Ten of Edgar's exiled lords and their retainers, all dressed as pilgrims, were this day starting out from the monastery at Brugge on their way to Constantinople. Edgar had brought Raynar with him to the monastery to ensure that the banking arrangements were settled correctly.
Each of the ten English lords had left half of his treasure at Oudenburg in Hereward's keeping and had deposited the other half at this monastery. When they reached Constantinople they could draw against their monastery treasure, and if they needed more, Hereward would transfer more to the monastery.
Edgar was upset to be losing ten of his English lords, but they had spent seven years in exile already, a year and a half of which had been with him at the grand fortress at Montreuil sur Mer. It was clear that there was no hope of the exiled lords ever reclaim their English honors. If they were destined to be mercenaries, then they may as well be mercenaries in the Byzantine as in Montreuil.
Even Edgar had to admit that they were just Philippe of France's mercenaries. Despite helping Philippe to regain the holdings that his father had lost, and making Montreuil a thriving port that competed with Calais, the king had still not assigned his exiles any knightly honors. Edgar himself was still just the castellan, a post usually filled by a mere knight and not a prince.
Edgar shook arms with the ten lords and waved to their forty retainers, each of whom wore homespun clothing and a simple wooden cross hung from their necks. Edgar and Raynar sat in the morning sun with their backs against a monastery wall and watched the exiles walk eagerly towards the east. Their journey would be by river boat and by foot until they reached the Black Sea, and from there by ship. It would take them two months, God and thieves willing.
"And now I must leave for Scotland to fetch more exiles," Edgar told him.
"Then take two ships for safety," advised Raynar, "and find a pilot that knows the coast of Bernicia well, for that coast is a graveyard of ships."
"Will you captain one of the ships for me?" asked Edgar.
"I cannot. Seeing Margaret married to that pig Malcolm would tear my heart out, or worse, tear hers out and get us both killed. Besides, there is no need to charter ships for the passage to Scotland. There are trade ships to Scotland every week now that Canute has guaranteed the safety of our ships in ports from here to Denmark."
"I wanted to sail along the English coast and visit as I went. I suppose I could do that on the way back. Sometimes I wonder if it would not be better if I donned a pilgrim's habit and followed them." He pointed to the moving brown specs far down the road.
"You have not wasted the last year, Edgar. With you in Montreuil, William has stayed in Normandy. He is harrowing in French counties like Maine, instead of harrowing in England. Since he is now killing Romanized Christians, the pope has finally made a stand against him and threatened him with excommunication if he does not stop his harrowings.
Because of Montreuil, Eustace of Boulogne now fears Philippe so he has allied himself with Robert of Flanders rather than William of Normandy. You are most welcome at Robert's court because Flanders, especially Brugge, is getting rich now that they handle more trade from France and Boulogne."
"Exactly, Raynar. I have done much to help Philippe and Robert and Eustace, and nothing to help the English."
"Then I share your guilt," replied Raynar, "I have spent a year trading, and sailing, and not fighting. Brugge and Spalding and Huntingdon are richer because of me. Earl Waltheof drinks fine wine and his wife Judith wears fine silk because of me, but the Normans are once again moving into the manor houses of Cambridgeshire and Lincolnshire, and I have done nothing to stop that."
"No one is rebelling against William anymore, Raynar. Cospatrick has gone back to Scotland to become a farmer in Dunbar despite the holdings he still has in England. Waltheof is the trained dog of the Normans. The Danish fleet does not harry William's fleet anymore, so William's fleet is getting stronger."
"Hah, there is one still rebelling against William. His son Robert. He lives in Paris now, with Gesa, and refuses to visit Maine, though his father has made him the Count there. He no longer even visits his mother Mathilde in Caen now that his father is in residence.
Gesa tells me that Bertha has cleaned house at her palace. Philippe's father's courtiers have been dismissed, so the faces are all now younger and more pleasing to the eyes. The old retainers have been sent home, while the first sons and daughters of every count and duke have been invited to stay at the palace."
"William has done the same thing at Winchester," said Edgar, "but there I think they are treated more like hostages. Malcolm's oldest son Duncan is there now."
"You may not find many exiles left in Scotland, you know. There are a few on every ship from the west seeking a way to Byzantium. You may have better luck finding some exiles for Montreuil in Denmark than in Scotland."
"I must go to Scotland in any case to see my family," replied Edgar, "and this is my chance while William is in Caen. Besides, I promised Philippe to go there and offer posts at Montreuil to all who would come."
"Do you leave from here, or do you need one of my cogs to take you back to Montreuil?" offered Raynar. As his share of the ships captured at Montreuil, Raynar had claimed all of the light cogs, which had since been fitted with rudders and leeboards. Hereward and Robert were pleased to take all the old-fashioned longships, as they were better suited to patrolling the coast. They were also useful for escorting and towing the overly large sailing cogs that were becoming more numerous in the Flanders trade.
"I leave from here, but thank you," Edgar replied. "I would ask one favour though, a list of the families for which you still hold treasure. I will take it with me to both Denmark and Scotland." Edgar stopped talking at a thought and then said, "Or do you wish to hold the treasure for longer?"
"Hah, because of all our ships Hereward and I are wealthier than we ever dreamed of," Raynar replied. "We have made good earnings from that treasure by using it as surety for cargos and trade missions. We have no need of it anymore, and by rights, it should be returned. I will make you a list."
"You are becoming a moneylender then?"
"Not a moneylender so much as what the Byzantines call a trade banker. We have made a good partnership with this monastery, and have already used it to help the counts of Flanders and Boulogne in their quest for more trade to the east.
Banking is now Hereward’s role. He is still a sworn knight of the Benedictines, and his three years of study at Peterburgh Abbey make it easy for him to deal with this monastery. He has even refreshed his Latin and his numbers. I leave the banking and the cargos to him and he leaves the ships and crews to me. Besides, Hereward dreads the sea."
"And your oath to kill William of Normandy?" asked Edgar.
Raynar blushed. "My oath still saves me from having to make other oaths to other nobles. I will kill William if given half a chance. My problem has always been in getting close to the man. In all these years I have had only three good shots at him. None of them stopped him."
"Will you never learn, friend? Powerful men are secure from attacks because those with the opportunity to kill them also have too much to lose if they are caught. If a man does not care if he loses everything, even his life, and yet dresses richly, and smiles at the guards, he can kill any noble at any time."
Raynar went glum and a blackness filled his soul. How badly did he want William dead? What was he willing to give up to kill the man? Realistically, the reason he had only had three chances at the man was because he wasn't willing to die if the attempt was a failure. This meant that he would not try unless there was a way of retreating.
"Don't tear your heart out about it, friend. Many thousands of men have stronger reasons than you do to kill William, and none have come as close as you to succeeding. None that I have heard of, though many have thrown their lives away in desperate tries that had no hope of succeeding."
"That is because they attack his army, instead of him. A skirmisher is trained not to make that mistake. He targets the leaders first," replied Raynar.
"Like you did on the beach at Montreuil."
"Exactly, and it was not just me. There were twenty of us. Each of us was hunting leaders. Each of us protected the brother who had the best draw on a leader. Without their leaders, the pirates had no paymaster, no organization, no one to push them to fight on, or to fight harder."
"I remember you telling this to me and the other earls about five years ago in York. Ten thousand have died since then because we ignored you. You were just a know-nothing peasant." Edgar tried to laugh but failed.
"Not ten thousand, Edgar. That is just the count of the warriors killed. The number of men is over a hundred thousand. And an equal number of women, never mind the children." He leaned forward to support Edgar's shoulder for the man had begun to weep. The weeping got worse until he was inconsolable.
* * * * *
The spring of '74 was a wonderful season for shipowners and for traders. One by one all the bishops and then all the counts were supporting the Peace of God for travelers and traders and noncombatants, and the result was wealth. Not just the wealth of coins, for they were simply a measure of wealth.
The real wealth was of food enough to eat, and cloth enough to wear, and roofs that lasted more than one season. There were no large armies on the move, and so perhaps the relative abundances were because of the relative lack of destruction and scavenging. Whenever there are abundances, shipowners do well, for abundance was the godsend of trade.
The weight and value of trade goods passing through Brugge was growing with every succeeding month. Ships' owners and captains were quick to learn that there was always valuable cargo to be dropped off or picked up in Brugge. Brugge was flourishing as the natural center of all trade coming and going from the North Sea kingdoms, and the Rhine kingdoms, and more and more to all of the northern counties of France.
The pilgrim route to Constantinople that followed the great rivers through Hungary and the Germanies was also thriving as the Peace of God treatise became more widespread, and as more monasteries willingly helped the pilgrims. Small but pricy items from the east carried by returning pilgrims were becoming more common in the traders' markets of Brugge.
With Brugge's new role as a distribution center for trade goods, it also became a distribution center for gossip and news and dispatches. Count Robert often boasted that the news of the surrounding kingdoms naturally came to him and through him, so he did not need to pay for spies in every county.
There was one exception, of course. Normandy. Normandy competed with Brugge in everything. They had their own ships and trade routes. They controlled the mouth of the River Seine which was the lifeblood of France, and they used the southern route for pilgrims that passed through the Italies rather than Hungary.
Hereward took on the responsibility of keeping exiled English nobles abreast of all news. Families of pilgrims sent letters to him, knowing he would ensure they were passed along the monastery route that the pilgrims followed.
Raynar was loving his life in Brugge. He enjoyed the sea and ships and the company of the men who sailed them. He enjoyed the easy ways of the folk of Flanders who were all prospering, even the meanest farmers and shepherds. He enjoyed the company and spectacle of the folk from far and wide that stopped over in Brugge for a week or a month, until a ship arrived that would take them the next leg of their journey. He enjoyed getting letters from his widespread friends, despite the news from England often being heart-wrenching and frustrating.
Three times he had been the guest of Queen Bertha in Paris, who used him to carry private dispatches between herself and her father, the Count. He watched her court evolve into a court dominated by the heirs of the ruling nobility. It was a court of beautiful clothing and comely women, where days and nights were filled with the pastimes of the young and the rich.
Philippe was an avid host but his flamboyance hid a wisdom beyond his years. Instead of simply holding these heirs as hostages, as the Conqueror was doing in Winchester and Caen, Philippe was building their loyalty towards him.
Gesa's company was sought after by men and women alike, most of whom hoped that her friendship would bring them closer to the royal couple. Whenever Raynar had her attentions for an hour or an afternoon, he would notice the jealous looks flicked at him by other men. Often it was she that passed him the most sensitive news bound for Flanders, whether she was told it by Bertha or by Philippe.
Bertha's messages were usually about Philippe’s plans, and about which nobles were now courting him. Philippe’s messages were usually about relationships with Normandy or news of William. William's eldest son Robert was now Philippe’s normal riding companion, except for when Robert was riding Gesa. As Gesa described herself, she was Philippe’s jeweled collar around Robert's neck.
The stories that Gesa would tell him of the amorous adventures that were becoming common place at this young court, would always amuse him. She and Bertha were perhaps the cause of most of it, for they had brought their Frisian morals with them to Paris.
For instance, it was now not rare for wives who had already born an honest male heir, to loosen their Romanized morals and have trysts with other courtiers. Such stories, whispered into his ear by Gesa as she cuddled his arm between her breasts, never failed to arouse him. She had been the first woman to be invited into bed with the royal couple, but now there were other women invited as well. They were all married and with healthy sons.
It was Gesa who told him the gossip about Judith of Lens, the young wife of Earl Waltheof. As Judith's dowry, William had ceded the Honor of Huntingdon back to Waltheof. It had once been his father Siward's earldom. At the time, this had the added benefit of softening the peasant rebellion in Ely and the Fens. Now Judith had a daughter, Maud, to keep her amused, and William was well pleased with Judith being far away from Caen and his sons. Since the only other English earl, Cospatrick, was in disrepute with the regents, especially Odo, Waltheof reaped another blessing. Waltheof was ceded his father's other honor of Northumbria, in place of Cospatrick.
Of course, Raynar knew all of this already so he did not ask how Gesa had learned of it, but he was sure it came from pillow talk between her and young Robert of Normandy. There was new gossip, though. Gossip that took Raynar by surprise. Robert of Normandy and Judith of Lens had been close companions when both were younger and living in Caen, and moreover, he had ruined her and she had claimed betrothal.
The church would not allow their marriage because they were first cousins, and William would not countenance it as she was not an heiress. Waltheof, therefore, had accepted a ruined Judith as his wife to regain the honor of Huntingdon. Raynar had spent little time near Judith, and nearly none since the rebellion at Ely had melted away. Even during his short time around her, it had been obvious that Waltheof and Judith were not a happy couple, and this gossip explained much about their strained relationship.
* * * * *
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The Hoodsman - Courtesans and Exiles by Skye Smith