The ninth of the coastal hulls that the Wellenhay clan had bought had now been refitted with a Bermudan rig, and so the Freisburn 9 was on its proving sail. It was more than just a test sail, however, because the crew expected no problems. And why should they, as it was their ninth conversion. Venka had been called to a meeting of elders in Freiston, the village inland from the port of Fishtoft. Earlier this year Wellenhay and Freiston, both being populated by ancient Frisian clans folk, had entered into a mutual aid pact. Now Fishtoft wanted to join that pact.
Wellenhay, which had a third more women than men, had pushed for the original pact because it would help them to migrate to Bermuda. In celebration of the pact, six Freiston men had married six Wellenhay women, and it was those couples who would stay behind in Wellenhay and work the village commons just in case the Bermuda venture failed. At the time no one could foresee that Earl Lindsey would press the men of both Fishtoft and Freiston into the king's service. No one could foresee that Lindsey would have his army destroy the villages and 'use' the women.
So it was that the mutual aid pact that had been originally set up to help Wellenhay, had first benefited Freiston. Due to the pact, Wellenhay had helped them to rebuild the village, nurse the women, and had sent Daniel to Earl Lindsey to buy the release of their men. In the first week of Daniel's quest he had found and released the men of Fishtoft by using force against a press gang. Last week he had released the men of Freiston by shooting the Earl of Lindsey and then leading the men out of the massive battle near Kineton.
The Freisburn was carrying not just Venka and Daniel, but also Cleff, the eldest man, Oudje the eldest man, Teesa the novice seer, and four other women as crew. Wellenhay was so chronically short of men due to a disaster at sea that the women often crewed on the smaller ships. Today Teesa assumed command. She loved to sail these sleek converted coastal traders.
For the first hour Cleff had been below decks with Daniel showing him all of the improvements in the ship. Not just the obvious conversion of open hull to enclosed cabin, and square rigged to triangle rigged fore-and-aft, for all of the Freisburns had that in common. This one was the latest conversion and it had benefited from the knowledge gained form the eight conversions before it.
"So why all the bunks?" Daniel asked as he looked along the length of the one great cabin that ran from the steering-and-oarsman well all the way to the bow.
"Because of our charter with the Norfolk trainbands. We carry more men than cargo these days, and sometimes we serve as a floating camp for them," Cleff replied. "This is the first ship with bunks, you know, in preparation for winter weather."
"I thought the contract was to patrol the Wash."
"Aye, patrol, but when there is trouble we become a troop transport like we did when we ferried the Lynn trainband over to relieve Boston when Lindsey attacked it."
"But there is no room for cargo," Daniel complained, "unless you stack the cargo on the bunks."
"Twit, the bunks fold up. I just had them all down so you could see how many men we could sleep at a time. Twenty and four."
"Well at least it is not as cramped as a Moroccan slaver."
Cleff looked disheartened. "Is that the best you have to say? This took a lot of thought and work."
"Sorry mate. Forgive me. I'm not myself. This ship is wonderful. Sleek and fast and beds for twenty four." He meant it. The hull may have been laid forty years ago, but she was still sound. The triangle sails meant you didn't need oarsmen except to dock. Under sail the water hissed passed the hull. "Has Montagu paid anything yet?" He meant Edward Montagu, the new Earl of Manchester and parliament's paymaster for the Norfolk and Suffolk trainbands.
"Aye, and he made a special trip to Lynn to see the ships for himself. Unfortunately once he saw these beauties, he decided to expand our patrols well beyond the Wash. He has heard that Charlie's queen is gathering an invasion fleet to carry mercenaries over from the continent."
"Expanded the patrols? How far?"
"To Mablesford in the north and to Lowestoft in the south."
"Bloody hell. Winter is almost upon us. Now I understand the bunks. Now tell me about Fishtoft wanting to join our alliance."
Cleff's face reddened. "Er, well, it was sort of my suggestion."
"What do you mean? Freiston made sense for they have many folk with Frisian blood so we share many cousins and many traditions ... and many speak the old tongue. But Fishtoft, a bunch of clam diggers?"
"Don't be so fast to judge them," Cleff replied. "The men of Freiston are flatlanders ... farmers. The men of Fishtoft are fishermen and seamen. This year and last most of them have been idled ashore because the old coastal traders aren't paying for themselves anymore. I offered them berths on our patrol ships so we wouldn't need to use our women as crew. That got them all talking and thinking." Cleff let that arguement sink in, and then continued. "We could do worse than to let them join. Their village is on the mouth of Boston's Haven. They watch our ships when we are in that port. They have the same distrust of all nobles as we do."
"They are Christians."
"They are weak Christians. All seamen's wives pray to the moon goddess to keep their men safe, not matter which church they attend."
Daniel nodded. This was true everywhere on the North Sea. When you prayed to keep your men safe from weather and waves and tides, or prayed for a bountiful catch in the nets, only a fool would pray to the god of a desert land. "So do we make it easy for Fishtoft to join us, or hard?"
"We leave the bargaining to the elders of Freiston and Fishtoft," Venka called from the door to the great cabin. "All we must do is say yay or nay to what they decide."
Daniel smiled at his wife. She was ten years his senior but did not look her age. His brother had loved and lived her for fifteen years before he was lost at sea, and he had been a good father to her two infant daughters from her first widowhood. When his brother was lost, she had become his second wife by default, even though he did not have a first. Today she had the most powerful voice in Wellenhay, though officially Cleff could veto her decisions. Something he would never do without good cause. "So when my opinion is asked, what do you want me to say?" he asked her.
"You. You will be far too busy to attend a meeting of elders. You sent the pressed Fishtoft men back to their women, and then rescued the pressed Freiston men from a battlefield. You, my love, will be mobbed by well-wishers. I already know of five women who mean to name their next born child Daniel or Danielle. You just be careful that none of them drag you into bed to create it."
The three of them went back outside to see how Teesa and the ship were doing. Daniel had been a bit worried that Teesa was still under the spell of the mushrooms. You could see it in the color of her eyes and in her glassy stare. He needn't have worried. Mushrooms tended to make you one with nature, and what was more natural that sailing a nimble small ship between the waves.
"I like her. I like her a lot," Teesa called to them from where she was standing right in the stern beside the tiller. "She is the best so far Cleff. Very easy to steer, and solid when she hits a wave."
"That's the extra bracing of the bunks," Cleff called back. He was grinning.
The four crew were coiling lines and looking bored. These four women had come along not so much because they were needed as crew, but because they had decided to be next to find husbands in Freiston, or perhaps in Fishtoft if things went smoothly. Such was the shortage of men in Wellenhay.
Marriage in Wellenhay was a very traditional thing. All houses and kitchen gardens were passed from mother to daughter so any children always stayed with the house, and therefore the mother. The seafaring husbands would come and go. After a year together under the initial vows, a couple could enter into a stronger, longer marital vow. One for life.
The less traditional wives were known to juggle two husbands at a time, which worked well for them so long as the men worked different ships on different schedules. You could usually tell which woman had more than one husband by the wider grin on her face and the heft of her purse.
With the shortage of men in Wellenhay these days, there were few women with more than one husband anymore, but many men with more than one wife. Just as Daniel had inherited two second wives due to his brother's death, other men had inherited the wives of close family. It was a tradition that saved good women from the poverty and loneliness of widowhood that was all too common in Christian villages.
* * * * *
The folk of Freiston were waiting for them when they stepped ashore in Fishtoft. Apparently the bargaining had been going on for days between the two sets of elders, but now it had all been agreed on and they were waiting for Venka and Cleff's approval. They were so assured of that approval that a fete had already begun. While the others were guided up to the church where the meeting was being held, Daniel was swarmed.
It takes a long time to shake a hundred hands, and receive a hundred hugs, and speak a few words to each person in turn. Despite this Daniel would have still made it to the meeting if an ale tent had not been set up in the square before the church, and if the children were not dancing with their mothers while their fathers drank. Teesa was a damn fine dancer. Someone in this village made damn fine ale. He was on his third pot, and still shaking hands and being hugged when Cleff came and found him, and found his jug of ale and helped himself to a pot.
"It is done," Cleff told Daniel between hugs. "We have agreed to Fishtoft joining our mutual aid pact. These folk are all now the next closest thing to clansmen." His words were carried through the men supping ale while watching the dancers, and then a hoot went up and the men joined in the dancing. Daniel grabbed Cleff's arm and pulled him towards the dancers, but Cleff shook his arm free and shook his head and poured himself some more of this excellent ale.
"Now the real work of the elders begins inside," Cleff said. "How to organize three villages, the ships, and the men so that none of us will suffer an attack again."
Daniel looked into his half filled pot, and then looked at the swirling skirts of the dancers, and then he sighed, and put the pot down. Such a discussion he must attend. He followed Cleff through the singing, hand clapping men and into the church. Cleff walked steadily forward and sat down at a large table at the front where the alter would have been a decade ago. There was a place for Daniel beside Cleff, but Daniel instead chose to sit on a bench nearer the door with some local men his own age. This time the handshakes were swift and firm.
This temple building had been built as a Papist church, had become an English church under King Henry the Cock, but more recently had been used to house folk and animals while the roofs of the village were being re-thatched. Re-thatched because the Earl of Lindsey's men who had occupied the village while laying siege to Boston had burned the roofs when they were pushed out of the village by the upswell of outraged men from all around the Wash.
"As I was saying," a glum looking man, not a local, called out to regain everyone's attention after the disturbance of Daniel's arrival. "The best way for you to defend your villages is to form trainbands like Boston has, and to join in the association that Lord Brooke is forming to consolidate all of the trainbands of the midlands."
"Whose the gent with the gob stopper words?" Daniel whispered to the man beside him. A man he last saw in a pike square that was escaping the carnage in front of Edgehill.
"Captain John Lilburne, Lord Brooke's man," came the whispered reply. "Lord Brooke sent some officers to Boston to raise more men to fight against the king's army. John came with them. I can't believe he is a captain. The man speaks more like a cleric. His men say that in London he is called Freeborn John."
Daniel and the men on the bench with him listened politely for a few more minutes to what Lilburne had to say, but though his words rang true and were convincing, they did not convince Daniel. As well meaning as the glum captain was, he was wasting the time of this meeting, so eventually Daniel stood up. When a local hero stands up to speak, no one calls him 'out of order'.
"Captain Lilburne. I thank you for your words and for your offer to join an association of trainbands, but you are speaking your words in the wrong village. This village was occupied by the forces of the Earl of Lindsey while the men of this village were heeding a call for help from the trainband of Boston. When Lindsey's men arrived there were not men enough left to protect the women and homes. Boston's roofs were not burned, but this village's roofs were burned. Boston's men were not pressed, but this village's men were pressed. Boston's women were not defiled, but this village's women were defiled."
Lilburne made to speak, to argue, but then he looked around at the faces of the men sitting on the benches listening. To a man they were with the tall man who had interrupted him. It was clear that he would raise no men for Lord Brooke in this village.
"Yes we need to form a trainband," Daniel said to the men in the hall, rather than to Lilburne, "but we cannot call it a trainband for then it can be called up by outlanders and drylanders and the nobles of the king or of parliament. We must call ourselves clubmen. As clubmen our first duty is to protect our homes and our families, and this from anyone, and any side in this war between nobles. And..." The roar of agreement drowned him out, so Daniel waited until it died and then finished with, "And not be dragged away to lose our lives in a battle organized by lords to decide who will be the most powerful group of lords in this kingdom."
Lilburne did not sit down. He still had the floor and he was thumping his hand on the table trying to regain order. Luckily for him Daniel sat down so the men of the hall again turned to him to listen. "There are many in parliament who think like I do that there must be more equality between men in this kingdom. That the gulf between the one in a hundred that rule us, and those of us who are ruled, is far too great. That is what this rebellion is all about. If you want more equality and more say, then you must support Lord Brooke." He stopped talking because the good looking middle aged woman at the end of the table had stood. "Madam, I am still speaking, and speaking of manly things, so please sit down."
Venka gave Lilburne a hard stare and then said, "So with all of this equality you speak of, can I expect to be elected to parliament for it's next sitting?"
"Don't be absurd."
"So much for your promises of equality then. In my village we elect women to our council. I am what you would call the Mayor of my village. I think you have had your answer Captain Lilburne." She turned to the rest of the men at the table. "I move that our villages form a joint band of clubmen whose primary duty is to protect our villages against all comers. Do you wish to discuss it further or should we take a vote?"
"Madam, this is unseemly," Lilburne told her. "I still have the floor." He raised the red baton that indicated that he was the current speaker and not her. The woman simply shook her head at him and wagged a finger to signal some men on a bench to one side of the table. Two very large men leaped up off that bench and took the baton from Lilburne's hands and rolled it down the table towards Venka. As for Lilburne, they physically lifted him off his feet and carried him backwards to sit on the bench with them.
"Captain Lilburne, you are welcome to stay and listen," Venka told him, "or to go and make your report to Lord Brooke, but we are finished listening to you." She turned and rolled the baton to the mayor of Fishtoft and then sat down.
"A vote then," the mayor said. "All in favour of creating a joint band of clubmen, say aye." The immediate cheer of aye echoed around the unadorned ex-church.
The mayor made a note on a piece of paper and then continued. "We are three villages who are joining our strengths for our mutual benefit, but we are three very dissimilar villages in the way that we are organized and ruled. Wellenhay is a traditional clan village where anything of importance such as productive land and ships are owned communally and are used co-operatively. Fishtoft is a modern Christian village where land and ships are owned by individuals, mostly by wealthy men and lords who live nowhere near this village. Freiston is halfway between the two, but tending towards more and more private ownership."
"Aye, thanks to the Earl of Lindsey and his damnable drainage enclosures," the mayor of Freiston pointed out. "Interesting, ain't it, that is the most traditional or our villages that is prospering."
"Yes, quite so. I believe that in these unsettled times when the rule of law has been weakened by the kingdom having two rulers, that for our own protection we must revert to more traditional ways. I move that our villages take immediate action to place all of our critical assets under communal control and that we adopt the traditional laws and customs that have served Wellenhay so well. It is a motion that needs much thought, so I open the floor for discussion."
Lilburne was on his feet immediately. "You cannot do this. It is outright theft of private property. The sanctity of ownership underlies all modern laws."
The man sitting beside Lilburne on the bench pulled him back down to the bench. He was a big man, so Lilburne could not keep his feet. He was a farmer and had arms as big as other men's thighs. "We ain't thieving land that wasn't already thieved from us by the nobility. All of the land hereabouts was at one time common. The nobility twisted our traditional laws to steal it from us and call it theirs, and then they created these modern laws to keep it theirs."
Once the roar of agreement to the farmers words had died down, the mayor of Freiston stood to be heard. He looked at the elder who had raised the motion and told him, "This issue is vital to the success of our mutual aid pact, so may I suggest rewording your motion so that we can take a vote immediately." The elder nodded his permission. "Most of the land that has recently been stolen from our commons was done so by the Earl of Lindsey, who is now dead, and since the kingdom has two rulers, the naming of his successor may be delayed."
Daniel sat forward. What had the man just said. He leaped to his feet and yelled out, "Wait. Did you just say that the Earl of Lindsey was dead?"
"Why yes, hadn't you heard. Captain Lilburne brought that news to me from Boston." He stopped speaking because suddenly an entire bench of men had leaped to their feet beside Daniel and were lifting him onto their shoulders. With a cheer, the men carried Daniel out of the church and out into the fete outside to tell the rest of the village the news. "Umm, will someone be so kind as to close the doors again so we can continue."
Once everyone was seated again he did continue. "Since the common land was stolen from the villages by Lindsey's twisting of the traditional enclosure laws on behalf of the king, then it does not belong to the Earl of Lindsey personally, but to the honor bestowed by the king. Until there is a new earl, the land will not be worked or used appropriately. Under the same traditional law that was twisted to privatize the land there is provision to claim it back. Any enclosed land that is not being worked reverts to common if someone else proves that they can make better use of it."
"Where is such a law written down. In what statute?" Lilburne cried out.
A very old woman who seemed to have been sleeping at the table was now helped to her feet. Everyone in the hall went still except for Lilburne. "Be quiet fool," she told him. "We are speaking of traditional laws. Laws that date back to the time when the Great King Knut gathered all of the laws of all of his North Sea kingdoms and had his lawyers decide which of all the laws of all of those places were in widespread use ... which were such good laws that all held them in-common. Knut's in-common law is the law that we are speaking of, and that common law has survived through the centuries all around the North Sea despite the coming and going of conquerors and empires, kings and parliaments." She had said enough, had said it all, and sat down.
"Many thanks, Oudje," the mayor said kindly to the woman who was a walking history text of these parishes. "I would reword the motion thusly. I move that since there is no longer an Earl of Lindsey, that all lands, manors, mills, bridges, and ditches once claimed by the deceased Robert Bertie and his family revert to the common so that they can be worked to the benefit of all, and that they be worked co-operatively."
"That is outrageous!" Lilburne shouted out, but a hard stare from the looming farmer beside him stopped him from saying more.
"All in favour say aye. The aye's have it. Now as for our village lands and assets owned by other absentee landlords, I move that they be dealt with on a case by case basis. All in favour. Carried." The mayor of Freisburn handed the red baton back to his host, the mayor of Fishtoft.
"The next most important topic is the defense of our villages, our women, and our stock so that never again will we suffer what we suffered at the hands of the earl."
Cleff stood and reached forward and was handed the baton. "By tradition, one of Wellenhay's council is elected warlord. Our warlord is expected to lead our men in battle, and because our ships are communally owned, he is also the captain of all ships commanders. Until two years ago, I was Wellenhay's warlord. I retired in favour of Daniel Vanderus, because he had been fighting in the modern wars on the continent.
I propose two motions. First that each of the villages elect a warlord and an alternate, and that those men elect the primary warlord from amongst themselves. My second motion is that the question of defense should be set aside to a committee of these warlords and alternates in order to make plans. Before we take a vote I would like you all to know that the wetlands where Daniel was serving in the Netherlands is very similar to the wetlands around The Wash, and that the type of defenses that served the Dutch of those wetlands so well against the armies of the Spanish Empire, will serve us equally well."
"I call a vote on Cleff's two motions. On the first. Carried. On the second. Carried. All questions and suggestions for defense are to be sent to our defense committee. All except one. Our legal defense. Our defense from the lawyers of kings and nobles who will attack us in the courts for what we have just decided. This is now open for discussion."
Lilburne stood up, and was pulled back down again by the farmer. The mayor nodded towards Captain Lilburne so the farmer allowed him to stand. "If the king prevails against parliament, then all the positive changes that parliament has enacted will be swept away. The same can be said of all of your changes. That is why you must stand with Lord Brooke and parliament against the king."
"And if parliament prevails, what then. Both houses are populated with landlords who are protected by the modern laws that support private ownership over communal ownership." It was Cleff who spoke. "All landlords and especially their bankers hate the traditions of communal ownership and the mutual cooperation that it allows. We, the folk of The Wash know this better than most. That is why so many of our folk have fled to the new world. It is time that you stopped being just a learned nay sayer working in the interest of Lord Brooke and his army, and instead tell us something helpful."
"I ... ugh ... that is," Lilburne sat down, but then immediately stood up again. "Why not copy what the Scots did to confound the kings lawyers?"
"And what was that, pray tell?"
"The valleys of Scotland are clannish like the villages around The Wash. They are self sufficient and communal of necessity, because their winter cuts many of the valleys off. The Scots want and need as much local rule and as little centralized rule as possible." Lilburne explained. "For a decade the king squabbled with the Edinburgh parliament about who was running Scotland ... the Scots or the king in London." "
"But Charlie is a Scottish king," came the gruff voice of the farmer at his side.
"His father James was a Scottish king in English clothing. Charles is an English king in Scottish clothing. In any case, Charles tried to outsmart Edinburgh by gaining more control of Scotland via the church. He appointed bishops who would control Scotland from England through the kirk ... ugh... the church. His plan blew up in his face as soon as he tried to take control of the Scottish kirks. You see, they were all Presbyterian."
"As are we," the mayor of Fishtoft pointed out.
"Edinburgh used religion to defeat the king's laws and claims," Lilburne continued.
"Edinburgh defeated him because they brought General Alex Leslie back from Sweden and he trounced the king's army," Cleff pointed out, and rightly so.
"Yes, but why are those wars now called the Bishop's Wars, and why was Leslie leading an army call the Covenanter army. I'll tell you why. Because all of the southern Scots signed their grand petition, their Covenant. It was a long and convoluted document, but underneath all the fine words, what it said was that the Scottish Presbyterian Kirk was perfect the way it was because it had been designed around the teachings of the Lord Jesus. Any change, such as imposing foreign bishops or prayer books, would pervert the good works of the true King of Kings."
John Lilburne gazed around at the blank stares. "Don't you see. They pitted a greater king against Charlie thus beating him and his lawyers at their own game."
"Aye," Cleff pointed out, "And rather than be beaten by the Jesus petition, Charlie sent an army to Scotland."
"The man is a fool," the farmer said pulling Lilburne down to his bench. "The whole point of this discussion is to find ways to keep us safe from Charlie's army and his lawyers."
"Let go of me," Lilburne said, shaking out of the farmers grip. "I'm sorry if my example confused you. What I meant to say was that you can keep hold of your reclaimed common land by making it a part of your religion. You can use church law to block the property laws. You can gain support for your case in parliament by making sure that what you do is encouraged by the Presbyterians who are now running Westminster." He looked around, frantic to find any glimmer of understanding in any of the eyes.
He found it in the most unlikely of faces, the most comely of faces at the elder table ... the mayor of Wellenhay. Venka stood and a hush came over the men. This was the woman who last month had rallied all of her kinfolk to rescue the women of Fishtoft and Freiston. She had earned their respect, and their attention. If Lilburne was expecting a rebuke from this uppity woman, he was wrong.
"What Captain Lilburne has told you rings true to Wellenhay's own experience," she told them all. "We have always been a traditional, communal village, and I hope we always will be. Many times the law has been twisted by nobles and bishops to try to break up our clan, break up our village, usually by trying to break up our common land. For the last generation, however, we have been left in peace, while other villages have suffered the loss of wherewithal and the dislocation caused by the drainage enclosures. And why have we been left in peace? Because we declared ourselves Anabaptists. The independent Presbyterians, especially the Congregationalists all around The Wash do not approve of Anabaptists, but they do accept them as a communal version of their own beliefs."
"By Congregationalists you mean Puritans," Lilburne confirmed.
"If that is the word you prefer, yes," Venka told him with a smile. "Though in my experience they do not call themselves by that name. They are Presbyterian independents who believe that local churches and schools should be run by the local congregation."
"And rightly so," added the Mayor of Fishtoft.
"As Anabaptists we also believe this but take it further. We feel that the choice of religious beliefs should be made after the age of consent, and not be forced on children by christening them. We also believe that the congregation should not only rule their churches and schools, but the main means of livelihood as well. How else can they be run for the benefit of all the community." Venka stopped the explanation at that point, before she accidentally let it slip that her clan were not actually Christian.
"So what you are saying," Lilburne replied, "is that as Anabaptists, the Presbyterians accept that you refute private ownership of the land and the mills and the ships because you work them communally as part of your independent Presbyterian beliefs."
Venka’s face showed her relief as this stranger explained it so well. "Yes. Is that what you had in mind when you were going on and on about the Scots?"
"I think so. Yes it fits. Your religious beliefs justify the holding of the land in common, and any legal action to take the land from you must first traverse the quagmire of religious decrees."
The mayor of Fishtoft looked across the table at the mayor of Freiston and said, "So it seems that as of today our villages must strive to become like Anabaptist communes. Do you have any objection to that?"
"Not a one. Look how well it has worked for Wellenhay. Announcing it is simple enough, but how ever will we encourage the communal way of life amongst our folk."
Old Oudje rose to her feet, and the mayors went quiet out of respect. "Winter is coming and though many curse it, winter bonds us communally. From what the captain says, it does so in Scotland too. Wellenhay keeps a common long house, and a common bath house including a sweat lodge, and it is in those places that we gather for the duration of the long winter nights to share our company, and our warmth, and our food. You must build the likes of them in your villages, and you must do it before the snow flies."
The mayor of Fishtoft scribbled some additions to a lengthening list of things to do. "Well obviously we can use this church as our longhouse. The last of the papist trappings were removed two years ago, and the priest fled when his master, the earl, raided the village. Since then it has been used as a longhouse to house our women and children while our burned roofs were re-thatched."
"That was fine for the summer, but not in the winter," Oudje pointed out. "You will never be able to keep his draughty old stone building warm, and warmth is one of the prime features of a longhouse that draws the folk to it. I have always thought that the papists made their churches of stone on purpose so that the folk would have to suffer the cold as punishment for their sins. You would be better to use this church to shelter your prize animals and use the rectory as the longhouse instead. At least it is timber and wattle so you have some hope of keeping it warm."
"We could do that. Yes, come to think of it, it used to be the old manor. Knock out a few walls to lengthen the dining hall back into a great hall and it would do us for this winter. What about the bath house? Would Wellenhay loan us some men who know how to build a bath house?"
"Need you ask?" Venka scolded him. "A word of advice though. We in Wellenhay are well used to bathing in mixed company. At first you may want to schedule different times for men and women in your bath house. It will save the men a lot of embarrassment, especially the young lads."
"Save the men embarrassment. I would expect it to be the women who would be embarrassed." There was a ripple of laughter through the men.
"Not bloody likely," Venka said joining in the laughter. "All of your bums have been washed by a woman at one time or another. Mark what I say about the lads. It's hard enough to get them to wash even when they aren't being embarrassed about their winkies."
* * * * *
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The Pistoleer - Brentford by Skye Smith Copyright 2014