The Greek cavalry were three or four miles ahead of us and moving on the road that ran along the outside of the outer wall. We slowly caught up with them by riding directly toward them over the farmland and instead of along the curving road that fronted the city’s moated wall. Our horses were relatively fresh and, if it was at all possible, we intended to keep them that way for as long as possible.
Suddenly the Greeks pulled up their horses and stopped. They had seen us.
We continued with our horses moving at a walk towards the distant Greek horsemen until, at my signal, and still walking our horses, we prematurely spread out into a line abreast as if we were preparing to launch a charge and engage the Greeks.
The Greeks had spent the day riding up and down along the city wall behaving as if they were looking a fight. Now we seemed to be offering them what they wanted. And best of all, from their point of view, they outnumbered us by a substantial margin.
Even though they were still more than a mile away, the Greeks suddenly wheeled around and came for us at a gallop. They had accepted our challenge. The Greek horsemen were riding hard and waving their swords over their heads when I, or so I hoped it would appear, realized my mistake in challenging them. I waved my hand in a circle over my head and pulled my horse around—and pointed back in the direction from whence we had come.
Thomas’s horn blower, riding immediately behind us, instantly tooted a blast to draw the men’s attention to my signal. His noise was expected but not needed; everyone had been watching for my signal and the order had been anticipated. The men wheeled their horses around and began following me as I led our retreat.
We were, or so we hoped it appeared to the Greeks, scared because we were outnumbered. As a result, we were running for safety—with the Greek cavalry riding hard in pursuit because they saw a good chance of catching up with us and cutting us down from behind.
Of course they were chasing us. It was well-known that it is much safer and easier to cut down a frightened and fleeing enemy whose back is to you than it is to face someone charging at you with a sword in his hand.
******
At first we moved away from the galloping Greeks at a fairly leisurely pace. The Greeks, after all, had more than a mile to catch up before they could reach us. We also pretended to flog our horses in a futile effort to get more speed out of them.
Unfortunately, our so it appeared, our desperate efforts to get away did not seem to work, perhaps because the reins and whips we appeared to be using so generously never actually touched our horses and the heels of our sandals never touched their flanks. It was a deception the horse archers constantly practiced.
The ground was dry and our horses’ hooves were kicking up dust as we thundered down the road along the wall whilst giving the impression we were desperately trying to escape. Behind us the Greek riders were adding to the trail of dust our horses’ hooves kicked up such that our pursers were riding in a cloud of dust that at times made it difficult for us to see the Greeks who were bringing up the rear.
It was the middle of a hot day and there was no wind. The dust hung over the road like a great cloud. Archers and auxiliaries were manning the wall and gaping at us as we galloped past them on our apparently weak and tired horses. Our prospects of outrunning our pursuers looked desperate, or so we hoped.
We were still well ahead of the Greeks after the first mile or so, but the gap continued to close as they galloped hard in an effort to catch us. Our horses were in good shape; theirs had been ridden all day. By the third or fourth mile, Greek riders began dropping out of the chase with blown horses and the rest were increasingly beginning to stretch out behind us in groups of twos and threes. The Greek thrusters were now close behind our designated stragglers and closing in on them.
Slowly but surely a handful of Greek thrusters caught up with us. The closest of them were a dozen or so Greek riders strung out behind a well-mounted fool who was lashing his horse with his reins and waving his sword in the air. The sword waver and his followers were close on our heels and, for several miles, only a few lengths behind and on the verge of catching up with our laggards.
What we were doing was offering the Greeks one of the company’s classic “wounded bird” manoeuvers wherein we pretended to be distressed and fleeing in order to draw our pursuers after us because we were an “easy catch.” Our initial purpose was to string our pursuers out further and further behind us by constantly being almost caught by those of them who rode the hardest.
So far it seemed to be working. Thomas Fiennes and I were riding at the front of our little company of fleeing Englishmen so we would be in the lead when we changed horses and turned to engage the Greeks; Thomas’s lieutenant and his senior sergeant, Sam Smith, were riding as the rearmost stragglers to make sure the Greek riders never actually caught up with one of the company’s men.
After we had ridden a few miles we began catching up to our relatively fresh remounts and riding alongside of them. Looking back over my shoulder I could see the Greeks strung out behind us for some distance. By now only a few thrusters were keeping up with us and still trying to get to our “stragglers,” Sergeant Smith and the Lieutenant Milton. I reckoned that it was time for things to change.
“Change horses,” I signalled by waving my hand over my head and pointing, first to the various horse archers and then to the remounts which were now slowly galloping just ahead of us at the same speed.
Our first casualty came when the archers began changing horses. One of my guards, I did not know who it was, somehow lost his grip as he tried to transfer over to the empty saddle of his remount, and went tumbling head over heels. The rest of us mounted our new horses successfully and wheeled them about whilst taking our bows off our shoulders and nocking arrows.
Chapter Eleven
Prisoners are taken and things become clearer.
The horse holder leading my replacement horse watched like a hawk as I came alongside my remount, leaned over to grab both sides of its leather saddle, and swing aboard. Changing horses and pushing out arrows from a longbow whilst galloping were amongst the most important things the Company’s horse archers constantly practiced. It was literally, for the rider, the difference between living and dying; and often, for the Company, how well its horsemen did made the difference between winning and losing a battle or war.
Thomas’s men were good at changing horses on the fly, and had been practicing and training their new horses whenever possible whilst they waited to accompany me to wherever I might be going next. I, however, had not changed horses whilst galloping for some years. As a result, Thomas and the sergeant in charge of the company’s horse holders had been concerned at what might happen. And so was I, for that matter—it had been a long time since I last served as a horse archer and had to move from one galloping horse to another.
But it went well and I shouted my appreciation as I veered off on my fresh mount and got ready to gallop back towards our pursuers. Almost immediately another man moved in and changed to one of the three replacement horses galloping on the other side of the sergeant.
All around me horse archers were coming alongside their remounts, changing from one saddle to the other on the fly, and unslinging their bows and nocking arrows as they turned back towards our recent pursuers. It is hard to describe, or even understand, but at that moment I was as excited and elated as I ever had been in my entire life.
I pulled my horse around as soon as the others were ready and we started back towards our fallen archer and the on-coming Greek riders and their exhausted horses.
Within seconds Thomas and most of his men were in a line abreast on either side of me and we were closing fast with the first of our one-time pursuers with our arrows nocked and ready to push. It was about then, after we had changed on to our fresh horses, that most of the nearest of the Greeks, their most determined thrusters, finally began to realize what was happening, and also began turning back.
My new horse was one of the company’s
strongest, a six-year old brown with chopped bollocks. Later I learnt he had been assigned to me because he had been the steadiest of the company’s mounts when the horse archers practiced changing horses on the fly. Thomas had assigned him to me because he had been afraid I might fall off my horse and somehow embarrass his company by getting myself hurt or killed. It was the best he could do.
Our move to change horses whilst at a gallop had absolutely confounded those of the pursuing Greeks who were close enough to see it happen. One of their thrusters was so determined that he kept coming and never did turn back. He was easily avoided and his horse, a big black, went down with several arrows in its side. We did not stop for the rider who went somersaulting out of his saddle; we would attend to him later.
Thomas’s entire company galloped side by side back along the route of its false retreat. They soon began reaching and shooting down the individual Greek riders who were strung out for several miles along the path of their initial pursuit.
Each of the Greeks they reached, in turn, sooner or later realized what it meant when he saw a pack of archers galloping towards him with their bows drawn and arrows nocked. They inevitably responded by desperately pulling their tired horses around and trying to escape by riding back in the direction from whence they had come.
Turning around and trying to run for safety was the usual response of a man when he suddenly discovers that he is badly outnumbered by men who are coming to kill him. It did not work for the Greeks because of their tired horses and because they were strung out all along the line of their initial pursuit.
Their fate was sealed. We fell upon each of them as a pack of wolves might fall on an individual deer or two—and then continued on to the next man or small group.
We wanted prisoners so we continued chasing our recent pursuers and shooting arrows into their horses, and into their riders’ arses and legs, until we had ridden the entire length of the Greek cavalry column and totally destroyed it. It was great sport. Even so, more than a dozen of the Greek riders were able to escape by breaking away from the main route of the fleeing Greeks and heading off by themselves in a different direction.
By the time we finished off the last of those we could catch, we had prisoners, my horse and I were breathing hard and sweating profusely, and I had a pain in my side and my legs were shaking. That and being terribly thirsty was my condition by the time I had used up almost all the arrows in my two quivers and watched as the last Greek horse went down and broke one of its rider’s legs by rolling over him. The rider was a particularly good catch as all we would have to do to get him to talk was pull on his leg whilst offering to bring a barber to help him as soon as told us all we wanted to know.
It took the rest of the afternoon to gather up the prisoners and put down the wounded horses. We had lost one man killed and two slightly injured, all of which occurred when their horses went down for one reason or another. The Greeks lost seventeen killed and thirty-three captured. Many of prisoners had either been wounded, or had been hurt in some fashion when their horses went down, or both. Nineteen had escaped.
Our return with our prisoners was a triumphal march along the road that ran in front of the city’s other wall. The cheering and waving archers and auxiliaries manning the wall had seen the Greeks’ pursue us and been dismayed, and then watched in stunned disbelief as we came storming back on our fresh horses and rolled them up one after another.
The Greek with the broken leg missed it all. He had been draped over the front of a horse ridden by one of Thomas’s archers and slept all the way.
******
We questioned the Greek prisoners under the shade from a line of trees running along a farmer’s field near the one remaining road into the city. Translators hastily summoned from the city assisted us. It took all the rest of the day and the early part of the darkness that followed. Then, to the absolute astonishment of the Greeks, we rode off with their weapons and left them to fend for themselves.
What we had learned was that the Greek riders were all ambitious young noblemen and gentry who owned their own horses and had volunteered because they were seeking preferment from their king. A few were greybeards with military experience, but most of them were arrogant young fops with little or no experience and fine weapons they had never before used.
In any event, they became much less arrogant after a brief period of pleading ignorance—which quickly ended when I carried out my promise to cut off a finger off every time a man refused to talk to me or told me something that turned out to be a lie. One finger and the resulting howling and sobbing of an arrogant young nobleman, was all it took.
To my surprise, the answers we received to our many questions were both consistent and somewhat hard to believe. They did, however, give me an idea. Accordingly, my guards and I rode into the city in the darkness, not to fall exhausted into our beds, but rather to visit the dungeons in the Empress’s Citadel where the city’s three Orthodox bishops were being held.
So far as I knew, no one had yet questioned them. That was about to change.
Before I entered the dungeon I spoke with the Empress’s gaoler. According to him, the Orthodox bishops were being arrogant and demanding. I briefly considered using a bit of finger chopping to warm up their memories and encourage them to call off the rioting. But I settled instead on a totally different approach—I would befriend them and tell them stories, stories that might even be true for all I knew, though I doubted it.
“I am George of Cornwall,” I said through the Empress’s interpreter as the three black-gowned greybeards sitting on the floor of their damp and dank little cell rose to their feet as the door was unbarred and we entered it. The Empress’s gaoler held up a candle lantern so I could see them. The room was foul from several days of use.
“I got here as soon as I could. It is disgraceful, just disgraceful, what the Venetians and French have caused to be done to you and the other good men of the Orthodox Church. The King of Epirus should be ashamed of himself for betraying the Patriarch and making an agreement to give those treacherous Latins so many of your churches and your great cathedral with all its important relics and icons. I will explain this to the Empress the next time I see her and try to get you freed.”
I was not sure what the three bishops expected me to say, but that was obviously not it. The eyes of the three men opened wide in surprise at my words. So did the mouth of one of them. His breath was most foul.
“What are you talking about? Who are you?” One of them finally demanded as he squinted to look at me. He had a great beard and was wearing a funny-looking hat with pointed corners.
“I am George Courtenay, Commander of Cornwall’s free Company of Archers, the company whose galleys carried the Patriarch to safety those long years ago when the crusaders took the city. I know all about the betrayal of the Patriarch and your church because of the Venetian galleys we took several weeks ago and the Greek prisoners we just captured.
“But first,” I ordered the turnkey who had come in to their cell with us, “bring these fine men some wine and food. And empty their shite pot. How dare you treat such important men this way?”
My translator, a white-haired old scrivener from the market, translated for me as I turned my wrath on the turnkey. Later, of course, I begged the gaoler’s pardon and slipped him a coin with my finger at my lips—and then had him transferred so he could be replaced by a Greek-gobbling archer.
“You said the Patriarch and the Church have been betrayed,” one of them asked. “What do you mean?”
I acted as if I was surprised at the question.
“Do you really not know? Theodore, the King of Epirus thinks his army is so powerful that he will win without the help of the Orthodox Church. He sees the Patriarch and your church as rivals for the people’s coins and affections. So he wants to weaken the church and, above all else, keep the Patriarch from returning to the city. That is why he made a contract with the Venetians and the French to let their merchants return to th
e city and give them some of your churches for their priests, including letting a Venetian archbishop appointed by the Pope take over your great cathedral.
“Theodore of Epirus, the man you would have as emperor, thinks he will easily overwhelm the city with his great army and, as a result, does not need your church’s help to do it. That is why he told the Empress’s guards about your rising and deliberately held his army back—because he wanted to weaken the Patriarch by having the Empress’s men cut down the Patriarch’s supporters before his army arrived.”
The bishops were clearly appalled at what they heard, but needed more convincing. So I laid on more lies.
“Do you truly not understand?” I asked, and then continued without waiting for an answer.
“The Patriarch was gulled into calling for your parishioners to rise. In fact, King Theodore does not want to share power with the Patriarch or anyone else when he becomes emperor. So he gulled the Patriarch into ordering your church’s faithful to rise against the Empress. He did so knowing the Patriarch’s strongest supporters would be cut down and the Orthodox merchants and priests reduced so there would be room for the Venetians and the French.
“It was many chests of coins the Venetians and French gave to King Theodore for the right of their merchants and money lenders to return to the city, and for the priests and bishops they will be bringing with them to take over your cathedral and many of your churches.
“I know that for a fact because I heard it with my own ears from the captains of the Venetian and French galleys we captured when the Venetians and French were carrying Theodore’s army to Adrianople. And even you must admit that it was Venetian transports that carried Theodore’s army down the coast. Do you really believe that the Venetians and French are helping King Theodore out of the goodness in their hearts?”
The Alchemist's Revenge Page 8