Beatrice was thinking that it seemed so long ago since Raynar had organized the first wolfpack of hoodsmen and had begun taking back the English farms and manors from Norman knights. So much had happened in a year and a half.
She smiled at the comely young man and said, "Waltheof has told me that there are still very few Normans in residence between Lincoln and Saint Albans. The Normans who escaped the shallow graves of the last rebellion are not anxious to return. I suppose that they still fear your wolfpacks."
"Aye," he admitted, "we left most manors to be run by the twice-widowed English mams, but men from the packs did stay behind to help them and to guard them. How did you just put it? Stalwart and trustworthy. Those twice-widowed women have good men about them now, and as you said, they know how to kill knights with Welsh bows."
"Twice widowed? Twice widowed?" Her face brightened "Oh, I see. First a widow of an of Englishmen killed by the Normans. Then a wife by rape to a Norman who claimed the land. Then widowed again by your wolfpacks. Does that mean that the land reverts to English hands again?"
"For now, but for how long depends on Norman legal trickery. Unfortunately, King William's half-brother Odo is chief Justicar and in the past he has twisted our laws many times to serve himself and his brothers." He yawned, and moved as if he were going off to find a bed.
"So what is this change in the moneylender laws that you mentioned?" she asked. She wasn't really interested, but would ask anything to keep him close by a little longer. She really, really wanted to spend the night with him.
"Well, under Knut's laws that are in-common all around the North Sea, if a man owes money, that is based on his oath, and his oath is a personal bond. If he has trouble paying it back, then he becomes a peon, or a bond servant, until the debt is paid. It is much the same in Frankish law. The difference is that a North Sea debtor's court would never agree to the taking away of the man's ability to pay the debt. Under Frankish law the moneylender can take anything to pay a debt, including that which earns for the man."
"You mean that if a miller cannot pay a debt, they can take his mill. If a farmer cannot pay a debt, they can take his fields. Why that is monstrous!" she exclaimed. "They take away his ability to pay the debt, and yet he still owes the debt. Why would a court allow such trickery?"
"That is becoming the new normal in Frankish Christendom. How did the monk put it, ahh yes, the path of a freeman to serfdom passes through peonage. I find it unfathomable that such a subtle change in law can undo long traditions of possession through hard work."
"Yes, it would undo the laws of possession, wouldn't it?" She pursed her lips. "Here in Lincolnshire, if a farmer needs to borrow, he asks it of the manor first, and then of the monastery, or, as a last resort, a moneylender. With such a change to our laws, over time the manor estates and the monastic estates would grow and grow at the expense of freeman farmers." She sat back in disgust. "And is it the same law for knights?"
"It is the same law but it hardly applies to them. A Frankish knight's wealth is from honors. Much of the land they manage is not actually theirs, so it cannot be taken from them to pay their debts. Besides, when a noble borrows, he borrows large. They do borrow coin locally as the farmers do.
In Brugge, there is a new type of moneylender setting up their shops. These new moneylenders are only one part of a company of moneylenders. When a noble borrows from him, the cost and the risk is not just to that one lender, but spread across the whole company of lenders. The monk told me that these new moneylenders are connected to lenders in a dozen other cities from Brugge to Constantinople."
"Now this interests me." There was a sparkle in Beatrice's eyes. "Klaes tells me that Brugge is booming under their new Count. Meanwhile, Thorold and I have become more and more worried about our future here in Spalding. The Normans are land greedy and eventually they will steal ours, or at least most of it. Klaes wants us to put any new wealth into things other than land."
"Listen well to Klaes. His village has many ways to earn other than from their land. Farming and herding from the land, but also fishing and trading from the sea. He owns ships and earns by carrying cargo for others. He risks his ship, while the others risk the cargo." He watched the smile grow on her face. She knew this better than he. "Am I right in thinking that those are mostly your cargoes?" he asked.
"Of course. Because our Frisian seamen helped to win the Battle of Cassel for Count Robert, it is now easier, safer and more profitable for us to trade with Brugge than with London," she answered, wiggling her wine goblet, "and in Brugge we buy things at a lower cost than we can in London," she pinched at her fine woolen shawl, "and sell things at higher price than we can in London."
"Am I missing something? It sounds like you already earn from things other than land."
"We are still heavy with land on this side of the sea, and light on trade on the other side of the sea. Klaes says that we should sell the land that we are most likely to lose to the Normans, before they can take it from us. We could use that coin to buy some wineries on the continent and thus increase the Brugge portion of the earnings from our trading."
"So will you live in Brugge or in Spalding?" he asked cautiously. He now understood why all the questions about Brugge and Flanders.
"Since there are risks to living in either place, we will live in both," she said with the finality in her voice of someone who had just made a decision long coming, and she slammed her goblet down to make the point.
"So why are you so interested in the company of moneylenders?" he queried, angling his head and wrinkling his nose as if he smelled a fart.
"Because if they are the way of the future, then perhaps we should join the company. We have coin to lend, and we need coin wherever we make trade. It would be foolish to always be moving the coin from place to place. Too risky." She looked at him and gave him an innocent smile to hide the shrewdness of her mind. "So are you coming to bed with me, or are you going to wait until Thorold offers me to you?"
"It is not sharing the bed that worries me. If there were a need for warmth or protection or comfort, then we would already be cuddled against each other. We have no such need and I fear our desires will lead us to trespass against Thorold."
"Oh but love, I do have the need for comforting. Without Thorold, I am being dragged down by worry and responsibility. That and this new baby." Her face started to redden. "Is it me, then. You have shared women before. You have lived in Klaes's village where such sharing is common. You shared Roas with Hereward when she lived in Ely."
"It is different, Bea. You are the longtime wife of a man who is not Frisian, and who sets store in old-fashioned ideals such as fidelity."
"This is Klaes's son in me," she blurted out, and then covered her mouth with her hand. "You must never tell."
"Klaes is not me. Klaes carries Thorold's blood, and I would wager that Thorold was in the bed with you at the time."
"You knew. How many others know?" she was on the verge of tears, or perhaps panic.
"I suspected. Everyone who knows of Thorold's wounds must suspect it, but no one speaks of it."
"It was to be you. In Selby, when we were all living in two rooms during the great flood. It was to be you because Thorold and I both cared for you, and because you were determined to leave us and go and get yourself killed." She kissed him full on the mouth. "But then Anske fell in love with you, and you with her, and the moment slipped away from us."
"Klaes was a better choice than I. He carries Thorold’s bloodline."
"Yes, but it was with you that we first formed the idea." She kissed him again and lingered longer on his lips. "There, it is all said, now come to bed."
"Women," he sighed, "does logic always escape them? If I couldn't bed you before, it is doubly so now. I now need both Thorold's and Klaes's consent before I would mount you."
"Ohhh, Raynar, you make me want to scream and weep at the same time. I want to slap you and say that you need only my permission to be one with my body." She moved away from him on the bench. "But though it sounds very modern, it is far from the truth. You are right, of course. If you share my bed, you also share Thorold's." She looked at him. "Damn you for being right."
"So the next time you sleep with Thorold," he asked, "will you speak of this?"
"Well, not the next time, but perhaps after a week. So tonight will you open your door to that teenager, Gesa?"
"She is your charge," he said. "It used to be that those in your service would ask your permission first."
"I have three island women serving me and today all three have asked my permission to sleep with you. I said no to all of them, but Gesa, well, she is willful and does who she pleases. She asks forgiveness, not permission. She has an appetite, that one. An appetite that I cannot control. All men respond to her. If she could control her appetite she could control men."
"Now you have me intrigued. Would you be angry if I submitted to her just out of curiosity?"
"Not angry, no," she whispered. Should she forbid him or encourage him, she asked herself. If she forbade him then she would be two-faced about wanting to share partners. If she encouraged him, then he would have Gesa while rejecting her. She hated the feeling of rejections. Hah, all women hated the feeling of rejection. What a dilemma.
An idea came to her of how to beat the dilemma. "I will wager you one mark of silver that if you leave your door unbarred, she will come to you and you will not be able to resist her."
"Countess, you are one wily wench. If I want her, it will cost me a mark. That is more than a dockside whore makes in a month. A mark is too much to pay for a silly girl who is not even a virgin, so you will lose your mark."
"I dare you to let her in your room tonight. If you let her in, you will want her, no matter the cost," she laughed aloud. "Believe me. When she turns her charm on you, you will forget everything except for how much you want her wrapped around you." She instantly regretted her words. She had just dared him to do exactly what she was trying to prevent. He was a man. Of course he would take the dare. So much for her clever idea of how to beat the dilemma.
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The Hoodsman - Courtesans and Exiles by Skye Smith