by Smith, Skye
This latest messenger had brought a more public message. Odo nodded to the clerk, and the clerk turned to the small audience of officials and noblemen and announced that the Le Mans situation had been settled by treaty and not by bloodshed. There were cheers from everyone save Odo.
The clerk demanded, and got, order in the hall, and then Odo looked again at Anso and asked. "You say that the last time you saw Roland of Bayeux was in Arles."
"Yes sire. In Arles shortly after he had bought horses. We separated to come here by different routes, so I had found some other pilgrims to walk with. He sent the originals of those letters with me, and he carried some notarized copies with him. I don't know why he sent the originals with me. I do not question the decisions of Master Roland. He is very wise in the ways of the world."
Anso bowed his head as he spoke, not out of respect for the regent, but to hide his face to lessen the risk of being caught out in a lie by Odo. "I was most surprised when I asked for Roland at the palace gate, and he had not yet arrived. He should have been here a month already, what with his horses and two armed guards."
"Did you say two armed guards?" Odo asked. "So Roland of Bayeux is more of a fool than I knew. Too proud by half. How did he dress for the journey?"
"Oh very elegantly, sire. He always dressed well."
"Mounted, dressed well, and with only two guards. His foolishness and his purse will have bought him a shallow grave dug by French footpads." Odo sighed heavily and then brightened at a thought. "Well Brother Anso, at least you have brought me some good news along with the bad. Roland was useful and trustworthy, and I will miss him, but a least he had the sense to send the originals with you along the slower but safer pilgrim way."
"He was in a great hurry to bring you these scrolls, sire." Anso said, while keeping his head bowed. Bloody Roland had recognized him in Arles, which is why Roland had tried to kill him in the wild marshes of the Camargue region to the west of Arles. At this thought he tried to calm his heart for if Roland had recognized him then there was a risk that Odo may also recognize him. Luckily in Normandy he had used piss as a fixative for the dark dye that he had colored his hair and beard with. He was no longer a blonde, and no longer looked like a Saxon, at least, so long as the dye lasted.
"Yes, of course," Odo said thoughtfully. "The seals on the letters were broken. I presume that you have read them."
"Master Roland broke the seals on the letters himself, so that he could copy them. He copied them personally, and then had a Cardinal notarize them as being identical. I admit to the curiosity of glancing at them, but sire, I do not speak or read Latin. That is why Master Roland chose me to carry them."
"And you rode directly to Winchester once your ship docked, and directly to this palace. You did not stop to see friends or relatives along the way?"
"I came here directly, sire," replied Raynar, "My only friend in Winchester is Master Roland, and I was eager to see him. To bring him his scrolls. To gain my reward and a comfortable bed." He could feel that he was about to be dismissed, but dismissed to what? A dungeon, a locked bedroom, the kitchen for some food, or complete freedom?
"You need a to bathe and to rest. We will speak again soon." He snapped his fingers to bring a chamberlain forward. The chamberlain bowed, and Raynar bowed with him, and they backed away from Regent Odo.
The room he was shown to was quite nice, but cold. In England it was impossible to keep stone buildings warm. He could understand stone defensive walls, and even stone meeting halls, by why would anyone in their right mind live in a stone house here in England. There was no guard at the door of the room, but the chamberlain did lock him in when he left. There was no bar on the inside of the door, and this worried him.
He sat on one of the two stools and looked longingly at the feather bed. No, he would go nowhere near the bed until he was clean. Instead he leaned his elbows onto the bench type table, cradled his head in his hands, and closed his eyes.
He awoke to a room full of young women. Kitchen women. They were putting down trays of food and drink, and dragging a half barrel into the room, and relaying buckets of warm water. The chamberlain oversaw it all, and when the women were finished, they filed out of the room and the chamberlain locked the door again.
* * * * *
The next morning, after Anso was clean, fed and rested, the chamberlain showed him into Odo's quarters, or at least the outer chamber of his quarters. The bulbous, ugly bishop stared at him from across a heavy table. He did not speak until the chamberlain had withdrawn and even then he spoke in a whisper as if the walls had ears.
"You come to me from Rome dressed as a monk, and carrying the papers that belong to my priest Roland, yet curiously you have an archer's calluses on your bow fingers and you have not learned Latin. You will explain all of this to me."
Again Anso was so happy he had practiced answering every question he could dream of. He must not stumble or be inconsistent with his answers, his lies. He answered seemingly without thought, "I am not a monk, but an archer, sworn as bodyguard to Roland for whenever he traveled. He dressed me as a monk pilgrim, and sent the originals with me because he trusted my skill as a fighter and as a survivor. It is because I am not a monk that I cannot read or write, which was another reason he chose me over one of his milksop clerical staff."
"And what do you think has happened to Roland?"
"Sire, I do not want to be disrespectful of my master."
"Your master is not here," Odo raised his voice slightly. "You will answer my questions. Always, and completely, and truthfully."
And so it went on, question after question, questions overlapping other questions, answers overlapping other answers. Anso kept his head, and kept to the answers he had practiced. Finally, after almost an hour, Odo stopped talking and bent over a square of paper and signed it with his name and his signet, and then handed it to Anso with the instructions that he was to take it to the captain of the guard at the end of the corridor.
Anso did as he was told. Odo had handed him the paper without folding it or rolling it, and had handed it to him face up. He did not look at the paper except for the barest of glances. Once the door was closed behind him, he purposefully turned the wrong way in the hallway, and during the confusion that created, he scanned the paper quickly. It was an order to execute him, written in Latin. He felt sick to his stomach. Was this the end of him, or just another test of his story?
It was a difficult hour spent in the guardhouse with manacles around his wrists and ankles, but he had resolved to continue to pretend that he could neither read nor write. He kept asking the captain for an explanation, for a reason why he was in manacles. The captain made no reply. When the captain left, he asked the guards. They just snickered and pretended to pull up on an imaginary hangman’s noose. It may have been the longest hour of his life.
* * * * *
* * * * *
The Hoodsman - The Second Invasion by Skye Smith
Chapter 3 - A message through John in Winchester in March 1082
After an hour of fearing for his life, Anso was led to the palace gate, and released from his manacles, and was told to leave the palace and to never come back. Now what? Was this another test? If so then he would be watched by Odo's spies. Damn, he had carried only his small decoy purse with him to the palace. His real purse was buried with his weapons in a woods a mile towards Southampton from Winchester's gate. The only weapon he had with him was a kitchen knife, his Valkyrie knife.
Despite what was good for Anso, what Raynar needed to do was to get vital messages to Canute in Denmark and to Robert the Frisian in Flanders. John Smith still lived in Winchester. John could easily put speed to such messages. Unfortunately, in the role of Anso, he could not risk leading Odo's spies to John's house.
He must never forget that to Odo he was Anso, not Raynar. Yesterday Anso had rented a horse to hurry the trip from Southampton to Winchester, and that horse was to have been turned in at a public stable here in Winchester. It was
already overdue. He turned back to the palace gate, and yelled to the guards that he had arrived on a rented horse and he needed it back.
Once he convinced them to fetch the ugly rented horse, he asked the guards for directions to the stable. Anso was owed the surety deposit on the horse, so of course he would return the horse before doing anything else. Odo's spies would be watching to see if he took the horse to the stable here in Winchester, or returned it in Southampton, or used it to get as far from Odo as possible.
Of course he was still being tested by Odo. The first test was to see if he could read. This test was to see if he was a spy working for someone else. Instead of riding directly to the stable, he played the role of Anso again, a man who had told Odo that he knew no one in Winchester. He purposefully took a few wrong turns and asked directions to find his way. This gave him the chance to see who was following him. Two on horseback, hanging back, and two on foot, staying close.
The stable was busy. The stable master held back some of the deposit because the horse was overdue. Raynar didn't care, but as Anso he had to argue. They almost came to blows over the small sum. Meanwhile he kept looking around to see the effect of the pushing and arguing on his watchers. Would this convince them that he was not a spy. A spy would never bring attention to himself for an amount so small.
The stable was close to the south gate to the city. The two mounted watchers had positioned themselves between him and the gate. Raynar didn't care. He could not flee the city until he got a message to John. John who had shares in dozen's of carts that worked in and around Winchester. Carts which all used John's metal hubs so that they could be pulled by horses rather than oxen. He switched his attention from the watchers to the wheels of the passing carts.
The first metal hub he noticed signaled the end of his arguement with the stable master. With an angry shrug and a rude gesture he turned his back on the stable and walked beside the cart and called up to the carter, "How about a lift into the center?"
"Get stuffed," the carter called back.
"Too good for honest folk then," Anso called back. "You must have golden chains shoved up your arse." The use of the word 'gold' with the word 'chain' in the same thought was a common recognition signal between brothers of the Hood. Most of John's carters were hoodsmen.
"Nasty sod, ain't ya," the carter replied, "all right, then, climb up."
Anso climbed into the back but did not move forward to sit beside the carter. Instead he sat behind him with his back to him so he could watch the spies. "Do you know wee John and Marion?"
"Aye," replied the carter, without turning around.
"I'm being watched by Odo's men so I can't go to him. Will you take him a message, once you are sure you aren't followed."
"Aye"
"Tell him how we met. Tell him that I am being watched by four of Odo's spies. Two mounted and two on foot. I will spend the night at the pilgrim's barn behind Old Minster. Tell him to send someone he trusts absolutely," Anso could think of nothing else to say. "Do I need to repeat it?"
"No Ray. I've got it. I didn't recognize you without your bushy beard and with that dark hair. You look a right Norman burke. Not until I saw a bit of your silk shirt did I close my eyes and listened to your voice. Do you want me to gather some of the lads and do for them spies?"
"No, the spies must not be hurt. All you need do is to carry that message to John, but make sure that you aren't followed." With those words, Anso clambered to the back of the cart and leaped down while it was still moving. The cart had been filled with rough cut limestone blocks, and he had to brush the white dust off himself.
The cart moved on, but not far. There was a massive building sight to one side of Old Minster. Some bloody Romanized bishop was wasting a fortune by building a gigantic new church, rather than using the coin to do some good for his flock.
* * * * *
"Go way," he hissed at a man stepping over him, probably on his way to the latrine. After spending last winter on the Adriatic Sea, he had forgotten how damp and cold England could be in winter. Luckily the pilgrim barn was an old building and therefore not built of stone, but of wood and wattle and thatch. Despite that, the pilgrims, all wrapped in their funky wool cloaks, were crowding inwards closer and closer to each other as the night progressed, just to stay warm.
The man had dropped something as he stepped over, and something small but heavy landed on Raynar's own funky wool cloak. It felt like a coin so he reached an arm out of the warmth and found whatever it was with his hand. Ow, it had a sharp edge. He pulled it close to his face. One of John's arrow points. Heavy and deadly.
By raising his head just slightly he could see over the next sleeping body, and follow the form of the man who had stepped over him. He was heading towards the latrines out back. He waited until everyone was back to sleep again, and then he shimmied in the direction of his feet. There was a space there between feet. A stepping space like a corridor between the rows of sleeping bodies. Silently, and without brushing against any of the mounds of funky wool, he followed it.
There were animal hides hung in the doorway instead of a door, so that opening and closing them would not wake others. Once through the hides he stopped and looked around. There was a hiss from the right, the side towards the building site. He followed the hiss. Then there was another hiss from inside a workers shed. The man who had stepped over him was waiting in a shadow. He whispered, "Go inside, I'll keep watch out here."
No sooner had he stepped inside the shed, than he was hugged by a giant of a man. He accepted the hug until the crush made him fear bruises, so he told the giant, "John, I'd love to dance more. I'd love to drink ale at your house and hug Marion, but it cannot be. You do not know me. You cannot be seen with me."
"Yeh, we figured that. Whatsup Ray."
"You must get a message to Hereward, and from him to Robert the Frisian and Canute. Listen closely. Odo wants to become the new Pope in Rome. Shhh, let me finish. He has been sending church treasures from England to Rome to pave his way to the throne.
This year, maybe soon, he will leave England with the rest of the treasure and with many of the Norman lords that work for him here, and their garrisons. Canute and Robert must not invade the Danelaw until they hear that Odo has left England. Do you understand. If they time it right, they will be able to land unopposed and take York and London without a fight."
"But what about that bastard Conqueror. He won't allow Odo to leave England undefended."
"On the way here I shot William in the ass with a poisoned arrow. He will be sick and sore and unable to ride until someone heals him."
"Why didn't you just kill him?" John asked. "You've been trying to for years."
"Because dead, Odo would stay in England and use his army to claim the throne. If the Conqueror is alive but weak, Odo will leave England and use his army to claim the throne in Rome."
"But he could die, couldn't he, from your poison I mean," John's voice was all hope. "What if I actually went into a church and prayed for him to die?"
"He won't die unless his physicians bleed him to death. Do you understand the message?"
"I understand. It will be on its way at first light."
"Thanks, John. Sorry I can't talk longer, but I can't risk being missed." With that Raynar tried to wrap his arms around John's shoulders, but couldn't reach around their girth, so he just left his best and oldest friend standing alone in the work shed.
* * * * *
For the rest of the night he hardly slept. Despite the snoring and farting and shifting and funk of the crowd, he would have slept if not for his mind going around and around in circles. The problem that kept him worried and awake was not what Anso would do next, but what would be acceptable for Anso to do in Odo's eyes.
It was not his logic that finally solved the problem, but his spine, complaining about the cold drifting up from the floor. Anso had been making a good living in Rome, so he wouldn't stay in England sleeping on straw for the winter. He would ret
urn to Rome.
Over a free breakfast of thin oat gruel with bits of beef intestine and some kind of green leaf floating in it, he spoke to other pilgrims. By the time the pilgrims were pushed out of the barn for the day, he had joined with a party of pilgrims leaving immediately for Southampton and then Rome. There were ten of them, mostly aging men who had left their shops or farms in the hands of their grown sons.
It didn't matter to him which route they took, so he asked few questions. They accepted him as soon as he showed them the small cross he wore around his neck. The pilgrim cross given to him by the Abbey in Brugge. The encoded cross that assured him of good treatment along pilgrim routes.
An hour later they were approaching the south gate of the city, on their way to Southampton to find passage across the Manche. Anso never made it through the gate. One of Odo's spies was speaking to the guard at the gate, and Anso was pulled out of the party, and bound at the wrists and marched to the palace.
The short distance to the palace was the longest walk of Anso's life. Had they found him out? Had they found out about John? Such fears flooded his mind. When he was pushed inside a guard room very close to Odo's quarters, his fears increased. There he sat for two hours, not knowing, and expecting the worst.
When he was finally shown into Odo's outer chamber, he was a bundle of nerves. Luckily Odo expected real folk to grovel up to him, bowed over, and not look up, as if to bare their necks for the slash of a sword. It meant that everyone summoned to appear before Odo was nervous and fearful. No one noticed his nervousness. As for Raynar, his greatest fear was that he had been seen with John, and cost he and his family their lives.
"Did I give you leave to return to Rome?" Odo's voice bellowed.
"No, sire," Anso replied in a shaky voice.
"Well now you have it. You will carry two letters to Rome for me and hand them to no other than the Pope himself. My letters are rolled inside your map pipe. If you leave immediately and hurry you will catch up to your pilgrim party before Southampton. The Pope will pay you well for the delivery, perhaps even a house in Rome. Now be gone."
