by Smith, Skye
Duke Robert's clique of loyal leaders still ran the main towns and the fortresses of Bayeux, Caen and Rouen, and for now that was not an issue for Henry. He was more interested in having the support of the local Normans than the support of Robert and his henchmen. Henry was in Rouen trying to convince Robert's man Hugh de Nonant, the castellan of Rouen castle, that he was in Normandy to bring peace, not to bring down Robert. He was in Rouen when word came that Bayeux was under siege by the French.
Helias De La Fleche, the sometimes count of Maine, had bypassed the lands and armies of Belleme and Mortain and instead had joined forces with Geoffrey Le Martel, the new count of Anjou, and they had swept down onto the coastal plain of Normandy. The Manseaux and the Angevins were supposed to be keeping Belleme and Mortain penned in from the east and south so that Henry could finish surrounding them. They should be no where near Bayeux. Henry was furious at the news and broke off his negotiations with Hugh in Rouen and boarded his galley, the Mora.
Raynar's three ships were off the coast of Le Havre and the mouth of the Seine when the Mora came barreling out of the Seine at full speed. They intercepted the flagship and Raynar hailed Henry but all he got in return was an order to make for Bayeux and to collect every ship of the fleet as they went.
Collecting the spread out fleet took time but Raynar managed to find twenty ships and sent some of them to find the others. Once those were away, he decided it was more important to get the ships he had gathered as close to Bayeux as he could. So it was that he led over two hundred archers, many of them hoodsmen or the sons of hoodsmen, on the five mile march inland from the closest port to Bayeux. When they arrived the siege was already well in progress, but Henry's pennants were no where to be seen in the French camp.
His scouts eventually found Henry on the Caen road, which he had blocked to ensure that the French did not march on the Norman capital. Once Raynar and the archers had joined Henry' ranks of the random mix of warriors from all over Normandy, they marched together towards Bayeux and the French camp.
"My messengers to Le Martel were told that he and La Fleche raced to Bayeux to rescue Robert FitzHamon, who was captured and is now imprisoned in Bayeux," Henry told Raynar as they rode along. Both of them had arrived by ship, but had been provided horses by one of the local Norman knights.
"But FitzHamon is your man from Gloucestershire. Why are the French rescuing him? Why would they care?"
"Don't be naive, Ray," Henry mumbled. "Bayeux has the richest Cathedral in Normandy. Odo's Cathedral. He poured his wealth into this town while he was the regent of England under my father. The French have come for treasure. FitzHamon is just a convenient excuse."
The center of Bayeux and the cathedral, and a half a dozen other churches, were protected by a great wall of ancient stone. Roman stone probably. The castle was on the south west corner and the cathedral on the south east corner. Now that Henry was protected by two hundred bows, he marched directly up to the siege command post of the old warrior La Fleche, which was to the north of the town wall. His men, Normans and English alike, were alert for any treachery.
What Raynar said next was obvious, but it needed to be said. "You were right, Henry. They aren't setting up their siege engines to attack the castle wall, but to breach the town gate. They aren't interested in anything but sacking the town."
La Fleche was not at the command post, as he was closer to the wall overseeing the building of a giant covered staircase that would be pushed against the gate so that men could clamber up to the top of the ramparts that protected the gate. Le Martel, however, nervously welcomed Henry and explained that the castellan, Gontier d'Aunay, had not yet accepted terms for the surrender of Bayeux.
"And why should he?" replied Henry, keeping his temper in check, barely in check. "Gontier is my brother's man and is defending Bayeux on behalf of the Duke."
"Then why did he cut off and capture FitzHamon, when FitzHamon was on his way to join us," Le Martel grimaced, looking around for La Fleche. "We suspect Gontier has deserted the Duke and has taken Belleme's coin."
"Please send Gontier a message for me. I wish to speak with FitzHamon, face to face."
Le Martel sent messengers at the run. One to bring La Fleche, and the other around the wall towards the castle under a flag of truce. Within the hour, Henry was standing, well protected by shields, in front of the castle and calling up to his old friend and tenant FitzHamon and to Gontier.
Gontier made his position very clear. He did not trust the Manseaux or the Angevins not to loot the town so he would not surrender the walls. Henry could have FitzHamon, but then the siege must stop.
La Fleche spoke urgently into Henry's ear. "We are here now with forces enough to take the town and the castle too, and within a few days. We may as well do so."
The words made Raynar's stomach churn. Sieges always cost a lot of lives, mostly innocent lives. "Keep to the plan, Henry. Bypass your brother's fortresses and surround Belleme. It is more important to bring peace to the farmers than to slap your brother in the face."
"Wise words, Ray," replied Henry. He had counted the French force and he was outmanned in number and caliber of knights. "but La Fleche is right. We are here now. A few days defending the walls will be enough to make Gontier agree to terms."
"Then attack the castle walls not the town walls," Raynar urged.
"The town wall will be much easier to take," countered La Fleche, "then we can evacuate the town folk to safety while we deal with the castle."
Raynar knew from Henry's look that La Fleche had won his arguement. Well it was a good arguement. Save the people. What irked him was that he knew that La Fleche cared nothing for the folk. He just wanted the loot from the vault's of Odo's cathedral.
* * * * *
By the next morning the siege staircases were finished and were being pushed up towards the weakest of the town gates. Three days of work building them were lost almost immediately as the defenders on the battlements simply threw buckets of oil onto the staircases and then ignited them with flung torches.
La Fleche, however, had outsmarted them. He had half expected them to burn his staircases, which is why he had pushed them up in front of the gate, and had used bales of straw to weigh them down. If the defenders did not torch them, then he could send his men up them to take the key battlements above the gate. If they did torch them, then the gates would burn with the staircases and the staircases would protect the burning gates from buckets of water thrown down from the wall. And so it was that the great gates now burned.
Once the fire was dying the next stage of the siege began. Rather than waste men charging the burning gate with battering rams, La Fleche ordered his two small portable trebuchet's to target the burning gate with their hurled stones. Once they had the range, they pulverized the half burned gates. Even the stones that missed the gate served to scare the defenders off the walls above the gate.
It was one of those badly aimed stones that hit the oil barrel that the foolish defenders had left on the battlements above the gate. Or at least that is what La Fleche assumed had happened because suddenly there was a whoosh of flames behind the wall. He took it as good news, because the flames behind the gate would keep the defenders away from protecting the ruins of the gate. He now ordered his men to charge the gate, and though they had to fight to get through the actual gate, once they were through there was no stopping them.
The gate was theirs, which meant that the town would now seek terms of surrender. Surrender was a better choice for attackers and defenders alike, than the alternative of hand to hand combat through the narrow streets. The shouting of the call for terms began just as the fire from the barrel of oil reached the roof closest to the gate. Unfortunately it was a stable roof of wooden shingle, old wooden shingle, and it erupted into flame.
The Angevins who had been grouping around the gate, were cooling the gate with buckets of water so they could swing what was left of it out of their way. They were forced back by the renewed heat now
billowing through the gates. Thinking the heat was from a burning barricade within the gates, they called for more buckets of water.
"Your men have the right idea," Raynar called out to Martel, "lets put that fire out before it spreads. Send more men forward with buckets and no weapons."
Martel looked at the fire and knew he was right, but he was a French count and he refused to take orders from an English peasant. Instead he turned his back on the man. Moments later he was jerked back around and the English peasant's face was red with anger and inches from his.
"I told you to send more men forward with buckets and no weapons," Raynar yelled at him. "Are you deaf or just stupid."
The next few moments were very tense. A few of Martel's knights grabbed at the English peasant, while another few drew their swords. The bowmen who had been using their arrows to keep the defenders off the walls saw Raynar in trouble, and instantly swung their arrows towards the knights. If Henry and La Fleche hadn't been walking towards them, and if Henry hadn't yelled out for everyone to drop their weapons, then a half dozen French knights wouldn't have taken their next breath.
In just these few moments another roof had erupted into flame, and Martel yelled orders to his men to go and fight the fire, and even sent the knights who had leaped to his defense out of harms way to protect the men with buckets. Even that took a few moments, and a few more roofs were in flame.
A man with an empty bucket ran up to Martel and bowed low, and then told his lord that the wells outside this gate were too slow for good bucket work. Martel told him to use the water to cool around the gate so the men could pull down the burning roofs.
"No," yelled Raynar. "The defenders will jump them. You are their enemy. Henry," he swung around and faced the king, "send your local Normans in to fight the fire, without weapons."
Now this English peasant was giving orders to a king. This was too much to bear. Martel's face turned red and he grabbed at his own sword hilt, and he took a step towards Raynar. La Fleche stepped in front of him.
"Calm yourself Geoffrey," said La Fleche softly, "lest you sprout an arrow or two. The man speaks out in urgency, not disrespect. He is right. We should send the local Normans in to fight the fire."
"Not just to fight the fire," added Raynar, "but to go through the town to the river gate beside the cathedral and have it opened. We need the river water to fight the fire. While we wait for the river gate to open, the rest of you can take your men around the wall to the river side and get ready for a bucket brigade."
La Fleche was struggling to hold Martel back from attacking the peasant. Rather than wrestle with the new count he turned him to face Henry. Henry was busy yelling orders to his men to do exactly what the peasant had told him to do. "Urgency, not disrespect. Watch how Henry handles the peasant's lack of respect. He is giving orders as if they were his idea. No man questions orders that just plain make sense. Now do the same."
As La Fleche watched Martel walk towards his men repeating the orders just yelled by Henry, he moved closer to Raynar and asked, "Why does this fire worry you so, English?"
"You should know," Raynar told him. "Have you forgotten what happened at Mantes? You were there, with Fulk, remember?"
* * * * *
* * * * *
The Hoodsman - The Second Invasion by Skye Smith
Chapter 23 - Hunting the Conqueror along the Seine in August 1087
"All we want is horses," Raynar told the captain of the gate of the fortress of Montreuil-Sur-Mer for the third time.
Men from all along the great wall were gathering on the parapets above the gate to have a look at who their captain was arguing with. The strangers were obviously a North Sea ships crew by their fair looks and by the Norse brynjas they wore. From the English coast by the long bows they carried over their shoulders. Thirty of them, so a war crew of a coastal cog, or a trading crew of a longship.
"Be gone," hissed the captain in French, "fool to think I would just give horses to strangers."
Two of the fortresses' archers arrived at the group of men at the parapets and looked down to see what everyone was laughing about. One of the watch told them, "Some burkes off a ship just walked up from the harbour and demanded thirty horses and saddles." Usually if a ships crew were traveling inland, only the captain and perhaps a mate would buy or rent horses. "Thirty, and they didn't mention how they expected to pay for them." The men all around guffawed at the thought.
One of the archers gazed down at men below and stood still waiting for any of the men to look up so he could see a face. "Look like hoodsmen from the Fens to me," he told the other archer.
The other archer pushed through the group of laughing men and looked down. He yelled down in Frisian, "Oye, watcha." When the men looked up at his call, he recognized some of them, including their leader. He yelled out a classic insult in the Frisian way of greeting old friends, "Times must be hard in the Fens if you have to come here to steal horses."
"Who is this twit of a captain?" Raynar called up to the archer.
"He's new, and French, and full of himself," the archer called back. "I'll go fetch someone who doesn't have his head stuck up his arse."
The captain kept shooing them away, and threatening them with violence if they didn't stop blocking the gate, but the hoodsmen ignored him. Help would be here soon. It came in the form of the castellan, a burly man with an ale gut and a florid face. The captain turned to report that he was about to see the seamen off, when instead the burly man grabbed and wrenched his ear and pushed his face closer to the face of the lead seaman.
"Take a good look at that face, and never forget it," the castellan hissed. "Knowing it may save your life one day. This is Captain Raynar of Oudenburg, the man who stole a fleet from the Normans and is therefore owed large by Fulk le Rechin and King Philip." He let go of the man's ear and then winked at Raynar. "Ray, do you wish this fool hung or just whipped?"
The captain may have been new to the fortress, but he was a seasoned veteran. He knew the castellan was politely offering the punishment, and that this Raynar would equally politely refuse.
"Not necessary," Raynar demurred, "so long as within the hour he has thirty mounts ready and provisioned for a fast ride to Paris."
The castellan nodded to the captain to make it so, then he grinned at Raynar and then grinned at his men and invited them all in for an hour of rest, food, drink, and news. Especially news, since for these dangerous Englishmen to be personally taking a message to Paris, could only mean bad news. Big bad news. Hugely bad news that must be hurried along and well guarded.
The men were just off a ship so the castellan let them swallow their first pot of wine and rip into some meat before he asked for the news. Meanwhile all of his captains and knight commanders had gathered to listen, including the captain from the gate. "So tell us, Ray, tell us the news of the English."
Raynar finished his mouthful, and cleared this throat with a sip of wine. "There are no English. Not anymore. Just slaves. The four horsemen of the apocalypse have ridden unchecked through the kingdom for more than a year, and this last winter was so long and so cold that the English are finished as a people."
"The four horsemen?" the captain of the fortress's archers guessed, "earth, fire, water; and..."
"The Conqueror rides a white horse," Raynar interrupted the man. The non-Christians would not know of the four horsemen. "Mass slaughter rides a red horse, famine and pestilence ride a black horse, and Death rides a pale horse. After the Conqueror's first invasion back in '66 the four horsemen savaged the North. With this second invasion they have savaged the entire kingdom."
"But I was in England just two summers ago," the archer captain said. "It was good times. I have never been so well fed and the ale was almost free. Even the beggars were refusing food."
"That was in the time of the anarchy when the farmers ruled the villages. The invasion brought back the rule of landlords and moneylenders and slave masters. There has been hunger ever since. You see, the
masters well know that if they create hunger and poverty and fear in the folk, then they can enforce serfdom and slavery.
But it was the English winter that finished off the English. Just before harvest there were lightening storms the likes of which were beyond memory. The harvest was flattened and rotted in the field. The winter was so frigid that all of the ponds and lakes and rivers froze over, and the hunger became starvation. The spring was late so starvation became famine, and with famine, sickness. The weak died. The elders and the wee ones, all died. With the spring came water sickness in the folk, and murrain in the few animals that had not been eaten. Every village has suffered. Every village has lost a quarter of their folk and the rest are too weak to work in the fields."
"And the king and his nobles and the church. Did they just allow this happen?" the castellan asked. He had stopped eating to listen. The entire hall had stopped eating to listen.
"The king was so terrified of the sicknesses and of the church's condemnation of what he had caused that he withdrew to hide on the Isle of Wight until the winter storms abated and he could flee to Normandy."
The castellan saw a wave of depression cross the faces of his own English guardsmen and he interrupted Raynar by saying. "Stop, Ray, stop telling us things that ruin our appetite. Leave the bad news until later. Tell us some good news."
There was a deep sigh from Raynar as he swallowed the toast he was about to offer. A toast that would curse all kings and all nobles and all moneylenders, everywhere. "Yes, there was some good news. As you all know, the Normans prefer to live in stone buildings, especially those built by slaves. You also know that stone houses are impossible to keep warm in English winters. This winter was so cold that they moved the kitchen hearths inside their stone houses, inside their halls, and inside their churches so the cooking fires would help to warm the stone walls."
"Hah," said the kitchen maid who was setting down more jugs of wine beside him. "The fools. Men are such fools."
