by Smith, Skye
They warned the wolfpacks to stay clear of Aldreth when the bailey neared completion. They warned them again when the Normans began building a causeway by laying down rubble and logs to fill the bog and create a road surface.
Now every day they punted by to see how many more paces the causeway had been stretched. Lately it had become more dangerous. The Normans now also had scouts in small boats and they carried crossbows. Exchanging arrows for bolts was becoming a daily event.
Hereward and Raynar did not worry about the causeway. Even in a straight line it was more than five miles from Aldreth to Ely. At their fastest rate of building, the causeway would not be finished before the fall rains covered it.
By the end of May, Hereward was worried. The Norman causeway had taken a turn. It was now aimed towards the island of Haddon. Few folk lived in Haddon for it was under water in winter, but in May it was dry ground. By using the island they gained over a mile of progress immediately.
Hereward decided to attack the log causeway on the day that it would reach Haddon. That morning a Wolfpack in ten punts glided along the channel that led from Ely to Haddon. Raynar and Hereward were in the lead punt with a copy of Inka's map of the waterways. Her map was quite detailed around Haddon as the area was rich in mushrooms. As quietly as they could they moved reeds and rushes from the summer shallows so that they could take the punts around the north side of the island. The Norman boats tended to stay on the more open south side.
After a long wait, they finally heard the creaking and crunching of cart wheels on the log road, so they spread out and made their way carefully closer to the causeway. As Hereward had foretold, as soon as the causeway connected to the island, they started to move guards to it so as to build an outpost of the bailey. The traffic on the causeway was constant.
Hereward ordered half of the punts to backtrack to the island and loose many arrows at the bank where the causeway connected. The other half of the punts waited hidden in the rushes beside the causeway. They had less than an hour to wait until there were calls of alarm and screams of pain coming from the island.
The traffic near them on the causeway stopped to listen. This caused the traffic moving in both directions to thicken and slow. Then there was much calling and much panic in the thickening of men on the causeway. Men were running and riding in retreat from the island. As they watched, the effect of so much movement and weight started the logs to rock and then list sideways. Workers and men at arms and mounted men were now sliding from the causeway and into the bog with its soft and sucking bottom.
About half of the men on this short stretch of the causeway were now in the water. The rest were pushing violently at the men blocking their way off the sinking section. The men wearing armour were now using their weapons to move the workers out of their way. With good reason. If they fell into this bog, they would surely sink and drown. This was the reality of the men behind them who had slipped from the leaning, slippery, log roadbed.
Hereward had the punts back away from the causeway and back track through the channel they had cleared through the reeds and then pole as fast as they could towards Aldreth. They gave up after about three hundred paces as the channel became too clogged. Instead they turned and pushed the punts towards the causeway to give them clearer shots. The panic was calming now. The workers were telling everyone to move more slowly and not to group in one place.
That was just when the wolfpack's heavy arrows began hitting the men-at-arms. There was another panic and again the causeway sank on one side and men slipped and slid into the bog. The vision of the antics of men trying to keep their balance was like a jester's dance, or a madman's dance. It was no jest however for those that slid into the water, but the bowmen could not help but laugh.
Raynar stopped laughing first. He punched Hereward in the arm to have him pay attention. There were men at arms picking their way over the sloping causeway who were pushing prisoners in front of them. Women prisoners. Ely women. One of them was Inka. They could tell her by her striped skirt.
Hereward gave orders to kill the guards but not to send arrows close to the women. They killed one guard, but then the women and their captors disappeared from view. Raynar saw the look on Hereward's face and tried to comfort him by saying that they could trade for the prisoners.
Hereward agreed and told the punts to make for Ely with all speed. They would be taking Inka and the other women to the bailey at Aldreth. From Ely they could reach there by ship and hail the bailey to discuss Inka's price. "I wonder who the other women were?" He was worried.
* * * * *
The punt carrying Hereward and Raynar put in on the bank close to Inka's hut. As usual there were women crafting and doing business and gossiping. Hereward leaped ashore before the punt had grounded and ran to them. "Where was Inka going today and who did she take with her?"
The women pulled back from the wild looking man, but then crowded around when they recognized him. "She and two ealderwomen went to harvest mushrooms before the season ended."
Hereward and Raynar ran towards the docks. The punts carrying the wolfpack had gone there directly and they would be waiting for them. The ships captain was giving orders to cast off as they leaped aboard.
It took three hours for them to row the ship to the bridge that blocked the river at Aldreth. It had been a dry spring and the river was already as shallow as mid summer. The current was stronger than normal against them and they had to pick their channel at each bend. As they approached Aldreth the land became dryer and dryer, as did the rushes and the reeds.
They backed their oars to hold the ship against the freshening breeze that was pushing them towards the bridge. They needed to stay out of bolt range. They were lucky that with the lower water of the dry season, the current in the Ouse was pushing back against the wind. Hereward hailed the guards and told them to bring the castellan for a parley.
Raynar was shaking with excitement. William could be here making an inspection. This could be the day he kills the bastard. It was not to be. The castellan came to the bridge accompanied by two knights and with a priest as a translator.
Hereward did all the talking. He told them that he had been sent by the reeve of Ely to search for some missing ealderwomen. "We were told they were harvesting mushrooms, which would have put them near to your causeway."
The priest did all the talking. The castellan did not even open his mouth. "We have your women. They were caught using witchcraft to curse our causeway. They were working with your bowmen."
"What would you take in trade for them?" asked Hereward.
"We have been told that Earl Morcar has joined your camp. We will trade the women for Morcar," replied the priest.
"Castellan, curb your priest's tongue. He talks nonsense. He wishes to trade three grandmothers for an Earl," yelled Hereward. He could not promise Morcar without his permission.
The priest snickered. "If they are just grandmothers then why does a ship filled with men come to bargain for them. No outlaw, these are powerful witches. We have seen what they did with their spell. The causeway was twisted and broken yet without tools. Nothing less than Morcar will save them from burning."
"Burning"
"Of course. We burn witches so that they cannot escape from the grave. See there, we have the wood pile ready to light. Stay and watch if you dare," replied the priest.
On the downstream side of the bailey there was a pile of wood with three posts standing through it. They watched as Inka and her two friends were dragged kicking and fighting to the post. A crowd was starting to gather to watch the witches burn. They beat down the dried reeds and rushes to they could sit in comfort and still see.
The wolfpack wanted to attack, but the Normans were careful to stay out of range or behind cover. To attack they would have to make a landing, and they were outnumbered by ten to one by the garrison.
The Normans tied the women to the posts and the priest left the bridge to direct the burning. Raynar got off one arrow at the pries
t but it hit the pale that protected the bridge from such attacks.
The men were having trouble holding the ship against the freshening wind now, so they turned the ship so they could row forward. Thus it was easier to hold the ship against the wind, and they were ready to flee if they were attacked, but it also gave every oarsman a view of the women now tied to the posts.
The priest lashed the women with Christian words and kept asking them to convert and accept the true god. Inka spat at him. She was Freyja's woman, Freyja's seer. She called on Freyja to revenge them against the priest, and so sealed her fate. To the Roman church, Freyja was a demon and praying to her was proof of witchcraft.
The priest himself lit the fagots, but before he did he dragged the dried rushes from the top of the pile, and then ripped the clothes from the women. The workers who had built the pile and topped it with rushes out of respect for the ealders. The rushes would have created thick smoke which would have suffocated the women before they felt the pain of the flames.
"The bastard" growled Hereward and he explained to the men that because of this priest, the women would die in the agony of the flames. There was nothing they could do about it but watch.
The priest was having trouble lighting the tinder. The wind was strong and kept blowing it out. Finally he got it going and the wind blew it hotter and hotter. He backed away from the heat and stood in the only place left him by the crowd, on the rushes he had pulled from the pile.
Inka watched the priest light the fire and knew her fate was sealed. She looked at the dark eyes of the priest and he smiled a wicked grin. He enjoyed stripping her, and now he would enjoy watching her skin blister and then smoke. She hated him for his cruelty. She watched the fire climb up the dry waste from the building of the bailey. It was getting closer to her bare feet and she could feel the heat on her souls. She did not want to scream but she did. The pain was intense. The smell of her blistering feet reached her nostrils.
She tried to slide down the post to quicken her death but her bindings snagged and she stood now with bent knees. She tried to push the burning waste wood away from her with her feet, but her legs spasmed from the pain in her feet and instead of pushing the crackling and sparking wood away from her feet, she kicked out. A small pile of burning wood arched through the air and landed at the feet of the priest.
The priest looked down at the burning wood and tried to put it out with his boots, but all he did was push it into the dry rushes that he was standing on. The rushes caught fire. By rights they should have smoldered slowly and smoked a great deal, but not in this wind. Suddenly the priest found himself standing in flames. They leapt up his draped clothing and he began to run in panic, which fanned the flames. The men all around him stared at him, and stared at the burning rushes but no one moved to help him. This was the witches work, and they did not want a share of his curse.
As he ran, his flaming clothing spread the fire to the dry rushes and reeds and then the wind turned the flames into a fast moving grass fire, and then into a bush fire. It spread and swept towards the timber bridge and the timber bailey wall. Burning rushes should not have caught timbers afire, but with this wind they glowed like coals in a forge and soon both the wall and the bridge were on fire.
Men ran to get buckets to fight the fire with, but when they got to the river to dip the buckets they were hit by arrows. More and more men came to the bank with buckets, but then backed away. Anyone who dipped a bucket died almost instantly. The fire raged behind them as they backed away from the river.
The priest was wandering aimlessly and in pain. His clothing was smoking but no longer burning. He ran to the river to throw himself in the water to cool his burns and as soon as he came within range of the ship, thirty bowmen took aim at him. Hereward told them to hold their arrows. The men looked at him in wonder.
"The women have died in agony from his flames," Hereward told them. "Do not shorten his agony by giving him a quick death. He will die of those burns, but not for a week. Let him live with the same agony. Raynar will use his arrows to keep the bastard away from the cool water of the river."
The ship stayed in the river making sure no one could fight the fires. The wind stayed strong the entire time. The Normans brought their crossbowmen forward to drive the ship away, but the great range of the Welsh bows made the crossbows useless. It took three hours for the bridge and half the bailey wall to be consumed by the fire. They rowed for Ely once the wind had carried the fire to the thatch roofs within and around the bailey. Once the thatch had caught, even the buckets would not help.
* * * * *
* * * * *
The Hoodsman - Ely Wakes by Skye Smith
Chapter 32 - The betrayal of Ely in July 1071
Hereward stood before the mob and ordered them to be calm. He pointed to the infants in the crowd and told everyone to keep the peace until those with young could reach safety. Morcar's axemen stood between the mob and Ely Abbey, but without weapons. Most of the mob were women.
An ealderwoman seer spoke for the mob. "Stand aside Hereward. We have no argument with you. We have come to rid the island of these poisonous monks."
"How have they offended you? They keep to their grounds. They stay away from women."
"They burned Inka," yelled a voice from the mob and the mob pushed forward.
Hereward stood tall. "I was there, remember. These monks played no part in that. It was a Norman priest from the Roman church who lit the fires, and he burned himself and half of Aldreth with the same fire. This abbey is not of Rome or Normandy. It has been here for hundreds of years."
"We know the history of this abbey. We know it well," said the seer. "This abbey was built for only one purpose. To pollute the Frisian ways and to convert the Frisian women to foreign ways. Ely was booming when they came and they drove the folk away with their silly rules from the foreign desert god. Now it is their turn to go."
"Again I ask. How have they offended you? They are holy men here. They stay to themselves and spend most of the day praying."
"They have caused the channels to dry up and the water sickness to start ahead of its season," said a voice.
Hereward looked at the seer. "You know that is not true. The spring has been dry, which is its due after so many wet winters. When the weather is dry, it is normal for there to be more dry land and lower channels. This is a good omen, not bad. It means the harvest this year will be early and not spoil in the fields from the rain."
"That is so," said the seer to the crowd behind her, "these monks and their silly god statues have no power over the weather or the rivers. They only have power over coins and stone buildings."
"The River Great Ouse is foul. It stinks. It carries the water sickness," yelled many voices.
Raynar walked forward and stood by Hereward’s shoulder. The women in the front relaxed. They liked Raynar. He was Little John's friend. "The river is foul because of the Normans. They do not burn their dead, they bury them. They have had many dead at Aldreth and they are careless where they bury them.
They have not even taken the bodies from the drowning pools. They have build their latrines next to the river and there are so many that use them, that their foulness reaches us. Who has not seen bloated bodies float by on their way to the sea. It is the same with the shit."
"Listen to Raynar," yelled Hereward, "he always speaks with wisdom. It is the Normans that are causing the water sickness, not these monks."
"Our sacred well in Inka's garden has been fouled," said the seer. "That was not the Normans. Someone has poured slop into it. We saw a monk on the channel bank close to it."
"A hundred folk a day visit that well. It is the only pure water on the island," countered Hereward.
"It is no longer pure," the seer said. "It will not purify itself again until the fall rains. There is only one other pure well and that is in the abbey grounds."
"We will create other pure wells," said Raynar. "You can create them by circling the heads with stone and sealing
them with mortar so that the surface water does not leak into them."
"Even new wells will not purify themselves until the fall rains," said the seer.
Hereward and Raynar looked at each other. The problems of the dry weather, the water levels, and the water sickness were not new to them. They had been watching the problems get worse since Inka's death.
"Then we have a problem that we must solve. Hurting the monks will not solve it. " Hereward already knew the answer. They had discussed it with Klaes just last week. "Captain Klaes is in Lynn with his ships. He will take those that wish to leave Ely to the rich villages being rebuilt on both banks of the Humber. Many of you were born near the Humber. You know it has a better life than here at Ely. Those who wish to go with Klaes should go to your homes now and pack your children and your things."
The seer howled in anger, "So again you would have our Frisian life pushed away from our holy island of Ely by these monks. No. Never. Have Klaes take the monks and we will use the abbey as a barn." She looked around at the crowd. Folk were leaving her.
There were more reasons than the sickness and the low water and the monks to leave Ely and the folk knew them all. There were few secrets in a Frisian town. Sweyn had broken his word yet again and had accepted payment from William to abandon the protection of the Wash and instead raid the coast of Brittany.
This served William well and made Sweyn richer. William no longer had an army to worry him in the fens, and the lords of Brittany, who were aiding in the revolt against William in Maine, would now have to protect their own shores. Meanwhile, Williams ships were encroaching ever further north along the coast of Anglia and eventually they would block other ships from using the Wash. The folk knew that those that left with Klaes soonest, would leave before Norman ships were much of a risk.
The water sickness had started early. What did this portend for the true season of the sickness after the first heavy rainfalls of the fall. None of them wanted to be stuck in Ely by a Norman blockade and suffer the water sickness. Besides, Thorold's efforts to restart the farms and the villages of Lincolnshire had worked well. Many hands would be needed for this year's harvest. There was a shortage of men, so the men of Ely would drift away in harvest season. Strong women would be welcome too.
