you to take a handful of Norman silver for guiding the Normans to the two arches and a handful of my silver to not guide them back."
"Ahhh," said the eelman thoughtfully, "and if they need some of my mates too."
"I'll match what they bargain with the Normans."
* * * * *
Two mornings later, the call of a grey goose was heard in a month when there are never grey geese. Runners left the tower at the gap and whispered the warning all
the way down the causeway to Ely. Raynar had been sleeping at the tower at the gap in the causeway. He went over the plan once more with the guards and then left them to walk to the two arches.
The Cam punts slid into the muddy bank beside the two arches with an unnecessary thump. There were eight punts heavily overloaded with five or six Norman men-at-arms in each. The design of the Cam punt meant they needn't get wet feet stepping onto the bank. They were very cautious. They stayed low and sent a scout in each direction to look down the causeway. They saw nothing. They all smiled at each other and started to whisper, but the knight hissed them to silence.
The eelmen backed their punts away from the bank. This was according to the Norman's own plan. They were to track the progress of the Norman patrol towards the tower, and come back to the bank to take them off if things went badly.
The knight pulled himself up and onto the road bed and waited for the forty men of his patrol to follow him. He was looking at the departing punts, when he heard a sound behind him. Because he turned to face the sound he took the arrow in the chest rather than in the back.
Hidden to them when they had landed were Raynar's bowmen who had all been lying on the bank on the other side of the causeway, below the low wall that edged it. As one, all the bowmen stood and loosed at a range of less than ten paces. After two rapid shots, they dropped their bows and leaped onto the causeway with daggers drawn. The Normans all died in silence save for two that voiced half a scream before their windpipes were cut.
The bowmen now stripped the Normans of their tunics and helmets and dressed in them to look like the patrol. Quickly and silently they walked to the tower. When they got there they pantomimed and play acted as if they were slaughtering the English who were guarding the tower and the gap in the causeway. Through the mist it must have looked convincing, because they could hear the Norman watchers on the Cambridge side of the gap passing the word down the causeway.
Men and carts began arriving on the Cambridge side to unload rubble into the gap. A knight yelled to them. He wanted to talk to Delon. The bowmen looked at Raynar to translate. "He must have been the knight we killed," he told them. Again there was a call for Delon.
Raynar called back, "Delon was killed in the fighting, but the bowmen are all dead. What do you want." There was silence on the other side, and Raynar passed the word back that the wolfpack should prepare to run forward from their hides.
He did not need to give the order. The knight called again, wanting to know where the boats were. They were supposed to be ferrying more men at arms across the gap.
Raynar called back that he would send them as soon as they caught up. He walked back to Wulfric and told him to signal the eelmen to bring in the punts, and then put bowmen in each punt and in every other boat along the causeway and pole them along the causeway towards Cambridge. "When you hear screaming, find good targets on the causeway."
Raynar couldn't wait to get out of the Norman tunic. The smell of the thing was making him nauseous. He stood in the tower and watched as more and more men arrived from Cambridge with more and more carts of rubble.
They were already having trouble with the rubble. The reason the Romans had built a bridge here had been because a river channel flowed through here and created a deep pool with a soft bottom. They had just dumped the tenth cartload of rubble into the gap and the pile had not yet broken the surface of the pool. From the tower he could see the moving grey shadows that would be the punts. He heard the call of the grey goose. The punts were in position.
He gave the signal to the wolfpack. They ran forward with all their arrows and began shooting. The other side was cleared of men in minutes. From the tower, Raynar could see them running away down the causeway in panic. The two lines of carts moving slowly in each direction blocked and slowed their escape.
The wolfpack only stopped shooting when the fleeing men were out of range. Raynar was still shooting from the tower at those who looked like leaders. He wished he had John on the tower beside him with his massive bow, but John was home in the Peaks taking care of his dying father.
The fleeing men slowed when they realized that they were out of range. The knight in charge told them to head back to Cambridge. He had just given the orders when they came into range of the bowmen in the punts. The knight was killed by the first arrow.
The Normans now had no choice. Staying at the end of this causeway was certain death. To reach safety they must cross an area of open road which was in easy range of a dozen punts with two or three bowmen in each. With no other choice, they made the dash for safety and hoped that it was their neighbor that took the arrow.
Each bowman stopped when they were down to their last three arrows. There was a constant noise of wounded men, frightened men, angry men, dying men. After poling their punts to the bank, they covered each other while they collected the weapons and purses from the dead and dying. They stayed away from the walking injured and from the carters who had all taken shelter under their carts. There were yells from the punts that if the carters did not threaten the bowmen, they would not be harmed.
It took most of an hour to strip the bodies of valuables, load the punts and return to the tower. Wulfric stepped ashore with his eelman guide just as Raynar came down out of the tower.
"They won't be trying that again," said Wulfric.
Raynar called the eelmen towards him while a lad ran to retrieve his bag. He handed each eelman a purse of silver, and thanked each man sincerely. "Stay away from Cambridge. Sell your eels elsewhere."
The eelmen snickered. Did the lad think them fools.
* * * * *
"William is furious," said Waltheof. "He lost over two hundred men. What is making him so angry is that it was his own fault. It was a foolish plan and it broke the peace. Almost immediately couriers began arriving with reports of Normans being killed or at least robbed on the highways from Cambridge to London.
His lords are complaining that they fear to leave their houses because their farmers are seeing hoodsmen behind every tree. Yesterday the royal couriers bound for Lincoln were sent back to him on foot. Those are the first couriers that have been stopped since the peace began last fall."
"So now what will he do?" asked Hereward.
"His scouts have discovered the mound my men call Belsar's Hill near Aldreth. Do you know it? It must have been a Roman fort. There used to be a bridge and a causeway there to cross the River Great Ouse. He plans to build a bailey on the mound and then rebuild the bridge."
"Bugger," said Hereward, "I know the place. He must be building a cartway on top of the ancient dyke that meets the River Great Ouse there. If he builds a bailey on that mound then he will cut off the ship traffic from Ely to Huntingdon."
"Aren't you worried about him building a bridge and a new causeway? You cannot block it from the Ely end, as you do Akeman Street, because it will not exist until he builds it," asked Waltheof.
"Bah, it will take him years to build that bridge and causeway, however he can block the Ouse very quickly." Hereward was about to send Roas to find Raynar, when Raynar came through the door leading a familiar figure.
"Morcar!" Hereward exclaimed, "Morcar, you, here. We heard you were back at the palace under guard. Is Edwin with you." The once Earl of Northumbria, Morcar, came forward and grasped first Hereward by the arm and then Waltheof.
"I bring sad news. My brother Edwin is dead, murdered by Bishop Earl Odo's agents," said Morcar slowly.
"Fucking Odo," raged Raynar. "Some day I will pierce the hide of William's evil half brother. I swear it."
"Morcar, how can that be?" asked Waltheof. "You were under the kings protection."
"More than just his protection," Morcar told them. "Mathilde was well pleased with Judith's reports of her marriage to Waltheof here. She had withdrawn her objections to making Edwin her son in law. Couriers were sent to Cambridge to tell William that he could now use Edwin to bring the North under control, as he had done with Huntingdonshire.
We were at the palace, and three knights came to take Edwin to William in Cambridge. He went with them eagerly. Two days later Mathilde called me to her quarters. She had received a message from the knights that Edwin had tried to escape from them, and had been accidentally killed."
"And she believed such a report?" asked Waltheof.
"Of course not," replied Morcar. "She told me to flee. Her own couriers to William had told her that he had not sent for Edwin. She told me to flee to Cambridge and to the protection of William. She strongly suspected that the knights were Odo's men."
"And what did William tell you?" asked Hereward.
"I did not see William. I did not know if the knights were William's or Odo's. With Mathilde's help I fled towards Cambridge, but came here instead. I have been living and traveling and hiding like an outlaw. I make a poor outlaw. I was just lucky I was captured by a wolfpack and not by a Norman patrol."
"Morcar, you are welcome to join us, but you may be of more use to us if you were at Williams dining table," warned Hereward.
"Bah," said Morcar, "Edwin tried diplomacy for years. It gained him nothing but a dagger in the back. He was the diplomat, not me. I would rather fight William than eat his bread."
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The Hoodsman - Ely Wakes by Skye Smith
Chapter 31 - Burning Frisian witches near Ely in June 1071
Each day the scouts roved about in small boats to check on Williams progress with bailey and with the causeway. They had watched as the army turned the top of Car Dyke into a cartway. They had warned all ships when the army finished a crude wooden bridge across the Great Ouse that completely blocked the passage of ships. Huntingdon could no longer be reached by river from Ely or from the sea.
