by Smith, Skye
It was one of the passengers they were taking to Southampton that first told him the bad, er good, er bad, er good, er bad news about Duke Guiscard, the Norman ruler of the southern Italies, Apulia and Sicily.
The first bad news was that the English-Norman ships that had been sent to Guiscard by Odo and later by the Conqueror had not only rescued Guiscard's army from being stranded in Illyria on the Byzantine side of the Adriatic Sea, but they had also allowed Guiscard to surprise the Venetian fleet, and capture many of their galleys. This was horrible news for Venice, which had supposedly lost three thousand dead, and an equal number captured on the many galleys that the Normans had taken from them.
This was horrible news for Raynar, as it meant that his shares in his Venetian galleys may now be worthless. He had been counting on trading those shares to buy outright one of the mongrel galley's that the Venetian Armoury had created out of the hull of a North Sea longship.
Over all, he supposed that as terrible as this news was for himself and for Venice, it was good news for the English. The bulk of the Norman army and fleet was still with Guiscard in the Italies, so England's peaceful anarchy would continue for another year. The Conqueror would just not have the ships or the men to re-establish his rule over England.
It was only a few days later that he heard more good/bad news from the Italies. Pope Gregory was dead, probably poisoned. Duke Guiscard was dead, with five hundred of his knights, of the plague while they were invading the Byzantine islands of Korfu and Kephalonia. Since he had personal knowledge of the last time Guiscard's army had been plagued, he wondered if this plague had been spread on purpose, as had the last one.
Though this was good news for Venice and Constantinople, it could be the beginning of very bad news for the English. Guiscard had a huge army of Normans, and a massive fleet. Would they stay in Italy now that Guiscard was dead? Would they follow his son? Or would they strip the Italies of everything of value and make their way home to Normandy?
Even though all of this news came from the continent, and therefore Robert the Frisian in Flanders would likely already know it, Raynar put messages on the next of his ships bound for Montreuil-sur-Mer. From there they would be rushed to Robert, and Robert would send word north to Holland, Saxony, Denmark and Scotland. He watch the Montreuil bound ship cast off, and saluted the men, and then walked away from the docks and towards the village of Southampton to join his own crew at their favourite alehouse.
He was enjoying being the spy master of Wessex for Canute and Robert the Frisian. The work was not hard nor dangerous and yet endlessly interesting and critical. He heard all of the news first, and it gave him an excuse not to suffer the bitter winters of the north. The work meant he kept company with some of his favourite men, the northerners working as carters and seamen who gathered news and gossip for him. His only other duty was to pay them the profit they had foregone in order to keep their prices low so that they had their choice of passengers, that is, passengers who looked like they would know some worthwhile gossip.
As he climbed the road from the docks to the village of Southampton, he again pondered the news about Venice's fleet being taken. If not for the need of a spy network here in Wessex, by now he would have been building up a fleet of trading galleys to make the run between Venice and Brugge. The bad news from Venice had likely killed that dream. Oh well, who knows? If he had built a fleet of galleys, by now they may have been taken from him by the Normans.
"Ray," a woman’s voice brought him out of his thoughts. He looked around but there were no women around him, just nuns. "Ray," there it was again, but this time he saw a nun's veil move and knew which of them had called to him. He walked over to her and stopped a respectful distance away from her.
The nun must have been an elder because she waved the others to continue walking without her, and then she dropped her veil for the merest of moments so he could see her face. It was Cristina, Margaret's elder sister; Edgar's elder sister. He blustered for a moment wanting to hug her off her feet but not daring to in public. "I thought you had gone back to help Margaret in Scotland?"
He could hear, but not see her chuckle. "Still clumsy with words around women, then, after all these years, and all those women?"
"Cristina, what I want to tell you I cannot say in words, and I certainly can't sweep you into my arms and kiss a nun fully on the lips on this street."
"That is better. That is more like the Raynar I love. There is a woolens shop across the street. I will go in first, while you walk a bit and then come back. We can buy some privacy inside it."
The smell of damp wool attacked the nostrils as soon as you walked through the door. A rotund and fussy woman motioned him to walk through and into the warehouse at the back, and he did so. Cristina was waiting for him, sitting on a bale without her veil or wimple. Raynar pulled her to her feet and then up into his arms and swirled her around while he kissed her hard on the mouth.
When she didn't kiss back, he kissed her cheeks and her eyes, and tried her mouth again, and got just a bit of a kiss back before he set her down. She had always been a healthy strapping girl, and she was still, but the lines of worry in her face had aged her. He ignored them and looked into her eyes instead.
He was so obviously searching for words that she spoke first. "I have returned to be the Abbess at Romsey. Since Queen Mathilde passed away, the nunneries of Wessex have, well, been completely ignored and have fallen apart. I have come to set them right."
"I've never groped an abbess before," he smirked. "I must remember to do it again."
"If any other man had done so, I would have seen him flogged," she said only half jesting.
"The only other man would be your brother Edgar, and he is still in the Italies, and I do not even know if he still lives."
"He lives," Cristina said softly, "He sent word that he is living near the fortress of Bari, but that he has been forbidden from accompanying the thousand knights who are returning to Normandy flush with the wealth they looted from Rome. Oh what blasphemy. I cannot believe that Romanized knights have sacked Rome when it survived so long against the barbarians. And not just sack it, but burn it to the ground. Oh well, Edgar is safe so Margaret can stop her fretting."
"How is Margaret?" Raynar asked softly, unsure of himself. Sometimes this sister reacted badly when he asked about the other, "and her new son, David"
"Ah, yes. Margaret told me that you had, um, visited with her again. She is well, though I feel she is finished with birthing. This latest child took his toll on her. David is walking now, and looks nothing like his father Malcolm." She snickered. She hated her sister's husband, King Malcolm, and it was a secret source of wicked delight to her that Margaret's youngest three children had all been sired by this handsome English peasant standing before her.
A warehouseman was moving around behind them, so they switched from English to Greek. She, he and sister Margaret had all learned Greek over the same winter from the same bishop. Raynar was now almost fluent, having lived in Venice. Hers was more like written Greek. Clumsy to speak, but efficient and with a clear meaning.
"I came to England expecting it to be in the throws of a rebellion, for the official communiqués from the Normans continuously speak of how dangerous it is now that outlaws control the roads. I have seen none of that. Perhaps it is good that we ran into each other. Perhaps you can explain it all to me."
"The Normans fear anarchy because they are a feudal people. For them, all fealty flows up through the lords and nobles to the king, and all laws flow down from the king in the same way. They cannot understand that when there is no longer a monarchy, there is still law but it is a rule of law rather than a rule of lords. It relies on everyone agreeing on the basic laws that must be followed for there to be peace."
"Ah yes," she replied. "the nine commandments of the bible."
"Well five of them anyway. Thou shalt not murder, thieve, lie under oath, be greedy, or be adulterous. Not that I am a good role model, having brok
en all of them many times and without due repentance."
She said a quiet prayer for his soul, and then asked, "So are the roads controlled by outlaws?"
"There are no outlaws, well very few. It was the Norman's brutal laws that created all the outlaws. Without those laws, there is no reason for outlaws."
"There must still be brutal men about."
"True, but these days most of them walk with a limp to their left foot." Raynar smirked as he told her this. "Be wary of limping men who are otherwise strong. Stay away from them. Do no business with them. Other than that, the kingdom is more peaceful now than I can ever remember. Except of course, if you wish to live as a slave master. Such masters are not enjoying England at the moment."
He guided her back out into the street. They walked a while together and talked of Scotland and other memories. A call from a group of nuns in a cart ended their reunion.
"We have found a cart to take us to Romsey," one of the nuns was calling with a thick Scottish burr. The cart pulled to a stop in front of them, and the carter gave Raynar a wink and a nod.
"Come and take a look," Raynar whispered to Cristina and motioned towards the hub of the wheel. "Any carter with a cart with that type of metal hub is a friend. If you need me, find such a cart and send a message with the carter. If you need help, trust the carter." Then he swung her up and off her feet and placed her into the cart with the other nuns.
While she was settling in a seat and straightening her habit, he spoke some quick words to the carter. He told him what he had just learned. That the Norman army was on the move from Italy to Normandy. That he was to spread the word through Wessex and England. That the serfs must be told that this was their last chance to do a runner. That he and the other carters must prepare to race north to the safety of the North on short notice.
The carter whispered back, "So Ray, what you are saying is that the Norman lords will be coming back to England. And soon."
"Not just the lords, but their henchmen," Raynar sighed. "A thousand knights have returned to Normandy, and every knight will be leading a handful, or a dozen, or twenty warriors. Battle hardened warriors fresh from the wars in the Italies and the Byzantine. Brutal men. When the lords return to their English estates, they will not be alone, and they will not be kind."
Once the cart was away, Raynar walked deeper into the village to the alehouse that his ship's crew favoured. He downed a pot thirstily, and motioned the men to drink up. "Gather the crew. We sail when they are all aboard."
"But, you promised us a few days ashore while we gathered more passengers," said one of them, with his pot frozen in mid lift.
"Change of plans. We must catch the ship that just left for Montreuil. Hop to it. The longer it takes to gather the crew the faster you will have to row."
* * * * *
They caught up to the Montreuil ship just off Selsey Bill. It took no time at all to add to the news and messages that the ships captain was already carrying, and then the Montreuil ship was away again. Raynar ship was carrying ten passengers, paying passengers, who had jumped aboard from other ships when they saw that this one was the next ship sailing to Caen in Normandy. Not enough passengers to pay for the crossing, but better than nowt.
When they reached the mouth of the Orne the crew saw a sight that made all of their veins run cold. A fleet of longships, a fleet of Norman longships. For years they had ferried folk to and from Caen, and for years there had been barely a handful of longships ever in port, and yet today there seemed to be a hundred.
They did not enter the river, for fear of not being allowed to leave, or of losing their ship to a Norman crew. Instead they dropped their outraged passengers with their chests on the point, and hurried away from the fleet. For hours every man aboard rowed their hearts out to get as far away from the longships as possible, for in a race any longship was faster than this cog.
They reached the three bays of Montreuil-sur-Mer the next day, not an hour after the Montreuil message ship. Another ship was leaving port at full speed, and they hailed it down and told them why, and both ships docked at the same time directly behind the original Montreuil ship.
The captains of the Montreuil patrol ships realized that there must be something important to hear and they gathered close around Raynar to hear all the news. They all knew Raynar and owed their ships to him. Ten years ago it had been a fleet of Hereward’s ships out of Oudenburg, Flanders, and commanded by Raynar, which had cleared the three bays of pirates by capturing their ships.
The pirate's ships thus belonged to Raynar and Hereward, but each year they were chartered by the Fortress of Montreuil to patrol the Straits of Dover and show the banner of the King of France. Montreuil was Philip's only North Sea port. Despite the French banners, the captains and crews were mostly men from Flanders and the Fens.
The news that not just the Norman army, but also the Norman fleet had now returned from the Italies was the worst of all news for anyone who bordered Normandy. With such an army and such a fleet, there was no county or duchy or kingdom that was safe from attack.
Once the captains had heard all the news, the wild speculations began. Would the Conqueror rather become the Count of Flanders or the King of France. Either way, Montreuil was in deep shit for the fortress was charged with protecting the Vexin region, which formed the northern border of Normandy.
They followed Raynar off the dock and into the huge winehouse-come-bunkhouse that serviced the ships crews with cheap wine and expensive women. There they waited for the castellan of the fortress, and his captains to arrive. Only then did the planning begin in earnest. Not just planning for the defense of the coastline, but also the defense of the harbour and fortress, and the string of villages that ran along the main highway to Paris.
Once the castellan had agreed to the many decisions worked out by the captains, he sent his couriers out with messages, especially to Brugge, Boulogne, and Paris. Though Raynar would spend a late night discussing the Normans with the castellan, he ordered his own crew to finish their wine, and finish their women, and to get some sleep for it was likely that they would leave on the first tide in the morning.
It was the harbour master, a crafty old burgher, who convinced Raynar to wait a few days until first word was heard back from Brugge, Boulogne and Paris. The messages to those places went by relays of fast horses, so orders would come back from those thrones within two days, three at the most. Meanwhile the harbour master sought Raynar's advice on the ship he was having refitted for Hereward.
The tour of the refitted ship did not go well at first, and caused harsh words between the two men. Raynar had given this man some plans for adding a Byzantine style battering ram to the bow of one of Hereward's longships. Instead it had been added to what looked like a stock barge. "But a ram need speed to hole a hull under the water line," Raynar told the master, while controlling his exasperation and his temper.
"None of the captains of the longships would agree to the ram," the master explained. "They feared such a weight of metal added to the bow of their ships. They feared it would cause the ship to dive under the North Sea waves. And besides, this barge is a longship. Now that we have had it high and dry for a month, it is no longer waterlogged. It will ride high and fast. Look, it has thirty rooms." He meant rowing positions. Sixty oarsmen. "When we captured it, the captain swore that in her youth she had been a flagship of a Norse fleet."
"It must be a hundred years old. How can it be sound. The worm and the rot will have eaten the wood."
"There was worm and rot, yes, I'll not deny it. We filled most of it with hot resin. The planking and beams are from clear grain old growth, so even with the rot, they are stronger than anything we make ships of today. We even scrubbed it out so it doesn't smell of sheep shit anymore." The master had expected some displeasure, but not this much. "Besides, you said that this was a trial, a trial only. Just to see if a ram on a longship would be useful. You yourself said that there must be some reason why the Mediterranean gall
eys were removing their rams."
"Aye, so I said," Raynar sighed, "I apologize for my temper. It's not fair for you to bear the brunt of the abundance of foul news we have just heard." The master was right. Why risk a good ship on such a trial. He had never found out why the Byzantines were removing their rams. Was it because they would rather capture ships than sink them? Was it because they had replaced them with the long bow balcony that they used for pouring Greek fire into ships? The ram would keep them from getting close enough to pour the fire. Was it because the rams tended to seize up in the other ships hull, and end up sinking both ships together?
"So she will be ready by next week. Will you be here to watch us launch it? Will you be here to teach us how to use the ram?"
"I don't know," Raynar said thoughtfully. "That depends on the messages back from Brugge. Besides, there is no great tactic to using the ram. You just hit the enemy ship at speed with the bow ram at such a straight angle that it doesn't veer off." He walked to the bow to have a look at how the ram had been fixed to the hull. Above it on the gunnels was carved the ship's name, the 'Ormurin Langi'. A proud name for a crusty old stock barge... the Long Serpent.
* * * * *
* * * * *
The Hoodsman - The Second Invasion by Skye Smith
Chapter 17 - The second Norman invasion of England, August 1085
Helledore fortress was more of an earthenwork camp with a few log longhouses, but because of its location it was where all of these nobles, princes, and kings of the North Sea had chosen to meet. In some seasons it was a village of a hundred Frisian fishermen, and in others a thousand seamen waiting here for a break in the weather. It was where the Frisian coast turned a sharp corner east towards Denmark. It was the western most entrance to the Waddensea, the inland sea of the Frisians. It was the closest point on the continent to the harbours of the Wash and the Fenlands of England.
