by Smith, Skye
At those words, Erik stood up. "Well I say we give them effing nobles a wee bit of trouble bloodying their swords." He pointed down at the marshy land across the river. "Let's get off this ridge and closer to the battle. The marsh is our friend because the cavalry horses will be useless in the mud. Mind you, it would be better if we had boats. You know, punts like the eel fishermen use in the Fens."
It just so happened that they had two eel fishermen with them. One of them replied, "If I owned a punt on that river, and heard that raiders wus comin', well I'd pole it into that marsh and load it down with rocks to keep it sunk and hidden. Why don't we go and have a look."
With the Normans now concentrating on the sack of Mantes, the time was now for the wolfpack to drop down from the ridge. They left the horses hobbled and in the care of the two men who had taken the last night watch and therefore needed sleep, but they took almost everything else with them. Keeping to cover, they reached the river in less than a half an hour, and then had a cool wade, swim, wade to reach the gravel bar that separated the river from the marsh.
Within the hour they had found a half dozen sunken sort-of-punts, complete with long poles. The men laughed at the excessive length of the punting poles, but the eel fishermen shut down the laughter by telling them that the river would be much deeper in the rainy season. They used the punts to float themselves closer to the town, all the while staying hidden from the army by staying behind the long rushes of the marsh.
Once the land began to dry out, they stopped and pushed deeper into the clumps of rushes until they had a view of the scorched plain and the Norman cavalry. By angling the punts, they became a platform from which they could loose arrows at the cavalry, if the cavalry ever came into range. Unfortunately, there was only room in the punts for two men at a time to work their bows.
The three G's were the first to realize that they had too many bowmen, not just for the punts, but also for the number of arrows that they had left between them. It was then that Garth produced a battered aleskin and Gord and Graham began to snicker as they passed it around.
"Oye," Erik scolded them. "You going to share that ale?" Then he stopped talking. The three G's were splashing the ale under their arms and crotch and onto their hair. Then the smell hit him, and he choked as he gasped for breath. "What is that? Oh, it makes my eyes water."
"My old gran's secret recipe for keeping the animals out of her vegetables," Garth replied, and a tear welled up in his eye, and then suddenly his eyes went as cold and hard as steel. "The Norman priests burned her as a witch." He held up the aleskin and told them, "It's rendered wolf's piss. Anything with hooves is scared shitless of packs of wolves. The smell of their piss keeps us safe from cavalry horses. We're going out there to dance a Lincoln jig with the cavalry and kill us a few nobs."
"You will be slaughtered. It's open ground," Raynar cried out. "Don't throw your lives away for no purpose."
"Here, Ray," said Graham as he passed him his arrows. "Use our arrows to kill anyone who attacks us from behind."
"Erik," Raynar called out in desperation, "stop them."
"You weren't listening, Ray," Erik replied. "Not to them now, and obviously not to the songs that folk sing about them at home. The wolf's piss will keep them safe."
Other men were now passing their arrows to the best of the bowmen, and borrowing the old ale skin to splash their own bodies with the foul smelling witch's brew. Out of their packs men were drawing out an assortment of metal weapons. Long, narrow, armour piercing daggers were the most common for sure, but there were also rope maker's spikes, and strange hammers that instead of having a hammer head, had a long spike.
Each of these men had fought the Normans that had ravaged the Danelaw last year, and each had killed knights and had lived to fight on. They each had their favourite way of killing Normans. Now Raynar was about to be shown how they did it.
Garth began explaining strategy to what was now perhaps the smelliest group of men on earth. He was telling them how to use the scent of wolf. "From the time before man, wolfpacks have terrorized herds of horses. Even horses that have never been near a wolf know the terror of a wolfpack. It is inside their brain when they are born. We must pretend to be wolves, act like wolves, think like wolves, and then we need not fear any horse, not even a charging cavalry courser.
Before we attack we will let out our most realistic wolf's howl. That is just to tell the horses that there are wolves close by. Then we approach them up wind, so they can smell us. Horses believe their noses more than their eyes. Then we herd them by bending low and loping along with our heads down. Bending low not only makes you look like a wolf to a horse, but also keeps your body out of easy reach of cavalry swords.
Once you have chosen your victim, you attack and gore the horse first. Wolves come up from below and tear at the belly and the hind legs. Do the same using your knife as if it were a tooth. You don't need to injure the horse greatly, just terrify it. The horse's terror is your strongest weapon. A terrified horse wants to rid himself of his rider so he can escape the wolves. A rider holding on for dear life to a terrified horse has no time to take a swing at you."
Reluctantly Raynar took hold of the aleskin. He couldn't bring himself to splash the foul stuff onto his skin or hair, so instead he undid his neckerchief and held it away from him so he could splash some of the acrid smelling stuff onto it. That done, he tied it around his left forearm so he could wave it about if need be.
Graham took over the telling. "Nobles ride stallions and wear costly armour. When the stallions smell the wolfpack, their minds return to the wild, and they become fighting monsters and will attack anything, especially other stallions and even their own riders. Eventually they will throw those riders. When the riders are thrown they will lie flat hoping not to be trampled by the other horses. Keep in mind that Norman cavalry horses are trained to stomp on men. When you capture the riders, they will flick their face shield up and tell you how much ransom they are worth."
Gord interrupted. "This is the part I like the best. The look that comes into their eyes when they first realize that you don't give a shit about the ransom. When I see that look, and smell them shitting themselves, that is the moment I think of my wife and my daughters and then rip their faces off their skulls." His eyes were quite insane with hatred as he said this.
With a shiver, Raynar looked away from the G's. Erik was testing the punting poles and selecting the longest, thickest, strongest. To one end he lashed a wicked looking rope maker's spike, thus creating a peasant's pike. "Here," he motioned to Garth. "Let me try some of that wolf's piss." As he splashed it on, he stared at Raynar. "You are in charge of the bowmen. If things go badly for us, we will run back here for safety. Save your arrows to give us cover."
"Oye, heads up," Graham called out. "There is cavalry on the move. Can anyone see what's happening?"
The punt closest to the town pushed through the reeds to better their view. The men in it bent the last of the reeds out of their view and stared. "Aye, the cavalry is on the move. They seem to have been sent off the field. Wait, I get it. Most of the true cavalry has been sent back to block the Paris road."
They watched for a while longer "Folk are streaming out of the town gate, coming towards us. They are running for their lives, trying to make the safety of our marsh before they are caught. Mostly women and children."
They watched a while longer. "Bastards," one of them hissed. "The royal party, the nobs, are moving forward and organizing themselves for a cavalry charge. Bastards nobles must have ordered the infantry to herd the folk out of the town, and across the open field so they can have some sport. Aye, that's exactly what is happening. The infantry are herding the folk towards the nobles to be slaughtered. Bastards."
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The Hoodsman - The Second Invasion by Skye Smith
Chapter 26 - The great fire of Bayeux in April 1105
The local Normans who had been sent unarmed through Bayeux's
gates to help the town folk fight the fire, sent a message back to their king. Since they were working unarmed they wanted to be protected by archers. Henry listened the messenger, but while Henry was still thinking, Raynar let out a wolf's howl to get the closest wolfpack's attention and then signaled them to meet him at the town gate.
"Ray, no, it is too risky," Henry called after him. "If you are hurt, Edith will never forgive me. She hated that I brought you to Normandy."
"No choice, Henry, they will need an interpreter. We have to save this town, else you will lose the support of the local Normans, and the church. You need the support of both if you want the peace to hold. That is, if you don't want to waste all the good work you've done in the past two months. Edith, bah, does she expect me to live forever?"
As he walked through the half burned, half splintered gate he could feel the heat of the fires. Memories of the great fire of London over twenty years ago made him shiver despite the heat. Fires in walled towns were vicious because they were closed in like an oven by the walls. He had to get all of the gates open, not just he river gate, and he had to get the town folk out through them and soon. Even as he was thinking this, the church at the end of this narrow street caught fire.
William, the young Norman lord that Henry had sent with orders to have the river gate opened, came running towards him yelling. "The bucket men don't need the cover of archers, I do."
"Well perhaps you should sheath your sword and pick up a bucket," Raynar snapped back. He knew this man. One of the many young Williams of Normandy, all named after the Conqueror, just as all the women of the same age were named Mathilde or Maud. He gave hand signals to the wolfpack and they began to leapfrog and cover each other as they moved down the burning street. Quickly because they had to outrun the flames. Meanwhile William and his five men had sheathed their weapons and picked up buckets.
The reason that Henry had chosen William was because at one time he had lived in Bayeux. With he and Raynar trotting down the middle of the narrow street, and the bowmen leapfrogging down each side, they quickly crossed the town. Luckily most of the defenders were still on the walls so most of the folk they saw were non-combatants. Mostly women carrying or pulling children as they fled from the fire.
Raynar and William kept yelling at them to get to any gate and get out of the town. They answered with looks of terror and yells back that their choices were between being burned alive and being ravaged by an army. Despite both men assuring them that outside the gate they would be protected by the Bishop's peace and by King Henry, their words weren't believed.
By the time they reached the cathedral square, it was filled with folk hurrying to the cathedral for sanctuary from armed men and protection from smoke and flames. Luckily William knew the side lanes and with a few jigs and jogs he led them to the river gate. It was still shut. The barricade just inside the gate, which had been built as a second line of defense in case the gate was breached, was now being used by the gate's guard to keep the town folk from opening the gate.
Armed men, guardsmen, stood behind the barricade and threatened any townsfolk who came near to it. Meanwhile the folk yelled and pleaded with them to open the gate and pull down the barricade and let them out. Those yelling the loudest looked like shopkeepers, each with empty buckets in each hand. They too had realized that the only hope to slow the fire was to use the river water.
The wolfshead called to Raynar and William, "No time for arguements. They ain't listening anyway." With that he whistled, gave two hand signals and pointed to the steps to the ramparts above the gate, and then to the edge of the barricade closest to the steps. Bowmen trotted up the steps until they had a clear shot at the gatekeepers behind the barricade, and then loosed aimed arrows at them.
The hand signals had been to shoot to injure, not to kill, As soon as the gatekeepers were fully busy holding the arrows that were sticking out of their legs and arms, the bowmen that were at the edge of the barricade, tore at it to make a path through it, and then ran to the gate. Moments later they had lifted the heavy bar from the gate and were swinging it open.
The shopkeepers, seeing the way of things, ignored the bowmen and began pulling and lifting a way through the barricade. They had just cleared a cart's width through it when they looked up at the opening of the gate and fell back. Angevin knights were standing blocking the now open gate. The shopkeepers screamed a warning and folk around them turned back towards the ever closer flames and began to flee.
Before the knights and the hundreds of armed men behind them could charge forward into the town, a line of archers formed behind what was left of the barricade and Raynar walked quickly towards the knights. He was yelling over and over. "No weapons through this gate, only buckets."
The knights ignored his calls, and one of them stepped forward to cut him down with his long sword. Lifting his sword was the last thing that knight ever did. Not just one, but three arrows hit him in the chest around the heart. The sight of the knight's expensive armour being defeated by arrows caused the other knights to stop in their tracks. Their shields were behind them with their bearers, and they called back for them to be brought forward. Meanwhile, knowing that they were sitting ducks, they all sheathed their swords.
Only then did they listen to what the old Englishman was calling. Only then did they count the longbows behind the barricade. Only then did the notice the shopkeepers, the ones who hadn't yet fled, and notice their buckets.
Raynar called out to the knights in a voice loud enough for every man present, bowman, Angevin, shopkeeper, to hear. "This river gate has been opened in order to fight the fire. Men with buckets may use it at will, and will be protected by our arrows while they do so. Armed men have no business here, and will be shot. Do you understand?" He repeated it in English for his own men. They nodded a confirmation.
There were a few tense moments while the knights discussed this amongst themselves. The tension was broken by a man of at least seventy years who walked towards the knights and held out his buckets for them to take. "Please help us. What use will the town be to anyone if it is reduced to ashes."
William stepped forward and reasoned with the knights. "Go and discuss this with your count, but in the mean time order your men to form a bucket brigade stretching from the gate to the river. The townsfolk will create a brigade on this side of the gate. But for God's sake, do it quickly lest we be too late."
A cloud of choking smoke chose that moment to swirl down from the sky and brought with it still glowing embers of thatch. The men behind the knights had heard the words, and the screams of terror coming from the town, and now they were choked by this smoke. It didn't matter who spoke an order that was obvious and logical. It was an order worth obeying. One of them came forward and took the buckets from the elder and then yelled at the men around him to sheath their weapons and form a line to the river.
The knights, not willing to admit that they did not give the command, now commanded it, and then left the gate to go and seek direction from their count. Thirty bowstrings relaxed their tension, and bowmen worked the kinks out of their arms and shoulders from holding the drawn stance for so long. A cry went up from the shop-keeps for buckets, more buckets, endless buckets, and then they too began to form a line that snaked away from the gate and into the town towards the leading edge of the fire.
Two hours and tens of thousands of buckets full of water later, the folk had contained the fire to the quarter of the town where it had begun. That quarter was still hot, but the roofs surrounding it had either been pulled down or wetted down, and now the folk could concentrate on cooling the quarter that had burned, and was still burning.
Everything was coming within control. Two hundred English archers were spread out along the town wall, and at every crossroads with orders to keep the peace. Many of Henry's Normans were now inside the wall and helping the townsfolk to contain the fire. The Manseaux and Angevins were still outside the wall and passing buckets.
Raynar walked down the
bucket line of Angevins towards the river until he could see Henry's pennants and then walked towards them. Martel and La Fleche were with Henry. He sighed in relief and decided to unstring his bow. His Seljuk bow. The small recurved bow that was common in the Holy Lands, but looked like a toy in comparison to the Welsh Yew longbows.
He wouldn't actually unstring it, but just push the string out of position to the side which allowed the bow itself to uncurl to its non strung shape, that is, bowed in the opposite direction. To do this he had to compress the two ends without using the bowstring, a task that Seljuk's could do at a full gallop. He however, was feeling his age, and he took a deep breath before the effort. If you did it wrong the bowstring could trap your fingers.
There was a shade tree overhanging the river and he walked to the trunk of it to brace one knock of the bow against it while he pushed. Behind the tree there were sounds of a struggle and a muffled scream. He left the bow strung and stepped around the tree where he saw a young girl being held down spread eagled by two Angevins while another was bare assed and ready to mount her.
The screams of the girl were soon joined by the howls of a man who was leaping around with a light arrow sticking out of his butt. The nobles a hundred yards along the bank were now paying attention to the dancer. Beyond him they saw the old Englishman walking towards two men holding a girl down on the ground. The old man was knocking another arrow. Martel yelled out "hold" and raced forward to save his men from further injury.
"Why do you loose at my men?" he yelled angrily at Raynar.
"Following orders," Raynar replied, ignoring Martel for the moment while he motioned the two men with the girl to move away from her. As soon as they let go of her she scrambled away from them and looked around in a panic. She was no more than twelve. When she made to run, he called softly to her, "Don't run, love, stay near me. If you run, other men will chase you and mount you."
"What orders, whose orders?" Martel yelled, red faced.
