The news from Scotland was never as jovial nor as scandalous as that from Paris. Cristina, Edgar's sister, the sister who had not been Raynar’s lover, often sent him letters. Though they were in her hand, they were rarely her words. The open heart they revealed came from his one-time lover, Margaret, Queen of Scots. It was safer for Cristina to pretend a love for Raynar, than to resort to codes that would raise King Malcolm's suspicions and possibly endanger both sisters.
In late spring one of Cristina's letters told him that Edgar and a host of exiles had chartered a ship and with many possessions, were on their way to Flanders, and then to Montreuil. Raynar cursed Cristina for not using their personal code to hide this one line of news. The Scottish court was filled with Norman spies, and this news would make any of them rich.
He was worried enough to take command of his cog, the Anske, for a trade mission to the Humber to seek news of Edgar's ships. Though he waited there patiently for news of Edgar, he gave up after two weeks. He cursed Cristina again for her carelessness, but at least she had not revealed Edgar's route south. Perhaps he had crossed to Denmark first. That would have been the smart thing to do.
Once back in Brugge, he received another letter from Cristina asking if Edgar had arrived yet. The ship had started a first leg towards Bamburgh three weeks ago, but had not been heard of since. Raynar again cursed the lack of code, and the foolishness of Edgar taking the ship down the English coast rather than crossing immediately to the Danish coast.
He or Hereward inquired at every incoming ship for news, and eventually had some from a trader from the Tees. A large cog had been driven ashore by the Norman fleet and there had been a battle on the shore. Hereward had the port master pass a warning on to all captains that the Normans were worrying ships along the Northumbrian coast again.
Waiting for more news of their friend Edgar was frustrating, more so because there was no logical action they could take. The next word was another unencoded letter from Cristina. Edgar was ragged but safe, and returned to Scotland. He and over half his men had walked to the border with as much of their valuables as they could carry. The rest of the valuables saved from the cog had been buried. Edgar had sworn he would never sail again, having now been shipwrecked and almost drowned twice within five years.
The next sentence he had to read twice for it was so unbelievable. King Malcolm and Earl Waltheof had convinced Edgar to ride south to Winchester and make his peace with William. Twice it was written that his sisters could not sway him away from this folly.
"The fool!" Raynar railed to both Hereward and Count Robert. "He is a dead man! William is in Caen so his half-brother, the odious Odo, is regent in Winchester. It was Odo's agents who murdered Edwin, and they will do the same to Edgar to ensure that he can't be wed into William's family."
"He will be safe so long as he makes for Bamburgh first," countered Hereward. "Waltheof is now the Earl there and in residence. He will see Edgar safely south."
"Hah!" replied Raynar, "Odo will kill them both if need be. William the Bastard believes in the holy blood, the bloodlines that link men to the gods. His own blood is weak and he is always striving to strengthen it in his own line. William will forgive Edgar and marry him to one of his daughters within a week of his arriving in Caen. Odo will not abide such a match for it will weaken his own family's hold on William. I am surprised Odo has allowed Waltheof to live so long, now that he and Judith have a child."
Hereward was silent and thoughtful for some time as if lost in his memories. He was counting something on his fingers. "Waltheof's bloodline is also weak," he finally announced. "If he worries Odo, it is because his earldoms now exceed those of all other Norman earls."
"In size, not in wealth," Robert interrupted. "Our earnings have been meager from the Northumbria trade since it was harrowed. The Danelaw is no longer the jewel of the Danish empire. It has become a poor and barren place."
"Corpses only trade with the ravens," whispered Raynar hoarsely and then rose to leave.
"Where are you going lad?" asked Hereward grabbing at Raynar's arm. "You will not risk crews and ships trying to find Edgar. He could be anywhere or nowhere by now, and you are still outlawed in England."
"I will wait for him in Huntingdon," Raynar replied. "Beatrice will be there keeping Judith company while their men are in the north. If I do not find Waltheof or Edgar, I will at least find news of them. This waiting about our docks for news is driving me mad."
* * * * *
Because he was a famous outlaw in the Fens, Raynar did not usually crew aboard his ships that traded with the ports of the Wash. Those ports were filled with his friends, but now also with spies, which was a certain recipe for his capture or for endangering his friends. That is why he stayed aboard the Flemish longship after it was secured to Lynn's river docks.
He was dressed as a Benedictine monk, which meant he could wear a deep cowl to hide his face. He carried a staff bow, one of his own inventions from his youth. It looked similar to a shepherd's crook but the top three quarters could be strung as a bow and its arrows could pierce armour. It was clumsy and slow compared to a long bow, but the look of the shepherd's staff was more fitting with his monkly robes.
When the dockmaster came aboard at the invitation of the captain, he was curious about the monk. Raynar recognized the man as one of his seconds from the rebellion at Ely, so he drew the man back into the shadows and flipped back his cowl and immediately put a finger to his lips to caution quiet.
"Shit, Ray!" he exclaimed in a whisper. "You cannot land here. Those foul spies in priest robes are on the docks. You are a wanted man, with a face known to half the men of the Fens. Pull your cowl forward, now."
"You haven't seen me, and I intend that none of my friends see me."
"Hah!" hooted the master, "most of the men in this town have stood shoulder to shoulder with you with arrows nocked, or have pulled an oar with you. No matter how careful you are, eventually you will be recognized and word of your coming will spread faster than a roof fire."
"I need to get inside Huntingdon keep without being recognized. Can you arrange it?"
The master rocked on his heels and thought. "An eel punt is enough craft to take you there on this river. Two men to spell off the pole and the watch. That is easy enough. I will spread the word that a monk on pilgrimage is in the Fens and that he is to be kept safe. That will get you to Huntingdon, and inside the burg wall. As for getting inside the keep, well you will have to talk your own way in."
"I can do that. Who is on the burgh walls at Huntingdon? Will they recognize me?"
"Bloody rights they will. Waltheof has kept together the very garrison that you and Hereward left behind. Why change something that works so well? "
"Make it so. I will hide aboard until I hear a wolf's signal."
"Shouldn't be long. I just need to clear the priests from the docks. I'll send some whores over to them to ask for confession." The master stood up and then was gone.
A half hour later he heard the bump against the hull and a low hoot of an owl. He pushed his head above the gunnels on the river side and looked down. Two smiles greeted him from the punt below. There were two poles and two bows and a few dozen fishing arrows in the punt.
Raynar nodded a farewell to the ship's captain, and then hoisted himself over the gunnels and lowered himself into the punt. As soon as he was sat with his cowl pulled far forward, the punt moved out from behind the ship and glided up river towards the braided channels above the town.
They passed the town's fortified manor, one of Thorold's, and Raynar felt a longing for the good times he had spent there. After the robust brick buildings and streets of Brugge, Lynn seemed a poor and muddy place. After the grand houses and palaces he had visited, the local manor seemed like nothing more than a scruffy farmer's house.
Of the two eelsmen, only one truly was, and he knew every braid and every channel and every pool. The other was one of his wolvesheads from Ely days. It took them four hours of pushing against the faint current of the channel of the Great Ouse to get them to Ely, but they were not stopped, nor searched.
Ely was a ghost town now, save for the abbey. The only men he saw were other monks, and they were busy burning some of the hundreds of rough houses left by the folk who crowded the island during the rebellion.
"Rats," the eelman explained, "the abandoned huts are overrun by rats, so the monks are burning them all, one by one. They told us eelers that we will have to build fresh huts for shelter during the season. Greedy Christians. They force us to build new, and then they will charge us rent, you watch."
Looking across the large island it was hard to believe that for a short time it had been the largest town in three shires. What used to be market places and practice grounds was now plowed and seeded. Only the extensive docks were saved, but they would eventually rot from disuse. Hereward's watch tower still stood high beside the abbey, as did his longhouse beneath it, but few other buildings looked like they were in use other than the Abbey itself.
An hour or so later they glided past the charred remains of the Conqueror's bridge across the Ouse at Aldreth, and what was left of the bailey fort. Both log structures had been burned by Gesa's mother when she kicked kindling from her witch's pyre into the long summer grass, at a time when a sudden wind obligingly carry the flames to the structures.
Hereward and he had burned what remained of the bridge on the day that the Conqueror and his army were led by an Ely monk along a secret way through the summer-dry Fens to attack Ely. Raynar spat at the thought of the monk who had betrayed them, and at his missed chance of killing William on that day. The half-charred bridge had lit easily and had created a smoky fire that had warned Ely of William's coming. Most of the folk had time enough to escape from Ely because Morcar and his huscarls held the Normans for as long as they could.
"Thanks for burning that sucker," said the eelman as he nodded towards the charred wreckage of the bridge. "The lads from Huntingdon talked of burning it many a day over ale, cause it so fuckin' blocked the ships' channel to Huntingdon. The market there was dying a slow death until you finished the job."
Raynar smiled back at him, but cursed to himself that he was so well-known that even a disguise meant nothing.
"Mum's the word, lad," cautioned the eeler. "I won't drink ale on this story till after you's well and gone."
The eeler stayed with the punt while the one-time wolveshead walked him through Huntingdon's town gates. One nod to others of the brotherhood and there were no questions asked of them at either gate. Raynar saw so many men who he knew and cared for that it took all of his mental stamina to stop himself from pulling back his cowl and grasping these men by the arm. Instead he walked stooped and with his hooded head down.
At the baily gate the wolveshead explained that the monk had a message for the Countess Judith, and then he backed away with a touch of Raynar's shoulder, and was gone. "It must be from my lips," he added from deep inside his cowl. The guard he was speaking to had ridden with him when the wolfpacks had captured Bedford.
He was escorted up the steep hill to the hall of the baily. There were more buildings here now, surrounding the tower, and it looked more like a fortified manor than a garrison keep. He was told to wait on a bench in a dark corner of the hall, while one of the escorts went to talk to a chamberlain.
Eventually he was motioned forward and the chamberlain asked him the normal questions he asked of any visitor. Dissatisfied with the lack of answers from the monk, yet afraid not to present him, the chamberlain led him to a solid door and knocked. The door opened slightly and he whispered through the crack and eventually the door opened more widely and he walked through pulling the monk in behind him.
"You have a message for me?" the question was posed in French by a young dark haired woman sitting with two larger, fairer, women.
"I have a message for your husband, the Earl," Raynar replied in his newly learned courtier French, while imitating a monk with his hands folded across his middle and hidden by the sleeves, and bowing his head as he spoke. "But I have much news that would interest you both. Is the Earl in residence?"
"Who are you, monk and who sends the message?" asked the woman. She was curious about the accent.
"That is for you and your husband's ears only," he replied.
"You think I would agree to be left alone with a stranger who will not identify himself? You are a fool, monk," she whipped back.
"Then call your husband to attend me, Judy," he said calmly.
"My husband...." she began, then switched words and said angrily, "no one calls me Judy save..."
"...save your uncle the king, and one other," he finished, then held one finger up in front of where his lips were hidden by the cowl. He could not risk saying more with the two Frisian women present. He knew them both well, very well, very very well, from his times in Spalding.
She was about to name him, but the finger stopped her just in time. She stood, motioned to the two women to remain seated, and then led him to a small room behind the great hall, an armoury of sorts. He scanned the room to ensure there were no guards, then closed the door after him, and pulled back his cowl. "Motherhood becomes you, Judy. You look quite delicious with pink cheeks and a fuller chest."
She put both hands under her breasts and pushed them up. "The weight of them is sometimes painful. That is weight I am eager to shed." Her smile dimpled her cheeks as she looked at him. "You are outlawed, Raynar. Why have you come, and why shouldn't I have you locked away in chains?"
"You must not even speak my name. I am known to everyone in this burg, so I must be invisible, thus the monk's robe, and so you can imagine how important my mission is. I know that Waltheof is not here. When do you expect him?"
"The last I heard he was in Durham conferring with the new bishop. Durham is so far north that his dispatches take at least four days to reach here."
"Then I must wait for his return, and yet be invisible. If you can arrange that, then I will have time to tell you many stories from the courts of Flanders and France. Is Beatrice here? I was told she was visiting you while her husband was in the north."
"She is in her room, unwell. Unwell for many days now."
"Then you have good reason for the presence of a healing monk. Take me to her and we can all talk while I see to her." She walked passed him towards the door and he pulled her into his arms and gave her a hug and whispered, "Does Waltheof still mistreat you?"
"Not since you and Beatrice both threatened him, and the giant roughed him up a few times."
By the giant she meant Raynar’s boyhood friend, John Smith. "But you still have not learned to love him?"
"I hate him!" she spat. "No, I don't hate him. I dislike his company. He has no charm. I feel no pride in being his wife." She looked into his eyes. "I love another. I always have. We were refused. I was crushed and bargained away to Waltheof to rid me from the royal court." She sighed, "I do miss court. Waltheof will not allow me to visit Winchester, or Caen, or London. He fears that our daughter Maud will be held as hostage."
"If you had a son, I could understand such a fear, but a daughter? No, there must be another reason. Perhaps he has enemies at court who would see him dead. Odo comes to mind."
She shivered. "Don't mention that bishop's name. He is the devil."
With his face again deep in the shadow of his cowl, they walked first to her chamber to fetch the house's medicine chest, and then to Beatrice's chamber. Judith shooed the other women from the room and closed the door gently behind her so that he could pull back the cowl and reveal his face.
Beatrice was laying propped on pillows on her bed. Her face had a bad color, a yellow tint instead of her usual pinkish blush. Her eyes stared at him, but they were yellowed also. She grabbed at his hand and smiled up at him. "Welcome Ray, but you should not be here. It is not safe."
"My presence is a secret from everyone," he said and opened his arms as if to show off his robes. "You may both call me Brother Anso to hide my name." He felt her forehead and her neck and her wrist. Then he gingerly poked her stomach and her sides and around her pelvis.
"The baby had this same yellow tinge for a month, but he is well now. The women say this is not unusual," Judith told him. "Nothing the women have tried seems to remove it from the mother. And now she has no energy, and her breath has turned foul."
"How is your shit?" he asked.
Beatrice grimaced. She would have been blushing if she had not been yellow. "At first it was liquid, so I took some poppy juice and it slowed and then stopped."
He sniffed her breath. "And when was your last shit?"
"Umm, let me think, I don't know. Perhaps three weeks back, perhaps more."
He turned to Judith, "She is to be fed only ale or thin soup until she shits." He opened the medicine chest and looked through the bundles of herbs, and then held one up to the light. "Add a few leaves of this to each feeding, but stop as soon as she shits."
"Nothing more?" asked Beatrice.
"Beatrice, for heaven's sake, you are plugged up. The poisons cannot leave your body, and you are so full of them that even your eyes are effected. But do not strain yourself. Let the ale and the herb do their work first."
"Oh dear, I must have overused the poppy juice," she moaned half to herself, "I fear the water sickness so much since so many died of it in Selby, that I am always quick to use it."
* * * * *
* * * * *
The Hoodsman - Courtesans and Exiles by Skye Smith