It was a crisp autumn morning that would turn into a late summer day when the procession assembled in Brugge to set out for Paris. The journey was expected to take two weeks, though it be only two hundred miles as the crow flies. That was how numerous were the castles and burgs that the Count must visit on his way. That was how slow-moving were the carts carrying gifts and the older women.
Most of the men in the procession were English; English bowmen with Raynar, and English ex-lords with Edgar, but there were many more women than men. Women who represented all of the great houses of Flanders. Their husbands were all staying on guard at home in case the county required defending while Robert was in Paris.
One of the wedding gifts for Philippe was a magnificent black Frisian stallion with flowing mane and tail and a temper that showed it had still to be fully broken to riding. The entire procession was stalled at one of the burg gates while three grooms, each with a rope around the stallion's neck, were hauling down on them to calm the great beast. Instead, the ropes were enraging the beast and no one else could pass the gate for fear of his slashing hooves.
"Fools," said Gesa to Bertha, who was sitting beside her in the cart and surrounded by soft pillows. She reached for her smallest pack and pulled out some homespun leggings from Spalding. As demurely as possible in the crowded cart, she pulled them on underneath her traveling smock. She took her knife from her belt to split some stitches in the front hem of the smock, and then leaped out of the cart and walked towards the gate and the half wild horse.
"What's his name?" she yelled to the grooms.
"Foreign name, Izo," said one groom.
"It means Iron." she replied. "A good Frisian name for the king of horses."
She walked directly up to the prancing stallion, calling to him in Frisian. She did not stop, she did not hesitate. In Flemish she yelled at the grooms to loosen their hold on the ropes and then resumed talking to the stallion. The stallion faced her and backed slightly as if he were about to rear and kick out with his front hoofs. She signaled the grooms to be calm, and then turned her back to the grand horse and stood still and ignored him and seemed to be lost in prayer.
The horse slowly relaxed and then stepped forward and leaned his great head over her shoulder. She reached up and stroked his cheek softly with her hand, and then held her hand still and pressed softly just beneath the creature's eye. She turned slowly and spoke into the stallion's ear as she removed all three ropes from his neck. Then with one smooth motion she grabbed a handful of the long black mane and swung herself onto the long bare back of the steed.
The black took two quick steps to balance her weight and then looked as if he was about to buck, but Gesa leaned forward and spoke into his ear as she stroked both sides of his long satin neck. She flowed her hands down the neck and then down the shoulders and the horse visibly relaxed.
"Bring me a blanket, a saddle, and a bridle. I will ride him," she told the nearest groom.
"No lady. You get down. That horse is dangerous."
Count Robert had ridden back from leading the procession to see what the holdup was. He had been just about to give orders to drag the horse to the rear, when Gesa had stepped in with her healer's touch. His heart soared with emotions while he watched the young lass tame the wild spirit. "Do as she says," he ordered, and the grooms literally ran to do his bidding.
She used her hand touch and her toes to guide the stallion over closer to Bertha's cart. "I will ride for a few miles to exercise Izo, but then I will return. He may as well be led by our cart as by those know-nothing grooms."
"Oh do be careful," said Bertha, "I know this breed well, and though the mares are wonderful to ride, the stallions are spiteful and arrogant."
"Do not worry so, Bertha, I grew up with this breed, though never with any horse so fine." She waved the carter onward, needlessly for he had heard all and the cart was already moving. The carter blew her a kiss from his wide smile as the cart rattled across the cobblestones of the gate yard and through the gate.
Much time passed before she was satisfied with the saddle and the bridle. The younger groom held up a sheepskin for her to put over the saddle to save her bottom, and she thanked him for it and smiled and touched his hand as he positioned it. "Calming words, not ropes," she said.
The horse did not like the bridle and began to fight it, so she loosened it until it was merely an attachment for the reins, and then they were away. At first the horse danced sideways but he finally submitted and allowed her to choose the direction he would walk. Two of Raynar's bowmen, Fen Frisians like herself, had stayed behind to escort her. The black set off through the gate, with the men riding one on each side so that they were ready to lift her from the horse if he bollted.
He did not bolt. Far from it. He pranced with his head high and his tail up like a flag. The two other horses, both mares, dropped back a few steps to follow where he led. They soon caught up with the column, and then her cart, and then the lead, but since Gertrude had specifically warned her not to show favour to Robert in public, she pulled up instead to walk beside Raynar and Edgar.
"What a beauty," Edgar said, and Gesa told him the stallion was named Izo until she realized Edgar was not looking at the horse. She blushed slightly, but hid it.
"Edgar, Gesa," Raynar introduced them with simplicity. "I loved one of Edgar's sisters once, but she is married now."
"So love the other sister," replied Gesa, so open in her ways and simple in her advice. Both Edgar and Raynar blushed and were silent. "Men are such fools," she said, "the first forbade the second, am I right? Fools," and she laughed aloud.
She dropped back to ride with her escort. "This horse needs exercise. Will you come with me if I ride faster to catch the scouts?" She didn't wait for a reply but steered Izo onto the soft grass verge beside the road and urged the horse to a run.
She flew past Robert with her escort on the two mares already trailing well behind her. She leaned into the stallion's neck and wrapped her arms around it and grabbed at his sides with her knees and became one with the horse's stride. The wind tore at her scarf and at her hair and at her cheeks. She dared not lift her head to see if the Frisian lads were following her because she feared losing her grip. She was on to the scouts too quickly and the horse still wanted to run some more.
The scouts, thinking the horse was a run away, rode interference to try to block him and slow him down. Izo was having none of that. He swerved to one side and leaped the low wall of loose stones and into the field of grain protected by the wall. Her legs were whipped by the long autumn grain, and the stallion did not like the feel, so he angled back and leaped back onto the road verge. Now there were a half dozen men giving chase.
The stallion was tireless, but she felt her own strength ebbing and her grip of the horse loosening. Izo felt her grip loosen and slowed, and slowed again, and then walked towards a low muddy patch of ground and pawed it until the hole he had made filled with water, and then he drank.
The scouts caught up while he drank. Izo turned to face the other horses and growled at them while baring his teeth. The other horses shied and the men immediately had their hands full controlling them, until Izo calmly walked between them and back the way he had come. The other horses fell in line behind him.
"Sorry," she said to the men, "I gave him his rein and he was doing what he was born to do. Race."
"Gesa," said one of the Fen lads admiringly, "you are so light, he didn't even feel you on his back. No horse could have caught you. You need a different type of saddle, though. One that allows you to lean into the shoulders without having the horn in the way."
"Or perhaps one that has a small pad in front of the horn that I can move forward to and then use the horn to brace myself forward onto the shoulders," she said.
"I've never seen the like, but I will keep my eyes open. Oy, turn your horse. The column will catch us eventually. Why don't we ride with the scouts for a while?"
"You're welcome to join us," called out a man wearing the scarf of a second. "There's not much for us to do this close to Brugge."
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There wasn't much for the scouts or guards to do all the way to Paris. The Bishops' Peace of God was so welcomed by all, that all were keeping it. At each stop at each grand manor the size of the procession grew, mostly by more noble women.
They knew immediately that they had crossed out of Flanders and into Frankish counties by the reaction of the peasants. Instead of the peasants lining the highway, standing tall and waving to the nobles, the peasants fled and hid, or groveled in the dust as they passed.
Even the stray dogs were not as afraid of them as the Frankish serfs were. The sight of a people so beaten down angered Raynar to the point where he actually dreamed at night of riding his wolfpacks through France and killing every noble.
The only incident of note on their journey was one day, half way, when armed riders were seen by the rear guard moving much faster than the crawl of this procession. Raynar was sent for by the rear guard and he pulled all the outriders back with him and they waited for those that were trailing them. Half the men dismounted and nocked arrows. The strangers were scouts for another smaller procession that was journeying to the wedding from Hainaut.
"Then your mistress is Countess Rachilde?" Raynar asked, and it was confirmed. "Good, then I would speak with her." He sent a bowman to warn Robert that Rachilde was behind him with an armed column. Countess Rachilde had been regent of Flanders in her son's name until Robert had laid siege to her forces at Cassel. It was there that Raynar's wolfpacks had slaughtered her allies, the Frankish knights, in the low marshy land at the base of that great hill.
He approached Rachilde slowly, not knowing what reception he would receive. He had not spoken to her since Cassel when he had captured her and left her to be traded for Robert, who had also been captured. "Hail Madam, I hope you are well," he was saying when two knights blocked his way and his view of the countess.
"Perhaps you do not remember me, Madam. I am Raynar of the Peaks. We last spoke at Cassel." The knights blocking him separated and the countess rode between them to face him.
"Good morning Raynar. I remember you too well, as you cost me Flanders. What do you want of me now?"
"I have just come to say that my bowmen guard the column from Flanders ahead of you, and that we are pledged to keep the Peace of God. We are slowed by many carts and many women, and are blocking your way. You may pass us in complete safety or join us, and be welcome. Many of these women you will have known for a lifetime and you must have much to say to each other."
"Is Robert with the column?"
"Of course, as are Gertrude and Bertha, but the column is long and there is no need for you to accept his company if you do not wish it."
"No, I will seek him out," she said thoughtfully. "It is time I make my peace with him, and it is better done before the wedding. He was my husband's favourite brother and he was once very close to me. I was foolish not to ask him to be Regent for my son, a foolishness that caused a civil war. Will you oath my safety?"
"I am still sworn to it from Cassel, Madam, and for that of your son." Now that the knights had relaxed their vigil over her, he moved his horse close enough to lower his voice. "I still hold a small chest of jewels that are yours from your last wedding. Should I have them delivered to Hainaut?"
"They were never mine, Raynar. You killed Earl William FitzOsbern of Hereford before we could finalize the marriage. They still belong to those who were giving them to us, and those nobles are spread across counties and kingdoms. You can have whatever claim I have to them in thanks for putting Gerbod in chains for the murder of my elder son, and for sparing the life of my younger son." She was lost in memories for some moments. "Come, escort me to Robert before I lose my courage."
"The Rachilde I know could never lose her courage. Perhaps you mean your resolve." He smiled at her and she smiled back. She had aged greatly in a year, but then she had lost so much during that year. Her husband Baldwin, her husband-to-be FitzOsbern, her son Arnulf, and the wealthiest of the counties, Flanders.
It took hours to reach the head of the column, and it was that quick only because Rachilde cut short the words of every woman they passed. She, after all, had been their countess, or countess in waiting, for many years. They came across Bertha riding the Frisian stallion, who was now tamed enough to be ridden by her as well as by Gesa. The secret to controlling Izo, was to speak to him in Frisian.
Both women dismounted and hugged, while Gesa held their horses. Both Robert and Gertrude sought her out and found her with Bertha, and the hugs continued. At one point Robert stood close to Raynar and whispered his gratitude for bringing Rachilde's estrangement to an end.
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The Hoodsman - Courtesans and Exiles by Skye Smith