Hoodsman: Forest Law Read online

  "Good on ya, John,” came a response from the closest gate. "Give him another kick from me."

  Acca was looking Raynar over carefully. "The only blood is from your left arm, but it is bleeding like a stuck pig.” He turned away and gave a piercing whistle and by the time he turned back, they could hear the sound of horse hoofs and cart wheels on the cobbles.

  Two men were coming towards them out of the torch light. A small man in front, bent over and stumbling forward, and a huge bulk of a man behind him. "I caught the man who fingered you. He can still talk. How did you fare."

  "We have a knifeman,” replied Acca, "but I hit him a bit too hard."

  "That's alright, lad, though the hangman will curse you for the loss of his earnings. Just don't tell your mother that you've killed a man."

  "Raynar is wounded,” continued Acca.

  "Then absolutely don't tell your mother."

  A cart reached Acca at about the same time as John Smith, his father, who was pushing the finger-man along in front of him. The two men leading the cart each had a longbow in one hand with an arrow nocked and held in place by their bow hand.

  "Hide the bows, lads,” John said quietly, "in case the night watch happen by.” The carters unstrung their bows and then stored them back in the long box under the seat of the cart.

  "Here, you lot,” ordered Acca, "Ray took one in the arm and he is spurting blood. Help me get the mail off him so I can bind it."

  None too gently, John handed his prisoner to the two carters and the prisoner whimpered in pain. "Here, watch him. If he gives you any grief break his other arm.” He then set about removing Raynar's cloak, and then unhooking the mail sleeves from the mail shirt and from the mail gloves. Piece by piece he gently pulled the armour off Raynar while leaving the injured arm for last. Then he slowly removed the last sleeve. He could feel Raynar wince, but there was no stopping now.

  "And you, you stubborn bugger, you wasn't goin' to wear this old mail,” John's gruff whisper had an I-told-you-so tone to it.

  "Acca,” John whispered to his son, "wrap your scarf around the arm here and then cinch it tight till the blood stops.” Once the blood had stopped he lifted Raynar gently into the cart. Then he carelessly chucked the corpse and the finger man into the cart. The finger man screamed in pain and then continued his whimpering.

  "You two take the point,” he said to the two bowmen carters, "let's get Ray back to the house. Bloody hell, Marion is going to skin us when she sees this."

  "No,” hissed Raynar between short breaths, "the palace. Take me to the palace. I am late for dinner already. Maud is there. She can see to my wound."

  "As he says, lads,” John said to the carters. "To the palace. Take the fastest way."

  Raynar shook off a sudden weakness and looked across the rocking cart at the prisoner. The man's face was a mask of pain, and his right arm hung at a strange angle from his shoulder. "I am going to turn you over to the palace guard,” Raynar said. He was forced to say it twice to get the attention of the prisoner. "First, however, I am going to ask you some simple questions, and you are going to tell me the simple truth. If not, I will have John break your other arm."

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  The Hoodsman - Forest Law by Skye Smith

  Chapter 2 - Edith's dinner plans ruined in Winchester in October 1103

  Edith's breasts ached. She changed her posture hoping the ache would lessen. Dinner was late and soon she would have to leave her guests and go and feed baby William. She looked around the dinner table and tried to smile. How could she rally her patience or strength and be a gracious hostess. It was less than two months since William Aetheling had been born and she had been over busy ever since. Thank heavens her sister Mary had come over from Boulogne to be with her for the last three months of the pregnancy.

  Even more than Mary, than heavens that Maud of Huntingdon had come to visit just before the birth. That woman knew more about birthing than all of the royal midwives, and had immediately taken charge. And of course Maud had come with Lucy of Spalding, who was like an older sister to Maud. Maud would give orders in her soft and pleasing voice, and if the women around her did not jump, they had to answer to the big, bold and brash Lucy. Lucy who had trained as a shield maiden in the Frisian way of her father’s villages.

  When she had been near her time, it was Maud who had asked sweetly that Henry and Robert leave the palace. When they were slow to obey, it was Lucy who had grabbed each by the arm and pushed them from the queen's quarters. When the news went out that it was a boy, it was Lucy who stayed by the babe and let no one touch him without Edith's permission, especially not Robert. After all, the baby William had probably cost Duke Robert his last chance of ever claiming the throne of England.

  Edith knew she should be more forgiving of Robert. After all, he was not just the Duke of Normandy, and her brother-in-law, but also her godfather. The poor man had lost his own young wife, Sybilla, just last Lent. Again she gave thanks that Maud had arrived in time to take over her own birthing. Sybilla had died in childbirth, an all too common death for young mothers. It was sheer luck that her second baby, Henry, had survived.

  Since the now infamous storm of Saint Lawrence’s Day, she had lost her patience with the old drunkard, Robert. Just after she had birthed back in August, that tremendous storm had ended a summer drought with a great flood. It had ruined the fruit and corn crops, had robbed many of their roofs, had sunk many ships, and had saddled her with Robert's company while his ships berthed in the safety of Portsmouth harbour.

  That violent tempest had been just beginning. Every week since, there had been violent windstorms of warm, humid air that often brought flooding rains. So it was that she and Winchester palace were still catering to Duke Robert and his escort, a full month after they should have returned to Normandy.

  Worse, the winds were so strong and the rains so drenching, that the men were no longer leaving the palace for days at a time to go hunting, and so they were constantly underfoot. She had ceased holding regal banquets for Robert's entire escort after the first week. Tonight, with her winter larder already spent, she was hostess at an evening meal that was set at but one table in her personal dining room.

  She glanced around the table. Henry and Robert were still being boring discussing the sharing of the 3,000 silver marks that was Robert's yearly stipend under the treaty of Alton. Collecting this princely sum was the main reason he was in Winchester, but he had also brought William Warenne with him, back to the England he had fled. Warenne's plea for Henry's forgiveness for switching sides at Alton had muddied the issue.

  Warenne had been put under guard as a traitor the moment he stepped ashore, but Robert had convinced Henry to pardon him and return his English honors and lands to him. Henry, always canny when it came to money, had both Robert and Warenne agree that Warenne should be fined and the fine should be credited against the 3,000 marks due this year to Robert. For three weeks they had endlessly bargained and bickered about the size of the fine.

  "Henry, stop your bargaining,” Edith scolded her husband. "Robert has already agreed to allow us to delay the payment so that we can use the coin to rebuild the southern shires after the Devil Storm.” Actually it had been Edith who had convinced Robert of this. These two brothers never agreed on anything, and she was afraid Henry was going to sour her good work.

  Edith looked at the two brothers with a fleeting thought that no one would ever guess that they were brothers. Henry was large and barrel chested, whereas Robert was petite in comparison, with fine bones, indeed even handsome. Henry had never been handsome, but neither was he ugly, especially when he smiled.

  Over the past fifteen years Robert had been a gracious guest across Christendom and throughout the Byzantine and the Holy lands, whereas Henry had stayed within the kingdom to steward the duchy and the kingdom for both of his brothers. Henry's brothers had long ago beaten any ego out of him, whereas Robert was all ego. In Robert's mind, everything was
about Robert.

  Since Robert was now widowed, he usually kept the company of the two courtesans who had arrived from Shrewsbury immediately after that evil earl, Belleme, had been exiled. The two courtesans had caused mayhem and adultery at court and Edith was to the point of putting them on a channel ship when they had offered to keep Robert amused during his visit. Wine and women. Robert had tasted the best of them from here to Jerusalem and back.

  She refused her family table to all courtesans, however, so Robert's dining partner at her table tonight was Maud, the Countess of Huntingdon. Maud's husband, the elderly Simon of Saint Liz, was stuck on the other side of the channel by these same storms. Actually he seemed to always be away, which meant that Maud was not only a useful woman, but a very, very powerful one. She was petite and quite beautiful in the Norman way of dark hair and eyes and had a finely sculptured face.

  She liked Maud, but beyond liking her, she was intrigued by her. She looked from Robert to Maud and there was such a strong resemblance in the fine features of both that she couldn't help but speculate on the fatherhood of both. Henry, of course, would know all the secret answers to her idle curiosity about their true bloodlines, but he absolutely refused to gossip about family.

  There were rumors, of course. There were always rumors swirling about a court. A common rumor held that Robert was only a half brother to Henry. That meant a blood father who predated William the Conqueror's marriage to Matilda. That rumor was old and was probably rooted in the jealousy that many courtiers had of the illegitimate Conqueror. If the rumor was true, however, then it would explain much about the endless animosity that had existed been between Robert and his father, and why Matilda's second son, Richard, had always been the Conqueror's favourite.

  There were many rumors about Robert and his womanizing, and many whispers that Maud was his blood daughter. Maud was the eldest daughter of Judith of Lens, the prior Countess of Huntingdon, and Waltheof of Huntingdon, the last of the English earls. Supposedly Waltheof's daughter, but there was no trace of English blood in Maud's pretty face.

  Maud’s mother Judith, had been the Conqueror's blood niece and therefore first cousin to Henry and Robert. According to the rumors, Judith's wedding to Waltheof was hurried because she was already carrying Maud. Was Maud actually Robert's love child?

  She stole another long look at the faces of Robert and of Maud. Was it her imagination, now brightened by recalling these rumors, or did they look like father and daughter. Her mind was swirling. The Conqueror was a bastard. Was Robert one also? And also Maud?

  No, that thought was unworthy. Robert and Maud had both been claimed by their mothers' husbands. By definition, then they were not bastards. The question was one of blood, not legitimacy. This question she knew better than any, for her own legitimate father was Malcolm of Scotland, husband of her mother Margaret, but he was not her blood father.

  The other couple at the table was Lucy, the Countess of Spalding and her new husband Ranulf le Meschin. Ranulf would be handsome if it weren't for his strange twisted lip, and he seemed devoted to Lucy. He was Henry's childhood friend, and the most faithful of his supporters. Ranulf and Henry were of an age, now thirty five, so Robert must be almost fifty.

  Lucy was very English, or rather, Dane-English, Daneglish. She was a tall woman with long braided blonde hair the color of autumn grain. Well not this autumn, as the fields were still green from all the rain. She had a big round face and startlingly blue eyes and a wide mouth filled with big white teeth. She was the oldest woman at the table, perhaps a year older than Henry.

  Lucy had come to Winchester with Maud just before the great storm, while Ranulf had only just arrived from the North, where he was the chief governor on Henry's behalf. He was here arranging for food to be transported down from the North, as in the South the harvests were first devastated by that damnable Saint Lawrence day storm, and then finished off by a plague of caterpillars brought on by the spoilage. The latest news was signs of a murrain in the cattle, and Saint Anthony's Fire in both the village folk and their pigs.

  Edith shook off the worries she had for her people, and brought her mind back to the dinner and to her guests. She felt a sudden warm glow inside for she had been matchmaker between Lucy and Ranulf and was pleased that they were so happy with the arrangement. Lucy and Maud were childhood friends, so to invite one to the table meant inviting both. Luckily Henry was always pleased to share a table with Ranulf. It struck her that together, Lucy and Maud had more say in the running of the North, than any of Henry's Earls or Sheriffs.

  At the end of the table, Mary, her lovely sister Mary, was sitting alone and playing with her food distractedly. She had also been stuck in England by the weather and was missing her husband Eustace, who had not accompanied her on her visit from Boulogne. He was busy with some crusaders who his brother had sent from Jerusalem in search of more knights. Mary's dining companion for tonight had not yet arrived. In truth, he was very late, so she had just ordered the first course to be served despite his absence.

  The door opened and Mary looked towards it expectantly. It was just a chamberlain, and not her missing escort. The chamberlain bowed deeply and said to the expectant hush at the table "Master Raynar is in the ante room and asks that the Countess Maud attend him."

  Maud was on her feet and moving towards the door without even a by-your-leave, never mind a curtsey to Edith. Edith let her go without comment, but asked of the chamberlain, "Why does Raynar not join us. We have waited supper for him, and we are impatient to hear his excuse."

  The chamberlain bowed again. "Your highness, he did not wish to bleed all over your carpets, and therefore wished for the Countess Maud to bind his wound before he entered."

  The table was suddenly awash with spilled wine and rolling fruit as the remaining three women jumped as one to their feet, thereby setting billows of expensive coloured silk into motion. The three men pushed back from the rocking table to save their own clothes from the rivulets of red wine. The confusion increased as two serving maids pushed by them with cloths ready to soak up the spills.

  "Hold ladies,” ordered Robert loudly to the women. "He has chosen his nurse well. Maud has long experience in binding wounds. She knows healing ways. Allow her do her tending before you go getting in her way."

  Lucy stopped on one foot and turned to Robert and said sarcastically, "Yes, Raynar taught her well.” She inwardly snickered as Robert's face suddenly turned red at the hint of Raynar's closeness to Maud. She had no time for Robert and his haughty continental ways. They had begun eating without Raynar only because Robert had complained about having to suffer hunger because of a mere treasury clerk. Was it possible that Robert did not remember Raynar?

  The chamberlain was now blocking Lucy's way and telling her, "The duke speaks sense, your grace,” but he never finished. Lucy was a big woman She had been born on a horse and had spent her life in the company of stable hands and on Spalding's docks yelling orders to rough seamen. She lowered a shoulder and swung a hip and in one movement knocked the chamberlain out of her way, and the breathe out of his chest. Edith and Mary danced quickly into her wake and then all three, and all the billows of silk, were through the doorway and into the next room.

  Robert stood like a statue. He was wracking his memory. What did this Lucy woman say. The treasury clerk had taught Maud the healing ways. How would she know? What did she know? Of course. Lucy was from Spalding, which is close to Huntingdon, and she and Maud had been friends since childhood. Lucy likely knew more of Maud's childhood than he did. The healing ways would be from the Frisian villages that surrounded Huntingdon. He was shaken out of his own thoughts by the realization that his brother Henry was speaking to him. Or was he speaking to Ranulf?

  "Trying to keep those four women away from tending a wounded Raynar,” said Henry, "is like old King Knut trying to command the flood tide to ebb.” He walked to where the chamberlain was still sprawled on the floor and helped the old man to his feet. He looked at Robert and
Ranulf. "The lives of those four women are as interlinked to Raynar's as if they were all kin. If any man were to harm any of them, he would die by Raynar's hand, and I do not exclude any of us from that statement."

  "Are we speaking of Raynar, your treasury officer?” asked Robert. "The ex-hoodsman who guarded me once while I hunted in the New Forest?"

  "You truly do not remember him from before that?” asked Henry, "No, I suppose you wouldn't. You never were wont to notice the working men around you. Still, since you have spent so much of your time here accompanied by Judith's daughter, I am amazed that she hasn't jolted your memories. Raynar is the closest that Maud ever had to a father.” Henry watched Robert's face grow red while listening to those words. He did not know whether it was from anger or embarrassment, but since Robert had been drinking heavily, as usual, it was probably anger.

  Robert tried to calm himself. Too much wine. His mind was fuzzy. Raynar, a father to Maud, his own daughter Maud. His love child by Judith. What did Henry mean by this? Who was this Raynar anyway? He slumped back into his chair and tried to remember.

  He righted his spilled goblet and held it up for the maid to refill, and as she did so, he grabbed at her ass with his free hand. Flabby. Those damn courtesans had ruined him for normal women. Still, when you walked with one on each arm, the stares of envy from all other men were almost better than sex. Bloody courtesans. Lot's of tease and too little sex. But they were worth it, just to be the envy of all men.

  Still, it worried him that Henry seemed to be warning him of something. Something about the women at tonight's table and this peasant. Perhaps the warning was not about Maud at all, but about that big woman, Lucy. Bah, she was too tall for him, and too old for his tastes. She had to be at least thirty five.