The Hoodsman - Killing Kings Page 12

  Raynar was nodding his acceptance of the task, so the Tucker continued, "Come into the hut. I have had the Abbey scribes copy a map for you to use."

  Raynar followed him into the hut. He had never seen a map on paper before, though he had drawn many in the dust. This map was a thing of beauty with rich colors and ornate miniatures. Very different than the squiggly lines made by sticks in the dust.

  Tucker explained it to him using a long quill as a pointer. "North, South, West, East. This is the Abbey. This is us here. That is Scafeld. That is Castleford. That is Tatecastre. That is York. The red lines are streets. There is Ermyn street. The brown lines are main cartways, but do not trust them to still be there.

  The blue lines are rivers. That is the River Ouse that joins York to the sea. The northern raiders are the Norse from Norway, and their ships can row all the way from the sea to York when the water of the River Ouse is high.

  The levy commander who took the carts said there was a Norse army near York, but no one had seen the ships, so the river must be still low from the dry summer. He also said that our Northumberland ships are cut off from the sea and trapped at Tatecastre, so that blue line that joins the Ouse, umm, there, must be the River Wharfe that joins Tatecastre to the sea."

  Tucker moved his quill from Tatecastre towards the sea following the blue lines. "So that means that the Norse ships will be south of here," the quill stopped, "where the Wharfe joins the Ouse. If the Norse are moving on York, then they would be moving north on the east side of the River Ouse."

  He bent lower over the map and squinted his eyes, "Now, let me think. What is that blue line there? That long one running north on the east side of York. Ah yes, that is the River Derwent . I don't know of that river, but the line is thinner than the others, so perhaps a ship cannot use it. Certainly not before the rains. Bah, but the Norse are of no interest to you."

  He moved the quill to the east and circled an empty area on the map. "These are the peaks, these are the ridges running north. If you stay on the east most ridges, and on their eastern slope, then you will skirt north of Wachefeld," again the quill stopped, "and be ahead of Harold's army. You will know Wachefeld by the fine buildings. It has enjoyed the favour of kings." Tucker pulled back from the map so that Raynar could study it. "Do you have questions?"

  There was silence while Raynar committed the map to memory. Then he asked, "How many carts did they take?"

  "All four of the best ones. The ones that John and his father fitted with metal hubs. Luckily they all have the Abbey's name painted on them."

  "When I find them, and send Baldric home, what then?" asked Raynar.

  "Just stay with our carts, and when the army doesn't need them anymore make sure our fyrdmen bring them back to Wirksworth." Tucker was counting coins from his purse. "And don't take a bow, else you may be forced into battle."

  Raynar cocked his head at the good Brother and smirked. "No one outside of some Scafeld gamblers would know that my shepherd's crook is also a bow. I will keep the arrows out of sight, but I am not going unarmed into an area with thousands of armed men. Whether ours or theirs, the danger to me could be the same." He was silent until Tucker nodded his permission to take his staff-bow.

  "Who is the commander that took them?" asked Raynar.

  "Haelfing of Derby. He has bought lead from our mill before, and knows the worth of our carts and well knew where they would be at that time of day. The store of early oats was a bonus. I doubt he is a good Christian though, because he seemed to be pleased to be taking from the Abbey." Tucker had much more to say, but none that needed saying now. His body language turned silent, to encourage more questions.

  "When did they take them?" asked Raynar.

  "Yesterday, with an hour to sunset. We had just finished unloading the ore."

  "Would they have traveled at night?"

  "I don't know, but there is a good chance of it," replied Tucker, "hurry was the word Haelfing used the most. They had come straight from Derby, rounding up more fyrdmen as they moved."

  "May I take the map?" asked Raynar.

  "It was made for you. The scriptorium candles burned all night for you. The loss of those carts will hurt the Abbey's income, and they will be costly to replace if they are not returned."

  "I will be going, then. No sense in delaying. I will leave my basket here. I will go by way of the Porters Glade and then up to the high ridges. At the glade I can pick up my hunting basket, my winter cloak, and some other supplies." He pulled out his own purse with its two copper coins and swept Tucker's count into it.

  Tucker made a blessing for him, and then said softly, "Raynar, take care. It bodes ill that this army should be moving with such speed. Something has gone horribly wrong. I fear that the peace of Knut that we have enjoyed for all our lifetimes, may be ending. I feared it last year when there were so many Danes on the highways fresh from Denmark.

  Perhaps that is why the Star of Bethlehem is in the sky. Knut stripped the Norse of their ships and their shipwrights, so that Viking raiders would no longer threaten his empire. He has been dead a long time. Time enough for the Norse to rebuild the Viking fleet. I fear that Harald of Norway wants to become the next Knut. "

  "Speak not of kings and ships to me. I know nothing of either, save that they are foolish to make war when there are crops ready to harvest. The value of the carts, this I understand. The value of work for my porters while winter approaches, this I understand. You will get your carts back, my friend. I will bring them back." He rolled the map, pushed it into its scroll pipe, and walked out the door. "Watch for Baldric, he will carry news of me," he yelled over his shoulder.

  He said his farewells to his porters as he passed them. "Have an eye for the glade until I return," was all he asked of them, but they all laughed at his waste of words. The Porters Glade was a special place to them. A shelter from the storms. A place with good food and fresh water. A place with widows not too proud to favour a lowly porter.

  He carried the bad news back up the valley, but would not tarry to tell it. Those that would hear the news had to walk beside him. He did slow his pace for John's mother, but she still walked beside him to hear it.

  John was not at the forge. He told John's mother to keep him home. She must stop John from following him into the trackless high country because he would never catch up. She nodded and understood, though how she could keep her John from racing after his best friend, she did not understand.

  At the glade there were hugs as he prepared his packs, and kisses as he left. There was a long hug and a long full kiss in his mouth from Gwyn. Her mother was up at the mine on that day, attending a birth, so there was no one to disapprove of their kisses. They had grown up together like kin folk. Since his sister Leola's death she had been comforting him, sometimes secretly in her bed. He had searched her out to give her a handful of Leola's coin in case the glade had needs while he was gone.

  Gwyn ran after him out of the glade and kept pace with him as he walked. "Raynar, my gift to you is some evil knowledge. Before you shoot an arrow at a blood enemy, stick its point into shit, pig shit if possible. It will become a killing arrow even with just a flesh wound. The death will come after two weeks of the agony of locked joints and spasms of muscle pain. The only cure is to well cleanse the wound when it is first made. Use strong ale or wine or vinegar, or a bitter tincture."

  He stopped and turned and lifted the fairie woman up to his height and again kissed her fully and long. "Your words are the most useful gift you could have given me, and they weigh nothing, thank you." With that he was gone, loping down the way with his crooked staff and his basket pack, the small one he used for hunting.

  He went to the place where the valley's stream forked, and crossed on stepping stones to reach the steep path towards the next hill north, High Neb. Once on Neb he caught his breath while he picked out the track that led northward along the east ridge. He continued eating the miles with his porter's stride so as to use every bit of daylight. It was
easy walking on the ridges and the sides of hills. It would have been slow going if he had dropped down into the basins of the moor.

  Eventually he ran out of new ridges going northward or eastward and bedded down for the night in a notch in the ridge's bedrock. It would be foolish to go down into the lowlands in the dark because he needed to use the height of this last ridge to take his bearings.

  He made no fire, there was no need. There was nothing to cook, no company to keep, and no insects or animals to scare away. He chewed on dried venison left over from the buck he took last Sunday, and on green sheep’s cheese that one of the kitchen widows at the glade had stuffed into his pack. He did not need to use his ale to quench his thirst because there had been clean water in the last hollow, but he drank some anyway to help him sleep.

  At daybreak he took his bearings towards a distant tower that must mark Wachefeld, and made a mental picture of the large trees that would mark his direction once he was on low ground. The next stage was through rolling fields of grain. The grain was close enough to harvest ready, that the farmers would have a keen eye for any storm clouds. It was every farmers balancing game at this time of year. The longer a farmer left the crop on the stalk the better the crop; but a tall storm cloud could destroy it, and more than one wet day would make it too wet to store.

  There were cartways in all directions winding between the fields and following the contours. Tucker had told him that the only straight streets in this land were made by the ancients. Folklore people called Romans who must have worked directly for the gods to have built so much, so big, so well, and out of stone.

  He wished for a straight street now, as he feared being turned in circles on these winding cartways. Luckily, before he had left the last ridge, he had marked the biggest trees well in his mind, and he came to the first of them, and then the second and then the third, which he climbed to see further.

  He was close to the tower now and kept to the west of it. There was an eerie emptiness to the rolling farms as if all of the people had all died, but he finally stumbled onto some women washing clothes in a bend of a stream.

  "The men are gone," the youngest one told him and was shushed by an old woman for her foolishness in saying such a thing to a stranger.

  The crone shrugged and spat and said, "The fyrd, the men have left the fields to the weather because of the fyrd. Their sworn lord cancelled this year's taxes if they went. Those that had not yet paid, well, of course they went."

  The young one broke in. "That means one man per family, because no one pays taxes until after the harvest. They were promised that they could return before a fortnight."

  "How long have they been gone?" he asked.

  "A fortnight tomorrow. There will be a lot of babies born tomorrow nine month," giggled the youngest.

  "There's no sign of them and not likely to be sign soon. You saw the Star of Bethlehem in the heavens. They have gone to their doom." cackled the crone.

  "One man per family, so where are the rest of the men?" asked Raynar gently so as not to scare them.

  "In Wachefeld drinking the lord's ale. He had news for them," the youngest waved in a generally eastern direction.

  That answered Raynar’s main question. The town with the tower was Wachefeld and it was time for him to bear east until he found Ermyn street or found the army. He couldn't help wondering what the lord's news was.

  * * * * *

  After skirting Wachefeld, he found the north-south highway with no problem, but finding it presented other problems. The first problem was that the army was moving along two highways that were three miles apart. The second problem was that they were both full of fyrdmen moving north. He had no way of knowing or finding out, whether the Abbey's carts had yet to pass this point on this highway or the other.

  The fyrdmen were bunched together according to the village they came from, and knew only their village and this road. The local fyrd were on foot and carrying provisions, while the ones from further away had horse carts for provisions. No one knew of a Haelfing out of Derby, and no one could read, so the Abbey's signs on the carts were of no help in finding them.

  He eventually was told that the main traffic was on the other highway so he hurried along the three mile path that connected the two streets, but there it was the same problem. Was he ahead of Haelfing or behind him? It made no sense to go south, as if he were ahead of them, they would come to him. That is, if they were on this street at all.

  He could walk North with the army, but the thought of walking along in the stench of the shit left by so many men along the road did not appeal. The land here was all low with no viewpoints so in the end he decided to sit in a tree and watch and wait. This turned out to be a waste of time, and a loss of hours of daylight.

  The enormity of the world was suddenly glaring him in the face. He was a mountain lad from sparsely populated hills and vales. The biggest town he had ever seen was Scafeld and the crowd that could meet in the square in that town was as nothing compared to the crowded street of moving men below him. The fyrd army stretched as far as he could see in both directions on this street. He suddenly realized how difficult would be his task of finding four carts and a carter amongst all of these folk. There was nothing for it but to keep watching.

  Eventually a horseman leading a string of carts told him that the army was headed to Tatecastre to join forces with the crews of the Northumbrian ships. The carts would be organized and sent out from there. With a few hours daylight left, Raynar struck out for Tatecastre.

  Everything was fine for a few miles. He kept up with the horseman and asked questions. The big news was that the King of Norway had won a battle on the outskirts of York at a place called Fulford. The horseman was bitter. He said that a traitor called Tostig had caused the battle to go badly for the Northern army.

  "Who is this Tostig? How could one man have such an effect?" Raynar asked.

  "Tostig? Where have ya been, lad?" the horseman looked down at him. "He's King Harold's evil brother. He used to be the Earl of Northumbria until we exiled him. Now he floats around with a small fleet pretending he is a Viking raider. I hope they hang him as a traitor."

  Everything stopped ahead of them. There was a jam of folk and the entire road stopped moving. Raynar climbed another tree and could see that the jam went on for miles. There was no knowing what was causing the jam, or how long it would last. He could see a trail a few hundred yards to the east of the street that seemed to run north, and better still, it was empty, so he headed overland to use the side trail.

  * * * * *

  * * * * *

  THE HOODSMAN - Killing Kings by Skye Smith

  Chapter 12 - Rejoicing in Winchester, Hampshire in August 1100

  By the morning, the world had changed.

  Winchester's criers started early with their announcement that good King William the Second was dead, and that the future king, his brother Henry was leaving immediately for London to be crowned. At the news the whole household ran to the windows in case something memorable was about to happen. They were not disappointed, for a short while later a cavalcade of horses spurred past the house in the direction of the London highway. Raynar recognized Henry in their midst and pointed him out to the others.

  Afterwards, Raynar went for a stroll as far as the market to see what else was happening. Last night had been surprisingly peaceful, which had encouraged this morning's food vendors, as they had brought extra goods in expectation of a busy day. There was nothing like gossip to gather folks into groups, and nothing a gossiping grouped liked more than a good pie.

  Just after midday a message arrived at the house from Mar's husband John. John was still a day away, but would be home tomorrow for sure. The lad who brought the message told them that rather than the highways being dangerous, they were crowded. Thousands of people were on the move. Many were moving towards the many village fetes that would make use of the full moon. Others were moving towards Winchester in hopes of seeing the pomp of a coronati
on. Many land lords were moving towards their family estates to ensure their continued possession of their land in these perilous times between kings.

  A neighbor stopped by to say that it was business as usual in the city, except for the Treasury which was under heavy guard and it worth your life to approach its gate.

  But it was not business as usual. It was business better than usual. The whole city was rejoicing at the passing of the reign and the odious taxes of William Rufus. Mind you, if you asked anyone, they would say that they were rejoicing for the new king, not for the death of the old one. The church bells were a continuous reminder to the folk that this was the time to pray for the future, and to drop money in the church boxes.

  After breaking his fast, Gregos politely reminded Raynar of his promise to be his guide while in England, and that he wanted to be out in the English streets on this day of all days. After Raynar's dire warning that there may be dangers in the streets for foreigners, it was Mar who made the decision.

  At her bidding, there was a flurry of activity as the women of the house searched trunks for suitable English clothing for the Greco-Andalusian gentlemen. In their room, Risto and Gregos tried on the clothing that was brought to them. With a lot of help from Mar, the two gentlemen now looked quite convincingly like English merchants. Raynar and his two wards then made to leave the house, but of course, Mar was not to be left at home.