The Alchemist's Revenge

by Martin Archer

  “Swimmers?” I shouted. “Does anyone know how to swim?”

  No one responded except Nicholas Greenway, my apprentice. That was not surprising. Boys and men were rarely learnt to swim. Even sailors refused to learn because they thought it better to die quickly rather than slowly if their galley or transport went down. Indeed, it was widely believed in England that immersing one’s body in water, even bathing, weakened a man.

  “I can,” said Richard who had rushed back from where he had led the attack on the moat drinkers. And so can Peter Cartwright, my apprentice when he gets back.”

  “Me too,” said my father as he moved towards one of the ladders to climb down from the wall. “And so can your brother, John.”

  We had all been learnt to swim in the River Fowey by my Uncle Thomas who had insisted on my father and every boy in his school knowing how. It had already saved me more than once, the last time being when I rode a falling galley mast into the sea during a fight with the French off the mouth of the Seine.

  I could not, I instantly decided, stand by idle whilst my father and my number two and good friend faced the likelihood of swimming in the foul moat, or being in the middle of it and defenceless when the Greeks launched another attack. Some of my men knew I could swim, and all of them surely would when the tale of the moat was told around our campfires in the years ahead.

  What would the men ever think of me if I stood by whilst archers died because too few swimmers came forward, especially if the few who did included my father and my number two but not me? I had no choice.

  “Take command up here,” I snapped at Henry who had just returned and had started to tell me about the condition and casualties of the state armies which had returned from their great sally into the Greek camp.

  “John,” I said to my newly arrived younger brother who had been assigned to my father as his apprentice, “you are to stay with Henry Soldier to carry his messages and run whatever errands he gives you.” He was too young and would just get in the way.

  I promptly shucked off my quivers and sandals, and then pulled my tunic over my head to take off my wrist knives and chain shirt. For a moment I was as naked as a wild bird until I pulled my tunic back on. I probably should have left it off because it is hard to swim whilst wearing a tunic; but for some reason I did not.

  Within a moment I was following Richard down a ladder set against the city wall. My father was already moving towards a nearby ladder and taking off his tunic and chain shirt and knives as he did.

  “Set up more ladders against the wall and send more down,” I snapped to Henry as I began moving down the ladder. “And send down the strongest men you can find to carry up the wounded. Attach lines to them in case they fall.

  “And take off your damn chain and knives before you go out,” I shouted over to my father and down to Richard.

  I almost smiled; I was enjoying this for some strange reason, probably because I thought it would impress the men.

  ******

  My father and Richard were still taking off their tunics and chain shirts when I grabbed and shook one of the two ladders that ran from the edge of the wall to the mostly submerged wagon. Then I grabbed and shook the second. It seemed to be the steadier of the two so I decided to use it.

  As I started inching my way out towards the wagon, the ramparts above me were crowded with watching archers. I could hear Henry shouting out orders about getting more ladders and something about strong men and swimmers. I was a couple of feet above the moat’s black water as I slowly inched my way out to the wagon on the ladder.

  My knees immediately started to pain me as I put them down on the steps of the ladder and began crawling across it in an effort to reach the wagon. The brave, but terrified, archer on the wagon was trying to hold the ladder steady to help me. The water below me smelled most foul. Hopefully, the ladder would not tip to one side and dump me into it.

  I made it across and stepped gingerly down into the bed of wagon. The water came up almost to my waist.

  “Pass me another ladder,” I shouted to the men on shore next to the wall. A few moments later I was working to place the second ladder more securely on the wagon.

  ******

  My father and Richard soon came across and joined me, and we hurriedly began running more ladders from the shore to the wagon and from the wagon to the other side of the moat. The brave archer who could not swim was most helpful. He was a two-striper named Albert Albert’s son from a village I had never heard of, probably because it was near Leicester, just on the other side of the city common where the boys of Leicester play.

  When we were about half way through placing enough ladders side by side and on top of each other to make a rickety bridge, I thanked Albert for his service and told him to climb back over the new ladders to the wall. Albert Albert’s son was a two-striper who, although he did not know it yet, would soon be wearing a third.

  My father stood in the wagon and did his best to hold the ladder bridge steady whilst Richard and I climbed over to the other side of the moat to take command of the men stranded there. Dan Tenn, I had already been told by one of the surviving galley captains, was dead of being cut and stabbed too many times.

  *******

  Richard and I fed the stranded men on to the rickety ladder bridge as fast as possible. Those who were wounded, but who were still able to crawl, were fed into the line of would-be escapers as fast as we could get a line around their waists so they could be hauled ashore if they fell into the water. The others were told to crawl whilst holding on to the line that had been run across the ladders. When they got to the other side they would be helped or carried up the wall ladders by the strong men Henry sent down to the foot of the wall for that purpose.

  Whilst we doing that, two additional wagons were rolled into the moat and Richard and my father left me to help the men get across, and began working to install an additional ladder bridge across to one of them. The other wagon tipped over on its side and sank too far to be useful.

  Crawling across the ladders was taking far too much time because every man had to carefully put a knee securely on the narrow edge of a ladder step before he could move his hands and then put other knee ahead to the next sharp edge. I knew that from experience; my knees had immediately gotten so painfully sore that at one point I did not think I would be able to continue.

  Things went slowly, and only a few men had escaped over to the city wall, until Henry and some men began dropping down some wooden boards which were quickly laid over the sharp edges of the ladder steps. That enabled the men to crawl much faster across from one side of the moat to the other.

  Where Henry got the planks I did not know, but they joined those that one the trapped galley captains had wisely begun ripping from the bed of the remaining wagon as soon as he understood what we were trying to do and why.

  Moving the wagons, the loss of so many men, and the escape of others left us with fewer and fewer defenders from amongst Dan’s men. There was no way a second Greek attack could be stopped. We had to hurry.

  ******

  About half of the trapped men had scrambled across our makeshift bridges to safety by the time we began turning our attention to the men who were seriously wounded. They would have to either be carried across or thrown in the water with a line tied around them so they could be pulled ashore on the other side. That is what we probably should have done for everyone instead of wasting so much time building the two ladder-bridges.

  Twice men had somehow fallen into the water amidst great shouts of alarm from everyone watching. Both times the man involved had managed to tighten his grip on one of the guide lines we had strung over the bridges and pull himself to safety. The third time, however, the ladder lurched and the archer somehow lost his grip on the line even though it had been sliding through his hand as he crawled. He disappeared into the moat with a great splash.

  Unfortunately, it happened whilst I was standing near what remained of the last wagon with a line in my
hand. My father and I were about to tie it around the waist, under the shoulders actually, of the last of the archers who had been terribly wounded with a sword slice that had taken off part of his arm.

  Someone’s tunic belt had been tied around what was left of it to stop more of the poor sod’s blood from leaking out. He would be pulled across through the water and probably not even know it because he was sleeping. It was not likely he would survive, but others had survived such wounds and we were honour-bound by the Company’s contract to do our best to help him until he died.

  I did something stupid when I heard the splash and the many resulting cries of alarm; I grabbed the line that was about to go about the wounded archer, moved my left arm in a circle around the line a couple of times so it would not slip off, and jumped in to try to rescue the man in the water. If I could grab him and hold on to the line, we could both be pulled ashore on the wall side of the moat.

  The drowning archer was not hard to find because the moat was not too deep and I jumped right on top of him. He felt my legs hit him and instinctively grabbed them in his desperation—and he pulled me under with him when he did.

  He had a desperate grip on me and was flailing all about. It was almost as if he was trying to climb up over me in an effort to get out of the water. After a moment of panic I managed to get my head out of the water so I could breathe and, at the same time, grab a handful of his tunic.

  “Pull the rope in,” I managed to gasp before I went under again.

  If there is one thing an archer serving on a galley knows, it is how to respond to an order to pull on a line. A moment later I was being pulled rapidly through the water with my desperate cargo. For an instant he let go of me, but them desperately grabbed me by the legs and once again tried to climb over me to get out of the water. I never let go of his tunic belt.

  Within seconds we reached the side of the moat next to the wall and were pulled ashore to great hoorays and many cries of congratulations and pleasure. My God but the water tasted terrible.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Rescues and a surprising idea.

  Henry called down to me while I was sitting on my arse trying to catch my breath after being pulled to the edge of the moat and being hauled ashore. My face felt red and burning, but my wet clothes felt cool and good in the burning hot sun.

  I had been looking at the almost-drowned archer who had fallen into the moat when Henry called down to me. He, the almost-drowned archer, had been asleep when his mates first pulled him up on to the bank of the moat, and was still asleep when held him up by his legs and bounced his head on the ground so the water would run out of him.

  Holding the sleeping archer up by his legs had worked. Water had run out of his mouth, and he had barfed as well. Now he was coughing and sputtering whilst they pounded on his back to get him going again. He was also bleeding badly from his wound.

  The last of our trapped men, two very battered looking galley captains, were crossing the two ladder bridges by the time the wounded archer woke up and began barfing again. The men who had been too wounded to crawl over the moat had already been pulled across through the water with lines tied around their waists. The last of them had just been hoisted up to the top of the wall.

  Dan and our other dead had been hastily buried, if you can call it that, by having some dirt thrown on them with a couple of shovels that had been thrown across to the two captains who had been the last archers to leave. We would return to retrieve their bodies and bury them with the proper church words after the war.

  There was no time to do more; a sizable Greek force was in the process of returning to recover their casualties and make another go at our trapped men, and this one somehow gave the impression of being more capable. Its men were now milling about at a distance that their captains thought was outside the range of our arrows. I was tempted to show the Greeks the error of their ways, but decided against it in the hope that doing nothing would cause them to move too close during a more critical time in the days ahead.

  “Can you climb up here, George?” Henry shouted down to me. “There is something important you need to know. I will come down there and tell you if you are not ready to climb.”

  I sort of waved my hand to acknowledge him, and then held it out for one of the men who were standing around looking at me to pull me up on to my feet.

  Behind me I heard someone give an order as I lurched toward one of the ladders that were up against the city wall. For some reason, I was very tired. It was probably the heat.

  “Stay close behind him, Bob; catch him if he falls.”

  ****** Commander George Courtenay

  I made it to the top of the ladder without looking down to scare myself, rolled over the top of the battlement’s outer wall between two archer slits, and fell on to the little stone road that ran along the top of the wall all the way around the city.

  Henry bent his knees and squatted down next to me. His information was very interesting, and I quickly understood why he had not shouted it down to me.

  “Ivan Skavinsky, the prince who commands the Bulgarians, thinks his men and the other state forces would be willing to do another large-scale sally if they knew there would be coins in it for them—and we have the coins we were going to use to Ransom Dan and his men.”

  “Henry, what are you suggesting? I am not sure I understand.”

  “I am suggesting we send the state forces out on another sally as early as the first thing tomorrow morning. It is the last thing in the world the Greeks would expect us to do after today. If they go out soon enough we would likely catch the Greeks before they have time to get organized.”

  “Are you sure? Do you really think another sally would work if we launched it so soon?”

  “I think it might, and it would probably help us by killing some Greeks even if the states’ men are defeated.

  “Ivan’s men and the other state forces had a relatively easy time of it this morning. Their confidence is high at the moment, so he thinks they would go again, particularly if they were offered a big incentive to do so. The thing to remember is that every Greek they end up killing or taking out of the fight is one less for our lads to have to worry about.

  “Besides, it is always better to let someone else to do the fighting and dying than our lads, eh? What counts is that every Greek the states’ men kill means one less for our lads to have to fight.”

  What Henry said made sense.

  “Well, it makes sense when you put it that way. And you are almost certainly right that the Greeks will not be expecting another large-scale attack so soon. You and Ivan have obviously given it some thought. How do you suggest we go about it?”

  “Ivan knows our galleys are collecting the toll coins. He thinks we should offer a silver coin for every man who goes out in the sally and returns with a Greek sword and ten copper coins for every Greek spear he brings back. That way they would only be paid if they bring back weapons they have taken from the Greeks. For himself; if he encourages the sally and leads it, Ivan wants the Empress to award him some disputed land.

  “Offering every man in the states’ armies what amounts to prize money for bringing in Greek weapons and prisoners, and then letting them keep the weapons, which is what Ivan suggests, is probably the only way we will ever be able to get the states’ men to actually fight the Greeks. As it is, I do not think we dare not trust them to defend any part of the wall by themselves. And, like I said, every Greek they kill or wound means one less for our lads to face.”

  I thought about it behind my eyes for about a minute, and then made a decision.

  “Ivan is probably right. Some of the states’ forces men are likely to be keen to get the coins on offer both for weapons and for useful prisoners such as lords and bishops. And you are right that it is probably the only way we will be able to use the states’ men in a fight.”

  Actually, I lied. What I did not tell Henry was that a sally was not the only way we could use the states’ forces to fight th
e Greeks instead of using our archers. I had another plan already underway that Henry did not know about yet—and it might work even better if everyone thought the state forces had been weakened and discouraged by taking casualties during another sally.

  “Alright,” I finally said. “Why not, eh? We will give it a try unless it looks like a forlorn hope. I will make the final decision in the morning when we see what faces them outside the gate. But do you really think the state forces can be ready to sally out as early as tomorrow morning? Can you and Ivan get it set up by then?”

  I was full of questions, and totally exhausted, as I was helped to climb aboard a horse after watching my father crawl over the ladder and get back to the wall.

  ****** William, the Company’s retired Commander

  Man after man came past me as I stood in the wagon bed with the water up to my knees and helped them get on the ladder bridge stretching towards the wall. It was so tiring that I had to lean up against the wagon seat at times to catch my breath. To my surprise, my son, John, George’s much younger brother by way of Helen, had come out when I was not looking and was doing the same on the other wagon.

  I ended up being the last man to return to the wall. Before I did, I climbed up on to the driver’s seat of the sunken wagon. Then I shouted loudly towards the Greeks to get their attention. They had stopped just out of what they thought was the range of our arrows. When I thought I had it, I made the sign of the horns at them and lifted my wet tunic and pissed at them whilst I did.

  The archers on the wall behind me cheered. It was like old times and I felt young again when I lifted my hand to acknowledge them.

  But then something bad happened as I crawled off the ladder bridge and reached the wall. My chest began to hurt so fierce that I had to be carried up to the top of the wall and then carried in a wagon to the Citadel for barbering. John rode with me and held my hand.