[Norman Conquest 02] Winter of Discontent (7 page)

“Also, as you know, Anne attends the three Masses said here at Thorrington each week. She would like, when possible, for you to provide her with the Eucharist each day. Again
,
given the weather and her condition
,
may I request
that you do this and perform a shortened service at the New Hall?” Brother Wacian agreed easily enough, after all it was only a few
minutes
walk and would
take little
of his time. He could perform the service in the late evening and no doubt would often then be invited to stay for the evening meal, which was no small consideration for a man who was single and did his own cooking most of the time
. Th
e women of the parish did provide him with the occasional crockpot of cooked stew or baked
pies
- outside the Lenten period
. Brother Wacian wasn’t a good cook and that was one of the things that he missed after leaving the abbey
, not that the food provided in the abbey refectory was anywhere near the quality of the
provender
on offer at Alan’s high-table
. He also missed lively intellectual conversation, which wasn’t something that could be offered by the villagers but
which
certainly occurred at the table of the highly
-
educated lord and his lady.

On the way back to the New Hall,
Alan and Anne
passed arm-in-arm over the wooden
draw-
bridge crossing
the
defensive trench and through the gate in the wooden
palisade
between the towers that contained the ballistae
which
Alan had built partly from plans dating
back
to Roman times and partly from his own tinkering
.
Anne commented
,
“Of course, the fact that you hate fish didn’t have anything to do with that request
,
did it?
,
”
asked Anne.
Alan laughed and patted her bottom without replying.

The next day dawned cold but windless. Alan took horse with his steward Faran and two men to ride the thirteen miles to his manor at Ramsey in the north of the Hundred. Ramsey was a neat village located about a mile inland with
some
55
cottages, a mill and a salt
-
house, being administered
for Alan
by the steward Durand. The steward was under close supervision as he was a hang-over from the previous tenants Aelfhare and Bertholf Kemp, who had attacked Alan after he had taken possession, with Alan’s archers killing them in his protection. Ramsey also had Alan’s horse breeding stable, run by
studmaster Roweson, an elderly thickset white-haired cheorl who had been in charge
for twelve years
under both Alan and before him the
Kemps.

The journey
to Ramsey was
difficult with the horses walking through thick snow and Alan and his men were more than happy to receive a hot bowl of vegetable pottage from Arlene, Durand’s wife and housekeeper. The stew had a surprisingly strong flavour of bacon,
on
which Alan didn’t comment. After all Ash Wednesday had been only the day before and presumably the pottage had been on the make for several days. The meal was accompanied by
ale and
fresh bread, although
made
of rye and without butter
due to the Lenten restrictions.
.

The stud was a short distance
from the village
and Alan rode out in the early afternoon. Roweson greeted
them
as
t
he
knight
and his men dismounted. The yard was surrounded on two sides by horse stalls and on the third by several cottages used by the staff, and a large barn where hay, oats and carrots were stored.

“God Hael, Ealdor!” Roweson called as he limped forward, seemingly to have significantly aged in the months since Alan had seen him last. Presumably the cold was making his joints stiff.

“God Hael,
Horsbealdor
!” replied Alan warmly, clapping the old man on the shoulder. “How progress things?”

“Well enough, E
aldor!
Well enough
!
We now have
76
breeding mares. The
34
from last year plus
16
of the fillies who were yearlings last year
- w
e lost one in the summer
to s
nake bite
; we
also
have the 6
you bought at Ipswich and those
others
bought at London and Colchester. We still have the
3
stallions
, and
your stallion Odin in season. The
14
geldings are now about
18
months old and ready to start training, but of course not ready for heavy use. Of the
76
mares,
68
are in foal- some arrived too late to be bred
for the season. Two ‘slipped’.

“
Our problem is going to come in spring. All the horses are in stalls to protect them from the weather. They
’
re crammed in two or three per stall, except the stallions of course. We have
25
stalls. When the
mares
foal we won’t have stalls for them all. We also won’t have
enough meadow or fenced fields- w
e’ll
be up to our eyes in horses
!
I
suggest you use some of your land at Great Bentley, which has good
meadow and pasture
land. Build stalls, say another
25
or
30
there
and 10
more here.
If you build a stud at
Great Bentley
it will also
need
cottages and a barn. That’ll take care of this year. My assistant Brunloc can run Great Bentley under my instruction.
W
hen is this master horse-trainer you promised going to arrive? We can train the
horses
to be ridden as usual, but you want the
m
to be trained for war, which is a different thing altogether.”

“Sorry, I’d forgotten about that,” admitted Alan. “
I’ve had t
oo much to think about. We need him here… when?”

“As soon as you want the horses
to be
train
ed
to fight
!
That beast Odin is like nothing I’ve ever seen! A vicious beast, but intelligent and tractable
-
when he wants to be. If you have
50
men on horses like him, you’
d
be damn hard to beat,” replied Roweson. “I used to think that what you were saying was crap, but I’ve seen him out on the
training
-
field and any competent man-at-arms on a horse like that… I’m not surprised you Normans beat Harold.”

“I’ll
attend to
it and send a letter to my father and ask him to get the best man available.” Alan paused and then asked
,
“So what do you expect from the breeding program?”

“
That d
epends,” said Roweson with a shrug. “I think you chose good animals last year. We should get a good batch of foals from the mares we bred to the big stallions. If we keep doing that for a few years the result
ing horses
will be nearly as large as your destrier Odin. Big, strong, plenty of endurance, reasonably fast
-
although not very quick to change direction.
The m
ain problem will be temperament, which is why I want this person you have promised to work magic with them. The best horse in the world is useless if you can’t get it to do what you want. One thing’s for sure, in four or five years we’ll have bred all the warhorses you could reasonably want. You’ll probably need four or five stallions at stud by then.”

Alan inspected the horses and stables. Each horse had a blanket buckled on to keep them warm. The stalls were clean, obviously mucked out daily, and with fresh straw. Chaff and oats were available for the horses to eat. The horses looked rough in their winter coats but were clearly well fed and comfortable. The mares looked at him placidly and accepted the carrots he offered. As Roweson had said, the only real problem was overcrowding with two or three mares, nearly all in foal,
in most stalls.

After taking his leave Alan and his men returned to Ramsey for the night. They wouldn’t have been able to return to Thorrington before nightfall
,
and trying to travel through the deep snow in the darkness was not a viable option. Durand and Arlene vacated the master’s bedroom to sleep by the fire in the
Hall
. Alan spent an uncomfortable night in a bed that smelled strongly of its former occupants, scratching at the bites of the fleas that swarmed off the skins that formed part of the bedding.

They departed next morning after a breakfast of porridge sweetened with honey. Ramsey had eight taxed beehives and at least two dozen that didn’t ‘appear on the books’ and
which
disappeared each time the tax collectors were in the area. It was hard to hide a forest, a
salt-
house
or a mill, but beehives were supposed to be moveable
-and were valuable
. Alan had a reasonable suspicion that there were more hives than even he knew about, but as long as Durand kept his cheating within reasonable limits he wasn’t too concerned. Osmund had ‘passed’ the accounts for the mill and
salt-
house
when he’d inspected them in the autumn, so Durand wasn’t being as
blatant
in his larceny as Kendrick, the previous steward of Thorrington.

The party,
now
including
the
head-
groom
Brunloc, paused at
Great Bentley
for several hours while Alan and Brunloc discussed the requirements for the new horse-stud with the young s
teward Tamar and the head-cheorl Alstan. Horse paddocks and sites for buildings were marked out and orders given to commence construction as soon as possible, weather permitting.

Back at Thorrington Alan reported
to Anne the outcome of his journey.
Brother Wacian arrived just before darkness fell, at about four in the afternoon. He conducted a simple and abbreviated service for Anne. Alan and most of the household, including the soldiers from the
barracks
,
also attended, kneeling on the fresh rushes spread on the floor of the main
Hall
. Cutting the service to the ‘bare bones’ with no gospel readings, no homily, only one Psalm
was
read (actually recited from memory
,
like the rest of the service, as the priest hadn’t brought the Bible or Missal) and two hymns which were sung mainly because the congregation expected it, the service including the presentation of the Eucharist took a little over twenty minutes.
Bother
Wacian was hungry and the smells emanating from the kitchen did not encourage him to delay.

Like most lords of the manor, Alan and Anne usually ate with most of the household, although the common soldiers usually
ate
in the barracks. The
h
igh-
t
able was placed close to the fire, with Brother Wacian again marveling at
the
construction
of
the metal hood and metal chimney which drew the smoke out of the
Hall
while admitting neither wind nor rain. Alan’s design problems had been overcome with the
suggestions and
assistance of a London metal-smith several months
previously
. A
t the same time the windows had been sealed against draughts by the installation of broad-sheet blown glass of a
slightly
greenish
tinge
-
the colour due to the soda content which allowed lower working temperatures and longer working periods
,
which made it
much
cheaper than clear glass
- although still ruinously expensive
.

Because the weather had been reasonabl
y clear
that day Anne had arranged for several fishermen to be on special missions. Alan hated fish and Anne was not fond of it day after day. For the previous few days she had arranged for shrimp to be caught in baited traps in the freshwaters or tidal waters of Alresford Creek and Barfleet Creek near Thorringto
n and the Colne River.