The Hoodsman - Killing Kings Page 2
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THE HOODSMAN - Killing Kings by Skye Smith
Chapter 2 - Healers of the Glade, Peaks Arse, Derbyshire in 1058
It was raining, as usual, and everyone who had stopped at the porter's resting glade was hiding from it under the rough thatched roofs. Good, the men wouldn't see him carrying water. Carrying water was women's work. Young Raynar pushed the hide door flap out of his way and got out of the rain himself. While his eyes adjusted to the dim, Gwyn took the pot of steaming water from him and flashed him a white smile of thanks.
The man lying on the pallet was speaking Welsh to the healer woman, Gwyn's mother, and though Raynar understood much Welsh, this man was speaking too quickly for him to understand. The man was a cave miner, and his foot was paining him so much that he could not earn his bread. The healer was poking, prodding, and kneading his foot as she asked him questions. "Your feet are growing mushrooms," she eventually told him. "You should have come sooner, before they were painful. I can heal you, but you must not walk for three days, maybe five."
"I will starve. My family will starve." The miner had a wild look, the look of a panicked animal.
"Not while you are here at the porter's glade," the healer said. "The brotherhood of miners will provide for your family while you recover."
"I did not join the brotherhood," he sobbed. "The leaders are not of my clan."
"Fool," she replied with a wave of her hand to confuse any of the fates that may be listening, "the hood is for all who have the risks of mining in common. This lad's father, you know him, the man with the twisted back, he will take your oath. There are enough miners in the men's shelter to witness it."
She turned to the tall fair boy. "Raynar, wash his feet, both feet, with the hot water and that lye soap, and don't be gentle even if he kicks you. When they are clean, I will start the healing."
The healer saw the boy's eyes go wide as he looked at the disgusting oozing sores on the foot. She grabbed him by the hand to stop him from fleeing. Softly, calmly, she breathed in and then raised his hand by the wrist up to her neck, and hovered it near the soft skin under her chin. "You have the touch," she told him and looked around for her daughter. "Gwyn, did you know that Raynar had the touch?"
Gwyn blushed and looked at the rushes on the floor, "Not for sure, but I suspected. I was going to tell you but I thought his sister would have by now."
"Boy," the healer told him, "get busy and wash those feet while Gwen and I prepare the salve. Gwyn, the poultice must draw the weeping, and poison the mushrooms. We will need the hot spring salts."
He was kicked a handful of times by the miner, but he ignored the howls of pain and the abuse and persisted until the feet were clean. After he had dumped the fouled washing water, he came back to watch the healing. First the healer took a crystal pendant from around her neck and spent a long time hovering it above the sores. When he asked what she was doing, three voices shushed him.
The miner fell into a deep sleep while the crystal was being hovered, and stayed asleep while the mother and daughter spread a freshly prepared salve over every inch of both feet, especially between the toes, and then wrapped them both in clean rags.
"Why do both?" he asked. "Only his left foot had sores."
"You who cleaned the feet ask that?" replied Gwyn. "Did you not see the scaled skin on the right foot. The mushrooms are growing on it too but he hadn't scratched it raw yet." She scrunched her nose at him as if his foolishness smelled of farts.
"Shhh," her mother scolded in a whisper. "Let a sleeping man lay. It's the only time they aren't causing more work for women." The healer grinned, and then again took Raynar's hand and held it near to her neck.
Raynar looked on in wonder and then in shock as the woman dropped the homespun from her shoulder and exposed a breast and then hovered his hand over the nipple. The nipple blushed and grew larger.
"Your mother died just before we came here, so I did not know her. She was a healer, yes? Was she Welsh?"
"Oh no," replied Raynar. "She looked like my sister Leola. Tall and slim and fair. She was a flatlander, not from the Peaks. But yes, she was a healer. The first healer in this glade. It was she who convinced my father that the spring that runs here would help injured miners to heal. She died in labour over two years ago."
"Ah, the healer's curse. It's hardest to heal yourself. Most unusual that an injured miner outlives his wife. I suppose that's why this glade is overfull with widows this year. It has been a bad year in the mines."
"He always tells Leola that he swore to mother that he would see her well married," replied Raynar still staring at the naked breast. He pushed his hand forward and squeezed it, and got cuffed across the back of his head for his rudeness.
"Be careful of this one, Gwyn," the healer chuckled, "a man with 'the touch' is a danger to all virgins."
"Mother," blushed Gwyn. When she blushed, not only her cheeks got rosy, but also the tips of her ears. Some of the men called her a charmed fairy because she was quick with an impish grin. She resented being so small and light. Leola was a head taller than her and two years younger.
"Go and bring the biggest of the crystals," her mother said, "and a lace to hang it with."
"But Mother, we were going to sell that one at the market in Hathersage," Gwyn complained. They needed the coin, and that crystal would sell quickly.
"Pah, it would be wasted on some fat merchant's wife." The mother was grinning. "It is the sister to our own crystals, so it is fitting that Raynar wear it. And choose the next best for Leola."
Gwyn rushed out of the hut to go and fetch the crystals. The healer stared at the boy. The boy stared at her still-naked breast. "Hover your hand over it again, but no touching," she whispered. "If you touch, the healing feeling stops." She watched her nipple swell to his non touch. "Now close your eyes and picture my breast in your mind and send it all of your good feelings, all your happiness."
She closed her own eyes to better feel the waves of gentle warmth and the tingles of his non touch. She had never met a man with 'the touch' before. Never. But she had heard stories. It was said that such men had a power over women, because the women fell so easily in love with them, or rather, mistook 'the touch' for love. She had always dismissed them as old wives' tales. Not any more. If she did not already know that this delicious feeling spreading out from her breast was his 'touch', she could mistake it for love.
And then the feeling was gone. He had cupped her breast again. This time she did not pull back, or cuff him, but let him squeeze, explore, sate his curiosity, that is, until she heard the footfalls of her daughter's return. Then she cuffed him and pulled her homespun back into place.
Gwyn ducked under the door hide and pulled back her wet hood from her face and stared at her mother and her friend. They both seemed to be looking at the rushes, as if they were hiding something from her. Shrugging she raised her hand and showed them the two crystals. The long one was very pure, the shorter one had a small crack near to the base. Both had the butt end snugged firmly into dried rawhide so they could be hung from a lace.
She pulled her own crystal up out of her clothes and showed Raynar that hers had an iron cage at the end rather than rawhide. "Your friend John's father down in Hathersage will fit them with iron cages if you ask him nicely." John was the smithy's son.
Raynar looked at Gwyn and smiled. "I will take you to Hathersage Market and sell one of my bows and give you the money. While we are there I can leave this with John for his father." Depending on how busy the smith was, it might be a week before he had time to fashion a small scrap of iron to fit it.
Gwyn giggled. Raynar was always fashioning bows and shafts after the Welsh fashion, and trying to flog them at the market. The shafts sold well enough, but he rarely sold a bow. There was too much competition from the Welsh miners. "No, you don't. You promised Leola that you would trade your latest bow for a new smock for her. She's growing right out of the one she wears. But
I will come with you gladly."
The healer took the large crystal from her daughter and put the lace over the boy's head. "Wear it always, for it works better if you only take it off when you palm it to strengthen your 'touch'." The boy immediately grabbed it with two fingers and held it up to the light. "Swear to me now that you will never practice your 'touch' on virgins, and absolutely not with Gwyn or Leola. Do you swear it?"
"I swear it," the boy replied absently as he turned the crystal in the sparse daylight coming through a crack in the wall. He had never owned a jewel before.
"Swear it on your life," the healer repeated.
That shook him. He had never sworn any oath on his life before. That was serious. That was how you swore in court when you gave witness. Not that they would take your life if you lied, but the shame of being caught in a lie on your oath would ruin your life forever. He looked again at the crystal. "I so swear it." He looked around at the sound of someone entering the hut.
Leola was standing there. She was tall for eight, with long golden hair and greeny blue eyes, and pink cheeks. Her skin was not pink like her cheeks nor milk white like Gwyn's. It was more of a golden color, and in the summer it did not redden in the sun, but turned darker. As a poor girl, she had learned young of the power in the flash of a smile from a comely face. Smiling is what she was doing now as Gwyn walked towards her and put a crystal pendant around her neck.
The blonde girl stood still while she picked up the crystal and looked at it. By moving the door hide behind her she could see it better. Moving the door skin reminded her of why she was here, and she spun around and looked at them and said in a rush of words. "Da says come quick..."
"Shh" the healer hushed and pointed down to the still sleeping man on the pallet.
Leola started again in an urgent hushed tone. "Da says come quick. The rain is turning to ice. There's an ice storm coming over the ridge and down the valley. You have to round up the pigs and ducks and get them under a roof."
Raynar did not wait for the message to be repeated. He was out the doorway running as fast as he could. The Peaks were a land of steep ridges and steep valleys and vicious storms, and the most vicious storm of all was an ice storm. In minutes it could cover everything with a layer of ice. And it killed. People on the ridges slipped to their deaths. Animals froze to death where they stood. Crops were destroyed and everyone went hungry.
The smaller children were already chasing the ducks, so he went directly to the sow pig and tugged on her collar, and then tugged again, and finally she moved towards him. The piglets followed in step behind her. The closest hut had two widows and three children huddled keeping warm, and he pushed the sow in with them and told them to stay indoors. At the word 'icestorm' they all nodded knowingly. No explanation needed. No questions asked. No protest about the pigs in their hut.
He looked towards the big roof that leaned into the huge boulder that created this glade and separated it from the main road up the valley. There were men running in every which direction, but mostly towards the big roof. There were heavily-laden porters, anxious to be off the road before the storm hit. There were other travelers from the road, all kinds; tinkers, monks, lead merchants, miners, some with horses, or mules, or asses, but most on foot.
It was now as dark as midnight. Raynar looked around. Gwyn was waving to him from the sick hut and pointing down towards the edge of the forest. A very small child was chasing a duck there. The duck was playing foolish games, not realizing the danger. Raynar started running towards them. His ear stung as the first hail stone grazed it. He ran faster. The storm was here. Without stopping he scooped up child and duck into his arms and turned towards the hamlet.
Too late. The meadow between them was turning to ice. Every blade of grass was shining with it. He turned again and ducked under the cover of the forest. The leaves would shield them long enough to make it to the hollow oak where as a small child he had played hide-go-seek.
Safe in the hollow, with his wards still in his arms, he looked out at the storm from the shelter of the oak, through the tapestry of oak leaves.
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THE HOODSMAN - Killing Kings by Skye Smith
Chapter 3 - Killing a King, Ytene (New) Forest in August 1100
He looked out through the tapestry of oak leaves and brought his eyes back into focus on the lodge below. The pain was gone from his kidneys now, and his back felt normal, so he put the cord over his head and dropped the crystal back down his shirt.
His mind was now a turmoil of thoughts, both old and new, and especially worries both old and new. Was he prepared to waste his life today, if that is what it took? Had he ever had a virgin and thus broken his oath on this crystal? How did he end up buying such a poor bow in the market three days ago? He had made better as a ten-year-old. Would it do the job?
He took a closer look at the bow, the closer look that he should have taken in the market, and sighed. For half a lifetime he had been spreading the knowledge of how to fashion bows in the Welsh style by carving a seasoned staff cut from the holy Yew tree. Ywen in the old languages. This bow was of ash.
He unsheathed the peasant knife he had bought from the same merchant and spent some pleasant moments improving the bow by whittling away some of the soft outer wood from the belly of the bow. He still had fond memories of the giant bow that he had crafted when he was, what, thirteen.
He had started with a long and heavy Ywen staff that had been set aside to craft a shepherd's crook only because the living branch had formed a natural hook at its narrow end. He had left the thick end blunt so that it would take the beating of being used as a walking staff. Then he carved the rest to make it slender and springy by removing the light wood from the back of the staff, so that the ironlike pith became the belly.
Then the carving became a slice and test process, taking away only the wood that did not help the spring of the bow, and then an even slower process as he found the best place to cross an arrow. In the end, it looked like a shepherd's crook, but could be strung in two ways, one for short arrows and one for long. Strung for long, he could not draw it. It took him another year, his first year of portering, before his back and shoulders had the power to draw a long arrow.
With the vision of his staff-bow in his mind, the one in his hand seemed like a child’s toy. Well, it was too late to worry about the bow now, for the sounds from below told him that the men were assembling for the hunt.
Men were stomping around the compound, filling their faces with strips of meat and washing it down with wine, and shouting bawdy belittlements at each other. The grooms stopped grooming the horses and picked up the bridles and saddles. The shadows in the vale were receding and Raynar could now see the men slinging bows across their shoulders.
Raynar cursed. He had hoped the prey would be a boar, not a hind, so that the men would be armed with spears, not bows. A big man with a florid red face was now stepping out of the lodge. Raynar growled to himself, "There you are, William Rufus".
He slid to the ground with all his gear and landed in a crouch and then stood slowly, cautiously. He had misjudged the landing, so now his back ached, his kidneys ached, his shoulder ached, and his knees ached. He was in his early fifties and feeling it. Man was not meant to live so long. He stretched slowly and then stooped again to wrap his few belongings into his cloak and hide them under a bush.
He used to know the name of that kind of bush, in three languages, but now all he could remember was that if you chewed the leaves, the resulting paste could be used to take the burn from nettle scratches. He shouldered his quiver and his bow and loped along the ridge path. Instinctively he kept his body low and invisible from the valley floor below. He was dressed as a verderer to blend with the forest. The clothes were used and worn and had been bought in Winchester market at the same time as the bow.
The clothes were folk-made and cheap, like the selfbow and the arrows. The arrows were standard hunting arrows, but he had wrapped
thin ribbons of lead around the shafts just behind the points, to give them more punch. He had also used charcoal from a fire to blacken the feather flights. Simply being caught with hunting arrows in the king's Ytene Forest could be a hanging offence. The minimum penalty would be the loss of his archer fingers.
The next bend in the ridge brought him directly above the lodge and then it led to the east. Raynar kneeled behind a bush and panted softly trying to regain his breath. "Too old," he whispered to himself and cursed that he had been living too softly.
Below, Rufus was now mounted and finishing a horn of wine. Once gulped empty, the horn was thrown at the groom who stumbled to catch it, and was almost trampled by Rufus who had kicked his courser to be first through the gate. Only one horse followed Rufus, and they both cantering along the eastern path at the foot of the ridge. Raynar increased his pace to a full run along the path. He must keep them in sight as long as possible to be sure of their choice of bridle path.