The Archer's War: Exciting good read - adventure fiction about fighting and combat during medieval times in feudal England with archers, longbows, knights, ... (The Company of English Archers Book 4)
Author: Archer, Martin
Date: 2015-02-24

Book Four

“The Archer’s War”

By Martin Archer

PREFACE

This is the fourth of the great medieval stories taken from the parchments written by an unknown monk of the Priory of St. Frideswide in Oxford.  That’s the monastery Cardinal Wolsey dissolved and Henry the Eighth subsequently re-founded as the College of Christ Church after he broke with Rome in order to divorce his wife and wed the Boleyn girl.

The parchments with the monk’s writings were found in a trunk under a pile of rubble in the Bodleian library basement some years ago.  The monk’s assignment, as he describes it in his own hand, is to piece together personal stories from what’s left of some earlier parchments into one great history of the kingdom.

Whoever commissioned the history wants something similar to that which the great Livy wrote for Rome so many years ago with its use of the current idiom so everyone could read it and its emphasis both on what actually happened and, most importantly, what everyone is actually thinking when they are doing and saying whatever it is that they are doing and saying.

Among the problems the monk says he has to overcome, of course, is that the exciting tales in the earlier parchments contain so many surprises and often have missing parts where the mice have eaten them.

Another problem is that the parchments are written in various languages.  Some are written in Latin and Greek while others are in various versions of what is now called Middle English and Old French – which means he must both piece them together and rewrite them into today’s English.

What follows in this volume is mostly from the tales of William, the captain of a company of English archers, as they were faithfully recorded by his friend and scribe, Yoram of Damascus.

The position of the Church is that the changes and excitement the archers caused in England and the Holy Land are God’s Will.  The monk is obviously not so sure.  According to him, sharp blades and ambitious men are a much more likely explanation.

This particular story is a combination of the parchments that have been translated and pieced together to describe the experiences of William and the archers after King Richard is shipwrecked - and then, while disguised as a Templar knight, captured as he attempts to return overland to England from his failed crusade.

Leopold of Austria captures Richard and sells him a few months later to the German Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. The German Emperor, following the custom of the day, offers to free Richard in exchange for a huge ransom of sixty five thousand pounds of silver. Some of Richard’s supporters, particularly those in France who won’t be taxed to pay the ransom, consider it a harsh but just amount, particularly since Richard himself levied a similar ransom on the Saracens; those in England who will be taxed to pay it are not so sure.

And there are complications in England where Richard’s French mother and his other supporters intend to raise much of the money. Richard’s estranged and rebellious younger brother, Prince John, who has been reigning in England ever since Richard left for the crusades, is trying to prevent the money for Richard’s ransom from being collected so he can continue in power.  The result, according to the unknown monk, is great upheaval and conflict throughout England.

This is how the monk pieces together the various parchment stories and personal recollections of what happens when William and his company of archers are caught in the middle of it all.

“The Archer’s War”

Chapter One

We can see the little village of Fowey off to our left as our galley slowly rows into the Fowey harbor.

“We’re almost there, Helen.  Restormel Castle, your new home, is a little ways up this river.  It’s called the River Fowey, by the way, and that little cluster of houses off to the left is Fowey village.  The people eat fish and the greens and such they find in the forest.  Funny people, they are; they live here in England and always have, but they speak some kind of local language no one can understand.  Strange isn’t it?”

@@@@@

We row up the Fowey against the current until we reach our boats and training camp just below Restormel.  Along the way we come across two boys sitting on the bank with fishing poles.   They wave enthusiastically as we pass and run a few steps along the river footpath to keep up with us.

Then they stop and just stand there looking back down the river in amazement when they see all of the other galleys coming up behind us and hear their rowing drums.  Helen and everyone on deck give them a friendly wave.

“Are they biting?” someone shouts over to them.

The boys smile back and then suddenly turn around, listen for a moment, and run into the woods.  Someone’s mother must have called.

Probably Cornish squatters since there are no farms along here due to the periodic flooding and the use of land on this side of the river as a hunting ground for the Restormel lords.  Ah well, they look like good lads and we’re not much into hunting are we?  It’s easier to kill sheep and cattle when we’re hungry.

Our ship building camp comes in sight as we come around a slight bend in the river and can see it ahead through the trees.  It’s changed very little since we left in the spring. The same tents and sleeping hovels are there along the tree line with the beginnings of the two big cogs under construction and a dinghy covered with rough cut boards to act as a floating dock.

Our sailors and archer trainees are kept busy working on the new cogs when they aren’t engaged in their other duties.  Keeps them out of mischief doesn’t it?

The dock is tied to two trees so it can’t float away. Our old two-masted training cog and one of the two war galleys stationed here are tied to trees growing along the riverbank just below the dock.  The other galley must be off somewhere on an errand or recently lost.

The cog and galley are used to teach our archers and pike men how to behave and fight when they board an enemy galley or one of the sailing ships called cogs – the big cargo ships with their high sides that are so difficult to climb aboard unless you know how.

Teaching our archers and pike men how to board an enemy ship is one of the reasons why we have the old cog and some sailors here. We also have a couple of other cogs we use to move people and supplies among the ports from here to Liverpool and Newcastle, and particularly to and from London.

They’re usually here; I wonder where they are?

Harold himself is in our galley’s bow and throws a mooring line to a couple of ragged looking men standing on the floating dock.  They are some of our shipwrights by the look of their clothes and the tools in their hands.  And a welcome sight they are, that’s for sure; several of our galleys are badly in need of repairs. One of them leaks so severely it’s a wonder it got here at all.

Apostos from Cyprus, the head shipwright, obviously heard the cries of the men who could see and hear us coming.  He is walking towards the dock with a big welcoming smile on his face and his hand held up in a greeting.  And there is Jeffrey the sergeant in charge of the archers’ training, by God.

I wonder why Jeffrey’s here.  Normally he’s at Restormel where we train the archers and barrack them.

Apostos and Jeffrey both get big handshakes and claps on their shoulders from me and Harold as we climb over our galley’s deck railing and on to the unsteady dock.  It’s good to see them again; it surely is.

“Hello Jeffrey, it’s good to see you.  What brings you down here with the people who have to work for their bread?  Going for a sailor are you?”

“My God no, William.  But it’s good to see you too, William Captain, and that ugly sailor with you. Have a good trip did you?”

Yes, we have so many Williams among our archers that we’ve all ended up being named with a second name.  William Lewes, William Farmer, William Smith and so on and so forth.  I’m the one who marshals our men so now I’m sometimes William Captain.

“Middling, Jeffrey, just middling.  We hit Almeria and got away with almost nothing; but then we hit Cadiz and made off with fourteen galleys and a very nice cog.  We sent them off to Cyprus with prize crews, didn’t we?  I’ll tell you all about it when we have a chance to hoist a bowl together.”

We talk about many things as we stand and watch as the rest of our ten galleys come in one after another and tie up to trees along the bank.  But most of the talk is about how fast we can get the seaworthy galleys resupplied and headed back to Cyprus and the need to have the two leakers pulled ashore to be repaired and how long that might take.  And, of course, the most important question of all, at least so far as I’m concerned – how many fully trained Marines do we have available to immediately send back to Cyprus with their own longbows?

Yes, I know; I’ll soon be having the same conversation with Thomas but we’ve not a day to spare and I want Jeffrey and everyone else to get started immediately - we have an obligation to the merchants who have begun acting as our agents in the Holy Land ports to quickly replace the galleys we sent to Constantinople and Antioch.

We’ve got enough galleys, of course, because of from those we took out of Cadiz and we can always find sailors in the ports along the way; what we’re mostly missing are archers with long bows who know how to fight on both land and sea – the ones we’ve taken to calling Marines.

@@@@@

I don’t have to wait to see my son and my priestly brother.  There is a great “allo” and here they come along the cart path from the castle.  Someone standing on the castle wall must have seen the galleys coming up the river and they’ve come to greet us.

And it’s a right merry time when they do – George breaks into a run and is totally out of breath when he jumps right into my arms.  So I hold him up off the ground and dance him around and around with many hugs and kisses while I’m trying to shake Thomas’ hand and hug him too.  And I’m absolutely delighted that George is delighted to see me.  The men around are all beaming at each other and shaking hands and everyone is talking to everyone else at the same time.

“It’s good to see young man, I’ve missed you, I truly have.  And you too, Thomas.  You’re both a good sight for these tired eyes.” …  “And by God, George I think you’ve grown bigger.  Good on you, my boy, good on you.”

I begin to get things underway after things settle down a bit.  Apostos, Harold, and Jeffrey listen intently and I keep my arm around George while I explain to Thomas what needs to be done.

“Thomas, I’ll explain later but we need to get as many of these galleys as possible resupplied and turned around and started back to Cyprus as soon as they can be made ready.  And they’ve got to carry as many archers and men at arms as you can safely spare.  Harold will be in command as the fleet’s master sergeant; I’ll be staying here for a while, at least until next spring and maybe even longer.”

Then, after a pause while I motion Helen to come down from the galley and join us, I continue.

“Oh, and Apostos, a couple of these galleys need a lot of repairs.  And one of them probably should be pulled ashore immediately before it sinks - that one over there where the men are still bailing.  But once you get it ashore I want you to ignore it.  Concentrate your men on fixing those that need minor repairs so Harold can take them back to Cyprus as soon as possible.”

Helen’s joining our group causes a bit of a stir.  Most of the sergeant captains who sailed here with me have seen her but Thomas and George don’t know about her at all.

“Uh, George, Thomas, everyone, this is Helen.  She is my.. uh…  uh…She is with me.”

@@@@@

All afternoon our horse carts, some pulled by horses and others by men marshaled for the purpose, move back and forth between the boat camp and Restormel – carrying coin chests and various things up to the castle; returning with amphorae jars full of oil and sack of grain to feed the men on the galleys.

Thomas moves quickly and after a while cattle and sheep begin being driven in to be slaughtered so the newly arrived men can eat their fill and regain their strength.  Geese and ducks and chickens arrive also and cooking fires spring up everywhere.

It’s been a long voyage without proper meat and the men did well at Almeria and Cadiz; they’ve earned it all.

Later that day as the sun goes down there is a real dinner in Restormel’s great hall – for George and the boys, Helen, all the master sergeants, and a couple of Augustinian priests coming to hold services at the Launceston Priory or join it, I’m not sure which.

The priests probably stopped here for a last good meal before walking on to the priory.  Tonight it’s mutton stew.

The talk is merry and the boys are in awe of Helen and play “throw fingers” games with her; the newly arrived sergeants captaining the galleys are mostly just in awe – they’ve never been in a great hall before let alone supped in one as members of its lord’s entourage.

And I am a lord even though I still find it hard to believe and a lot of people still aren’t sure.  I may have been born a serf but I bought my title fair and square with the coins we took off that thieving bishop - so here I am, by the grace of God and a couple of bloody daggers.

It is not until later that night, after George and the boys are in bed and a place has been found for Helen and me, that Thomas and I finally have an opportunity to share some ale and talk without anyone else listening.  I bring him up to date about our affairs in the east and explain why we need to send galleys and men back to Cyprus as soon as possible.  He laughs uproariously when I tell him how Helen arrived as a gift from the merchants - and a very fine one indeed, he agrees.

Then Thomas gets serious and leans forward over his bowl of ale.

“Trouble is brewing, little brother, big trouble.  The German who claims to be the Holy Roman Emperor is holding Richard for ransom, a big ransom.  We’ve received parchments from the church and Longchamp demanding that we help pay it and parchments from both Prince John and his man in London demanding that we do not.”

“We don’t owe anything to Richard or to the church or Longchamp,” is my response.  “Don’t give them a single penny, not one.”

“Of course not, I’m not that daft am I?  I told them all that we already spent all our coins by either giving them to the Pope for his prayers or using them to pay sailors and fighting men to rescue Christians fleeing the Saracens.”

Thomas smiled as he thought about what to tell me.  He is obviously proud of himself and is going to enjoy the telling of his tale.  Then he laughed out loud and continued.

“It’s an excuse they’ve never heard before so they probably don’t know how to respond.  I also told them that our biggest fief is on the sea and was granted to us by the Pope so that he has been getting our taxes.”

“Actually, what I did, little brother, was send a parchment to each of them reminding them that Cornwall is a seafaring place and that, except for the tin mines whose revenues all go to the crown, it produces no revenues because its lands are sparsely populated and it has only poor churches and monasteries.”

“To placate John I added that we are sending not one pennyweight for Richard’s ransom; to placate Longchamp and the Nuncio I added that Cornwall’s Lord, that’s you, has recently impoverished himself by sending all the coins you’ve taken from the heathen pirates directly to the Pope at the demand of his papal nuncio in Cyprus. I also added that you have already pressed the tin miners to produce more tin and tin revenues for the realm.”

“Did we really do all that?” I ask Thomas a bit incredulously.

“Well, not really; but it sounds good don’t your think?  Actually I did tell the overseers of the tin mines that they had to increase their output at the same time I told them they had to free their slaves.  I told them they’d get more tin from their slaves if they are freed and paid decently.  But of course I didn’t send any coins to the Pope or anyone else in your name.  I’m not that daft am I?  He’d probably never see it and, if he did, he’d just piss it away on his entertainments and whores.”

Thomas continued after a pause for a sip of ale.

“I don’t think we have anything to worry about.  Longchamp and the Pope’s man won’t know that you didn’t send your coins to the Pope and they’ll not be able to ask him or the Cyprus nuncio, will they?”  Or will they?  It’s a pity we’re not the ones carrying the parchments and people between London and the east.

“William, we’d know who is saying what and to whom if were our ships that were carrying the messages and messengers between London and Rome.  Maybe we should be putting some of our men and our galleys and cogs in London and hereabouts instead of all around the Holy Land.  What do you think?”

@@@@@

The sun shining in my eyes and the calls of the roosters wake me up the next morning.  Restormel is a huge castle with a splendid stone keep consisting of three perfectly round rooms stacked on top of each other and a fine stone staircase connecting the top two rooms to the great hall below them. And, of course, we have a cellar extending under the great hall and part of the bailey.  That’s where our food supplies are stored and there are cells for the keeping of felons and such.

The top floor is where the coin and treasure chests are stored and we keep extra bales of arrows and other weapons in case of a siege.  Thomas and the boys sleep on string beds on the second floor.  Helen and I joined them on the second floor last night.

It’s quite comfy even though Autumn has arrived and the nights are chilly.  Helen and I have our own string bed in a cheery corner and a piss pot all to ourselves with two archers’ slits to let in the sun.  There are even wooden plugs we can put into the slits to keep out the cold and dangerous night air.  But best of all, at least according to Helen, an old leather galley sail has been hung to divide the room and give us some privacy.

Helen is quite peculiar about our privacy and accommodations, yes she is.  Even before we went to sleep last night she asked if a shite pot is available and if there are any carpets or skins she can put on the floor to hide its cold

Helen gave the sweetest little snore as I rolled off the bed, rubbed my eyes, scratched my balls, and thought about putting on my chain mail.  I think not; here I’m safe even if I don’t wear it.  So I gather up my clothes from where I threw them last night when Helen got playful, hoist my balls and dingle into my codpiece, slip on my leather shoes and pants, and put my tunic back on without my chain mail under it.

While I am getting dressed I can hear the boys whispering and giggling on the other side of the leather sail and can’t keep myself from smiling.  It’s a wonderful morning and I’m so glad to be back with all the comforts and pleasures of home.

Helen’s still asleep so I think I’ll piss and shite outside this morning so as not to wake her.  And who would have ever thought I’d be the lord of such a fine place without even having to buy prayers and such to get it - all Thomas and I had to do was kill that thieving bishop and start using his coins.  Then one thing led to another and here we are.

So down the stairs and out the door I go, and then I walk through the bailey and climb the three steps up to the stone chute in the curtain wall.  That where Thomas insists everyone inside the walls piss and shite.  It’s a useless bother, of course, but it makes him happy.  It’s probably why the moat is so slimy and the fish taste so bad.

Harold is just coming down the stairs as I’m going up.

“How do things look?” I stop to ask and then continue on up to piss and look over my shoulder at him while he answers.  Some things wait for no man.

“Well we’ve already got more than enough supplies and livestock off the manors to feed ourselves on the way back to Cyprus.  The problem is that we’ve only five galleys that are useable and maybe a couple of more if we have a week or two to caulk them.  But that’s about it.  William Forester’s came in with a badly cracked rib just off the keel.  He’s lucky it didn’t give way and sink him.”

“What about the training galley.  What shape is it in?  Can you take it and leave one of the three being repaired for training?”

Harold and Thomas and I talk about many such important matters as we walk down the muddy cart path to the boat camp. We’ve got more archers in camp than I expected - a surprising number of archers; almost three hundred and fifty who are good enough with long bows to be sent out to Cyprus for Yoram and Henry.  That would still leave well over a hundred partially trained men here to guard the place while they finish their training and their arms get stronger.

There are also a couple of archers from among the slaves we freed from the Cadiz galleys and thirty or forty more who will probably sign up to train as archers if the past is any guide; maybe more than that if we push them.  Freed galley slaves make good archers if they’re still healthy.  They got strong arms from all the rowing, don’t they?

It seems word has gotten out that we’re a good company for archers and would-be archers to join; according to what Thomas told me last night, we’re getting more and more men who show up wanting to join us.  Some are walking for days to get here.

As I was told last night while we were supping, the weather was good a while back so one of the cogs, the little one with one mast, went off to London some days ago to pick up any archers our recruiting parties might have sent to the ports along the way.  According to Thomas it should be back any day now.

“Well,” I tell Harold, “plan on all the seaworthy galleys leaving as soon as possible.  We’re not going to wait for the galleys that need repairs.  They can come out on their own later.”

It’s safe enough for war galleys like ours to travel on their own; everyone knows they’re looking for valuable cargos to seize, not carrying them.

@@@@@

Later that morning the sun came out and took the chill out off the air.  That’s when I got to thinking about all the troubles and fighting that happened last year.  I start to think about it as I walk back along the cart path for the first meal of the day at the castle.

For some reason I am uneasy, almost worried, about the future.  I suddenly have a feeling Thomas and I should change our plans – send some and maybe even all of our new recruits to Henry in Cyprus for their training and keep more of the experienced and partially trained archers here for protection, maybe all of them.

By the time I cross the drawbridge and head for the cook shed a misting and chilly drizzle has started and I’ve reached a decision as to what to do – I’m going to keep all the archers and archer trainees here and intensify their training.

And my head is so addled with thinking that I don’t watch where I’m stepping and almost take a fall; the stones in the courtyard are certainly slick.

And that’s what I tell Thomas.

“Thomas, I’ve been thinking and I think we need to change our plans.  I’m concerned about that murderous lady, or whatever she is, Isabel, Baldwin’s wife.  Think about it.  She’s a countess living a good life right here in Restormel Castle with Baldwin - and she gets him to attack her widowed sister and nieces in Trematon Castle so he can evict them and add Trematon to their holdings.  Then, after we kill Baldwin and take Restormel, she betroths herself to Baldwin’s cousin, FitzCount of Launceston - and she goes right back after her sister and her little nieces once again.  And this time she’s able to get them killed before we can finish off FitzCount and add his keep at Launceston to our holdings.”

Thomas nods his head in agreement and motions for me to continue.  I’m pretty sure Thomas knows where I’m going with this but he wants to hear me say it.

“Isabel’s totally mad, that’s what she is; so what worries me is what she’s going to do next?  Will she be satisfied now that her sister and nieces are dead?  I hope so but it’s starting to worry me.  So I’m going to send our untrained men out to Cyprus and keep all of our archers and all the men Henry trained to use the new pikes here with us in Cornwall over the winter.  We’ll replace the archers on the Cyprus-bound galleys with the new recruits.  Henry can train them to be archers in Cyprus; and the archers who haven’t been through Henry’s pike training can learn how to walk together and use the new pikes here instead of from Henry on Cyprus.”

We brought almost all of our newfangled pikes to England because we don’t need them on the galleys and it’s not likely we’ll need them in the Holy Land. If we have to fight out there we’ll be fighting on our ships or behind our walls rather than facing charging knights.  It’s here in Cornwall, marching to relieve a besieged castle is where we’re likely to be caught in the open and need them.

“I agree, William, I really do.  You’re right that we need to stay strong here - what with that devil woman probably wanting Restormel and Launceston back and all the kings and would-be kings arguing and fighting about who should pay for their ransoms and wars.”

“I’m glad to hear you say that, Thomas, I really am.  Besides, the archers really aren’t needed on our galleys if all we’re going to do is carry refugees for a while – not even pirates want to chance a fight with one of our galleys, both because it is not likely to be carrying anything of value and for fear it will have some of our Marines and their longbows on board and take them instead of the other way around.”

Then Thomas smiled and added something to which I could only smile back and nod my head to show my agreement.

“And most of all I’m glad you’re going to keep the archers here because keeping George safe and educating him and the boys to scribe and sum is much more important than earning more coins in the Holy Land.  It’s the only way our plan can succeed.”

@@@@@

Later in the afternoon Thomas and I stand on the bank of the river and wave farewell as the first of our galleys rows down the river heading for Cyprus with a skeleton crew of sailors and three dozen or so of our new recruits and former slaves doing the rowing - and then watch in amazement a few hours later when it comes right back up the river towing the cargo cog coming in from London with almost a hundred new archers and archer recruits, and an important rumor.

Towing the cog and its news and archer recruits up the river to us before heading across the channel to France and on to Cyprus is a right and proper decision by the cog’s sergeant captain, Alexander, the archer sergeant from Hassocks. That’s for sure; and I went back on board and told him so in front of his men. He was very pleased.

Chapter Two

“Richard has been ransomed and he might be coming to England!”  Can the rumor be true?” That’s what I ask Thomas as I keep waving my hand in a useless effort to drive away the swarm of biting bugs that is buzzing around my face.  The day is warm and sun is going down as we walk the cart path back up to Restormel.  It’s still muddy from this morning’s rain and heavily rutted from all the supply wagons moving along it.

I wonder why the bugs are only around the river and come out so much just as the sun goes down?

“Of course it could be true.  They’ve been raising money for his ransom all year and of course he’ll come to England if it’s paid - he’s the king isn’t he?  And it’s been a long time since he’s last been here.  Besides he needs to settle things with John.”

“I know that, of course I do.  And it worries me,” I say with a rather ill-humored tone to my voice as I kick a rock off the path.  Then I ask the question that is really bothering me.

“But what will it mean for John and for us if Richard comes to England?  Do you think they’ll fight; they are brothers after all?”

What I’m really asking Thomas is what he thinks will happen to the castles we took and the earldom that cost so many of our coins.

“God only knows.  But it probably won’t be good.

@@@@@

Days turn into weeks as we drill the men on walking together and using their longbows and the newfangled pikes with blades and hooks.  Then word comes from the sailor sergeant of one of our cogs which comes in from London with a load of wheat and salt for our siege reserves - he saw a ship with Richard’s flag at the next dock while he was boarding some new recruits and taking on the amphorae of salt and the sacks of the wheat we are buying to build up our castles’ siege reserves.

We know how important reserves of food and arrows are during a siege, don’t we ever.

Within days other reports come in verifying the sailor sergeant’s story.  There is no longer any doubt about it, Richard is back in England and he’s trying to raise money for yet another one of his wars - this time in France.  It seems that during the years Richard was off crusading several of the great lords of the French king, the crazy man in Paris, began taking over some of Richard’s vast estates along the French border.  Richard wants them back even if it means yet another war – which it obviously will.

“I have an idea,” Thomas says; and then he explains it to me.

“You know, brother, that might just work.”

“Worth a try isn’t it?”

Two days later one of the galleys being prepared for Cyprus suddenly has its destination changed and more rowers and archers are temporarily added to its crew.

@@@@@

William and the boys walk down the muddy cart path with me to see me off and wish me well.  It’s a cold and murky day with drizzling rain and I’m off for London with a dozen of our best men as guards, a chest with a goodly amount of silver coins and gold bezants, and a couple of hastily drafted parchments carefully rolled up and stashed in one of the leather cylinders used by messengers.  I’m sure you seen them; the ones with the carrying strap so the messenger can walk or ride with his hands free.

What I hope to do is visit the Papal Nuncio and William Longchamps at Richard’s court, and preferably the Nuncio first.  If I find either or both of them I’ll try to do what is inevitably necessary when dealing with such important representatives of the church and the King – bribe them to sign the orders and proclamations I’ve drafted on behalf of their masters.

The channel is stormy and we have a difficult trip what with having to constantly row against unfavorable winds.  But we’re well crewed with strong rowers and four days later, when the sun would be straight overhead if we could see it through the overcast sky, we finally reach the mouth of the Thames and begin threading our way through the fog and the crowded shipping.

London is busy.  It takes hours of rowing around the edge of the great harbor before Simon, our galley’s sergeant captain, finally spots some unused dock space.

We’ve barely banged into the dock when a churlish little fellow wearing a funny hat immediately looks down at us from the dock, informs us he’s the dockmaster, and tells us to fuck off and leave, the space is taken.

The dockmaster is a bit hard to understand because he talks in the singsong voice and dialect of a longtime Londoner.  But he backs off quickly when Simon responds by telling him that we’re willing to pay a few coins for the right to stay for a while, but that if we have to leave the only thing certain is that he’ll be coming with us – chained to a rowing bench and helping us to row to Cyprus.

Our dock must usually be used by cogs because I have to stand on the railing with Simon and one of his men steadying me to climb up on to it.  I’m able to do so without falling and so are the men who are coming with me as my guards and helpers.  We’re finally in London – me and ten men.  Peter Sergeant is with me as my second.

According to William, Peter was initially assigned to Antioch but at the last minute one of the two English archers we signed up in Latika, John, the son of John from Liverpool, took his place.  The other archer from Latika, poor soul, died at Cadiz when Phillip’s galley was taken.  At least for his sake I hope he died instead of being captured.

The very first thing I do after I climb up on the dock is walk to the door of a nearby ships’ chandlery and begin inquiring about the whereabouts of Richard and his court.  The portly chandler and his clerks don’t have a clue and neither do any of the cart drivers, ships’ chandlers, and the passersby I ask.

I’m left to guess where Richard might be and my best guess is probably at Beaumont Palace where he was born or at his stronghold at Windsor Castle.  What is really strange is that most of the people I ask don’t even know who the king is, let alone where he and his court might be located.

Similar inquiries during brief visits to inform the men in the customs house that they’ll not be collecting any taxes from us because we are bringing in no cargo from abroad, and to talk to a fellow priest I find standing at the door of a nearby church, all seem to confirm that the King has returned - but no one is sure where he might be.  All they’ve heard are rumors in their locals, the taverns and whorehouses they frequent.

The most common rumor is that the King is at Windsor.  Well, if the King’s at Windsor then that’s where his court and courtiers such as Longchamps and the Nuncio will almost certainly be. On the other hand, it’s a long way to Windsor and I don’t want to travel all that way just to find out that I’ve pissed away my time and coins on a wild duck chase.

There is nothing to do but go to the one person who is almost sure to know the whereabouts of Richard and his court - the Keeper of Prince John’s Wardrobe, Wilfrid Blunt.  I know where Blunt lives because that’s where I bribed him last year to buy William’s earldom from Prince John after we killed the old earl and took the treacherous bastard’s castle at Restormel.  The problem, of course, is that going to visit Blunt could be dangerous.  There’s no telling what John or Blunt will think or do if they find out I’m looking for Longchamps or know that William has taken so much of Cornwall.

It seems I have no choice.  But at least I know where Blunt is likely to be.  I thought about hiring a sedan chair and have my guards walk behind it while I’m carried through London’s foul streets.  But I decide against it when I see a stable near the dock.

None of my guards can ride and I’m not very good at it myself, so I leave an outrageously large deposit of two gold bezant coins and hire two horse carts and ostlers from the stable - and off we go to visit John’s wardrobe with the men sitting in the carts and me up next to the ostler on the driver’s bench.  Peter is sitting next to the ostler on the other wagon.

I’ve got to talk to William again about teaching some of our men to ride horses; and, of course, to do that we’ll have to get more horses - the dozen or so we have now are already overly busy carrying messages and pulling plows.

@@@@@

The horse carts carrying my ten guards and me clatter and slosh their way through the foul and smoke-filled streets to Prince John’s walled compound and offices next to the river.  I can see my guards staring at the city and talking and gesturing as we bounce along.  Most of them have never been to London.  They are obviously amazed at its size and smell.  As I am every time I visit.

It hasn’t rained to clear the air since yesterday so we can’t see very far ahead and black soot is covering everything including the piles of fresh shite that the rains haven’t yet dissolved and washed away.  It’s a good thing the ostlers know where we want to go.  It’s easy to get lost in such a big city.

I’d hate to be walking out of here when it’s dark. I’d probably slip on the street slime and get robbed while I’m trying to get back on my feet, or worse.

When we reach the gate John’s great stone house it is instantly obvious that Richard is back - the crowd of petitioners in front of John’s gate is much smaller than it was when I was here last year.

My shout brings an attendant over to the gate - who tersely tells me the price of entering to see Blunt, morosely accepts my coins, and gestures for me to enter through the gate and into the courtyard.  At least this time it doesn’t take as many coins to get past the gate guard and in to see Blunt.

A young dandy standing inside the gate arrogantly beckons for me to follow him and heads off without even waiting to see if I am following.  We enter the building through a very heavy door and he leads me down a corridor to an empty room – and holds out his hand for coins as he sneers and orders me to “wait here.”

It is all I can do to smile and give him a few coppers from my purse; I had to fight the urge to spit in his hand or stick it with the knife strapped to my wrist.  His disdain and arrogance so bother me that I have to pee – so I piss on the wall after he walks out.  And I obviously wasn’t the only one to do so; Blunt must be having a busy day.

Blunt’s greeting is effusive and friendly when he finally shows up.  He doesn’t seem at all embarrassed because he gulled me into paying so much for the honour of William’s earldom last year without mentioning that Longchamp was similarly selling the title to FitzCount at the same time.  I’m not even sure he knows we killed FitzCount to avenge Lord Edmund’s family and protect William’s title.

I tell Blunt the truth, well part of it at least – that I’m looking for the Papal Nuncio because we want the Pope to charter a new order of priests who will serve only when they are on ships and, of course, collect tithes from the passengers they carry in exchange for the Pope’s prayers for their safety. It’s part of our plan for George and my schoolboys when they grow up and join us.

“It would be a new source of revenue for His Holiness,” I explain.  “And more people might become pilgrims and take risk of sea voyages if they know they’ll be traveling with his prayers.”

I can see Blunt’s mind feverishly working; it’s a church matter so he knows that a lot of coins are going to change hands along the way before anything gets resolved.  He’s trying to think of some way he can insert himself into the process and get a slice of the pie.

“That’s an imaginative idea and it will be expensive of course,” Blunt finally answers. “Perhaps Prince John and I can assist in some way.”

“Yes, I’m sure you both could be of great assistance if the Nuncio approves of the idea – that’s why I’m here.  I want to enlist your assistance and support for the idea and, of course, help cover your expenses.  And, of course, it’s complex and there will be a lot of expenses that will have to be covered.  That’s why I’ve been ordered to speak directly to the Nuncio, to ask him to submit the idea to the Pope.  Do you know where I might find Nuncio?”

Do you notice, as Blunt surely does, that I am telling him that I have been ordered to speak directly to the Nuncio; not asked, ordered, so that no intermediary such as himself can do it for me?

I say all that as I put a small purse on the table and watch Blunt’s eyes light up as he reaches for it.

I’m not just buying Blunt’s help with the Nuncio; I’m keeping him sweet for the future.  John might win mightn’t he? I doubt it myself but one never knows, does one?

“He’s at Windsor last I heard.  Prince John is there too.  Richard and Prince John seem to have reconciled, or so John hopes.  I’m staying here to hold the castle, so to speak, while he is there paying homage to Richard.  None of Richard’s women have birthed a son so it appears John is to be his heir until they do.  There will be peace between them if that is announced, and that’s a very good thing for everyone if it is.  Wars are expensive, you know.”

“Oh, how interesting, Nuncio.  I didn’t know any of that, of course.  Cornwall is so poor and distant that we never get the news.  Just tin mines and poor fishermen, you know.  The realm owns the tin so there are no revenues for the Earl, of course; that’s why William has to look to the sea and ships, isn’t it?” But he does his best with what little God has granted his lands.”

Might as well put a plug in for low taxes while I have a chance, particularly if John is to be the heir.

“It’s no secret, not even from Richard, that Lord William supports John and intends to keep doing so even though his purse is so slim.  Prefers him to Richard, doesn’t he?  Probably something to do with Richard’s behavior on his crusade.”

Like killing the people who surrender to him because he promises to free them.

@@@@@

It is getting to evening as we reach the outskirts of London. In any event, I take a bug filled room at an inn outside the city wall for us to sleep in, my men and I that is - the ostlers will sleep in their carts so the carts and horses don’t get stolen.  The sun is out and the wind is blowing towards the city so there is no fog and smoke out here.  It’s hard to explain but everyone’s spirits, both ours and the people in the lanes, seem to be lifted by the good weather.

We leave early the next morning to travel the old Roman road from the city walls to Windsor.  The road is full of ruts and busy with traffic coming and going in both directions and every hour or so we reach a small village or manor.

Peter and my guards travel with their bows and swords close at hand, and rightly so because of the outlaw bands that infest the roads, but it’s a generally peaceful scene and their swords are sheathed and their bows unstrung. I’m wearing my bishop’s gown and miter so I smile and wave my cross cheerfully about as travelers approach us from the front or we pass them.  Makes everyone feel better, doesn’t it?

Many of the people on the road appear to be serfs and slaves walking or pulling carts piled high with grass they’re bringing in to feed their lords’ livestock over the coming winter.  They pull off the road for us as they must and, somewhat similarly, every hour or so we ourselves have to pull over or slow down for gentry in a cart or carriage.  I wave my cross at them too.

I’m tired.  I didn’t sleep a wink because I made a mistake and gave the landlord a coin to hire a girl for the men to share.  The resulting talking and all the noise they made kept me up most of the night.  I should have told them to use her in the street.

@@@@@

Windsor Castle is impressive in the distance and it’s almost certain the king is here with his court.  It seems likely; at least, because I can see his great flag on the castle keep.

Richard may be here but I’m still not sure if the Nuncio is here with him.  So before we drive on up to the castle gate I decide to stop at Saint Peters, the local parish church of Windsor Village and inquire.

I’m not going near the place if the Nuncio is not here.  I’m wary because I’m not sure if Richard knows I’m Thomas’ brother or if he knows we supported John and didn’t help ransom him - and I surely don’t want to find out if he’s upset about it.  He’s a killer you know - even when he gives his word he can’t be trusted to keep it unless you are a fellow king and sometimes not even then.

The church’s priest is at home in his parsonage next to the church.  He greets me suspiciously when I knock on the door to call him out.  Father George is obviously not at all impressed by the fact I’m a bishop but he does kiss my ring and tell me that he thinks the Nuncio is in the castle with the court.  He’d seen him riding in the king’s entourage when it came past the church three or four days ago.

The Priest’s arrogance and Saint Peter’s being such a fine parish with a good parsonage means the priest is probably someone special.  He’s undoubtedly either a royal bastard or the younger son of a noble family.  Or it could be he’s wary because he thinks I’m going to try to cadge a meal or a place to sleep off him – and probably it’s both since he undoubtedly gets a lot of requests for food and shelter from bishops and priests when they visit the castle.

But the priest’s eyes certainly light up and he quickly reaches for the coin I offer if he and his comely young housekeeper will feed me and my men and let us sleep on the church’s dirt floor tonight.  Then it’s off to the castle gate I go with four of my guards in one of the horse carts.

The Pope may order us priests to be celibate but the Pope’s not the only hypocrite in the church if the housekeeper’s baby bump means anything.  And who am I to throw stones, eh?

Getting into the castle to see the Nuncio takes some doing even though I’m though I wearing the robes and miter of a bishop and have an entourage of guards.  An officious sergeant with the king’s coat of arms on his tunic eyes me skeptically and demands to know what I want.

“I’m the Bishop of Cornwall and I’m here to see the Papal Nuncio.”

“Do you have an appointment?”

“Of course not, I just arrived in London yesterday.  Just tell him I’m here and let him decide for himself.  God will bless you – and so will I if you hurry.”

My offer of a blessing to the sergeant and a bit of the necessary - few coins to sweeten him - soon has one of his men scurrying off.  I take the opportunity to walk a few steps away from the gate and relieve myself of the bad fish I’d eaten last night at the inn.  My God that smells; salted cod I think it was.

@@@@@

Almost an hour passes and I sitting with my back against the castle’s stone wall dozing, upwind of last night’s fish, when the Papal Nuncio walks up.  I jump up to kiss his ring and his welcome is effusive and brotherly - as well it should be given the size of the purse he’d received “for the Holy Father and your expenses” last year when the Archdiocese of Devon and Cornwall was unexpectedly split and I accepted the awesome responsibilities of heading up the newly reestablished Archdiocese of Cornwall.

“My this is ambitious and unique,” is the Nuncio’s only comment as he nods his head after he reads the parchment through and then reads it again.  “It will certainly be very difficult to convince the Holy Father to agree to this.”  I can do it but it will cost you a lot of coins.

“Of course it will be difficult, Your Eminence, but there is no doubt that God desires such a special order of part-time priests and the church will benefit from the tithes of the Christians the order serves.  So it is something that must be done; and, of course, there will be great expenses associated with its establishment which will have to be covered.” What will it cost me?

“It will be quite expensive of course.  But will you be able to pay now that King Richard has just recognized a claim to the Earldom of Cornwall put forth by Sir Harold Cornell of Derbyshire who claims to be the cousin and heir of the late Lord Baldwin of Restormel Castle.”  Say what?

“What was that you said?”

@@@@@

The Nuncio listens intently as I try to explain the significance for the King and the Pope’s treasury if William and his men are forced to leave Restormel Castle and William decides to return to Cyprus:  For the king it will mean the end of William’s payments to the crown which are larger than the Derby earl can possibly pay.  Why will the new earl pay less?  Because Cornwall’s revenues are so small for its earl whereas William can sometimes supplement the taxes he pays with the coins he earns in the Holy Land carrying refugees and pilgrims.

And I feel terrible – perhaps if I had gotten here a couple of days ago this might not have happened.

But that’s not all, I explain to the rapt Nuncio - who obviously sees the size and availability of the purses he might receive from William “to send to the Pope” sailing away to Cyprus before his very eyes.

“In addition to reducing his revenues King Richard will lose William’s war galleys which can protect his men and himself as they travel back and forth to France.  Additionally, of course, Richard’s people will also lose the protection from pirates that his ships and coastal villages now receive as a result of William’s reputation as a pirate taker and the fact that the Pope has decreed that pirates are not good Christians.”

That’s all ox shite about the Pope, of course, but it sounds true so maybe it is.

“Yes,” said the Nuncio thoughtfully, “and forcing Lord William out of Cornwall will also distress the Templars who have given him arms in exchange for carrying Templars to and from England and France.  It will also greatly distress the Pope whose new order of seagoing priests will be greatly weakened and receive fewer tithes to send to the Pope.  Yes indeed, many distressing things will happen if Lord William loses his training and ship building lands in Cornwall.”

The Nuncio is obviously distressed at the thought of the Cyprus nuncio getting his hands on those tithes instead of himself.  Good.  Maybe he really will try to help us.

“It is,” I tell the Nuncio as he nods his head in sorrowful agreement, “a goddamn fucking financial disaster for the two of us.”

“Don’t despair yet, Bishop Thomas,” is his optimistic response. “I may be able to do something with this information if I can get to the King or Longchamp.”

I shake my head in resignation and hand him the parchment I have prepared for the Pope to sign - and tell the Nuncio that William has set aside fifty bezant gold coins for the expenses of getting the Pope to sign the parchment creating the new religious order.

Under the circumstances, I add with what I hope is an encouraging smile on my face, I’m sure there will be another fifty gold bezants if the King does something so that William can continue in Cornwall as the Earl.  Then I ostentatiously pick up my purse and hurry back to the church to eat and get some sleep on its dirt floor.

It’s already starting to get dark when my guards and I get back to the church.   We’ll leave for London at first light in the morning – I’ve got to hurry back to Cornwall to warn William that we are almost certainly about to have a war on our hands.

It looks like we may need the services of the assassins after all; if they can even find Derbyshire, that is.

@@@@@

I’d no more than wrapped myself in my cloak and laid myself on the church’s dirt floor to sleep than I hear voices and noise outside.  Then there is a pounding on the church door.  One of my men stands up and removes the timber bar on the door and it immediately is pulled open.

Three men push their way in – and in the darkness the first man in promptly steps on one of my men and trips and falls on top of some others.  All around me my men are jumping to their feet and I can hear their curses and the sound of blades coming out of scabbards.

“Whoa.  Whoa.  Peace.  Peace.  We’re King’s Men and we’ve come in peace.  Is the Bishop of Cornwall here?  The King sent us to fetch him if he is available.”

A minute later and I am trying not to stumble as I walk along the dark road towards the castle in the moonlight.  There is a King’s man on either side of me “to guide you, Bishop, only to guide you” and a somewhat hesitant and uncertain Peter and my other men trailing along behind carrying their bows and swords.

Well, if they’ve come to kill me this is where they’ll do it.

A loud challenge rings out from the castle gate as we approach.  It is promptly answered by the man “guiding” my left arm; apparently he answers correctly since the gate opens to admit us.  Us being the king’s men and me; my men are not admitted.

“Don’t leave; wait here,” I shout to Peter over my shoulder to my guards as I enter.  Then the king’s men and I follow a shadowy figure holding a candle lantern across the bailey and up some steps and into the keep itself.

Our feet seem to clatter loudly against the stone floor as we move along a dark corridor and then turn into a small room.  Almost instantly I’m confused and totally lose track of where I am.

“Wait here,” I’m told by the lantern carrier. He leaves me standing alone as he and my escorts clatter away. Its pitch black and I can’t see a thing.

Well at least they didn’t shut the door and it isn’t a dungeon.  I must admit I’m anxious; well actually more than that – I’m quite scared, that’s what I am.

@@@@@

I stand unmoving for what seems like ages.  All I can hear is the periodic scampering and scurrying sound of mice and rats, and once in a while, faint voices in the distance.  Finally I hear the murmur of men’s voices and the sound of feet coming along the passage way; and then I see the flickering lights of several candle lamps coming towards me.

A man leading the procession enters the room and holds his candle lantern high - and behind him comes King Richard, Richard’s Lord Chancellor, William Longchamp, and the Papal Nuncio.

I know it’s Richard because I’ve seen him numerous times during the battles for Cyprus and Acre and elsewhere.  He, of course, wouldn’t know me from Adam.  I instantly drop to my knees in the flickering light even though as a bishop I only need to bow.  Better safe than sorry; that’s for sure.

“You are Thomas, the Bishop of Cornwall?”

“Yes, your majesty.  I am the bishop for your county of Cornwall.”

“The Papal Nuncio and my chancellor tell me I have made a kingly mistake in allowing a cousin of the late Baldwin of Restormel to be Earl of Cornwall.  Do you agree?”

“Oh no Your Majesty, it is a more a tribute to Your Majesty’s decisiveness that you made such a minor and easily reversed decision so promptly, no doubt because Your Majesty wisely spends his time making other more much more important decisions.”

Do you think I’m going to tell the hot tempered King he made a mistake?  Don’t be a silly fool.

“It is also said that Lord William does not consider me to be his rightful king and refused to help ransom me.  What say you to that?”

“Your majesty, I am Lord William’s confessor and I can swear to you in the name of Jesus that he has never even once hinted that you are not his rightful king. I can also swear he has never even once refused to help ransom you.  Much to the contrary Sire, he fought for you and bled for you at Cyprus and Acre and elsewhere.  He holds you in esteem as a great knight and commander.”

Well William never actually refused to help pay the ransom, did he? I sat on my hands for him while he was off to Cyprus.

“Then why isn’t he on the list of those who contributed to my ransom?”

“I suspect Sire, .. No, that is not correct; I absolutely am sure, Sire, that Lord William was never asked.”

“That he was never asked is not surprising, Your Majesty.  Cornwall is only important because of its location.  Why it has very few people, mostly poor fishermen, and only a handful of poor manors the even the Romans ignored it.  It’s only revenues are those that come from the tin mines – and they all go directly to you as their rightful owner.  Moreover, Sire, I know for an absolute fact that Earl William ordered the mine overseers to increase their production and send you more revenues.”

And after a pause I add somewhat softly in a most respectful voice, “Lord William did that for you without even being asked, Your Majesty.   He is truly one of your most faithful servants.”

Except, of course, I did that for William and he doesn’t like you or trust you or want to pay your taxes or see you on the throne.

The King just stands with his head cocked to the side and listens as I go on to tell him various other blathers about William being such a good man and loyal servant of the crown.

When I finish, the King just stands there in the flickering candle light for a minute.  Then he abruptly turns and walks out with the others falling in to walk behind him.  So there I am standing in the darkness as the candle light and muffled voices and clattering shoes of his departure recede into the distance.

“Wait here,” The Papal Nuncio commands before he hurries off to follow them.  Do I have a choice?

An hour or so later the Nuncio returns with a servant holding a candle lantern.  He is smiling.

“The king has accepted his chancellor’s advice and decided to do nothing to replace Lord William; he will let it be a test of arms with God deciding who is the rightful Earl.” …. “And I’ll need another fifty gold bezants for Longchamp for getting William a chance to stay in Cornwall.”

While I was counting the bezants into his hand he asked the crucial question.

“Do you think you can win?”

Chapter Three

Thomas is back from Richard’s court and his tidings are not good. It appears that Isabel or someone in her family has prevailed upon King Richard to sell a Derbyshire lord named Harold Cornell the same earldom we bought from Prince John and recognize his right to Restormel. Cornell’s claim apparently is that he’s a cousin of Isabel’s late husband, the unlamented Baldwin.  We don’t know if Cornell and Isabel are related or if Isabel is betrothed to him or bedding him.

The good news is that Cornell lives in Derbyshire so it will most likely take a long time for him to get himself and his men to Cornwall.  The bad news is that we don’t know anything about him – how many men he will bring, how he will fight, and the nature of his experience and ability.

Worse, and perhaps most important of all, we don’t have any idea as to who will fight with him and why, or for that matter when and where.  Both Baldwin, and then his apparent cousin, FitzCount of Launceston, were accompanied by knights from Devon and both of them and Isabel apparently have relatives there - so it’s likely some or all of the surviving Devon lords and knights will side with the Derbyshire lord.  We killed a lot of the stupid bastards at Trematon and Launceston, but certainly not all of them.

What’s worrisome is that Cornell probably knows something of what happened and is so sure he can defeat William that he bought the Cornwall earldom knowing that William also claimed it and is in possession of the three castles.

And will we really be up against just the Derbyshire lord’s forces and the survivors of the Devon gentry who supported Baldwin and then the efforts of FitzCount to take Baldwin’s place in Restormel and between Isabel’s legs?  Who else will take their side?

According to Thomas, King Richard’s Chancellor sent a message via the Papal Nuncio suggesting the King will treat any fighting that occurs as a tournament and stay out of it so that God’s Will prevails.  That’s certainly better than the King sending his men to help Cornell root us out - but it’s still worrisome because both the Chancellor and the Papal Nuncio may have been lying to us about Richard’s neutrality in order to gull us out of more coins.

Trusting the word of a King’s courtiers, particularly if they are churchmen, is a fool’s game.

Moreover, even it is true that the King said he wouldn’t interfere and would leave the outcome to God, Richard is not exactly famous for keeping his promises.

Just ask the men who surrendered to Richard at Acre – which you can’t do because he butchered them to a man despite giving his word that he would let them go free.

All we know for sure is that there is almost certainly going to be a war between us and Lord Cornell - and many of our best fighting men are in Cyprus or the Holy Land.  The only thing certain is that it’s a damn good thing I kept so many of our archers here instead of sending them out to Yoram.

Hmm.  I wonder if Cornell knows how effective the new long bows and pikes are in the right hands and how best to fight against them?  They are so new that even those of us who have them don’t know how best to fight against them.

@@@@@

Thomas and I spend all morning looking at both of our parchment maps and talking about our men and their weapons and what we should do.  A plan finally begins to emerge after hours of our talking and pacing up and down and trying to make sense of our maps.

The damn maps are obviously not very accurate, at least they’re not about Cornwall - they’ve both got Launceston east of the Tamar, for example, and Trematon on the coast.

Only one thing is for sure; Cornell and his men going to have to come through Devon and cross the River Tamar to get to us here in Cornwall – and the only cart path running through Devon to Cornwall runs through Salisbury and crosses the Tamar River ford near Launceston.  So that’s almost certainly the way they’ll come.

Thomas says the Romans built the cart path as far as Exeter almost a thousand years ago and some of the Roman stones are still there; isn’t that something?

It’s not certain, of course, but Lord Cornell will likely come with his men in the early spring when the traditional campaigning and tournament season begins.  So Thomas and I have decided to take a couple of risks.

One is to do what we think Cornell will do - wait until the harvest is in before we call up the local men to act as carriers and fetchers.  The other is to strengthen our forces by quickly sending some of our more experienced men out into Wales and the English counties around London to recruit archers and likely lads to train. We’re temporarily between wars so hopefully there are some useful men sitting around who will prefer to fight for us instead of starving.

Using some of our best archers as recruiters is a big risk because they’ll be gone and we’ll be weaker if Cornell hurries here.  It worries me immensely and Thomas even more.  He agrees about sending out the recruiters but he wants to immediately recall everyone we have at Trematon and most of the men from Launceston - he’s so adamant about it that I agree.

Sending some of our men out to recruit also means we need places and men in London and Bristol where we can collect the archers who are recruited and send them on to Cornwall in our ships.  It is unlikely our recruits will be able to walk safely through Devon either on their own or in a group, though some men may hear that we are recruiting and try to reach us on their own by walking here.  All in all, it will be much safer and faster if we bring them here on our cogs and galleys.

Who should we send to do the recruiting and who should arrange a place in London where the new archers can assemble?  It’s a good question and a real problem because I’ve got to stay here to lead the fight in case Cornell arrives sooner than we expect.

After a lot of discussion we finally decide – Thomas himself will take our archer recruiters to London on a fast galley.  He’ll take Peter and the same guards he took before and set himself up at a tavern or stables.

Thomas and his guards will stay in London; the recruiters he takes will spread out through England from there and send the archers they find back to him in London and he will send them on to Cornwall.  Evan, an archer sergeant from Wales who seems quite dependable even though he can’t read or do sums, will take a smaller number of men to Cardiff and do the same throughout Wales.

Our recruiters will be two dozen or so of our veteran archers who have already received prize monies.  I hate to part with some of our best veterans even temporarily, but they are the ones most likely to know who has potential as an archer.  Even better, they will be able to talk personally about our company and the substantial rewards our new recruits will have a chance to earn if they make their marks to join us.

@@@@@

Fourteen archer recruiters and my ten guardsmen will be traveling to London with me and Peter Sergeant in the morning.  So will about forty swordsmen to act as the recruiters’ guards to keep them safe from the outlaw bands that plague the roads.

We’re going out on one of our newly caulked galleys, the one commanded by Simon from Ditchling.  They’ll ride out from there and begin working as recruiters in the counties around London.  An additional six of our veteran archers with three guards apiece will be going to Cardiff under the command of Evan.  He’s one of our Welsh archers who seems particularly dependable.

Of course I’m sailing on Simon’s galley - he was the sergeant captain on my recent trip to London; he knows the Thames and the London docks.

And because it is so dangerous to travel the roads alone each of my archers and those of Evan will be accompanied by two or three men at arms who haven’t yet qualified as archers.

Our archer recruiters seem enthusiastic about our plan.  And they should be - those who weren’t already sergeants have been promoted and they were schooled all day yesterday by William and me on what they are to do.  Perhaps more importantly, they’ve been promised “prize money” for every longbow archer they find who makes his mark on our agreement and every archer trainee they bring in.

We’re hopeful for our recruiters’ success, of course, but we expect some to run with the bags of coins they will be carrying and others to fail for one reason or another; we just don’t know who will succeed and who will not.

In any event, our recruiters are more than ready to go and I’ve finished drafting the parchments they and their companions will carry from fair to fair and from church priest to church priest.  And, of course, wherever possible our recruiters will join with the merchants who travel from town to town to attend their fairs.

Many of the fairs have archery contests and those that don’t will soon have them if our archer recruiters and their coins have anything to say about it.

Our archer recruiters can’t read, of course, but the parchments each carries explains in Latin that he is recruiting archers and men at arms to help protect Holy Land pilgrims and refugees - and that he will be conducting archery tournaments and awarding prizes in order to find the archers and other men he wants to talk to.

What the parchments don’t say, but each of our recruiting sergeants will offer if he thinks encouragement is necessary, is that the local priest or fair will also get a payment that could be as large as the winner’s prize.

The parchments additionally say that the archer sergeant and his men are also looking for very quick and healthy young lads whose families are interested in having them study for the priesthood and seeing more of the world. I added that so we can get some more lads to learn to scribe and sum with George.

I myself will be temporarily based in London with my guards and Peter Sergeant as my second once again.  We’ll have to quickly find a stable or tavern so the recruiting sergeants will know where to send their recruits before they set out to find them.  Evan, of course, will have to do the same in Cardiff.

Our very first stop will undoubtedly be at a stable since we intend to hire horses for our recruiters and Peter and I, and Evan in Cardiff, can always sleep in the horses’ stalls until we find something better.  Hopefully the stable where we hire the horses will be able to send an ostler with each of our recruiting parties, someone who can teach them how to ride and care for their horses.

Finally there is the unanswered question about whether or not we should hire mercenaries or deal with the lords who are willing to sell the services of their knights and men at arms.  We have more than enough coins at Restormel to pay for their services; but do we really want to hire men who may well stab us in the back if someone else offers them more money?  And, if we do, how and where should we employ them?

What William and I finally ended up deciding is to use our cogs and galleys to bring only individual archers willing to join us to Cornwall - and use any mercenaries we can hire to attack Lord Cornell’s castle in Derbyshire.

Cornell might think twice about taking all his men to Cornwall when he hears we are trying to hire mercenaries to attack him in Derbyshire, particularly since we are going to do so if we can find some to hire.  At least that’s our thinking.

@@@@@

It is a warm and somewhat sunny afternoon in July when our two lightly crewed galleys untie their lines and slowly row down the Fowey.  I’m wearing my bishop’s robes and William and George and my schoolboys are standing on the bank waving farewell as my galley slowly slides by with our recruiters doing the rowing.

I feel very sad about leaving the boys but try to keep a big smile on my face.

“Don’t forget to do your sums,” is the only thing I can think to say.  Then I give a final wave and turn away to watch a couple of sailors begin to lay out the big leather sail so it can be raised quickly if the wind in the channel is favorable when we reach the mouth of the river and turn left towards London.  It wouldn’t do at all for them to see my eyes watering.

The galleys will stay in Cardiff and London until Evan and I send them back to Cornwall.  Hopefully they’ll be loaded with archers and archer trainees to help with the rowing when they return.  Simon’s galley, I’m rather sure, will be coming back without me.

@@@@@

London’s port and the waters below it are as crowded as ever with every possible type of ship you can think of from dinghies and fishing boats to great ocean-going cargo ships.  Some of them are huge cogs with two or three masts and decks that are almost a hundred paces long with castles at each end.

Our little galley is using its oars carefully as Simon slowly threads his way through the pack of big sailing ships and fishing boats waiting for the wind and tide.  The big ships may be able to carry more cargo and passengers and are less vulnerable to storms but we can go up the Thames to London using our oars.

An hour later we edge up against the same dock we used a couple of weeks ago when I visited Windsor.  And the same little man with the sing song voice and funny hat greets us.  But this time he is all smiles and welcome.

“Allo Simon, welcomz back yer iz,” he shouts as grabs the mooring line Simon throws him.  “Enz you too yor reverence.”

“Allo Alfie.  Ouz iz you and yer mizzus?”

“Quite gud she iz, Simon, quite gud.  Iz youz be at em White Bull anight for zum spiritz?”

The change in our reception by the dock master is so different from last time that I ask Simon about it as I climb up on the galley rail so he can help me get up on the dock.

“Alfie and I decided to be friends after I stood a couple of rounds of drinks for him and his missus at the White Bull over there.  It’s got something new the Bull’s ale wife makes from cooking malt and adding berry squeezings.  Burns your throat, it does, but its got a kick like a horse.  Knock you on your arse it will.”

Then Simon smiles a big smile and adds, “it’s so strong that after two or three bowls I can understand everything Alfie and his missus are saying.”

Peter and the rest of our men, almost fifty of them in all, are gathered behind me and ready to follow me up.  I’d spent much of the trip listening to those who’d been here with me a couple of weeks ago tell the others all about London and Windsor.

Some of what I heard our “London veterans” told them were obviously tall tales but the men who’d never been here before hung on every word and seemed quite impressed.

@@@@@

As soon as Peter and I climb off the galley we head for the stables in the lane behind the dock.  That’s where I hired the horse carts and drivers the last time we were here.  And that’s where I run into a problem.  Bert, the craggy faced stable master, only has a couple of saddle horses left and I need almost fifty and a dozen ostlers.

“Not to worry, youz worship; not to worry.  If youz got the coins I’ll have the horses for youz and youz lads here in the morning.  Amblers they’ll be with smooth gaits for men who’ve never ridden before.  Ostlers too.  And youz and youz men can sleep in the stalls, yes youz can.”

It takes a while but we finally agree on a price for the use of each horse and ostler for as long as I need them.  But one look at the horse manure piled high in the stalls is enough to convince me that Peter and I should sleep with Simon in the little captain’s castle at the front of the galley deck so long as it is here, and the men should sleep on the galley to guard the coin chest.

“Peter, there’s a couple of months of horse manure in every stall so we’re going to stay in the captain’s castle with Simon until either the galley leaves and we’re forced to find another place to sleep or the stalls get mucked out.”

We took a room at the White Bull last time but once is enough; too loud and too many fleas and rats and no place to piss or shite except in the street.  On the other hand, according to Simon, the Bull’s a real good place for drinking even though the girls smell bad.  The ale wife’s got something new she cooks; Simon says it’ll knock you on your arse if you’re not careful.”

@@@@@

Freddy, the stable master, is as good as his word and, sure enough, the stable and its courtyard are full of horses and ostlers in the morning.  I’m still counting coins into the hands of the assembled stable masters when the fun begins.

I wish I knew more about horses.  Some of these look like they’re ready for the stew pot.

Most of our men have never been on a horse before and some of the toughest and bravest of them are downright scared.  Others are still severely drunk from being introduced to the White Bull’s new drink last night or hung over with terrible headaches.

“Whatever it is the Bull is selling, you cannot,” Peter announced loudly last night as he staggered into the little deck castle last and woke me up by falling down, “drink it like wine or ale.”

Idlers in the lane and from a nearby smithy drift over to watch as our men try to climb aboard their horses.  The men’s total lack of experience certainly shows.

Some of the horses cooperate and stand still as the ostlers try to help our men climb aboard; other horses do not cooperate at all - they begin moving about as soon the men try to climb on.  They are having trouble even with the smiling and good natured ostlers trying to trying to hold the horses steady while other ostlers try to push them up and tell them what to do.

My men are not much help to the ostlers.  Some of them get mounted and then slide off while others climb on and don’t know what to do except hold on to the reins and their horse’s mane. And, wouldn’t you know it; one of the men gets seasick and throws up all over his horse and himself.

I would have found it a jolly laugh if they weren’t my men and I wasn’t paying out good silver coins for the horses.  But I am goddamnit.

I cope by doing what the abbot told me to do whenever I get over excited - I breathe through my nose, clutch my cross, and say ten Hail Marys.

It must have worked for soon thereafter my sergeants begin leaving for their appointed destinations via various city gates – with every ostler leading one or two horses and half the men hanging on to their horses’ manes and saddles for dear life.

Peter and I stand with the now-silent stable masters and watch as our men leave.  That’s when we first realize that the amblers with smooth gaits that we were promised are not at all what we’ve been given – most are hackneys with bone jarring trots.

We look at each other and shake our heads in despair after we finish waving farewell to our recruiters and shouting out meaningless last minute suggestions as they bounce out the of the stable gate and head off to the countryside.

Freddy and the men who brought the additional horses don’t say a word; they turn as one and head for a nearby tavern. No doubt to laugh and count their coins; one thing is for sure, I’ve been gulled out of my coins by the horse traders; we need to recruit some men who know horses. But where and how?

I shake my head in resignation because I’m not sure we’ll ever see our men again or recruit any archers; Peter shakes his, I would think, because it hurts.

Chapter Four

Thomas is gone to London to recruit archers and it’s time to get things ready here in Cornwall for the coming war.  I decide to abandon Trematon and concentrate our forces here at Restormel.  Abandoning Trematon sounds easy because we now only have about a dozen men there under Sir Percy.  But it isn’t easy as I learn when I ride over to Trematon to let Percy know about the changes and why I am making them.

It isn’t easy because there are a tremendous amount of supplies that will have to be moved – bales of arrows, the weapons and armor we took off of Baldwin’s men, millstones, amphorae of olive oil, sacks of grain from the siege stores that will no longer be needed, and empty sacks and amphorae we can refill.  The list goes on and on.

When I get back to Restormel I’ll have to send more of our horse carts and wagons than I expected – and they’ll probably have to make several trips to get everything.

There is also the question of what to do with Sir Percy and the men and women working the castle’s fields and livestock.

Sir Percy is easy to deal with.  With his wife hovering anxiously nearby he asks permission to stay on as the castle’s governor and the overseer of all the castle’s lands.  He’s willing to do it, he says, even though he’ll have no men at arms and no serfs.  I instantly grant his request and assure him that his annual coins as a sergeant captain will continue – and tell him to immediately open the castle gate and pledge himself to Cornell if he or any of his men show up.

Percy is speechless and his wife breaks into tears and hugs me when I tell him what I am going to do.

“Percy, I’m going to pretend I’m you and send a parchment to Cornell welcoming him to Cornwall and saying I look forward to serving him.  There is no need for you and your wife to suffer if we are not successful in defending our holdings.  Now let’s go down to the village and talk to Old Bob”

Percy thanks me profusely as we walk to the village to visit the gnarled old man who seems to be the village leader.  The village’s slovenly old priest comes running when he sees us come down the castle path heading for the old man’s hovel.  They both listen intently and nod their heads when I tell them all the castle’s defenders except Sir Percy will be pulling out and what it means for the village.

“You and Sir Percy and all the people on Trematon’s lands are now free and in all ways released from your past obligations to me and the land.  Each man will now either have to leave Trematon or stay and work their traditional fields as tenants under Sir Percy.  We’ll share everything halves and halves and the villagers who have been working in the castle can choose to stay with Sir Percy or take over a tenant farm or leave.  Sir Percy will assign farmland to those decide to stay on as tenants.”

Actually, I’d told the villagers the same thing last year but they didn’t seem to believe it and they mostly didn’t change their ways.  The only exceptions, according to Sir Percy, were a couple of brothers who promptly signed up to train as archers.

Percy thinks it is the old priest who kept them from changing by telling the villagers it’s their lot in life to be serfs and they’ll burn in hell if they leave the village.

“Percy,” I say as we walk back to the castle, “when Thomas gets back please remind me to talk to him about finding a new priest for Trematon.”

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From Trematon I head in the opposite direction to Launceston - with a brief two day stop at Restormel to see how our preparations are progressing and spend a couple of pleasant nights with Helen.

Martin Archer, the sergeant in command at Launceston, is not happy about losing most of his best men and all six of his horses, horse carts, and plows.  But he understands, at least I think he understands, why it is necessary.

If Cornell comes Martin will bar the gate and raise the drawbridge with enough supplies to last a year or more.  Martin and his men should be safe so long as he does not do something dumb such as making a sortie or being gulled into opening the gate or forgetting to block and keep a guard on the mine tunnel – things which I talk to Martin and his second about and absolutely forbid them from doing.

I make quite a point of taking Martin and Guy from Ipswich, the archer who is Martin’s second now that Angelo Priestly is the boys’ tutor, to the secret mine tunnel and telling them how to defend it and use it.  Among other things, I tell them to move some of the village pigs into the little pilgrims’ shrine where the tunnel come out - and let the pig droppings pile up so that no one will go in and find the tunnel entrance.

They can dig out the blockage I told them to put in the tunnel and push the pig shite in the shrine aside if they ever need to use the old mine tunnel to escape.

@@@@@

Intense days follow my return from Trematon and Launceston.  The men and wagons and plows I required of them are now at Restormel along with more and more supplies so it can withstand a long siege. No longer are the men practicing archery and walking together part of the day and spending the other part working on the two cogs we have under construction or whatever else they’re told.  Now it’s all training and weapons preparation with every man assigned a place in our battle formation.

Our forces are constantly getting stronger.  Horses and men are coming in from all over the county and galleys and cogs with new recruits, including a number of archers with long bows and crossbows, have arrived from Cardiff and London - and the galleys that brought them have turned around and gone right back to get more.

There have also been a number of “walk-ins,” including a couple of men who are so starved they are almost dead by the time they arrive.  And, of course, the lure of food and coins has brought many of the local men, mostly serfs and farm laborers, into our camp to sign on as fetchers and carriers and to work in the smithy making pike blades and arrowheads.  Several of them, men who seem to have strong arms, make their marks to be apprentice archers.

It’s all hands on deck as the excitement and anxiety about a being on the receiving end of a possible attack suddenly seems to grip everyone.

Thomas is still in London trying to hire mercenaries and recruit archers but Peter Sergeant and Evan are back and we seem to be making good progress: sacks of grain and other foodstuffs are pouring into Restormel’s siege reserves in response to the generous coins we are offering in payment.

Others are useful as well - the shipwrights have turned their wood turning talents to the making of pike staffs; and the local women, such as they are, are helping with the fletching of arrows and the increased cooking required for our additional men.

In a nutshell, our capacity to wage war is rapidly increasing.  Even Helen is helping tie goose feathers on arrows under the watchful and all too admiring eye of old Issac, our head fletcher.

I don’t trust that old man; he’d hump a frog if it stopped jumping.

@@@@@

Rain or shine every day starts right after dawn with two or three hours of battle practice for everyone including even the newest of our recruits and all the helpers and fetchers.  My personal fetcher and helper, Peter Sergeant, and I are usually there waiting for them when they begin to assemble.  Peter did well in London according to the parchment message I received from Thomas and he is now one of our master sergeants and my principal assistant.

Roger the miner from Yorkshire replaced Peter in London as Thomas’s second; Peter says he thinks Roger is quite reliable.

Our battle practice conforms to the way Henry, the master sergeant of our archers, trains our men to fight on our Cyprus training field.  It starts when a horn blows to call the men into their assigned positions around a chosen man carrying the flag of one of our three battle companies.

Each of the three master sergeants commanding the companies is a steady English or Welsh archer trained by Henry in Cyprus and a veteran of either Trematon or Nicosia or both. Inevitably each shouts and rages as he works to get his men properly positioned.

When they finish, the men in each of the company’s eleven-man squads are stand in a file in a straight line from front to back.

Standing in the first three place in each file are the shield and arrow carrying pike men from among our steadiest non-archers.  The three pike men are followed in the line by four or five archers. The archers, in turn are followed by three or four fetchers and carriers with extra arrows slung over their shoulders and pulling hand carts piled high with the file’s supplies and equipment.

Each file’s supplies and equipment includes stakes sharpened on both ends and even more bales of arrows, spades to dig holes to break horses’ legs, and sacks of caltrops for the horses and charging men to step on.

Those caltrops are damn dangerous because charging horses and running men aren’t looking at the ground to see their sharp points sticking up – until they impale one of their hooves or feet where upon they almost inevitably scream and fall down.

The first archer in each file line is the file’s sergeant and the last archer in the file is his chosen man. And each file stands shoulder to shoulder with the men in the files standing next to them.

Together the men standing in a file line form a company square with pike men three deep and shoulder to shoulder all along its front.  Most of the file sergeants, but not all, have been through Henry’s pike training on Cyprus and have experience using it in one or more of our battles.

Altogether we now have just over four hundred battle-ready archers with more dribbling in every day.  We also have about thirty crossbowmen in a special company and about twenty mounted archers with mostly longbows in another special company.

I’ve sent out messengers to all the farms and manors throughout Cornwall that every horse except pregnant and nursing mares is to be brought to Restormel as soon as the harvest is in.  We’ve now got more than twenty archers who can sit a horse without falling off; it is useful horses we’re short.

Once our three battle companies are formed up and inspected each morning by Henry and all three of the company master sergeants. They watch and comment as the three companies move around and assume various battle positions according to the various commands shouted out by their master sergeants - such as would be given, for example, if the company is to advance or if an attack by mounted knights comes straight at the company or from the side or rear.

When the companies change position the men walk in step to the beat of a rowing drum taken from one of our galleys.  The required walking together in step is one of the hardest things for the men to learn.  Henry in Cyprus came up with something that seems to work – each new recruit has a part of an old bow string tied around the big toe of his left foot.

So the sergeants walk the men to the beat of the drum shouting “string  .. string …string” so all the men’s left feet stomp down at the same time until the sergeants call “stop.”  It works.

Our use of three pike men in each file instead of the two we used in the battles at Trematon and Nicosia is intended to make it even more difficult for knights on horseback to break through our pike lines to get to the archers.  The same for the sharpened stakes which are hammered into the ground wherever the sergeants want them and then quickly re-sharpened.

The sharpened stakes are something new that Henry wants us to use.  He thinks they’ll raise merry hell on the knights’ horses who manage to get through our storm of arrows.  That’s because the horses of charging knights typically wear blinders and are ridden by knights with their helms down.  Henry thinks the horses will impale themselves on the stakes just as they do on the pikes - because neither the horses nor their riders can see well enough to avoid them once the knights drop their helms and charge.

If the horses of the semi-blind knights get past the stakes and caltrops and the leg breaking holes, they’ll run themselves on to the long Swiss pikes with their points aimed by the pike men with the butts of their pikes placed firmly in hastily dug shallow holes.

It is from behind all that frontal protection of scattered caltrops and hastily dug holes to break horses’ legs and the stakes and pike men kneeling behind their shields that our archers will stand and shoot their armor piercing arrows straight into any charging or advancing horses and men.

The basic plan is for the pikes to be a surprise to the men who are charging them – to only come up at the last minute after the semi-blind Knights get past the piles of downed horses and men and through the arrow storm and leg holes and caltrops and the stakes.  Only then will our pike men, whose newfangled twenty foot bladed pikes are much longer than the lances of the charging knights, raise them so they can be seen and aim their steel points to impale the horses and men coming at them.

Some say it’s the Swiss who invented the pikes, and God bless them for it, but it’s our own Henry and our smiths out in Cyprus who added the bladed hook that can be used to chop down men or hook them and pull them off their horses or feet.

If we do it right by launching our arrows straight and holding our pikes steady none of the knights will get past our stakes and pike men; if we do it wrong the knights and their horsemen will get past our pike men and in among our archers - and most likely slaughter them.

And, of course, it is always possible that the knights and their men will advance on foot through our arrow storm with their helms raised so they can see where they are going and not step on our caltrops or into the leg breaking holes we dig.  Each of our companies has something special for that to - its own heavy iron ploughs and plough horses with collars. The horses are much better than the slower oxen that the farmers usually use because they walk faster.  We had to scour Cornwall to find them.

The job of each company’s ploughmen is to quickly and deeply plow the ground in front of his company so its attackers will have to walk or ride in their heavy armor through both a deeply ploughed field and our arrow storm to get to our pike men.

If Henry is right, the enemy men who live long enough to get to our lines will be tired and off balance as a result of walking through the ploughed field - and be more easily shot down by our archers or speared or hooked or pushed to the ground by our long Swiss pikes with the new-fangled blade hooks our smiths added to them.

I think Henry is right; I put on some captured armor and pretended to be a knight attacking on foot.  Walking through a plowed field in even partial armor is exhausting even with the visor up so you can see where you are going - I was easily overbalanced and pushed to the ground when I reached our pike men. I would have been a killed man for sure.

Hopefully, of course, the attackers won’t even get to the pike men because of the steady stream of armor piercing arrows coming straight at them from our archers’ long bows.

At least that’s the plan and it will no doubt work perfectly - until the first arrow flies and everything changes and becomes confused.

@@@@@

After two or three hours of company drill the men are dismissed for their first meal of the day.  From there they go to their individual assignments: archers to practice, fletchers to fletch and so on and so forth. That’s when I go back to the castle to eat and think.  And today I’ve been thinking about the future of our fetchers and carriers when the fighting starts and also about where the best battlegrounds might be for us to fight.

From what I could see on the crusade, and more recently at Trematon and Nicosia, the lords and knights tend to fight individually because that’s the way they learned for their tournaments.  They charge in a great disorganized mass and begin fighting with whatever enemies they reach.  And they expect their men on foot and archers to run in behind them to join the battle and do the same.

The inevitable result is that the battlefield dissolves into a great mass of individual and small group combats between handfuls of men.  Hopefully that’s what Cornell will do.

But what if Cornell sends in his archers first to soften us up, particularly crossbowmen whose rate of fire is very much slower but whose metal quarrels have a range that is sometimes as great as or even greater than that of our longbows?

Our pike men can raise their shields and our archers can respond by shooting over and around the cover the shields provide.  But nothing can protect our fetchers and carriers who are behind our archers – they’ll have to temporarily pull back while the enemy bolts are coming in and then be brought back to support our pike men and archers when Cornell’s main assault begins.  We’ll have to start practicing that.

Chapter Five

Things are going well in London.  Winter is almost done and Roger Miner and I have already sent off two galleys and a cog packed with new archers and untrained recruits.  And we’ve got another thirty of them ready to go.

At the moment our new recruits and my ten guardsmen are sleeping and eating in Simon’s galley, the one that is always here with our coin chest on board.  That’s where our new recruits wait until one of our galleys or cogs is able to return from Cornwall to pick them up.

Our latest recruits are about evenly divided between untrained men and archers with their own longbows.  While they are waiting for our ship to come in the recruits live and cook and practice sword fighting on Simon’s galley; some of them are so ill-clothed we have to advance coins to them so they can buy hooded skins to wear and sleep in.  It’s been such a cold and wet winter it’s a wonder they survived long enough to get to us.

Roger is my new second now that Peter is gone back to Cornwall.  Roger’s an archer from Yorkshire.  Before he went off to the crusades with us he helped his father dig coal. That’s probably how his arms got strong enough to pull a long bow. He replaced Peter when Peter carried an important parchment back to Cornwall with our first batch of newly recruited archers – the one telling William about the mercenary company I may have recruited.

As you might imagine, Roger is known to everyone as Roger Miner since we have several other Rogers in our company.  Roger must be a popular name up there.

I say ‘may have recruited’ when I talk about the mercenaries because you never know for sure about mercenaries, do you? All that is certain is that their captain took a few of our coins and made his mark on an agreement to bring one hundred and fifty men and fight for us anywhere in England.  According to the Nuncio, who sent the mercenary captain to me.  The mercenary captain is a Scot named Leslie and, according to the Nuncio, he is known to have that many men in his company and to provide them if the price is right.

It’s a very good contract for the mercenary captain if he can actually provide the men and they are actually willing to fight.  I had to take him on the galley to show him the coins before he would make his mark – though I’m rather sure he doesn’t know what is written on the parchment since he held it upside down when he was pretending to read it before he made his mark and accepted some coins to bind himself and his men to us.

@@@@@

At the moment I’m in London and one of our new archers, Joseph from King’s Lynn, is on his way to Coldfield with Leslie to inspect his mercenaries and report back to me if they are real.  Coldfield’s about a three days march from Cornell’s castle in Derbyshire.  It’s a good place to marshal our mercenaries because from there we can either march to either Cornell’s Castle or to the old Roman road Cornell will almost certainly take when he leads his men to Cornwall.  Joseph’s taking three of our guards with him for protection when he or a messenger comes back to report.

There are supposed to be a company of hundred and fifty mercenaries waiting for me in Coldfield.  Almost all of them are lowland Scots and mostly swordsmen.  At least that’s how many I agreed to hire when their captain and a couple of his sergeants visited me in London.

Apparently Leslie heard about me being in London both from the Nuncio and from a couple of their men who had talked to one of our archer recruiters.  He thought I was recruiting archers for Cyprus and came to see if I needed swordsmen as well.

The mercenaries’ captain is a big white-haired older man named Robert Leslie.  According to him, he and his men are part a clan that lost a big fight over some cattle land more than thirty years ago and had to flee for their lives.  Ever since then, if Leslie is to be believed, they’ve been moving around and hiring themselves out as mercenaries to fight on the side of one English lord or another.

Presently they are raising sheep on some of Whitby Abbey’s grazing land on the moors northeast of Thirsk in exchange for guarding the Abbey. Or not looting it more likely.

As you might imagine, I question Leslie rather closely before I part with some of my coins.  Leslie himself is a strange man and there’s no denying it – his eyes and face look a bit different.

“Who are your people and how is it that you are mercenaries instead of living in Scotland?” I ask.

“The tale in the clan is that our blood was not pure because my father’s father, or maybe his father before him, was a mercenary from somewhere else who came here and was adopted into the clan when Malcom was King.  Always outsiders we was when I was a lad, and so was my father before me.

“My cousin’s family was always feuding with us.  Pushed us out and took our lands, didn’t they?  Claimed we wasn’t really part of the clan.  So here we are – fighting’s all we know to do.”

@@@@@

Finally we retire to the ale house at the end of the dock, the White Horse, and drink ale until we reach an agreement.  One of our archers, Joseph from King’s Lynn, and three of the guards will ride back with Leslie to visit his men – to see if they are real.  If they are and are willing to move to Coldfield, and on to another place, I’ll accept the price we tentatively negotiated for one hundred and fifty men to conduct a castle siege and battles against an English lord for up to eighteen months.

Eight days later the three guards return with a message from Joseph saying that Leslie’s men are very real and very hungry, and are already marching towards Coldfield.  So I send the three guards riding back with a message and a sack of coins for the mercenaries’ initial payment along with two more of my guards to help guard the coins from robbers - leaving me with only one guard left who knows how to ride.

The message they will tell Joseph and the mercenaries is to resume their march and meet me in ten days just south of Wakefield in Yorkshire’s Calder Valley.  That’s about a two days’ march from Cornell’s Hathersage Castle.

The mercenaries don’t know my plan, of course, because they can’t be trusted to keep secrets; all they know is that they’ve been hired to fight an English lord somewhere in England.  They won’t be told who and where and when until they need to know.  And I’m still not sure myself about the when and where; only the who.

Sometime in the next week or two, before the campaigning season begins, I’ll ride up to Calder Valley with Roger and the rest of my men and take command myself.  Only after I get there will I decide whether to attack Cornell on the road to weaken him or wait until he gets close to Cornwall and then attack his fief at Hathersage Castle so he is motivated to turn around and return.

@@@@@

It’s cold and nasty early spring morning in London.  The smoke from the cooking fires and fireplaces is so bad that it’s hard to breathe without coughing and choking.

Until a few minutes ago I’d been wrapped up in a horse blanket and snoozing in the stable waiting for a couple of archers from Sheffield who showed up earlier looking to enlist and then disappeared before I could get here to talk to them.  Now I’m awake and pacing up and down and beginning to get worried, very worried.

What in the name of God should I do? I’ve taken a deep breath and said ten Hail Marys and I’m still uncertain.

It all started a few minutes ago when one of my recruiters, Bob Little, who has been visiting villages in Sussex, gallops in to report that an army of mercenaries, hundreds of them, have landed at Eastbourne due to bad weather in the channel – and, according to what they’ve been saying in the local ale houses, will soon be marching overland to rendezvous with Lord Cornell at Sarum on the Salisbury plain.  Apparently they’ve been delayed because they had trouble unloading their horses.

There are notable names among the mercenaries according to Bob.  The big one is their captain.  It’s a name we know because he accompanied Richard on his crusade - the well-known Belgian mercenary captain and former priest, Albert Kerfuffle.  And that’s not a surprise since most of the mercenaries Bob saw in the taverns are apparently from the lowlands of Belgium and the Hollands.

According to Bob Little, there is no doubt about it – the mercenaries in the Eastbourne ale houses say they’ve made their marks to accompany Lord Cornell to Cornwall.

@@@@@

We leave in a hurry for Sarum – all my remaining guards and all the newly recruited archers and other men waiting for a galley to take them to Cornwall.  It’s going to have to be a quick trip.  I want to intercept the mercenaries before they get to Sarum.  The stable master will have to take care of any new recruits that straggle in during my absence.

But what do I do when I find Cornell’s mercenaries?  Can I buy them off?  And where is Cornell?  Is he already marching?  And if he’s already marching why haven’t I heard from Howard?  My head is spinning.

Everything is organized within a few hours.

Simon offloads the men I am taking with me and moves his galley away from the dock to make it harder for anyone to rob our coins now that he’ll only have himself and his sailors to guard them.  He’ll come in on the dinghy each day to see if any newly recruited archers show up at the stable where the recruiters are sending them.

For my part, I hire four two-horse wagons and ostlers to drive us to Sarum and care for the horses.  I also hire a couple of riding horses for me and a messenger.  This time I have enough sense to require they be amblers or else there will be no payment.

Our trip to Sarum is bone jarring and fast; helped, perhaps, by the gold bezant I promised our hostlers if they get us to Sarum before Kerfuffle and his men and my willingness to buy replacement horses along the way.

It works - we get to Sarum before the mercenaries even though we have to replace two of the horses and temporarily abandon one of the wagons at a village smithy near Winchester when it breaks a wheel.  More importantly, by the time we see the city walls of Sarum I’ve got an idea and the beginnings of a plan.

@@@@@

Sarum is a peaceful town and its gates aren’t closed or guarded during the day.  Our wagons clatter into the city through the Portsmouth gate.  As I had hoped, neither Cornell nor Kerfuffle and his men are here yet.  At least there is no sign of them.

I’ll never hear the end of it from William if Cornell’s mercenaries don’t come here.

Roger waits with the men while I head straight to the nearest ale house, the one with the sign of a stag painted above its open door.  I can see what looks like another tavern further down the street.  I’ll go there next.

I jump down from my horse, slap my miter on my head, and enter the tavern waving my cross at the astonished ale wife and carrying one of my bags of coins.  A couple of bleary eyed drinkers, a man trying to fix a broken chair in the corner, and a bedraggled whore are the only other people in the place.

“Hello all and God’s blessing on all here” … “Are you the ale wife?” I ask the plump white haired woman who is almost certainly the ale wife. I wave my cross to bless her when she nods and mouths a silent yes - and at the same time drop what is obviously a heavy bag of coins on the table next to her.

She nods again warily and the man puts down his tools and straightens up to look and listen.

“I’ve come to buy your services and all your ale and other spirits for Saint Epher’s Day.  Some fine Belgian and Hollander lads, several hundred of them actually, will be arriving in Sarum in a day or two and will want to celebrate Saint Epher’s day when they arrive.  That’s the day the church pays and they get to eat and drink all they want in the name of their saint.

I like the name Epher; it’s a good name for a Belgian saint, don’t you think?  That’s why I made it up.

Well, many of them can’t speak proper English, can they?  So that’s why I’m here – to help them by paying for all their food and drink in advance.  Just for Saint Epher’s Day, you understand.”  ….

“Oh, dear me, yes; I almost forgot.  Lord Cornell is on his way to Sarum and will soon be here himself.  These men are in his service.  He’ll pay for any food and drink you provide to the men after their Saint Epher’s Day feast.  Just keep track of how much they drink.  His Lordship will pay you and the church, of course, will guarantee the payment.  Indeed we will.  Such a generous man is Lord Cornell.”

With that I pour a rather large pile of coins out on the table.  The woman’s eyes widen and her mouth drops open, and the man comes over with the big welcoming smile every ale wife’s husband wears when a drinker with coins comes through the door.  Good.  No flies on this one when coins are available.

“And how many of Lord Cornell’s good Christian men do you think you can provide with food and all the spirits they can drink in one evening?”

Thirty minutes later and a bowl of ale later and I’m down the lane to the next tavern to repeat the process and again lighten my bag of coins.

@@@@@

My men and I don’t stay long in Sarum.  We only spend just enough time to make arrangements with all the tavern owners, buy some food for ourselves, and have a quick bowl of ale.  Then we go out through the city’s southern gate, continue four or five miles south on the cart path towards Portsmouth, and set up a camp off to the side of the cart path in a small stand of trees where we can’t be seen by travelers on the path.  It’s still quite cold but we’ve got food and blankets, firewood is plentiful, and we can huddle under the wagons to stay out of the rain.

We keep a close look out on the cart path and the next afternoon there is a shout from one of our lookouts at the edge of the trees.  Roger and I run to them and we watch as Kerfuffle and his men begin to come into sight in the distance.  Some are riding slowly at the head of the column but most are walking.  It may have taken them longer than expected to get here because of the difficulties they were reported to have unloading their horses in Eastbourne.

I quickly put on my bishop’s robe, grab up my cross and miter, and mount up to ride out to the path to meet them.  One of my guards, Alan the smith from Tamworth and the only one left of my guards who knows how to ride, mounts the other riding horse to ride out with me.  Alan is armed with a sword and carrying a sack of coins.

Roger and the four wagons and the rest of my forty or so men stay hidden.  The men’s bows and quivers and swords are under the sleeping robes so they’ll appear to be unarmed if anyone comes upon them while I’m gone.

This morning I had gathered my men together and stood on a wagon while I explained my plan to them and answered their questions.  I’m not sure they all understand but some of them do and they’ll learn the others.  Those who understood smiled a lot as I told them my plan.  That seemed to reassure the others.

@@@@@

It doesn’t take Alan and me long to find the mercenary captain.  He’s riding at the head of the column and just about the first person we reach.  He’s a huge man with a beaked nose that doesn’t look right.  It must have been broken and badly set at some time.  I ride right up to him, announce myself in French as I dismount by the side of the path.

“Greetings Captain Kerfuffle and a grand welcome to you and your fine company of men from Lord Cornell. I am Robert, the Auxiliary Bishop of Derby, and I’m here to welcome you to Sarum.  It’s upon me to count your men and pay their bonus on behalf of His Lordship.  He’d like you to camp right here and wait for his arrival.”

We exchange the customary pleasantries and I find his French to be as strange as his clothes.  He has words and an accent I can barely understand. So I speak slowly and loudly so he and the men who gather around us can understand what I say.

The mercenary captain’s eyes light up as I explain my presence and so do those of his men.  He and his men, I tell them, are especially blessed to have arrived here on such a special day.  Not only will each man this very day receive the silver coin he’s been promised as a bonus if he reaches Sarum before Lord Cornell, he also has the great good fortune of arriving on the feast day of Saint Epher.

Of course there is neither such a promise nor such a saint; I’m just gulling them by telling them things they’ll be pleased to hear.

“Saint Epher’s Day,” I explain as more and more of the mercenaries gather around us to listen, “is the one night of the year when visitors to Sarum get all the food they can eat and all spirits they can drink for free, and women too – just as Saint Epher and the weary pilgrims did those many years ago.”

They obviously don’t understand so I lay it out for them, at least for those who can speak French.

“Years ago the men of Sarun started a tradition of spending one entire  night each year praying on that distant hill over there while all of their wives and children spend the entire night in the church praying.  It’s the only night of the year when the husbands are gone and the church forgives women who stray – and they all do and they all deny it and are forgiven.  It’s a city tradition.”

“The women who don’t want a man spend the night at the church and leave their doors unlocked so anyone can enter and see that they’re good women and they’ve gone to the church; the others lock their doors as a signal that they are inside and want a man – and especially a man strong enough to break in and take them.”

Such ox shit; but if it’s good enough story for Rome, it’s good enough for me.

@@@@@

I can see from their eyes that Kerfuffle is not at all sure of my story and the mean looking skinny man who seems to be his second is downright suspicious as he dismounts to stand next to Kerfuffle.  Their men’s eyes, however, become alert and enthusiastic when I explain about the women and the locked doors and the need for me to quickly pay them their bonus coins because the city gates close at sundown.  After all, once the city gates are shut they’ll only open tonight to let the men of the city out so they can gather at the distant hill and pray.

Then I came up with a splendid idea for the captain and his fine fellows so they won’t miss the free drinks and the women.

“I’ve got to count you and pay you and you’ve got to get inside the city before the city gates close at sundown.  So I’ll stand here on the cart path and hand out the coins as each man heads off to the city.  And, oh by the way, no weapons or horses inside the city walls tonight.  You’ll have to leave them here at your camp.  City rules, isn’t it?  Smart, you know; men get rowdy with all the free drinking and women.”

The sight of me standing in the cart path handing out silver coin after silver coin to the men as they hurry off to the city is a huge success.  It soon convinces even the suspicious second in command of my good intentions and his good fortune.  He grabs a coin out of my hand and hurries off on foot with everyone else.

Within minutes only a single guard, three or four of the mercenaries’ whores, and a man so down with a pox that he can’t walk, are the only people left among the pile of weapons and the six horses left in the quickly established camp.  I wait until the last man is hurrying up the cart path and out of sight before I send Alan galloping back to get Roger and our waiting men and wagons.

The guard is tending to the poxed man when I walk up to him with an inquiring smile and stab him in the eye with the dagger that is always strapped to my wrist and hidden beneath my robe.  It’s a good death; he doesn’t even have time to become suspicious or afraid.

The four wagons arrive minutes later and we start filling them with the mercenaries’ weapons. Everyone works with a real sense of urgency. Even the slowest of our new men instinctively knows it’s time to move fast.

My hope is that we will be well away before the mercenaries can obtain enough new weapons and horses to find us and take us down.

While my guards and the new men are hurriedly loading the wagons and collecting the horses, I wave my cross to bless the poxed man while I loudly shout that we need to hurry to Portsmouth and drop a couple of coins into his hand.  Then I give a couple of coins to each of the whores for their trouble – and shrug my agreement when they ask if they can come with us.

The women aren’t stupid are they?  We’ve obviously got coins and Kerfuffle is going to be seriously pissed when he discovers he’s been gulled and they didn’t run to warn him.

Despite our efforts to hurry, it’s almost dark by the time we gallop out of the mercenaries’ deserted camp; and when we do leave we do something that is quite smart if I do say so myself - instead of heading back down the path towards Portsmouth as we might be expected to run, we go up the path towards Sarum and then go around the city walls to get on the cart path heading towards London.  I’m hoping this will throw our inevitable pursuers off our track.

We move as fast as possible in the fading daylight.  The only difference is that now archers are driving the wagons and the ostlers and I are riding some of the horses and leading the rest.

One of our archers shouts with wonderment in his voice a couple of hours after we turn on to the wagon road to London.

“Blimey.  What’s that?”

Behind us there is a glow in the sky.  It’s off to our left rear where Sarum should be; it seems there is a fire in the city.

@@@@@

All that night and all the next day we hurry on as if the devil is nipping at our heels, which he may well be.  Our only stops are to allow the ostlers to replace the wagon horses with fresh horses from among those we are leading.  Then we whip up the horses and press on.

When one of the horses goes lame it is quickly turned loose and replaced without the other wagons even stopping.  During the day I ride in front of the wagons wearing my miter and order other travelers off the road “so his great lordship might pass.”

All goes well until we get past Andover and reach the River Test in the early afternoon.

The ostlers swim the horses across, including the one I’m riding, despite the cold without losing a one of them. The problem is that there is only one ferry and it is very small; it can only carry one wagon at a time.

Like most river ferries it is attached to long ropes and is hauled back and forth across the river by gangs of men and women standing on the riverbank.  It takes several hours.  The only thing good about the delay is that the horses got a chance to rest and graze.

We are only a mile or so past the Test when danger finally reaches us.  And it’s not from the rear; it’s from the front.  Suddenly I can see a great mass of marching and mounted men in the distance off to my left – it’s a huge army with all its baggage and its coming down the cart path from Oxford and the north.

I’ve seen armies on the move before, haven’t I?  This one’s got almost a thousand men.

I gallop back to the wagons and begin shouting and pointing.

“Whip up the horses.  Whip them up, I say. We’ve got to get past the crossroads up ahead before that lot gets there… Hurry, whip them.  Whip them, goddamnit.”  Oh my dear God.  Who else could it be?

It is.  And half an hour later Roger and I are sitting quietly on our horses next to a roadside shrine – and counting as Cornell and his men come to where the cart paths cross and turn right to go to Sarum.  There are just over a thousand of the bastards and almost a hundred of them are knights, squires, and men at arms on horseback.

Chapter Six

Summer gives way to fall and winter without any sign of Cornell or any of his men ever appearing, not even their spies as far as we know.  It would have been easy to forget about Cornell if it wasn’t for the increasingly dire warnings Thomas keeps sending from London.

According to Thomas, Cornell has convinced a number of Derbyshire and Devonshire lords and knights to join him.  Thomas says he knows because Cornell is trying to recruit the same mercenary companies Thomas is trying to get to make their marks for us – and he’s telling the mercenaries that victory is certain because so many lords and knights will be with them.

Mercenary companies are dear even though they are between wars and plentiful at the moment; so where is Cornell getting his coins?  That’s the question I send back to Thomas.  I’m still waiting for an answer; probably because it’s been stormy in the channel most of the winter.

We keep a fire going all the time in the great hall so it’s actually quite cozy.  And the men are holding up fairly well.  There is always hot bread and some kind of meat six days per week.  About half the time it is the chickens, ducks, geese and old horses the peasants sell us; the other half is deer our hunters bring in and beeves, sheep, and pigs from our own lands.  They go well with the turnips, and onions which are available to everyone on an “all you can eat” basis.

George and the boys, of course, get all that.  They also get some kind of an egg every day in addition all the meat and cheese and bread they can eat - as Thomas insists.  He said one of the Roman scrolls he read in the monastery made much it.

All the good hot food and their skin tents and they hovels build for themselves to sleep in seems to have kept our men healthy over the winter.  Only fifty or so die from various poxes including, unfortunately one of the boys.

The boy’s death is very sudden.  He suddenly gets red spots all over and begins coughing and shitting in his bed a couple of days later.  We try hanging garlic cloves about him to lure away the poison but it’s too late - within a week he’s dead before we even have a chance to find a barber to bleed him.

George and Helen and some of the other boys also get the red spots and sweats at the same time but are over them by the time little Michael dies.   As you might imagine the boys and Helen are quite upset for more than a week, particularly Michael’s brother, even though Angelo Priestly and I kept telling them how lucky Michael is because he’s certainly with God since he was such a fine boy.

Thomas is still in London.  According to his last parchment he’s still living on Simon’s galley and still uses the stable as the meeting place where men come with information or seeking employment.  At Thomas’ request the defrocked priest who was Martin Archer’s second at Launceston long ago returned to Restormel to act as the boys’ tutor to help learn them their scribing and sums.

The ex-priest’s name is Angelo.  He’s an Italian with a great mop of grey hair on his head and sticking out of his ears.  George and the boys seem to like Angelo Priestly even though he sometimes acts very strange by falling asleep when everyone else is awake.

Lately after our morning drills I have been riding out with Peter and a few of our better archers to find possible battlegrounds where we might be able to take favorable positions.  There are several that look rather promising.

One of the best is a big open field that runs up over a ridge on the other side of Restormel; another that has particularly caught my eye is a long narrow field running up over a ridge on the other side of the River Fowey between Restormel and Trematon.

A third site, and perhaps the best of all, is on a ridge covered with farm land on the Devon side of the River Tamar.  It lies across the cart path Cornell is likely to take across Devon, the one that comes into Cornwall near the River Tamar ford at Launceston.  I particularly like it because it can be easily ploughed and has thick stands of trees on either side where our archers can wait in ambush.

Thoughts of Cornell increasingly creep back into my mind as the weather changes and spring approaches.  Last night while I was eating with Helen and the boys I decided to take another look at the possible battlefield across the Tamar in Devon.  Accordingly, after this morning’s battle practice I lead Peter and six of the archers who know how to stay aboard horses down the old Roman road that runs to the Tamar and Launceston Castle.

When we reach the Tamar we strip off our hooded robes to hold them over our heads to keep them dry, and then freeze our balls off taking the horses across the cold river.  The river is low and we rode across slowly to hold down the splashing.  All in all, crossing at the ford wasn’t so bad.

I wonder if anyone on the Launceston Castle walls saw us cross; since we can see the castle from the ford I’m sure Martin can see us.

We put our clothes back on and proceed down the cart path into Devon.  It’s a cold and dismal spring day.  We haven’t seen the sun for almost a week.

The cart path is an old Roman road that runs all the way across Devon and on into Dorset and even farther, at least that’s what Thomas told me before he left for London.  It’s the only cart path that runs all the way across Devon so it’s by far the most likely route for any army marching on Cornwall.

@@@@@

“Riders coming,” Peter shouts out over and over again as he canters back from where he’s been riding as a picquet a mile or more ahead of our little body of men.  “Looks to be a dozen or more.”

“Follow me,” I shout as I turn my horse off the path.  “We’ll move into the tree line and let them pass.  Better string your bows just in case.  Use heavies if they want to fight - but for God’s sake don’t launch until I give the word.”

Why would a dozen horsemen be coming this way? There’s nothing between here and Restormel?  Could they be doing what we are doing?

“Do they look like they’re wearing armor, Peter?”

“Not sure.  But I think maybe some of them.”

We reach the trees in time to watch the riders come down the path past us.  There are about a dozen of them and several look to be wearing helmets and partial armor.

The good news is that they are riding regular horses, not the great warhorses knights typically ride when they expect a battle.  Good.  It would appear they are neither looking for a fight nor expecting one; more likely they’re either on a journey or ranging over the land just as we are - to see what they can see.

Except they don’t continue on down the cart path past us.  They must have seen us before we moved off the cart path - for they stop when they see the hoof marks we left in the mud when we veered off the path and headed towards the trees.

“Oh damn.  Here they come.”

That’s what Peter murmurs as the riders turn their horses off the cart path and begin slowly moving towards us by following our tracks.  They’re carrying no lances but at least one of them appears to be carrying a crossbow.

This is a big problem.  Our horses are farm horses mostly fit for pulling a plow or wagon.  Whoever these people are they’ll probably have better horses and be able to run us down in a chase if they want to fight.  What will happen if we stay together is another matter entirely – particularly if they’ve never faced longbows in the hands of experienced archers.

“Dismount and tether your horses for a fast retreat; stay close together.  There are only a dozen of them and they don’t appear to have many bows.”

As the riders get closer I can see that two of them appear to be knights.  I can tell because they are riding horses caparisoned with their personal heraldry.  The other riders in the party look to be a combination of older men and young squires. They obviously know we are here and they’re coming very slowly.

“Cover me.  Use your heavies and go for the two who look like knights and the man with the crossbow first if there is fighting.  Then the others.”

As I say that I dig my heels into the side of my horse and move out to the very edge of the woods and raise my right hand in greeting.  My appearance and behavior seems to startle the men coming towards me.  They pull up sharply and their horses prance around about fifty paces in front of me.  The crossbowman has it drawn with a bolt in the slot.

“I’m Hugh of Evesham.” I shout the lie as I turn my horse so it is headed back into the trees immediately behind me.

“In the service of the Earl of Devon.  Who are you and what do you want?”

I say that as I’m clutching my strung bow and a heavy in my left hand -and holding them against the side of my horse in an effort to keep them from being seen.  I don’t want these men thinking I’m hostile.

Not that I’m any good at launching arrows from horseback, of course, but so I’ll have them ready if I dismount.

“I’m Sir Andrew of Farsham.  We are toll collectors and we want your toll for the use of the road.”

That’s nonsense.  Farsham is not even in Devon and a dozen armed men aren’t out merely to collect tolls - and they certainly wouldn’t be showing their heraldry unless they were at war or riding in a tournament. They’re either a party of outlaws collecting tolls to which they are not entitled or they are ranging in advance of a larger party.  Who are these men?

It’s a question I don’t have a chance to ask.  Suddenly Sir Andrew draws his sword and kicks his heels into his horse’s side and the crossbowman raises his bow.

There is no time to even think.  I instinctively kick my horse in the ribs to get it moving and bend over its neck to make a smaller target.

My horse lunges forward three or four steps into the trees when there is a distinct “thud” and my horse shudders and begins screaming as it crashes into a tree and throws me off.  It is as if I can see everything happening very slowly, even when I’m flying through the air as my horse goes down.

I’m sprawled on my side and Sir Andrew, or whoever the rider might be, leans forward on his saddle and closes on me quickly with his sword lifted high over his head and off to the side for a killing slash.

There is a grim look on the knight’s bearded face and I’ve got my arm up uselessly in an instinctive effort to ward off the blow.  Then there is a blur of arrows.  A couple of the shafts seem to miss him but the three that bury themselves up to their fletchings in the armor shielding Sir Andrew’s chest certainly don’t and neither do the two that go deep into his horse.

I see the man’s mouth open in a scream as his horse keeps coming and crashes into me as it turns sideways and goes down.

The next thing I know it’s starting to rain and Peter is slapping me in the face to rouse me and trying to lift my head.

“What happened?”  I croak.

“Your head got banged when his horse knocked you into a tree.  But you’ll be good.  Lost your horse though; she’s a goner.”

Sir Andrew, or whatever the real name of my attacker is, is on the ground a few paces away with a glazed look in his eyes and blood still pouring out of his mouth.

“Help me up,” I command.

Peter and another man, George from Haverhill I think, pull me up to my feet and I just as promptly have weak legs and sit down again.  The rest of my men are standing around in a little circle looking at me with looks of concern.  Oh God.  I can’t stand. Am I hit?

“Am I hit?  Did he get me?”

“No.  No.  You’re just dazed from banging into a tree.  You’ll be fine.”

“Where did they go?”

“Some rode off; but not all of them as you can see,” Peter replied as he gestured towards Sir Andrew and a couple of other bodies and a dead horse on the ground nearby.

About twenty paces away there is a man thrashing about on his side with an arrow sticking out of his belly; just a boy from the looks of him. Further out in the open area I can see a horse and a body on the ground and another horse standing with its head down and shivering.  As we watch, the wounded horse sinks to its knees and rolls over on to its side with its head extended as far out as it can reach.

“Any of us hurt?”

“Just you, Lord William, just you.  And your horse of course; she’s a goner.”

Once again I struggle to my feet with Peter’s help.  This time I stay up.

“Peter, do we know who they are?”

“No sire, we do not.”

Sire?  That’s hard to get used to hearing and would certainly surprise me mum – but I like it.  I surely do.

“Well let’s go ask that boy over there before he finishes dying.”

All it takes to get an answer is asking his name and offering him some kindness in the form of water to wet his lips.  In between his gasps and weeping we learn his name is Samuel and he’s the son of a vicar from some village called Samfield.  He’s accompanying the knight holding the local manor to help one of Richard’s lords regain control of Cornwall.  They are on the move early so the lord’s men can get back their lands in time for the spring planting - and the main body of the lord’s troops is less than two hours away and on the march.

The name of the lord the knight and his men are helping is Cornell and the Earl of Devon and some of his knights are riding with him.
@@@@@

Samuel seems like a nice lad so I give him a soldier’s mercy to stop his suffering - I smash him in the head with a hand ax one of my men took off the dead knight.  Then my men quickly strip him and the other dead men of everything we can carry and mount up to head back to the Tamar.  It’s wet and windy and too late to find a place to fight in Devon; if we fight it will be in Cornwall.  It’s time to ride to Launceston and Restormel to sound the alarm.

Rank has its privileges so there is no surprise at all when I take the horse of one of the men, I think he’s one of Brindisi’s Italian archers we recruited in Palma, and leave him to ride double behind George from Haverstock.

Peter and I work out our strategy as we ride for the river:  We’ll all ride together to the river and on to Launceston for a brief stop to dry off and get something to eat.  Then George and I will ride on to Restormel to sound the alarm and Peter and the others will get fresh horses at Launceston and return to the Tamar to act as picquets and watch the ford.

It’s a fine plan and it works until we reach the Tamar.

It doesn’t take long for our little band to reach the banks of the icy river about five miles upstream from the ford.  We crossed earlier at the ford and got wet.  Now know going to get even wetter and colder swimming our horses across to Cornwall - but we have no choice if we are to reach the warmth and shelter of Launceston Castle without using the ford which may be being watched.  And we know it’s going to be brutal because there are gusty winds and sheets of rain coming out of the west.

“Well lads, there’s nothing for it except to get even wetter and gallop on to Launceston as fast as possible to get warm.  Let’s go.”

And with that we spur our horses into the water and start across.  That’s when we discover that horses which aren’t particular strong have trouble swimming when they are carrying two riders.

We are almost to the middle of the stream before the river bottom gives out and the horses have to swim.  That’s when George’s horse starts to panic and goes under. I’m so busy trying to stay on my horse that I don’t even see what happens, but I can certainly hear it.

There is a great deal of thrashing about and both George and the Italian go under with the horse.  Fortunately George has the good sense to slide back over the horse’s rump and grab hold of its tail; our poor Italian never comes up for air, not even once.

I would not have been able to do what George did or even known enough to try.  But the ice cold water certainly did wake me up.

Less than an hour later we clatter over the drawbridge into Launceston, throw the reins of our horses to a couple of stable boys who come running out to greet us, and hurry into the great hall to stand with our teeth chattering in front of the roaring fire in its fireplace.  The lads will feed them and rub them down while we warm ourselves.

Martin soon rushes in from wherever he’s been and I begin to spread the word as we all rush to strip off our wet and freezing robes and Martin and the castle folk rush to bring us dry ones.

Two hours later five of us ride out of Launceston wrapped in sleeping skins in a doomed effort to keep our robes dry and the drawbridge is raised behind us.  We’re leaving Martin hard at work preparing the castle for a long siege that might start at any time.  Preparing for a siege is something we’ve discussed many times and he knows what to do – even so I repeat it so George can hear and then tell Martin that I’m leaving George from Birmingham to be his second.

Martin is as steady as they come but he’s not the brightest candle, you know.

Martin and George will bring in the local men and livestock and send the rest to a couple of more distant villages.  It’s a plan Thomas and I worked out long ago.  Among other things Martin and his men are to do is to make sure there are no skiffs or small boats on the Tamar that might be used to carry Cornell and his men across without getting wet. And, of course, the ferry below the ford will also have to be cut lose and floated down to Portsmouth.

We’re going all out to make it difficult for Cornell to get into Cornwall.  With a little luck maybe some of Cornell’s men will drown or get sick and die.

And also, of course, starting immediately no one except Peter and his men are to enter the castle for any reason no matter what tale they might tell; anyone else who asks to enter is to be treated as a possible enemy and sent on to Restormel.

“Throw them loaves of bread and send them to Restormel or into the village if anyone shows up and wants in, but don’t let anyone else in the castle no matter who they are.  And be sure to tell the priest and the villagers to open their doors and be friendly when Cornell’s men arrive.”

No sense in the villagers suffering if Cornell wins.

@@@@@

One of the archers and I ride all night and our arrival at Restormel on exhausted horses creates quite a stir the next day.  We’re wet and chilled to the bone as we once again strip off our clothes in front of the fire.  This time it’s Helen and Angelo Priestly and the boys who rush to bring us dry robes and warm food.

Messengers are soon heading off in every direction to sound the alarm and bring in the livestock to be slaughtered during the siege and other last minute supplies.  I’m dead tired but I barely pause before I climb on a fresh horse and ride down by myself to visit our ships and the men at the ship building camp on the river.

When I get to the shipbuilders’ camp I’m surprised to see that preparations for an attack are underway as if Cornell and his men will be arriving any minute.  Men are running everywhere and the tents are being struck.  I ride through a throng of men clutching their weapons and hurriedly loading the galleys and cogs with the camp’s food supplies and their tools and bedding.

“How long before they are here?” Apostos, the head shipwright inquires anxiously in his thick Cypriot accent - and then looks at me in stunned surprise when I tell him it will be at least a couple of days.

Apostos throws down the tools he is carrying to the dock in disgust, puts his hands on his hips, and glares at me in disbelief with his head cocked as if I am somehow responsible for everyone’s fears and anxiety.  All around us men have stopped whatever they are doing and are intently watching us.  They instinctively know from the way Apostos is standing that things aren’t quite as desperate as they’d imagined.

“All we know is what the rider who galloped through here yelled at us.  Scared us half to death he did.”

I lean down from my horse and give his shoulder a friendly shake.

“It’s just as well, my dear Cypriot friend,” I tell him with a smile and a laugh as I dismount.

“Cornell and his men really are coming and soon - so it’s quite the right thing to break camp and take the ships down to the harbor.”

Then I clap him on both shoulders and loudly thank him and his men for doing exactly the right thing when they got the warning.

“Better to be safe than sorry isn’t it; you did the right thing.”

Five minutes later I’m starting to shiver and sweat and a very worried Apostos is having a horse cart hitched up to carry me back to the castle.

@@@@@

My return to Restormel causes chaos and, I have to admit, I sort of enjoy all the attention.  Helen, bless her, takes charge.  She quickly sends a couple of men running up the stairs to bring down our string bed and another to the store room for some garlic cloves.  Within minutes she’s got me in front of the fire and under a huge pile of bed skins with garlic cloves spread all about on the floor to catch my fever – and then she takes off her tunic and burrows right in with me to keep me warm.

At first it does no good.  But after a while my shivering stops and I take a brief nap - from which I wake up and find I’ve got my dingle half way in her and she’s wiggling to get it all.  After a bit of that I find myself very hot and sweaty and very thirsty as well.

“The garlic is working, Master.  Here, drink this.”

It’s a bowl of ale which is well known to be what a man should drink if he is hot and sweaty.

@@@@@

I’m still a bit wobbly and barely back on my feet when three days later who should ride up to Restormel but one of the men I’d left to watch the Tamar River - and the very bedraggled new Bishop of Devon, Henry Marshal, apparently the cousin of a famous knight since he keeps mentioning his name.

The good man promptly announces he has come to see me on an important matter and he’s pleased to be here despite his hard journey.

It seems he’d come with a small party to the River Tamar crossing point where the ferry used to be and shouted across the water asking for a boat.  Upon learning there are no boats available he had placed himself in the hands of God and come across on a horse despite the freezing water.

And then, he said quite indignantly, “I was not even given the courtesy of admittance to the castle and a warm fire; instead they took me to an abandoned peasant’s hovel and left me there to freeze.”

In any event, he’s come, the good man says, to tell me that God has spoken to him and wants him to marry Baldwin’s widow Isabel to Lord Harold Cornell at Restormel.  The bishop has also decided that I and my men must submit to Cornell because “God wills it” since he’s the man King Richard has named to be the Earl of Cornwall.

Bishop Henry and I have long heart to heart talk and the good man changes his mind about “God’s will,” or so he claims, after he fasts and prays for a few days in the Restormel dungeon and has new visions.  It seems Cornell is still in Devon and paid the good bishop to try to convince us to yield without a fight and depart.

Employing the bishop was quite smart even if it wasn’t successful.  It’s also worrisome; Cornell may be smarter and more dangerous than we first thought.

It also seems, the cold and hungry bishop unhappily reveals, that Cornell has unexpected problems that may reduce his forces and prospects. It seems some of the mercenaries he hired arrived in an unexpectedly weakened state - just before they joined Cornell they somehow suffered a loss of a few of their number and many of their weapons.  Now there seems to be a dispute as to how much they should be paid.

Moreover, just before he left to convey “God’s will” to me a messenger from Derbyshire came in for Cornell saying that an enemy force, “possibly led by you although that is clearly impossible,” was seen marching towards Hathersage, his castle in Derbyshire.

One of the bishop’s tasks is obviously to see if I am here or in Derbyshire.

What the bishop tells me ties well with the news that came in from Thomas yesterday on Simon’s galley.  Thomas sent a message telling me that Cornell is on the march and that he would be leading a force of mercenaries against Cornell’s castle in Derbyshire.

I thought long and hard about letting the good bishop carry some sort of message back to Cornell…. but I decided against it; it’s better he should continue having his visions and talking to God in Restormel’s dungeon than talking to Cornell and having new visions in Devon.

I wonder how long Cornell will wait before he realizes he will not be getting any information from the bishop for a while, if ever.

Chapter Seven

The glow in the sky over Sarum increases as we move further and further down the cart track that runs from Sarum towards London. Once it becomes totally dark those of us who are riding dismount and the men get out of the wagons.  For the rest of the night we’ll lead the horses because visibility is so poor.

There is no need for Roger to chivvy the men to go faster.  They all understand the danger.  So everyone jogs and walks rapidly when there is moonlight and we can see what’s ahead of us - and we lead the horses slowly during the periodic patches of total darkness when clouds move in front of the moon.

We never stop all that long night long or during the next day; we keep moving as fast as possible because we want to put as much distance as we can between ourselves and any pursuers.  That, we all know without anyone ever having to say it, is what we’ve got to do to save ourselves from the mercenaries’ vengeance.

All that night and all the next day we hurry on as if the devil is nipping at our heels, which he may well be.  Our only stops are to allow the ostlers to replace the wagon horses with fresh horses from among those we are leading.  Then we whip up the horses and press on.

When one of the horses goes lame it is quickly turned loose and replaced without the other wagons even stopping.  During the day I ride in front of the wagons wearing my miter and wave other travelers off the road “so his lordship might pass.”

All goes well until we get past Andover and reach the River Test in the early afternoon.  The ostlers swim the horses across despite the cold without losing a one of them. The problem is that there is only one ferry and it’s very small.  It can only carry one wagon at a time.

Like most river ferries, this one is attached to long ropes and is hauled back and forth across the river by gangs of men and women standing on both side of the river.  It takes a couple of hours to get our wagons across.  The only thing good about it is that it gives the men a chance to rest and the horses a chance to graze.

I thought about taking the little ferry and sinking it; and because of what happened next it’s obviously something I certainly should have done.  But I didn’t and until this day I don’t know why I didn’t.

We are only a mile or so past the Test when danger finally reaches us.  And it’s not from the rear; it’s from the front.  Suddenly we can see a great mass of marching and mounted men in the distance off to our left – it’s a huge army with all its baggage and its coming down what my map shows to be one of the old Roman roads coming out of the north.

I’ve seen armies on the move before, haven’t I?  This one’s got almost a thousand men, maybe even that much again if you count all the servants and followers in its baggage train.

I gallop back to the wagons and begin shouting and pointing.

“Whip up the horses.  Whip them up, I say. We’ve got to get past the crossroads up ahead before that lot gets there… Hurry, whip them.  Whip them, goddamnit, whip them.”  Oh my god.  Who else could it be?

It is.  And half an hour later I’m sitting quietly on my horse next to a roadside shrine at the crossroads; I’m counting as Cornell and his men come to where the cart paths cross and turn right to go to Sarum.  There are just over a thousand of the bastards and almost a hundred of them are knights, squires, and mounted men at arms.

We turn the wagons around while we wait for the last of what is almost certainly Cornell’s army to come to the crossroads and turn towards Sarum.  Then the men pile on to the wagons and we whip up the horses - and head north as fast as possible on the very same track that Cornell used to come south.

Everyone heads north except Roger Miner.  I don’t even take time to write a parchment to William.  By the time the wagons are turned around Roger is galloping off to London on our best horse and leading our second-best in case the first one founders - to tell Simon to leave immediately for Cornwall and warn William that Cornell is on the march.  He’s to also tell him that I will be taking our mercenaries to lay siege to Cornell’s Hathersage Castle. Alan will be my number two until Roger returns.

Roger will only stay at the stable for a few hours - just long enough to collect any additional archers and recruits that have come in since we left and rent the wagons he’ll need to bring them north to meet us in the Calder Valley.

He’s doing well, Roger is; he’s a master sergeant for sure if he accomplishes this.  It’s up to Roger and Simon.  All I can do is hope that Roger comes back with more archers and Simon’s galley reaches William before Cornell does.  Damn, I should have destroyed that ferry over the River Test.

Two rainy days later, about twenty four hours after my exhausted men and horses cross the Thames at the ford above London where the oxen cross on their way to London, we come over a little rise and I finally see what I am looking for – a place where we can go to ground and hide for a day or two while we rest.  We’re not likely to be seen now – we’re finally north of the crossroads where Cornell and his men would have joined the great road and begun marching south.

We quickly turn off the north-south wagon road and lead our overloaded wagons over some grazing land and into a great stand of trees that seems to stretch to the horizon.  It’s probably the hunting grounds of some great noble.

@@@@@

We rest for an entire day.  Then it takes four days more to reach Joseph and the mercenaries at their new camp in the Calder Valley.

Hopefully Joseph and Leslie’s mercenaries will be there; I don’t know what we’ll do if they’re not.

Getting to the valley requires us to ford numerous small streams as we pass through a beautiful green and peaceful countryside – filled with sheep and empty of people.  The further north we go the fewer fields and people we see and the fewer pilgrims and travelers we meet coming towards us on the cart path.

My arse gets so sore after the second day of hard riding that I tie my horse to one of the wagons and ride sitting next to the horse driver from then on.  It’s easier to stay dry under a sleeping skin when it rains and, besides, if I’m riding on a wagon I can fall asleep.  I jerked awake and switched to riding in the wagon when I dozed off and almost fell off my horse.

We don’t stop at any of the villages we pass that are close to the cart path.  Women come to the doors of some of the homes and watch as we pass by and some of the village children came running out and try to talk to us; but we can’t understand their words and they can’t understand ours.

The countryside becomes even more quiet and deserted once we turn off the main north-to-south wagon road and head on an even less utilized path towards the valley.  The handful of villages we see from the track on our third and fourth days of travel are small and isolated.  We don’t see a single castle or fortified farm house.

At first I thought that perhaps the gentry live off the path; but we don’t see any houses or monasteries even when we are going over a hill and can see much of the surrounding countryside – just a few small and isolated little villages with five or six thatched-roof houses and barns.

All the houses we see seem quite small, though perhaps they only seem that way because the countryside is so vast.  None of them appear to have chimneys and many seem to be deserted.  They are in some ways very much like we have in Cornwall – woven branches and reeds attached to a wooden frame, daubed with mud to cover the openings in the weave, and topped with thatched roofs.  A hole in the roof at one end lets the smoke out and the rain and wind in.

One big difference is that most of the houses we see don’t have entrance doors the way we have in Cornwall or I remember from the days I spent growing up in the Yorkshire village where Thomas and I were born.  All they have are small openings in their walls that are large enough for a man to pass through.

Sometimes the openings are covered with hanging sheepskins to keep out the wind and rain.  Others don’t even have door skins.  Perhaps the people living in them only hang their door skins at night when they don’t need the light coming in from the doorway in order to see.

I remark on the difference to Alex from Dudley who is driving the two horses pulling my wagon.  He tells me it’s because the people up here mix sheep dung in with the mud they stick on the woven branches and reeds to keep out the night airs.

I nod my head in agreement but I don’t believe it; how would he know?

“Alex, where did you hear that?”

@@@@@

A strange little man sitting by the side of the path is the first indication that we may have found Leslie’s mercenaries.  He jumps up and stares at us intently.  I’m in the second wagon so I stand up and shout “over here” and motion him to me as our little column comes to a halt.

“Bishop Thomas?” he inquires in a heavy and almost indecipherable brogue, and then says something I can’t understand at all.  But I did catch the word “Leslie” so it looks as though we may have found them.

“Yes, that’s me,” I agree with a smile and a nod.

The little man breaks out in a great huge smile and begins pointing and motioning for us to follow him off the track.  We do and an hour or so later we come around a little hill and get our first look at the camp of Leslie’s company of mercenaries.  It’s a scattering of wagons and sheep skin tents and crude woven hovels and it’s filled with women and children – all of whom get very excited when we appear.  Within seconds we are surrounded by excited children

Joseph and Old Leslie, the captain of the mercenaries, show up immediately and, a few seconds later, so does the skinny man who is Leslie’s second.  They all have welcoming smiles on their faces and outstretched hands.

“Hello Captain Leslie; Hello Joseph.  It’s good to see you both.”

Within minutes the women and children have been shooed away and the three of us are surrounded by a number of men.  They’re of all ages from beardless youth to elderly graybeards – and they are all carefully watching and listening.  Even my own men come over to listen.

This won’t do at all.  I have much to tell Leslie but we need to talk privately.

“Captain, is there a place we can sit and talk privately?”

Leslie nods and a few seconds later the four of us are sitting facing each other on some freshly cut logs.

The men, both the mercenaries and mine, drift over and stand near us while we talk.  Leslie must have said something for now his men hang back so the four of us can talk privately.  The skinny man with the suspicious eyes joins us.  His name is Angus; he’s Leslie’s eldest son and apparent heir.

@@@@@

“Our enemy, the man I’m hiring you and your men to help us fight, under my command,” I tell Leslie, “is Lord Cornell of Hathersage Castle.  It’s about a two or three day walk from here.”

I tell Leslie and Angus everything I know about Lord Cornell and why we are enemies and what has happened so far.  Well, almost everything; I don’t tell him that William is my brother.

They don’t say a word but I can see they are both highly pleased when they learn that Cornell has taken himself and his men off to Cornwall.  They should be – it probably means a siege instead of a battle, at least until Cornell returns.  And the old man laughs uproariously that even his son smiles when I tell them about the misadventures of Captain Kerfuffle and his men.

On the other hand they are both highly unhappy about fighting under the command of a bishop who, so far as they know, knows nothing about fighting and warfare.

“My dear boy,” I lean over and tell Angus when he snorts in disgust at the news, “I haven’t always been a bishop saying prayers and collecting coins.  And I think it fair to say that I’ve already killed many more men than you ever have, or ever will for that matter. Indeed I could kill you right now before you could even stand up.”

Angus snorts again in amusement.  A split second later his eyes get wide when he realizes I’ve extended my arm and I’m holding a double edged dagger at his throat.  There is a collective gasp from the men standing around us which dissipates into nervous laughter when I smile benignly at Angus and tuck it back in my sleeve.

@@@@@

Almost immediately we hold a parade to count Leslie’s men and pay the next fee required under the contract.  One hundred and forty four men present themselves and their arms.  Mostly they are swordsmen with shields.  Only three are archers with their own short bows.

With the three Scots we have a total of twenty two archers with longbows and crossbows including my guards and the new recruits who came from London in the wagons.  There are also about a dozen men of uncertain value who signed on to be archer trainees and came with us from London.  We have more than enough arrows for that many longbows since we took so many off Simon’s galley and carried them here in the wagons.

Leslie then does something quite good – he invites me to speak to his men and explain why we are employing them.

All the men, including our own, gather around and listen carefully when I climb up on one of the wagons and tell them who we are and what we are going to do together and why.  Their women crowd in to listen with them.

Relief at learning it will be a siege instead of a pitched battle is apparent on every man and woman’s face - and the Scots all laugh with pleasure when they hear about the way we gulled Cornell’s mercenaries and see our men proudly nodding their agreement to my tale.

“Hmm.  There were a couple of short bows among the weapons we picked up.  I wonder if any of our trainees or Leslie’s men know how to use them.

“Captain Leslie,” I ask as I climb down from the wagon “do you suppose any of your men would like to accept weapons for part of their pay?”

Chapter Eight

Peter finally gallops in on an exhausted horse with news of Cornell almost a week later – yesterday he saw Cornell’s men beginning to arrive on the far bank of the Tamar.  He appears to have a force of about two thousand fighting men and a huge train of servants, helpers, and commissaries.  We have about nine hundred archers and pike men plus about four hundred fetchers and carriers.

Within the hour of Peter’s arrival he is wolfing down food in front of the fire in the great hall, I am off to join our army in the field, and Restormel’s draw bridge is up.  Now we’ll wait and drill and prepare the field until it’s time to fight.  Peter will stay for a few hours and then head back to the picquet.  According to Peter, the Tamar is still flooding.  No one will be able to cross for three or four days.

@@@@@

Cornell is coming with such a huge army that we have no choice but to agree to terms.  That’s the sadly reality of the news which the Archdeacon of Cornwall brings us. He’s accompanied by a man Peter sent from his picquet.

It seems that the Archdeacon is so anxious for peace that the good man crossed the River Tamar with a single servant to once again visit Restormel in order to give us the sad news.  But all is not lost – the Archdeacon is offering his services as a mediator.  He is also offering to collect and deliver the necessary coins so the Bodmin monks will pray for our souls if no agreement can be reached for our departure.

And, though he never mentions it, he’s probably come to inquire about the missing Bishop of Devon and spy for Cornell and his cousin, the Earl of Devon.  It doesn’t escape me that the Archdeacon is based at the Exeter Cathedral in Devon and lost the clerical duties associated with his office when Thomas was appointed Bishop of Cornwall.

“Your prayers and those of the monks are always welcome, Archdeacon.  But, as you know, we are sworn to send all our coins directly to the Pope.”  Of course I don’t mention that we are also sworn to only send them when we need to bribe him and his nuncios.

“And did you know that the new Bishop of Devon is visiting us, Archdeacon?  I’m sure he’d appreciate it if you’d spend some time with him, perhaps share a nearby room so you can pray for peace together.  He’s a bit lonely I fear what with everyone so busy with all the preparations that have to be made for the coming battles.  We can’t have that, can we?”

An hour later the Bishop and Archdeacon are in their respective basement cells and doubtlessly jumping around to stay warm and chatting in the dark about “God’s Will” and their futures - and I’m riding back to our battle camp on the hill west of the castle eating on the ox joint Helen brought to me as I was leaving.  It’s quite delicious.

@@@@@

A rider from Peter’s picquet at the Tamar ford near Launceston came in while I was holding a candle so a couple of my men could see to guide the archdeacon to his new room below the great hall.  The picquet rider brought a message from Peter - Cornell’s men are gathering on the other side of the Tamar and seem to be getting ready to attempt a crossing even though the river is still high from the recent rains.

If our little company of mounted and wagon-carried archers leaves immediately we can reach Peter and his picquet at our rendezvous point by dawn.

The ploughmen have been hard at work for days and the ground to the front and sides of our intended battle line is ploughed as deep as the ploughs can go from the front of our battle line to the arrow range of our strongest archers. Only a narrow path in the middle is unplowed and walkable.  That’s important for it means the plough horses are available to pull wagons.

The high waters on the Tamar means the possibility of hitting Cornell’s forces at the river ford on the wagon trail is too good an opportunity to pass up; so I give the order.  Thirty minutes later we leave to the waves and cheers of the men who aren’t going with us – eighteen archers on horseback and six wagons carrying another forty archers, food for the men and horses, and bales of arrows.

@@@@@

It takes longer than I expected to reach our picquet.  The sun is already coming up when Peter steps out of the bushes along the path and waves a cheery hello.  His calm appearance and behavior is very encouraging to us all, yes it is.

“The river’s still quite high and they haven’t started crossing.”

Our very first move is to turn the wagons about and give the horses a drink in the little stream running nearby and a goodly portion of grain.  While that is being done Peter leads me forward to the concealed position where he and his men sit while they watch the ford.

And there they are – a host of men is gathered in a camp on the other side of the river.  We can see their tents and wagons and sometimes actually hear them and smell their cooking fires.

All day long we sleep and eat and quietly watch - and once I think I see Cornell himself among a group of knights who walk down towards the ford where they will cross the river.  A few feet closer and I would have attempted a very long shot to try to take him.

Peter and I each notch a “light” we select for maximum distance and wait hopefully – but Cornell, if that’s who it is, turns and walks back to a tent in the middle of the camp.

Later that evening in the dark we quietly bring our men to their positions high on the riverbank immediately in front of the ford.  We’ve practiced it before but this time we’re moving up to the ford for real.

“Everybody stays down; nobody moves; nobody says a word; and nobody launches until I give the shout.”

Over and over Peter and I say it quietly as we watch in the moonlight as the men slip into their positions behind the logs we cut down and pulled into place weeks ago.  We look down on the river where it widens to reduce the water depth and create a ford - when the river is low.  Cornell’s men will come across right in front of us when they come.  We can reach about a hundred paces beyond the other side of the river with our “longs.”

I wonder if Cornell’s men or his mercenaries have ever faced long bows or know their range?

It’s always scary for men to wait in ambush and not be able to see either their friends or watch the enemy approach.  That’s why we’ve got the archers virtually shoulder to shoulder - so every man can see at least five or six other archers and Peter and I can see them all.

It’s important that no man feels deserted or alone.  That’s when men panic and run.

What’s surprising is that Cornell has not sent someone to range over this side of the river looking for an ambush – or has he?  Uh, oh.

“Peter, send Issac back to stay at the wagons and horses and make sure they are ready to go on a moment’s notice.  Tell him to stay there and to run to us shouting out as loud as he can if any of Cornell’s men have crossed elsewhere and try to creep up on us.”

Damn, we should have brought a horn.  And I probably should have sent the wagons on to Launceston.

@@@@@

Cornell’s men gather along the far riverbank and begin coming across the next morning.   They start having trouble almost immediately because the river is still high and running fast even though it is lower than it was yesterday afternoon.   They should have waited.  I wonder why they didn’t.

“Peter,” I whisper, “why do you think they aren’t waiting for the river to go down?”

“I don’t know.  But they’re damn fools if they try and that’s a fact.  We crossed when it was lower and it was difficult then.  Remember how we lost the man who was riding double with George the shoemaker?  This is going to be worse and many of Cornell’s men will be on foot.  Maybe they just don’t realize how difficult it’s going to be.”

Our position is on a bluff of land overlooking the River Tamar. The Tamar a very important river because it literally cuts Cornwall off from the rest of England - it starts only a couple of miles from the northern coast but flows southerly all the way across England to Plymouth. Cornell and his men must cross the Tamar somewhere if they are to get from Devon to Cornwall.

Cornell’s men are traveling on the only road that runs all the way across Devon, the wagon path that follows the old Roman road to where the River Tamar widens near Launceston Castle and becomes somewhat fordable when the river is low.

Usually there is a small ferry just below the ford.  Ferrymen living in the hovels on either side of the river pull it back and forth across the river to carry wagons and keep travelers’ feet dry, at least for those who are willing to pay the ferrymen’s small fee.

As you might imagine, the ferry and the ferrymen are not here today – as soon as we heard about Cornell coming to Cornwall with an army we paid the ferrymen to float the ferry almost all the way down the river to the river’s mouth.

They’d have taken the ferry all the way down if it hadn’t gotten stuck on a sandbar.  When the war is finished we’ll have to help the ferrymen build a new one.  We need a ferry here.

Cornell’s army came on the wagon road across Devon and got as far as the ford.  His camp is out in the open for all to see.  It starts almost at the water’s edge on the Devon side of the river; our position is on the Cornwall side overlooking the ford.

At the moment we’re under cover; we’re hiding in ambush where we can’t be seen from the other side of the river.  From up here on the embankment that slopes down to the river below us we can cover the entire river ford with our longbows and well into Cornell’s camp on the other side.

It’s probably fair to say that either Cornell and his men don’t know we’re here or they don’t know the range of a longbow; hopefully they are ignorant of both.

At the moment the Tamar is muddy and running fast and high as a result of the recent heavy rains.  We’re about thirty feet away from the edge of the water and about twenty feet above it.  When the river goes back down to normal we’ll be about a hundred feet from the edge of the water and about thirty feet above it.

All day long we lay hidden side by side in a row on the cold damp weeds and brush behind the logs and watch.  It’s damn cold and uncomfortable even though the rain stopped yesterday afternoon.  But we can’t get up.  If we do we might be seen by the men across the way.

Actually all of us don’t watch the ford and Cornell’s camp on the other side of the River Tamer; only I watch and I do so by peering through the branches of a big bush so that I’m not likely to be seen.

Everyone else took heed of my dire threats and is keeping their heads down and their mouths shut - and we all spend the day silently shivering in our damp clothes until the sun finally breaks through late in the morning.

By the time darkness falls the men and I are wet, cold, thirsty and hungry.  Now is the time to move back for the night before the moon comes out, if it comes out at all due to the clouds that were passing overhead most of the day and periodically sprinkled rain on us.

“All right,” I finally whisper to the men on either side of me.  “Pass it on.  We’re pulling back.  Everyone is to very quietly crawl to the rear and reassemble at the wagons.  Take your bows and quivers with you and all the extra bales of arrows.  No talking and don’t stand up and walk until you are well into the trees.”

@@@@@

Peter and the four ostlers are expecting us and ready.  They hand every man a loaf of bread and a piece of cheese from the stores in the wagons.  And every one gets a sip from a wine skin.

That’s our meal.  And when we finish we all jam together side by side in two of the wagons and huddle under their cargo rain skins in an unsuccessful effort to stay warm and keep our clothes dry.  The ostlers will all stay up and keep the watch; there’ll be no campfires to warm us tonight, that’s for sure.

Our sleep is fitful complete with muttered curses, loud snores, and periodic farts.  I’m not sure I really sleep but I must have done because once in the night I jerk awake from a dream - which I promptly cannot remember; except that it must have involved sex since my dingle is hard.

At some point the clouds part long enough for the moon to come out and the light causes me to jerk awake.  Daybreak looks to be about an hour or two away.  It’s time for Peter to lead us back to our position overlooking the river ford.  He knows it well – he’s spent the better part of the last two weeks watching the ford and the wagon track leading up to it.

“All right.  Everyone up.  Rise and shine, you lot.  No talking.  Time to piss and shite.  Then everyone grab a loaf from the bread wagon and assemble around the wagon pulled by the two grays.”

Five minutes later we follow Peter back to the ford.  Daybreak arrives about an hour later.  There is no doubt about it – the river is significantly lower.  Not back to normal, mind you, but significantly lower.  Actually not all the men come with us.  I tell two of them to stay with Peter because they have loud and uncontrollable coughs.

No sense taking a chance on them being overheard.

Chapter Nine

The sun is barely up when Cornell’s men begin coming down to the river to look.  At one point there must have been several hundred just standing around over there and talking and gesturing.  I’ve never seen Cornell so I don’t know if he is one of them.

“Pass this on,” I say to the archers on either side of me.

“Stay down and no talking.   The river is much lower today so they may try to cross.  Don’t string your bows yet.  I’ll give you plenty of warning when to string them and take out your arrows.  Until then keep your strings dry under your caps. Pass it on. ”

@@@@@

Something is happening.  A rider on horseback is going to try to make a crossing - and here he comes.  He makes it easily and we can hear lots of enthusiastic shouting back and forth.  My men are uneasy – I can see them starting to move about; a couple of them can’t help themselves – they are raising their heads to look.

“Down.  Everyone stay down and stay quiet.  All they’ve done is sent a horse and rider across.  Just one.  I’ll hang any man who puts us in danger by showing himself to take a look.

I hope my men know I mean it for I surely will.”

The successful rider dismounts at the water’s edge which is now a little over a hundred feet in front of us at its closest point.  And here comes another rider.  This one doesn’t go quite as far upstream before he starts.

Ah, that’s why - he’s holding on to some kind of line.  Of course, he’s going to try to bring a rope across for the men to hold on to when they cross on foot.

“Pass it on.  Here comes another rider.  This one’s carrying a line.  It’s probably for the men on foot to hold to avoid getting swept away.”

I spend the next several hours continue constantly describing what I see and passing the information on to my men - so they’ll be less tempted to raise their heads to see for themselves.  There is a lot to report.

First a dozen or so riders swim their horses across and two more lines are run from one riverbank to the other for a total of three.  On the other side I can see that they are tied to trees above the waterline; on this side, however, the lines are being held by the men who come over because there are no suitable trees or rock close enough to the water.

Watching the men hold the end of the lines reminds me of feast days in the village when we would have tug of war contests between the men and the women and children.

Before rest of Cornell’s men start coming over, and after a great deal of effort, the men on this side start what are obviously intended to be warming fires.  At first they use the wood the get from breaking up the ferrymen’s hovels on this side of the river.  But even that wood is damp - and damp wood and wet flints are hard to work with no matter how much expertise one might have.

Once they get a couple of fires going they begin building more fires using some of the dead driftwood from a previous even greater flood that left it high up on our side of the river.  When Cornell’ men begin climbing up towards us to get driftwood for their fires I whisper the order for everyone to start getting ready.  That’s when we lie on our backs and begin to string our bows and lay out our arrows.

@@@@@

Once the fires are going Cornell’s men begin crossing in earnest.  What they are doing is quite ingenious - each man places his arms over two of the lines that have been placed across the river and uses them to keep from being swept away while he pulls himself along with the third.

I wonder where they learned to do that?

It takes a while but by early afternoon several hundred men are across the river and huddled around more and more warming fires.  The lines across the river are full of men with many hundreds more gathered on the distant bank waiting to cross.

Once the crossing starts in earnest there are always several dozen men in the freezing water.  They hold on to the ropes and cautiously pick their way across until they reach the middle of the river where the water is too deep to touch the river bottom.  Then they hold on desperately and pull themselves forward hand over hand until their feet again touch bottom on our side of the river.

It does not always go well.  Several times walkers somehow get shaken or pulled loose from the ropes and are lost amidst loud shouts and cries from the watchers on both banks.

Once a brave soul on horseback spurs into the river in a futile attempt to save someone and is himself also lost when he gets far enough downstream from the ford that he cannot get out of the river.

At least I think he is lost.  I never saw him again after watching him and his horse being swept around the big bend almost a mile further on downstream.

Other disasters occur when the shields and weapons the walking men tie around their waists and necks come loose and sink or float away.  The shields in particular seem to be giving them a lot of trouble.  The water seems to catch them and pull the men off the ropes.

Throughout it all a large group of dismounted horsemen stands on the riverbank and watches the men who are crossing.  There are lots of arm waving and periodic orders shouted so loud that we can hear them on this side of the river.

If the men about the horses are Cornell and his knights and lords, as I suspect, I would bet they are worrying about how they are going to ride their horses across wearing their armor or how they might somehow get their armor across if they don’t wear it.

And I still do not understand why Cornell does not wait for the river to be fordable.  Surely someone in his camp must know that men and wagons can get across when the water is low.  Or did they think that since there used to be a ferry that the ford would never be low enough for men to walk across?  And what are they going to do with their tents and wagons and armor?

@@@@@

We’re about to be discovered.  One of the men gathering driftwood for the warming fires is climbing up towards us to get more wood.  He looks like a farm laborer which is probably what he is.

Suddenly he realizes that he is looking at a row of archers stretched out side by side on the ground behind the fallen trees.  He stands there gaping at us with an absolutely astonished look on his face for just an instant – and then he gets so excited as he turns and shouts his warning that he begins tumbling down the side of the riverbank towards the men holding the crossing lines and drying themselves around the fires below us.

I’ve already passed the word to the archers that someone is coming up to get more firewood and we’ll probably be seen this time.  They already know what to do when they hear my order - they are to stand up and shoot “longs” at the men on the other side of the river.  Their very first arrows are to go at the group of men standing around the horses, the ones I think might be Cornell and his knights even though they don’t appear to be wearing armor.

“Don’t start on the men on this side,” I whisper to the archers, “until there are no more good shots at the men on the other side.”

Then the firewood gatherer sees us and it’s time to act.

“Stand and launch to the other side of the river,” I scream as I climb to my feet and simultaneously draw my longbow.

“Get the knights standing around the horses.  Pick your targets, Lads.  Pick your targets.  Launch”

“Launch.” I grunt the word again as I send off my first “long.”

The air is quickly filled with arrows and what unfolds in front of us is absolute chaos and confusion.

For the first few seconds Cornell’s men don’t fully understand what is happening.  Many of them hear the shrill warning cry of the wood gatherer and those who hear it instinctively look to see where it’s coming from - but our ambush doesn’t really register in their minds and generate a reaction until every archer’s second or third shaft is in the air.  And then it’s too late for some of them.

Hardest hit of all is the group of eight or nine men who appear to be Cornell’s knights and sergeants.  They and the horses near them stagger and lurch and move every which way as our concentrated and totally unexpected shower of arrows suddenly descends on them.

With the horsemen and their horses quickly down or scattering our attention turns to the other men massed on the far bank.  They’re juicy targets because they are somewhat packed together and not wearing armor or carrying shields.

Our veteran archers make the most of their targets while they last – which isn’t very long because, to a man, all those of Cornell’s men who can still move begin to run or stagger away from the river.  Escaping from our arrows is the only thing on their minds.

A minute or more passes before we turn our attention and our arrows to the men immediately below us on this side of the river.

“Get the ones holding the rope” I shout unnecessarily with a grunt as I fly an arrow that catches a rope holder in the shoulder.  All the others have already dropped their ropes and are running either upstream or downstream to escape.

Mainly downstream; they’re escaping downstream towards the ferry crossing and Launceston.

Men immediately below us who moments before had been drying off around the fires and shouting encouragement to the men in the river are now running in all directions as they desperately try to escape our arrows.  A few very brave and very foolhardy men even grab up the weapons they’ve carried across and try to rush up the slope to engage us.

None of the men trying to climb the riverbank to get to us even comes close - if it’s one thing every veteran archer does instinctively, it is to concentrate the arrows he shoots at anyone charging directly at him with a sword in his hand and murder on his mind.

Interestingly enough, the charging men actually save some of the others by attracting the attention of multiple archers.  I shoot at man coming up the slope and two other arrows appear in his chest before my shaft aimed at his middle hits him lower down in the crotch because he is already being knocked over backwards from the first two.

Other than the knights who receive our first arrows, the men who suffer most are those in the water in the process of crossing the river.  Those who are just beginning to wade across the river scramble back the way they’ve come.  Their backs make tempting targets because they are the closest and have the greatest distance to run before they can get far enough away from the river to be out of range.  Many of them don’t make it.

A similar fate befalls those just coming out of the water below us.  They are still desperately splashing their way to shore while those who still can move are running or staggering their way along the riverbank to get away.  And many of the men already on this side of the river, perhaps as many as a hundred, do get away – at least many of those who are smart enough to start running downstream while we’re still shooting at the men on the other side of the river.

And not all of Cornell’s casualties come from our arrows – the loss of the men holding the now useless ropes leaves the men in the deepest part of the river desperately clinging to their now useless lifelines.  They go under quickly.  The next time I look they are all gone.

“Grab your arrows and follow me,” I shout to my archers when there are finally no more targets within our range.

Damn.  I should have thought about where they might run.

I pick up a quiver that still has some arrows in it and begin running to my right in pursuit of the men escaping downriver along the riverbank below me.  I can hear my men pounding along behind me as I catch up with the first of the escapers running in the shallow water along the edge of the river.

He’s wiry man with wet clothes and a bushy beard.  He sees me stop and nock an arrow as he stops and throws up his hands in surrender.  Too late; his hands are just starting to come up as my arrow enters his side and goes well into him.  There is a splash and a cry as he staggers under the blow and falls over sideways into the water.

“Keep going.  Take prisoners if you can.”

I scream my order to the archers who run past me when I stop for an instant to launch at the man who is now on his knees and struggling to stand up.  He has a look of horror and disbelief on his face.

@@@@@

Our pursuit of the men trying to escape by running along the bank on our side of the river goes on for some time.  At least a dozen fall dead or seriously wounded and twice as many surrender before we finally turn back.

We ignore the dead and seriously wounded men we pass as we hurry back to our position overlooking the ford.  They are not likely to have weapons or anything else of value.

Perhaps God or Cornell will save them; we don’t have time.  Everyone else we’ll take as prisoners.  I have a lot of questions I want to ask them about Cornell’s army.

Everything is surprisingly quiet when get back to our original position above the ford.  There are a number of bodies on the riverbank and in the shallow water below us.  Some of them are obviously wounded and playing dead; others are quite dead indeed.

A great mass of men is standing on the other side of the river watching us.  They must think they are far enough away to be out of arrow range; but they’re not.  They’ve obviously never faced longbows before.

For a moment I consider ordering our stronger archers to shoot at them.  But I decide against it – we’d only get a few before they’d all back up to get out of range.  Besides, if they don’t know how far we can shoot we may be able to surprise them when we have all of our archers and can cull many more.

“Rolph, take Giles and some of the men and go down to the river. Accept the surrenders of any who are faking or lightly wounded.  Bring them up here to us.  But leave those who are seriously wounded for their friends to care for and feed.  Kill anyone who tries to run or fight.”

But then I have a thought.

“Rolph, when you are down next to the river checking the wounded I want you and Giles to shoot a couple of arrows towards that lot up there watching us.  Use ‘longs” and deliberately shoot so your arrows fall at least one hundred paces short of the men standing over there.”

Rolph gives me a surprised look when he hears my order; so I explain with a smile and nod.

“I know you and Giles and the others have the strength to reach them from down there.  But I don’t want them knowing how strong you are.  To the contrary, I want you to gull them so they think they’re safely out of range.”

“If we’re lucky, perhaps the next time we meet, when we have all our archers, they’ll form up too close and we’ll get a good cull - so shoot a couple of longs so they fall well short; about one hundred paces if you can manage it.”

Ah.  Rolph understands.  I can tell from his knowing smile and nod.  Rolph’s got a good head, doesn’t he?

An hour later and Peter and I are questioning our prisoners and some of our men are being given new assignments.  My plan is to return to Restormel and for most of our archers, including all of our riders and their horses, to stay and hold the ford for as long as possible with Peter as their sergeant and Giles as his second.

The men who remain with Peter and Giles will watch over the ford and range up and down this side of the river on horseback to report on Cornell’s next effort to cross.  Rolph will ride back with me to Restormel after I finish questioning the prisoners and decide what to do with them.

We’ll take two of the wagons with us and a dozen archers to guard the prisoners.  The rest will stay here to guard the ford.

@@@@@

The prisoners are very much what I expected – a few are villeins of Cornell and his relatives, farm serfs with little or no training or experience of any kind; a few others are Kerfuffle’s mercenaries who were just starting to cross when the fighting commenced; and the rest are churls, free men who have attached themselves to Cornell and his supporters as tenants and servants.  All the churls brought weapons across the river, mostly swords, and several have extensive experience fighting in France.

Only one of our prisoners is a knight.  He’s young and I think I recognize him despite his bedraggled and muddy appearance; he’s the first rider who crossed the river riding his horse.  He took an arrow in the leg when he was running down the riverbank and then failed at playing dead.

He’s one of Cornell’s knights and obviously a brave and ambitious young man seeking recognition – and therefore quite likely to die before his time and potentially dangerous.

“I saw you ride across the river and I’m impressed at your skill and courage.  Please tell me how you came to be in the service of Lord Cornell?”

My flattery and the offer of a loaf of bread are successful.  The man’s name is Francis.  His long dead father was a knight with the honor of a small manor near Calais.  His family placed him as a page in Hathersage castle sometime before Henry died and Richard took the crown.

Francis only recently won his spurs.  His only experience other than a couple of tournaments was in one of Richard’s battles against the Capetian dukes in France last year.  At the time he was serving as a squire for one of Cornell’s knights.  Cornell took them both to France when he went over to join Richard.

This one’s very dangerous.  If he gives his parole I’ll send him to Launceston; if he doesn’t he’ll have to help the churchmen with their prayers in Restormel’s cells until I can exchange him or Cornell ransoms him.  But if I do that he’ll know about them and their fate.

Chapter Ten

In a few minutes some of my men and I are going to set off for Restormel with our prisoners and the wagons.  We’ll walk all night so we can get there before the sun goes down tomorrow.  I could take them all to Launceston Castle, but I won’t – I don’t want so many prisoners in the castle helping to eat up its siege stores.

Peter and the rest of our men, those with horses to ride, will remain behind to patrol the river and watch for Cornell and the invaders.  They’ll base themselves in Launceston Castle and carry all the arrows and supplies they can carry as they range up and down the river on horseback in groups of two or three men.

I’m only leaving behind the men with horses to ride.  It’s too dangerous to leave the others – sooner or later Cornell will get his horsemen across and be able to ride down any of our men who are on foot.

It will be interesting to see how and where Cornell tries to come across and get a foothold on this side of the river now that he knows we have archers but doesn’t know how many.

“How do you think they’ll come, Peter?”

“They’ve still got the ropes and the river’s going down so they may try to swim a few men across here or elsewhere; get them into defensive positions to hold the crossing while others come over.  Our patrols will carry extra arrows and be able stop them with our longbows, of course, if we come across them before too many get across.”

Peter pauses for a moment and thinks about my question.

“But that’s not what I think will happen,” he finally says.

“I think his mounted men will all swim across the river at the same time at some open area where they can see we are not on the other bank.  Once they get across and establish themselves they’ll use the ropes to bring the others over.  Then they’ll march on the ford and hold it while their wagons come across.”  He’s right.  Of course he is.

“I think you’re right,” I tell him.  “And I think Cornell will do it quickly – both because he’s got his wounded men to rescue at the ford and because he is likely to know that we don’t have enough horses to leave many archers along the river.”

@@@@@

Before we leave I parade the prisoners and tell them that we are decent men and will not enslave or hurt them if they behave during the trip to Restormel - but if they attempt to escape they will be hunted down as outlaws and hung.

My plan is for the prisoners to walk during daylight hours while my men ride in the wagons; then have them ride in the wagons with their feet and hands tied when it’s dark and my men are walking around them.

Francis is another matter entirely.  I tell him my terms in front of the other prisoners - if he will give me his parole as an honorable knight not to take up arms ever again in Cornwall I will free him without requiring a ransom immediately after the war is over.

Of course I ask for his parole in front of all the other prisoners; so everyone at his Hathersage Castle home will know he gave his word and he’ll be disgraced as a knight if he doesn’t keep it.

What I don’t do is tell Francis what will happen if he does not give his word.  He’ll be in the Restormel cells where he will undoubtedly find out about the clerics who have disappeared and are not likely to be seen again. So if he doesn’t give his knightly word he’ll either have to be sent to permanently disappear in one of the cells in Launceston’s dungeon or taken to our ships at the mouth of the River Fowey and chained to a rowing bench until he can pull an oar on our next galley bound for Cyprus.

My concerns about Francis come to nowt.  I’m relieved when Francis swears his parole in front of the other prisoners.  He seems like a nice young man so I’ll take him and our other prisoners to our camp near Restormel.

@@@@@

Our return trip is tiring but uneventful.  We reach Restormel in time for me to enjoy a meal with Helen and George and the rest of Thomas’s boys.  Before I sit down with them I send the wagons and what’s left of our prisoners on to our main camp about three miles to the west.

None of our prisoners ran during the day when they were walking, probably for fear that our archers would see them run and put an arrow in them.  Last night in the dark, however, four of them somehow jumped out of the moving wagons and bolted off into the darkness together.

It really doesn’t matter.  They’re not likely to be much help to Cornell even if they avoid starving to death long enough to rejoin him.

@@@@@

My return to Restormel is joyous with great hugs and kisses for everyone, excited reports from George and the boys about their studies and catching fish in the river, and Helen rushing to bring me warm clothes and a bowl of ale.

We all eat a delicious hot soup of onion and cheese in a hollowed out bread loaf and listen as George and the excited boys tell us about their studies.  I listen patiently while they chant their sums together in unison, chatter with each other and me in Latin, and show me the words they are learning to write on their slates.

Helen just sits with us at the table in front of the fireplace and listens until Angelo Priestly leads the boys up the stairs to bed and the great hall finally goes quiet.

We sit alone in front of the great fire without speaking until the talking in the sleeping room above us quiets.  Then she comes around the table to where I’m sitting, lifts her gown and straddles me right there in front of the fireplace.

Afterwards she takes me by the hand and leads me upstairs in the darkness to our little corner and undresses me.

“I’ll be right back, don’t go away,” she whispers into my ear.

I can sense her moving away in the darkness and then I can hear her going down the stone stairs to the great hall.  A few minutes later she comes back up the stairs, pulls the sleeping skins off our bed, and has me to lie on its leather strings while she rubs me all over with a warm wet rag. Afterwards she puts all the skins back on the bed and has me burrow in with her while she gives me a wonderful stroking all over my body.

We stayed awake half the night touching and enjoying each other - and I sleep late the next morning until she gently shakes me awake and hands me a wooden spoon and a bowl of warm gruel with some kind of raw egg beaten into it “to keep your strength up.”  I was able to eat about half of it before I had to get up to pee.

@@@@@

It is at least an hour after the sun comes up before I pull on my clothes and walk down the narrow staircase to the great hall – and find Henry and a dozen or so of my senior sergeants waiting to talk.  Even Harold is here from the sailors’ camp.  They are obviously anxious for news and want someone to tell them what to do.

After we shake hands and joke a bit the sergeants sit on the benches running along the table and listen as I stand at the end of the table and bring them up to date.  My description of the little battle at the River Tamar ford and the success of our archers gets their fierce approval.  They’re all archers except Harold so it would, wouldn’t it?

“We don’t have any idea who was standing around their horses on the other side but one thing is damn certain – most of them aren’t standing now and never will.”

We talk of many things and I go out of my way to make sure everyone understands how well Peter and our archers performed.  The men in our companies, they all agree, are trained and ready for Cornell.  What they ask about, and I can’t tell them because I don’t know myself, is how Thomas is doing with the mercenaries he seems to have hired.

There has been no further word from Thomas since Simon’s galley arrived more than a week ago – all we know is that he has signed a contract for a company of Scottish mercenaries and is off to meet them and lead them in an attack against Cornell’s Hathersage Castle - and a siege if they don’t take it immediately.

Our hope, of course, is that the fighting at Hathersage will prevent reinforcements from being sent to Cornell here in Cornwall; at the very best, of course, the attack will so worry Cornell that he’ll return to relieve Hathersage.

Chapter Eleven

Hathersage Castle comes into view late in our third day of marching.  It’s taken us longer than I would have thought because Leslie’s entire clan is marching with all of its men, women, and children.  Hmm.  That gives me an idea.

People see us marching along the track that passes through their fields and pastures and so do the travelers we meet coming the other way on the wagon path.

As you might expect, they all give us a wide berth.  But for the most part no one seems to be greatly excited by our presence.  The only exception is a knight who comes galloping out his castle to demand a toll – and quickly turns around and gallops back to raise his drawbridge when he sees the men walking around Leslie’s horse at the head of the column with crossbows and the crude old fashioned swords on their shoulders.

It doesn’t escape me that Leslie has all three of his crossbow men walking with him at the front of the column.  The old swords look impressive but it is the armor piercing crossbow quarrels that concern knights and the length of their cast that affects castle sieges.  Longbows in the hands of a trained archer have almost the same cast and impact while shooting as much as ten times more frequently.

“Captain Leslie, have you or the nobles hereabouts ever faced longbow men?”  Have nobles such as Lord Cornell?  That’s the question I’m really asking.

@@@@@

My archers are walking with the Scots and they seem to be getting on well.  I did another count after Roger came back from London with four newly recruited archers and a couple of apprentice archers who will need a lot of additional training to strengthen their arms.

At the moment we have a grand total of twenty eight longbow men and just over a thousand arrows.  Leslie also has three crossbowmen with less than a dozen knight-killing metal quarrels apiece, a couple of bowmen with short bows and about twenty arrows per man, and about twenty pikes without the blade and hook we add to ours – basically just long pole with an iron spearhead on the end.

Leslie and I are riding side by side at the head of the column so we can talk.  He likes to talk and I encourage him.

“How would you and your men stop knights on horseback, if I might ask?”

“Why Bishop, if they charge us we’ll get behind a line of our pikes and use our swords to slaughter them when the pikes knock them off their horses.”

And what happens if they get through your single line of pikes without being knocked off their horses?

@@@@@

Cornell’s Hathersage Castle looks impressive and strong when we see it from a distance.  It looks even more imposing and difficult to defeat when we get closer.  It’s an awesome castle - its ramparts are manned and the drawbridge over its moat is raised.  They know we’re coming.

Leslie and I sit side by side on our horses looking at it.  Roger and Leslie’s son are right behind us.  Finally I shake my head and tell him what I think.

“We’ll never take it by force; either we gull them and they let us in or we lay siege on the castle and starve them out.”

“Aye.  That’s God’s truth, it surely is.  It’s a siege for sure.”

With that piece of wisdom ringing in my ears, I watch as Leslie begins leading his men in a great circle around the castle and begins assigning positions to his men.

While Leslie is making his initial dispositions I ride into the nearby village where the castle’s serfs and churls live.  It’s totally deserted.

The fact that the village is deserted is encouraging.  It most likely means that some or all of the villagers have taken refuge in the castle and will join its defense.  That’s actually encouraging since we have no intention directly assaulting on the castle – it’s good because it means there will be more people inside to help eat up its stores of food; it’s bad because it means there will be more men for sorties.  It also means we’ll have someplace to shelter my archers and house Leslie’s mercenaries and their families.

What we don’t know, and would dearly like to know, is how many people are inside the castle and the size of its food reserves.

@@@@@

It’s been three weeks of almost constant rain since we began the siege of Hathersage Castle.  So far there has been no sign of either its surrender or a relief force.  There isn’t much I can do here so I’m thinking about leaving Roger here with the Scots to continue the siege and returning to Cornwall.  I want to be with George and my students to make sure they are learning what they need to learn.

My thinking changes when a messenger rides in from London with a parchment from Cornwall.  In his message William reports that pilgrims and merchants are again moving between Cornwall and Devon - and the travelers coming out of Devon all say that Cornell and four of his five household knights were killed on the River Tamar by an ambush of enemy archers.

William says he intends send a force of riders into Devon in an effort to see if the reports are true. If Cornell is really dead and the threat has passed, William intends to send all of our ships except a cog for training and two galleys back to the Holy Land.  He’ll send them with a goodly number of our archers and archer apprentices.

Four days later another messenger arrives from William.  Cornell is dead for sure and William wants the siege to continue until Hathersage surrenders and we occupy it.  He wants to add Hathersage to our holdings?

It’s time for me to go home to Cornwall.

- End of Book Four -

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Books One, Two, and Three of “The Archers” saga are also available in Kindle editions.   The parchments for Book Five are being pieced together and translated.  Book Five will be released sometime in 2015.  Readers may also enjoy the similarly action-packed novels of the author’s “The Soldier” saga.

All of Martin Archer’s novels are available as Kindle eBooks (Search Amazon.com for “Martin Archer.”) and will sooner or later be available in print.

Other exciting eBooks by Martin Archer – “The Soldier” saga.

“Soldiers and Marines”   (The story of a young soldier fighting in Korea)

“Peace and Conflict”   (He fights with the Legion and the allies in Vietnam)

“War Breaks Out”   (The Soviet Union invades Germany and NATO fights)

“War in the East”  (The West gets involved when China invades Russia)

“The Islamic–Israeli War”  (An Islamic Coalition invades Israel and changes the Middle East.)

Sample Pages from Book One of the Archer Saga

“THE ARCHER”

Chapter One

“THE ARCHER AND THE BISHOP”

The weary men straggle out of the desert and into the port late in the morning.  There are eighteen of them, all English archers, and most of them have walked every night for the past three days.  The only exceptions are two wounded men on a makeshift litter being dragged behind a dusty camel and a brown robed priest riding on an exhausted horse and holding a sleeping young boy. The boy is wrapped in a dirty priest’s robe to protect him against the chill of the spring day.

The dirty and begrimed young man walking at the front of the column stops and waits until the priest reaches him.

“How’s George?”

He gestures with a tired wave of his arm towards the sleeping child as he asks.

“Your son is fine,” answers the priest as the horse stops.

The boy wakes up and twists around to get more comfortable in the Priest’s arms when the horse stops.  Then he sits up straight and looks around.

“Put me down Uncle Thomas, I want to walk with my father and the men for a while.  My arse is sore and I’m thirsty.”

And with that he wriggles out of the priest’s arms and slides off the horse.  He is barefoot and wearing a rough brown shirt that hangs to his knees.   Edward the tailor made it for him before he’d been killed by the unlucky stone that had been catapulted over the wall by the Saracens and hit him in the head.

“Look Papa, what is that?”

The boy asks the question as he massages his rear with one hand and with the other points to the flat gray expanse of the Mediterranean that spreads out beyond stone houses and the ships in the harbor.

“That’s the big water I told you about, the one that is so salty you can’t drink it.  And those things out there on top of the water are the big ships.  They’re called cogs and they carry people across the big water just like the boats on a river can carry people across the river.  The only difference is that those out there are much bigger.”

The boy is not convinced as he stands there studying the scene in front of us.

“They look little.”

“They’ll look bigger when we get closer.”

“Really?”

The boy looks back intensely at the scene in front of him.  Then he shakes his head and looks back at his father questioningly.

“Your Uncle Thomas is right, George.  All of us can fit on one of those cogs with room to spare.  The big ones can carry as many as a hundred men or even more.  That’s how your uncle Thomas and I and all the archers got here from England.  Almost a hundred of us came on each boat.  And that’s how we’ll go back – all together.”

Except we’ve got to get our pay so we can hire a boat and there will only be eighteen of us instead of the one hundred and ninety two that came out from England with King Richard seven years ago - and that’s if we can get the arrow out of Brian’s leg without it rotting and Athol the ox drover stops getting dizzy and falling down when he tries to walk.

What I don’t tell George is that we’ll have no way to hire a boat unless the bishop pays us all the money Lord Edmund contracted to pay us to defend his fief and villages two years ago.  Well we’ll know soon enough.

The walk down the hill to the port takes about an hour.   We follow the dirt trail down the hill to the low walled caravanserai where the traders and their horses and livestock stay outside the city walls.

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The city is so packed with Christians and Jews fleeing the oncoming Saracens that the city gates are closed and the master of the caravanserai adjacent to the city is only allowing his traditional merchant customers and rich refugees to enter.  Everyone else is camping and starving outside - thousands of them.  Even at a distance we can smell the people and their livestock and see the dust they are raising.

Shouts and a great wail go up as we come into sight and the people see us walking in.  They know what our arrival means.  It means Lord Edmund’s castle and lands have been lost and the Saracens will be coming.  At best, these people will have to convert to Islam; and most likely they’ll all be put to the sword or taken as slaves.  And so will we if the Bishop of Damascus doesn’t pay us so we can get away or ransom ourselves to freedom.

The caravanserai master himself, a great bearded man, comes to the gate with several armed retainers as we approach and the shouting and weeping crowd grows around us with their shouted questions and reaching arms.  He looks over my little column and then at me with a baleful eye as I stop in front of him with George holding my hand.

“So it is true?  Lord Edmund and the castle have finally fallen?”

“Aye, they have; the road to Damascus is open.”

The caravanserai master crosses himself.

“Well, everyone needs a caravanserai so I guess I’ll be a Moslem again until the Christians or Jews come back.  But these people,” he says as he shakes his head in resignation and gestures both towards the people gathering around us and the distant crowds, “I just don’t know.”

Well I know.  Anyone who stays here will either be slaughtered or become a slave. That’s why we left four days ago when Lord Edmund fell.

Where is the Bishop of Damascus?

“He’s in the city at the Church of Saint Mary.”  Then he gestures at the crowd again and shakes his head disgust and resignation, and adds “but you better hurry if you want to see him.  I’ve heard he’s about to run off and leave.

Read more:  Search Amazon.com for “Martin Archer”

or “The Archer.”

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Sample pages from Book One of “The Soldier” saga

Book One

SOLDIERS AND MARINES

Dust and gravel periodically spray out behind the Jeep as it slowly backs up towards the top of the low ridge.  The early morning sun is bright and already hot, and the periodic sound of thunder in the background has been coming closer for two days.

Three men are in the slowly backing Jeep as it moves over the abandoned farm land and up towards the ridgeline.  The passenger sits impassively almost as if he’s in a trance.  The gunner on the mounted machine gun crouches and squints down the barrel into the sun as he constantly moves it to the left and right.  He is chewing furiously on a mouthful of gum.

Everyone in the Jeep is trying to be as quiet as possible.  But it’s not working because of the engine noise and the periodic burst of sound each time the Jeep runs over a patch of rocks or breaks a stick.  Each of the men is terribly anxious without saying it out loud.

The occupants of the Jeep are nervous.  And rightly so.  It’s the morning of July 29th and thirty four days earlier the Soviet-trained North Korean army poured over the border into South Korea.  It catches the poorly equipped and under trained garrison troops of the South Koreans and their allies by surprise - they are everywhere overrun and either killed or pushed back.

The sky is partially cloudy and the flat field of the upward sloping rocky farmland is empty of life and crops.  There are great towering white clouds to the north, but at the moment the men are traveling in bright summer morning sunshine.  It’s dusty and hot on the rough track across the abandoned farm.  The mud ruts from a previous rain are baked hard and the men in the Jeep don’t know what they will find when they get to the top of the rise they are slowly approaching.  But they are highly visible as they slowly bounce over the uneven ground and seriously worried about it.

“Careful, goddamn it, careful,” the passenger hisses in an unnecessarily low voice as they slowly approach the summit.  He is twisted around and trying to see over the crouching gunner behind the gun mount.  The driver is slowly backing the Jeep upwards towards the top of the rise.

Damn the passenger thought to himself as he tries to stand so he can see better, and just when I was about to rotate back home for a new assignment.   He is about six feet tall with close cropped gray hair, about 190 pounds, and, although he never did really think about it, glad he only has daughters who won’t be called to serve.

He’d picked up the driver’s carbine ten minutes ago, checked its banana clip to make sure it is full, and clicked its fire selector from single shot to automatic.  The carbine had ridden wedged between him and the driver until they reached the start of the gradually rising farm land a couple of miles back.  Now, holding the carbine in his right hand like a pistol and trying to keep his balance by holding the edge of the lowered windshield with his left, he is standing as high as possible in the slowly bouncing and rocking Jeep in an effort to see around the gunner and over the top of the ridge.

The passenger is a fairly chunky man wearing the shoes and summer uniform of a garrison officer instead of boots and battledress.  His pants are filthy and ripped, but that’s what he’d been wearing when the war started and he hadn’t taken them off yet.  There is a colonel’s badge on the summer soft cap he’d grabbed off the bedroom table and jammed on his head when he’d gotten the 3am call about the invasion and rushed to headquarters.

Brown hair streaked with white pokes out from under the Colonel’s cap.  It was cropped short and neat when the war started, but it hasn’t been cut or combed for weeks.  He is forty two years old and desperately needs a shave and something to eat.  He’d been the commander of a tank battalion in Germany during the big war and knows trouble when he sees it.

What happened? Why weren’t we ready? Even bouncing along in the Jeep he can’t get the disbelief out of his mind.   Once again the United States and the United Kingdom have been caught flat footed and ill-equipped.

The Jeep lurches to a stop at his whispered order.  He hoists himself on the barrel of the carbine and slowly raises himself up as high as possible.  Damn, still not far enough to see what’s on the other side.  But he isn’t taking any chances.  He’d quickly learned in Germany that it is really stupid to show yourself on a ridge line until you are damn sure you know what’s on the other side.

He hasn’t slept for days, his clothes are filthy, and he is totally exhausted.  Being worried and backing slowly up a hill in a jeep brought back fleeting memories of the earlier war.  He almost smiles at the memory.

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* Read more:  Search Amazon.com for “Martin Archer” or

“Soldiers and Marines.” *

**Martin Archer can be contacted at MartinarcherV@gmail.com.  He would value your suggestions regarding these novels and publishing print versions
of them.**