I held up the little wooden cross I wear on a string around my neck, mumbled a few words of Latin, and made the sign of the cross to bless them as Guy finished tightening his remount’s saddle and swung himself up on to his riding horse in one smooth motion. The rest of the men were very excited and looked at me expectantly.
“The rest of you stay here and get your horses saddled and ready to leave on a moment’s notice. And get our lookouts’ horses ready for them, and the supply horses as well.”
Those were the orders I gave as I watched Fred and Guy ride out of our camp leading their remounts and begin moving as fast as they could through the densely packed trees. They moving through the trees as fast as possible, and rightly so, because they understand that they need to get ahead of the army below us so they can ride on the road.
Then I hurried down through the forest to re-join our lookouts and once again watch the army passing below us.
When I got back to our lookouts, I could see the column more closely as it began to pass directly in front of me. There was a clear pattern—each of the barons was leading his own little army of knights and mounted men with his poorly armed servants and serfs walking behind them.
The pile of stones in front of our lookouts was already large and it was rapidly growing.
******
We watched for hours as the barons and their men slowly passed on the road below us. As would be expected, there were four or five men on foot for every mounted man. They looked to be mostly the poorly armed men of village levies. Following along behind them was a long baggage train of wains and a large number of camp followers, both riding and walking, but mostly walking.
The baggage train stretched out behind the fighting men for as far as I could see. It was an army on the move for sure—and it did not at all look as if it was prepared to fight off an attack. If I had had a larger force of archers, I could have burst out of the trees and destroyed them all as I had watched my father do years ago from the Trematon Castle keep when it was attacked. But I do not have such a force; so my men and I will have to settle for doing what we can do.
There was still no sign of the king or any of his men.
Chapter Seven
My fears are confirmed.
Our horses were saddled and ready as the sun began coming up and my men gathered around me to get their orders. There were eight men listening as I told them what we had be doing and what I expected of them. We had already eaten a big breakfast of flatbread, cheese, and burnt chicken strips, and scattered the ashes of the cooking fire we had use to bake the bread. In addition to our longbows and quivers, each of us was carrying his newly made wooden spear and stone battle hammer, and had one or more extra bales of arrows lashed on behind his saddle.
“Listen up lads. It is almost certain where that lot down on the road is heading—to lay siege to Okehampton Castle and then continue on to attack Cornwall and seize the relics before they can be sold. If that happens, none of will get our prize money. So it is our job to slow them down and weaken them by attacking their baggage train, and then begin picking off their stragglers and preventing them from foraging or receiving supplies.
“To start with, now that their main force has passed, we are going to fall in with the baggage train on the road and act as if we belong to their army. I will start asking questions as we overtake people who look like they might be willing to talk.
“If I hear what I expect to hear, I will give the word and we will launch a surprise attack to try to damage them. But here is the important thing for each of you to remember—there is to be no fighting or causing anyone to worry about us until I give the order. To the contrary, you are to pretend we are part of the army. So you must smile and get along with everyone until I say otherwise.
“If anyone asks, pretend to be stupid; tell them you are one of the newly arrived archers from London and are trying to find out where the army is taking you and who is leading it. Only when I give the order are you to start attacking them. And when I do give it, you are to leave anyone who is unarmed alone and concentrate on killing those who are armed and, in particular, killing or wounding the draught horses and oxen pulling their supply wagons so they cannot be used.
“Cut the throats or bellies of the horses and oxen with your knives or stab them in their guts with the wooden spears we made. And whenever you see sacks or jugs of corn, cut them open with your knives or break them with your stone hammers. We are going to starve the bastards so their arms get weak and sickly and they want to go home.”
My men listened carefully and nodded. They had heard it before when I had them begin making their wooden spears and stone hammers. I could see that they understood, so I continued because I wanted them to know that every man was important and no one would be forgotten.
“Hopefully, David and Rolph across the way will see us when we ride down to get on the road and come to join us. We are going to need every man we can get. If they do not join us this morning, we will have to come back and get them later when we return for our supply horses.”
******
We were as ready as we could be when I ordered my men to mount up and began leading them in a single file down to the road. A couple of the men were leading our extra horses for use as remounts if they were needed. I had waited until this morning to get started because it had taken all the rest of yesterday for the barons’ army and its long baggage train of wains and camp followers to finish passing on the road below us.
The good news was that there never was any sign of the king or a contingent of the king’s men, at least not so far as I could see. The bad news was that the pile of stones was quite high—over nine hundred riders and three or four thousand men on foot had passed in front of us.
My two file sergeants had awakened their men before dawn and gotten them fed and ready to mount up and leave. Our supply horses and our tents and the cooking pots were not going with us. They were staying on the hillside because this would likely become one of our permanent camps when we begin attacking the column and trying to cut it off from supplies and reinforcements. Hopefully no one will find them while we are gone.
The sun was just coming up as I led the way through the trees and our gelded rounceys ambled down to the empty road. As we came out of the trees we could see what looked to be a few travellers on the road who might have been stragglers trying to catch up with the column that had passed. We also saw, for the first time in days, people who appeared to be normal travellers and farmers going in both directions.
And there was good news—David and Rolph had been anxiously waiting and watching for us; they came galloping and waving out of the tree line across the way and down to the road as soon as we rode out of the trees. Their arrival brought the number of men under my command up to ten, though it would not be ten much longer—when we reached the road I was going to send another messenger to Okehampton confirming the size of the enemy force and the apparent absence of the king and his men.
Alfred, the chosen man who fought with me at the tin mine, volunteered to carry the message despite the danger he would face because there was now a big force of enemy soldiers on the road between us and Okehampton. He would use two of our best horses; one to ride, one as a remount.
His plan was a good one and I instantly approved it—Alfred was going to ride along the road as if he was some kind of messenger or one of the barons’ mounted men, and then just ride on past the front of the barons’ column and head for Okehampton as soon as it got dark. He did not know it, but I had be talking to my father and Raymond about him being a sergeant if he makes it.
To everyone’s great surprise, David and Rolph were not the only ones who joined us when we reached the road. We had barely turned on to the road and begun following the rear of the barons’ army when two messengers from Okehampton showed up with a meaningless parchment from Uncle Raymond reporting that nothing was new.
The two messengers were more than a little relieved to see us; they had spent all of the previous day trying
to find us after they got past the barons’ army. Similar to David and Rolph, they too had been hiding off the road and watching for us. They had recognized our Egyptian tunic gowns even though we had turned them inside out to conceal our stripes; hopefully, no one else will recognize them.
Including me and Alfred, there were now thirteen mounted archers, every one of them one of our elite outriders, moving up the road to catch up with the barons’ army.
******
I led the way and we rode easy along the road for almost an hour until we began to overtake the wains and camp followers at the very end of the barons’ long baggage train. Our longbows were strung but over our shoulders as we began casually walking and ambling our horses past wains full of supplies, tents, and even women. As we did, merchants and women began calling out to offer their services and products. We answered with smiles and waves and an occasional “maybe later, luv.”
We encountered what we were looking for almost immediately. An older woman was driving a wain filled with girls and women who waved and smiled as we approached. She had temporarily pulled out of the slowly moving baggage train so a couple of her girls could get out of the wain to piss or shite by the side of the road. The girls were adjusting their ragged gowns and coming back to the wain as I pulled up my horse and stopped to talk.
I motioned for my men to continue on past me and gave the woman a friendly wave and smile, and the most bewildered and stupid look I could muster on my face. This one would know if anyone would.
“Hoy, missus, and a good day to you, and would you be knowing where we are and what we are doing here? We are the company of archers from London and just arrived. No one tells us much, do they?”
The doxy mother was most friendly and forthcoming and willing to talk. She and her girls were following the army to Cornwall, she said. There was talk of treasure there and she and her girls had come from London in hopes that the men would be kind to her girls and share some of it with them.
I thanked her most kindly with a big smile and said I was sure I would be seeing her again as soon as we got paid the coins we had been promised. Then I kicked my horse in the ribs and moved ahead to catch up to my men who were walking their horses in a single file alongside the barons’ baggage train.
We continued slowly passing the camp followers until I reached a poor fellow with a pained look on his sweating face. He was laid out on top of a loaded wain with a following horse tied to it, a poor knight from the look of the battered armour and shield laying near him, and poxed for sure. I held my horse down to match the wain’s slow speed and, after a while, began casually chatting him up most friendly.
“Hoy, Sir Knight. When do you think we will get there?” I asked with a most innocent and conversational tone to my voice and a gesture towards the column stretched out in front of us.
His accent when he answered marked him as a Kentish man just like my father and uncle. He was anxious to talk, probably because it distracted him from his sad state.
What he told me in the conversation that followed confirmed what I had heard from the doxy mother and more—his baron and the other barons had reached an agreement with King John; the king had agreed to reinstate their powers and authorities in exchange for some of the religious relics known to be in Cornwall. Oh Shite.
Chapter Eight
A different kind of war.
We continued peacefully riding with the barons’ baggage train, and slowly passed the people and wains travelling in it, until we came in sight of the first of the many disorganized mobs of soldiers walking behind their baron's mounted men.
No one questioned us or paid us any mind at all. We were just another small group of fighting men among many others. It probably helped that wherever possible we got off the road so no one could talk to us and rode our horses in the fields and pastures that ran alongside of it. We had particularly good horses even though some of them were not much to look at until you saw them move—every one of them was a rouncey, bred for the easy gait of an ambler and the speed and stamina required by outriders. And they were trained for use by horse archers and cared for most nicely.
It took several hours because we were riding our horses in an effort not to attract attention, but we finally reached the front of the baggage train and could see the many separate little armies of the barons and their retainers riding and walking in front of us. This was as far forward as most of us would go. Only Alfred and the already-saddled remount he was leading would continue forward and attempt to ride past the barons and their men. If he made it, he would take the verbal message I had given him to the horse archers’ base at Okehampton.
“Safe travel, Alfred.” I said as we leaned towards each other from our saddles to shake hands. And then for some reason I pulled my little wooden cross out of my tunic and waved it at him.
“We will be praying for you—but do not rely on our prayers; be careful and act innocent. If anyone asks who you are or where you are going, act stupid and distracted and say you are looking for Sir Guy because you have a message for him from his wife about the black pox in the village, and then cough and wipe your brow and do your best to look poxed yourself so they would not want you near them—and, if you can, get close to the head of the column and make your move after everyone scatters to set up their camp for the night and it is too dark for anyone to see you go.”
Alfred nodded without saying a word, probably because it was the third time he would heard my orders, and kicked his horse in the ribs to move ahead; I pulled on my reins to slow my horse down so the baggage train with its creaking and squeaking wheels would once again flow past me—and watched him go.
Like the rest of us, Alfred was wearing his archers' tunic gown turned inside out in case any of the barons’ men knew about the archers of Cornwall and the stripes which show our ranks.
******
All that morning my archers and I continued peacefully riding near the head of the column in little groups of two or three men. That continued until I saw what I was looking for in the distance in front of me—the road went up a hill so that we on the road on this side of the hill could not see the riders and marching men once they reached the top of the hill and started down the other side. Not being able to see the riders and men in front of us was important because it also meant that the mounted men and their soldiers ahead of us would not be able to look back and see their baggage wains and camp followers when we started attacking them.
I immediately moved up to almost the front of the baggage train with my men and gave them their orders. Then I waited until the last of the barons’ fighting men had reached the top of the hill and passed out of sight as they started down the other side. That was when we began our attack.
So as to not attract attention, I led three of my outriders very slowly and peacefully back down the roads towards a place where, if a wain stopped, it would block the road—because a little stream running across the road had created a marshy bog on either side of it that no wain or walker could cross. I had long ago picked out the wain near the front of the column that I intended to stop and use to block the road.
We walked our horses forward as the wain I had selected approached the little stream. It was an overloaded merchant’s horse-pulled wain being driven by a woman with an infant strapped to her chest. Immediately behind her were a number of other wains with no one walking near them.
As the woman’s wain reached the little stream flowing over the road, I slid off my horse, grabbed the halter of the old plough horse pulling the wain to bring it to a halt, slid an old corn sack over the horse’s eyes so it would not bolt, and cut its throat. Then I held tightly to its halter until the horse fell forward on to its knees, rolled over on its side, and died to block the road.
The wide-eyed woman leading the wain had started to scream when I grabbed her horse’s halter and cut its throat, but she stopped without making a sound when one of my men lifted a warning finger with a stern look on his face and, a moment later, began slowly co
unting copper coins into the astonished woman’s hand from the pouch I had given him.
“It was an accident and that is what you will tell everyone who asks,” the outrider kept repeating over and over again as he leaned forward in his saddle and slowly counted the coins into her hand. She watched the growing pile of coins in her hand as if she was under a spell. After a while, as the number of coins rose higher and higher, she began smiling and nodding her head in agreement.
Two of my men remounted their horses and began walking them down the column to explain why everyone had stopped.
“There is been a mishap up ahead. A horse pulling a wain suddenly died and is blocking the road. It will be cut up and cleared in a bit and there is nothing you can do but get in the way. We have been told to keep everyone away until it is finished, so please stay where you are.”
The two archers repeated their story over and over again as they slowly walked their horses along the stalled column. Other archers took positions on either side of the stalled wain to keep everyone back.
In the distance I could see the growing gap between the wain we had stopped and the handful of wains and walkers at the head of the baggage train that had already passed the little stream. They were continuing to move forward on the road. In a few minutes, they too would go over the crest of the hill and disappear from sight.
Three of my archers and Andrew, their sergeant, slowly walked their horses along behind the still-moving wains and walkers who had already gotten past the stream where the road was now blocked. It was their job was to follow those who were continuing over the hill, and then gallop down and warn us when the barons’ men began coming to rescue the baggage train. They were also to prevent anyone from the stalled portion of the baggage train from reaching the barons to raise the alarm about our attack.
The four archers would wait on the road at the top of the hill for as long as possible. Then they had ride back to re-join us and we had all run for it back to our camp in the trees.
The Captain's Men Page 6