A few curious people with nothing better to do started forward to see what had happened; they were firmly turned away and sent back with reassurances that they were not needed, and would just get in the way of removing a dead horse that was blocking the road.
“It just up and died in its harness did not it?”
At my request, the now-smiling and totally cooperative woman even stood up the driver’s bench of her wain and began motioning for the curiosity seekers to stay back. So far, so good.
******
I waited until I could see the road was clear all the way to the top of the hill. Then I gave the signal for my men to start destroying the baggage train. We started at the front of the stalled column and moved rapidly down the road cutting the throats and stabbing the bellies of the horses and oxen as we came to them.
If the horses were jumping about such that we could not get to them quickly and safely with our knives, we stabbed them deep into their guts with our wooden spears. When we came to a wain carrying sacks or amphorae of corn and other supplies, one of the archers would leap off his horse and begin cutting them open with his knife or breaking them with his makeshift stone hammer.
As you might imagine, our ferocious and totally unexpected attack instantly began causing great confusion and chaos all along the road.
Awareness that the stalled baggage train was under attack rippled down the column of stalled wains and walkers like a great ocean wave. There was a great commotion as terrified and hysterical men and women were everywhere screaming and running about in an effort to get away. Others were trying to turn their wains around or attempting to escape by driving them off into the fields along the road.
The screams of the dying and injured horses drove many of the horses we had not yet reached into a frenzy. A few of the oxen tried to run after they were stabbed, but many of them just stood there and shook and shuddered until they fell to the ground and died.
My men and I mostly ignored the screaming horses and terrified people and got about our business of killing and injuring the horses and oxen pulling the supply wains and destroying everything we could get our hands on. Those few of their drivers and owners who tried to stop us or interfere were sliced with our knives or shot down on the spot with an arrow.
For the most part, the men and women in the barons’ baggage train responded to our attack by shouting and screaming and running away. And, since we were coming from the front of the baggage train, they either ran towards the rear or towards the safety of the trees in the woods to the north. We made no effort to stop or do harm to the people who merely abandoned their wains; we only rode down and shot those who tried to fight back or tried to go for help.
In the end, only one man was able to mount a horse and gallop up the road towards the barons in an effort to sound the alarm. He did not make it. Andrew and one of his archers in our rear guard rode out to cut him off and quickly brought him down.
The beginning of the end of our attack occurred when a handful riders came over the hill towards the baggage train for some reason and saw that it was under attack. Two of them made the mistake of riding forward to see what was happening. They quickly fell to the arrows of Andrew and his men. At least one the riders, however, must have successfully turned back and sounded the alarm.
“Hoy, Sergeant, lookee.”
We had mostly finished with the horses and oxen pulling the wains, and were working our way back to destroy more of the supplies in them, when one of my archers sounded the warning. I looked up to see the archers of our rear guard pounding down the road towards us at a full gallop. We knew why almost immediately—less than a minute later mounted men began pouring over the crest of the hill and coming down the road towards us. At first there were only a few, but soon there were many. It was time to go.
“Saddle up lads,” I shouted as I jumped out of the wain where I had been busy smashing amphorae filled with corn and swung into my saddle. “We have done all we can.”
I never did see the poxed knight or learn what happened to him.
Chapter Nine
Preparing for war.
Another outrider from Raymond has come in to Restormel. He is the second one today and he was carrying an all-to-believable update to the initial warning message Raymond had received from my son—George thinks that a large force of barons and their retainers is almost certainly marching on Cornwall. He says he and his men counted just over twelve hundred knights and mounted men and about three thousand poorly armed men on foot.
According to George, none of the men in the army appear to be mercenaries or archers. Perhaps even more significantly, my son reported that he did not see any sign of the king or William Marshall or any of the king’s men. He did not see any French either, for that matter. It was an army of English barons on their way to Cornwall with their knights and village levies.
What does it mean and how will it affect our efforts to sell the relics? And should we fight to hold our place in Cornwall or load the relics on our galleys and run for our fortified post on Cyprus or elsewhere?
My hastily summoned lieutenants and I looked at each other and I could see the answer on their faces without even asking. It was the same as mine. We had not really expected the barons to do a deal with the king and come after the relics, but we have got too much to lose in Cornwall and we are much stronger than the king or anyone else realizes. We will fight.
I immediately sent out the necessary orders for everyone to prepare our four strongholds for sieges and to move our main body of men to where we had long ago decided was the best place to fight if Cornwall was ever invaded—the River Tamar ford near Lauceston Castle on the border between Cornwall and Devon. I did not even bother trying to recall the archers serving outside of Cornwall; they could not possibly get here in time to participate.
Even worse, we were somewhat unready because we had been spending much of our time trying organize the sale of the relics in order to relieve various and sundry would-be kings and emperors of their coins. Men were shouting and scurrying about everywhere, wains were being loaded, and messengers were constantly coming and going.
****** Lieutenant Peter
I was told to resume my position as Captain William’s deputy and chosen man. Henry will command our main army of archers on the Tamar, Raymond will command our horse archers and use them to inflict a constant stream of dangers and privations upon the barons in the Saracen way, and Thomas will take off his mitre and put on his lieutenant’s tunic gown to look after our supplies and siege stores. Poor Thomas, he just sighed and mumbled something about missing his boys and hoping Yoram comes from Cyprus to take over his duties.
The Tamar ford near Launceston Castle was where the road comes into Cornwall from Exeter and London. There was no doubt about it, the ford was by far the most likely route for the barons’ army to travel, and a particularly good place for us to mobilize our forces. We can use the nearby castle as a supply base and as a refuge for our wounded men.
We have fought at the ford before and know it well—it is where we defeated Lord Cornell and ended up with his Hathersage Castle and lands in Derbyshire, and then traded them to the Templars for the horses we needed in order to expand our squadron of horse archers. Indeed, it was nearby at Launceston where I came to Captain William’s attention and got the promotion that changed my life so greatly that I now have a wife and my own room in one of the turrets in Restormel’s inner wall.
****** Lieutenant Raymond.
I started getting ready for war even before the order came in from the captain. George’s increasingly alarming reports had been coming into Okehampton and I, of course, had been saddling up fresh couriers and quickly sending his reports on to William at Restormel.
It was clear to me what the reports meant, so I did not wait until William gave his orders; I immediately began getting my men and Okehampton ready for the war and the siege that seems about to be forced on us. Actually, I am looking forward to it. My wife thinks it will give m
e a good chance to show what my horse archers and I can do.
On the other hand, I am certainly not taking the barons and their men for granted. I have sent word to move our horse herd deep into Cornwall and I have been bringing in more siege supplies and preparing my horse archers to move out on a moment’s notice to begin harrying the barons’ army. My outriders, of course, are already in place and have commenced harrying the invaders.
I was not worried about the outcome of the coming war despite the fact that we had be outnumbered. Both my horse archers and the company’s foot archers use a different and much better way of fighting than the English barons and their poorly trained and equipped village levies. My horse archers and outriders are trained to fight like the Saracens with their constant raids and knife prick attacks, not like the barons and knights who treat war as if it is a big tournament and are always trying to call attention to themselves by demonstrating their individual bravery and ability.
Our company’s foot archers are similarly different when they fight on land; they fight and move about together instead of each man for himself. They also carry additional weapons such as three long-handled, bladed pikes for every file of seven archers in addition to short stabbing swords, arrow shields, sharpened stakes, and caltrops.
Thomas says that the way our foot archers fight and march together is the way the old Romans used to fight. I do not know about that, but I have seen for myself that the way William and Henry have our foot archers fight is damn sure more effective than every man fighting an individual enemy, which is how the knights and barons fight.
I am also not worried about my wife being in Okehampton during the war. I have got the castle in good shape for the siege that looks to be coming. We are bringing some of our able-bodied villagers and castle servants in to help man its walls, and sending all the rest of them, and all the women and children away to west to the safety of Trematon and the countryside around it. Those who come in for the siege will live in the stables and in the archers’ vacated hovels along the wall in the outer bailey. My wife and Lady Courtney have been most helpful in getting them settled and fed.
I will be away with my men, of course, but I would not be leaving my Wanda and Lady Courtney and her son here unless I was sure they had be safe. And they will be; Okehampton’s got its own water well and a huge store of siege food and firewood for cooking, and we are bringing in even more.
We already had enough siege supplies on hand to last for more than a year, but a castle can never have enough when a siege is coming, can it?
****** Lieutenant Henry
There was much excitement and activity at our training camp on the Fowey. Everywhere sergeants were shouting, tents were being struck and wains loaded, and galley companies were forming up and getting ready to march. In the distance I could hear the boom of a rowing drum as the archers of yet another galley company set out for Launceston and a place in our rapidly forming army.
By this time tomorrow, our training camp should be almost empty. We were leaving no one behind except a handful of castle defenders in order to put the strongest possible force into the field against the barons. All of our archers and archer apprentices were going to march with our army to Launceston.
Some of the able-bodied construction workers and galley wrights, one or two for every seven-man file of archers, were going as well. They had be assigned to a specific file to carry its water skins and bring bales of arrows forward to its archers when the fighting starts. Others will move into Restormel to help man the walls if it comes under siege. God forbid that it does, for it would only happen if our army is defeated. The handful of men who, for one reason or another, were not fit enough to fight or help the fighters would walk or be carried northwest with the women and children to distant Trematon.
I had been busy all morning assigning apprentice archers to their new galley companies and getting the galley companies organized and on their way marching to Launceston. About half of the apprentice archers have been given an early stripe and sent to join their galley companies as qualified archers; the other half have been assigned to their companies as apprentices to further their training.
Restormel was where I had lived ever since my wife and I returned to England when the archers’ victory at Harfleur made it too dangerous for me to stay in France. Truth be told, I was happy to return; I liked being a lieutenant in command of the company’s archers when they fight on land more than I enjoyed pouring wine for drunken sailors in the south of France. Restormel Castle, of course, was more than just where our company trains its apprentices; it was where our company’s captain lived when he was in England, and where my wife and I had our own fine room in one of the turrets of the inner curtain wall.
****** Lieutenant Thomas
It was a hectic day. I put on my archer’s tunic gown when I awoke and spent all morning organizing convoys of wains to carry siege food to both Okehampton and Launceton and to our war camp in the big pasture next to Launceston Castle.
When I finally got a few minutes of time, I put my bishop’s robe and mitre back on long enough to ordain the four oldest boys in my school, and then turned them over to Henry so he could send them out with the archers to be apprentice sergeants and scribes for his senior sergeants.
My assistant, Master Priestly, stayed at Restormel and continued to put the learning on the younger boys whilst I was gone. They were sent off with women and children; if worst came to worst, they would help man the castle’s walls.
Most of the archers’ wives were sent to Trematon. We moved the rest of them, those who could not go to Trematon for some reason or another, into the castle’s outer bailey to keep them safe.
It was surprising how many of the veteran archers have found women. It is probably why they volunteered to stay in Cornwall to help train the apprentices instead of going east in pursuit of prize money. I thought there would be enough siege food and firewood in the castle to keep everyone alive for at least a year and a half. If I had not thought that, I would have culled out more of the women and children and sent them to Trematon.
At the moment I was watching our cattle and sheep boys as they got ready to drive some of our sheep and cattle to Launceston to help feed our army, and the rest to Trematon to feed our refugees. The boys and the two semi-retired archers in charge of them seemed to know what they were doing. I say that because, also at that moment, I was watching with growing dismay as stringers of squawking chickens were being tied together and thrown into a wain on top of each other in a great and twisting mass of flapping wings. All the noise and movement was making the wain horse nervous. Feathers were flying everywhere.
Chapter Ten
The fighting begins.
My outriders and I finally got back to our camp long after the sun had finished passing over England on its daily journey around the world. We had galloped away from the barons’ baggage train with joyous whoops and shouts. Our joy did not last for very long.
By the time we found our camp in the dark, I was so stiff and tired I was barely able to dismount. And when I did, I staggered and had to sit down before I could unsaddle my horse and get some water and pour some oats into my cap for him. It was all I could do to take a much needed shite and crawl into one of the tents to get out of the rain. I had never been so tired in my entire life.
Traffic on the road was quite heavy the next morning what with both the road’s usual travellers and those coming to and from the barons’ army. We began by catching two couriers carrying messages to the barons’ army. They contained nothing of importance that needed to be reported to Okehampton, just news from home for a couple of knights being carried by boys from their villages. One poor sod’s young son just up and died all sudden like; the other lad we caught was carrying a meaningless message about someone’s crops.
We took the boys’ horses and sent them back home with a warning that the barons and all their men were doomed, and so were they if we ever saw them again.
A couple of hours lat
er we caught and gave the same warning to a couple of London merchants travelling with horse-drawn wains full of corn and clothes they had hoped to sell to the barons’ army, and to a man leading a donkey loaded with the religious charms and garlic cloves needed to ward off various poxes. We sent them all walking back the way they came and kept their horses, wains, and cargos as prizes of war.
One of the merchants’ horses looked like it might be quite useful, and my men and I all promptly began carrying some of the charms and garlic cloves in our belt pouches. We let the pedlar keep his donkey and did not bother the local farmers as they went to and from their fields. I immediately decided to kill the merchants’ other horse and eat it if we run short of food.
****** Archer Harold Willson’s story about the next day
Things got real interesting about the time the sun came out from behind the clouds and was directly overhead. There were eight of us sitting most comfortable in the field at the edge of the trees on the gently sloping hill overlooking the London road. We were off our horses and eating because old Josh from Crawley had just ridden down from our camp with a sack of fresh flatbread and a cheese for us to carve off pieces with our knives. The field must have been planted two or three weeks earlier because our hobbled horses had their heads down and were quietly feeding on the newly emerging stems of fresh corn.
“Well looky here,” Freddy said suddenly as he stood up and pointed up the road towards Cornwall and Devon. His eyes must be tolerably good for all I could see was a smudge of dark on the road where there had not been one before. We all stood up to look.
“What do you see, Freddy?” Sergeant George asked as he held his hand up to shield his eyes from the sun above us and leaned his head forward for a better look.
“Riders coming this way, sergeant. Cannot tell how many there are, can I? But a gaggle of ’em for sure. Seen a glint from a blade, did not I?”
The Captain's Men Page 7