The Captain's Men

by Martin Archer

  When she finished, she giggled and told me she had played “throw fingers” with her sister to see who would get to rub my back and wash me with wet rags on my first night home. That is something the women do for their men in the east where she and Tori had been birthed. So far, knock on wood, getting washed had not weakened me as I had been warned it might.

  I got a playful smack on my ear and an “oh, you old devil” when I asked, “did you win or lose?”

  She is alright, Helen is; she and Tori and their sister, Anne, were the best gifts I ever got from the Holy Land merchants who use our cogs and galleys. We three have been married up all right and proper ever since the children started coming.

  Chapter Three

  We get ready to fight.

  The next morning there was a long line of men and women waiting to use the two piss pots in the castle’s middle bailey. The line was so long and I was so desperate that I did not even try to climb the stone steps to use one of the shite holes at the top of the third curtain wall; I hurried out of the castle and peed against a tree growing just beyond the third moat.

  I was not the only one who rushed out of the castle to pee. It was not surprising; my brother was very particular about where everyone dropped their piss and shite, and no one wanted to be on the receiving end of Thomas’s fury. He is very peculiar and hard to understand, my brother is; he claims the parchment books he read in the monastery said Romans pissed and shite that way and they fielded armies and built roads and such for almost a thousand years.

  Afterwards, I felt much relieved and walked back to the middle bailey to get an onion and some bread, cheese, and a bowl of morning ale at the cookhouse. Peter was there and gave me a knowing and sympathetic smile when he saw me coming back over the second drawbridge. So did several of the sergeants standing in the line to get food and morning ale for themselves and their families.

  There was no surprise in their smiles; they all knew Thomas’s strange fixation about where everyone should piss and shite. They put it down to the fact that his mind was overfilled because he was both an archer lieutenant and a priest who could scribe and gobble church-talk.

  I did not smile back; I would have done so, but I had not seen their smiles because I was so deep in thought about a decision I had finally made as I walked back to the cookhouse.

  “Peter,” I quietly announced as I walked up to him. “I am going to send to Okehampton for Raymond.

  “The cat is out of the sack about the relics being in Cornwall. So it is time to send parchments out to the princes letting them know that we have the relics and telling them what they will have to do, and have to pay, in order to get them. Before I do though, I am going to call all the company’s lieutenants and senior sergeants together to talk about what we should do to protect ourselves now that everyone knows we have the relics here at Restormel.”

  Peter nodded and started to respond, but then we got distracted when a hissing and snarling fight broke out between a couple of castle cats who had come to see if they could mooch a free breakfast instead of having to hunt for a mouse or a rat.

  ******

  Three days later, late on a damp and misty afternoon, Raymond rode in from Okehampton with two of his men. My lieutenants and senior sergeants and I spent the entire next day considering the sale of the relics and how we should conduct it. We talked about everything from how and where to safely exchange them for the princes’ coins, to who might attack us and how we would fight them.

  My men were conflicted and so was I, and there was no doubt about it. Some of us thought that if there was an effort to take the relics by force, it would most likely to come from the sea; others that it would most likely come by land. We just did not know. All we knew was that a lot of powerful princes wanted the relics and we had in the room above the great hall.

  We all agreed that the safest place for each relic’s sale to take place would be from a heavily armed galley in the Fowey estuary with our other galleys standing nearby to defend it if necessary. The big question, however, was whether we should keep our men on the galleys at the mouth of the river to guard against a seaborne attacking force, or should they be formed up at Restormel or Launceston, or even across the border at Okehampton, so we would be ready to fight on land? Our men could not be everywhere at the same time. So where should we assemble them?

  Raymond made a good point—whether by land or sea, we needed to get as much warning as possible before the enemy arrives so we can be ready to give them a warm welcome. That meant, he said, we should be sending some of his outriders from Okehampton further out along the roads in Devon and Somerset so that we would have at least a two or three day’s warning if the king’s army, or anyone else’s, is coming to try to take them from us by force.

  Thomas agreed with Raymond and similarly suggested that, because the European princes now know we have the relics the Pope wants, we also need advance warning if anyone brings an army by sea that might be used to take them.

  “We can rely on the old archers spying for us in our Harfleur tavern to give us an early warning if the French once again begin assembling transports. But what if the Germans or Swedes bring an army when they come for the relics?

  “It is a very real possibility, so we also need to station a couple of our fastest galleys to act as “outriders” at a port or ports where the northern princes would almost certainly stop for food and water on their way to Cornwall.”

  Worrying about someone sending an army to take the relics was obviously something Thomas had thought about before Raymond even brought it up, for he promptly unrolled a parchment map and tapped his finger on a village called Haarlem in the swampy lowlands of the Hollands.

  “This is probably the best place to put them,” he told us.

  My brother was probably right because he had read so many books while he was in the monastery, more than ten to hear him tell it, but I was wishing Harold had been here to advise us instead of having gone out to our post on Cyprus; him being the lieutenant in charge of our cogs and galleys.

  By the end of our day-long meeting, we had decided to send two galleys with extra rowers, but without archers, to wait and watch at Haarlem and also to immediately begin sending some of Raymond’s outriders further out into Devon and Somerset to watch the roads. We also decided to send a fishing boat to Harfleur to alert the two archers we have stationed there. It would wait and carry back any warning messages.

  Expanding the lands patrolled by Raymond’s horse archers was an easy decision even though heretofore they would mostly been used to watch along the borders of Cornwall and our Okehampton Castle lands in Devon. We also talked about establishing some kind of caravan serais or alehouses along the road, nice ones that would attract the leaders of any forces coming towards Devon and Cornwall and let us weaken their tongues with drink the way we do in Exeter and Harfleur. I had a few special thoughts about how they should look and be built, but I kept them to myself; we did not have time to build them.

  The next day, Raymond returned to Okehampton with his men. A few hours later four galleys fully crewed with sailors and rowed by some of our construction workers and villagers, but no archers, left with parchments asking the kings and princes to confirm that they were ready to buy the relics and telling them how we intended to proceed to sell them. One galley was sent to each of the four European princes who received parchments from the Pope. We would deal with the crusader lords later.

  Raymond did not go home alone. He had surprised us by reporting that our herd of riding horses had grown such that he was once again short of archers who knew how to stay on a horse without falling off. Accordingly, George and one of Thomas’s hurriedly ordained older students went with him to be Raymond’s apprentice sergeant and scribe. So did thirty one-stripe and two-stripe archers who claimed to know how to ride a horse or, at least, were willing to be learnt.

  Those of the men going with Raymond who did not yet have a horse to ride, and that was most of them, rode on top of the ca
rgos in a long convoy of wains taking additional supplies of food and arrows to Okehampton. We were building up the castle’s siege supplies so it would be ready in case there was fighting that resulted in a prolonged siege. They would probably get there about sundown on Friday if the weather held and Raymond pushed them.

  I thought about what we had decided as I stood in our training camp next to the river and watched my son and the rest of Raymond’s reinforcements leave for Okehampton. One problem with no clear answer was that both of the German princes, Otto and Frederick, each wanted to buy the relics and donate them to the Church so the Pope would bless his claim to have been elected the Holy Roman Emperor.

  At first, we were going to do what Cardinal Bertoli suggested and let the two Germans bid against each other so we would get the highest possible price for the relics. After we talked it over amongst ourselves, however, we had long ago decided to let them bid against each other so we would get the highest possible price—and then tell each of them that he had won the bidding, collect his coins, and give him some of the relics. That way we would get all the coins each of them was willing to pay to become the Emperor, and they would each have some relics to donate to the Church.

  Thomas had suggested the idea of letting them both win the bidding. He thought the Pope would like it. Indeed, he said he was so sure Cardinal Bertoli and the Pope would like it, because they would get more coins for themselves, that he assured us we could safely proceed as if we had already received their approval.

  “I mean, really, so what if a few more princes are allowed to escape purgatory if it benefits the Church?” said Thomas.

  Not everyone understood.

  “But there is only one emperor for the Holy Roman Empire. The Pope cannot give his blessing to both of them, can he?” asked Peter with a hint of disbelief in his voice.

  “Do not worry about it,” was my priestly brother’s reply as he took a big bite of chicken and gave a little belch.

  “The Pope is a smart man and he needs the money. He will surely come up with something to keep them both happy.”

  ****** George

  We saw Okehampton Castle in the distance as we came through the woods on the muddy and rutted cart path that runs up to the castle from the old Roman road running between London and Exeter. It is a lovely place and very defensible. The men were very excited to see it, as well they should be. It will be their home for some years if they did not get cut down or die of some pox.

  I knew Okehampton because I had been here several times before—the first time as a young boy when my father and the archers killed the Courtney lord and took it for Cornwall. It had all been very exciting. I had stood behind our men with four other of the older boys from Uncle Thomas’s school, and even loosed three arrows from my small bow over the heads of our men when the lord of the castle and his men charged them. Courtney had done so thinking my father and his men were a bunch of defenceless travellers who could not fight back because they were not wearing armour.

  The second time I saw it was a couple of years ago when I was a young apprentice sergeant. I was in a battle on this very road when Sir William Brereton and his men tried to take the relief wains bringing corn and dried fish to Okehampton during the great famine. It was the first time I actually commanded men in battle—twenty-two newly trained archers who had been pressed into service as wain drivers to help get the famine food distributed.

  It had been a hard fight, and we would have lost if Lieutenant Raymond and some of his horse archers had not arrived in time to stand with us. Together we killed almost all of Brereton’s men and set the rest to helping row one of our galleys to the Holy Land. I have been partial to the horse archers ever since.

  “Does it bring back memories, George?” asked Lieutenant Raymond as he pulled his horse to a walk next to mine.

  “Aye Uncle Raymond, that it does.” All the company’s original archers are my uncles even though my only real uncle is Uncle Thomas who learnt me to do my sums and read and jabber in Latin. It has been that way ever since I was a young boy and they helped my father carry me over the wall and away from Lord Edmund’s castle when the Saracens overran it.

  “Well lad, you have the four stripes of a company sergeant now and rightly so, and you are damn lucky to be alive if half of what I heard about the battle with the French is true.”

  “I was too busy swimming clear of the wreckage to be scared, Uncle Raymond, as God is my witness. Afterwards, when I got to thinking about it, I shook like a wet dog.”

  “Well, you are not to take such chances out here. You will be sergeanting the outriders I will be sending out into Devon and Somerset on the London road. A couple of my best three-stripe file sergeants and their chosen men will be going with you, so you should be alright.

  “Just be sure to listen to your sergeants, and remember your job is only to do whatever damage you can safely do and send couriers back to warn us that danger is coming; it is not for you to stand and fight like a hero and get yourself killed or captured for ransom.”

  ******

  Okehampton Castle was quite impressive with its two great curtain walls and battlements standing out against the sky. I pulled up my horse at the village at the foot of the castle’s hill and drank it all in—and wondered how long it would be my home. At least until the relics are sold, I would imagine. I should have asked my father if I could bring Beth or Becky with me.

  We received a fine welcome as we clattered over the second drawbridge and rode into the inner bailey. The people in the castle had seen us coming up the path and rushed out to greet us. Servants and archers immediately came into the bailey to hold our horses and present us with the traditional bowls of arrival ale.

  I had seen Lady Isabel several times previously and immediately recognized her when she came into the bailey. From listening to my father and uncle I knew a secret that most people did not know and never would—with Uncle Thomas’s help as the Bishop of Cornwall, she had somehow married Lord Courtney and we had bought Okehampton off him after he died.

  She must have asked someone who I was because she smiled and walked over to me.

  “Hoy and God’s blessings on you, sergeant—why you are George are you not you, William’s son? And now you are all grown up and a company sergeant with four stripes; my goodness, how time flies!” She said it with both pleasure and sadness in her voice.

  “Hoy and God’s blessings on you, Lady Isabel. Yes, it is me, George. My father said that I was to give you his warmest regards.”

  “Oh thank you for telling me. And this is my son, his name is William too.”

  Chapter Four

  The gathering storm

  Okehampton was as a nice a place for an archer to live as one could possibly imagine. It was all highly organized and very modern. Lady Isabel and her son and servant lived in one of the two rooms above the castle’s great hall with its big fireplace and long wooden table; Raymond lived in the other with Wanda, his wife with the strange eyes from the land on the other side of the Saracens’ great desert.

  The horse archers themselves, and the women they had attracted, lived with their horses in the outer bailey in hovels built all along outer curtain wall. They spent from dawn to dusk every day gathering food for their horses and being learnt and re-learnt to push out their arrows and to ride and fight in various ways. In return, they got their hovels to live in, their weapons and horses, and two big meals each day for themselves and their families, all in addition to their annual pay and any prize monies they might earn.

  Raymond’s senior sergeant, his two four-stripe company sergeants, and his eleven or twelve three-stripe file sergeants, patrol sergeants as Raymond called them, lived in the turrets along the wall in the inner bailey. That was where I as a new four-stripe sergeant expected to live. It was not to be.

  “You can sleep in the hall tonight, George. But you are not to make yourself at home. Tomorrow I want you to take a couple of files of our outriders down the London road to watch for
signs of trouble. Go down the road a good four days march on foot from Okehampton and camp well off the road where you cannot be seen. Do you understand?”

  “Aye, Uncle, I understand. A good four days walk and camp off the road.”

  “Good. I will be sending out a similar force under Michael the mason to watch the Exeter road.” We have so many Michaels who have made their marks on the company roll that we have to scribe something special about them so we can tell them apart. Michael Mason was probably a mason’s apprentice before he went for an archer.

  “I will expect both of you to send a rider to me every day with a report of what you have seen even if you have seen nothing. Do you understand?”

  “Aye, Uncle, I understand. I will send a report to you every day.”

  “Good. Now we must go to supper. Lady Isabel asked that you join us.”

  ******

  The next morning was all hustle and bustle.

  “Stand ready,” a company sergeant cried as Uncle Raymond and I walked up to the men who would be going with me on the London road. The men were already standing one behind the other in two seven-man fighting files as was the custom for inspections. They stiffened even more at the sergeant’s order.

  Our horses were off to the side being held by some of the stable boys. With each of them was something that the outriders did not usually take with them when they went out on a patrol and might need to ride fast—a sturdy supply horse for each file. It would be led by one of the outriders and carry a leather tent, a cooking pot, a knight's breastplate that had been hammered flat so it could be laid on a campfire to cook flat bread, and various food supplies and additional arrows.

  The additional equipment, supplies, and arrows were significant; it meant we would be away for an extended period of time. Our long, hooded rain skins, as always, were rolled up and tied behind our saddles.