Morgana's Handmaid and the Creature of the Dungeon Page 9

  “We would billet in a town or village,” explained Alguin, “staying only until the weather improved, of course. We’d take over the local inn, and stay there sometimes until spring. Non-stop drinking, singing, and revelry night after night. Found ourselves plenty of women to enjoy the night with and share our beds. There were always females around you know? Bored and lonely women everywhere we went. Neither bored nor lonely by the time we’d left town though, I might add.” Then he laughed.

  “Some years it seemed, we’d be fighting for one fellow, only to be doing battle against him the next year working for his rival. Fight one year. Move on to another county. Change banners. Then fight for the other faction. It went on like that year after year.”

  Even after their lord was killed in battle, they continued to move throughout the country, constantly looking for someone willing to hire them. If their employer could pay them in gold, then they fought for money. If the only offer was to share in any plunder gained from victory, then they foraged the countryside and took whatever they needed or wanted. As a free company of skilled soldiers you see, they could insert themselves into most any “army” and fight right alongside less experienced troops who were inspired by their prowess in combat.

  In some counties, the nobles might be fighting over a land dispute, so Alguin said they’d go into the territory and pick a fight with local troops who were little more than gangs of hooligans most of the time. These could be defeated and dispersed quite easily, leaving the path open for the noble who hired them to walk right in and demand favorable terms. Then, if they still couldn’t be paid in gold, they’d plunder conquered villages for what they needed.

  Alguin detested the practice of sacking a village and running off defenseless peasants. But I was quick to point out how he seemingly had no problem facing enemy troops no matter what their skill level. I challenged him on this point several times over the years when he’d tell his stories, saying that the levy troops facing him in battle were nothing more than unskilled peasants forced to fight for the local baron or duke, lest they lose their homes. I once asked, “So what’s the difference? If thou had a moral issue with burning huts and stealing food, then how was that any worse than annihilating those sent to defend their home county?”

  His response was simple. “Men sent to fight, regardless of their skill, were opponents who meant to kill me if they got a chance. Nerd did I blame them for that.” Then he’d give me a grin and say, “Yet it was always I who smote them first.”

  Something always held me back from pushing the issue beyond that. Frankly, my lover was a gigantic man who could easily defend himself in battle—if battle was all that was offered. He had chosen the life of a warrior, and a lifestyle like that came with consequences.

  Over the five years that his band of warriors served as mercenaries for hire, Alguin and his men continued to roam, finding work here and there, then wintering in villages and eventually taking on camp followers as they travelled.

  “This was common practice,” Alguin said. “Though some units disbanded and returned to their homes after the campaign season ended, or when work dried up, when wars ended many stayed in the field and kept looking for nobles to serve. That’s what we did, anyway.”

  Because of this young peasant girls and women, looking for an adventure or perhaps seeking the company of a handsome warrior, might tag along and become a girlfriend. They might even become a wife to one of the troops. Sometimes it was starving peasant girls running away from home. Sometimes it was young women running away from an abusive husband. Whatever the situation, Alguin’s band attracted occasional followers who marched right along with the troops and helped with day-to-day living.

  These camp followers rode in wagons or walked behind the troops marching through village after village. They set up tents, did the cleaning and cooking, tended to battle wounds, and at night became intimate companions to the men who sought their favors. For years they came and went, following along with the troops and suffering many of the same hardships as the warriors themselves. Many contracted illnesses and died. Some simply took their fill of things and slipped away in the night to return to their homes, their mothers, their fathers, or their husbands, where no doubt they’d receive a sound thrashing for their naughtiness. Many had no home to go back to; nor did they intend to, and stayed with the unit permanently.

  It was during this time however, that Alguin met his first love Allora. Her situation, Alguin said, was quite desperate. It wasn’t the worst they’d ever found, mind you, but enough to warrant intervention. Some girls who appeared in their camp told much more harrowing stories than Allora it seemed, and the men would readily welcome them into the group as long as they could pull their own weight. It was especially nice if they brought food, or had some special skill or training that could aid the troops. The circumstances with Allora were fascinating though, and made for quite a tale.

  “It seems her father had wished that she marry a much older man who ran a local dairy and owned several milk cows,” Alguin told me. “That meant great potential for Allora’s family.” Allora’s father was a successful farmer with sons to help with the hard labor. He had some good land to farm, and a solid reputation with the local nobleman. He had a good reputation with the church as well. But having a daughter he could marry off to a dairy farmer? This would mean an immediate improvement in the family’s living standard because milk cows could be bred to make beef cattle. As Alguin explained it to me, “Allora’s father it seemed had a healthy stud bull at the ready.”

  Yet the whole thing was a financial arrangement really—there was no thought of matching his daughter to a man she found appealing. And to make matters worse, Allora thought the older man to be quite disgusting and cruel. Of course, such a thing was not completely unheard of—marrying a daughter off to a wealthy man, that is. And it was certainly not unusual to have one successful family merge with another by having a daughter married to one of its eligible males!

  “However,” Alguin said, “whereas her father wanted her to bolster the family’s social station by making them cattle ranchers instead of lowly peasant farmers, Allora was fearing more for her own personal safety at the hands of an abusive man.”

  As it turned out, the old dairy farmer was widely known in the community for beating his first wife, and had been admonished publicly by the church for doing so. His first wife could be seen walking through the village bearing the evidence of his misdoings, and finally the local priest found it intolerable. When the man’s first wife wisely sought sanctuary in the local church, the priest was glad to spirit her away to a convent where she became a nun and lived out the rest of her life, childless. To make matters worse, the villagers assumed for years that the husband’s rough treatment of her had led to her repeated miscarriages!

  “Despite all that, when the opportunity came available to marry off his daughter into wealthier circumstances,” Alguin continued, “her father dismissed these widely-known stories as vicious rumor. Her father wouldn’t listen to her pleas, no matter how she begged him. He urged his daughter to think of her own family and not herself, and consider the possibilities of a grand lifestyle living in the man’s home. A better option than working on a small farm, I suppose.”

  Of course, I knew exactly what that meant—working to death as a tenant farmer. I could have been that girl myself don’t you see? Instead, I’d escaped that hard life to go work for Morgana at Camelot.

  Now to be honest, as for myself I would have probably agreed to the marriage. Really, I would have! My logic was somewhat biased though; because to be sure, I was a very big girl in my youth. If some old dairy farmer ever raised his hand to me? Well, at the risk of sounding unladylike, let me just say that it would have been him seeking sanctuary with the church, not me. Allora, by way of comparison, was not a big strong farm girl like I was, God bless her…

  My favorite story about wives getting even with a brutish husband was told to me by Ywedelle back at Camelot. She once
spoke of a woman from her home village who—when Ywedelle was a little girl growing up—had been beaten by her husband over some minor infraction. No one, that is no men in the town, would believe or acknowledge the assault. Plus no one from the church would intervene to protect her. Ywedelle said the wives of the village then got together secretly one afternoon and planned their own form of “justice” for the fool.

  “That night, she said, “the husband went to the town tavern after his work day was finished, and as was typical, had a few too many pints of ale. Yet when he returned home, this time he found his house empty, his wife and kids gone!” Too inebriated at the time to go looking for them, he instead passed out drunk on the bed, and slept soundly through the night.

  “But come morning, the poor man found that in the night he’d been stripped naked while he slept, drizzled with syrup onto his scrotum, then covered up tight in a blanket,” snickered Ywedelle. “Next, that same blanket wast sewn into the very mattress he laid upon!”

  Only his head was left free and his arms and the rest of his body were trapped underneath. By morning, ants had come into the bed, attracted by the smell of sweet syrup. They were all over him when he awoke, feasting on the delectable treat between his legs. Ywedelle could hardly contain herself when telling what happened next!

  “As he blinked awake, hung over from the ale he’d drank the night before, and desperately needing to go relieve himself, he screamed for his wife to come set him free. Instead she entered the bed chamber with a thick, wooden broom handle!”

  She beat him mercilessly, from head to toe, until he was a bloody mess. At first screaming at her, demanding she cease the vicious attack, he was quickly reduced to begging for his life. When she finally relented, he’d wet the bed and bled like a stuck pig from both his nose and mouth. She then left him there until supper time, moaning and whimpering in pain, with only the ants for company.

  “The good ladies of the village kept the matter secret from the men of the town,” Ywedelle then assured me. “She finally released him to come join the family for the evening repast, all bruised and battered yet deeply humbled and downright relieved to be freed from that infested bed.” The children were later told he had fallen off his horse.

  I remember asking Ywedelle, “So did the man ever retaliate? She replied humorously, “By heavens NO dear girl. He knew that he’d have to sleep sometime, wouldn’t he?” Then she cackled and snorted joyously while all of us listening to the story fell about laughing. Yes, those village wives took care of the issue themselves, helping to sew the drunkard into his bed and keeping the whole matter quiet thereafter. Thus the poor man never complained to anyone of the incident, and never dared raise his fists to his dear wife again…

  Allora, by way of comparison, considered the consequences; then instead fled her home. It happened late one night in the village of Poole where she lived. She hid in the barn of a local shepherd for several days then joined up with Alguin’s soldiers as they marched through her city one afternoon. Poole is on the southern coast and many days march from where I live now, so I can only imagine how strange and wonderful it must have been for young Allora to have found love among a band of travelling mercenaries.

  As Alguin described her, “She was lovely and shy, but seemed determined to make a break for it when I met her on the streets of the city that first day.” She was disguised in a cloak that hid her face. That’s what drew his attention because it was a bright sunny day outside. Alguin found her picking through some apples from a fruit stand at the local market, and noticed immediately how pretty she was when he got a brief glimpse of her face.

  “I recall thinking she also seemed vulnerable and I wondered if anyone was with her. She looked like she was alone, and I couldn’t help but notice she didn’t buy an apple—although any fool could see she clearly wanted one.” Maybe she was penniless! he wondered. But Alguin said nothing and merely bought several apples for her after she walked away.

  “Next,” Alguin said, “I followed her a while until I saw her dart down an alleyway. I followed her out of the village, out through the city walls, and for half a mile before I finally decided to try and catch up to her.” At first, Allora was frightened that Alguin might be a common thug trying to take liberties with her!

  But Alguin explained to her that he was merely concerned that she made “safe passage to her destination.” Remarkably, Allora trusted him enough to let him walk with her to her hiding place in the shepherd’s barn. “During the walk,” he claimed, “we became rather smitten with each other.”

  Well, that was Alguin’s side of it anyway. What I can truly believe is that when Allora told Alguin about why she was hiding out, a mile from town, with practically nothing to eat, Alguin most likely saw an opportunity to recruit her into his band as a camp follower! That would have made more sense. Alguin did say he gave her one of the apples and she devoured it as though she hadn’t eaten all day. Then between bites, she began telling him about her situation and why she was now hiding from her own father.

  Turned out, Allora’s story about being promised in marriage to a disgusting old dairy farmer seemed to match perfectly the description of a rather offensive man Alguin and his men had just encountered! When Allora told Alguin about the detestable curmudgeon, Alguin said he laughed uproariously saying, “Aye…methinks I know this fellow!”

  Sure enough! Earlier that week his men had stopped at Corfe Castle hoping to find work and subsequently been assigned to do some tax-collection. Basically all they had to do was accompany the tax-collector, who Alguin said was a worthless old drunk—a man who seemingly never stopped sipping wine from a horned-shaped flask he kept in his pack. It reminded me of the one who used to visit our village back home. With Alguin’s men in tow, the tax collector suddenly had a much easier task of prying every last penny from the poor peasants they encountered. Seeing his accompaniment of armored escorts, a poor farmer or shopkeeper would have had no choice but to heave over all they could afford.

  But when the column rode up to a large dairy farm outside Poole, they found the master there to be quite less than obedient, quite unfriendly to be frank, and rather less cordial than they’d grown accustomed to that day! Even when faced with the glowering bodyguards, the man arrogantly brushed them off, saying, “I’ll be in need of more time to compile the king’s share.” With that, the portly tax collector chuckled forebodingly and gestured with one hand for Alguin’s band to perform the special service for which they’d been hired.

  “The tax collector continued laughing and snorting while he swigged his wine flask,” added Alguin, “as we walked right past the little badger into his house. The belligerent fellow tailed us of course, sniping at us the whole time.”

  Here! What’s the meaning of this? he’d shout. But it fell on deaf ears. Alguin’s men turned the house upside down looking for money to pay the wretch’s obligations, and when they found none, they strung him upside down by the ankles and spun him around until he was quite nauseous!

  “We twisted him ’round so the rope wound up, then drank ale and laughed while he unwound, spinning helplessly until he nearly vomited,” laughed Alguin callously. Belligerent retorts and lame excuses were eventually reduced to pathetic pleas to be released. Yet Alguin and his men did no such thing.

  “We poured ourselves more ale, and drank until the man told us EXACTLY where his gold was.” The soldiers then retrieved the dairy farmer’s hidden strongbox and broke it open with a battle axe, finding—not surprisingly—a small fortune inside. Having exposed the man’s dishonesty, they then called out to the tax collector for how much the farmer owed. But by then, the dairy farmer was pleading for them to take it all and leave. To this however, Alguin boldly assured the poor man he was not there to rob him.

  “I told him we would only take what was required,” Alguin assured me. The man however was left hanging upside down, suspended from the rafters in his own house, where he not surprisingly lived alone and there was no one around to aid h
im. “He certainly had no wife to come cut him down after all, did he now?” chuckled Alguin. “She was miles away in a convent, safe and sound!”

  Alguin’s men twisted him up one last time just to be cruel, and let him spin as they left him there, wailing and moaning desperately for help. I winced at hearing of such brutality; but then I guess one could say the wretch fellow got what he deserved.

  “Reaching the village again later that afternoon,” Alguin said, “I told a shopkeeper to go have someone cut the poor man down, lest he piss himself and drown in his own fluids.” And with that, the whole town soon heard. Of course I never found out if that old coot learned his lesson. Some men never do.

  Seeing that the girl’s story was quite true, and that there was no way he could allow such a travesty, Alguin offered the beautiful young woman a chance to flee with his cohorts and make a new life for herself as one of their protected camp followers. It would give Allora a chance to simply run away forever. She agreed!

  Of course I always assumed it was Alguin who was truly the one “smitten” with Allora that day. But it was only a matter of time before she, too, began to fall in love. He was a gentle giant. He was a ferocious warrior who could protect her from danger - yet loving and kind otherwise. What more could she ask for? So thenceforward they travelled together, Allora always at his side, and together had many adventures exploring the countryside throughout the next spring.

  “By the fall however, it was finally time to look for decent housing for the coming winter, so we sought out a new village in a different county, and a local lord who needed us for occasional garrison duty,” he claimed.

  Actually it was a little more complicated than that. Turns out this village had seen its share of attacks from raiders who periodically landed on the coast and moved inland looking for plunder. When they’d land they’d fan out looking for supplies or a wealthy monastery to raid. If no other possibilities presented themselves, they’d capture slaves. They’d abduct young female or male peasants and take them back with them to sell. Several villages had been raided that summer, and when Alguin’s band came through the county—twenty seasoned warriors—the lord immediately set them to work setting up an ambush.