cash, because the items you are selling are very high-value, so you’ll need to think about what to do about that.”
After a pause he continued, “While there are always risks of pirates and storms, the best part of the shipping business is you never make less than thirty percent on the value of the cargo and there are no tithes and no geld to pay.”
“I’m not really comfortable about all this merchant business all of a sudden. I haven’t even got used to the idea of being a landowner yet! Also, you know that the nobles hate the merchant class. I can see now that it may because individually you merchants are at least as wealthy as the nobles, but have none of the responsibilities!” said Alan hesitantly.
“That’s no problem! Nobody needs to know about your business interests. You can use my business as a ‘front’ if you like. For a twenty percent commission,” replied Orvin.
“Ten,” said Anne firmly. “And I keep separate books, separate warehouses and ships. No intermixing of cargo.”
Orvin sighed at the way that his daughter was taking blatant advantage of him, and then asked, “Where do you intend to base? Ipswich is the main trading centre for the east coast between London and York.”
“Ipswich to start with, or possibly Colchester, although it’s just had its vulnerability pointed out,” replied Anne. “We may need a factor in London or at the capital at Winchester to handle some of the luxury goods.”
“I’m glad you didn’t say York. The Northerners area strange lot and still live by the Danelaw rather than the Laws of Wessex. I can see trouble brewing up there, and beyond.”
“I think I can do something about the vulnerability of our ships in and near Colchester,” said Alan thoughtfully. “Where are the ships usually attacked?”
“Usually near their home port. The people you are dealing with won’t attack your ships near their own lands, or on the way to or from, because they know that nobody would trade with them again. Ships are rarely found by pirates on the high seas. Whoever it is- the Danes, Norwegians, Irish, Flemings or French- come and seize the ships off our ports, where they are concentrated into a small area, or in particular areas such as near the Channel Islands. They leave their own trading ships alone, of course,” replied Orvin.
“The Normans don’t have a fleet. Would the merchants of Ipswich pay for a small fleet to protect the estuary area?” asked Alan.
“Why? That is what the geld is for,” replied Orvin.
“Yes, but you just said that the merchants aren’t paying any geld, other than what is levied on the city,” said Alan sarcastically.
Orvin laughed. “Yes, you’re right. I did say that. How big a fleet do you envisage?”
“I thought four or five ships.”
“I don’t think that would be enough to discourage anything more than individual pirate boats. With those numbers you’d have only one or at most two ships at sea at any time. Any organised expedition is usually five or six ships packed with Danes, and they are very good sailors and fighters. The ships you took from them you seized on land or by surprise. Coming on them on the open sea would be another matter altogether,” said Orvin discouragingly.
“I’ll perhaps have a trial run at Colchester, based at Point Clear just opposite Brightlingsea, and see if my ideas work out. I’m thinking of using a ballista and fire arrows on each of my boats. Can you find me fifty sailors who have guts and fire in them? Particularly say five men who would make good and reliable skippers?”
Orvin shrugged his scrawny shoulders and replied, “I don’t see why not. The going pay rate for a coastal sailor is half a shilling a week and a captain a shilling a week.”
“I’ll pay them twice that and provide each of them with accommodation when on shore,” said Alan.
“And I’ll need an honest warehouse overseer and a scrivener to keep the accounts,” added Anne.
Sunday was family day at the house and Garrett and Mae arrived at mid-afternoon with their three children aged from two to six, two girls and a boy. Betlic came back from playing at a friend’s house nearby. The whole group gathered in the small hall, the children playing in one corner, the women continued their talk about wedding preparations and the men sat by the window facing the street and talked politics. After a couple of cups of wine Garrett switched to ale and Alan followed suit. After a little while Anne came and sat quietly with them.
Today he was feeling less like an exhibit in a freak show and realised his prospective family were entitled to know more about their future in-law. He briefly discussed the problems of being the third son of a relatively impoverished Norman knight with little chance of advancement other than through the church, his joining the abbey at Rouen where the abbot owed his father a favour from the past and was prepared to take him without the usual payment, his studies in languages and medicine while at the abbey, subsequent expulsion and his training as a warrior, including the time at Angelo’s salle d’armes at Paris and eventual landing at Pevensey.
“Anne tells us that you are friends with King William,” commented Orvin quietly.
Alan laughed. “Hardly friends! We are acquainted and I have met him less than a dozen occasions. I saved his life at Hastings and loaned him my horse, which is the same one in your stable, so I suppose Odin is a hero of Normandy. Since then William has asked me my opinion on several issues, which he advice he’s nearly always chosen to ignore. But at least it’s good for him to hear different opinions from those of his barons. He did make me a member of the Curia Regis, his Council, but we’ve only met once since the coronation.”
“But you are a tenant-in-chief and hold directly from him, that’s quite an honour,” said Garrett.
“That’s true. It gives me considerable autonomy in that I have to answer only to one man- and to God. I can do what I feel appropriate unless the king orders me otherwise.”
“As your tenants and the thegns of the Hundred are nearly all English, and unlike most of your country-men you speak our language, you probably have a better understanding of England and the English than nearly anybody,” commented Orvin.
“Other than perhaps those Normans who have been here from the times of Edward the Confessor,” agreed Alan easily, taking another sip of beer.
“Perhaps William doesn’t understand how much some of what he is doing is antagonising the English,” continued Orvin, moving the conversation forward slowly. “The geld, what used to be called the Danegeld, was re- instituted this year for the first time since Edward abolished it in ’51. Even King Harold didn’t reintroduce it last year. And, although English lords and thegns have been permitted to keep their land, they’ve had to pay dearly for the privilege.”
“I agree with you. I advised him not to reintroduce the geld, or at least not at the former rate and particularly not in the same year that many English were being charged to pay the Heriot to redeem their land. In effect most English landholders have had to pay double and this has been beyond the capacity of many who as a result have had to take out loans. If they default on those loans then their land may be assumed by the men who loaned the money. That’s unless the lenders are Jews, of course, in which case they sell it.
“The point I tried to make in private with William is that he wasn’t king until Christmas Day and that there were legal and logical problems with claiming that any Englishman who didn’t support him from the death of the Confessor last January until the Coronation was a traitor and had to pay to redeem his lands. That also includes the Normans who came to England and were given lands in the Confessor’s reign.”
“What did he say to that?” asked Anne.
“Not much. He’s totally convinced of his right to rule coming from Edward the Confessor, not the act of conquering the country- or perhaps I should say his recognition by Pope Alexander and his anointment as God’s chosen at the Coronation. He just told me I was wrong and that he was going to do it. How much the situation may have been different had Harald Hardrada become king instead is a moot point. At least there have been no massacres, nor have the remaining members of the West Saxon royal house been pursued to exile or death, as happened after the victory of Cnut’s Danes fifty years ago. Harold Hardrada of Norway wasn’t known as ‘Hard Ruler’ for nothing- he didn’t just fine his opponents or deprive them of their land. He maimed and massacred them! If he did that to his own people, what would he have done to the English? His own people feared and hated him. The Danes thought he was the Devil incarnate!
“It’s only in recent years that England has thrown off the yoke of Danish kings and Danish earls. There are no unpredictable Vikings going and attacking the next village just because they are bored. Siward remains Archbishop, as does Aethelnoth of Canterbury, and the other Saxon clerics retain their positions. Queen Edith retains her lands, as do the earls Morcar of Northumbria, Edwin of Mercia and Waltheof- and Edgar the Aetheling. William has offered each of them his friendship.
