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    The Hoodsman - Ely Wakes
    The Hoodsman - Ely Wakes
    The Hoodsman - Ely Wakes
    Ebook397 pages11 hours

    The Hoodsman - Ely Wakes

    By Skye Smith

    4.5/5

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    About this ebook

    This is the sixth book in the Hoodsman series.

    In 1070 the Danes and the Anglo-Danes sought vengeance against the Normans for the Harrowing of the North. A gruesome murder turned young Raynar into a Berserker, and he organized the Anglo-Danish bowmen who had nothing left to loose into Wolfpacks. The Wolfpacks grew in number and they hunted down and slaughtered any Norman's they found.

    This rebellion reaching out from the Fens was not led by lords. It was the monster that the Pope and every King and nobleman in Christendom feared the most. A peasant revolt.

    * * * * *

    It was 1101 when Edit, Queen of the English found a husband for her sister the Princess Mary of Scotland. He was Count Eustace of Boulogne. A prior suitor, an enraged rapist pig of a Norman, William Mortain, the Earl of Cornwall, abducts Mary and to use as bait to capture King Henry.

    * * * * *

    About The Author

    Skye Smith is my pen name. My ancestors were miners and shepherds near Castleton in the Peaks District of Derbyshire. I have been told by some readers that this series reminds them of Bernard Cornwell's historical novels, and have always been delighted by the comparison.

    This is the sixth of my Hoodsman series of books, and you should read the first "Killing Kings" before you read this book. All of the books contain two timelines linked by characters and places. The "current" story is set in the era of King Henry I in the 1100's, while the longer "flashback" story is set in the era of King William I after 1066.

    I have self-published twelve "The Hoodsman ..." books and they are:
    1. Killing Kings
    2. Hunting Kings
    3. Frisians of the Fens
    4. Saving Princesses
    5. Blackstone Edge
    6. Ely Wakes
    7. Courtesans and Exiles
    8. The Revolt of the Earls
    9. Forest Law
    10. Queens and Widows
    11. Popes and Emperors
    12. The Second Invasion

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherSkye Smith
    Release dateFeb 19, 2013
    ISBN9781927699058
    The Hoodsman - Ely Wakes

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      Book preview

      The Hoodsman - Ely Wakes - Skye Smith

      THE HOODSMAN

      Ely Wakes

      (Book Six of the Series)

      By Skye Smith

      Copyright (C) 2010-2013 Skye Smith

      All rights reserved including all rights of authorship.

      Cover Illustration

      Hereward cutting his way through the Norman host

      by Conrad Martens (1865)

      Smashwords Edition, License Notes

      This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

      Revision 4 . . . . . ISBN: 978-1-927699-05-8

      Cover Flap

      In 1070 the Danes and the Anglo-Danes sought vengeance against the Normans for the Harrowing of the North. A gruesome murder turned young Raynar into a Berserker, and he organizes the Anglo-Danish bowmen who had nothing left to loose, into Wolfpacks. The Wolfpacks grew in number and they hunted down and slaughtered any Normans they found.

      This rebellion reaching out from the Fens was not led by lords. It was the monster that the Pope and every king and nobleman in Christendom feared the most. A peasant revolt.

      * * * * *

      It was 1101 when Edit, Queen of the English found a husband for her sister the Princess Mary of Scotland. He was Count Eustace of Boulogne. A prior suitor, an enraged rapist pig of a Norman, William Mortain, the Earl of Cornwall, abducts Mary and to use as bait to capture King Henry.

      * * * * *

      * * * * *

      The Hoodsman - Ely Wakes by Skye Smith Copyright 2010-13

      About The Author

      Skye Smith is my pen name. My ancestors were miners and shepherds near Castleton in the Peaks District of Derbyshire. I have been told by some readers that this series reminds them of Bernard Cornwell’s historical novels, and have always been delighted by the comparison.

      This is the sixth of my Hoodsman series of books, and you should read the first Killing Kings before you read this book. All of the books contain two timelines linked by characters and places. The current story is set in the era of King Henry I in the 1100’s, while the longer flashback story is set in the era of King William I after 1066.

      I have self-published twelve The Hoodsman ... books and they are:

      # - SubTitle

      . . . . . . . . . . . . William I Timeline

      . . . . . . . . . . . . Henry I Timeline

      1. Killing Kings

      . . . . . . . . . . . . 1066 killing King Harald of Norway (Battle of Stamford Bridge)

      . . . . . . . . . . . . 1100 killing King William II of England. Henry claims the throne.

      2. Hunting Kings

      . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1066 hunting the Conqueror (Battle of Hastings Road)

      . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1100 hunting Henry I (Coronation Charter)

      3. Frisians of the Fens

      . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1067/68 rebellions. Edgar Aetheling flees north with Margaret.

      . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1100 amnesty and peace. Henry recuits English bowmen.

      4. Saving Princesses

      . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1068/69 rebellions. Margaret weds Scotland (Battle of Durham)

      . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1100/01 Edith of Scotland weds Henry (Battle of Alton)

      5. Blackstone Edge

      . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1069/70 rebellions (The Harrowing of the North)

      . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1101 peace while the economy is saved from the bankers

      6. Ely Wakes

      . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1070/71 Frisian rebellion (Battles of Ely and Cassel)

      . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1101 Henry collects allies. Mary of Scotland weds Boulogne.

      7. Courtesans and Exiles

      . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1072/74 English lords flee abroad (Battle of Montreuil, Edgar surrenders)

      . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1102 Henry collects allies (the Honor of Boulogne)

      8. The Revolt of the Earls

      . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1075/76 Earls revolt (Battles of Worchester and Fagaduna)

      . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1102 Earls revolt (Battles of Arundel, Bridgnorth, Shropshire)

      9. Forest Law

      . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1076/79 fighting Normans in France (London Burned, Battle of Gerberoi)

      . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1103 fighting Normans in Cornwall (Battle of Tamara Sound)

      10. Queens and Widows

      . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1079/81 rebellions (Gateshead, Judith of Lens)

      . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1103 Edith made Regent (Force 5 Hurricane)

      11. Popes and Emperors

      . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1081 Normans slaughter English exiles (Battle of Dyrrhachium)

      . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1104 Henry visits Normandy (Duchy run by warlords)

      12. The Second Invasion

      . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1082/85 power vacuum, peaceful anarchy (Regent Odo arrested enroute to Rome)

      . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1085/87 Re-invasion and Harrowing of all England (Battle of Mantes, Conqueror dies)

      . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1104/05 Henry invades Normandy twice (Battle of Tinchebray)

      * * * * *

      * * * * *

      The Hoodsman - Ely Wakes by Skye Smith Copyright 2010-13

      Prologue

      Writing historical novels about the twenty year conquest of England by a culture of vicious slave masters, means that I must describe England as it was before the era of the Anglo-Normans. It is difficult to separate reality from all of the popular misconceptions about the era. For example, think of all of the connotations and misconceptions attached to just one phrase: Anglo-Saxon.

      Pre-Norman England was very much an Anglo-Danish kingdom. Not only were most of the nobles and lords Anglo-Danes, but also half of all the villages in the kingdom were Anglo-Danish. York was the second largest Danish city in the world, after London, and was a wealthy place because of the wealth of the Anglo-Dane farms of the Danelaw. The Danelaw was more Danish than Denmark, and larger, and wealthier, and more populated.

      I must also piece together the politics the pre-1066 North Sea. Denmark was a great power, but King Sweyn was fully busy defending it from attacks by the Byzantine trained King Harald of Norway. Flanders was a great power, but the aging Count Baldwin was sick and dying. Baldwin was also the co-regent of France because King Philip was under age, so France was being carved up by vicious Dukes such as William of Normandy.

      In 1066, not only did the balance of power begin to shift in Byzantium and the Mediterranean, but also in the North Sea. Harald of Norway lost his life, his army, and his ships near York. While this battle weakened King Harold of England, it gave King Sweyn of Denmark control of the North Sea. After the English and Norman armies savaged each other at Hastings, Sweyn's army was still intact.

      By 1071 William was cursing that he ever invaded England. It had been enormously costly in Norman warriors. If he had not invaded, by now he would have used his army and his wife's claim on Flanders to make himself the Count of Flanders, and then have moved on to Paris and made himself Regent of France, until a convenient fatal accident could be arranged for little King Philip.

      If not for his invasion of England, by 1071 he would have been the Duke of a strong Normandy, the Count of a strong Flanders, and King of a strong France. He could have used that strength to expand his empire eastward, to where the Byzantine Empire was falling apart.

      Instead his very weak army was stuck on the wrong side of the Channel and he was the Duke of a weakened Normandy, and sort of King of sort of half of England. Worse, he had made a mortal enemy of King Sweyn of Denmark by Harrowing the Danelaw. Sweyn set up a naval base in Ely and the Wash so that he could control the southern entrance to the North Sea, which was now definitely a Danish Sea.

      The balance of power was yet again about to change around the North Sea, but this time due to Flanders. Sweyn did not want France or Normandy to take over control of Flanders, so he supported Robert, Regent of Holland and Frisia, in his claim to be the next Count of Flanders. Since Robert's biggest supporters were the Frisians of the North Sea, he was called Robert the Frisian, but actually he was the son of one dead Count of Flanders, and brother to the latest dead Count.

      Flanders was won at the Battle of Cassel because the French and Norman heavy cavalry who had gathered there, were surprised and slaughtered by the Frisians. The French and the Normans withdrew, and so the fortress hill town of Cassel surrendered to Robert, and he became Count.

      This was hugely bad news for the Normans, because Flanders ceased to be their ally, and instead allied themselves to the Danes and the Frisians. Sweyn now truly controlled the North Sea, and Norman ships sailed it at their own risk.

      Worse news for William the Conqueror was that he was having trouble finding more Norman warriors to reinforce his battered army. Not just because he had been so careless with Norman lives, but because there were richer pickings to be had from joining the Norman Duke of southern Italy in his attacks on the border lands of the Byzantine Empire.

      The Pope and Church were convinced that the peasant rebellions in Maine, Brittany, and the Danelaw of England had been caused by the harrowings, and they wanted those peasants calmed without more harrowings. Meanwhile, France was no longer under a Regent and young King Philip was beginning to take back the lands that had been taken from his father by William of Normandy.

      William could not possibly hold onto Northern England with Hereward the Wake and his rebels ranging in Cambridgeshire, and with the Danish fleet using Ely and the Wash as their base in the southern North Sea. Cambridgeshire was just too close to London. He had no choice but to do something about Ely, and soon.

      * * * * *

      In 1101 there was a usurper on England's throne, the conqueror's youngest son Henry. The rightful king, according to treaty, was the eldest son Robert, who was just back from the Holy Land. Robert had the support of the Norman barons and the Norman church so he landed with an army in England and marched towards London to claim his throne.

      The only way that Henry could keep his throne was to win the English over to his side. His Coronation Charter, which was enacted as the Charter of Liberties, and was later rewritten into the Magna Carta, promised the English a general amnesty and pardons and the return to Knut's 'in-common' law, and rule by law, and the moot courts. He then married Princess Edith of Scotland, who was of English royal blood.

      When Henry and Robert met near Alton, Henry's army was smaller and less likely to be loyal in battle, and yet Robert signed a treaty which accepted Henry as the king. Why? History ignores peasants and is vague on why Robert would just give up the throne without a battle, a battle he was sure to win. The only realistic answer is the English fyrd. No king since Harold in 1066 had been able to call out the English militia, but at Alton they must have come out to make sure that Edith remained their queen.

      Though Robert accepted Henry as king, the Norman barons did not. Henry would spend the next five years subduing them. The Barons that gave him the most trouble were also the richest and most powerful. William Mortain was the Earl of Cornwall. Robert Belleme was the Earl of Shrewsbury.

      * * * * *

      * * * * *

      The Hoodsman - Ely Wakes by Skye Smith Copyright 2010-13

      Table of Contents

      Title Page

      Cover Flap

      About the Author

      Prologue

      Table of Contents

      Chapter 1 - The boar hunt with the Duke in the New Forest in October 1101

      Chapter 2 - Stealing a golden angel from Peterburgh in May 1070

      Chapter 3 - A possible husband for Mary in the New Forest in October 1101

      Chapter 4 - An Angel dies near Peterburgh in May 1070

      Chapter 5 - The funeral pyre of a Valkyrie in the Fens in May 1070

      Chapter 6 - With Mary and Eustace in London in October 1101

      Chapter 7 - The knights of Kingscliff in Northamptonshire in May 1070

      Chapter 8 - A ruse on the Danish Jarl in Ely, The Fens in June 1070

      Chapter 9 - Ambushed by a Wolfpack in Bedfordshire in June 1070

      Chapter 10 - The taking of Bedford Bailey in June 1070

      Chapter 11 - The Sherwood Hood on a bow run to Wales in July 1070

      Chapter 12 - Saving the Welsh refugees in Shropshire in July 1070

      Chapter 13 - At the palace at Mathrafal, Powys, Wales in July 1070

      Chapter 14 - Transporting bows in the hills of Shropshire in July 1070

      Chapter 15 - Transporting bows in the Wyre Forest, Shropshire in July 1070

      Chapter 16 - More trouble at Peterburgh Abbey in July 1070

      Chapter 17 - Waltheof arrives in Huntingdon in August 1070

      Chapter 18 - The countesses in Huntingdon in August 1070

      Chapter 19 - The fate of Flanders decided in Ely in August 1070

      Chapter 20 - Yet another widow arrives in Ely in August 1070

      Chapter 21 - Princess Mary does the town, in London in October 1101

      Chapter 22 - With the Frisians near Cassel, Flanders in January 1071

      Chapter 23 - The taking of Cassel, Flanders in February 1071

      Chapter 24 - The murder of a Count in Cassel in February 1071

      Chapter 25 - Meeting Philip of France near Cassel in February 1071

      Chapter 26 - A trollop on the run in London in October 1101

      Chapter 27 - A common law wedding for a princess in October 1101

      Chapter 28 - Returning to Ely from Flanders in April 1071

      Chapter 29 - Feasting in Ely, Cambridgeshire in April 1071

      Chapter 30 - Keeping the Conqueror out of Ely in May 1071

      Chapter 31 - Burning Frisian witches near Ely in June 1071

      Chapter 32 - The betrayal of Ely in July 1071

      Chapter 33 - On the road to Winchester in October 1101

      Chapter 34 - At the palace in Winchester in October 1101

      Chapter 35 - Mortain takes Mary to Cornwall in October 1101

      Chapter 36 - Tracking Mary on the road to Cornwall in October 1101

      Chapter 37 - Mary with a knife at her throat in October 1101

      * * * * *

      * * * * *

      The Hoodsman - Ely Wakes by Skye Smith Copyright 2010-13

      Chapter 1 - The boar hunt with the Duke in the New Forest in October 1101

      His old knees ached and he was bored. As usual when he was bored, his mind wandered. He had no problems guiding his charges to this clearing in the Yten Forest. It had only been a year and two months since Raynar had stood in this clearing and put an arrow through William Rufus, King of the English. So much had happened and changed in his life, and this kingdom since then that it was strange to be here again. Here in the forest where nothing had changed.

      William's younger brother, Henry was now confirmed as the King of the English and his older brother Robert was equally confirmed as the Duke of Normandy. Dearest Margaret's daughter Edith was now Matilda, Queen consort to King Henry. To the English, of course, Edith was the Queen and Henry was her King consort. Personally, it meant that he now had the ear of a king through his queen.

      More important than the intricacies of Kings and Queens and Dukes, was Henry's Coronation Charter. It had now passed into law as the Charter of Liberties and it was taking effect in fits and starts across the kingdom. To Raynar's folk and friends, Henry's charter had offered a general amnesty, which had allowed the crown to recruit an army of English bowmen from the men who had lived as outlaws in the forests for years.

      Also more important, was the housecleaning and revision of the Crown's Treasury which had undone the corrupt hold of minters and bankers on the crown. The Exchequer responsible for overhauling the Treasury was his old Greek friend from Cordoba, Gregos Demetrious. Slowly but surely life was improving for the English folk, after thirty five long years of suffering the yoke of Norman misrule and terror under the reign of the two King Williams.

      His knees were getting stiff. Robert had forced the entire hunting party to kneel in prayer for his eldest son Richard, and for his two brothers Rufus and Richard, all of whom had died in this forest. All of them officially by hunting accidents, but all of them murdered.

      No one other than small children believed the official explanations, when there were so many more interesting rumours to be believed. He, Raynar of the Peaks, was the only person in the world who could bear witness that all of these claims of accidental death were false. Everyone else was just speculating on gossip.

      The creed and the simple wisdom of the Brotherhood was that you kept such knowledge a secret until the grave. That was the hardest part of the creed, keeping quiet when you wanted to yell out to the world that you knew the truth. Although he was witness to all three slayings, he himself had only committed one of them; King William Rufus.

      Rufus had been a monster, just like his father William the Conqueror. They had dispossessed the English lords and replaced them with Norman parasites, who then forced the English freemen into slavery. For over thirty years, enforced poverty had been used as the military weapon that completed the conquest of a once well off and free people.

      Robert was finally finished praying and was making to stand. The other five of the hunting party got off their knees. Raynar's knees pained him and he used his long bow to help himself up. He was over fifty now and each new year he felt an age older than the last. The other men in the hunting party were younger than he, but not by much.

      Of the two nobles, Duke Robert of Normandy was the eldest, perhaps pushing fifty, while Count Eustace of Boulogne was perhaps pushing forty. Both still had all their limbs and still discussed young women with lust in their voices.

      Robert looked nothing like his father, William the Conqueror. William had been a big man who carried a lot of weight in his belly. Robert took after his mother Mathilde, and was short and diminutive, and therefore much fitter than his father had been at his age.

      Eustace had his father's look to him. His father was also a Eustace, and had been at the battle for Hastings’s Road back in '66, and at the battle of Cassel in Flanders in '71. Raynar had been at both battles too, but had seen the father only from a distance. The brothers of this younger Eustace had been the first crusader rulers of Jerusalem and one of them was still the King there, but he could not remember which of them for he could never tell the twins apart.

      Why did you bring a war bow to a hunt? asked Robert in French.

      I am not here to hunt, sire, replied Raynar in French. I am here on Henry's orders to ensure that you are not hunted. Few Normans spoke English despite the time enough to learn it in thirty years. This always irked him.

      Ah, I understand, said Robert with a grimace. I have heard the rumours that Rufus did not die by accident, but by the arrow of an outlaw. So Henry thinks there are still outlaws in this forest, then, despite having recruited so many into his army. It had been the English bowmen that Henry had so quickly recruited into his army that had decided the outcome of the Norman civil war at Alton.

      The king's new archers had trapped much of Robert's army in the forest, and had surrounded them by knight-killing Welsh bows, and so Robert had been forced to agree to Henry's terms and drop his own, stronger, claim to the English throne. The Norman Civil War ended quickly and peacefully without a cavalry charge, and without a slaughter of Norman against Norman. That outcome had always irked him. Raynar would much rather that there had been a battle to slaughter the enire Norman ruling class

      The Norman knights now hated the English bowmen and had learned to distinguished bowmen from ordinary archers by the bow that they all carried. The long Welsh selfbow made from seasoned staves of the 'If' tree. The Holy tree that the welsh called Ywen and the English called Yew and was to be found in so many churchyards. The giant trees that had been worshipped before the Romans, and before the Christians.

      Henry did not send this man because of footpads, spoke Eustace. Even in Boulogne we have heard of the difference between a footpad and an English hoodsman. The hoodsmen carry a war bow like Raynar's that can puncture the finest armour. My father lost the fortress of Cassel to Robert the Frisian because of those damn bows back in... ugh.

      It was in '70, Raynar supplied the date. Your father supported Rachilde and Arnulf against the Frisian.

      Robert put his hand out towards the long bow and Raynar put it into his hand, and then passed one heavy, bodkin arrow to him as well. When Robert made to nock the arrow, Raynar had him pause while he removed and passed him his protective leathers for string fingers and bow arm. He showed the Duke how draw the powerful bow using his back and shoulders, rather than his arms.

      Robert was no stranger to bows. He was as avid a hunter as were all Norman warriors. He practiced drawing the bow a few times and felt the muscles of his entire body straining. He felt the power in the bow and knew he had to loose soon before his arm and fingers weakened. A local peasant lad was working the hunting dogs a hundred paces away and he took aim at him. He loosed, but at the second he did so Eustace purposefully knocked his arm and the arrow hissed well wide of the young lad.

      Shoot him and you will have the hoodsmen hunting us for sure, Eustace hissed. I value my life more than that lads.

      What, for killing a serf? This I don't believe, replied Robert. He was angry with the miss.

      This is not the Holy Land, Robert, scolded Eustace. You cannot just kill the folk for pleasure. Here in England, every forest lad like that has a cousin who is a hoodsman. Even kings are not safe from the vengeance of their bows. For Christ's sake man, you are standing where they assassinated your brother.

      Robert shoved the bow back at Raynar. That is why we have Raynar. To protect us from the hoodsmen. He peeled off the leathers.

      Even I cannot protect you from the Hood if you kill an innocent like that lad, said Raynar as he took back the bow. They are expert huntsmen. You will not know of their presence until you feel the point tear through your heart. I was sent with you to wave this bow at the eyes that watch this forest. In my company you will have safe passage, but not if you commit murder, or even rape.

      Robert looked thoughtful for a moment. The power released by that bow is frightening. What is the range?

      I expect to kill men in armour at fifty paces, in mail at a hundred paces, horses at a hundred and fifty, and men without armour at two hundred and fifty. The power by itself is not enough though. At such long ranges the aim is all. If you are off by an inch at fifty paces, you are off by a hand at a hundred, and by a foot at a hundred and fifty. Most men do not have the strength to loose the arrow and keep the aim. You did well. Very well.

      So that is why you, yourself, did not move to spoil my aim, laughed Robert, eager to seize on the complement to save face. You did not expect me to be able to hold it. Then your praise is high indeed. Back in a good mood he waived the party to their horses. Come, let us see what the dogs have found for us.

      Eustace hung back with Raynar. He is like my brother Baldwin who has just succeeded my brother Godfrey as the King of Jerusalem. The battles in the Holy Land do that to warriors. Life is not sacred to them anymore. They have killed so many, seen so much death, that they no longer feel anything when they take a life. It is like a sickness of the mind. Like a berserker, but with calm and cunning.

      I have met many like him, and for the most they were Normans. I agree with your description, although my Christian friends swear that the devil has possessed them. You are wrong to think it is just because of the crusades. The same happened to them here in England. I think it is because they have become too comfortable with being the masters of slaves. They no longer see the slaves as people, but as beasts to be treated like sheep and cattle. Beasts without rights or courts to protect them.

      The Norman version of serfdom is an abomination, said Eustace as he mounted his horse. We Flems, in both Boulogne and Flanders, are undoing the Frankish serfdom. We are changing it to simple socage, and our counties are the wealthier for it. He hurried his horse for there was a new and insistant pitch to the howls of the dogs.

      Raynar stretched his legs once more, and then lifted himself into his saddle and followed Eustace. The dogs had found venison. Hopefully boar.

      As they rode close they could see that a verderer was holding a very large tusker at bay with a tasseled spear, while Robert was charging the beast with his lance down ready to skewer it. The other men had circled it and were holding back allowing the Duke to have the sport. One of them yelled a warning and Raynar, understanding the English of the warning, looked and caught s glimpse of a shadow moving fast through the under brush. The boar had a mate.

      The second boar snapped the rear fetlock of Robert's horse with one bite. The horse went insane but could not rear or kick with one broken leg and instead tipped and crumpled. The original boar was now ignoring the verderer's tasseled spear and was attacking the face of the downed horse.

      Robert was an expert horseman and had stayed with the saddle until the horse was almost on the ground and then had pushed himself away. He was now pulling himself along the ground to get his legs well clear of the twisting, squirming horse. The second boar was getting ready to charge him.

      Raynar threw down his useless war bow. It was too long to use from horseback, and was clumsy in close fights. He slid down his saddle on the off side so that he could land next to Eustace's horse, and he pulled Eustace's lance from that saddle's sheath.

      He tore his cloak over his head and waved it towards the second boar. The boar turned it's head at the movement and first charged forward towards Robert but then arched his back to turn his body, and finished the charge directly towards the cloak. It was a big sucker, heavier than Raynar and with tusks like daggers.

      Raynar kept wagging the cloak with his left hand as he took a firmer grip on the lance with his right. When the boar was only steps away he yanked the cloak hard to the left away from his body, and the boar changed directions with it. He shoved the spear with full force at the now open side of the beast.

      The boar ripped the cloak from his hands and was shredding it, not yet feeling the pain of the hit through the red of it's anger. Raynar kept pushing with all his strength on the shaft of the lance so that the brute would not shake it loose. He stepped forward and put the entire weight of his body into the shaft so that it skewered the writhing beast to the ground.

      He must have missed the heart because the boar was now squealing in pain and anger and was trying to reach around to slash at Raynar's hands on the shaft. For minutes he was caught in a gruesome tug of war with the beast. It was trying to slash him, and he was using the imbedded lance to keep his distance away. Finally, and none too soon, the boar collapsed with the shock of the pain, so Raynar let go of the shaft and turned towards the other boar while reaching for his short sword. The other boar was dying with the verderer's tasseled spear through its neck.

      Eustace used his sword to silence the wounded horse, and then helped Robert to his feet. Robert was shaken and winded from the fall, but seemed unhurt. Raynar walked towards them, and Robert went to shake his hand, but Raynar walked right passed him and grasped the arm of the verderer.

      To hold a boar at bay so that a hunter can have the sport is either the bravest or the stupidest thing I have ever seen. And then to dismount and skewer the beast in one smooth move was the most skillful. They held their grasp until Robert got to them and slapped both of them on their shoulders and gave them his thanks.

      Did anyone get slashed? Raynar called out to everyone. If so come to me and I will clean the wounds here and now. Nothing festers faster than a wound that has touched pig. Robert was scratched and bruised but not by the pig.

      Oy, It was the lad with the dogs. one of the dogs is cut, but I don't know that it was by the tuskers.

      Raynar walked to his saddle to get his wine skin and then walked to the lad with his dogs. The lad held the injured dog quiet while Raynar used the wine to clean the tear. This dog would have ripped Raynar's arm off if the lad had not been soothing it. Instead she was like a meek puppy despite the sting of the wine.

      The lad smiled nervously at this old warrior. He was English, not Norman, and he carried a Hoodsman's bow, like the one his father had wrapped in oil cloth and buried behind their house. Have you ever hunted more dangerous animals than these boars? he asked. Wolves, or perhaps those huge wolves they call bears?

      I have hunted the most dangerous animals of all, growled Raynar as he finished cleaning the dog's wound and then slowly reached behind the dogs ears to scratch him there. Half human boars, half human wolves, half human bears. Men who have lost their humanity and have become wild animals.

      * * * * *

      * * * * *

      The Hoodsman - Ely Wakes by Skye Smith

      Chapter 2 - Stealing a golden angel from Peterburgh in May 1070

      Prior Aethelwold gave Hereward and young Raynar a guarded welcome when they returned to Peterburgh Abbey from Spalding. Just last week these same men had come from Huntingdon and had handed him a fortune in religious treasures that had been taken, or sent away, from the abbey. Apparently the new Norman abbot had spirited them away.

      Unfortunately, when these same men had left the abbey, they took with them all of the chests of valuables that the Abbey had been holding in trust for English lords. Lords who had now fled into exile. So long as it was their bowmen who controlled the burgh walls, there was nothing that he could do about it. Actually he preferred the company

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