The Archer's Gold: Medieval Military fiction: A Novel about Wars, Knights, Pirates, and Crusaders in The Years of the Feudal Middle Ages of William Marshall ... (The Company of English Archers Book 7)
Author: Archer, Martin
Date: 2015-06-05

The Archer's Gold

The monk sighed as he put down his quill and began reading through the latest stack of parchments he had written.

“Maybe after I send this one to London I should go back to being a priest somewhere and stop trying to write this history.  But will the bishop let me do that?  Probably not; he’s afraid of losing his position, isn’t he?”

The Preface

It all started in the huge Byzantine Empire some twenty or so years ago in 1182 when the Emperor in Constantinople gave in to the demands of his merchants and priests and launched what everyone now calls the “Massacre of the Latins.”  ‘Latins,’ of course, being what the Greeks call those of us who are true Christians and are led by our Holy Father, the Pope.

In Constantinople the Greeks slaughtered and burned and drove away the "Latins" who were mostly Venetians.  Their slaughter and burning really had nothing to do with religion or the true church or the Pope or that the Pope’s priests and bishops speak Latin.

The Constantinople emperor’s problem was much simpler than that - the Venetians may look to Rome for spiritual guidance and practice the true religion as we do but they are just not as smart as we English.  They are great sailors and merchants, of course, but they have weak blood and absolutely no common sense.

Over time the Venetians had come to control much of the trade and commerce of the Byzantine empire.  By 1182, and even though they belong to another church, they basically controlled the supply of food and necessities in Constantinople and in many of the empire’s smaller cities.

Being successful merchants by itself might have been acceptable to the Byzantines and the Patriarch of the Orthodox Church which caters to the Byzantines' religious needs - but the Venetians aggravated the emperor and his people and their church by flaunting their wealth and demanding more and more concessions and privileges instead of being content to earn their coins and send them home to Venice.

The Venetians even began establishing their own churches and bringing in their own priests.  That made things much worse because it particularly upset the Orthodox priests and bishops.  They, of course, are quite practical - they want the Orthodox church to provide all the religious services in the empire so they will get all the donations and the fees of the faithful.

Even worse, the Venetians brought so many of their families to live in Constantinople that over the years they took over an entire section of the city and bribed and worked their way into getting total control of various markets and occupations.

Finally the Emperor and the Patriarch of the Orthodox Church responded to the growing outrage of their people and priests - and in 1182 got rid of Constantinople's Venetians in a great bloody massacre.

Constantinople was not the only place in the empire where the Venetians had angered the local people with their arrogance and demands.  Little wonder then that the Emperor’s and the Orthodox Patriarch’s satisfaction with the events in Constantinople triggered similar attacks throughout the Byzantine empire.

As a result, in the year 1183 the Venetians were similarly violently forced out of Zara and other coastal cities all along the Adriatic Sea across from Roman Catholic Italy.

All this is not to suggest that the empire and its peoples became more prosperous and better governed when the Byzantines regained control of their own commerce and cities.  To the contrary; if anything, things got even worse and the empire continued to decline.  In fact it was run so poorly and so corrupt that a few years later the emperor’s brother was able to conduct a palace coup and depose him for being incompetent.

Unfortunately the coup against the old emperor and his corruption accomplished nothing – for the new emperor and others of his immediate supporters, in turn, promptly began similarly looting the empire for themselves.  If anything, they did it even more.

It is well known, for example, that to enrich himself the emperor’s chief admiral, his wife’s brother-in-law, sold the supplies and equipment of the empire's navy down to the very nails.

This then is the status of things in the year 1193 when the Third Crusade to regain Jerusalem and the Holy Land comes to an end.  That’s when King Richard and many of the crusade’s nobles and clerics desert their surviving troops and retainers and desperately flee to escape the Saracens led by Saladin the Kurd.

Richard and the other leaders flee in response to their military defeats even though the Christians and crusaders they abandon still hold all of the Holy Land ports and much of Holy Land except Jerusalem and Damascus – and are under great pressure from the Saracens who are constantly attacking them.

Indeed Saladin and his Saracens are so greatly heartened by the fleeing of King Richard and the crusade’s other leaders that they step up their attacks.  The result is that more Christian lands in the interior fall to the Saracens and more refugees flee the Christian ports along the Mediterranean in an effort to escape.

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It was into one of those still-remaining Christian ports that the eighteen exhausted survivors of a band of English archers straggle in 1193.  They were led into the port by a former English serf from Yorkshire by the name of William and his brother who is the archer company's priest.

What William and the eighteen archers then begin to do is an exciting story and quite significant even though no one grasped it at the time.  Among other things, they begin the long slow process of turning England into a great world power by founding what is now the British navy and the most fearsome fighting men in the world – the English speaking Marines who are trained to fight on both land and sea.

The Venetians may have made a mistake in being arrogant and flaunting their wealth in Constantinople and elsewhere.  But the Byzantine Greeks headquartered in Constantinople were not very smart either.  They thought that all Latins are alike so that fighting against the English archers would be the same as fighting against the Venetians.

It was a bad mistake because to offset their small numbers William's English archers had recruited new archers to replace the men they lost to the Saracens and equipped them with the very latest in military weapons and tactics - long bows and Swiss pikes modified to add hooks and blades - and began systematically training their recruits in the best ways to use them.

The Byzantines quickly learned the difference between the English archers and the Venetians in 1195.  That's when they made the mistake of capturing some of William’s archers and holding them for ransom.

It was really quite a foolish thing to do since the archers had only been in Constantinople acting as merchants - selling safe and dependable transportation on the galleys the English archers had come to own by capturing them from the Moorish pirates who infest the Mediterranean Sea.

William, the former serf who had become the archer's captain and his Marines, as the archers were beginning to be called because they fought both on land and on sea, refused to pay the ransom.

Instead, although greatly outnumbered, William and his Marine archers responded by immediately attacking and taking a large number of prizes from the incompetently led Byzantine fleet anchored in Constantinople's harbor - and then fighting and winning a pitched battle against the ill equipped and badly led Byzantine army in front of Constantinople’s walls.

The result was inevitable - the captured archers were freed.

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This is the story, in the words of the archers themselves, about what happened after the English archers fought in front of the walls of Constantinople.  It is the seventh of the parchment books about the experiences of the archers.  Similar to the six that preceded it, the seventh book is the telling in their own words of what the archers did after they devastated the Byzantine fleet and fought in front of the walls at Constantinople.

This latest tale of the archers' wars and adventures, like those before it, was translated from parchments scribed by an unknown monk at a monastery in Oxford, particularly those parchments which contained first person accounts of what happened.

As he had done for his unknown patron with the previous six stories, the monk pieced this seventh exciting story together using the participants' own words from the various parchments and fragments of a great number of the participants' letters, reports, and memoirs describing both their actions and their thoughts and emotions while they were doing whatever it was that they were doing.

What the unknown monk continued to make clear is that England and the known world at the beginning of the thirteenth century is a crude and dangerous place governed by crude and dangerous men - and slowly changing even though the people involved don't realize it at the time.

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The events chronicled in this seventh book actually start in January of 1198 when Pope Celestine III dies.  Lotario de Conti de Segni buys the papacy of the Roman Church for forty mule loads of gold and then, as Pope Innocent III, calls for a fourth and final crusade to restore Jerusalem to Christian control.

Calling for a crusade is easier said than done because things have changed on the ground for the Christians of the true church since the crusades started a century earlier in 1095 – the Moslems, and particularly the Kurds under Saladin, have gotten stronger, much stronger.

Crusaders in first two crusades marched overland from France and Germany to Jerusalem through Anatolia and the Kurdish lands along the mountains.  Unfortunately that route has become too dangerous to use these days because it, along with Baghdad, Damascus and Jerusalem, is now controlled by Saladin and his fellow Kurds.

The dangers inherent in the overland route is significant.  It means the fourth crusade, like the third, will have to travel to the Holy Land by sea.

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In 1199 the fourth crusade was organized at a tournament in France with Thibaut of Champagne as its initial leader.

Unfortunately for him, Thibaut is killed by one of the English archers, Thomas the priest of the original eighteen archers and now a bishop.  This occurred when Thibaut attempted to prevent Thomas from delivering a cautionary message from the Pope to the crusaders who have begun to gather in Venice.

Thibaut's replacement as the new leader of crusade is an Italian noble, Boniface of Montferrat.  His first and most pressing problem is to find a way to transport his crusaders to the Holy Land so they can regain Jerusalem and make their fortunes.

Boniface finally solves his problem.  In 1201 the blind and elderly Doge of Venice agrees to transport Boniface and the new crusaders to the Holy Land via Egypt in return for a huge payment for the use of Venice's ships and men.

This results in the crusaders having another problem - although the Venetians may look to Rome for their spiritual needs, they're not fools.  They've had experience dealing with crusaders and their priests so they insist on being paid in full before they sail.

The Venetians also have long memories and a great animosity towards Constantinople, Zara, and the other cities that expelled and massacred Venetians twenty or so years earlier.

What the elderly ruler of Venice, the Doge, proposes to the crusaders is quite clever - that they get the coins they need to pay for their transportation to the Holy Land by collecting the huge amount unpaid taxes and tribute Venice claims it is due from Zara and other smaller port cities along the Adriatic.

It's been more than twenty years since the orthodox believers in the port cities threw the Venetians out and stopping paying their taxes and tribute to Venice.  The Venetians are claiming they're owed a lot of money.

The crusaders, to say the least, are interested in the money even though Venice's claim to be owed taxes and tribute is quite questionable.  Collecting the money, however, will not be easy.  It almost certainly means threatening the cities that threw the Venetians out twenty years ago - and backing up their threats by attacking those that don't pay.

The Pope hears of the Doge's proposal and is furious.  He sends a letter via one of the archers' galleys threatening to excommunicate any Christian who participates in an attack on a Christian city.  This results in Thibaut getting killed by the archers' priest when Thibaut tries to stop the priest from delivering the Pope's letter.

Thanks to the archers' priest the Pope's letter is successfully delivered to the crusader leadership despite Thibaut's efforts to prevent its delivery - and is immediately suppressed by the Pope's own papal nuncio to the crusaders, Cardinal Capua.

Cardinal Capua disobeys the pope and conceals the contents of the Pope's threatening letter from all but a handful of men in the very top ranks of the crusaders.  Capua wants Jerusalem liberated even if he is excommunicated and loses his soul, a prospect which doesn't bother him or most of the crusade's leaders - they're interested in power today, not salvation later.

"There is nothing about excommunication and losing one's soul in the bible" Cardinal Capua assures the nobles leading the crusade.

"The threats in the pope's letter mean nothing."

The repression of the Pope's letter is successful.  The rank and file crusaders are never informed of its existence - not that it would make much difference since these are feudal times and they are obligated to follow their lords.

In any event, the rank and file crusader ranks support their leaders when they demand that Zara and the other port cities pay what the Venetians claim they are owed.  If they don't pay, the money will be collected by force.

Some of the cities take the threat seriously and pay the crusaders; Zara and some of the other port cities refuse.  When the ports refuse to pay Venetian ships and galleys carry the crusaders from Venice to Zara to collect the money by force. On 24 November 1202, the crusaders storm into Zara and sack and loot it.

The leader of the crusaders, Boniface, is not with his crusaders when they take the city. He leaves to visit his cousin in Swabia before the crusaders get to Zara and he stays there until after it is sacked.

Boniface wasn't there at Zara to lead his men because he's an Italian and somewhat of a believer - he was worried that the papal nuncio might be wrong and that he will indeed rot in hell if he is excommunicated by the Pope.  It's better, he decides, that his men do it when he is not around to take the blame.

Chapter One

Boniface and the crusaders are not the only ones sailing and fighting and moving about in 1202.  William, the former serf and now the captain of the archers, returns to Cornwall for his annual six month visit and then he and two of his lieutenants, Peter and Harold, sail back to their Cyprus headquarters along with Tori who is sent by her two older sisters to care for him.

William's priestly brother Thomas remains behind to defend Cornwall along with Henry, another one of the original archers and William's lieutenant who is in charge of training the archers to fight on land.

William stops only briefly in Cyprus after a raid on Cadiz to drop off Harold and pick up a couple of the local merchants who have contacts in Beirut and his lieutenant who is permanently stationed on Cyprus.  They head straight for the Christian port of Beirut because the lieutenant, Yoram of Damascus, has gotten word that some of the miraculous pain ending flower paste might be available on a continuing basis.

The Marines have run out of paste they took off the Moors and they need it for their wounded and to sell in England and to crusaders and other buyers in the Christian ports.  It's valuable and they know it.

William and Yoram are in Beirut arranging to buy chests of the flower paste on an ongoing basis when they hear of the impending attack on Zara by the crusaders.  They are, of course, very pleased at the news - wars and sieges inevitably mean desperate refugees willing to pay the archers large amounts of coins and treasure to carry them to safety in the archers' galleys.

William immediately orders all of his available galleys and Marine archers to Zara to evacuate refugees and he goes there himself to negotiate with the crusaders.

The crusade's leaders  agree to allow people to leave the city on the condition that the refugees pay a tax in the form of a fee for each refugee the crusaders carry to safety.

The result right up until the city falls is the almost unbelievable scene of a long line of the city's wealthiest merchants and priests passing unhindered through the heavy fighting and being rapidly loaded on to English galleys for transport to Constantinople and various ports along the Adriatic.

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Several things happen in April of 1203.

One is that William returns to Cornwall from Cyprus and Zara with the chests of coins from yet another successful season of using their galleys to carry refugees and other passengers such as pilgrims and merchants.

Another is that the crusaders camped outside of what's left of Zara and elsewhere begin to assemble to move to threaten another city on their way to the Holy Land.  And once again it is the Venetians who will carry them.

This time the crusaders decide to go to Constantinople even though they now have enough money to pay the Venetians to carry them all the way to Egypt and on to the Holy Land. The opportunity in Constantinople, the leaders of the crusade decide, is just too good to pass up. Jerusalem can wait.

It all came about because the son of the deposed emperor was visiting Boniface's cousin in Swabia at the same time the leader of the crusade was visiting him.  Alexios, the son of the deposed emperor, regaled Boniface with stories of all the gold and coins in Constantinople's rich treasury - and promised the crusaders huge amounts of it if they will go there and help him restore his father to the throne before they go on to Acre and the Holy Land.

Getting the money will be easy, Alexios assured the crusaders, because the people love his father and were very upset when his uncle replaced him in a palace coup.  The presence of a strong crusader army outside the city walls, he convinces Boniface, will quickly result in a reverse coup that puts his father back on the throne and in control of the great hoard of gold and coins in the treasury.

"It's a huge treasure and you'll get it all," Alexios promises them.  He even signs a contract guaranteeing that the crusaders will get it as soon as his father is back on the throne.

The Crusaders are naive and believe the people will welcome the unfairly deposed old emperor back.  Besides that, they assure each other privately, Constantinople is rich and Jerusalem is poor.  It's a better place to make our fortunes.

The Pope hears of the plan and once again decides to send the crusaders a message not to do it.  This time, of course, the message will have to be carried to Zara instead of Venice - because the crusaders are still camped there after sacking the city.

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Another thing that happens early in the spring of 1203 is that William, the captain of the archers, returns to Cornwall from his annual six months visit to inspect his ships and men at their stations in Cyprus and various other Middle Eastern ports.  He’ll spend the next six months or so in Cornwall with his priestly brother Thomas, his son George and George's two little sisters, and with Helen and her sister Ann.

While William's in Cornwall and away from Cyprus two of his lieutenants, Yoram the scribe from Damascus and Harold the ship captain and former galley slave from Lewes, will be in charge.  In the autumn William will once again return to Cyprus and the Holy Land to spend the winter.

William makes the trip every autumn to take the archer company's latest crop of newly trained Marine archers out to the Holy Land from the archers' permanent quarters and training camp in Cornwall.  He then returns months later in the Spring to bring home to Cornwall the chests of coins the English archers and their galleys have collected carrying passengers and parchment money orders and such to and from the Holy Land and other ports.

This spring, at Helen and Ann’s request, he also bought their sister and brought her to Cornwall with him - after spending the winter getting to know her while she learned how to please him.

As usual while William is back in England for the summer to look after his son George and the sisters who have become George's stepmothers, his priestly brother will make his annual trip to Rome.

Thomas goes to Rome early every summer to buy another year of the Pope’s protection for William and his ever-growing company of Marine archers and prize galleys.  He does this by directly delivering into the Pope’s own hand a pouch containing some of the offerings of coins and jewels the pilgrims and other passengers on the archers' galleys have made for the Pope’s special prayers for their safety.

Actually, of course, Thomas only delivers some of the donated ‘prayer coins’ to the Pope – as few as he and William think they can get away with handing to the Pope and still keep him soothed and supportive. They keep the rest.

As one might imagine, the prayer offerings of the travelers are a splendid source of revenues for both the English archers and the Pope - the passengers in the archers’ galleys don’t complain if they reach their destinations safely and, of course, they aren’t around to complain if they die or are taken by the Moors as slaves.

The important thing, however, one that is well known to merchants and pilgrims throughout the Holy Land, is that the galley captains and Marine archers of William's Company of English Archers really do try to carry their passengers and cargos safely to their destinations - even if it means serious fighting to get them there, which it often does.

Their willingness to fight for their passengers makes the English archers very different from the other ship owners serving the Mediterranean and Holy Land ports - who are just as likely to rob and kill their passengers or sell them to the Moors as slaves.

The archers' integrity and willingness to fight to defend their cargos is a valuable asset - it lets them charge their passengers very high prices for their services.  It explains the chests of coins and bars of gold and silver that are accumulating in ever greater amounts in Cornwall at Restormel Castle - to help pay for William and Thomas's plans for young George’s future.

William and Thomas have come a long way for former serfs and they're determined that William's son will go even further.

Chapter Two

“I know you’ll be back before the babies come but will George and the boys be safe if you take them overland to London?”

That’s the question an anxious and once again pregnant Helen asks me about my son and my brother Thomas’s students when I announce my decision at the dinner on a chilly evening early in May.  Helen's equally pregnant sister Anne and their newly arrived sister Tori listen intently as the logs in the great fireplace pop and snap in the background.

George’s stepmothers are genuinely concerned so I pretend to think carefully and look inquiringly across the table at my priestly brother Thomas and my other lieutenants, Peter, and Henry before I answer.  They nod their agreement with knowing smiles and I smile back.

It's little wonder that I smile back - Helen's question is the very same question I’d asked each of my lieutenants earlier in the day and had been thinking about myself for more than a week.

“Oh I should think so, my love.  It’s time for George and the older boys in Thomas's school to start seeing England for themselves - and we’ll be taking two full ships’ companies of Marines and Raymond’s entire company of Horse Marines.”

“Will you be taking Tori to care for you?  She really wants to go with you, you know.”

“I know and I’ll miss her and you and Ann too, I truly will.  But we’ll be practicing war fighting and such every day both coming and going so there won’t be much time to enjoy her company.  Besides you and Ann will need her here in case the babies come early.”

And between the three of you you’re wearing me out even if I love you all so dearly.  How do the Moors do it?

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Four mornings later we wave our farewells to our wives, form into our ranks as Captain William and his lieutenants watch closely, and start marching for London.  It looks to be a slow march because the word from the Captain and Lieutenant Henry is that, as usual, we’ll be marching as if we really are in a war.  That means we’ll be constantly practicing just as if we are on a real campaign and confronting real enemies.

The men in my special company of Horse Marines and I are very excited.  Most of us came straight to the archers from our villages.  We’ve never seen much of England and, except for one or two of us, we’ve never been to London.  Those who have say it’s quite large and the women easy to know if you have enough coins in your purse.

We form up on the field next to the castle in the early dawn.  A surprisingly large number of people are on hand to see us off when we leave including my own dear wife.  The signal horn sounds and the two drummers, one for each of two ships' companies of walking Marines, begin their beat just after the sun comes up on a morning that is still cool and crisp with dew on the grass and weeds.

It's a normal day here in Cornwall - there are great huge clouds in the sky and it looks as though it might soon rain and blow such that, as usual, we'll get wet through and through even if we put on our rain skins.

We’ll be moving in a column that most knights and soldiers wouldn’t recognize.  We don’t straggle and William and Henry, Henry being one of William's five lieutenants and the one in charge of training us to fight on land, don’t allow no friends and servants and women to march with us.  No merchant wagons and no whores neither.  And, of course, the walking Marines march in step to the beat of their drum carrying their longbows and a quiver of arrows.

I know how disorganized knights and their men are when they’s moving about or fighting.  Didn’t my own eyes see Cornell’s men and all them gentry of his and their baggage and such come down the road when I was over the river with Peter Sergeant, him what is a lieutenant now?  All mixed up together they was when we started killing them.

I’m not marching – I’m riding because I’m the five stripe senior sergeant in charge of what William and everyone else is now calling our “Horse Marines.”  It’s the special company of seventy or so Marine archers who have been learned to ride horses.  We're each so heavily armed with the very latest weapons that each of us needs a second horse to carry them and our supplies.

We can, of course, mount our riding and carrying horses if we have to get some place faster than we can run; but mostly we don’t - we lead them and trot alongside in order to keep them as fresh as possible.

Actually leading his own carrying horse is what each of my Horse Marines does except me and my outriders.  Since I’m the senior sergeant I ride light and have my own carrying horse for my weapons and gear and a Horse Marine to lead him in addition to his own carrying horse.  That’s so I can go up and down the column and out to our outriders who are sometimes miles ahead of our main force.

I got my command because years ago I was one of the few archers who knew how to ride a horse - I was an ostler’s apprentice and the second best archer in the parish with a short bow before I ran away when old Harry in number four company came to my village recruiting.

That was right after the squire whipped me and Ole, my father, just stood there and let it happen because he was only a humble serf and knew his place.  I was berthed and lived on Silverleaf farm all my life till then.  I’m told it’s in a land called Sussex.  Have you ever heard of it?

All of my men are riding geldings because our mares are mostly used for breeding and our stallions are too much like my men and the other Marines - they want to jump on every female they come across.

What our geldings carry is very much the same as what the walking Marines carry on their backs and the sea Marines have by their rowing bench – a long bow, the two parts of a very long Swiss pike with a blade and hook, a short stabbing sword, a shield, and a rain skin.

Where we differ from our brother Marines is that we carry many more arrows, a smaller shield, and our own food and water.  We’uns don’t have wagons and carts to carry our tents and extra arrows like the companies of walking Marines do; we each have our own second horse, a supply horse carrying our pikes and extra arrows and gear.

Each of us having two horses is important - it means we can get off the roads and move really fast if we have to do.

We’uns may be mounted on horses like Cornell’s knights and the light cavalry of the Arabs I saw in the Holy Land, but we don’t usually fight like them and that's a fact.  We fight dismounted as heavy infantry with one man in five told off to hold the horses in case we have to run.

Each of the horse holders also leads a second supply horse - either a horse carrying a tent into which me and eight to ten of my Horse Marines can squeeze or the supply carrying horse of one of the ten or so special men who are my outriders.

The very best of our riders are our outriders, the men who range out around our main column on our fastest horses to be our guides and far sentries. They have our best riding horses and don’t carry much so they can move fast if they have to follow an enemy force or gallop in to sound an alarm - only their long bows and a few arrows so they can shoot and scoot.

Today, of course, we have some additional riders – about a dozen of Thomas’s older schoolboys what are learning to scribe and sum so they can read messages and write contracts and such when they grows up and takes over the archers.

The boys are likely lads who are being learned to be scribes and priests and such.  Each of them is on a riding horse with a short bow and a small quiver so he can pretend to be a real archer.  They’re being led by Bishop Thomas himself.  He’s the one what puts the learning on them.

The boys don’t know it, of course, but three of my most reliable Horse Marines have also been chosen by Bishop Thomas to stay close to them at all times to keep them safe and out of trouble.

Bishop Thomas is one of Captain William's lieutenants and a fighting Marine too, that he is; killed many a man is what everyone says.  And I know it’s true for sure – I've been with him in the company ever since he was our company's priest and we was archers together under Lord Edmund, him what the heathen Moors killed years ago just before William became our captain.

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“Where did all the women and children come from?”

That’s the question I ask my priestly brother Thomas as we sit on our horses on the hillside pasture watching our Marines and boys assemble for our trip to London.

“We’ve got a lot of healthy men here and many of them have good teeth with prospects to improve their fortunes.  Most Englishmen cannot improve their lot so the Marines are like honey and the women are like the flies it attracts.”

Then my priestly older brother smiles and adds more to his explanation.

“So far your very good rule about our women seems to be working - the one I thought up for you and announced a couple of years ago when you were off sailing around the Mediterranean somewhere – that every man or woman who wasn’t born in Cornwall has to be on the rolls of one of our companies or camps and every one of them has to work except pregnant women and mothers being milked by their babies.”

“It’s the first time I’ve heard of my very good rule about women; is my very good rule really working?” I ask my priestly brother the question with a big smile and a heavy emphasis on the word ‘my.’

“Oh I should think so.  We’ve always got many more men than women here and a lot of womanly things that need doing.  So we can always find something for a woman to do if she gets here and wants to stay - and if she isn’t willing to marry one of the men and work we put her on a ship and send her to London.

Not many have made the trip – just a thief and a couple of whores with the French pox.  Any women who comes this far usually wants to find a man and stay.  We probably should have topped the thief so she'd stay here forever, but we didn't and there you are.”

“Well it sounds like it might be a good rule and I'm glad you told me it's my doing. Mmm yes." ...  "Well brother, it looks like the sergeants have gotten their men ready; it’s time for us to head off for Hathersage and London.”

That’s what I tell my brother as I kick my brown mare in the ribs and she begins trotting forward.  As she jumps ahead and begins to move I pump my arm up and down with a closed fist to signal my horn blower and our marching drums to begin.  Most of our riding horses are geldings but this mare is special so I gave myself permission to ride her; rank has its privileges don't you know.

Raymond, the head of our Horse Marines and outriders, sees my arm pumping signal even before the drum starts and gives his own to the mounted Marines around him.

I can’t hear Raymond from over here, of course, but I can see his gestures in response to mine – and within seconds he and his outriders begin fanning out further and further ahead and to the sides of our column at a fast trot.  We’re on our way.

Raymond may not be able to scribe and sum but he’s sharp as a Damascus blade and always on top of things.  A good and steady man he is and every archer knows Raymond who is Ole’s son.  He’s the one what brought his woman from some strange place across the water where no one’s ever been.

Chapter III

It takes us four full days to cross this part of Cornwall and reach Launceston Castle.  We could have made it in a day of hard walking or half a day of riding but we don't.  Our progress is quite slow because of all the make believe fighting and marching Henry and I have the Marine archers doing along the way.

Henry, of course, is my lieutenant in charge of training our archers to fight on land.  In any event, after four days of pretending to fight we get to Launceston and are well received when we do.

Randolph the archer commanding Launceston's garrison knows we are coming and has more than enough new ale and food for everyone when we arrive.

As you might imagine, the entire village turns out and the castle’s keep and its kitchen and courtyards are full and bustling by the time our last wagon clatters in across the first of the Launceston’s two draw bridges and into the outer courtyard where the visiting Marines will be camping.

While the men are settling down to eat and drink and shite and take care of their horses, Thomas and I and all our lieutenants walk around with Randolph to inspect the castle’s on-going construction work.

There is quite a bit to see because we’re beginning to add another curtain wall, Launceston’s third, with a gate tower and eight flanking towers to cover it and another moat to surround it.

Of course we're strengthening Launceston.  It sits astride the only road into Cornwall and to our training grounds and stronghold at Restormel Castle in the middle of the shire.

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Immediately upon arriving at Launceston, as every lieutenant and I always do on every visit, we all go down to inspect the security of the dungeons under the keep where the food reserves are kept and the shafts of the old tin mine provide their secret entrances.  There is no sense going to the expense and trouble of strengthening the castle walls if attackers can get in through the old mine tunnels.

It’s well known to everyone that we should pay particular attention to the old mine tunnels under the castle - they’re the ones we used ourselves a few years ago to empty the castle’s storeroom and force FitzCount’s French knights to come out and fight - and then fouled the river by throwing FitzCount and his child-killing knight bastards into it.

I never come here without thinking of that day and the French knights' desperate screams and pleas for mercy with great deal of satisfaction.  My only regret is that FitzCount and some of the dishonorable bastards were already dead of fighting with us before we threw them in the river to avenge Lord Edmund’s wife and children.

“Well Peter, what do you think?  Brings back memories doesn’t it?  It was right over there where you took charge and you and your archers saved our arses when the bastards sortied.”  And Thomas and I embarrassed ourselves by being in the village trying to get warm and got late to the fight.  Well, we got our revenge and I got a damn good lieutenant out of it and that’s for sure.

“Aye Captain, that it does.  I still shiver when I think of how cold it was that night and all the good men we lost.  It’s a wonder our bow strings didn’t break for being frozen solid.”

@@@@@

So far we’ve been marching over Cornwall lands that are quite familiar to all of us.  That's because our apprentice Marines do a lot of their learning and practicing along the well-traveled road between Restormel and along the River Tamar here at the edge of Cornwall.

Indeed, it would be safe to wager that every Marine on the march has practiced fighting in the fields and forests along our route.  That will change tomorrow morning, of course,  Everything will be new for many of our men once we wade across the nearby River Tamar ford and enter Devon.  Most of our men have never set foot in Devon.

According to Raymond’s outriders the water in the Tamar is still quite cold and rather low.  There must not have been much rain up in the hills this year.

Well, there’s no alternative but to get our feet cold and wet at the ford - we haven’t allowed boats and bridges back on the river ever since we chopped them up when Lord Cornell and his men tried to cross the river to get into the shire and take over our lands and keeps.

Even so, it’s going to be a few days before we all move beyond the River Tamar and into Devon.

At first, Thomas, Henry, and I will stay on this side of the Tamar with one company of walking Marines, Raymond's Horse Marines, and Thomas's boys while the other company under the command of Peter moves across the ford and sets up a camp about five or six miles into Devon.

When they're ready, Peter's men will turn around and move back towards Cornwell as invaders - just as Cornell and his men did a few years back and whoever comes at us next is likely to do.

This is what we call a "jester's war" - the make believe invasions and wars we do every year in May and again in July as part of our summer training before our latest crop of newly trained Marine archers ships out for Cyprus and the Holy Land in the autumn.

We do them because every one of our lieutenants and senior sergeants, and particularly George and Thomas's boys, needs to know how to defend the ford and everything up and down the river from it.  And so do Thomas and I – that’s why Peter and the company of Marines he's leading are going to pretend to invade Cornwall without telling us how they're going to do it.

All of our make-believe battles are run this way so that no one knows what to expect. All we’ll know on this side of the river is that Peter and his men will probably be coming up the only road that runs into Cornwall from the rest of England.

Raymond's outriders watch everywhere else along the river, of course, but because of the road and the ford this is by far the most likely way for an enemy to come.

“Alright Andrew, you’re in command with young George here as your second. You and your men just rushed here on a forced march from Restormel because a report just came in suggesting a large enemy force is coming to attack Cornwall.  What orders have you two already given and what are you going to do now – and why?”

@@@@@

Three days later our "jester's war" is over and we’re all together and once again on the road.  It had been a good practice.  Peter and his sergeants initially tried to surprise us, and almost succeeded.  They launched a token attack with some of their men at the ford while Peter’s main body of men crossed further up the river.

It would have worked but Raymond had his outriders spread out and go across the river to find them.  The outriders saw Peter’s main body of men leave the road and march north. They galloped back and told us - so Thomas and I, of course, marched the men north to meet them.

Even so, there was a lot of confusion and initially only our outriders and Horse Marines were nearby and ready with their longbows and reserves of arrows when Peter’s men tried to swim across well upstream of the ford where the rest of us had been waiting in vain for his token force to attack.

Henry, as you might imagine since he commands our land forces and their training, was furious.  He thought Peter's main body of Marines should have gotten upstream faster to get across before we were ready and told their sergeants as much - and he thought I should have marched the Marines on this side up there faster to stop them.

The boys and our sergeants are wide-eyed as they listen to Henry swearing at me and Peter for being too slow to get our men into place; they didn't see his wink.

After his first effort almost succeeded I sent Peter went back into Devon to try again.  This time Raymond’s outriders did an even better job and the boys and I weren’t at all surprised when Peter’s men tried to storm the ford after trying to gull us with diversions both upstream and downstream.

When it was all over we got together at Launceston with the senior sergeants and everyone agreed that we'd learned something important - that we might need more outriders to watch for the bastards coming to attack us and more quickly pilot our Marines to where they are needed most.

Might need them, your arse; we need them and that means we need more horses and more archers schooled to ride them and shoot their longbows while they do.

Chapter Four

We’ve reached the Roman road in Devon and are camping just past where a side road branches off to go north five or six miles to Okehampton Castle.  That’s when one of Raymond’s outriders comes galloping in to report a party of knights and men at arms on horseback approaching on the road that come in all the way from far off London.

The outrider is breaking off his patrol and coming in to report it, he says, because the knights don’t have their usual baggage train of servants and women and merchants – they’re a war party.  That was a right smart decision; there’s a man to watch.

“Raymond, that was a good decision your man just made.  What’s his name?”

Normally we would not have paid much attention to the knights and their men, just given them a friendly wave as they ride past.  But while we were practicing war fighting at the ford there had been travelers coming through on the road, monks and merchants and such, who told us they’d seen similar bodies of knights and soldiers on the road from London.

What was so interesting and caught their attention is that the knights and their men had all turned off the main road and gone up the side road towards a castle owned by Lord Courtenay instead of continuing on into Exeter on the main road or turning off on the track towards Cornwall.

Courtenay's castle itself is a well-located and rather strong motte and bailey fortress with enough manors and revenues to support six knights.  It's called Oakhampton.  The father of the current Courtenay lord got it when he married one of the Brereton widows after his first wife died.

“Mainly from the north the knights seem to be,” said one of the monks we’d invited to join us for supper yesterday.

“That’s strange,” Thomas had replied as he ripped off a piece of newly fried flat bread and stuffed it into his mouth with a gulp of new ale.  “What are they doing down here?”

“I’m not sure, bishop, I’m not sure.  But I did recognize the banner of one of the de Braoses.  They’re marcher lords with some of the lands next to our monastery.  Nasty piece of work aren’t they? Evil shites for sure.  Tried to take back some of forest land their grandfather gave us years ago, didn't they?  It’s said that they and the other Gloucester lords are among the barons what are opposed to the king.”

"Now they'll really be pissed, won't they?"  offered another of our priestly guests piously with a belch, "what with the king annulling his marriage to the Gloucester girl and keeping the lands she brought him."

@@@@@

We’d stopped early and the sun wasn't even starting to go down when the party of knights and their men finally appear on the road.  They started to go on past us, but then curiosity must have gotten the best of them for a couple of knights broke away from the main party and trotted over to where our men are lounging about and starting to build cooking fires and put up their tents.

“You there. Who are these men?”one of them demanded rather arrogantly as I stood up and he pulled his great huge jousting horse to a halt in front of me.

“Some of us are Captain William’s men from Cornwall, Sir Knight.  On our way to London to buy some wagons and sheep and such is what we are.  And you, Sir Knight?”  I didn't tell him that I'm William himself.

He didn’t answer.  Instead he asked a question. “Are any of you knights or gentry?”

“No Sir Knight.  Not a one of these men was born to the gentry, let alone be a knight,” I replied with a nod towards the men around me who are watching us talk and listening intently.

“But we do have a priest with us if you need to buy an indulgence or some prayers.”

I offered him that bit of information with a motion of my hand toward Thomas - who promptly waved a piece of newly fried flatbread at the knights to acknowledge my introduction and his willingness to listen to their sins and forgive them for a price.

Thomas’s boys sat around him listening attentively.  They’ve all heard about knights,of course, and George and four of the older boys had been in the church at King John’s coronation and seen a good number of them - but harmless old Sir Percy at Trematon is the only knight most of the younger boys have ever seen.

The knight’s only response is to rather arrogantly snort in disdain, kick his horse in its ribs, and ride back to his fellow knights who have pulled up and are waiting about fifty feet from where we are talking.

They began talking intensely and waving their arms and looking back at us as they moved to rejoin their little column.

@@@@@

“I tell you it’s too good an opportunity to waste,” the gray haired man said later at the table in Oakhampton’s great hall.

“Cornwall isn't with us so it's probably with John and we’ve got to start somewhere.”

“Lord Roger is right,” a knight added.“I looked around while he was questioning their leader.  Not a one of them was wearing armor or had a shield.  Some of them had bows and I saw a couple with short swords but that’s about it.

Their tents are very shabby and not a one of them has a banner on it.  No knights at all, not even any men at arms."

"That's no surprise," said another with a belch.  "Most of Cornwall's land isn't good enough to support any except for what the church already has.  I saw lots of young boys, though; probably along to herd the sheep.  Serfs probably.”

“It would be good sport for the men.  Get the new ones blooded, wouldn’t it? We could tell the men they're outlaws and use that as an excuse if anyone complains.”

@@@@@

Things are nowhere near so optimistic and cheerful at the Cornwall camp.

“I for one am damned concerned, William, damned concerned.  All these knights and barons from the north down here when they should be up there or over in France fighting with King John.  Something’s wrong for sure.”

“Unfortunately I think you’re right.  That’s why I just sent Raymond and his outriders north to watch Oakhampton.  Even so, we need to be prepared in case they decide to attack us.  Getting ready will be a good practice even if our fears are for naught.”

“Peter, get yourself over here.  You too Henry.   I need your counsel.”

Everything quickly becomes a great confusion with lots of shouting and swearing sergeants as we rush to use the remaining daylight to get ready.  And the first thing we do is move our entire camp to a much more defensible position nearby and lay out our weapons and supplies.  Then we spend the rest of the night awake and waiting.

We don’t have to wait the entire night to know we might have a problem – an hour or so before the first early light of dawn two of Raymond’s outriders gallop into camp with news.

Oakhampton Castle’s courtyard is alive with activity.  Raymond's message is that the knights and their men are preparing to ride out.  He has no idea of where they are going or why.

Long before sunup all of our Marine archers are in place and our relocated camp is feverish with the excitement of the unknown that the men have caught from their sergeants.  That’s when we hear horses’ hooves clattering in the darkness and Raymond and his outriders ride into camp.

“They’re coming, Captain,” Raymond shouts even before he swings off his horse to dismount.

"Could be as many as several hundred of them from the lanterns we saw flickering in the castle courtyard and noise they were making.  Maybe more – we couldn’t really see them.  But I’m still not sure they’re coming for us.  They may just be getting an early start for Exeter or, God forbid, Cornwall."

"If they're headed elsewhere, they’ll pass us close, but they’ll pass us.”

“Well, if they’re coming for us, Raymond, they’ve made a great mistake – we’re ready for them.”

It’s true and I said it loud enough for the men around me to hear; of course I did.

But being ready for a fight is not the same as winning it and winning it is not the same as surviving the victory.  I was lost in thought wondering how many of them we’ll face if they come at us and how they’ll come?  And what should Thomas and I do about George and the boys?

“Are you and the boys ready to ride for Launceston if it becomes necessary, Thomas?”

Chapter Five

Our new camp is much better because now we are in position in an open space that backs up against a stand of trees.  The trees are close enough together such that mounted men can, for the most part, only come at us from the front.

Either there are not many people living hereabouts in Devon or the Courtenay lord is mean and watching closely, otherwise the forest would have been thinned for firewood.

That we had to move over here from our original camp to improve our position is quite embarrassing for me, as I admit in front of the boys with a bit of self-loathing to Thomas, Peter, and Henry.

“This is where we should have camped in the first place both because we’re supposed to be practicing war fighting and because we are in another shire and on someone else’s land that we know very little about.  I was very foolish when I told the men to set up across the way - I assumed we could camp anywhere and be safe because of our numbers.”

“Oh, it’s not all bad,” Thomas replied.  In the moonlight and flickering light of our one and only candle lantern I could see his big grin aimed at all three of us and the overly generous gesture he made with his hands.

“Look at it this way, William - you’ve given me a perfect example to teach the boys about where not to camp and what not to do on a real campaign.”

Even I had to laugh along with Henry and my other two lieutenants – and hearing us all roar with laughter seemed to please the boys and the men nearby though I don’t know why.

@@@@@

We’re as ready as we can be as the first early signs of dawn begin to lighten up our position.  Our limited supply of caltrops have been scattered, our stakes hammered in and resharpened, all of our horses are tied to trees along a path in the forest behind us, and the wagons are lined up close together to fill a gap through which mounted knights might otherwise ride.

Our supplies and horsemen are ready too - the arrow bales have been opened and the extra arrows distributed; and Raymond’s Horse Marines and almost all of his outriders are in our ranks with their horses tied in the trees behind us.

It's getting light for sure.  I can already see the nearby road and in a few minutes we'll be able to see our old campsite on the other side of it.

“Are you and the boys ready to run for it?” I quietly ask Thomas.

“Yes, of course we are.  Our horses are saddled and ready to go.  And I’ve gone over and over our situation with the boys and their outriders.  They know what they’re to do if they get the order to run."

Then my priestly brother put his hand on my shoulder to steady me.

"Don't get yourself in a worry.  They’re smart lads, aren't they?  They understand the situation; if they're told to run they’ll fetch their horses and head for Launceston like the devil himself is behind them and snapping at their arses.”

We had debated what to do with George and the lads all night long.  In the end it was Thomas’s decision that they stay.  He'd reckoned they be safer here with us than on the road where they might run into patrols of fighting men coming out of Oakhampton.

It’s probably just as well that the boys stay even if we don't need them as horse holders.  We can use the boys to fetch water for the men and we need the long bows of Thomas and the three outriders assigned to the boys.

And even the short bows of the boys might be useful when the knights and their men get close enough for the boys' arrows to reach them – a little arrow in the eye or throat or anywhere else on a horse or man is just a good as a “heavy” or a “long” from our Marines' longbows.

We're tightly grouped in the basic fighting formation we've come to use whenever we face mounted knights - three lines of archers and then a gap of twenty paces and then four more lines of archers.

Every Marine archer also has a pike, a sword, and a shield.  The pikes, of course, are on the ground so they can't be seen by horsemen charging us - until our men raise them and set them at the last moment when it is too late for the horse of a charging rider to avoid being impaled.  It's something our recruits practice almost every day.

The second four archer lines are further back, of course, because of our past experience using the pikes against charging horsemen.  Being impaled on a grounded pike stops the horses dead in their tracks but sometimes the riders don't stop when the horses stop - they fly off their horses and knock down our men like bowling pins on the village green.

I know what happens to riders when their horses run on to our pikes because that's exactly what happened to me when that stupid King Guy's knights charged into our line in front of Nicosia - one of them came flying out of his saddle when our pikes stopped his charging horse and knocked me on my arse.

We learned at Nicosia didn't we?  Now we leave a gap of twenty paces between our third and fourth lines so the riders who fly off their horses can land without knocking down so many of our men.

Then, of course, when the horsemen are down and in the unlikely event they haven't broken their necks and are still alive, we cut their throats or stab their eyes through their helmet eyeholes if we don't want to hold them for ransom - which we mostly don't.

George and the rest of Thomas' students are where they'll be safest - in the center behind the second four lines of Raymond’s Horse Marines and outriders.

Thomas and the three outriders are with the boys and all of their horses are tied to the trees immediately behind them along a path that runs through the trees.  I goes from where we are to a meadow with a view of the road in the distance.  The rest of our horses are tied to trees further on down the path.

The only men further back than George and the other boys are a couple of Raymond’s outriders.  They’ve been posted on the other side of the woods.  They'll gallop down the path through the trees and sound the alarm if anyone tries to come up behind us.

@@@@@

Roger de Broase is my knight.  He's one of the Earl of Gloucester's knights and I’ve been squire to him ever since he flogged Hubert for running away when Sir Roger was in France and the French broke through our lines at Limousin.

At least that’s what Sir Roger said happened even though some of the other squires say otherwise - they say that Hubert didn’t run, that it was Sir Roger who ran and Hubert merely followed him as a good squire should.

Well I won’t run even if Sir Roger acts like a coward; I want to be advanced to a knight.  It's always been my dream and I’d as soon as die before I’d run and disgrace my father the way Sir Roger claims Hubert disgraced his.  I've already decided - if Sir Roger runs I won't follow him.

I'd had trouble sleeping and was wide awake when old Peter, one of our sergeants, came around with the bucket of breakfast ale to wake us so we can get the horses ready and help our knights into their armour.

It's seems early and I can hardly see but perhaps that's what happens when the knights are anxious for a battle to start.

Edward, my friend and fellow squire, is already at the horse lines when I arrive carrying my horse's saddle blanket under which I'd been sleeping - and find him using my leather grain bucket to feed his knight's chaser.

"I know my friend; it's your bucket." Edward said with an apologetic shrug of his shoulders.

"But someone stole mine so please let me use yours for a few minutes while you lay out Sir Roger's armour.  It's good luck to help a friend before a battle, you know."

Edward is indeed a friend so all I can do is nod and rush back to where I'd been sleeping to fetch the harness, saddle, and front padding for Sir Roger's destrier.  I'll saddle the destrier first while I'm waiting for my grain bucket and then make a second trip to get my own saddle for the rouncey mare my father provided for me.

Hmm.  I wonder why Sir Roger is riding his destrier instead of his big rouncey.  They are for tournaments and charge much slower you know, destriers I mean.

My trouble begins when I get back to the horse line.  Sir Roger is waiting and in a great rage.

"My armour isn't laid out and my horse hasn't even been fed," he said as he slapped me face and lifted his hands to beseech the heavens.  "This will never do."  He is so angry he is trembling.

Five minutes later and things have settled down even though everyone is terribly excited, even the castle servants who aren't going with us.  I've both my horse and Sir Roger's destrier saddled and both are eating the traditional double ration of grain horses always get before a joust or battle.

Sir Roger has settled down as well.  Now he is all excited and talking loudly and boldly with the other knights in our entourage.

We're ready to go even though I'm famished.  I surely would like another drink of morning ale.  Hopefully we'll be done with the outlaws and back here in time for the first meal of the day.

Finally the signal horn sounds and the courtyard is full of shout and sounds as the heavily armoured knights begin to mount.  It takes some time because the armour of Sir Roger and the other knights is so heavy that they need help mounting and there are only a few stools available for them to stand on.

Sir Roger is still quite keen for the fighting to begin.  He's literally trembling with excitement as I help push him up on to his horse.  He wants to be among the first to ride out of the castle and it looks like he will get his wish.

I quickly mount my rouncey and follow behind as Sir Roger spurs his destrier to move up to the front of our column.  The sun has only been up for about fifteen minutes as my rouncey finishes clattering over the drawbridge behind Sir Roger's destrier.

By the time we're across we've already moved all the way up to the very front of the column right behind the Gloucester banner.  And Sir Roger, thank goodness, is having a fine old time and drawing lots of favorable glances and nods of agreement as he shouts loud encouragements to everyone we pass.

This is very exciting.  It's my first battle even though they say it is only a band of badly equipped outlaws who won't give us much trouble.

@@@@@

We trot down the castle road until we come to where the castle road joins the main road - and pull up in surprise.  The sheep pasture where the outlaws had been camped yesterday afternoon is empty.

"There.  There they are, over there in front of the trees.  They've moved, by God."

What we can see in front of the trees across the way is a number of men sitting on the ground next to five or six wagons - no banners and no horses. And, of course, they can obviously see us.

What is so strange is that the outlaws are just sitting there.  They are not getting up to run away into the forest behind them.

"We must attack immediately before they can escape into the trees." someone shouts.

I think it is Lord Courtenay from the local castle but I'm not sure.  It really doesn't matter who gave the order for off we all go trotting towards the outlaws with our banners flying.

Everything proceeds as I'd been told it would by my father.  We all follow our lord's banner at a trot for a while until our lords and leaders stop about three hundred paces away from the first of the outlaws.

That's where the banner men will stop so we can close up around them and prepare for our grand charge.  The outlaws, of course, have seen us and are climbing to their feet. As we get closer I can see they're all wearing the same brown tunics that farmers sometimes wear.

Our men are still closing up around the banners when I can clearly see a rippling movement among the assembled outlaws and everything changes.

Suddenly the air is filled with a whooshing sound and arrows are coming down on us even though we are well out of range.

Except we aren't.  All around me I can see knights pulling down their helmet visors and hear the screams and cries of men and horses wounded by the rain of arrows falling on us - and here I am with only an iron pot on my head that has no visor.

We've obviously got to get out from under the hailstorm of arrows.  So it is no surprise at all when an order is quickly given to move, or at least I assume an order is given, for we all begin to ride forward towards the outlaws as we should rightly do.

One of the lords must have made a decision for our banners begin to lead us forward.  It's mass confusion as Sir Roger and many of the riders around me begin following the banners towards the outlaws - and some don't as horses and men begin bolting and screaming and going down all about us, particularly to my front around the banners.

I neither gallop after the banners nor bolt.  I keep my place behind Sir Roger as he moves his destrier slowly forward.  His horse wants to keep up with the others but I can see him straining on the reins to slow it down.

Shouting riders are pouring past us on both sides as we drop further and further behind the banners at the front of our charge.

Suddenly I feel a tremendous blow to my chest that somehow knocks me right off my horse.  As I go down and bounce on the rocky ground I can clearly see my horse running after Sir Roger's destrier and the grey feathers at the end of the arrow sticking out of my chest.

I don't feel a thing when a wound-crazed horse throws off its rider and steps squarely on the side of my head a few seconds later.

Chapter Six

We all stand up and watch the knights as they ride towards us.  Their approach is such that there is no question about it, they mean to do us harm.  Those of us who haven't already picked up an arrow do so and I can see a few of the men in the ranks behind me checking their bowstrings to once again make sure they are properly strung.

A couple of men have their dingles out and are peeing again and I see a few who are fussing with the pikes and arrows laid out on the ground next to them.  Other than that, we are waiting quietly because that is all we can do.  I can hear a few prayers being quietly muttered but that's about all.

As soon as dawn broke this brisk May morning Henry, Peter, and I had paced off a longbow's range for our "longs" and placed a couple of range rocks and noted the distance to a straggly tree that had somehow taken root in the pasture area in front of us.  Then we came back a ways and placed them for our "heavies."

The rocks and the tree are our markers.  Now all we can do is stand here in front of our men with our long bows and watch until the approaching banners reach them.

Everyone is listening for me just as Henry learned them.

When I think enough of our attackers have come past our markers and are in our kill zone, I'll give the order to shoot and the three of us will fade back into our positions in front of the fourth line of archers.

Henry and Peter know that, of course, because it's something we've practiced with the men many times, but I'll order them back when I do, and loud enough for the men behind me to hear.  I don't want anyone to forget and think were running.

"My God, what fools." Henry said to no one in particular with a resigned shake of his head and loud enough for some of our men to hear.

"There are only a few hundred of them.  They hardly even outnumber us."

Henry says it rather loudly as we watch the knights trot across the road and come towards our camp next to the trees.  They are coming in a big disorganized mass strung out behind six or seven lordly banners.

"I'm going to wait until they're all inside our kill zone," I announce rather loudly to no one in particular.

"There's no sense dragging this out."

@@@@@

We watch and wait as the banners leading the knights and their squires go past our markers to enter the kill zone for our longs - and then stop to organize themselves for their traditional grand charge.

It certainly would have been a safe place for them to stop and prepare themselves if we'd been the French knights or mercenaries they've fought in the past.  Unfortunately for them, we're not.

The mounted men in front of us are still arriving and moving about to organize themselves behind their banners as I raise my right hand as high over my head as I can reach.  Behind me I can hear the familiar rustling noise and soft grunts as more than two hundred English Marine archers respond to my signal by nocking arrows into their bow strings and drawing their longbows.

I wait a second longer.  Then I give a shout as I drop my hand, make pumping motions with my arm bent at the elbow to signal continuing launches, and start taking the dozen or so backward steps needed to move back through our first three lines.

In little more than a blink of an eye I'm standing next to Henry and Peter in the open space in front of the fourth line of Raymond's Horse Marines and outriders.

As soon as my hand drops there begins a great and continuing rustling and whooshing of outbound arrows, the grunt of archers as they strain to throw their shots forward as hard and as fast as they can, and the loud slaps as bow strings hit the leather sleeve every archer wears on his arm to protect it from "string bite."

The sergeants' loud shouts of "aim and shoot" continue as they and everyone else including me and my lieutenants joins in the shooting.  Even George and the boys start launching arrows until Thomas shouts at them to wait until the horses get closer.

From where we're standing my Marines and I can see our arrows have an immediate impact as soon as they start landing.  The mass of mounted men and their horses in front of us suddenly begins to shudder like a wounded animal and we can hear their distant screams and cries.

Almost instantly some of the banners at the front of the distant riders start to move forward.  Within seconds the entire mass of mounted men in front of us, at least those who still can, starts to move towards us.

It's almost as if they're a wounded animal which thinks it can get out from the storm of arrows that are wounding it by moving forward.

Everything happens quickly as each archer instinctively concentrates on the riders who are closest and coming towards him.  They particularly, as they've been learned over and over again, go for the nobles and knights around the banners.

The results are inevitable - many of the riders in the front rank of our attackers are hit multiple times almost simultaneously - and each time a horse or rider goes down or staggers the injured horse or rider tends to block or trip those coming from behind.

It only gets worse for what's left of our attackers as their horses reach our stakes and caltrops and the sergeants pick up my cry of  "heavies"  and we switch to the weighted arrows that can go through chain like a knife through cheese.

The horses are all wearing blinders so they can only see straight ahead and the riders, the knights and lords at least, are almost totally blind in their helmets when their visors are down.  They can barely see out their helmet's little eye holes and they don't know what is happening behind them.

The result is inevitable - they keep coming until a caltrop takes out one of their horse's legs or one of our stakes or arrows impales them or their horse. And when one in the front goes down the others coming behind it tend to trip or be pushed over and go down with it.

A few of the riders, particularly those with armor on the front of their horses, somehow avoid our caltrops and stakes and make it all the way to our lines.  That's when the sergeants roar and the Marines in the first three lines kneel down and raise their pikes for the first time.

Most of the charging riders don't even see the pikes come up and it's too late to turn away for the handful who do.

There are great crashes and screams and the cracking sound of splintering wood as the knights and their horses begin to impale themselves on our long wooden pikes.  And, sure enough, in the next twenty or thirty seconds half a dozen or so riders come flying off their horses and crash head over heels into our lines.

Suddenly and unexpectedly it becomes very quiet except for scattered moans and cries.  Then our men begin to talk and cheer and tend to our casualties.  It didn't take long and it's all over.

Both Peter and Henry are looking at me intently to make sure I'm ready to give the next orders.  I am.

"Raymond," I snap at the commander of our mounted men.

"Mount your Horse Marines and gallop straight to Oakhampton Castle.  Set your men to block access to the castle's gate so none of our attackers can get back in.  Leave your outriders here to chase the evaders.  Hurry; run man run."

"Outriders attention.  Outriders to mount up fast and ride out and catch those we didn't bring down.  Accept the surrenders of all those you don't have to kill to get them to stop.  Tell them to drop their weapons and walk back here with their hands in the air."

"Drop everything and report back here immediately if you see any more enemy forces."

"Sergeants," I roar in my loudest voice.  "Each file sergeant and two of his men are to go forward to take prisoners for questioning.  Don't kill them unless they try to fight or need a mercy.  We want prisoners.  Everyone else stand firm and ready."

The men know what to do.  They should; they've practiced it enough.

My orders were still being loudly repeated by all the sergeants who'd heard them as I turn to my lieutenants and begin telling them what we're going to do next.

@@@@@

Things move quickly after the orders are given. The men begin stripping the dead and wounded of their armor and weapons and putting down the men and horses who have no hope. We're going to put our handful of wounded and all of theirs not needing a mercy into hastily erected tents to keep them out of the rain that seems to be coming.

While the leather tents are being put up and the wounded collected, Thomas and the lieutenants and I walk out into the middle of the field and begin questioning our prisoners.  Most of them are wounded or injured in some way except for a handful who got thrown off and didn't break any bones when their horses went down.

We've got more prisoners than we need so I start with one of them who seems not to be wounded, a noble with specks of grey in his beard.  At least I assume he's a noble since he's wearing what appears to be a very expensive suit of armour.

The baron's horse threw him when it went down and his problem is simple - he's flat on his back in the mud and his armour is so heavy that he can't get up unless someone helps him. He just lies there on the ground shouting orders at us in French as we gather around him.

The damn fool acts like he's at a tournament and we're the servants sent to help him up.

Peter snorts in disgust and promptly chops his exposed throat with a pike blade when the baron begins to give arrogant and insulting answers to my questions. I never did learn his name.

According to one of the wounded men on the ground near him, the man whose head Peter cut off is one of the northern barons, whatever that means.  Unfortunately Peter deaded him before we got him out of his armor.  Now, goddamnit, we'll have to clean the death piss and shite out of it before we can carry it off to London or the Holy Land and sell it.

What we learn from our prisoners is quite interesting.  It seems a number of the northern barons have come down from Gloucester and Yorkshire to encourage the barons of southern England to join them in overthrowing King John. They told their men we were outlaws and attacked us for practice in order to blood them.  Killing people for practice?

According to the prisoners, the barons' grievances relate to the king's taxes and his recently annulled marriage to Isabella of Gloucester, who is apparently the cousin of several of the northern lords we deaded.

King John, some of our prisoners tell us, insulted their lord's family by refusing to consummate the marriage and refusing to recognize her as his wife and queen.

More importantly, they say he also refused to return the lands Isabella inherited and ordered them to vacate their fiefs on her lands so he can replace them with his own favorites.

What the northern barons came south to do is offer Isabella as the rightful queen so that whomever the southern nobles select to marry her becomes the king when they overthrow John.  All the northerners are asking in exchange is that they be allowed to keep her lands and be given more. They even brought a list of the lands they each want.

Well, they'll all be having new lands and that's for sure - gravesites right here next to the old Roman road.

Chapter Seven

We spent all that day on the battlefield tending to the wounded, questioning our prisoners, and burying the dead and mercied after we strip them of their weapons and armour.  Thomas himself gave some very nice prayers to send our dead attackers off most properly after we covered up the ditch we threw them in.

Hmm.  Isn't it an amazement how fast news spreads even out here where no one lives; all day long we never saw a single traveler even though the road to Exeter is usually quite busy.

Collecting the wounded and burying the dead takes all day.  It is not until the next morning at daybreak that we strike our camp, piss on the grave of our attackers, and set off for Oakhampton Castle with the wounded riding on top of the supplies in our wagons.

The castle is quite close so we reach it about noon on a somewhat cloudy day even though we have to stop for a few moments to bury one of the wounded attackers and have Thomas say a prayer for him.  The poor fellow up and died before we could find a barber to sew him up and properly bleed him.

Raymond and his men are waiting for us with big smiles on their faces as we come up the track to the castle with our drums beating and our Marine companies marching in step behind us.

"Hello Captain, welcome to Oakhampton Castle.  A couple of the buggers showed up yesterday and got themselves chased and killed for their trouble but that's about all."

"Any response from the castle or the village?"  I ask.

"Not a thing.  It's been quiet.  Almost too quiet, actually."

I'd no more than dismounted and started to get Raymond's report when there is a shout and someone waves from the battlements on the castle wall above the gate and drawbridge.

A few minutes later the little door in the castle gate opens and a rather timid, and obviously very scared, old man comes out.  He hobbles up to the edge of the castle moat most respectfully with his hat in his hand.

"The lady in the castle asks why you are here, masters." He shouts.  "Can you tell us?"

@@@@@

Something unexpected happens about ten minutes after the old man listens to my brief explanation and reenters the castle - the drawbridge slowly creaks down and the castle gate begins to open.

Raymond's men, and the men in our column behind them, instantly rush to assume defensive positions in the expectation that the castle's defenders are about to sally out and attack us.

To our surprise all that comes out of the castle is the old man once again.  What really surprises us is his message.

"The lady invites you and your men to enter and for you to join her in the great hall for your evening meal.

@@@@@

An ambitious sergeant volunteers to enter the castle to make sure the invitation is real and the castle is friendly.  From what we can see its parapets and archer slits are empty.  It appears deserted.  But is it?

We wait and watch from a distance as the sergeant cautiously crosses the drawbridge over the moat and enters through the open gate.

A few minutes later we see him walking confidently towards us with a big smile on his face.  There are no defenders in the castle.  The invitation is real.

@@@@@

I can see two women standing by a door that opens into the castle's keep.  One is quite old and plainly dressed; the other is about my age or perhaps a bit younger.  They watch intently as our horses clatter across the drawbridge and into the little bailey.

They're probably the wife and mother of the Oakhampton lord.  Courtenay was his name according to the prisoners we questioned.

The castle's high curtain walls with their archers' slits remain unoccupied as Henry and I ride into the cobblestoned bailey at the head of one of the Marine companies.  The castle gate is open behind us and the drawbridge is down.

There are no servants about and no one comes to take our horses.  The place feels deserted but everywhere it smells of piss and shite as most baileys do if a castle has people living in it.

Thomas and the boys are waiting outside and well away from the walls on the other side of the drawbridge - just in case.  The boys ride in whooping joyously in response to my beckoning wave and smile inviting them to come in and join us.

Henry marches in the front as the other company of walking Marines comes in behind them quite smartly with their drum beating the step.  Henry likes that sort of thing, doesn't he?

Oakhampton Castle's bailey is going to be full tonight, that's for sure, but it's better we're all inside with our horses and wagons until we know for certain that there are no more potential attackers in the area.

All the while the women stand there, unmoving but watching us intently.

"You better come with me Thomas when I tell the women that they've seen the last of Lord Courtenay.  They've probably already guessed that he's gone but they may need a prayer of two to console them."

@@@@@

Thomas and I take off our hats and bow respectfully as we walk up to the women.  Little courtesies are important at times like these.

"Good day to you, ladies.  I am William, the Earl of Cornwall and the Commander of the Order of Poor Landless Sailors.  Accompanying me is Bishop Thomas, the Bishop of Cornwall."

The younger lady nods so I plunge on.

"Mmm.  I regret to inform you that Lord Courtenay and all the visiting lords and many of the knights and squires who were with them were killed yesterday when they launched an unprovoked attack on me and my men."

"All of them?  You killed all of them?  All the lords?"

"Yes, we did.  There were a few survivors among their knights and squires and they named the bodies.  We still aren't sure why they attacked us."

The two ladies fly into each other's arms and look at us incredulously as they hug each other - and begin smiling and laughing and crying tears of joy.

@@@@@

Our first order of business is to organize the castle to meet our needs.  The basic problem is simple - the Oakhampton's keep and bailey look to be too small to accommodate all of our men and all of our horses and supply wagons.

And, of course, it's absolutely filthy as most inhabited castles always are.  There are piles of dog and people and horse shit everywhere.  Thomas will be furious, that's for sure.  He's big on shite, you know.

Normally the castle's size wouldn't have been a problem because it is so well designed and sited that it could probably be held by a mere handful of men.

Our problem with Okehampton's size is very different - we have too many men for it to accommodate.  But until we know more about the situation we don't want to leave any of our men outside the protection of its walls where they might be vulnerable to a counterattack.

After we thoroughly inspect the castle we make a number of decisions.

First, and perhaps most importantly, we decide that all the men can squeeze into the stables, smithy and other outbuildings and tents erected along the inside of the curtain wall.  It will be tight but they'll all fit in if my lieutenants and I and the boys sleep in the great hall and all of the horses are tethered and fed in the middle of the bailey.

We thought about billeting some of the Marines in the dozen or so hovels in the nearby little village where the castle's servants and serfs live - but decide against it, at least initially until we learn more about the situation and are reasonably sure we won't be counterattacked.

A brief look at the castle and one thing is for sure - we'll have to do immediately is set up a bigger kitchen.  The castle's present kitchen is barely large enough to cook for the lord and his immediate family.  And then, of course, there is Thomas' inevitable question as to where everyone will piss and shite.

"Where does everyone piss and shite?"

"Anywhere?"  Thomas repeats back incredulously when one of the castle servants answers him with a waving gesture around the bailey. As you might expect, Thomas immediately bustles off with the boys in tow to get piss holes and shite holes dug and rail at the sergeants for not having already done so.

It's obviously going to be another learning moment for the boys and from the loudness of Thomas' voice and the way my priestly brother is waving his hands about he's making much of it.  Thomas has been big on pissing and shitting and what we drink ever since he was in the monastery and read an old parchment about how the Romans soldiered.

I learned long ago that it's best to go along with Thomas in such matters.  Keeps him sweet, doesn't it?

Chapter Eight

Supper that evening is both a delight and full of surprises, very big surprises indeed.  The name of the lady in the castle is Isabel and the older lady is her dear friend and the one and only maid she's ever had.

Lady Isabel has somehow heard about my son and Thomas's other students being with us.  She insists that they join us at the long table in the great hall along with my lieutenants.

Isabel and her maid are newly arrived here themselves but yesterday they had seen, Isabel tells us, a nice stag hanging by its antlers in the food dungeon.  If we agree, she will order it to be brought up and cooked along with bread in the French style of loaves instead of flatbread.

We men have much to talk about and the long table in the great hall is crowded and noisy because of the playful and overly excited boys.  They've been in a real war and are full of themselves.

Not a man among us made anything of the fact that several of the boys had obviously pissed themselves; many of us would have done it ourselves if we hadn't known to piss before the fighting starts.  They need to be learned that.

All in all it is a very nice meal, certainly nicer than I expected, probably because Thomas had the lady send to the village for the castle's cook and servants.  They and the other villagers had been cowering in their hovels ever since Randolph and his men galloped up to block the castle entrance.

The evening lasts so long that the two candles lighting the hall burn down and begin to gutter.  Our dinner had a difficult start but was most enjoyable after Thomas straightened out the cook and the newly returned castle servants on a couple of matters before we even sat down on the benches and took our first sips of ale.

Firstly, Thomas tells the servants, so long as we are here the straw and everything on the floor of the castle's great hall is to be swept out before they serve the food and no one is to ever piss or shite on the floor the great hall or anywhere else in the keep or bailey or dungeons. They and everyone else in the castle are to go outside and use the holes that have been dug for that purpose - or else.

For another, he tells the two servants when he sees the portions they are bringing to us, the boys being smaller than the men are does not mean they are to be given smaller portions.  To the contrary, the boys are at all times to be fed all they want until they stop eating.

"And two eggs and cheese for each boy every morning in addition to their bread and gruel and breakfast ale, every day."

The lady listens intently as Thomas gives his orders to the servants and then during our supper when we discuss the battle and its implications for us and our travel plans.

She also addresses many questions to Thomas about the boys and their schooling and his orders about the piss and shite.  It's something she hadn't heard.

Her questions are so sincerely asked that Thomas becomes ever more charmed by her and animated with his answers and explanations.  It's been years since I've heard him talk so much to a woman. He much prefers the company of men.

About all we know about the lady when we sit down at the table is that she is not a grieving widow. That much is certain from her joyful response to the news that the lords had fallen.

At the time it didn't seem right to question her about her reaction - so it was not until we are finishing the last of the meat and the boys are getting sleepy that we learn about her and the reason for her joy.

"You now know a bit about us, dear lady, and how it is that we ended up here and had the pleasure of meeting you."  Thomas observes with a friendly smile.

"But we know nothing about you except that you and your maid are recently arrived. How is it that you are here?"

"My cousins made me come here with them a few days ago," she says with a bitter tone in her voice and a grimace on her face.

"They were the only men left in my family after my father's death and the wars in France so I didn't have a choice.  They said it was for my safety since they wouldn't be able to protect me if they left me at home."

"But, of course, it wasn't about my safety at all - they brought me south to marry me off again, this time to one of the local lords, probably someone named Courtenay from what I overheard."

"Ah, I think I understand,"  Thomas offered with a great deal of sympathy as Henry, Peter, and I nodded our understanding.

"Your cousins brought you here to marry you off?"  Thomas inquires. "Your husband and father must be dead and you have no brothers.  Is that it?"

"Not quite, my dear bishop, not quite." she replied with a bemused and somewhat sad look on her face visible in the flickering candlelight.

"It's true that my father is dead and I have no brothers, I never did have any brothers actually.  But my husband isn't dead, or rather the man who used to be my husband; he's still alive, of course."

"The problem was that our marriage was never consummated.  It was allowed by the pope after my father died so my husband could get the lands I would inherit, and then later the pope annulled it because we were distant cousins and my husband wanted to marry someone with more land."

"Well that must have taken some coins," I comment as I take a big swig of ale and swish it through my teeth as I put down the bowl.  "If there's one thing we know is that it's costly to buy a favorable decision from the pope.  Who was the unfortunate man who lost you and your lands?"

"Why, King John, of course."

I knock over my bowl of ale and Thomas gasps.

@@@@@

Our meal is finished and we are all filled up and belching politely from an elegant sufficiency of food and ale.  That's when Lady Isabel leaves temporarily with one of two candle lanterns to go outside to relieve herself and then walks up the narrow stone staircase to the room where she and her one and only servant have been living.

She needs, Lady Isabel explains, to make sure Mathilde, her servant, has been provided with sufficient food and ale.

While she is gone we send the boys to their bedding along one of the walls of the castles great hall and light two more candles.  They can listen from there until they fall asleep.

A few minutes later Isabel, Lady Isabel, comes back to sit with us once again.  And more of her story all comes out as we sip on fresh bowls of the castle's ale and quietly listen.

Isabel is the daughter of a long-dead minor Norman lord from Gloucester and the ex-wife of King John.  Her marriage was the annulled without ever being consummated based on their blood relationship as very distant cousins.

Her two remaining male relatives, cousins almost as distant as the king, brought her and her one and only servant south with them.  They came to plot with some of the southern barons to take John’s throne and install her as queen - and then quickly marry her off to whichever one them will then become England's king.

My cousins think, Isabel explains, that if King John is dead they can find someone to marry me who will pay the pope enough to have my annulment canceled.  Then, because her marriage to John was initially recognized by the church, she'll be the queen and they can marry her off to make her new husband the king.

“We are distant cousins by blood, you know, John and I, even if my grandmother was not married to John's grandfather.  Betrothed to John is what my father did for me just before he died.  That was when I was but four and John ten; we wed when I was fifteen and my father already gone."

"As soon as my father died, John's mother wanted him to get on with marrying me to get my lands. She promised my cousins, the only men left in my family, that they could stay on their fiefs if they agreed."

"The Pope was paid by John's mother but apparently not enough by my father - he agreed we could marry so my lands would go to John, but only on condition that our marriage never be consummated."

"It was all done, of course, so the lands I would inherit from my father would pass to John. It wasn't much but he needed them. He was initially only a prince with four older brothers at the time, so far down in the line of succession that he wasn't even given any lands of his own.  So him getting my land was very important to John and his mother."

"I, of course, had no say in the matter and neither did my father when he betrothed me.  He was only a minor lord without sons."

"But then the unexpected happens and John's older three brothers die of various poxes and Richard is killed.  John becomes king and suddenly has lots of land and richer marriage prospects."

"So now he no longer needs me - and he has enough money to buy an annulment from the Pope and, damn his eyes, enough power to keep my lands instead of giving them back as he should if our marriage wasn't proper."

"That’s why my cousins brought me here, of course - they were desperate to have my lands restored so they can stay on them.  Also because I have a claim if John dies, if enough money can be raised to buy the Pope's agreement, to still be his legal wife and thus the queen."

"They brought me here to give me to whoever would agree to pay the Pope and lead the barons against John," she said bitterly.

"He'll have me killed, John will, when he finds out how the barons intend to use me.  It's a wonder he hasn't done it already, isn't it?"

"My God, what are Mathilde and I to do now? the lady suddenly wails. Where can we go?  I almost wish my horrible cousins were still alive.  At least then I might have a chance."

@@@@@

After Isabel goes outside to piss again and then upstairs to sleep, my lieutenants and I stay up half the night talking and drinking ale and listening to the boys snore and talk in their sleep.  It's the first time we've had together to sit down and talk about Oakhampton.

"Oakhampton's location is very good for us since it's like Launceston - it sits astride the only road into Cornwall.  We should keep it if we can," said Henry thoughtfully.

Then he took a big sip of ale and continued.

"If we don't hold Oakhampton, the Earl of Devon will surely try to take it now that Courtenay and his knights are gone - and Devon's already our biggest threat.  His holding Oakhampton instead of Courtney will cut us off from the rest of England and make him much stronger to boot."

Then he added softly to no one in particular.

"We either need to keep Devon from getting Oakhampton or end his threat once and for all by killing him and all his heirs."

When Henry finished a somewhat drunk Thomas pompously repeated what we all already know.

"Oakhampton sits between the east and west forks of the River Ock.  It was obviously built to protect the main transportation corridor into Devon and Cornwall, the old Roman road which crosses the fords that occur before the two channels come together to form one deeper river."

"There's no doubt about it.  Whoever decided to build the castle here knew what he was about, that's for sure.  That's why Henry's right - we can't let Oakhampton get into Devon's hands."

After a lot more ale drinking and talking there is a coming together of our minds and no doubt about it - we want to hold this castle both to keep it out of the hands of the Earl of Devon and keep the road to England open, and to provide both an early warning of an invasion and a powerful blocking force if one occurs.

Besides, if we have Oakhampton we can use the Dartmoor moors for training our Marines and to graze our horses.

"We could even station our Horse Marines here - they'd play merry hell with any would-be invader if we hold the castle," Henry suggests.

After a while the conversation turns back to the unfortunate girl who is the king's annulled and unused wife.

"She's right about needing protection and having no future.  Married or unmarried, when John finds out what the barons are up to he's likely kill her if only to stop the barons from trying to use her to overthrow him to put whoever she marries on the throne."

"You're right.  Damn; she's well and truly in big trouble isn't she?  I feel sorry for her."

"Aye, and probably the oldest virgin in England not in a nunnery."

"Virgins in a nunnery?" snorts my brother Thomas with a priestly wheeze.  "That'll be the day.  Most of the nunneries I ever visited are like brothels for the monks and priests and any visitor with enough coins."

"Mmm,"  I offered.  "Maybe we can help Isabel and help ourselves at the same time by keeping Oakhampton."

Then I told them what I was thinking.  Thomas laughed uproariously when I finished.

"I could do that; yes I could."  Everyone else smiled and nodded enthusiastically.

"Well then, in for a pence in for a pound; let's give it a go."

Chapter Nine

It is late the next morning before Thomas and I finally have an opportunity to seek out Isabel and speak privately with her about our plan.  She is quite anxious to hear the latest news about the barons so it comes first; it's clear she's afraid some of them may have survived.

"So far things seem to be working out most nicely for us, Lady Isabel.  Raymond's outriders, he's the sergeant in charge of our horsemen, and all the Horse Marines rode out right after dawn to search in every direction for signs of an enemy or a survivor."

"The big news is that none our riders have returned with a report so it is highly unlikely there are any immediate threats to your safety."  Or ours for that matter.

Then I get to the heart of the matter.

"You were right last night, Lady Isabel, when you said that the king is likely to have you killed because he won't want to risk having the barons try to kill him to put your new husband on the throne.  So we have an idea for you to consider - we want you to marry Lord Courtenay after all."

"But I can't.  He's dead."

"Well, yes, Courtenay is dead and rightly so, of course," I answer with a twinkle in my eye.

"But only you and the two of us and a few other people know that.  So it's quite possible that Bishop Thomas here married you two yesterday before Courtenay sailed off to join the crusade."

"Indeed Bishop Thomas is quite sure he married you two last week and I clearly recall that Courtenay sold Oakhampton to me in order to raise the coins needed to pay for his transportation and maintain him and his men while they are in the Holy Land.  I even have a parchment to prove it."

Then Thomas chimed in to help me explain.

"On parchment the church records would show you to be married to a baron who is no threat to the king because he will be gone from England for years.  That means, of course, that your cousins can't marry you off."

"It also means the barons can't put you on the throne if the king dies because you gave up any claim to still be the king's wife when you married Courtenay."

"Is that really possible?"

"It is if a bishop of the church such as myself says he married you to Courtenay a couple of days before he sailed on his crusade and it's recorded in the registry of the local parish."

"But what will happen to me and Mathilde?"

"Why you'll live here, of course, for so long as you like.  The good Lord Courtney was such a fine and caring husband that he made provisions for you in your marriage contract and in the contract selling Oakhampton."

"And if you ever do find a man you want to marry you can announce you received word of Courtenay's honorable death and marry him.  Lots of crusaders die in the Holy Land.  It's rather expected of them, isn't it?"

"But what about the men who survived the battle?  They know he's dead.  They'll talk and everyone will know there was no marriage and no sale of the castle and its lands?"

I hasten to assure her that the survivors will not be a problem.

"The survivors of the battle shouldn't be a problem, Lady Isabel.  None of the northern lords survived and their men couldn't possibly have recognized a dead Courtenay.  After all, they'd just arrived from the north and had barely seen him when he was alive - if they thought they'd seen him dead they were obviously mistaken."

"Anyhow," Thomas interrupted me to add, " it doesn't matter even if a couple of Courtenay's men did see him dead and recognized him - because in a few days they'll all be helping our men row out to the Holy Land on one of our galleys.  It will be years before they get back, if they ever do.  It seems a good way for them to pay for the trouble they caused."

"Mon Dieu," she said incredulously after staring blankly at us for a moment,  "I'm saved."  And with that, and to the astonishment of a file of Marines who are marching by, she began crying and gave us both big hugs and kisses.

@@@@@

Thomas laboured for two days preparing all the various parchment letters and documents, particularly the letter explaining things to King John.  Indeed he used up so many parchments drafting the letter to the king that he had to send a galloper to Launceston to fetch more of them.  I read it and it certainly convinces me.

"This is what the king will want to hear so he'll believe it," Thomas said as he handed the finished parchment to me so I could read it out loud to everyone at the supper table that night. I'll have it delivered to the chancellor when Peter and I get to London with the boys."

He didn't pass it around because neither Peter nor Henry can read and Lady Isabel also may not be learned.

What Thomas hands me to read out to everyone is a letter to the king from the Bishop of Cornwall.  It informs the king of the good news that there has been a successful and decisive battle in Devon between King John's supporters led by Lord Courtenay and the Earl of Cornwall and a force of northern barons seeking to raise support for a rising against the king.

Basically it says that God is clearly on the King's side because the northern barons were killed when their anger caused them to attack the newly married Courtenay after he reaffirmed his support for King John and was just about to begin his trip to the Holy Land to join the Fourth Crusade.

It goes on to explain that it was also clearly God's will that the barons attacked Lord Courtenay and his men when the king's strong supporter, the Earl of Cornwall was visiting Oakhampton with his men and could help Courtenay defeat them.

The Earl was present, thanks to God's unwavering support for the king, to witness Courtenay's marriage to Isabella of Gloucester and buy Oakhampton Castle.  Courtenay sold the castle and its lands, of course, so he'd have enough money to get to the Holy Land and maintain himself and his men there after he did.

"Yes, that should do it quite nicely,"  Thomas announces with a great deal of pride and satisfaction and a big sip of ale when I finish reading out the parchment and begin rolling it up.

"It tells King John and his chancellor what they'll want to hear," he explains.

"And who's to say otherwise - if anyone asks to talk to the survivors of the barons' force we'll have to sadly inform him that they have been made into galley slaves for their trouble and are busy at the moment rowing on one of our galleys somewhere in the Holy Land."

Everyone looks and smiles at everyone else and nods their satisfaction.  Then I read out loud the sales contract for the castle and the marriage contract between Isabel and Courtenay.

When I finished reading the contracts Thomas put a bowl of newly mixed ink and a quill on the table and we all made our marks on them as witnesses, and on several duplicate copies as well.

Chapter Ten

Oakhampton is busy this morning.  Henry is riding to Restormel with the Horse Marines and our wagons and prisoners.  He'll stay there and be in charge of our forces in Cornwall while Thomas and I are away.

And we will be away from Cornwall for a while.  In an hour or so Thomas, Peter, the boys, and one of the Marine companies will be marching for Hathersage and London.

I myself will be staying here with the second company of Marines and most of the outriders to guard Oakhampton in case more of the northern barons arrive or the Earl of Devon hears about Courtney's death and shows up to try and claim the place.

From now on we'll always keep a strong force here.  Probably Raymond and his Horse Marines; Raymond's wife will like being in a castle with a noble lady while he's off riding about.  I wonder if they have castles where his wife came from.  She told him they have dragons there so they must have castles to hide in.

At the moment Raymond and his men are convoying the prisoners to Cornwall and carrying a message telling Harold's second, the man in charge of our ships and sailors when Harold's not available, what to do with them.

Raymond's message also directs Harold's man to send two of our galleys in London to meet Thomas and his party.

The galleys are to bring Thomas and the boys and our company of walking Marines back to Cornwall, load the prisoners if they have not already been shipped out to the Holy Land on an earlier galley, and then carry Thomas and Peter on to Rome to deliver the prayer coins from last season's travelers to the Pope.

Thomas and I discussed his trip to Rome in some detail; he wants Peter to know the delivery process so Peter can take his place when he is not available.

Two hours later and the boys and all my lieutenants and their men are off and gone.  Oakhampton feels somewhat deserted and empty even though I've got an entire company of Marine archers camped inside the castle's walls.

@@@@@

Supper that evening with Lady Isabel is a quiet and simple affair.  A cold spell has arrived and brought a chilling rain so we have a small fire at one end of the great hall's fireplace to warm us.  At the moment it is casting flickering shadows on the walls as we eat our joints of mutton and drink our bowls of ale.

"How long do you think you will be here, Earl William?   Or should I call you Captain William?"

"Please call me William, Lady Isabel."

"And to answer your question, I'm not sure how long it will be.  Certainly I will not be leaving until Raymond and his horsemen return with this year's horses from Hathersage and London.  Then I'll go to Restormel and spend some time my, uh, family before I sail on to Cyprus before the weather gets bad."

"But don't you expect your horsemen back from Cornwall tomorrow?"

"Yes, of course. Raymond should be back from delivering the prisoners tomorrow.  But then he and his men will ride on the very next day to Hathersage Castle and London to get our new horses.  It will take him several weeks at the very least to fetch them and bring them back."

"Will you tell me about your women and children?  Thanks to you, I'm once again very interested in life again, I truly am.  How did you meet them?"

@@@@@

It took quite a while because of all her questions and the complexities of having three women in my life.  But when Isabel finally touched me gently on the shoulder and said good night she certainly knew more about my personal life than anyone except Thomas - and in some very personal areas about the sisters quite a bit more.  She's a nice person.

It happened when I'd just gotten back from pissing and was burrowing down into the linen and furs on the string bed the servants had set up for me in the great hall.  That's when I heard the quiet footsteps padding down the stone staircase and moving towards me.

The light from the flickering fire was so dim that until she spoke I couldn't even make out who it was.  But I knew as soon as I heard the footsteps.

"Will you move over and let me in so we can talk some more?  The stones are cold on my feet you know."

"Lady you should not be here.  What will your maid think?"

"Silly man.  This is the first time I've ever had a chance to be alone with a man in my whole life.  Who do you think encouraged me to come back so we could talk some more?"

My mind was racing as she pulled back the covers and slid in next to me.  Is this dangerous or does it even matter now that she's married to Courtenay and we hold this place?

The only thing she said for quite some time after that was an initial quiet whisper into my ear - "please don't hurt me; I've never been with a man before." And then, after a pause, she added "Mathilde said I should tell you."

We spent the next hour or so kissing and petting and exploring each other as if we were dogs in heat.  It was exquisite agony to explore her and guide her.

Finally, just when I thought I couldn't stand it any longer, she pulled me over on top of her and helped me guide my dingle deep into her with a deep sigh.  I thought I heard her murmur "finally" but perhaps it was just my wishful thinking.

I could hardly control myself at first.  It was both wonderful and quite embarrassing.  But after my initial burst of enthusiasm we settle down and enjoy great pleasures together - sometimes forceful and demanding, other times slow and sensuous.

Her skin is so smooth and she is delicious and responsive, it's as if a weir has burst and we explore each other in every possible way.

It wasn't until much later when I seemed to be daydreaming about when I was a little boy that she got up.  That brought me out of my dream and I watched as she used a stick to fish a warm wet rag out of a fire-blackened iron pot of hot water sitting on the hot fireplace ashes.  Where did that come from?

"Where did that pot and rag come from?"

"Mathilde put it on the fire for me while we were touching each other.  She said I'm supposed to wipe you off with a warm rag if we stop touching each other for a while because it will make you feel good and taste good.  Isn't that what I'm supposed to do?"  Mathilde came in here and did what?

"We were doing quite a bit more than touching each other, you know."

"Of course I know," she whispered into my ear as she nibbled on it. "But Mathilde says I'm never to say the word 'fucking.'  She told me only men are allowed to use it except in private.  Isn't that what we were doing?"

"Well yes we were.  Mmm. What else did Mathilde tell you?"

Chapter XI

Thomas and I and the boys ride at the head of the Marines as they march through the unguarded city gates and enter London on a cool and foggy morning in early June. The city's crowded streets become even more crowded as people hear our walking drum and come out to watch as we march past.

Yes, Thomas is a bishop and can talk Latin and scribe - but he insists everyone call him Thomas unless we are with outsiders.  Strange isn't it?  Probably it's because we're all archers and he was an archer once.

What the Londoners see is a narrow two abreast column of longbow-carrying Marines with their supply wagons clattering over the cobblestones behind them.  They're then followed by Raymond and about forty of Raymond's Horse Marines each leading his riding and supply horses.

We only stop once so the Marines can piss or shite on the street.  Then it's straight march to the docks and on to the galleys waiting for us at the wharf near the stable that provides our horses each year.

Raymond and some of his Horse Marines are with us as we enter London.  They had turned around after they delivered our prisoners to Cornwall and caught up with us on the road.

They're here take the horses we buy in London back to Cornwall while the rest of us row back home to Cornwall on the galleys that we expect to find waiting for us at the dock near the stables.

As I look back over my shoulder I can see the Marines marching behind us are both happy and proud as they walk in step to the drum and gawk at the people and big buildings along our route.

Many of the Marines and boys are obviously in awe of London's size and its crowded and bustling streets.  They have never been here before, unlike me who was born here and George and three of the older boys who came for King John's coronation.

Our Marines are particularly happy because they've been told they'll be receiving a two pence advance on their annual pay and given an evening of liberty to spend them.

The walking Marines will be given their two pence and liberty as soon as the supply wagons are unloaded and their weapons are safely on board the galleys that will carry us back to Cornwall; the Horse Marines will be given their two pence when they reach the stable near the dock that is holding the horses we're buying this year.

Either way our Marines undoubtedly excited about the future and rightly so - in a few hours each of them will have two copper pennies he can use to get himself properly drunk tonight and hire an alley woman.

They're not the only ones pleased to be here in London.  I'm happy too because I'm going to try to find my mother and, if she's still alive, ask her to come with me to Cornwall where I can better care for her.

But first I have to carry the coins for the Marines to the galleys and see that they are properly distributed.  I'll be handing out the Marines' coins one galley at a time so I can be there to make sure each Marine actually gets his two.

I'll be watching the coin payments before I go to where my mother sells chestnuts from her barrow cart because we trust our sergeants but also keep close watch on them to make sure they do what they are supposed to do.

Making sure the coins our men earn do not end up in someone else's purse is important - we have very few rules with a death penalty if they are broken; stealing from a fellow archer is one of them.

Murder and cowardice are the others.  Rape and torture are not looked upon kindly either.

On the other hand, William and Thomas are not big on torturing to get confessions and the death penalty for felonies the way most nobles are - they say confessions from torture are meaningless and it's a better punishment for everyone including us if a convicted man rows as a galley slave until he dies.

@@@@@

London is so large and so crowded that once we enter the city it takes us a good part of the day to march to the dock near the stables where our horses and recruits are gathered.

The two galleys we expected have arrived. When we reach them we find that space on the dock is in such short supply, and so expensive, that one of our galleys, the one captained by Rolf, is moored against the dock and the second, Galen's, is tied alongside the first.

Mooring in such a way saves money.  It also slows down the unloading of our horses and wagons because everything for Galen's galley has to pass over the deck of Rolf's to get to it.

While I'm supervising the unloading and handing out two pence to each Marine, Thomas will take the boys to the stable both to hand out two pence to each of the Horse Marines and to arrange for Freddy, the stable master, to send one of his ostlers to Windsor carrying Thomas's "good news" letter to the king.

Taking the boys to the stables and to see and understand our horse buying process is one of the two main reasons they came with us.

The other reason, of course, is for the boys to see and better understand the English countryside.  They need to know about because that's where we recruit our archers and where an enemy might pass or have to be fought.

I can see they are enjoying the ride.  They're going to have sore arses and many a tale to tell each other and the younger boys when they get back to Cornwall

Thomas and I have already decided that when we are finished with our chores we'll meet at the White Horse for some chops and onions and some of the alewife's wonderful brew that smells like juniper berries.

It's been a long trip and I'm sure we're both more than ready for a taste.  The boys, of course, will have to content themselves with bowls of watered ale and being kept well away from the tavern's well-poxed whores.

It's a pity Andrew Brewer didn't know to stop here to learn the secret of the juniper brew before he went back out to Cyprus.

The sun is going down and a fog is rolling in by the time the Marines finish unloading of their equipment and line up to get their liberty coins - and the crews of the two galleys crew look on somewhat jealously even though they themselves had received similar liberty coins from their sergeant captains when they first arrived.

Every Marine accepts his two pence although some of them grumble quietly to each other about not being allowed to carry a knife ashore to protect themselves.  They particularly don't like that they will be searched by their sergeants to make sure they aren't carrying a weapon.

For the most part, however, the men are boisterous and telling each other what they are going to do and forming in little groups of men to do it together.

Of course they are; the Marines are young and full of themselves and some of them have never been in a proper tavern or met a whore.  There is no doubt about it - this part of the dock area is going to lively tonight - that's why they've been forbidden to take their knives ashore.

Finally, I'm done - the Marines have their liberty coins and I'm off to walk to the White Horse Tavern to meet Thomas and the boys.  I need something to eat and a drink, I truly do.  I dread tomorrow but I'll never forgive myself if I don't at least try to find my mum after all these years.

@@@@@

In the morning, as soon as the sun comes up, I leave Thomas and Rolf snoring in the little forecastle where we'd spent the night and walk bleary eyed off the ship to begin looking for my mother.

The first thing I do is wake a horse cart driver sleeping at the end of the dock and tell him where I want to go and what I was willing to pay him.  He nods without saying a single word, picks up his whip, and flicks it on the arse of the old gray horse standing stoically in front of the cart.

It's a gelding like most in the cart trade.

I can afford to arrive in my old neighborhood in a horse cart so that's what I'm going to do.  And it isn't just for show and to impress the people who used to look down on me; it's really quite a ways from here at the dock to where my mum used to sell chestnuts after she got too old to work in the old Blue Bell ale house.

My father, mum used to say before I ran off for an archer, was a fishmonger who died of the sweating pox right after I was born.

We clattered and clopped through the waking streets until I entered what used to be my old neighborhood.  Here's where I'd grown up and lived until I ran off when my mum took up with a draper.

"Over there," I tell the horse cart driver, "let me out over there."

My old street looks the same but somehow it's not the same as I remember.  The houses with their stalls opening on to the street still lean this way and that and their first floors still hang out over the street to block the sun.  But the stalls on the street and the handful of people on the street are all different than I remember from more than ten years ago.

Actually, it is truly different than I remember.  There are even some strange looking people about wearing foreign looking clothes.  My God, everything's changed.

The neighborhood is just coming alive as I give the driver a couple of small coppers and carefully climb out of the cart so as not to step in pile of shite.

A couple of ragged men who'd obviously spent the night sleeping in one of the doorways stand up and watch as I hand the driver his coin.  My light brown tunic with its six black stripes across the front and back is new to them.  They don't know what to make of it or of me.

"Do either of you know old Mary who used to have a barrow selling chestnuts hereabouts?"

"No your worship, we never done.  From around here was she?"  Worship? They think I'm some kind of official?

All day long I talked to people as I went from stall to stall along the street where ma used to sell chestnuts off a cart.  Then I tried asking on the streets around it.  Nothing.  No one remembered her, not even at the Blue Bell.

Finally I saw an old hag hobble down the street and asked her.

"Aye, I remembers Old Mary and her cart.  She was took off years ago by the coughing pox.  Don't know what happened to her cart.  Probably took by one of the tinkers.  They was big here for a few years.  Scots they all was, weren't they?"

@@@@@

It's a miracle I was able to get back to the stables alive. I was so drunk that I couldn't even remember where I'd been.  And although I didn't know it at the time, my knife was gone and so was my purse and shoes.

Thomas told me later that he watched me stagger in and had to grab my arm to keep me from falling while he lead me to an empty tack room.  I sort of remember Thomas pushing me to the floor and telling me to lay down and rest.

I tried to do what Thomas said but everything was spinning in a big circle so fast that I got dizzy and had to stand up.

That's pretty much all I can remember until the next morning when all of a sudden I felt someone kicking my leg to wake me.  It was Thomas and he was holding something out to me.

"Here's a dead man's tunic from the galley's stores.  Strip yours off and put it on.  You can wear the tunic of a chosen man for a while we get the vomit and shite washed off yours.  Freddy says there's a draper nearby whose wife is a washer woman; he'll have one of his boys run yours there for a washing."

Thomas waited while I slipped out of my foul clothes and put on my new tunic.  It took a while because my head hurt most horrible and my new tunic is much too small.

According to Thomas, I can keep it for as long as I like because its former owner died real sudden like on the way to Cornwall from the Holy Land last year.

"Just rowing along with everyone else and fell over dead, didn't he?"

The weather had cleared during the night but I was in no condition to enjoy it what with my head so sore and barely able to stand.  Freddy was helpful despite the way I fouled his tack room; he suggested to Thomas that a bowl of the alewife's new brew might help me recover.

"A bit of what caused it can cure it," Freddy suggests.  "It often works for me."

Thomas comes with me when I go to the White Horse and try Freddy's cure.  Annie the White Horse's alewife brings me a bowl.  It doesn't work but out of nowhere drinking it gives me an idea.

"Annie, how long does your juniper drink last before it goes off?"

If it holds up long enough we could have her to fill some kegs and sell them in Cyprus and along the coast.  Oh God my head hurts.

Chapter Twelve

As a result, of Peter's misfortune and other circumstances including the poor state of some of the horses Freddy found us to buy, I decided that we should stay in London for a few more days.

That decision ended up being a great mistake for the very next day several of the King's men rode up with a couple of retainers and dismounted at the stable.

They rode up while Peter and Raymond and some of Raymond's Horse Marines were standing around a brown mare trying to decide if she was as young and ready to be bred as her would-be seller was claiming.

"My name," one of the King's man said as we all turned to watch them enter, "is Sir William Marshal.  I'm a King's man and I'm looking for the Bishop of Cornwall.  Is he here?"

"No, Sir Knight, he's not here," Peter promptly answered.  "But he still may be on one of the galleys at the dock if he hasn't gone off for the day with his students.  I could ask one of the stable master's men to guide you to him if you'd like."

@@@@@

Rolf's galley was rocking slightly in the harbor swell and I was on the galley deck eating with the boys when the King's knight and his men appeared at the end of the dock.

When I first saw them they were walking their horses behind one of Freddy's ostlers.  The ostler was walking briskly ahead of them with me in my newly washed tunic walking some distance behind them.

I stood and wiped my hands on my bishop's gown when it became obvious that the riders were coming here to where the two side by side galleys are docked.

I knew immediately that it must be about my letter to the king.  I wonder what it is that they want?

When the riders began to dismount I sent the crew away and told the boys to take their food and watch and listen from the deck of the galley lashed alongside. I can see they are King's men from their livery, and that at least one of them holds some kind of high rank.

@@@@@

"My name," the King's man said, "is Sir William Marshal.  I'm here regarding a letter King John received from the Bishop of Cornwall.  Are you the Bishop of Cornwall?"

"Good day to you, Sir William.  Yes, I am Thomas, Bishop of Cornwall.  How may I be of assistance to you?"

Sir William stood on the deck and tried me with many questions.  It seems that he, on behalf of King John, wants to exactly know how William defeated the barons on the road near Oakhampton.

Marshal's questions throw me into a poggle and I quickly began telling him the tale we'd all agreed to tell - that we were there to witness the marriage and buy the castle, and that we won the battle because the knights blinded themselves before they charged by lowering their visors and then running their horses straight on to our archers' stakes.

"It was if the hand of God reached down to save us by guiding them to their deaths."  I said as I made the sign of the cross and kissed the wooden cross hanging from my neck.  Such ox shite.  But it can't hurt; the knight might be religious.

What I did not mention was our use of the Swiss pikes and how we had modified them to add the blades and hooks or that we were using long bows.  I also "forgot" to mention the fighting formation we used and why we use it because of our experiences on Cyprus and in front of Constantinople's walls.

Then things got worse, much worse, so far as I'm concerned.

When I finished giving Sir William the tall tale we all agreed to tell about the events at Oakhampton, he informed me that I must go with him to Windsor forthwith because the King wants to personally talk to someone who was at the battle.  He wants a first-hand report.

He also asked if the William who helped Courtenay defeat the barons is the same William who is the Earl of Cornwall who fought before the walls of Constantinople and is the hereditary commander of the "Order of Poor Landless Sailors" - and, by the way, who are they and what do they do?

How did the king hear of the Order?  From his ambassador to the Pope in Rome?

"Yes, I believe he is, Sir William.  I don't know much about the fighting around Constantinople.  I was in Cornwall at the time learning those boys over there how to read the bible and scribe and sum.  They'll be priests won't they?"  And a lot more than that.

"But I did talk to some sailors who had been there.  What I was told is that it came about because some Englishmen were being held for ransom by the Greeks.  They all agreed that William and his sailors won because the Greek army was mostly of a mob of serfs who had no leaders or weapons."

@@@@@

I don't think I'm under arrest but I have no idea what my having to go to Windsor with the King's men means- or what will happen when I get there.  I'm not taking any chances.  Before I leave with William Marshal and his men I go to my little castle on the front of the galley's deck to get my bishop's miter and crosier.

On my way to get them I motion to Gerard, the galley's sergeant captain, to join me.  Once we're inside the cabin by ourselves, I tell him to send a message to Raymond at the horse stable as soon as I leave with Sir William.

He's to tell Raymond to leave London immediately with all the available horses.  Also after I leave, he is to tell Peter to get our men back on board our galleys and be prepared to fight his way out of the harbor and go on to Rome and the Pope without me.  He's to wait three days here for me to return and then go without me.

I put my miter on my head, picked up my crosier, and walked back out of the little castle - and immediately saw Peter on the dock off to the side along the galley's railing.  He was hanging back and watching carefully.

"Oh Peter, there you are.  Mmm.  Peter, I'm going to go to Windsor with Sir William and his men.  It seems the king wants to ask me some questions about the fighting when the barons attacked us near Oakhampton.  So please send someone to the stables to bring me a riding horse, an ambler if one is available.  One that is not too pricey if you please."

@@@@@

I learn much more as I ride to Windsor with Sir William.  The king is not particularly worried about the barons being unhappy with him but William Marshal definitely is and he makes no bones about it.

"They don't like the high scutage fees they have to pay if they don't join his army and they don't like the king taking control of their courts and abolishing their right to collect tolls on the roads over their lands.  I've tried to warn the king that they might rise and come against him but he doesn't listen."

It also seems the King really does want to talk to me about the battle at Oakhampton and may have heard about some of the archers' successes in the Holy Land.  He also wants to know how many archers we have and how many of our ships are available to help carry the new army he's raising to France.

Uh oh, I tell myself, it sounds like the king wants our ships and archers for his army in France.

"Not many of either William's archers or his ships are in England," I confide to Sir William.

"Cornwall is so poor, you know.  Can't support them can it?  That's why most of the Earl's men and galleys are always so far away in the Holy Land - because it's the only place where they can earn their bread carrying pilgrims and refugees."

"Yes, it's mostly untrained recruits and sailors the Earl has in Cornwall because that's where he trains his archers and repairs his ships.  The land's no good so the people are desperate for food aren't they?"

We don't talk much after that because, fortunately, it starts raining even before we clear the city and continues all the way to Windsor.  It makes it difficult to talk and gives me time to gather my thoughts.

@@@@@

Windsor is huge and impressive as we come around the edge of a grove of trees and see it in the distance on top of a hill.  It's been a long ride and my wet arse is aching.  But at least I've had a chance to think about what I should tell the king - not much.

Sir William is well known to the guards and we pass through the castle gate without even slowing down.  And then it happens - as we ride up the steeply inclined path from the gate to the keep above us my horse somehow slips on the wet cobblestones and goes down with a heavy thud and a horse scream.

My panicked horse struggles to her feet and bolts away to the side and then downhill towards the gate with one of Sir William's riders hot on her heels; I, on the other hand stay down with painful twisted ankle and my miter goes flying.

I stay down until a very solicitous Sir William and several of his men quickly dismount and help me to my feet - and I can only stand on one leg if I lean on my crosier.  The other is numb and can't take the weight.

"Are you all right, Bishop?  Can you stand?" he asks as one of his men hands me my miter and they all try to steady me while I clap it back on my head.

Twenty minutes later Sir William and his men are gone and I'm sitting on a stool in a little room in the keep.

After a while a dirty and incredibly smelly old monk claiming to be a barber and bonesetter is clucking over my damn painful ankle and sagely telling me what I already know - it's badly bruised and sprained.

My God, he must be one of those monks I've heard about who think Jesus never wiped his arse so they shouldn't either.  Why would they ever think that?

@@@@@

My mood is foul and I start to say something to the monk a bishop would rarely say.  That's when the king walks in with William Marshal and a half dozen or so of his courtiers trailing behind.

I try most manfully to get to my feet - and end up hopping a couple of times on my good leg and sitting back down while my miter falls off and hits the floor.  What an embarrassment.

I think the king started to laugh but caught himself and put on a grave face instead.

"Please sit, Bishop.  You have our permission under the circumstances." ...."I understand your horse went out from under you on the cobblestones; are you sufficiently gathered to speak with us?"

"Thank you, Your Majesty; you do me great honor by inquiring about my unexpected and sad condition.  I am at your service and yours to command in any way you wish."

Lay the ox shit on with a trowel whenever you're with royalty; that's my advice. They think they deserve it though only God knows why.

@@@@@

"Sir William here has told me some of your news, Bishop Thomas, and I have, of course, read your letter and know you are close to the Earl of Cornwall as his religious advisor.  What can you tell me about the events in Devon?  You were there weren't you?"

"Yes, Your Majesty, I was there - and I saw God's work being done right before my eyes.  If I hadn't seen it with my very own eyes I would not have believed it, Your Majesty.  Your enemies rode their horses straight on to the stakes of the Earl's archers."

"It is undoubtedly the result of the God looking so favorably upon you and, of course, the Pope's special prayers that the Earl and his men not be stopped or slowed in their efforts to assist the pilgrims and refugees in the Holy Land."

"And Lady Isabella of Gloucester?"

"Happily married to a crusader your Majesty and all recorded proper-like in the local parish.

Then I charged on.

"No doubt her marriage to Lord Courtenay is God's will as well - since it provided God's validation of her annulment and enabled the earl to buy Oakhampton so he can block any attack on your supporters in Cornwall.  The earl impoverished himself to do it, don't you know."  Such ox shite.  We just took it without paying a penny.

"Yes, I can see that now.  God is with me."

King John seems fascinated by what he hears and sees God's hand in everything that happens.  He spends more than an hour asking me all kinds of questions about William and Cornwall.

What happened when the French knights killed Lord Edmund's wife and daughters; FitzCount's challenge to William and his just death; why Cornwall is so poor that it can't even support priests and the earl must go to the Holy Land to earn the coins to buy food for his men.  And many other such things like that.

I made much about Cornwall being so poor that I have to use traveling Bodmin Monastery monks instead of priests in its few parishes and even the Romans didn't build a road to it.  I did it deliberately - I don't want the king to even think about giving someone a fief in Cornwall.  He's already got the revenues from the tin mines and that's enough.

Then our conversation becomes more down to earth and gets beyond "God's Will" and into more practical matters.

The king wants to know how much money I am saving by using monks instead of priests in Cornwall's parishes and letting them and the common folk in the hundreds do their own justice since there are no priests and manors.

I tell him it's not much that I save by letting the monks and hundreds do the justice - it's that we have no choice but to use them because my parishes are so poor that they don't have enough coins and extra food to support priests and manors.

Of course the people in the parishes don't have extra crops and livestock to give to the church; they sell it all to us so we can feed ourselves and our men - and they don't have any coins for the church because they use the coins we pay them to pay their taxes and rents and buy their rakes and seeds and such.  But I'm certainly not going to tell him the truth, am I?

"Monks require less food from the parishes than the priests, Sire, and they have their own food at Bodmin which owns just about all of Cornwall's good lands."  And it has franklins on its lands because it no longer has serfs and slaves - William and I saw to that, didn't we?

What I don't tell the king is that it isn't the shortage of coins that causes us to use the Bodmin monks - it's that they treat the common folk better and demand less from them, probably because they can go back to Bodmin to eat and enjoy themselves among their friends.

The only time the king surprises me is when he asks whether it was on Cyprus or in front of Constantinople's walls when we first began to realize that the Earl of Cornwall enjoys God's special protection just as he does.

"I believe it was at Constantinople, Your Majesty."

It's all ox shite, of course, but the king seems to believe God wanted him to be king and for things in Devon to turn out as they did for the barons who opposed him.

Then the king asked what I think the king wanted to know most - where William is and how much help can he provide when the king and his army return to France next month to once again campaign against the French?

"I'm not sure where the Earl of Cornwall is, Your Majesty; he may already be on his way to the Holy Land, but I'm not entirely sure.  As you know, he's often away on God's business because it's the only way he can feed his family and his men since Cornwall is so poor it can't even support knights and priests."

"But one thing I do know for sure, Your Majesty. I know the Earl of Cornwall is one of your most loyal supporters and will do everything he can to help you in France.  He hates the French you know."

I know William's not in Cornwall; he's almost certainly still at Oakhampton Castle with a company of Marines. I also know that few, if any, of our ships and archers are going to be "available" to be pissed away in France by the king.

The King is obviously not fully persuaded or put off by my answer.

"I don't care where he is.  I want you to get a message to him telling him he is to report to me or William Marshal in Dover with all of his available ships and men before the tenth day of June.  I won't require any scutage or taxes of him because I know he cannot pay them."

Damn, scutage would have been better.  Maybe I shouldn't have convinced the king we are so terribly poor.

"I will, Your Majesty, you can depend on me."

For the longest while the king just stands there staring at me with his eyes not blinking.  Finally he turns and he and his entourage walk away without saying another word.

I'm left alone in the dimly lighted room and desperately need to relieve myself - so I limp over to the corner of the room furthest from the door and think about what the king said and many other things whilst I pee against the wall and think about what I should do.

It would seem that the king accepts Lady Isabel's marriage and William's ownership of Oakhampton.  But you can never tell with royalty, can you?  I wonder how my horse is doing and if I can leave.

Chapter Thirteen

The end of May of 1202 is a busy time of the year for the archers.  A wet and hungry Thomas finds his horse and rides back to London from Windsor with two of William Marshall's men as guards.  He and Peter immediately sail for Cornwall to return the boys to their studies.  Then they ride to Oakhampton to talk with William.

So far as they know their previous assignments are still in effect - Peter will go to Rome with Thomas to see how the Pope is paid.  He needs to know so he can make the payments in the future if Thomas is not available.  Angelo Priestly will learn the boys while Thomas is gone and Helen and her sisters will mother them.

On the other hand, perhaps all that will change now that we hold Oakhampton and William must go to Dover.

@@@@@

As soon as they arrive in Cornwall and Thomas and Peter take the boys to Restormel and then ride on to Oakhampton to report to William about the meeting with the king.  They need to explain why Raymond left London without all the horses and why the boys came back with them on the galleys instead of riding their horses back with Raymond.

They came back on the galley, of course, because the more Thomas thought about what William Marshall told him the more he worried about the potential danger to the boys from the northern barons who'll be coming south to report to the army the king is forming at Dover - they might have heard about Oakhampton and take revenge.

The welcome Thomas and Peter receive when they finally reach Oakhampton is both effuse and unexpectedly strained.  No one says a word but it is obvious that Isabel and William are besotted with each other and are unhappy about the king's order for William to report to Dover.

Thomas and Peter pick up on it immediately despite the lovers' efforts to cover it up - so they make their report over some hastily assembled bread and cold chicken, and ride straight back to Launceston and Restormel.

Neither of them says a word and they both silently wonder what it means.

@@@@@

Five days later a somber William rides into Restormel with some of Raymond's outriders.  Thomas would be pleased if he'd seen William during the ride - he'd spent most of the time practicing with the two knives he wears strapped to his wrists under his tunic.

William returns to a warm reception.  George and the sisters and their children are happy to see him.  Within hours it's as if he'd never been away.

The next morning William and his lieutenants discuss the king's demands - and conclude that William has no choice but to answer the king's call to arms and report to the army the king is mustering at Dover.

Everyone agrees.  William will have to take at least two galleys and some men to Dover to keep the King sweet.  They also agree that the ships' crews should be changed.

William will take ships to the king that are heavy with sailors and the galleys carrying Thomas and Martin should be heavy with Marines moved from the galleys going to Dover.

Our explanation for the changing of the galley crews, if any of us are ever asked, will be that the two galleys going to the Mediterranean need to be mostly Marines in case Thomas and Martin run into pirates.

In contrast, those going with William to Dover need to have as many as possible of our best sailors on board so they can carry King John safely to France if the weather in the channel suddenly turns bad.

The real goal of changing the galley crews, of course, is to so reduce the fighting ability of the ships' crews such that the king and William Marshall won't require them to disembark and join the king's army.

@@@@@

"Act poor and moan about how poor Cornwall is because the king gets all the tin revenues and the church has all the good land - that's what I told the king.  It explains why we don't have priests and gentry in the parishes and none should be send."

That had been Thomas's advice last night as we sat around the long table in Restormel's great hall.  And Thomas repeated it once again to me before he climbed aboard his galley.

Then we all watch and wave as Thomas swings his leg over the rail of Rolf's galley and makes his way through the chickens and sheep stacked up everywhere on its deck.  Rolf's galley is crowded with supplies because it's a long way to Rome and the fewer food and water stops that have to be made the better.

Thomas's galley had already drifted down the river and was out of sight around the bend when we watched and waved once again as Martin Archer repeated the process with the galley he is taking out to Cyprus and on to Constantinople to be the sergeant of its station .

As soon as Martin's galley cast off, and even before it got to the bend in the river, the two galleys I'll be taking to Dover tomorrow came up to the dock and started loading supplies for my departure in the morning.

@@@@@

I won't need nearly so many supplies and livestock for my relatively short voyage to Dover.  But I'm taking no chances - I'm taking a lot of living chickens and sheep and other provisions because I don't know how long our galleys will be without access to decent food.  King John is not famous for providing for his men.

The supplies I'll be taking are already being prepared for loading. I can hear the bleating of the sheep we'll be carrying.  They're in the holding pen next to the dock.

This afternoon some of the sheep will be butchered and then, in the morning as soon as the sun comes up, the rest of them will have their hamstrings cut to nobble them so they can't move about when they're piled up on our decks.  They'll last longer that way won't they?

We finished waving our farewells and walk back together up the cart path to Restormel as soon as Martin's galley cast off and drifted around the bend in the river and passed out of sight.

There are quite a number of people on the path with me:  Helen and her sisters and their infants, George and the boys and Ranulph Priestly who learns them when Thomas is not available, and Peter who will be in charge in Cornwall while Thomas and I are away.

That's when I finally realize how big my family has become - and there's not a thing I would do to change it.

Chapter Fourteen

It is the second day June in the year of our lord 1202 when William takes leave of the sisters and sets off with two galleys full of sailors to meet the King John and William Marshal at Dover Castle.

The channel was unusually calm and the two galleys made good time from Cornwall.  They follow one right behind the other as their crews row them into the crowded Dover harbor on a bright and sunny Thursday afternoon.

What is instantly obvious to William and his men as they enter the harbor is that something big is underway - there is no room at the dock and the harbor is packed with all kinds of ships from little fishing boats to big cargo cogs.

Sailors idling on the ships in the harbor watch as Edward from Portsmouth, the snaggly toothed four stripe sergeant captaining William's galley, finally finds a place to his liking and orders an anchor heaved over the side to take it.

The other galley comes in behind them, throws out its own anchor, and then pays out its anchor line until it is positioned next to Edward's.  Sailors quickly lash the two galleys together.

William came ashore in the galley's dinghy after eating some bread and cold chicken. Water parties from both galleys are already on the beach with water skins.

All of the men, including William, are in identical brown tunics with long sleeves.  The only difference is that sailors have brown stripes sewn on the front and back of their tunics to designate their rank and the Marines have black stripes.  It's hard to tell them apart unless you know what to look for.

William's men are ashore to fetch water from the little fresh water stream that runs into the harbor. They know they're supposed to carry the skins upstream until they come to where there is no one is further upstream to piss or shite into it.  And he's going with them to be sure they do.

But before I do anything else I need to report in to the King or William Marshall.  That's what William is thinking to himself as he vaults over the very front of the dinghy to keep his leather sandals from getting wet.

A very nervous pair of three stripe sailor sergeants are waiting for him at the water's edge - obviously the men commanding their galley's water fetching party.

"Captain, me and John here have a problem," the older and probably more senior sergeant says even before my feet hit the beach.

"Some lords and such with colored clothes and feathers in their caps, young'uns they was, came over and asked us what we were doing.  When we told them we was going upstream to get clear water they told us not to leave the beach."

"They said if the water here was good enough for them it was good enough for us."

"They say why?"

"No Captain, they didn't, just that we shouldn't leave the beach.  I think they was just idlers trying to act important, impress each other and such like that.  But we didn't know what we should do so we waited for you."

"You did the right thing by waiting.  That was a good decision."

"Now you and John go on upstream with your men and get good water the way you were told to always do.  But don't argue them if they come back and tell you to stop - just stop and return to your ships immediately and send word to me."

Damn.  I wonder what really happened and why.

@@@@@

"Where's the king and his lords?" William inquires pleasantly of some idlers sitting at the end of the dock.  Soldiers and servants from the look of the clothes on them.

"Up to the castle" one of the older ones said as he spit out part of the piece of grass he was chewing on and nodded toward the huge fortress on the nearby hill.

"Much obliged to you, I'm sure" William responded and touched his knitted sailor's cap in a semi-salute.

The man nodded back and then surprises him. "You're himself from Cornwall aren't you?  I've heard about your clothes and stripes."

William smiled and gave him another little salute as he turned and began following the track from the dock up to the castle.

It's quite a walk up the hill to the fortress.  It's quite large and impressive.  Wouldn't want to have to take it; that's for sure.

When I reach the gate in the castle wall there is a group of nobles and knight standing around and talking and laughing.  They're mostly soft young dandies from the looks of them, do-nothing idlers going to war on a lark.

They clearly haven't heard about our clothes and stripes.

"Oh look, here comes one of the serfs I saw hanging about on the beach to get water.  You there.  Get you gone."

"Sorry, Sir knight, but my orders are to report to King John or Sir William Marshall," I say as I trudge past them.

"You, you there.  Didn't you hear my order?"

I ignore the shrill call and keep on walking across the bailey toward what appeared to be the main entrance to the keep.  I don't look back as I walk but I can sense they've begun following along behind me.

This feels like trouble.  I instinctively flex my arms to release my wrist knives.

The gentry follow me but no one makes a move until just before I enter the door into the castle.  Then I begin hear them making increasingly snide remarks to each other about my dress and impertinence.

They're just high spirited and baiting me.  So I ignore them as I enter and make my way across the well worn stone floor to the priest sitting behind a wooden table with a stack of parchments.  But that soon changes.

"I ought to whip you.  In fact I think I will."

That's what I hear behind me with a rather threatening and arrogant tone.  First my men and now this - it's too much.

With that I stop and turn around.  The man delivering the threat is a big simpering fool wearing embroidered clothes and some kind of fancy green cap with a feather in it.  He's probably some useless lord's son who is full of himself and used to bullying the serfs on his father's manor.

Enough of this ox shite.

"Best you keep your gob shut about whipping serfs, you fool - otherwise I'll cut your dingle off and stick it up your arse."

Then I turn back to priest behind the table and give him my name, but not loud enough for the dandies behind me to hear.  They had stopped in surprise at my words and are whispering to each other with their heads close.

"William of Cornwall to see the king or William Marshal," I tell the priest.

"Ah yes, we've been expecting you, Earl William.  Follow me please."

The priest leads me down a long corridor to a bare room in which a number of other men are waiting including a priest and a couple of men in foreign looking clothes.  One of them has obviously just finished pissing against the wall.

Everyone in the room looks up hopefully as I walk in. But I'm not whoever it is they hope to see so they just stare at me for a moment without a nod or smile, and then drop their eyes when I stare back.

Then there are more footsteps and we all look up as the dandy in the feathered green cap and his followers come through the door.

"Did you name me a fool?" the bully with the green cap demands of me.

"Mmm. Yes I believe I did," I tell him as I turn to look at him. "But now that I've heard you and see you and your friends more clearly I think that perhaps I might have made a mistake - should I have named you a moron instead?"

Stay calm, William.  Stay calm.  Even so, I again flex my arms under my tunic to push my wrist knives up into place as my priestly brother taught me so many years ago.  Four of them?  I can take these four softs if I move first and fast.

The idlers being entertained by Green Cap just stand there and look at me with exaggerated poses of disdain and surprise.

They are obviously enjoying the spectacle and can hardly wait to see what happens next.  They are all well dressed in bright clothes with feathers in their hats.

In a word, they look like lords' useless sons and I certainly do not - I'm wearing a sailor's cap and the same light brown linen tunic as the men they harassed on the beach except for the seven black stripes across its front and the back.

Green Cap couldn't resist being a bully.

"It's hard to believe you're here with your betters.  But I'm sure you'll be effective against the French - They'll drop dead of laughter at seeing you?"

There were amused titters from the men he was performing for.

I was rapidly getting into a foul mood.  I don't like gentry who bully serfs, never have.  So I turned to one of the tittering and amused men and asked quite pleasantly with a nod of my head to Green Cap.

"I see you've brought your fool to the king's muster to entertain the soldiers.  What's his name?  Does he just suck your dingles or just do little tricks?"

"I'm George of Frodsham." Green Cap said furiously as he looked to his fellows for their acknowledgement and beamed when they smiled and nodded back.

"And you're lucky you're not gentry or I'd challenge you here and now and kill you.  But you're not so I think I'll just whip you for your insolence."

"Oh but I am gentry, you moron.  I'm the Earl of Cornwall and I accept your challenge because you interfered with my men and because you are, well, both traitorous and stupid and thus of no use to the king and his army."

"And as for the time and weapons I get to choose since you made the challenge, so let's meet ...."

I don't finish what I'm saying because there is a great stirring at the door and in walks King John and William Marshal.  Everyone bows deeply and doffs their hats.  The hostility in the air cannot be missed.

"What's going on here?' the King demands.

I answer quickly before anyone else has a chance to tell a different story.

"This man, Your Majesty, is a traitor trying to weaken your army.  He just tried to stop my men from loading fresh water on your galleys and then he tried to prevent me from reporting to you."

"When that failed to stop me from coming to help you he insulted me and threatened to whip me and challenged me to a duel in hopes of killing me.  He's no friend of you or your army."

"Is what he says true?"  the King demands incredulously as he looks around.  Everyone reluctantly nods including Green Hat.  What a fool.

"We was just having some fun," one of them mumbles.

I saw an opportunity to end things in a hurry while Green Cap is just standing there in embarrassed amazement.  He's a bully and he and his admirers are just now starting to realize that the results of their bullying may turn out to be very different than they expected.

"Instead of wasting time, this traitor and I could try the matter here and now and let God decide whose cause is just, Your Majesty - yours or his.  Either way is acceptable to me so long as I have Your Majesty's complete approval."

As I said that I moved closer to Green Hat and poked my finger at his chest to identify him.

The king looks at William Marshal who shrugs his approval.  I think they're both intrigued by what will happen next.

The King doesn't say a word, and then finally nods his approval.

"So it is all with your approval, Your Majesty, that God will decide this matter here and now and there is no felony if I immediately kill this traitor or he kills me?"

King John nods his agreement and I bow to him in return and turn towards my green capped foe with a friendly smile on my face and a shrug of my long tunic - and before he can blink my double edged wrist knives are out of my sleeves.

One goes into his neck from the side and other straight into his throat.  Then I give them both a hard jerk to increase their cuts.

I hold him up by the knife handles for a few seconds and we look into each other's eyes.  He has a surprised look in his eyes and doesn't know that he's already dead.  Then I jerk out my knives and step back to prevent his spurting blood from fouling my tunic and shoes

He stands there with both hands to his throat and surprise in his eyes; and then he staggers a bit to get further away from me and sits down.

As I step back from him I doff my cap and bow respectfully to King John whose mouth and eyes are wide, and turn to the shocked group of dandies.

They're standing with their mouths open and watching in horror as their late jester and serf bully falls all the way over on to the floor and his legs begin their final trembles.  You won't be bullying and whipping any more serfs, will you?

After I bow to the King I turn back to watch the bully do his dying for a moment and then point to one of his friends, the one who seemed most appreciative of his efforts to bully me, and give him an order.

"You were his second.  Get rid of this traitor's body and deliver his armour and horses to my supply party on the beach next to the dock before the sun goes down.  If I have to come for them I'll be taking yours as well."

And then stabbing my finger in turn to each of the others I say "and yours and yours and yours - it's time for you lot to abandon your idle and traitorous ways and support your king."

Then I turn to the king and again doff my cap and again bow very respectfully and report in to the king..

"I've brought two fully crewed war galleys from Cornwall as you ordered, Your Majesty; and three hundred and twenty of England's finest sailors and my best two sergeant captains."

"They're the fastest and safest galleys in England and will be assigned to you until you release them. My sergeant captains and their crews would be honored to carry you safely back and forth between England and France."

Chapter Fifteen

William spends the next two months staying out of everyone's sight and mind while his two galleys move back and forth across the channel to help carry the king's army from Dover to Calais.

He does this by simply staying as far away from the king and Sir William Marshal as possible and avoiding wherever the gentry are congregating to seek the king's notice and favor - and by merely appearing to be one of the galley's crew members when he is on a galley carrying passengers.

It works.  No one thinks to tell him to accompany the king's army when it marches into France so he doesn't.

@@@@@

William's tour of duty ends when the king decides to stop feeding his army and return to Windsor after decisively winning a battle with the French at Mirebeau.  It was a great victory for the king at the castle where his French mother had been besieged and in danger of being captured.

Perhaps even more important to the king, and the reason he goes home to celebrate, is that his victory at Mirebeau greatly solidified his hold on the English throne - for in winning the battle he took many prisoners including his cousin Arthur who was the son of one of his older brothers and a rival whose claim to the throne of England is supported by the French.

He also captures Arthur's older sister who would also have a serious claim to the English throne if Arthur died. He never frees them.

As is the tradition of the day, when a king leaves a military campaign and stops feeding his army, the campaign is over and the army quickly disintegrates. Everyone who can make their way home does; those who can't either starve or become outlaws or join a mercenary band and travel to another war.  William and his sailors row for Cornwall.

@@@@@

William's return to Cornwall early in August of 1202 ends a summer of boredom and endless archery practice to pass the time of day.  He's pleased to be reunited with the sisters' and their howling toddlers, surprised to see how much George has grown, and happy to be busy planning for his annual trip to spend the winter in the Holy Land.  This year he'll be taking Tori with him.

After much debate it is decided that more attention needs to be paid to Cornwall.  Reports have surfaced suggesting justice is not being done properly in the courts of some of the hundreds and that serfdom has been reestablished in some of the manors and tin mines.  There is also talk that the widows and orphans in some of the parishes are starving.

Administering the shire is too much for Thomas to do all by himself in addition to learning George and the ever growing number of boys in his school.  He cannot, after all, be in two places at the same time.  And truth be told, Thomas doesn't want to be responsible for the shire; he wants to run his school and be left alone.

After thinking about the problem and confirming for himself that some of the reports are true, William assigns the task of administering the shire this year to Peter.  He's to stay in Cornwall and assist Thomas rather than going out to the Holy Land with William as he has done in the past.

Furthermore, when William returns in the spring Peter will go with Thomas to Rome to see how we pay the annual fee to keep the Pope sweet.  Peter is becoming to William what Cromwell has become to King John - his key lieutenant.

What William doesn't do is visit Isabel at Oakhampton.  He never learns that she is pregnant and more than a little bitter because he doesn't visit.

@@@@@

In the middle of September of 1202, after a pleasant month of enjoying the company of my extended family, autumn arrives and I'm more than ready to leave on my annual trip to the east.  It's time to take our newly trained Marine archers out to the Holy Land and bring back the veterans who've been out there for more than four years and want to return.

Tori is going with me. She lost our infant daughter six months ago and needs cheering.

"I can go with you?  Oh thank you thank you,"

And with that Tori runs off to share the good news with her sisters and begin packing all the various necessities she'll need to insure our comfort in the little forecastle of Harold's galley - bedding, piss pot, garlic cloves to ward off the pox, sewing needle, and so forth.

@@@@@

Our departure is accompanied by all the usual excitement and fears.  Both Henry and Harold are going with me.  As I look at them I realize that they've become grizzled veterans - and so have I.  It's a good thing George and the older boys are almost learned up enough to go on active duty.

In the background Henry and I can hear Harold swearing at a couple of sailor sergeants.  It seems he doesn't like the way they've had their men stack the live sheep on top of the dead ones.

"Stack'em higher goddamn it and lash them down better.  The same with the cook's goddamn firewood.  I don't want them falling over in a storm and blocking the path to the stern castle or to the shite board.  And throw all them goddamn chickens except the egg hens up on top of the sheep."

"Harold's in uncommonly good form today, isn't he?"  Henry said with a chuckle as we watch him pick up a stringer of flapping chickens and throw it at the luckless men.

"How are things looking, Harold?" I ask my lieutenant a few minutes later after we've stepped off the galley just before it begins drifting down to the mouth of the river.  That's where it will wait for us until we come down on the last galley and finally climb on board to stay.

"Not foul at all.  Not foul at all," he answers with a smile.  "We've got an uncommonly good crew on this galley.  I'm ready to let them go and check out the next one."

@@@@@

All the Marines including me seems to get seasick during the first couple of days.  But then we get our sea legs as the sailors call them and it passes.

Rowing helps because it distracts the men's stomachs.  Even I rowed for a while on the first day.  Having Tori to rub my back and squeeze my shoulders and legs helps too.  For some reason bouncing up and down at sea doesn't bother her at all.

Seven days later we lead two other galleys into Lisbon's harbor for our first rendezvous and a day or two of rest.  We replenish our supplies of water and take on some additional food while we wait.  Our missing galley and its embarrassed pilot and sergeant captain show up late the next morning.

Tori didn't mind the wait at all.  This is her third visit to Lisbon and she loves shopping in its great market with all the many different things in its merchants' stalls.

As always she was quite well treated and is never bothered or taken advantage of as young girls sometimes are.  The merchants made sure of that since she had coins to spend and some of them remembered her from years past.  It probably didn't hurt that she went from stall to stall with me and two or three ferocious looking Marines watching over her.

I think the Marines actually hoped someone would bother her so they could impress us with their response.  Me? I'm content to watch her happiness and the way it makes the merchants smile.

Her smile is contagious don't you know and she came away with a new dress and bedding and all kinds of useless things - a new mirror, some newfangled scissors that cut hair and such using two knives that are stuck together in the middle, and a gift for each of her sisters.

@@@@@

Lisbon is a great port with many dangers to inexperienced young Marines.  Henry's no fool.  He only lets the Marines go ashore in groups of three and only during the daylight hours while we're taking on supplies and water.

One of them runs and his two luckless guarantors have to take off their tunics and get three hard lashes each from one of the sailor sergeants while everyone hoots and jeers.  That's not too bad.  Lisbon is a great city - we usually we lose two or three.

Then it's on to Malta and another rendezvous.  This one is a port visit and a rendezvous we truly need.  A storm so severe that it sank a couple of cogs separates our four galleys.  We're the second of our galleys to arrive.  The third came later in the day.

Then we wait and wait and get increasingly worried about the fourth.  But it too finally arrives flying it spare sail - it got tossed around so much it somehow lost two Marines and the sail it started out with even though it had been furled.

And sad to say we don't see Brindisi, the interesting old pirate who been the lord here when I first visited years ago.  He was missing when we were here last year too.

They say he's been arrested by the King but no one knows why or where he is.  What's so strange is that the King of Sicily hasn't appointed anyone to replace him.

Chapter Sixteen

We have a joyous reunion on Cyprus with Yoram and the ever cheerful Lena and her ever growing brood of children.  And then again with the Limassol merchants Aaron and Reuben.  They've prospered with us.

We've all come a long way since those poor and desperate times more than ten years ago.

Our wide-eyed new Marines climb off and look around with concern and excitement.  Lisbon and Malta had been new and wondrous.  Limassol and our fortress is different and more important; if they survive this will be their home for some years to come.

Yoram proudly gives me a tour of the latest updates to our fortress that was once a rundown farm house a couple of miles from the Limassol city walls.  We're installing interior defense walls to divide our interior compounds and turn them into kill zones.

So long as we have enough food reserves, and we do, it will take serious trickery or a very large and determined army to have any chance at all of getting inside our three curtain walls and taking this place.

Yoram reports that our carrying of parchment money orders and accepting coins to guarantee merchant payments is earning more and more.  He's also had some interesting inquiries from various merchants and landed families about our helping them finance the purchase of manors, bridal dowries, and imports of the flower paste and other items from beyond our distant borders.

I gave him an "all right" to make some collateralized loans so long as those who arrange and receive them understand that we will take their collateral and kill them if they don't pay.

@@@@@

We'd only been in Cyprus for only a couple of weeks when word comes that the Venetians are going to carry the crusaders to Zara to collect the money that Venice says it is owed.  I've been a crusader and know what that means so I head straight to Zara with all our available galleys and our merchant friends Aaron and Reuben.

There are good coins to be made carrying refugees to safety.  And where there are crusaders there is always fighting and fighting means refugees willing to pay to escape.

Tori comes with me because I have no idea how long I'll be gone or if I'll even be back this year.  I hope so, if only to take this year's coin chests to Cornwall.

Henry and Harold will stay in Cyprus - Henry to see to the training of the men and Harold to organize the sending of more galleys on to Zara as soon as they return from their current assignments and can be made ready.

If I don't return this year Harold will organize and command the ships carrying this year's coin chests to Cornwall.

@@@@@

We arrive in Zara's harbor on the same day as the first of the crusaders begin arriving in Venetian ships. Things are a bit tense at first but I immediately meet with both the city's leaders and the crusade's leaders to bribe them to let us evacuate the "good Christians" - meaning, we all understand, those people God has so richly blessed that they can pay a large number of coins for us to carry them to safety.

I agree to pay two gold bezants for each person the crusaders let us carry to safety and one hundred bezants to commander of the city's soldiers after the siege; we'll charge at least ten bezants or their equivalent in silver and get even more when the refugees are on board by making much of needing contributions to the pope for his prayers.

The crusaders tell me they like the idea letting people pay to leave because it will mean few defenders in the city; the commander of the city's guards says he likes letting people pay to leave because it means fewer mouths that have to be fed.  Such ox shite; they're all like us - they're here to get as many coins as they can.

Reuben and Aaron rush into city and literally run through its market and up and down its streets shouting that transportation to safety is available from the English for twelve bezants payable when they board the ships.

Then they stand at the gate with some of the city's soldiers to make sure the desperate people lining up to march to the dock have the necessary coins to pay and are only bringing what they can carry in their arms.

Those that don't have the money or don't want to leave their possessions behind are told to hurry to safety out of another gate.

Not everyone with money pays and leaves.  Some don't because they think they have time because the crusaders are just starting to arrive; others because they think the crusaders will not do more than pretend to attack because the people of Zara are Latins who came under the protection of the pope and the catholic church when they threw off the Byzantines.  They obviously don't know the crusaders.

It's a strange scene.  There is a long line of people coming out of the city's port gate and walking to the dock to board our galleys at the same time more and more crusaders are arriving and taking up positions around the city walls to launch an assault.

What makes it even stranger is that the people in the city keep coming out of the gate and boarding our ships even after the crusaders start their attack two days later.  I even hurriedly charter some of the Venetian transport ships that have discharged their crusaders to carry refugees to Constantinople.

The refugees finally stop coming out and the port gate is not closed until three days before the city falls.  I wait for another twenty four hours in Gerard's galley and then we return to Cyprus with the last of the refugees a king's ransom in money and jewels.

And, of course, the crusaders kill just about everyone in the city when they sack it.  I never did have to pay the one hundred bezants to the commander of the city's soldiers.

Chapter Seventeen

There is a wave and froth coming up on either side of our galley's bow as it cuts through Mediterranean under sail. We're alone on the sea.  We lost sight of Galen's galley during the rain storm last night and haven't seen her since. That's the galley Peter was on until he moved over and joined me on Rolf's about a week ago.

"Perhaps Galen's is waiting back where he lost saw us," Peter suggests once again as he has every few hours since sunup.

I merely grunt and don't reply.  All the men jammed together and the close quarters we're sharing in the forecastle with Rolf, the galley's sergeant captain, is getting tiresome.  My mood is not good.

Most of our Marines are resting on their rowing benches yarning or snoozing; some are playing "finger throwing" games and "dicing" with little blocks of wood they've carved, and others are using the shite plank or engaged in the archery practice and tournaments that have to go on almost continually because we have so many Marines on board.

Archery practice is required every day even when we're at sea - at least thirty shots per day for every man, and preferably a hundred, is the company rule to keep our Marine's arms strong and their eyes sharp.

The Marines rarely miss at this range.  Even so, all the arrows constantly flying makes walking on the deck dangerous, doesn't it?

Indeed it's a wonder no one's been hit when the men walk back to use the shite plank hanging out over the stern next to the crew castle where the sailors and sergeants live - probably because if a Marine misses the target and loses an arrow into the water he'll get laughed at and jeered by all the others and have to personally make or buy a replacement.

@@@@@

I've been grumpy towards Peter all day and I don't know why.  He's a good bloke and a dear friend so I make an effort to be more friendly by saying something about the weather to get a conversation going.

"It's a good thing the wind is favorable because it's unseasonably warm.  At least I don't remember it being this warm the last time I was here.  Perhaps it's because we're arriving a few days later than usual because of Oakhampton.  What do you think?"

"I think you're right.  And that means Thomas and Peter ought to be reaching Rome about now to pay the pope."

Then we both smile at each other - we must have been thinking the same thing.  Long voyages can strain relationships and cause strange things to happen. That's for sure.

For example, just two days ago one of our Marines disappeared without anyone seeing him go - he either jumped into the sea or got thrown off by an enemy or he let loose of the lines and fell off the shite board in the dark.  We'll never know.

@@@@@

We're now only a few hours away from the mouth of the Tiber and, as always when sailing to Rome, it's a good thing we're in a galley - it's relatively shallow draft means we'll be able to row up the heavily silted river and anchor at the old wharves along the city's huge crumbling wall that runs along the river.

Rolf has made the trip with me for the past three years.  He knows where I want him to tie up.  It's a rundown area with a narrow band of decaying warehouses and starving squatters along the city wall, a place of robbers, prostitutes, and taverns selling watered wine.

In other words, it's a perfect place for a galley loaded with horny sailors and Marines.  It's also within walking distance of the Pope's splendid residence and the great church where he prays and works.

A few hours later the hot sun is even hotter and our rowers are drenched in sweat as we finally reach our destination next to the city wall and swing around in the river so we are pointing downstream - the way we'll undoubtedly want to go if we have to leave in a hurry.  We're arrived.

I wonder why it is always so much warmer here than on the ocean.  It's the same sun isn't it?

Peter and I step off as soon as the galley ties up to the side of the river.  We've been dressed and ready to go for almost an hour.  Hopefully Peter and I can find a horse cart or a barrow man to carry us to the Pope.  My robes are already too damn warm and I'm carrying my miter instead of wearing it.

In the background as we walk away from the galley I can hear Rolf loudly giving his orders to the men who are being given their liberty to go ashore.

"Never more than six hundred paces away from the galley and only during the hours of daylight and you come back running if you hear the horn.  You may carry a knife ashore but not your swords and shields.  And try to stay away from the girls who are poxed."

@@@@@

Several barrow men and a number of beggars approach us with loud cries and outstretched hands as we climb off.  We quickly select a skinny barefoot barrow man wearing a loin cloth and leather sandals from those on offer.

Peter and I squeeze in together on his barrow's narrow seat, he jumps between the two handles and picks them up, and off we go to the Pope's residence.

This is Peter's first ride on a barrow cart and at first he holds on for dear life as we weave around people and carts and wagons going in all directions in the narrow streets.  Our puller trots and digs in his heels to slow us down when we are rolling down hill and labors with a determined walk when it's uphill.

After a while Peter relaxes a bit and I point out the sights as we go by them, at least the few I know about.  Peter's never been here before and marvels at the old statues and the ruins.

It's uncomfortably warm and the noisy and narrow streets are filled with carts full of things to buy and with priests and pilgrims and beggars and shite.  Men and women constantly cry out to us with their wares and pleas for assistance as we pass.

@@@@@

Getting past the guards at the gate to the Pope's great residence is becoming routine after all these years.  I'm even recognized by one of the priests, the man in charge of the priests and monks who do the searching to protect the pope.

"Hello Your Excellency, welcome back to Rome.  Seeing the Holy Father are you?"

"Ah Father Francisco, it's good to see you again.  And, yes, I'm newly arrived this very day and here to make my annual report to the Holy Father if he has time for me.  This is my friend, Peter Sergeant.  Please mark him well for I'm sure you'll be seeing him again."

Then I explain for I do indeed want Peter to be known here.

"Peter is a very senior lieutenant of the commander of the Order of the Poor Landless Sailors.  He's with me so he'll know where to come to give the Order's annual report to the Pope if I am unable to do so."

Report, my arse; I'm here to keep the Pope sweet with a few of the prayer coins we got off last year's pilgrims and refugees.

"Ah, is he indeed? the priest responds.  "Well, welcome to Rome, Lieutenant.  I am Father Francisco, a most minor member of the Holy Father's household."

Report, my arse; they're here to keep us sweet with a few of the prayer coins they got off last year's pilgrims and refugees.

@@@@@

I'd explained the process to pay the pope in great detail to Peter during our voyage. So he was not surprised at all when all I told Father Francisco is that I was there to make my annual report on the activities of my order and did not mention delivering the coins.

He was also not surprised when Father Francisco asked us to raise our arms so that we could be thoroughly searched for weapons.

And, of course, we have no problem about being searched; neither of us is carrying a sword and I am not wearing the wrist knives and chain mail I usually wear under my tunic when I am ashore.

We have no appointment so Peter and I have to wait for some time because of the Holy Father's busy schedule.  We wait patiently and we finally do get in to see the Holy Father despite not having a specific appointment.

The Pope sees me quickly every time I come to Rome.  I think he probably does not want me waiting about idly in Rome where I might embarrass him by mentioning the real purpose of my visit - to buy his goodwill and protection for another year.  And, as it turns out, this year he also has another reason for wanting to meet with me as soon as possible.

Thomas and I bow and grovel profusely and, as you might imagine, we go down on our knees and bow our heads while we kiss the Pontiff's ring.  Then, at his nod, we stand and I discretely place the purse on a nearby table as is the custom.

Thomas did his groveling and ring kissing quite well.  I'm glad I practiced him.

"It is good to see you alive and well, Bishop Thomas.  God is most merciful is he not?"

"Oh yes, Your Holiness, God certainly is."  Unless, of course, I think to myself, you're being tortured or killed by one his priests.

Your Holiness may I present my friend and a devoted believer in the true faith, Peter Sergeant, a high official in the Order of the Poor Landless Sailors.  Peter is the commander's personal assistant and the deputy commander of your order.

I brought Peter with me, Your Holiness, so that you would know him if ever he comes to you to make our annual report instead of me - or need to know who you can trust if ever I'm not available and you need any services we might provide."

"I'm glad to know that, Bishop Thomas, for it happens that such a service is now needed by the church.  I have written an important letter to the crusaders and once again I need your assistance in seeing that it is delivered as soon as possible."

"It goes to Cardinal Capua and the crusaders now at Zara - will you and the members of your order help one of my priests deliver it by carrying him there in your galley just as you once carried Cardinal Bertoli?"

"Of course, Your Holiness.  We would be greatly honored to be of service to you."  What else can I do but agree?  Peter can deliver the priest and the Pope's letter on his way to Cyprus.

"Excellent.  God will bless you and so shall I.  I will have my messenger and his guards at your galleys on the river before the sun goes down."  And with that he motioned to us to kneel to receive his personal blessing.

Chapter Eighteen

Peter and I have an intense discussion and make our plans as a horse cart carries us from the Pope's residence back to the galleys on the Tiber.  There is no question about it, the Pope's unexpected commission changes everything.

The initial plan was for me to return to Cornwall on Rolf's galley and for Peter to go to Cyprus and the Holy Land on Galen's to meet William and take over the command of our operations in the Holy Land from Henry so that both William and Henry could return and make a major raid on the Moors en route back.  No longer.

After thinking about it and discussing the matter with Peter, I decide that both of our galleys should go to Zara before Peter and I separate to go our own ways.  It's a rare pirate who will challenge an English galley and to my knowledge none has ever challenged two.

We returned to the galleys and began to prepare for a quick departure while we wait for the arrival of the Pope's messenger.  The recall horn was frequently blown and sergeants quickly sent out to the nearby taverns and whorehouses to bring in any of our liberty men who might have missed it.

Less than an hour later the Pope's messenger arrives accompanied by half a dozen Papal Guards.  It's someone we know - Father Francisco.  I wonder why he didn't travel by land?

"Father Francisco, how is it that you are traveling with us by sea all the way from Rome instead of riding across Italy and making a relatively short voyage from Pescara or Chieti?"

"The Holy Father wants to be sure his letter is delivered.  He is also sending a messenger with a copy overland to Pescara."

Hmm.  Papal guards and two messengers?  It must be important.  I wonder if there is anything in it that could benefit us.

@@@@@

We cast off our mooring lines and begin rowing down the Tiber as soon as Father Francisco and his papal guards climb aboard.  The sergeant in charge of Father Francisco's guards immediately gets upset with the sleeping arrangements because he does not want to be separated from the Pope's messenger.

There is no getting around it - Father Francisco will squeeze in with Peter, Rolf, and me at the front of the galley in the forecastle while he and his guards will replace the galley's sailors and share the much bigger castle in the stern with the galley's sergeants.  The grumbling sailors evicted by the arrival of the papal guards will have to make do with a temporary location under a deck tent next to the rudder men.

Our trip down the Tiber to its mouth goes quickly because Rolf has two men at every oar and rowing hard all the way.  He wants to clear the river before it gets too dark to see, and rightly so.  It is either leave immediately and row hard to reach the Mediterranean, Rolf explains to us at least three times, or we must wait until morning.

"We can't go at night - we might run aground or have a collision with an anchored ship or barge in the crowded and twisting river."

We stand with Rolf and Father Francisco on the roof of the stern castle and talk as we watch the shoreline pass and listen to Rolf shout a constant stream of orders to his rudder men and rowers.  The river twists and turns and Rolf is anxious as we constantly have to move this way and that to avoid other boats traveling on the river or anchored in it.

We're moving about as fast as I've ever gone what with the hard rowing and the river current and all.

@@@@@

We reach the mouth of the Tiber and we can hear the sighs of relief from the rowers on the benches below us as the order is given to raise the sail and for the rowers to put down their oars.

It's actually quite nice out on the Mediterranean now that the sun is down.  Peter remarks about it to me and I tell him he's certainly right.  It's a beautiful night.

Not everyone agrees about how nice it is.  This is the first sea trip Father Francisco and his guards have ever taken.  The weather is modest but that doesn't stop them from immediately becoming violently seasick.

Father Francisco's seasickness explains why it isn't until two days later that Peter and I have a chance to talk to him.  That's when we learn why we are in such a hurry to reach the crusaders camped outside of the port city of Zara on the Adriatic coast across from Italy.

What we hear astounds and confuses us.

Father Francisco begins by telling us what everyone already knows - the Pope immediately excommunicated the crusaders as soon as he learned they'd disobeyed his order not to attack any Christian cities.  They attacked Zara - which is our destination because the Pope is sending a letter to the crusader army which is still camped there awaiting transportation to the Holy Land.

The letter is being sent because Cardinal Capua, he's the Pope's ambassador to the crusaders, has convinced the Pope that the crusaders are innocent, that they didn't disobey the Pope when they attacked Zara - because they didn't know about the Pope's letter ordering them not to fight with other Christians.

According to Cardinal Capua, the Venetians intercepted the Pope's letter and stopped it from reaching him so he could give it to the crusaders.  This prevented him from telling the crusaders about the Pope's threat to excommunicate them.

As a result of discovering the crusaders' innocence and the role of the Venetians, Father Francisco is carrying another letter from the Holy Father to the crusaders.  This one informs the crusaders that he is lifting their excommunication and that of everyone else involved - except the Venetians whom the Pope holds solely responsible for the crusaders destruction of Zara.

I am beyond incredulous and getting upset. I know damn well the crusaders received the Pope's letter; it was one of our galleys that carried Cardinal Bertoli to Venice and not only was I there when he delivered the Pope's letter to the crusaders, I'm the one who killed the priest and the two crusaders who tried to prevent him from delivering it.

" You are telling us the crusaders attacked Zara and sacked it because they were not informed about the excommunication threats in the Pope's earlier letter?" That's ox shite.

"Yes, and also because the Venetians lied to them about Venice being owed unpaid taxes and tribute that the crusaders could collect and use to pay for their transportation."

"The Venetians were very smart - they diverted the crusaders from the Holy Land and used them to revenge themselves on Zara and the Byzantine Empire.  The Holy Father is furious that they caused Christians to fight with other Christians and not for Jerusalem."

"But why is there a such a big hurry to get the news to the crusaders that their excommunications have been lifted?"

"Because the Pope has received word that the crusaders have been offered great riches and military support if they will once again divert from their crusade - this time to go to Constantinople and threaten its citizens so they restore their deposed emperor to the throne."

"The letter I'm carrying does much more than just respond to Cardinal Capua's request that the Pope lift the crusaders' excommunication, it also gives the crusaders something to lose - by warning them they will be excommunicated again if they attack any more Christian cities - unless, of course, they are actively working against the crusade."

I'm more than a little dubious and I tell Father Francisco as much.

"All this is very hard for me to believe, Father.  I was there when Cardinal Bertoli delivered the letter to the crusaders; and I was there when the crusader leadership was informed that they would be excommunicated if they attacked Zara; and I was on one of the galleys that carried away some of the crusaders who refused to go to Zara because they would be excommunicated."

"With all due respect," I tell Father Francisco, "the Holy Father's source of information about the crusaders' innocence and their plans for Constantinople may not be entirely reliable."

The Holy Father's source about the Venetians intercepting the first letter and the crusaders' innocence is probably the very same Cardinal Capua whose assistant I killed when he tried to stop Cardinal Bertoli from delivering the Pope's first letter.

Father Francisco assures us that my concern about the accuracy of the report is not valid.

"The Holy Father has sources at very high levels outside the crusader camp who are telling him the very same thing about the crusaders' plans."

"It seems the son of the deposed emperor spent last Christmas visiting Swabia at the same time as the leader of the crusaders.  That's when the offer of a large amount of money from the Byzantine treasury was made to the crusaders - by the deposed emperor's son."

"It's a substantial offer.  The crusaders are to get huge amounts of coins and valuable jewels if they help his father regain the Byzantine throne and treasury in Constantinople before they go to the Holy Land."

"Surely the crusaders are not so naive that they believe the people of Constantinople will welcome the old emperor back so he can empty their treasury and give everything in it to the crusaders."

"Of course, not.  It's possible, of course, but not likely.  What the Holy Father believes is that the leadership of the crusaders hopes they will be paid if they help restore the deposed emperor but, if not, they'll have an excuse to let their men loose to sack the city and loot it instead of going for Jerusalem."

"It's really quite simple.  The Pope and Cardinal Capua are once again on the same side - they both want the crusaders to use the loot from Zara to pay for their transportation to Jerusalem, not for their transportation to Constantinople."

Then Father Francisco looked at me very closely.  "You still don't understand, do you?"

I shook my head.  What the hell is he trying to tell me?

"Don't you see," he finally says.  "The Holy Father knows that most of the crusaders are more interested in enriching themselves than freeing Jerusalem.   That's why he has to pretend he believes in their innocence and bring them back to the church - so he can regain some power over them."

"If anyone tries to stop us from delivering the letter we're carrying it will mostly like be the Venetians.  They want revenge for the massacre of their people and they want the crusaders to defeat whoever is the emperor in Constantinople so Venice can take over both the city and its empire.

"It also means real danger if the Venetians know we're coming - because the Venetians will want the crusaders to think they're still excommunicated so they'll have nothing to lose by going to Constantinople and besieging it until they get its wealth."

I shake my head in dismay at the priest's news and the craftiness and naiveté of the Pope it implies.

Do I believe what Father Francisco told me?  Yes, I do.  But I've been a crusader and I know how crusaders think and what motivates them. Rome may think that excommunication is a powerful threat but it means nothing to most of the crusaders compared to the prospect of riches and land.  Even so, it might work - so the Venetians won't want it delivered.

"It isn't just the Venetians we'll have to worry about when we get to Zara," I finally reply.

"It'll also be the crusaders too.  They all know that Constantinople is rich and Jerusalem is poor.  That's why most of them will favor going to Constantinople despite the letter you're carrying.  But they'll want the letter you're carrying suppressed so the rest of the crusaders will go with them."

"Well Bishop," replied the priest, "let's all pray that the Venetians and the leadership of the crusaders don't find out about the letter I'm carrying until it's already delivered and it's too late for them to stop the crusaders from finding out."

While Father Francisco was talking I sniffed a smell of the fresh flat bread that periodically wafts up to us from where the cooks are frying our evening bread on a couple of flattened knights' breastplates.  My mouth began to water - isn't fresh bread delicious with olive oil and balsamic vinegar?

Hmm.  I need to think about what I just heard and what it all means.

Chapter Nineteen

We have no idea what we'll find as our galleys enter Zara's harbor one right after the other and slowly row towards what's left of the city's dock.  We enter first with our sister galley captained by Galen right behind us.  All we can see are the damaged walls where the crusaders broke in to the city and the charred and ruined houses inside the city walls.

The harbor itself seems almost normal.  There are a dozen or so fishing boats on the beach and five or six at anchor in the harbor along with a Venetian cog and five Venetian galleys.

We are, as you might imagine, taking no chances as we approach the dock.  Both galleys are on high alert with only the lower levels of their rowing benches manned.  Everyone else is on deck with their longbows and a number of bales of arrows.

Indeed, the deck is so crowded with archers that I'm up here on the roof of the stern castle with Rolf, Thomas, and Father Francisco.  We can see better from up here.

Despite the devastation there are quite a few people on the dock and in the open area between the water and the city walls.  A number of them walk towards our two galleys as some of our sailors jump on to our galley's deck railing, pull themselves up to the dock, and begin tying up the lines needed to moor us against the dock.

Hopefully we'll find the crusader camp somewhere nearby and let them know about the Pope lifting their excommunication before anything can be done to stop us from informing them.

So far the Venetian galleys don't seem to be stirring as a result of our arrival.

That's good news and probably to be expected.  According to William, who'd heard about the siege last autumn and rushed our galleys here to profit from it before it started, the Venetians had not interfered with our evacuation of the refugees.

We'd earned a quite a nice chest of coins and jewels evacuating the merchants, priests, and others who could pay right up until the city fell.  The Venetians probably think we're here to pick up more refugees.

Five minutes later Thomas, Father Francisco, and I are standing on the dock and know we have a problem.  The crusaders have already broken camp and gone to Constantinople in Venetian ships.  They did so in a big hurry almost a week ago.

Hmm.  I'm thinking to myself.  I wonder why they did that.

I don't have a chance to ask.  Suddenly there are loud and anxious shouts of alarm from both galleys.  We all spin around to look and I could feel the hair on my arms literally stand up - all five of the Venetian galleys are underway and coming straight at us.

@@@@@

"Cast off."  ... "Cast off."  Is Rolf's shouted urgent command.  I hear it among the shouts and cries but there is no one near our mooring lines.  Our sailors went back on board after they tied the galley up to the dock.

I rush to the nearest mooring line and so do two or three sailors who jump up on to the galley's deck railing and pull themselves up onto the dock.  In the background I can hear Rolf shouting "Stand by to launch." ... "Stand by to launch" to the archers massed on our deck.

"Back on board," I shout to Thomas and Father Francisco as I pull the loop of the rope off the mooring stump and almost simultaneously jump down onto the galley's deck in one big motion.

"Jump on the ship.  Goddamnit.  Jump."

@@@@@

The Venetian galleys are coming across the harbor and they're coming fast.  We've been ambushed.  The reason we saw no activity on the Venetian galleys when we entered the harbor is now clear - their men were already in place and waiting for us to moor to the dock and become vulnerable.  How could they have known?

Desperately wielded oars and Swiss pikes push Rolf's galley away from the dock as I jump aboard and scramble to my feet.  All around me is chaos as there is a great shout and our archers begin launching arrows fast as they can push them out.

Yes.  Yes.  Our oars are in we are starting to move.  Yes.  Yes.

A virtual storm of our arrows begin descending on the closest Venetian.  In contrast, few if any seem to be coming at us.  That is not surprising.  The slave-rowed Venetians are used to coming alongside and boarding their enemies.

I bet they were surprised to see two English galleys instead of just one - and finding that both galleys are full of archers must be a real shock

Here comes a Venetian ...  But not at us.  The is a tremendous crash and screams behind us as the lead Venetian rams straight into the side of Galen's galley which is still moored against the dock.

It hits Galen's galley so hard that the Venetian's bow slices into its hull and the Venetian's mast crashes down on top of Galen's deck.

"Spin around,"  I shout to Rolf as I push my way through the archers on the deck to get to the front of Rolf's galley.

"Get up against the side of Galen's galley to take on his men.  It's going to sink.  Hurry."

"Keep shooting me, keep shooting."  That's what I shout constantly as our galley comes about and I push my way across the deck to where our galley will come up against Galen's.

It is total chaos of our deck with everyone shouting and screaming and jostling about, even some of the archers as they aim and shoot.

As I get to the bow I can see several of our men have had the foresight to grab Swiss pikes off the railing racks and are readying them to hook on to Galen's galley and pull the galleys together.  Others are using their bows to pick off the Venetians in the galley that did the ramming.

I grab one of the pikes myself and so do others.  Seconds later our the galley hulls crash together and Galen's men begin frantically jumping and diving into our galley. Others are desperately trying to climb up on to the dock against which their galley has been pushed.

"Galen's men get below and clear the deck"  I shout it over and over again as I strain to hold our galleys together.  The sergeants and others take up the refrain until it becomes a chant.

Not everyone listens.  I have to slap one hysterical man in the face before he stops screaming and docilely heads down to the rowing benches with a blank look on his face.

And not everyone makes it.  As the crowd coming over the railing begins to tail off I can see bodies and injured men on Galen's deck.  Others jump and miss and quickly sink into the water and out of sight.  A few brave souls from our galley actually go across to Galen's slowly sinking galley to try to retrieve the wounded - I try to mark them in my mind as men to know.

@@@@@

All the time we are retrieving survivors from Galen's galley our archers are grunting and shouting as they throw arrow after arrow towards our attackers.  It's a damn good thing we brought up the extra bales of arrows before we entered the harbor.

Finally we push off from the sinking galley.  It's obviously taken on a huge amount of water from the great gash in its side and is only still afloat because it is being held up by the Venetian galley stuck in its side. A few seconds later they both go down.

I don't have a chance to look at the other Venetian galleys until ours finally begins to drift apart from Galen's and the last rescuer literally dives head first to get across the widening gap.

It seems like it's lasted forever but, in fact, it's only been a couple of minutes.  And then I am relieved, greatly relieved, to hear the sergeants pick up the cry "stop launching."  ... "stop launching."

What I see astonishes me when I make my way to the railing - the other four Venetian galleys are already out of arrow range and heading for the harbor entrance.

Our Marines are elated and shaking hands and pounding each other's backs and reaching out to shake mine.  A red bearded archer standing nearby summed the situation up rather well as I stood with my mouth open watching them go.

"Them bastards got so many fooking arrows in em they look like fooking hedge hogs, don't they?"

Less than a minute later Rolf spins us and we go back to pick up Galen's men who made it on to the dock and are now desperately waving to us - and to take prisoners from the galley that rammed us.

A huge and raucous flock of curious seagulls is circling overhead and a few of local people who had been prowling about in the ruined city are tentatively walking towards the dock.  The rest have disappeared as if by magic.

Chapter Twenty

All the rest of the day and that night is spent tending to our wounded, giving last rites and mercies to two of our men who won't make it, and questioning the Venetian sailor we captured from the galley that rammed Galen's and then sank and took its chained slaves down with it.

The Venetian galleys that rushed out of the harbor to avoid our arrows do not return.

According to the Venetian we pulled out of the water the Venetian navy used an old galley rowed by expendable slaves with only three volunteers on board to steer it.

One important thing he tells us is that the Venetians carried the crusaders who had been camped outside the city to Constantinople.  Another is that it was more than a week ago, the day before the crusaders left, that he had been offered a large payment to volunteer to be its rudder man.

According to the Venetian sailor he had accepted to get the money because he knew how to swim and because the ramming would occur near to the shore.  It was his idea, he said proudly, that the ramming occur at the dock so he could swim to safety.

There is no doubt about it - the Venetians had been warned we were coming and set an ambush.  It failed because they hadn't expected two galleys and they had never before confronted ships full of Englishmen armed with longbows.

We've come directly from Rome and made good time - how could the Venetians and crusaders have known a week ago that we'd be coming?

"Father Francisco, how could the Venetians and crusaders known more than a week ago that we would be coming to Zara?"

@@@@@

The next morning we take on water, retrieve what little we can from Galen's partially submerged galley, turn our prisoner loose to enjoy whatever hospitality the people whose city he'd helped destroy might offer, and set out for Constantinople in a single galley dangerously overloaded with Marines and papal guards.

We never did find Galen.

Chapter Thirteen

It is already dark and many of the exhausted and jammed together Marines are asleep by the time by the time Bishop Thomas calls us together in the little forecastle.  We can see each other in the flickering light of the single candle in the lamp that is swinging from the low ceiling.  It slowly swings from side to side in response to the swells in the harbor water.

All around us as we talk in low voices is the sound of snoring, whispering talk, and the cries of men having bad dreams.  Adding almost two hundred survivors from Galen's crew has seriously overcrowded this one.

Thank God the weather is good.  We don't have enough rain skins for everyone to huddle under even using the spare sail.

"We have no choice; we must go to Constantinople to deliver the Holy Father's letter before it is too late."

That's how Father Francisco responds when Rolf raises the question of what he should do next.  And, of course, he's right.  Bishop Thomas just listens as we sit shoulder to shoulder with our legs folded under us.  He seems to be deep in thought and never says a word.

"Can we get there without stopping?" Thomas asks Rolf. "Do you have enough food and water on board to get us there?"

"Well, maybe, just maybe.  I think so.  We probably can if the weather holds good and we row hard all the way. We've got more than enough rowers and probably enough food if we go on half rations for the last couple of days."

"It's water that will be the problem, that and getting through the Greek islands without a pilot what knows the waters of the Aegean and the Dardanelles."

Suddenly Bishop Thomas sits up straight and announces his decision.

"We have to go to Constantinople so what are we waiting for? Let's go." ...

After a moment he adds, "but let Galen's survivors sleep, Rolf.  They've had a hard day."

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We need water so we made a stop in Piraeus, the port of Athens.  It's a stop that took much longer than any of us expected.  Had we known the difficulty with doing business with the Greeks we'd have made port somewhere further down the coast.

Piraeus has a very large and not very functional harbor with rules and regulations about where galleys must anchor and dock that make no sense.  Port sergeant after port sergeant comes on board to conduct various inspections, announce new rules, and ask for bribes.

Rolf got so irked at the delays that were keeping us from going ashore to get water and other supplies that he actually asked the port sergeant who just left if the port has any regulations or fees for neutering its sergeants - and he was only half in jest.

On the other hand Piraeus is a great liberty port for our Marines and sailors with bars and whorehouses everywhere.  They need it after their experiences in Zara and then being jammed all together in Rolf's galley.

Before they went ashore I spread the word, only half in jest, that Father Francisco and I would pray for them that they don't get poxed or pick up itchy bugs.

We even discussed moving on to a smaller port.  But in the end we decided we had no choice; we must make a port visit to Piraeus because we are out of water and we don't dare go any further without a pilot who knows how to get from here to Constantinople.

Both Peter and Rolf had been to Constantinople with William, of course, but neither has any idea of how to sail through the islands and the Dardanelles.

At least while we're here getting the water and a pilot or two we can get other things as well - flour and oil for bread, a lot of horse or other meat we can slice into strips and fry when the bread is being cooked, and a bonesetter for the two Marines whose legs got mangled when Galen's galley was rammed.

That's exactly what we did as soon as we were able to go ashore.  We also recruited a half mad barber with long filthy hair to travel with us to bleed them and our other wounded.  He wants to go to Constantinople for some reason.

Rolf suggested that we leave our wounded and some of Galen's crew here and send to Cyprus for an under strength galley to come back and pick them up.  I decided against it despite our severe overcrowding - we don't have time to waste making the necessary arrangements.

Besides, we may need them to help row so we get there faster and to help fight if the Venetians are still after us.

Chapter Twenty One

It took two days to get my galley to the Dardanelles and another day to get through the long narrow passage and a fourth day to reach Constantinople.

What bothered me and caused the delay is that our new pilot seemed nervous and unsure of himself.  He's so nervous that, after talking it over with Thomas and Peter, I decided that we would neither sail nor row at night unless there is sufficient moonlight.

There wasn't much moonlight so we didn't reach the first of Constantinople's three harbors until late on our fourth day out of Athens.

Ships of all kind are everywhere - except for Venetians.  We don't see a single one until we approach the outskirts of Constantinople - and then on the shore opposite the city we find what looks to be the entire Venetian fleet at anchor just off a huge camp with literally thousands of tents.

"Unless he's staying on a ship, Cardinal Capua is probably somewhere in that camp," Father Francisco suggests as we stand at the galley's deck railing and look out at the huge crowd of haphazardly placed tents just beyond the Venetian galleys that are beached all along the shoreline.

Even if we hadn't seen the crusader camp we would have known they were there from the odors that are coming out to us on the light winds coming from the shore and drifting out over the water towards the city.

Unlike the Venetian galleys, we are anchored just off shore where many of the Venetian cogs and other cargo ships are anchored.  It's safer out here isn't it?  We'll use our dinghy if we have to go ashore.  But are we in the right place?

"Father Francisco, you speak Greek.  Please ask the pilot why he stopped here and asked for the anchor to be dropped. Doesn't he know the city has a number of docks and several better harbors?"

A few minutes later I'm fuming when I give the order to raise the anchor and we begin rowing once again towards the city walls we can see in the distance.  Our pilot assumed we are crusaders and would want to camp with them.

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It took all day to find Martin Archer and our Constantinople post but here we are.  He's in a little house with a wall around it so short it probably wouldn't even slow down a mob of children.

It's a busy place with many dozens of anxious people standing around along with the barrow carts and horses some of them rode to get here.  Refugees from the look of them, merchants and priests leaving the city because of the crusaders.

Our arrival at his door certainly surprises Martin and quickly evolves into the warmest of welcomes. And we probably would still be looking for him if a couple of our sailors hadn't recognized one of our galleys up against a dock loading passengers.

Randolph was initially our station sergeant here and held the post until he got captured and held for ransom by one of the emperor's minions.  Martin took his place after we got Randolph back after a bit of fighting against the Byzantine army and the cutting out of some of the ships of its fleet - enough of them to convince the emperor of the wisdom of releasing Randolph and his men.

As everyone knows, we kept the Byzantine ships for our trouble and the emperor promised there would be no more interference with our operations.  So far they've kept their promise even though there is a new emperor, Alexios III.  We have no complaints.

Martin brought us up to date on what he knew about the situation, which turned out to be surprisingly little.

"Some say it was losing so much of their navy a few years back that caused the old emperor to be replaced.  The new emperor's named Alexios, Alexios III actually."

"I haven't met him, of course, but the merchants all say he's as bad as the old emperor and maybe even worse.  I've heard he appointed his brother in law to head the navy and he stole all the money that was supposed to be used to fix what was left of it."

"Do we dare give the men liberty?  Is it safe enough?"

"Oh I should think so.  We haven't had any trouble at all since we took their galleys, not a bit.  I think everyone's afraid William will come back and beat up on them again.  How's Randolph doing by the way?  Is he still at Launceston?"

"Yes.  He's still at Launceston and doing well.  But how are you doing here?  Any trouble because of the Venetians bringing the crusaders here from Zara?"

"Not really.  Just more people trying to get away because they're afraid there will be fighting.  Good for business isn't it?  It's gotten real good in the past couple of weeks, lots of people want to leave.  See for yourself."

"Aren't you worried about being here in the city with the crusaders' army forming up right over there on the other side of the bay?"

"Not at all.  Got my guards don't I?" William's right; Martin's not very smart.

"Well you're going to get a whole lot more in the morning.  Galen's galley was rammed by a Venetian and went down at Zara a few days ago with him on board.  We picked up what's left of his crew."

"If we can, we'll bring them here in small groups in the morning so they don't attract attention.  You can send them out a few at a time in the galleys that come in to pick up refugees.  Until then you'll have to feed them."

If we can even get them into the city.  The soldiers on the port gate sure looked at us closely when we approached - but they waved us in when Francisco asked them for directions to the compound of the English galleys.  It's probably a good thing Francisco suggested we not wear our robes.  Latin priests aren't welcome here; especially these days.

Then I asked Martin the most important question of all.

"Have you had any contact at all with the crusaders?  Do you know where we can find their headquarters?"

"Well, I wouldn't have any contact; would I?  They're not allowed in the city if they're armed, you know, not even to visit the market.  That's why they're all at that big camp they set up on the swampy land across the way.  You'll have to take your galley over there if you're looking for the crusaders and their priests."

Damn.  I knew we should have gone ashore back there.

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Early the next morning Rolf's galley took Father Francisco and I across to the crusader camp and a sailor rowed us ashore in the dinghy.  He'll wait as long as it takes until we return even if it means staying there all day.  He brought a rain skin, some water, and a little linen bag with some bread and cheese just in case.

No one in the camp paid any attention to us as our sailor rowed us to the rocky beach and no one laughed when we got our feet wet because the dinghy couldn't get close enough for us to jump all the way to dry land.  We were similarly ignored as we walked up to the camp in our religious robes with me wearing my miter and carrying my crosier.

"Where are the commanders?" I ask a heavily bearded man who looked up only briefly as we reached him.  He was sitting on a rock with one of his sandals off and staring at intently while trying to mend it with a big needle, and not having much success if the look of frustration on his face meant anything.

I spoke in French and that's how he replied.  He's French like most of the crusaders.

"Up to the top in the big tent over there," the man said pointing over his shoulder with his sandal towards a large tent further on up the hill with a couple of banners on its pole.

We walked through the camp up toward the tent.   The fairly rough and rocky patch of land it's sited on is teeming with tents and cooking fires and all kinds of men and women and even a few children.

It looks very little like a military encampment and very much like a haphazard camp of refugees with men who might be soldiers scattered about in it.

People are everywhere - some sitting about in groups talking, others snoozing or engaged in household tasks such as cooking and pissing and carrying armloads of grass to the horses tethered in front of some of the tents.

Some look at us curiously and smile as we walk through the camp but mostly everyone just gives us a disinterested look and then ignores us and goes about their business.  It is as if priests and a mitered bishop laboring up the hill past them are common sights.

"Maybe it's my lack of experience, Bishop, but many of these people don't look like crusaders at all?"

"Oh but they are, Father, they are.  I was out with Richard as you may know.  This is a crusader camp for sure."

Hmm. I see armor and swords and a few pikes and spears but I've yet to see a bow or any bales of arrows. Surely they must have archers.

Our only inconvenience was when we came to the little stream that ran through the camp.  It was busy with men and women drawing water and washing clothes - and too wide to jump across.

We had to get our feet wet again and I almost lost my balance when a slippery rock gave way under my leather shoe.

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"Hello Hello, anyone home?"  Father Francisco shouted in French as we walked up to the tent with the banners.  There were no guards or courtiers about it.

We could hear movement inside and after a while the flap was push open and a man stood there trying to tie the waste strings of his tunic.  We'd obviously awakened him.  Or maybe not since we could sense other movement in the tent as he came out.

"What do you want?"

"I'm the Bishop of Cornwall and this Father Francisco.  We come from the Pope with a message for Cardinal Capua."

The man is clearly astounded.

"You are?  How did you get here?  Well well, this is a pleasant surprise.  We've been looking for you and here you are."

Then he shouted to some men sitting on the ground nearby.

"Henri, get over here.  You too Robert."  ..  "Tie these priests up and don't let them get away."  ... "Yes, goddamnit, tie them up.  I'm going to try to find the cardinal and tell him the good news."

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"This isn't exactly the reception I expected," I observe to Father Francisco with a sigh. And then, "I don't know what I expected but this isn't it." And it isn't - we are both tied hand and foot and sitting very uncomfortably up against a tree.  Father Francisco didn't reply.

About an hour later there is a great deal of commotion as a group of riders ride up and dismount behind us.  We both twist around and watch as a white haired man strides up to us followed by a number of French and Italian knights and their retainers.  Cardinal Capua has arrived.

"Hello Uncle Peter," said Father Francisco.

Chapter Twenty Two

Tori and I are walking through the crowded Limassol market with Yoram and Lena when there is a great shout behind us and a Marine comes running up to gasp out a message from Harold.

One of our galleys has just come in from Constantinople with important news and a lot of refugees - six days ago the Venetians began landing a large force of crusaders at Constantinople instead of taking them to the Holy Land.

They did what? Why would they do that? I asked myself.  What does it mean?

We immediately turn around and hurry back to talk to Harold and get more information.  Gerard, the captain who'd brought the message from our station sergeant in Constantinople is standing there with Harold with a parchment in his hand.  Neither of them had read it because neither of them can read.

Gerard hands it to me without a word.  It's from Martin Archer, our station sergeant in Constantinople.  Yoram stands next to me and we both read it at the same time.  Martin can't read or write either so it had obviously been dictated to a scribe.

Martin's message is clear and quite unexpected and totally surprising: The crusaders have demanded that the deposed emperor be put back on the throne and the current emperor, Alexios III, gone - or else there will be war.

But why did the Venetians bring the crusaders to Constantinople instead of to Egypt and the Holy Land as the Pope envisioned and where the crusaders promised they would go?

"What do you think, Yoram?  Why did the crusaders go to Constantinople instead of the Holy Land and what does it mean for us?"

"Well, one thing's for sure - not having to worry about fighting the crusaders for a while will almost certainly encourage the Saracen armies to increase their attacks on the smaller Christian cities and strongholds around Beirut and Acre.  That will mean more refugees trying to escape from the Christian ports so it's probably good for us.  As to the rest I do not know."

"My God," I said as the realization hit me.

"The Byzantine emperor will never agree to step down, at least I wouldn't think so.  Constantinople is the richest city in the world.  That means there might be a lot of refugees for us to rescue if it's really true that the crusaders will attack Constantinople if he doesn't."

Yoram agrees.  "It's hard to believe, isn't it?"

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We decide I should leave for Constantinople the next day to see if there are any opportunities for us.  I'll travel on Rolf's galley and also take three of the other eight galleys that are currently in Limassol.  They'll serve as messengers and carry any refugees and parchments we might come across along the way.

Henry and Harold will remain here with Yoram and the rest of the galleys and Marines who are in port at the moment.  They'll wait to hear from me before they send any more galleys and men.

If he'll come with me on such short notice, I'll also take one or more of the local merchants who have friends among the merchants they do business with in Constantinople.

Why take merchants with us?  Because the merchants in a city's bazaar typically know everything there is to know before anyone else; they're inevitably the best source of information.

What took us some time to decide was how many Marines should be on the galleys I'll be taking to Constantinople - do they go with skeleton crews so they can carry as many refugees as possible or do they go fully loaded with Marines in case there is fighting?

We talk about it rather extensively until, over a few too many bowls of ale at Yoram's table that night, we finally come to a decision - two of the galleys will go out loaded with Marines in case there is fighting or a message needs to be delivered and two more will go out with fewer Marines so they can be used as refugee ships in the event there are refugees to carry and coins to be earned.

Tori will stay here in Limassol with Lena until I return.  She's not happy about it and pouted the rest of the day - until I pulled her into bed and changed her mind by promising I'd take her to see Constantinople as soon as it becomes safe to visit.  It has, I told her, the most marvelous market I've ever seen.

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A rather severe storm separates my four galleys and causes our voyage to Constantinople to take longer than I had hoped.  But after the storm our four galleys rendezvous as planned just inside the entrance to the Dardanelles, the narrow forty mile or so long strait connecting Aegean Sea and the Sea of Marmara where Constantinople is located.

We get to the rendezvous about noon.  Our galley is the last to arrive.

There are many ships going through the narrow passage in both directions - all kinds from everyday cogs to strange ships from distant lands.

No ships of the Byzantine Navy are to be seen but two Venetian war galleys are at the end of the Dardanelles when we come out of the narrow passage a couple of hours later and enter the Marmara Sea.

They ignore us and we ignore them.  We just row right past them with our sails up to get whatever help we can get from the unsteady winds coming from our port side.

We row into the dock by the city gate closest to our post in the city.  All of our captains and pilots found it easily as the sun began to set in the western sky.  They've all been here before and know it well.

It is getting dark and smells like rain as a party of Marines and I and Reuben, an old and dear friend from the archers' early days and one of Cyprus' leading merchants, hurry through the dark streets to our local post - and then have to pound on the gate for ten minutes before someone finally hears us and lets us in.

That's when I get the surprise of my life - when I walk through the door and see someone I recognize in the flickering candlelight.

"Peter, what the hell are you doing here?  And where's Thomas?"

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Peter's story comes tumbling out.  The essence of it is clear - Thomas and a Father Francisco from Rome have been missing ever since they went to the crusaders' camp across the way to deliver a letter from the Pope.

Martin Archer added to the mystery.  He's one of the original archers and the five stripe senior sergeant in charge of our post here and its operations.

"There have been rumors in the bazaar that a couple of Latin priests were captured and are being held by the crusaders, but no one knows for sure how it happened or why or where they are."

Thomas and a priest from the pope are being held by the crusaders?  At first I'm incredulous - until Peter tells me what was in the letter they were carrying and about the fight at Zara when the Venetians tried to kill them.

We all knew about the crusaders sacking Zara, of course, and that the Pope had excommunicated them for disobeying his order not to attack Christians.  We also knew that the Venetians had recently carried the crusaders here instead of to the Holy Land.

That the crusaders had come here, of course, is why I'd come to Constantinople - to see if there would be more refugees to carry and Martin would need more ships.

What I hadn't known about was the letter and the fight with the Venetians at Zara and the loss of Galen and his galley - and that the Venetians knew they were coming and tried to ambush them.  And damn near succeeded.

"I can understand why the Venetians tried to intercept the letter," I said.

"They hate the Byzantines because of the massacre of the Latins.  They didn't want the crusaders to know their excommunication had been lifted and the Pope was ordering them not to attack Constantinople.  If they had know they might not have come here.  But why did they come?"

"There is also a rumor going about in the bazaar," Martin chimed in, "that the crusaders are demanding that the current emperor stand aside and the former emperor, his brother, be restored to the throne."

I looked at Reuben as Martin finished and Reuben nodded his head - without a word being spoken we had just agreed that he would go to the market and find out all he can about Thomas and the local situation.

"It's expensive to move an army and get its men to fight, particularly if they are going against Christians and the pope opposes the war," I mused.

"The crusaders must have been offered a lot to get them to come here and the only things they're interested in are money and land."

"The Venetians are merchants and tight with their coins and they have no land to give away - it's hard for me to believe they would pay enough to get thousands of crusaders to divert from the Holy Land and defy the pope.  So it must be money and the money must be coming from the deposed king or his supporters.  It's the only explanation I can imagine."

And it must be one hell of a lot of coins.

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The candle light was flickering and everyone was quiet as I walked around in the little room stroking my chin and thinking.  Then I called for parchments and began writing my mobilization orders.

My big problem, of course, is that I don't know how soon we'll have enough Marines and galleys here to begin operations against the Venetians - or, for that matter, whether we will even have to fight them to prove we're serious about our threats.  Whoever's got Thomas and the priest could, after all, just release them.

I'm going to send my orders for a full mobilization of all of our Marines and ships to Cyprus in two separate galleys to make sure at least one gets through.  They'll leave immediately if the moon is bright enough and no later than in the morning at first light.

One will go non-stop to Cyprus and be fully crewed with Marines in case they have to fight their way through the Dardanelles; the other with a slightly smaller number of Marines will sail with it through the Dardanelles and also go to Cyprus, but with stops at our bases all along the Holy Land coast to call in all of our galleys and Marines and send them here to Constantinople.

"Be prepared to use your siege reserves of food and hold out until we return" is the message I send to Yoram.

"Move every non-Marine worker who can fight into our fort and let no one else through the gates for any reason including their women and children.  You can keep a steady sergeant and a handful of Marines chosen by Henry to command your defense force."

It's a damn good thing we finally got the well in the inner courtyard deep enough to hit water. That's the thought that came to mind as I wrote my orders for Yoram.

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The most important instructions in my mobilization order are for Harold and Henry.  They are to come immediately to Constantinople with every galley and Marine they can muster.  Those not now in port are to follow as quickly as they can be dispatched.

Arriving galleys, I write to my lieutenants, will probably be met by one of our galleys at the entrance to the Dardanelles but, if not, they are to keep coming until they reach our dock at Constantinople.

"And bring all the arrow bales except those Yoram will need to defend Cyprus."

Our men are only to be told that we may have to destroy the Venetian fleet if the Venetians do not return some of our men they have captured - but that we are not at war with them yet and won't be if our men are returned.

Yes, I know it may be the crusaders who have them.  But the Venetians are crucial to the crusaders and can pressure them for us.  They're the ones who are most vulnerable at the moment.

Then I settle down to write four identical copies of a letter to the crusaders and to the Venetians, two for each so I'm sure they receive them.  They are short and to the point - release Thomas and the Pope's priest whom their low level people obviously arrested by mistake, or else.

Reuben will take them to his merchant friends and arrange for their immediate delivery.

As you can see, I'm trying to give whoever has Thomas and the priest a face-saving excuse to release them and whichever does not have them a reason to put pressure on the one that does.

Our problem, of course, is that neither the crusaders nor the Venetians know how strong we really are.  They're not likely to take my threat seriously until we begin to show them what will happen and how far we are prepared to go to get our people back - and we can't do that until enough of our Marines and galleys are here.

The moon is out so the galleys with my messages sail immediately for the Dardanelles - two bound for Cyprus and other two to convoy them to the far entrance to the strait and bring back the news that they've gotten through.  We'll block it and cut off the crusaders and Venetians as soon as enough of our galleys arrive.

We worked and talked through the night and by morning Peter and I had finished putting our initial plan together and begun implementing it.  As soon as the sun came up Reuben and Martin were off with a large sack of coins to arrange for the delivery of the letters and to quietly buy or rent all the rowing boats and small fishing boats they can find.

Chapter Twenty Three

Rueben is back from the market with much news.  The most important is that the merchants are reporting that Thomas was taken by the crusaders at the request of the papal legate - and he may be dead but that is not known for sure.  What is certain is that he has disappeared.

Taken at the request of the papal legate?  Why is he involved?  That's hard to believe.  I am beside myself with anxiety about my brother and angry that I can't do anything about it. The only good news is that one of our galleys arrived carrying passengers and parchments from Beirut.  Now we have three galleys here with English crews.  Sixty four to go.

According to the local merchants, news of the pope lifting their excommunication and threatening another has reached the crusaders.  But the merchants say the crusaders are not distressed because the cardinal representing the pope told them the language of the pope's new threat allows them to attack Christian cities if they refuse to assist in the crusade.

According to the merchants, the cardinal told them that will be the case if the city does not restore the old emperor who has promised to support the crusade whereas the current emperor has refused to even let them enter the city.

The merchants also report that the emperor has stopped negotiating with the crusaders. It seems Emperor Alexios III feels secure in ignoring their demands that he step down because he is safely behind the city walls - and rightly so according to the merchants.

"Constantinople has been attacked many times over the years and has never fallen."

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Several important things happened today.  One is that one of the emperor's courtiers showed up and asked if we would carry an important member of the court to safety if it becomes necessary.  The other is that Harold and twelve of our galleys arrived with seventeen more of our galleys close behind and expected to arrive tomorrow or the next day.

The new arrivals make a total of nineteen of our galleys that are already here including those that had come in a few days ago directly from the ports along the Holy Land coast.

There is still no word about Thomas or Father Francisco; it's time to show the crusaders and Venetians that our threat is real.  We'll start first thing in the morning with the Venetian galleys beached at the crusader camp and anchored just off it.

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The sergeant captains of our galleys crowding into the courtyard of Martin's little post house listen intently as I explain about Rolf's galley being attacked at Zara, how Thomas and the priest were captured after they got here safely, and about the letters I'd sent to the crusaders and Venetians demanding their release.

"It's time to send crusaders and Venetians a new message," I tell the assembled galley captains.

"And now that you're here we're going to start sending it - starting with a raid tomorrow morning to take Venetian prizes, a lot of Venetian prizes."

Then I read them the message that will be delivered to the crusaders and Venetians in the morning immediately after our raid.

"This morning's attack on your galleys is only the beginning. I warned you there would be serious consequences if you did not free the priests and you did not listen."

"Now I'm promising you in the name of God - if the two priests are not immediately released unharmed we are going to keep coming until we take or burn every Venetian ship in these waters."

"When we finish with the Venetian ships we'll start on the stranded and starving crusaders and the Venetians who made it to shore - and continue until ever man is either dead or in chains in our galleys.  Signed, William, Archer of Cornwall."

Our galley captains get more and more excited as they realize they'll be going after Venetian prizes tomorrow morning in the early morning light before the sun comes up.

Taking prizes from a beach is something Harold makes our Marines and sailors repeatedly practice.  Moreover, every captain in the courtyard has done it at least once for real and several have taken beached galleys as prizes three or four times.  Indeed many of the enthusiastic men listening to me got their current commands by taking them off a Moorish beach as prize captains.

What we're going to do afterwards is also nothing new.

After we get our prizes off the beach we'll see which of the prizes have slaves to row them and which have to be towed because they do not.  Those that have slaves will immediately head for Cyprus with a small prize crew; the galleys that don't have slaves to row them will be towed to the dock we're using and stay with us until we can recruit some rowers from the city or take prisoners.

Then I gave the ship captains the details.

"Rolf and I have been keeping close track of the tides for the past week.  It will be fairly high and rising at daybreak tomorrow morning - so that's when we're going to hit them."

"We'll approach in the dark and row in as if we own the place without any shouting or talking.  Each galley will send in two or three small boats with armed Marines to cast off or cut its prize's mooring line and help push it off the beach - and kill anyone on the galley who tries to stop them."

"Use your dinghies and the small boats we've got under guard on the beach next to the dock.  Each of you can take one of them to tow in addition to your dinghys."

"Now here's the thing," I tell the captains.  "Listen carefully."

"There are strong surface currents flowing past Constantinople that will carry us down to the crusader's camp without rowing.  We know that because every night for the past week Gerard, Peter and I have gone out in Rolf's galley and drifted down past the crusader camp and the Venetian galleys beached next to it - and  every night we've shown a couple of clear candle lanterns the way the local fishermen do to attract fish."

"Tonight we're all going to follow Rolf and all of us do it together.  When we leave here we're going to board our galleys and row together up to the same place beyond the Venetian camp.  Then, when I give the signal, we'll quietly drift down to their camp."

"I'll be on Rolf's galley and we'll be flying the same couple of white candle lanterns we've been flying every night for the past week.  You'll use Rolf's lights to follow his galley out to our assembly point.  Then, when Rolf's galley starts drifting down towards the crusaders, you just hold your place around Rolf's lanterns and drift with him."

"Now here's the important thing - when Rolf's white lanterns come down and he puts up red lanterns you'll know we're right off the crusader camp where the Venetian galleys are beached."

"That's your signal to row in very quietly and go for prizes - and tell your men not to be greedy and over reach themselves; getting just one prize off the beach is a great success."

"Also I want you to tell whoever is in charge of your small boats to watch carefully to make sure that every member of his landing party is either on a galley that has been pushed out into the water or has returned to his boat.  It will go very hard on anyone who leaves a man behind."  It certainly will; I'll hang him.

My initial presentation of the plan is followed by many questions and rightly so.  Among other things, the captains are particularly concerned about the Venetian galleys that are anchored off the camp.  They're more than likely to have rowers and sailors aboard or they wouldn't be out there.

"Yes, that's true, Edward, and good on you for bringing it up."

"Gerard's galley and Rolf's with me on board will not be going in to the beach with you.  We'll be the guard dogs and engage any of the Venetian galleys that get underway and look threatening.  That's why Rolf and Gerard and their crews will get a full share the prize money based on the total number of prizes we take."

"And each of you, of course, will have to be ready to fight off anyone who tries to stop you, meaning you'll have your weapons laid out and your best archers on your deck with all your arrow bales open. There's no galley crew in the world that can stand up to the sustained shooting of a deck full of English archers wielding longbows."  And that's a fact if there ever was one.

Two hours later our excited captains leave with one final repeated order ringing in their ears - not to talk about what we're going to do as they walk back to their galleys and not to inform their men until they've rowed well away from the dock and no one else is about.  Not one damn word.

We don't want to get there and find the crusaders and Venetians waiting for us.

Chapter Twenty Four

Peter and Rolf and I are standing on the roof of the stern castle of Rolf's galley.  Everyone is tense and everything is quiet except for the periodic sound of oars as Rolf's galley and those clustered around us row against the current to hold their positions.

The dark shapes of the galleys around us are barely visible in the faint moonlight.

"Is it my imagination, Captain, or is it a bit lighter to the east?"

"Aye.  It's lighter.  You're right Lieutenant.  That means it's time to go.  Are the red lanterns ready, Senior Sergeant Rolf?"

"Aye Captain, I lit all three of them myself ten minutes ago and I've got my two most dependable men standing by to go up and hang them and take down the whites."

"All right.  It's time to begin.  Dip the whites to signal the other galleys, if you please, Senior Sergeant Rolf, and let's start drifting."

"Dipping the whites is your order, Captain William.  I'll be supervising it myself to make sure it's done right and proper."

I suddenly feel the urge to go back to the shite board and pee.  After I pee I'm going to go forward and climb part way up the mast to be my own lookout.  It would be terribly embarrassing if the current is running so fast we drift past the crusader camp and I launch an attack on an empty parcel of ground.

@@@@@

Everything is quiet as our fleet slowly drifts on the current until we come abreast of the crusader camp.  In the dawn's early light I can see outlines of the Venetian galleys on the beach and those of my drifting fleet and the Venetian ships at anchor around us.

I even hear the solid "thunk" and a string of curses and shouts in Italian as the current takes one of our drifting galleys up against an anchored Venetian.

It's time.  So I cup my hands around my mouth and shout down to the deck in as quiet a voice as I think will be heard by the men standing below me.

"Raise the red lanterns and bring down the whites,"

My command is obviously heard for Rolf himself and two of his sailors instantly come scurrying up the mast and go past me.  They're each carrying a red lantern, three in all, in case one goes out.

Good for Rolf; I should have thought of that myself.

Time seems to stand still as all around me I can dimly see and barely hear the Marines in our landing parties as they climb into their small boats and pull for the shore.

I know when a galley's small boats are safely away because that's when the galley's oars immediately begin rowing to swing it around to row it into shore stern first.  The galley captains do that so their crewmen standing in their galley's stern can throw their grappling irons to put tow lines on to the prizes they'll try to pull off the beach.

Warning shouts begin long before the first of our landing parties reach the beach.  They initially come from the anchored ships into whose midst we've drifted and then from shore.

That's to be expected and so far so good - it doesn't look like anyone's waiting on the beach to fight our landing parties; we've surprised them for sure.

@@@@@

The morning sun is well up and the men on Rolf's galley are happy.  A couple of them are literally dancing on the deck as we row up to the dock and throw our mooring lines to the dock workers.

It's time to tally up our prizes, get the butcher's bill, and provision the prizes that are to head for Cyprus.  So far everything looks good, very good.

Most of the day is spent naming off prize crews and consoling the dejected captains of the galleys that are just now arriving and missed the prize money.  By nightfall fourteen more of our galleys are in from Cyprus.

We're getting stronger.  We now have a total of thirty three galleys here in addition to the nine prizes we pulled off the beach that did not have slaves on board to row them to Cyprus.

Some of the sergeant captains of the new arrivals reported seeing some or all of our seven prizes with galley slaves going by in the other direction bound for Cyprus with cheering crewmen on deck and the flag of England flying over that of Venice.  They are green with envy.

@@@@@

Late that afternoon I told Rolf to give his entire crew a two hour liberty and pass the word to everyone that all of our galleys including the new arrivals will be sailing for Cyprus as soon as they can take on enough water.

Then I called an "all captains" muster for the deck of Rolf's ship with Marine sentries from Martin's squad of guards keeping everyone else well away.

With the newly arrived sergeant captains listening intently I asked each of the captains who'd been on the raid what worked and what had not.

"What had been the problems and what are your suggestions for improvement - we all want to know what you think while everything is still fresh in your mind?"

It took a while and there were some good and helpful suggestions for improvement that had everyone nodding in agreement.  It was a good meeting even if the late arrivals are morose about having to turn around and go straight back to Cyprus.  Then I dropped my rock on their toes.

"This morning's raid took the Venetians and crusaders by surprise.  In fact, it worked so well that we're going to do what they'll never expect - we're going to hit them again tomorrow morning and this time go after both the remaining beached galleys and the ships at anchor."

At least I hope they don't expect us to come right back for a second bite.

The sergeant captains are over the moon; they're stunned - and then they begin cheering and carrying on like little boys who've been promised they can dip a finger in a bowl of honey.

When everyone settles down I tell them that as soon as our meeting breaks up he is to put on a long and unhappy face and immediately announce to his crew that we'll be sailing later tonight as a fleet so we can protect each other while we escape the wrath of the Venetians.

"If anyone asks, tell them that our goal is to go through the Dardanelles at first light tomorrow morning en route back to Cyprus. That will explain why we'll be sailing tonight. But under no circumstances is anyone to even so much as hint to his crew that we're going after more prizes, not until he casts off and is well away from shore."

"If anyone asks, and your seconds should if he's any good, tell him you'll be stopping for more supplies and water after you get clear of the strait.  Indeed, you might rush around and pretend to hurry to load food and water just to further convince everyone that we'll be leaving these waters in a few hours."

"Actually, that's a good idea and everyone should do it."

My description of what they are to do brought smiles to the faces around me.  I can see from their enthusiastic responses that every man understands and will do it.

Then we got down to planning the raid - whose ships will go for the beached galleys and whose for the Venetians at anchor and such like that.

It is hours later and late in the afternoon when we finally break up and I gave the sergeant captains my final order - which is a repeat of what I had explained earlier.

"Now everyone is to put on a most serious and pissed off face and rush back to your galleys complaining to each other.  Everyone must do that - there are spies everywhere and we want everyone to think we'll be leaving for Cyprus tonight to escape from the Venetians we've pissed off."

"Going back to Cyprus in a few hours means you'll have to hurry to roust your men out of the taverns and whore houses and load as much water and food as you can.  We'll be leaving six hours after dark while the tide is still going out."

@@@@@

Our second raid is a great success.  The Venetians and crusaders couldn't believe we would hit them again so quickly so they were once again not ready.

We came away with nine more galleys, eleven cogs, and six badly constructed horse transports that look to be more useful for firewood than anything else.  Unfortunately the horses had already been unloaded.

We also lost thirty two men killed and mercied and numerous wounded badly enough to be give some of the flower paste we bought in Beirut.  We took our wounded back to the dock and quickly converted two of the prize cogs into hospitals, one for our wounded and one into a hospital and prison ship for the far more numerous Venetians.

Reuben rushed into the city to get bonesetters and barbers to sew up and bleed our wounded.

@@@@@

Two very good things happened the afternoon of our second raid.  I was on the deck of cog with our wounded when there is a great shout and much cheering from our men.  A very battered and bedraggled Thomas suddenly walks out of the city gate accompanied by several of the emperor's courtiers and a smiling young orthodox priest.

"Don't let the Byzantines take credit for freeing me," Thomas whispered into my ear in English as we fell into each other's arms.

"They didn't have anything to do with setting me free. It was the papal nuncio  who grabbed me. And it was the Venetians and crusaders who forced him to let me go - you terrified them with your promise to destroy the Venetian fleet and starve them into slavery."

"The crusaders laughed when they got your first letter and even had a priest read it to me; they weren't laughing and didn't read your second letter to me.  They didn't have to because everyone was talking about it."

"They were even more upset this morning, much more upset, but wouldn't tell me anything except that they decided to be merciful and let me go since I was a priest.  But I heard them talking - did you really destroy their fleet and strand them here?"

"Not all of it, brother, but more enough to get their attention and obligate us to pay a lot of prize money.  And the priest that was with you?  What about him?  Is he free?"

"He's the nuncio's nephew and at first I thought he was in on stopping the delivery of the pope's letter from the very beginning.  But now I'm not so sure.  The nuncio didn't want the pope's letter delivered, you see.  But then he changed his mind when he saw how it was worded."

@@@@@

A couple of Venetian priests representing the Doge and two elderly crusaders have come to see me.  A fishing boat brings them across from their camp with a peace offer. That's when we find out why the crusaders have traveled to Constantinople instead of to the Holy Land.

Their offer boils down to "join us and we will give you a share of the coins and lands we'll get when the deposed emperor is restored to power."  They are there to negotiate our share.

If they are telling the truth about how much has been promised, and Thomas and Peter and I believe they are, it's a lot of coins.

According to our visitors, Alexios, the son and heir of the deposed emperor, has made a contract with the crusaders:  If they will restore his father to the throne, Constantinople will pay the Venetians to carry the crusaders to Acre or Beirut plus pay a huge sum of two hundred thousand silver marks to the crusaders plus one thousand pounds of gold plus provide ten thousand troops for the crusade - as soon as his father regains the throne.

It's an interesting offer and Thomas and I seriously consider it while our visitors are enjoying some fresh bread and cheese and a bowl of wine.

In the end we decide not to accept - because if we do get paid, which is doubtful, everyone will know we are rich and we'll be targets for invasions and ransoms.  It's better for our plans for George for us to be secretly rich and left alone because we are greatly feared and not rich enough to be worth the trouble of fighting.

But we do spit on our hands and shake on a different agreement - we agree to stop our attacks on the Venetian ships and the Venetians and crusaders agree to leave us alone to carry refugees and not to ever attack the city wall with the gate in front of the dock where the refugees will come out.

"You made a wise choice," I said to one of the elderly Venetians as I gestured towards the additional galleys that were just then coming in to dock and being enthusiastically greeted by those who arrived before them.

"We English have many more war galleys than Venice and they're crewed by fighting men instead of slaves and sailors - if you hadn't returned Bishop Thomas and made peace we intended to go for Venice itself after we'd finished destroying your ships and selling your men to the Moors."

That's ox shite about us going for Venice, of course, but it made me feel good to say it and see the shock on their faces.

Chapter Twenty Five

Months have passed and I'm still at Constantinople even though Thomas long ago sailed for Cornwall and Tori is still in Limassol with Yoram and Lena.

To my great surprise, our agreement with the Venetians and crusaders is still holding.  Our dock area and the city wall and gate into the city are islands of normalcy in the midst of a serious war ranging all around us.

And the war and the siege of the city is indeed becoming more and more serious - the crusaders and Venetians have come across the water from their camp on the other shore and are attacking the walls and gates on the land side of the city.

Landing their men on this side of the water means they've not only cut off the city from food supplies coming in by land and but also, except for the food our galleys are chartered to carry, by sea.  They've also broken through the city wall several times before being repulsed and part of the city has burned.

So far the city is holding.  All of the crusader and Venetian attacks have failed  but anxiety is rising as the lack of food deliveries begins to bite.  More and more refugees are coming out to buy their way to safety.

Some things haven't changed - our men and the rich lords and knights of the crusaders are still welcome to enter the city if they are unarmed and pay the necessary bribes and refugees are still free to leave.

Even so, about the only living creatures who totally free to move back and forth through the gates unmolested are the city's clowders of cats.  They are everywhere which is probably why there are no mice and rats.

@@@@@

Byzantium's emperor is Alexios III.  His men periodically charter our galleys to take supplies and messages to and from the rest of their empire.  There is also a steady stream of refugees coming out of the city, mostly merchants, orthodox priests, and members of the aristocracy.

There is no doubt about it.  We are making more coins than if we had accepted the crusaders' offer and been paid.

One of our galleys chartered by the city is quite interesting.  It has been loaded with a small amount of cargo, a couple of dozen heavy wooden crates, and just sits there at the dock we've taken over opposite the city gate.

The charter was made and fully paid right after the Venetians broke through the city wall the first time and were thrown out by the emperor's fearsome Varangian Guards. It's obviously a cargo that is extremely valuable since it is under constant guard by a dozen or so of the emperor's Varangians.

There are not all that many guards so we could, of course, kill the Varangians and take the cargo.  But I forbid it.  Even though it might make us richer today it would almost certainly make us much poorer in the years ahead when George and his heirs are in charge - because we would lose our constantly growing reputation for keeping our word and protecting our passengers and cargos.

@@@@@

Our neutral status and the dock area we hold has led to some strange things happening.  For example, the city lets our men and small numbers of unarmed crusaders in through the dock gate to buy drinks and women.

It won't let them carry weapons in, of course, or food out but they can come to city to eat and drink.  So it's mostly the richer lords and knights of the crusaders and Venetians who come for a bit of rest and recreation.  I wonder how many are spies?

Keeping our men busy while they wait for their galley to have a charter or load of refugees is a challenge.

One of our diversions is the archery tournament we conduct every day along the city wall next to the dock.  We hold it every day and virtually every Marine enters - and rightly so since there is a silver coin and a twenty four hour pass into the city for the winner.

Archers and the use of bows, even longbows, don't impress the mostly French and Italian crusader knights.  They watch and sometimes cheer a good shot.  But they are generally dismissive, saying they have armor so when there's a real battle they'll just pull down their helmet vizors and wade into the archers and kill them.

Yesterday it came to a head when some of our archers began to be insulted by some drunken French knights.  One of our men speaks French and told the Marines what he was saying.  Apparently the insults went back and forth until one of the Frenchmen pulled out his purse and bet that his chain armour would stop any arrow.

It was a particularly bad bet because he made it with one of our strongest archers.  By the time Peter and I heard the commotion and got there the Frenchman was gone - with a bloody iron pointed shaft through his armour and sticking six inches out of his back.  Tough shite.  But perhaps a good message.

"We'll bury him and say the words if you don't want to," I told the other French knights.

"But only if you agree to tell the truth - that he was drunk and wrong about English archers and made a bad bet."

@@@@@

The crusaders and their Venetian allies are now seriously fighting and attacking. They've stepped up their attacks now that emperor's efforts to string them along with meaningless negotiations has finally come to an end.

We watch as the entire army of crusaders and Venetians comes across in their remaining ships and the emperor's army doesn't come out to fight them.  The very next day two of the empire's senior officials come to see me.

The first to arrive is chamberlain who manages the empire's financial affairs and its treasury.  He has, the chamberlain confides, a very special and very secret assignment from the emperor - to take the twenty five crates of gold bars and jewels to safety in the chartered galley if it looks as though the city might fall.

Gold bars and jewels?  Well, of course, it had to be something like that.

"I only tell you this because you have been so helpful by attacking the Venetians and your integrity and that of your men is so well known throughout the world - if you will help me save the gold and jewels so we can use them to pay for the mercenaries we will need to defeat the crusaders, the empire will make you a big and generous payment."

My response is that I will, of course, do all I can to help him and the emperor.  I promise to think about how it might be done and get back to him within the next few days.

Later that same day an orthodox archbishop comes with virtually the same responsibility and I tell him the same thing. And the next day who should appear but two more men and their entourages, each with a secret assignment to save the empire's gold by taking the crates to safety.

The first is the emperor's son in law who is the Admiral of the Byzantine fleet. The second is the emperor's eldest son and probable heir.  He's the one who chartered the galley in which the crates are stored.

"Peter, do we have any shipwrights or carpenters with us?"

@@@@@

It takes four long days to build what I want into one of our galleys, but in the end we have a very safe and special place to hold the gold chests.

"It's not strong enough you see."  I say to the skeptical commander of the Varangians as I bend down and rap my knuckles on the wooden hull next to the stack of crates.

Then I explain with the help of a lot of hand gestures.

"We English are committed to keeping these crates safe.  We signed a contract to do so.  But they are too heavy.  If this ship sails in a heavy sea they will almost certainly break through the bottom of the galley and into the water."

Then I take him to the galley alongside and show him the new hold and the beams below it that will spread out the weight.  He finally understands my gestures and beams his agreement when I suggest that he and his men move the chests over here to the safer galley.

"You must do it yourself so that you know nothing is missing.  Besides, my men are forbidden to touch any cargo we carry.  That is why we English are trusted more than anyone else."

An hour later and the chests are safely stored in the special little hold that has been built to protect them from sliding around or crashing through the bottom of the galley.  Everyone is very pleased.

Then I send a messenger to ask my various visitors to come see me to discuss an important matter related to the safety of the cargo on the chartered galley. Each comes and each agrees to my plan.  As they should because it is so reasonable.

Each of them agrees that they will need to keep the location of the chests secret until the gold can be safely returned to the city.  They also agree that the galley carrying the crates to safety will need to stop somewhere for whatever amount of time they need to hide them, perhaps days or even weeks.

And, of course, each agrees that because of extra time required to hide the crates we are entitled to a bigger payment for the use of the galley and that they will pay it before the galley sails - enough coins to be the equivalent of the value of the gold that is in two of the chests instead of just one as we initially agreed.

Each time our negotiations are successful Peter hands me the parchment with the original charter agreement and we quickly add the necessary amendments caused by the extra time and expenses and the higher price that will have to be paid for the use of our galley and its crew of Marines.

@@@@@

Three mornings later the emperor finally leads the city's army out to fight.  It doesn't go well.  His army outnumbers the crusaders and Venetians by at least three to one. But at the last minute he gets cold feet and orders his men to return to the city without fighting.

By late that afternoon I've heard from all four of the men who have been secretly charged with taking the empire's gold into their personal possession in order to "hire mercenaries."

That night, many days earlier than I would have expected, the gold protectors and their retainers begin to arrive at the times we had agreed.

All I can do is nod my head in agreement with the plan for them to take the gold and watch while Peter accepts the rather large amount of coins they have each agreed to pay to use our galley and its crew of Marines and sailors.

First to arrive is the emperor himself although we are not supposed to know who it is and pretend we don't.  He is, after all, in a monk's habit with its hood up and covering his head.  The emperor, it seems, is departing with the gold, his eldest son, and many of his guards - and leaving the rest of his family and his courtiers and soldiers behind.

The only problem is that he has chartered one galley and his secret cargo is on another which has developed a dangerous leak.  It is a problem that is easily solved.  His own men can move the gold chests from where they are to a much superior eighty oar war galley with one of our very best captains and his fine crew.

"We English are proud of our reputation for honoring our contracts; it's good for business."

That's what I tell the monk through the white haired man acting as his interpreter.

"That's why we had the two requirements to which your representatives agreed when we made our contract" - which I promptly unroll and point out.

"First, since my men are never allowed to touch personal cargos, your men, not mine, must inspect the crates and move them to the galley which is to sail to wherever it is that you tell the galley's captain you want to go."

"Second, you must somewhere along the route of your voyage hide the crates at a secret place of your choice without any of my men ever knowing or seeing where you hide them.  That way we English cannot be blamed if anyone knows where the gold is before you use it to hire mercenaries."

Nothing could be fairer or more reasonable; our integrity is greatly appreciated and our requirements quickly reaffirmed.

@@@@@

We are soon gathered around the special cargo hold and the narrow hatch is pulled back and a candle lantern held down to reveal the crates stacked down below.  Every one of them is open and ready for inspection and there is room for a man to stand next to them and inspect them.

"Please choose someone your trust to climb down the ladder into the hold and inspect the contents of your crates, Excellency.  He can seal them up after he inspects them and pass them up here for your men to carry to the galley you and your party will be traveling on - it's that one over there.  It's the best and safest one we have."

There is a brief conversation among our visitors and a young dandy in fine clothes climbs down the wooden ladder into the little cargo hold.  He's carrying a candle lantern which Peter handed him.

He quickly holds something up for everyone to see and shouts up to the men standing around the opening above him.  They are looking down into the hold and watching intently.  There is no doubt about it.  The gold bars are in the crates.

"Use this and screw down the screws to seal the lids so nothing falls out, then pass them up here," I have the interpreter tell him as I take the screwdriver one of  our carpenters hands me and toss it down for the dandy to use.

That's when things go wrong.  He obviously doesn't have a clue as to what to do.

"Come out," I tell him.  He can't understand the words but the motion I make with my hand is clear.  He hands the lantern to me when I hold out my hand to take it as he is climbing up the ladder; he's happy to be rid of it and wipes his hand on his pants.

"You do it Evans," I say to one of my men as soon as the dandy climbs out of the hold.

Evans immediately climbs in and gets to work.  I hold up the lantern so he can see to work in its dim light and the people standing around the hatch can see him do it.  Evans works fast and he knows what he is doing.  The boxes are quickly resealed and Evans promptly climbs out.

Once again I motion for the dandy to climb down.

"Hand them up to the men up here."  The boy tries despite the fact that they are obviously too heavy for him to manage.  And when he does finally get a crate on his shoulder and manage to climb part way up the ladder he can't get the crate through the hatch opening.  It's clear that the opening is slightly too narrow with the ladder in the way.  What a mess.

"Come out," I tell him with a resigned look on my face and beckoning motion of my hand.  What I am telling the young man to do is unmistakable despite the fact that he doesn't understand the words.  Once again he climbs out.

While he's climbing up the ladder to get out I shout over my shoulder, "Where's Bob Little?  Peter, send someone to get Bob Little."

Bob arrives a minute or two later and I tell him what to do.  He climbs down into the hold and Peter pulls the ladder up.  Bob is one of the tallest men in our company. Well over six feet some say. He doesn't need to be on the ladder to pass the crates up to the deck.

Crates begin coming out of the hold as fast as they can be carried away by the emperor's guards.  When all the crates are out Peter puts the ladder back in and Bob climbs out.  I hold the lantern up high and wave it over the empty hold so everyone can see that the hold is truly empty.  Good grief; that was an ordeal.

Twenty minutes later we hear the rowing drum on the chartered galley and watch in the moonlight as the emperor and his crates leave the harbor.

According to our revised contract, the galley's destination is wherever in the world the emperor wants to go.  Somewhere along the way, wherever and whenever the emperor decides, the galley will stop while the emperor's guards unload and hide the gold.

Even if it takes a week or more, the sergeant captain and his crew will wait in their galley while the emperor's men hide the crates.  That way he and his men can return whenever they wish and retrieve it at their leisure when they need it to pay the mercenaries - and we English are not to blame if it goes missing.

@@@@@

The bishop and his servants and a chest full of coins to pay us arrive a couple hours after the emperor sails away with his guards and retainers.  The bishop had heard rumors of the emperor's fleeing the city and is visibly relieved when the dim light of the lantern I am holding reveals the open crates and the gold that is his personal responsibility to spend.

His relief grows into a broad smile when one of his priests goes down to inspect them and verifies that they are full of gold bars.

After his priest reseals the crates he'll pass them up the ladder and the bishop's men themselves will carry the crates to the galley, our very best, which will take the bishop to wherever in the world he wants to go "to hire people to help us" and wait somewhere along the way while he hides them.

Not surprisingly, the crates still don't fit through the opening.  So once again  Bob Little is called.  He climbs down and passes them up to the bishop's men to be carried to the galley that will carry the bishop and the crates to wherever he wants to hide them.

@@@@@.

We go through the same exact process once again when the chamberlain arrives the next morning with his payment, and yet again with the admiral in the afternoon.

Only when the admiral's galley is fading out of sight over the horizon do Peter and I go down to the newly built room in the cargo hold where the hundred crates of hastily gathered rocks had been stored.

It's hard to work in the dark - our shipyard carpenters can seal the little door between the two compartments when we get back to Cyprus.

- End of the Book -

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This has been Book Seven of  "The English Archers" saga. Books one through six of  the saga are available in Kindle editions.  The parchments for the Eighth book are currently being pieced together and translated at the Bodleian Library.  It will be released sometime in the autumn of 2015.

Readers may also enjoy the similarly action-packed novels of Martin Archer’s  acclaimed “The Soldier” saga.  They follow a young soldier who stays on active duty after a war and becomes a professional soldier - and then fights and serves everywhere  from Vietnam to the Middle east and in the coming wars between China and Russia and between Israel and the Arabs.

All of Martin Archer’s novels are available as Kindle eBooks and will sooner or later be available in print. (Search for "Martin Archer" on Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk,  Amazon.com.au, and other Amazon websites serving other countries. )

Other exciting eBooks by Martin Archer

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

“Peace and Conflict” (An older and more mature Chris Roberts fights in Vietnam with the Legion and then with the allies.)

“War Breaks Out”   (Moscow orders and invasion of Germany and NATO fights back.)

“War in the East”   (The West sides with Moscow when China invades the Russian east to reclaim its lost territories.)

“The Islamic–Israeli War”  (A Coalition of Islamic countries launches a surprise attack on Israel that forever changes Israel and 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 day and 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 hear he’s about to run off and leave us.

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Want to read more?  Search Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk for “Martin Archer”

Corrections, Suggests and Comments? They are truly welcome.  Please contact Martin at MartinArcherV@gmail.com

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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 backwards 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 and equipped 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 in the draft.

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.

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 or Amazon.co.uk or your local Amazon website for “Martin Archer.”  Or “Soldiers and Marines.”

**Martin Archer can be contacted at MartinArcherV@gmail.com.  He would greatly value your comments and suggestions regarding edits and corrections to improve these novels and the publication of print versions.**