[Norman Conquest 01] Wolves in Armour (13 page)

Construction had not been difficult as the land selected had a clay base, was very flat and below the level the sea reached each month on the flood-tide- although the sea would be held back from flooding the saltpans by levees. Toland had arranged for Aethelhard the blacksmith to make a metal cutting edge on a strong wooden board ten feet wide, which was pulled by a team of six oxen, up and down, across and diagonally on the salt pan. This deepened the pan and levelled its floor and also provided the clay soil with which to build the levees three feet high around each pan.

Using the ox-pulled board method Toland had the villagers make a single large expanse of pan, which was then in the process of being divided into smaller pans by inserting intervening levees. Sliding wooden sluice gates were inserted in the levees next to the estuary or tidal creek. Alan suggested building in a fall in level across the pan and intervening sluices, so that water of increasingly high salinity resulting from solar evaporation could be drained from one pan to the next to facilitate harvesting at the end of summer, when most of the salt would then be in the final one or two pans. With these modifications the pans were soon completed and Alan arranged for the loan of the levelling board- and for Toland to visit in turn Great Oakley, Beaumont, Bradfield and Great Bentley to advise their head-cheorls on the new construction method they had devised.

Alan also gave Kendrick and Toland the bad news that after completion and filling of the saltpans that he wanted the construction of a barracks for sixty men and a stable for thirty horses, together with a barn and armoury. These were to be built on the north side of the village close to Alresford Creek, and within the grounds of the fortification that he intended to build.

After marking out the land Alan specified that the cottars would work their two days a week, the cheorls and sokeman their three days a week and his six slaves full time on digging a ditch, rampart and palisade after the barracks and stables had been completed. He also specified that the barracks was to be of two storeys and that all the buildings within the bailey were to be roofed with wooden shingles, not thatch, to reduce the risk of fire.

Work would proceed as and when labour was available, with agricultural duties taking precedence- but each peasant and slave was expected to work their full labour allocations each week- and to work hard and for the full day. The intervention of bad weather was to be deducted from their own time, not his.

This wasn’t as drastic a demand as it may appear, as a sokeman or cheorl usually had several adult members of the family available to provide labour. A cottar, who owed a corvee of two days a week labour for rent of his house and a small parcel of land, usually worked the remaining four days a week for pay. These were usually ‘in kind’ or the provision of food or the waiving of the banality fee charged by the lord for use of facilities such as a mill, the estover right to gather wood or the pannage right to have pigs eat acorns in the lord’s forest.

All the gebur freemen had an ancient obligation under Anglo-Saxon law to undertake to create, improve or maintain local fortifications, called the burgh-bot. While they were not happy at the work that would be required, they acknowledged Alan’s right as lord to demand it.

Alan also went to visit the miller Acwel to discuss whether he would be able to handle the additional tonnage of grain if Alan’s plans for the three-field system worked as he hoped. The mill was owned by Alan, who took ten percent of the flour milled as the fee for the service provided. This was a traditional landowner’s fee common to both Anglo-Saxons and Normans, which was charged to the villagers- much objected to by the villagers as they could grind their grain by hand, but were traditionally required to use the mill. It was simply yet another form of taxation. The miller received three tenths of the flour from Alan’s share as his income for operation of the mill.

When at the mill Alan noticed a particularly attractive young woman of about sixteen years working at handing the sacks down to the worker below the millstones. She was using a pulley system to pull up the full flour bags and tip them over for a large and heavily-built teenager to move over onto a pile of sacks by the open side-door of the mill, ready to be collected by cart.

The lass gave him a bold look in return to his own scrutiny of her. The grain currently being ground was of course from the previous summer. Alan mentioned that he had some wheat still needing milling and perhaps the young woman, who Acwel mentioned was his daughter Edyth, could resolve delivery arrangements. Acwel gave Alan a calculating look and agreed.

Edyth attended the next morning at the Manor Hall, with ten bags of wheat flour, clean and dressed in her best clothes. Alan chatted with her and found her to be a typical country girl, uneducated, illiterate and with a knowledge only of her local area- but also typically open, honest and sincere. She was not without experience and Alan found her a willing and enthusiastic partner in bed that night. She joined his household in an undefined capacity the next day. Acwel was happy to have his percentage from the mill increased from three to five parts, to allow for the loss of her labour. Edyth was happy to be freed from the need to work ten-hour days, the improved food and accommodation in the Manor Hall and the somewhat qualified respect she was given within the Hall as the lord’s bed mate.

Edyth quickly proved a suitable choice. While her conversation was vapid and concerned local gossip, lacking the intellectual ‘cut and thrust’ that Alan would have preferred, she had a placid temperament and fitted in well with the staff at Thorrington, causing no problems. She was confused, rather than conceited, in her interaction with the staff, not knowing quite what to ask her maid to do as she was used to doing everything herself, both for herself and her family. She made no demands- and obviously as a miller’s daughter would not be offered marriage by Alan. And she was an absolute tigress in bed.

Alan had chosen to make Thorrington his home, hence the directions for building the fortification. Whilst it was the southernmost of his manors and some miles away from the bulk of his estates in the north-east of the Hundred, he had a liking for the pretty village and its people. In return the villagers seemed to have a genuine affection for him, unlike the villagers and servants at Ramsey and Bradfield who could barely conceal their antipathy. Ramsey may have been a more logical choice but Alan wanted to live where he was comfortable. Anyway, the northern villages were only an hour or so away by horse, and Thorrington was closer to the pleasures of the town of Colchester.

It was midday on a clear crisp winter day in late February when Alan was out with four local thegns, Edward, Alric, Edwold and Ketel who he had invited hawking for a ‘get to know you day’. Together with half a dozen servants they were in a forest near Alresford in the north of Alan’s demesne. All of his companions were Saxons and like them he wore a padded jerkin and thick breeches against the cold, leather gloves on his hands and a close fitting knitted cap on his head. As usual he was dressed in black and dark brown and wore no armour- having decided on his first day in the manor that if he had to wear armour to protect him from his own people he might as well give up and go home. Respect, not fear, was what he strove for in both man and beast.

Alan enjoyed falconry. This was a quiet morning’s ride with a small group of friends seeking their quarry in the forest clearings and open spaces where the birds which falcons and hawks usually sought as prey could be found and the occasional hare could be started, although most falcons and hawks would rarely chase ground-based prey.

Alan disliked the larger and more formal hunts for boar and deer, as he enjoyed pitting his wits against his foe. A well-shot arrow in a stalk through the forest was worth a dozen deer driven to the bowmen by beaters, and Alan had to admit he was at best an indifferent hand with the bow. Boar-hunting was more… exciting, with an angry 200 pound beast with sharp tusks charging at short-range in the semi-darkness of deep forest. Alan had in the past used stout boar-spears to kill what he felt was his fair share of boar in hunts arranged by his father in the woodlands near his ancestral home and felt no need to test his courage and fortitude on a regular basis. He adamantly refused to hunt animals that couldn’t be eaten, such as bear and wolves, unless they were causing undue depredation amongst the local livestock.

Benoic, Alan’s Falconer, rode behind him and carried the long-wing female peregrine falcon that was the excuse for today’s outing. She was a beautifully marked bird of white with brown speckles and dark-brown head currently covered by a soft leather hood. Alan been content to watch those two of his companions with hawks flying them against quarry, as they were riding through a stand of dense forest and the long-winged birds wouldn’t be able to be flown until they came to a large open area.

In reality, after a week of bad weather and judicial duties keeping him indoors, Alan was simply out for some exercise and fresh air. He was riding Odin, to also give him some exercise, although the large and bad-tempered destrier was hardly the most suitable horse for a hunting expedition. In stables or gentle riding the horse was difficult. He bit and kicked in the stables, and fidgeted and pranced in riding. Alan was prepared to put up with that behaviour as the French-trained war-horse responded to him in battle or practice as if they shared a single mind.

The path through the forest was a narrow and winding dirt track, the canopy of leafless oak and elm overhead letting light into the under-storey of bushes and shrubs that crowded the sides of the pathway. There had been no snow for over a week but the dirt path remained frozen solid.

Hearing a faint cry up ahead Alan cocked his head and used a gloved hand to move the knitted wool cap and uncover his ear. There was another shout, followed by the unmistakable ringing sound of steel on steel.

While Alan wore no armour, like all men of station he carried a sword hanging at his hip. The path ahead curved to the left and Alan spurred Odin into a gallop, bending low in the saddle to avoid the branches whipping by overhead. The sound of galloping hooves behind indicated that his Saxon companions were following.

After riding around the curve the path broadened, with the trees and undergrowth falling back to a distance of some ten paces on either side. Alan sat upright in his saddle and drew his sword Blue Fire, a well-balanced and superbly forged and acid-etched one-and-a-half-hand masterpiece some thirty-one inches in length, which he had literally picked up at Caldbec Hill.

Thirty yards ahead an unpleasant vignette was being played out. About a dozen roughly-dressed men were standing in a small clearing perhaps thirty yards across; several other people, including two women, were lying on the ground. Six horses were milling around in confusion, threatening to trample people underfoot as they cavorted and reared.

As Alan watched, one on the roughly-dressed men used a long knife to slit the throat of a man who was lying helpless on the ground. Two other men lay crumpled and still near the pathway, each with several arrows protruding from their chests. Two men were near each of the two women lying on the ground.

One woman wearing rich clothes was lying unmoving like a broken doll, while the men rifled through her clothing for valuables and removed the rings from her fingers. The other, by her clothing a maid, had her dress ripped open at the bodice and also pulled up to her waist. One man, with his pants around his ankles, was thrusting himself between her legs, with another awaiting his turn.

A man armed with a spear stood on the roadway just ahead of Alan. Rather than paying attention to his duties as a look-out, he had turned to face the clearing- obviously looking forward to his turn with the women. Before the man could gather his wits, Odin swerved towards him without any command by Alan. The horse smashed his massive chest into the bandit, throwing the man backwards onto the pathway. Odin paid particular attention to stamp each of his steel-shod feet on the body below him as he swept over, making sure to give a parting backwards kick which caught the man full on the head, smashing it open with a sound like a ripe melon bursting.

Another man ran in front of them, brandishing a rusty sword. Odin reared onto his hind-legs, making Alan to have to lean forward to maintain his seat as the horse lashed out with its iron-shod fore-hooves. The man’s face disappeared in a spray of blood as he reeled backwards and again the horse rode him down.

The slight pause had given Alan’s Saxon companions a chance to catch up, and after having felt a little like a passenger for the last few moments Alan took Odin in hand with a wrench of the reins, directing him towards the two men who were near the inert body of the noblewoman.

The two bandits started to rise to their feet, abandoning their preoccupation with robbery, with fear written clearly on their faces. As Alan reined Odin to an abrupt halt, the horse was almost standing on the woman. Without needing instruction, and with surprising adroitness and control, the animal carefully placed his feet so as not to crush the woman.

Alan gave a backhanded slash with his sword at the bandit to his right. The blade cleaved through the man’s right shoulder next to neck while the man was still fumbling with his own sword and trying to come to grips with the rapidly changed situation. The almost horizontal cut nearly severed the man’s head and he dropped in a shower of blood from severed arteries with a look of surprise still on his face.

Alan twitched Odin’s reins to make him move to the right and then launched himself out of the saddle towards the bandit on the left, who by now had recovered from his surprise sufficiently to draw his own sword from its scabbard and raise it to an ‘en garde’ position. Alan stumbled on landing and his opponent sought to take advantage by making a wild swing with the sword at his head. Alan immediately performed a passata-sotto, dropping down with his left hand to the ground and lowering his body below his opponent’s blade as it whistled overhead. Springing upright Alan performed an advance and a simple riposte lunge, running six inches of steel into his opponent’s chest before the latter could recover his balance. Remembering his teaching that ‘the damage is done by the first three inches of the blade, not the last three’ he was able to easily withdraw his blade as his opponent toppled over backwards.