The crew of the Anske were waiting anxiously for the return of the three treasure hunters. The ship was tied between two trees at the fork that split the River Glen from the River Welland that went to Spalding. Raynar pulled once more on the skiff's oars and glided up to the hull. The filled sacks that had taken them more than an hour to load into the skiff took mere minutes for the seamen to hurl aboard the ship.
Beatrice stayed in the skiff, and once the cargo was taken, she was joined by two of the men who had been waiting on the ship. They were two of her husband's constables, one of whom took the oars and the other the steering of the skiff. They pointed to the punt with the two bodies that was being towed by the skiff and threw a question to Raynar, who was now standing on the tiny aft castle of the ship.
"Spies," replied Raynar, "The Abbot of Peterburgh's spies. They were Cambridge men. Cut the punt loose and let the ebb take them out to sea. Tell the watch that there are spies about who have attacked their countess. Vicious buggers. Feel free to cripple them during questioning if you capture any."
The constables nodded their understanding and release the punt's tow line. Then they swung the skiff around and glided away while Bea waved and waved. The oarsmen of the Anske waved back to her with their oars in a swanlike salute, and then they pulled hard and the Anske was under way.
The mouths of the River Welland were a mess of shifting bars and muddy silt. The Anske had not sailed with Klaes's ships because four of the Anske's crew were still not back from visiting their kin. Klaes had left for Flanders on the previous morning, but he had loaned them Luft, one of his seasoned mates, to be their pilot to Flanders.
Luft showed no confusion at all in the braided channels and kept them in the deepest of them. The wind was on shore so all progress was by oar and by ebb tide. Once they reached wider, deeper water, Raynar changed course more to the south and ordered the sail set and the starboard keelboard dropped.
The oarsmen took one last sweep and raised their oars and let the sail fill and do their work for them. Before they could clear away their seamen's chests, which they used as rowing benches, a cry came from the bow. "Ship ahead." The ship was a long ways off, but it looked like the very same Norman patrol in a longship that they had seen when they came from Flanders.
"Keep this course until we are through the last bar," Raynar told Luft, and then he hopped forward to stand with the bow watch.
The longship was making straight for them. It was moving fast under sail and oar, and it was not interested in taking any of the channels that would take them safely through the bar without having to brave the breaking surf. There was a man on the bow of the longship pointing to the shore. The message was clear. They wanted the Anske to make for shore. Raynar told the watch to ignore the longship and, instead, strain their eyes and tell him what was happening on the shore.
The watch included a young lad who had the eyes of an Anske, which was Frisian for eagle. "I see glints of sun off metal, sir. There on the beach." Now that they had been pointed out to him, Raynar could see the glints too. "Helmets or spearheads," guessed the lad, and he nodded in agreement. He hopped and struggled back to the steering post and told this to Luft.
"Them spies must have spread the word we wus leavin'. That longship wus waitin' for us. She's twice our length and twice our oars. So what now?" asked Luft,
"We do what they ask, Luft, we head to the beach. Here, let me take the tiller while you watch for shallows." He rose his voice over the sound of the wind and waves so that the entire ship could hear him. "Come alive you lot! We are going surfing. Don't wet your oars unless I order it, and if I order it, hop to it. Loosen the rigging. Loosen the lashings on that keelboard." When this was all done he pushed on the tiller and the bow swung around towards the shore and towards the breaking surf.
"Men, the tide is our friend and the bar is our friend. That longship is longer, heavier, and needs deeper water than we do. I am going across the bar and hope that the longship follows us in. Then we will row along the bar looking for a channel back through to deep water. Hopefully by then the channels will be too shallow for the longship. Anyone got a better idea?"
"No lad," Luft said, looking along the breaking waves that ran all along the bar. "Let's just hope her skipper is fool enough to follow us in."
"Right then, let's do it," Raynar yelled out, and the oarsmen dug their oars deep to give the Anske a push of speed. "Keep telling me what the longship is doing, Luft, cause I am going to be too busy to turn to watch."
"She's come about, too. Turned towards shore. She's thinking about escorting us in. If they were smart they would just run along outside the bar to make sure we can't turn back. Aye, she's committing herself. Must fear that once over the bar we will race back into the river."
The Anske was running before the wind straight towards the waves that marked the edge of the bar. Raynar warned his starboard crew to keep their oars high, and his port crew to get ready to dig hard. Just as they rose up on the break, Raynar pulled the tiller hard over and yelled, "Port oars, dig in, give her some hard sweeps and then lift your oars high!"
The Anske hovered on the swell and then turned sharply along the wave away from the longship, and the oars dipped twice and they shot forward. "Hold that keelboard down!," he yelled, "It will keep us from rolling down the wave. Spill the wind from the sail. Oh yeah! Here we go. Bowmen run forward. We need to push her nose down."
The Anske shot along the break, being pushed by tons of white water. Raynar was watching for the same channel they had used before to get beyond this break. He couldn't see it yet. It was taking all his strength on the tiller to hold the stern of the ship from being swept down the wave. If that happened it would lead to disaster. If the ship ever turned fully side on to the waves, instead of angled forward, the ship would roll despite the keelboard. Luft's strong arms grabbed the tiller from the other side and took up some of the weight of water that Raynar was fighting.
The feel of the ship changed ever so slightly. It was the beginning of a roll. "Starboard oarsmen. Lean over the gunnels. Add your weight to the gunnels. Now! Now! Now!" The men jumped to the order and the ship regained its balance.
"Those fuckin' idiots on the longship are not going straight through the waves, the buggers are trying to follow us!" Luft yelled into the wind. "It is insane enough for us to try this, but they are in a longship. They really don't want to lose us."
Raynar was too busy to risk a look over his shoulder. He could see the channel ahead. Could they make it before some part of the wave rolled them? "Port oars at the ready. Wait for it. Wait for it. Now, dig, dig, dig!" Luft and he hauled on the tiller. "Bowmen! Get back, now, quick, get back to the stern!" The nose swung up and the ship stalled, and the oars dug in on the landward side and the rudder dug in deep and the ship swung on the wave and its bow shot skyward. "All oars, row you beauties, row!" The small ship reared again and smashed into the next wave and then was through and into the channel. " Keep rowing, straight out. Drop that sail."
Only then did Raynar risk a look over his shoulder at the longship. Some of his oarsmen were rowing standing up so that they could see it, too. Luft was yelling out a commentary to those who could not see. "She turned too soon. They didn't spill the wind. She's not going to make it. She's broadside to the break. She's going over!"
"Luft, take the tiller. Make towards her, but stay outside of the break." Raynar let go of the tiller and hopped in a broken run between men and oars up to the bow. Ahead and towards shore, the longship had been swamped by a breaking wave and now the next wave couldn't lift her, so it was forcing her over. The men aboard her were in a full panic. Some were trying to correct the course with their oars, some were trying to grab for anything that would float, and some were being thrown into the sea. The ship went over and there was a crack like thunder as its mast snapped and snagged then snagged on the bar and then there were men in the water all around the hull.
Before the Anske was even abreast of the longship, it was a wreck, broken into two pieces and there were less than a handful of heads still on the surface. "Raynar!" yelled Luft, "please don't tell me you plan to pluck any of them out of that surf!"
"It's no use," Raynar yelled back "They are wearing mail. They will be under before we could reach them. It's no use risking the ship for dead men." He looked at the drowning men. He knew exactly, exactly, how they were feeling at this moment. It would be all over for them in a minute. The half of the wreck without the broken mast was being carried to shore on the wash. The other half was snagged on the bottom and it seemed to be waving at them with each swell.
Luft and the bowmen crowded around Raynar, slapping him on the back. "It was genius, lad. That bastard patrol ship won't bother our ships anymore, and no one can blame it on us. We wus just followin' their orders to go to the beach, but lost control in the wave just as they did. We survived, they didn't. That's a story that will have wings as soon as that shore patrol reaches an alehouse."
"Perhaps they will tell it so," said Raynar without their enthusiasm, "but I worry that the abbot will grab any excuse to march on Spalding and hold the countess for the Norman courts. I wish Thorold or Klaes were there."
"You told Thorold's constables about the spies. They wus your men once, lad, and ran with your wolfpacks. If the abbot worries the Countess for any reason, there'll be wolfpacks doin' a lot worse than worrying that effin' abbot."
"Perhaps, but with Waltheof is on his way to Scotland with King William, that abbot will assume powers above his station. He is a dangerous man. A soldier, not a monk. I should have killed him years ago." His voice trailed off as he swung around to face his oarsmen. "Does anyone want to say a prayer for the drowned?" There were jeers. "Thought not. Luft, make for Flanders."
There was cheering the length of the ship. Though the danger of the longship and of the surf was now finished, they were still feeling the adventure energy throbbing through their bodies.
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The Hoodsman - Courtesans and Exiles by Skye Smith