Hoodsman: The Second Invasion

by Smith, Skye

  Odo held out a scroll pipe. Anso's own, well used, scroll pipe. He reached forward and took it, and then backed away from the Regent Bishop towards the door. He bumped into another man and had to stop and disentangle his legs from him. It was then that he heard Odo speaking to his chamberlain.

  "Do you trust the man?"

  "Roland trusted him, and he was right to do so. He came through when even Roland failed. The other copies of my letters will either beat him to Rome by a month, or will never arrive at all."

  That was all Anso heard, for then he was through the door backwards, and twirling on his heel and walking fast to catch up to his pilgrim party, and more importantly, to get as far away from Odo as he could.

  Just outside the South gate of the city an empty cart pulled alongside him. The carter flashed him a hand sign. The Hoodsman signal for friend. Anso checked the hubs on the wheels, yep, John's, and then hauled himself aboard. John's hubs not only allowed heavy loads to be drawn by horses, but when the cart was light, it could move faster than a man could trot.

  Again Anso sat in the back of the cart facing backwards, despite the limestone dust. "Thanks friend," he said over his shoulder to the carter.

  "If you're looking for your watchers, they've been held up at the gate."

  "No, I told John not to touch them," Anso was suddenly worried again.

  "Tis the gatekeepers that'll be holding them, not our men. A market vendor raised a hue and cry about theft and our men ran the cry to the close the gate just after you had passed through. There'll be no traffic through the gate until the hue and cry is sorted."

  "But how did you know I was coming?"

  "Odo's four spies have been watched since you left the pilgrim barn. I've been sitting outside the gate pretending to fix a wheel since dawn."

  A quick mile beyond the gate, Raynar asked the brother to pull over beside a wood. There he retrieved the things he had buried on his way to Winchester. His crook-bow, his fat purse, his sample of linen-cotton, his sling belt, his Venetian citizen medallion, and various bits of paper including Roland's passport signed by the Pope.

  They caught up to the pilgrim party about three miles short of Southampton, and they all climbed into the back of the cart. Just as they entered Southampton, two riders came up fast from behind, but when the saw the pilgrim party in the cart, they dropped back and followed at the same pace.

  For the first time in two days, Raynar's stomach was not churning. He sat in the back of the cart and watched the two horsemen follow him at a discrete distance. One of the other pilgrims batted at his homespun smock and asked the carter, "Why all this white dust?"

  "Blame the church," replied the carter with a chuckle. "The Bishop of Winchester has decided to build his new church out of limestone from the Isle of Wight. The largest stones are floated up the River Itchen, but that is too slow for the smaller stones, so he is paying a bunch of us to cart them. Bloody typical, eh. The harvest was bad all over the kingdom, and folk have already run out of their winter store, and what is the church doing? Building effing churches out of stone from an effing island."

  "You're doing all right by the Bishop, I'll bet." the pilgrim pointed out.

  "Aye, when he pays us. The church is as scint as the rest of us. Odo's been taxing them."

  "Is that allowed?" asked the pilgrim.

  "Did you nod off when I mentioned that it was Odo doing the taxing. No one argues with Odo, not when it comes to coin."

  Raynar was now paying attention, and asked, "How are things in the north?"

  "Don't really know," replied the carter, "but I hear rumours. Odo's pulled all the church treasures south for, umm, safe keeping, you know, in case of Danish raiders."

  "I meant the folk."

  "They say it's better there than here, cause there's few Norman lords living on their estates in the North any more, so the folk are farming for themselves. Not enough lords to even collect taxes, so they say. Means more food for the kiddies. Oye, you'll have to walk the rest of the way into Southampton. Those barges in the river are carrying my stone. Madness, eh? I ask you, what is so wrong with Old Minster that they must replace it?"

  The party all waved to the carter, and began to walk. One of the mounted watchers rode by them, while the other kept following, dismounted and leading his horse as if it were lame.

  Most of the pilgrims, including Raynar, stayed in a pilgrims hostel, while two went to Southampton dock and found them passage on a ship to Caen. Raynar would have preferred Rouen, which was closer to Flanders, but he must stay with these pilgrims for the sake of what the two watchers would report to Odo.

  The crossing was dreadful. The captain made the decision to go straight across to Caen, which meant that the longship wallowed between the waves, which created a motion that made all the passengers sick. The bilge was foul with puke and who knows what else, and the smell was making even the seasoned oarsmen bilious.

  Raynar spent almost the entire journey in the bow, where the movement of the ship was worse, but at least he was out of the smell. Once across the Manche, and even while the longship was maneuvering into the river dock at Caen, Raynar was already shouting to other ships asking where they were headed. His feet barely touched the dock before he was clambering aboard a coastal karvi heading north toward Rouen.

  * * * * *

  * * * * *

  The Hoodsman - The Second Invasion by Skye Smith

  Chapter 4 - Odo's messenger in Flanders and Frisia in April 1082

  Five days after leaving Winchester, Raynar was sitting having a private supper with Robert the Frisian, Count of Flanders, and his wife Gertrude in their palace in Brugge. And private meant just the three of them, behind closed doors. Not even Raynar's partner Hereward had been invited.

  It was so good to be home, well, one of his homes. Amongst friends again, where he could let his guard down and relax. He needed sleep, but as long as he was kept talking, his mind stayed awake. He had been talking almost non stop for four hours.

  The topics had included Venice, the Venetian galleys, the sea battle and the land battle at Dyrrhachium, the fate of the English Exiles in the Varangian guard, the fate of both armies, Rome, Odo's desire to be Pope, the communes of the south of France, the treaty at Le Mans, and the Conqueror's new wound. A royal pain in the ass.

  Gertrude had endless questions about Venice, and most of Raynar's answers began with a comparison to Brugge. Robert allowed her to dominate the questioning, but was anxious to talk politics and strategy. Eventually Raynar quietened Gertrude by showing her the half linen, half cotton cloth sample that he had carried all the way from Venice and explained the advantages of mixing the two threads. With the sample in hand, Gertrude excused herself and raced away to find her seamstress.

  Robert smiled at him, and thanked him for diverting Gertrude. "She has always wanted to visit Venice," he explained. "Unfortunately our continuous strife with Emperor Henry makes it too dangerous for her to cross the Germanies."

  "Pah, send her through Paris and then down the River Rhone. She is the mother of the Queen of France for Chri'sake. She could not be safer."

  "Raynar," Robert interrupted, "I have never heard you curse in Christian before. Has your visit to Rome converted you?"

  "It comes from pretending to be a Christian monk for months on end. I saw nothing in all of those fine churches that made me believe any less in the moon goddess of the Frisians. The most interesting Christians I came across were those of the communes of Southern France, who believe less in churches and priests than I do."

  "Oh, let's not get sidetracked by religion. Not when there is so much important news about politics. So what is your feeling about Regent Odo becoming the next Pope?"

  "Do you have a cleric in the palace who you would trust your life to? One who translates Latin."

  "There is only one who lives here," Robert watched Raynar pull some scrolls out of the same pipe that he had pulled the cloth from. Of course. He stood and went to the door and yelled
out to a servant to bring brother someone-or-other to him. He left the door ajar and rushed back to the table to look at Raynar's papers.

  Once the cleric arrived and was seated, and the door closed and bolted, Raynar passed a sealed letter to the man and told him to open it and translate it for them. The man took one look at who the letter was addressed to and at who had sealed it, and refused. "I may not open a letter to the Pope, and I may not break the seal of a bishop. I would put my soul in jeopardy."

  Raynar passed him another scroll, a slightly battered scroll, and said. "This is my passport from the Pope. You may read it if you wish, but it advises all God fearing Christians to help me in any way I ask." After saying that, Raynar pulled Odo's letter towards him and cut the seal cleanly with his razor sharp Valkyrie knife, and handed the letter to the cleric. "Now please translate it."

  Odo's letter to the Pope was a promise that he was assembling a fleet of fifty ships and twenty five hundred men, plus much church treasure, and that he planned to arrive in Rome by September. Once his men had relieved Rome from the Emperor's siege, they would discuss an orderly transition of the throne, whether Emperor Henry agreed with the transition or not.

  The cleric's face was white with panic. Never in his dreams had he imagined that he would ever hold such a document, never mind read it. Raynar calmed him. "I am the messenger between the Pope and Odo. This is the reply to a letter I just delivered to Odo from the Pope."

  This calmed the cleric, but he did ask, "So Roland of Bayeux, I am glad you showed me your passport first."

  Raynar kicked Robert under the table to stop him from correcting the name. Then he pointed to the passport. "Unfortunately, I can no longer travel under the name of Roland. My route to Rome takes me through counties where it would bode ill if they found out that I was Roland." He pushed his citizenship medallion towards the cleric. "Would it be possible to replace the name on that passport, with the name on this medallion?".

  The cleric looked at both the passport and the medallion. "Why yes. It is very possible because both names begin with an 'R'. The R is the only letter with a heavy script and in red. The rest of the letters can be shaved away and replaced." He looked up with eyes wide, "But that would be forgery."

  "Not really. I will ask for a proper replacement when I deliver this letter to the Pope. In the meantime, the passport serves the same man, despite the change in name."

  "I must ask my abbot for guidance in this," the cleric replied.

  "You absolutely may not mention any of this to your abbot, nor to anyone outside this room, and certainly not to any officer of the church," Robert told him firmly. "Whether Odo becomes the next pope or not is a decision that must be made in secret by the cardinals in Rome. If you cannot swear to me on your life, that you will keep the contents of this letter a secret, and also the identity of Roland a secret, then I will have you locked in solitary confinement until the choice of Pope is completed."

  Thus chastened, and sworn, the cleric went off to forge the passport. Once the door was shut again, Robert asked. "Surely you do not wish Odo to become our next Pope?"

  "I would hate for him to become Pope, but I would hate it even more if he did not leave England, and take fifty ship loads of warriors with him. Besides, who sits on that throne is up to the Cardinals, not me. Whatever comes of it, Odo must be encouraged to leave England while the Conqueror is still unable to mount a horse."

  "But with Odo as Pope, and Guiscard controlling the lands that surround Rome, it will mean that the Normans will control the Romanized Church."

  "I am not so sure that Guiscard will survive his latest attack on the Byzantines. Think of the difference between his politics and that of the Doxe of Venice. Venice is allied to both the Emperor of the Germanies and the Emperor of the Byzantines. Guiscard has made enemies of both.

  The battles at Dyrrhachium have cost Guiscard all of his ships and half of his army, and now his army is stranded in Illyria. Meanwhile the Venetians not only have his ships, but have been granted tax free trade in all Byzantine ports. The Venetians were quick to learn that heavy arrows defeat Normans. How long before that information travels everywhere?"

  "Hah, so says a bowman. Try telling that to generals who have been leading shield walls, and axemen, and lancers for their entire career. They will never admit that a peasant bowman is a match to a professional warrior, or a lord, or a noble. You need only look as far as my own army. Despite the battle at Cassel being won by the bowmen of the Fens, and despite that our trade routes are secure because so many of our oarsmen now carry bows, still my army chooses to copy the Franks with their heavy armour and heavy horses."

  "I don't understand," Raynar said softly. "You are the Count. Order your army to change."

  "Ha. Oh Ray, I love your simple logic. How can I possibly tell my lords, my nobility, that they are no longer a part of my army. All they do with their lives is train for war, other than hunting game and covering their maids. What would you have me do, tell them to become shopkeepers?"

  "Tell them to become ships captains, ship owners, and traders. That is how the lords of Venice prosper and stay busy."

  The count dismissed the suggestion with a wave. "So what next, Ray? What are you planning?"

  "Rest. I have been traveling for too long. I need rest and the company of good friends and the leisure to partake in good food and be surrounded by children playing. Then I need to sign on to one of my own ships as an oarsman to regain my strength of shoulder and back."

  "Yes, yes, yes. But after that?"

  "First to Canute, to tell him what I just told you. Then to Huntingdon to make sure that Judith and Beatrice are still thriving. Then, perhaps back to Venice."

  "Venice? Why? Will you take Gertrude?" Roberts question came out in a flood. "Please take Gertrude."

  "Remember that I told you of how Venice was converting captured Norman longships into Venetian galleys. If you send Gertrude with me, then I will travel overland through Paris so she can visit Bertha, and from there continue on to Venice. Once there I will trade my shares in a dozen Venetian ships, for all of the shares in one converted galley, and then load it with spices and sail her through the straits of Hercules and back to Brugge."

  "And if Gertrude does not go?" Robert asked.

  "Then I will sail one of Hereward's longships though the straits of Hercules to Venice, have it converted to a galley, and then come back the same way. Either way I will return with spices enough to pay for the entire endeavor, and then some."

  "But why the focus on the galley?"

  "Because if we want to evade the huge taxes that we now pay to the Germanies or to France for transporting spices to Brugge, we must carry them by sea. Longships are not comfortable on long journeys, do not have the cargo space, and are too easily defeated by the galleys of the Mediterranean pirates."

  "Well obviously you have the means to do this with or without me. I would be most pleased if you would think of me as a partner in this ship."

  "Think big, Rob. Don't think of just one Flanders galley trading with Venice. Think of a continuous passage of galleys trading with Venice. One a week. I can't do that without you as a partner. So there, now you know what to tell your useless nobles. Get off their effing horses, and get onto ships." He raised his cup of wine to salute his friend. "Did I mention that there are no horses in Venice."

  * * * * *

  What had he been thinking. The reason that Canute was home in Denmark with his army, was because it was too wet, too cold, or the snow was too deep to be marching armies around in the north. Whatever had possessed him to hurry north just because a trader told him that Canute was in residence in the Danish royal town of Dalby.

  Well at least he was traveling in style. The seas were too rough for ship travel, so Count Robert had loaned him a fine Frisian mare, and a winter riding cloak that made him look like a noble. After traveling to Venice and back as a pilgrim, this was quite a change. It was a look of wealth that he usually spurned for reasons o
f road safety, or rather, lack of road safety.

  The Countess Beatrice had fitted him out with fine clothes and new boots from the hundreds of gifts that the merchants of Flanders made to the Count every year. She also gave him a gift that was priceless. Her passport. When you were traveling anywhere north of Normandy, a passport from the Pope was as likely to earn you a slit throat as an invitation to dinner.

  A passport from Beatrice, however, was something that was respected everywhere. Beatrice was loved everywhere as a stern, fair, and motherly woman. This passport gained Raynar not just monastery bread and beds, but gracious welcomes into manors and palaces, and feather beds and feasts. From Paris to Danby, the reaction to her passport was one of a hearty welcome.

  Not that he was going to Paris on this trip, but the passport was not dated. It would last him until the parchment perished. Next time he traveled to Venice or Rome he could cross France in style instead of as a pilgrim, because Beatrice was the mother of the Queen of France. This trip north would take him by horse through Flanders, where she was a beloved countess. To Holland and Frisia, where she was the beloved mother of Count Dirk. Across a corner of Saxony, where she was the favourite sister of the Duke. And finally into Denmark, where she was the mother of the young new Queen of the Danes, Adela.

  He did not even need to worry about being a target for footpads due to his fine mount and clothes. If there were no groups to join for safety while traveling from town to town, the local elders would send a squad of the town watch to escort him to the next town. Still, despite the comfort that was offered him, there was no relief from the bitter cold of the northern winter.

  The last time he had spent a winter in Scotland he had warned his Scottish lover, Margaret, that never again would he travel north in the winter. The first time he ever wintered in the South of England along the Thames, he swore that he would never again winter in the Danelaw. He had spent last winter in Venice, and there had sworn that he would never again winter in England or Flanders. This cold had decided him to make Venice his future home. At least that is what he told himself over and over each time he rubbed the ice out of his mustache.