[Norman Conquest 01] Wolves in Armour (52 page)

After this was translated, Gautier suddenly spouted forth in French in what appeared to be a mixture of anger and confusion. “What is the problem? Yes, I gave the stupid whore the benefit of my ‘sword’. That’s all these English bitches are good for with their snobbish ways and failure to recognise their betters.”

“And did she consent?” asked Harold, looking at the scratches on Gautier’s face.

“I guess not,” replied Gautier, fingering the scratches. “But the bitch enjoyed every moment of having a real man for a change.”

“In the light of the defendant’s own admissions, which have been written into the transcript, I don’t see any need to continue further,” said Alan with a look at Harold and Leofson. “One question, Geoffrey de Rouen, did this man come to you that day and tell you he was being sought by the Hue and Cry?”

“Yes,” said Geoffrey from his seat near the front of the court.

“And you did nothing to bring this to the attention of the authorities?”

“No.”

“I’ll overlook that this one time, because perhaps you don’t know the laws of the land- which is a pretty poor excuse as they are the same in France. In future any failure to assist the authorities in their investigation of a crime will be punished,” said Alan. Geoffrey turned bright red with anger at this public rebuke before what he saw as his social inferiors.

Alan and the other judges retired to the backroom for a quick talk and pint of ale. When they returned Alan continued, “Gautier of Little Clacton, you have made admissions to this court that clearly show your guilt. If you were an Englishman, I would order compensation of 100 shillings. But you are not. You are a Norman, and the penalty imposed on you is that of Norman law. Let there be no misunderstanding by the Normans of this land that they can do what they want, when they want and to whom they want.

“The Norman law specifies that for the offence of rape you should hang. But King William, in his wisdom, has decreed that no Hundred court can order the death by hanging or other means of any Norman.” Here Gautier and the other Normans began smirking. “So I sentence you to the most severe penalty left to me by King William’s law. You shall have both eyes put out with a hot poker and you shall be castrated. After that you will be delivered back up to your lord’s manor at Little Clacton for him to care for you as he wishes.”

The smirks promptly disappeared from the faces of the Normans and Geoffrey strode up to the judge’s table, thumping his hand down. “You can’t do that. The man is a Norman, and I claim the right to protect him.”

“Grow up Geoffrey! A man’s nationality gives him no protection. Do you think you can ride down the main street of Little Clacton killing every Englishman you see and raping every woman? These are free men and women and they have legal rights just as do you and I, and your Norman retainers. The fact that you and your men are in a foreign country in some position of power gives you and them no more rights than if you were at home in France. Indeed less rights, as here nearly everybody is a freeman or freewoman, and not a villein or serf. Stop thinking that just because the Bishop gave you a fief that you are God and your men are Archangels. I will apply the law impartially here to every man and woman, irrespective of where they come from and what language they speak. By the way, I’d suggest that you stop beating the geburs in your village, because if one makes a formal complaint you’re likely to be spending time in the stocks. I’m sure you will find the next case of interest.”

After an adjournment the St Osyth assault case began. The case continued tri-lingually, with first Edward of St Osyth being sworn, stating that he had issues of land ownership with his neighbour Albyn of Bruges. He had sent his steward Slean to discuss these with Albyn’s steward Wyman, and if necessary with Albyn himself. Slean had returned on foot, badly beaten with two front teeth knocked out, bad facial bruising to the left of the head, bruising to the chest and ribs and two broken ribs. Slean gave evidence that he had delivered his master’s message to both Wyman and Albyn together, and that he was- apparently at Albyn’s instructions, although he could not speak French to confirm this- beaten and then thrown out of the door. Were there any other witnesses? Lord Albyn himself, his men Arnaud and Josselin, who all laughed during the beating, and several English servants.

Alan interjected and said that, to hopefully save time, rather than call Edward’s and Slean’s frithboghs to give evidence as to their oath-worthiness at this time, that Wyman should be called.

After first being reminded of the importance of his oath, Wyman gave a detailed description of how he had beaten Slean with a large stick at the instruction of Alwyn, who had kept on encouraging ‘lay on harder’. Arnaud and Josselin, knowing that they had done nothing untoward themselves, agreed that Wyman had beaten Slean in the presence of themselves and Alwyn but refused to say whether this was at Alwyn’s instruction.

When Alwyn was called to give evidence, he refused to take the oath or to make any declaration, saying that the matter had nothing to do with him. Alan carefully asked a series of questions about what had been said, why Slean had been beaten and why Alwyn had done nothing to prevent this, each of which questions Alwyn refused to answer but which clearly showed the facts of the case.

After the traditional adjournment to the back room, with the ale this time supplemented by food from the tavern, the judges returned. Alan declared Wyman guilty, but declared that the offence had taken place when he felt that he was ‘under the obligation or power of another’. He set the bot compensation at ten shillings, and a further ten shillings fine payable to the king. He also ordered that the money not be payable by Wyman’s frithbogh, but by his lord Alwyn de Bruges, who the court was satisfied had ordered the attack. Alan also enquired as to what had happened to the horse Slean had ridden to St Osyth. Wyman stated that it stood in Alwyn’s stable. Alan ordered its return and a further £2 to be paid by Alwyn to Edward within a month, for unlawful possession of property.

Alan reached over and whispered into Osmund’s ear, “I expect that Wyman will be looking for a new position by tonight. Offer him a place on one of our northern manors, perhaps as assistant-steward. He seems an honest enough man.”

Knowing that he had made two permanent enemies, but not particularly caring because they would anyway have been against him due to their allegiance with Bishop William, Alan declared the case closed, and resumed the usual double-hearing format at each end of the Hall for the standard cases of assault, drunkenness, mayhem and theft that any court has to hear.

In mid November Alan and Anne were back at the house at Holebourn Bridge outside London. Autumn had closed in and the ride south from Colchester had been accomplished in a single day of hard riding in a cold wind, pushing man and beast to exhaustion. Both Anne and Udelle, the single young maid Anne had brought with her, had to be assisted from their horses and into the house.

Aikin and his children, the servants Aidith and Tiw, were delighted to see them, Aikin wanted to conduct an immediate tour of the newly-completed renovations and improvements to the house, and had to be told firmly that the only things his masters were interested in was a warm fire, food and drink, a bath and bed in that order. Aikin had as instructed appointed a new cook, named Wilda. She was a pleasant and stout woman and had moved into Aikin’s chamber in the attic, while Aidith now had her own room also in the attic and Tiw slept in an alcove in the barn. Although the precise date of their arrival had not been previously arranged, Wilda soon had a tasty stew of goat and vegetables ready and served into wooden bowls, accompanied by fresh-baked bread and apples, the latter slightly wrinkled from age despite having been stored a barrel in the cellar. With profuse apologies she promised to obtain better fare for the following day.

Aikin broached a barrel of ale for the men and a jug of mead for the ladies, and they were feeling somewhat more human as they left the Hall for their sleeping quarters.

Next morning they did indeed inspect the repairs and renovations and were more than satisfied, Anne asking Aitkin to have the contractors call around to collect the balance of their payment, subject to the correction of a few small issues.

They next went to the docks where they saw ‘Zeelandt’ and ‘Stormsvale’ drawn up on the mudflats with two men caulking and scraping the hulls. ‘Birgitta’ was over-wintering at Ipswich.

Anne took Alan for his first look at the warehouse on Fish Street, not far from the Bridge. The labourer/guard opened the locks to let them into the dimly-lit building, what light there was coming through several small barred wall openings near the roof. As they walked through the warehouse Alan carried a rush torch and there were scurrying noises in several dark corners. “Looks like I need to get the rat-catcher back,” commented Anne.

“It smells intriguing,” said Alan as he peered about, noting the aromatic smells. He could almost taste the air- pungent, acrid, slightly bitter and persistent. “What have you got here?”

“Uncle Lidmann’s factor runs this part of things, although I think we need our own man now.” She picked up a roughly-bound book off a table. “This will only be his rough copy, but we have tuns of French wine over there. Those barrels are whale-oil from Norway; those are salted herrings; those bales are dried herrings; both of those are also from Norway. Bales of
woollen
cloth and bales of wool fleece. They’re from Yorkshire, Suffolk and Norfolk,”

She pulled out a pinch of wool and rubbed her fingers as she sniffed the lanolin and continued with her inventory. “Several tons of ingots of tin and copper from Cornwall are stacked over there. We mainly deal in bulk commodities, but over here,” she continued as she led the way to an area with small sacks each of about ten pounds weight, “we have the pepper, spices and so on. Grain of paradise, pepper, saffron, fresh and dried ginger, cinnamon, cumin, nutmeg, mace and allspice. Sugar, dried figs and dates. Almonds. Over there we have barrels of Iberian olive oil in nine gallon firkins. I’d have to check the inventories, but I’d expect that we have a good £1,000 worth of stock here waiting to move elsewhere, which we’ll sell for twice or three times that amount. I’ll arrange for some small quantities to go to both our properties for our own use.”

“How much money do we actually have?” asked Alan with interest.

“I’d need to work it out,” replied his wife. “It changes day to day, but will be reasonably steady at the moment as the ships aren’t sailing- that confuses things as what’s worth £100 in London today will be sold for £300 in Norway next week. At a guess, £3,000 or £4,000, if we take the cargos and commodities at cost, rather than sale prices. Twice that if we assume the ships don’t sink and the cargos are sold in May. We also have over £2,000 in cash, mainly with the Jews but some also on loan to men to help pay their Heriot, secured against the land, so if they don’t pay by next Christmas we receive the land. No interest charged on those loans as we are not allowed to engage in usury,” she concluded regretfully.

Alan blinked, not sure whether to marvel more at the amount or the fact that £1,000 was apparently a matter of unconcern to his wife. Most knights’ wives had to budget down to the penny- and all this had been built up within a year from the proceeds of the Danish ships carrying off booty from the sack of the warehouses at Colchester. It was small wonder that Anne had never complained about the cost of the armed retinue that Alan had gathered.

That evening they invited Bjorn, the captain of the ‘Zeelandt’, for dinner. Despite the day being Friday they ate a variety of meat pies. Anne and Osmund stayed with either fish pie or vegetable pie, but most of the men were eating the veal or beef pies with spiced vegetables. “Delicious,” said Bjorn as he wiped meat gravy from his long red beard with the table-cloth. “I’m glad you don’t go in for that religious fish-eating shite. I saw enough fish by the time I left Norway to last me a lifetime. There’s no other damn thing to eat up there, so you have fish dried, fried, smoked, pickled, roasted, grilled or any other way you can think of- three times a day, every day. I say I had my whole life’s supply of Friday and Wednesday fish by the time I was seven! Give me a nice piece of tasty beef anytime!”

“You managed to get a couple of voyages in to Aquitaine before the autumn,” said Alan. “That’s a long way, and I understand a difficult journey. How did things go?”

“Yes, we managed two trips between August and early October, when I called it quits. The Bay of Biscay can be a bit difficult in late autumn and winter. Storms come up out of nowhere. It’d be easier if we only sailed to Nantes instead of all the way to Bordeaux. If you know what you are doing the coastline is easy enough once you get to Brittany and the Biscay coast- there’s plenty of places to take shelter if you’re paying attention to the weather signs. The Factor is going to arrange to start to haul spices and other items from Iberia. The Moors get them from North Africa much cheaper than you can get them from the via the Venetians Levant.”

“Any problems from pirates?” asked Anne.

“Only the first time,” said Bjorn complaisantly. On being pressed he continued, “We were rounding Pointe St-Mathieu. Two ships came out from Brest and started to follow us. I let them catch up and hoisted a flag, black with a white diagonal cross, so they can recognise us next time- that’s only fair. The sea was a bit lumpy, a swell about twice as high as a man is tall, so I let them get quite close. Then I used your ballista. It worked just as you said. We took three shots to hit them and then all hell broke loose. The first ship burnt to the waterline in a couple of minutes and I left them with the second ship picking up those few who could swim. I don’t expect to have any problems again, which will be a pity as it livened up an otherwise boring voyage.”