The Alchemist's Revenge

by Martin Archer

  “Ah well, you may be right,” the young man admitted with a smile. “My wound is painful, it must be confusing me. Give me the coins for the two spears,” he said as he grimaced and held out his hand.

  “That is nowhere near enough,” the wounded young man said with a sigh a few seconds later as he pouched his coppers.

  A moment later, to everyone’s surprise, he threw the spears down even though he was entitled to keep them, pulled his horse’s head around, and started to go back out to get more Greek weapons.

  “Hold, Sir Knight,” I called out as I walked towards him. “There are some sailmakers from the archers’ galleys in that tent over there. They can sew you up with stitches most fine before you go out again. And I have a question for you before you go—is your father a noble?”

  “No. But he will be if I can bring in enough coins to buy some land or the king recognizes me for being brave. This horse is all my father had enough coins to buy, that is why I must go out again after I get sewed.”

  “What is your name?”

  “My name is Guy.”

  “Are you a knight or squire?”

  “I am neither,” the young man aid with a little laugh as he shook his head and replied, and winced slightly as he did.

  “My name is Guy. Just Guy. That is why I am riding alone instead of with the knights. My father is a hostler which is how I came to ride a horse. He thought it would help me get ahead if I was a rider, and he was right.”

  “Ah, well then, Guy the rider, please come visit me after this is all over. I may have some opportunities for you. Ask for Commander George at the Citadel.”

  The cheerful young man smiled his thanks and nodded his head in agreement. Then he put his heels to his horse and rode towards the waiting sailmakers.

  “Now there is a likely lad,” said Henry with approval in his voice. “I wonder if he really is a commoner such that we could recruit him.”

  We never saw Guy again. I have sometimes wondered about his fate and why Henry changed his mind about him.

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Unexpected problems.

  The number of returnees grew and grew as the day progressed. And they surprised us by bringing unexpected problems. We had mistakenly thought we knew what to expect from this sally because the same men had sallied the day before. We were wrong. There were differences that caused problems, and we were not ready for them, perhaps because we had been too busy yesterday trying to save the stranded archers.

  A steady stream of men bringing Greek weapons began coming along with a few unambitious men with naught but the spears they had carried out. What grew even faster, and quickly became a problem, was the large number of camp followers, street women, thieves, and Orthodox priests who surrounded the coin wagons and accosted the returnees as they came through the gate. There were an amazing number of them and they all seemed to be reaching their hands out to the returning soldiers for the coins the states’ men were being paid for the weapons they captured.

  “I do not remember so many people waiting at the gate yesterday,” Henry Soldier said when Commander Courtenay growled about them. “It is something new. It must be the coins the men are being paid.”

  “I do not care why they are here,” the Commander replied. “They are slowing down the coin paying. So get rid of them. Tell the captain of the archers at the gate to move those people back at least five hundred paces beyond the sailmakers’ tents.”

  Eric arrived with some of his Varangians just as the archers stationed at the gate were beginning to herd the camp followers further down the roadway. The camp followers were unhappy about it and loudly resisting, particularly the women. Eric strode towards them and roared at the camp followers in a strange tongue while waving his axe at them. Their protests and pleadings instantly stopped and they began moving back.

  “What did you tell them?” Commander Courtenay asked Eric when he re-joined us on the wall.

  “I told them to move back and stop bothering the returnees or they would lose their heads. The problem is that most of the camp followers and many of the priests are from the villages and do not understand that I really mean it; this is the first time many of them have ever been away from home.

  “The street women and thieves, on the other hand, are from the city. They knew I meant it and would have taken them first. It was them hurrying to move back that caused the others to follow.”

  Commander Courtenay was surprised and said as much. So the Varangian captain explained.

  “The village levies are mostly Greek and Orthodox. That is because the crusader lords kept the Greek-gobbling Byzantine villagers to work the fields when they replaced the Byzantine lords. They are mostly Greeks just like our attackers and the majority of the Empress’s subjects in the city.

  “This is probably the first time many of them have ever been out of their villages or earn coins. There is a good chance that many of the states’ foot soldiers and their priests do not even know who they are fighting or why.

  “I will assign some of my Varangians to stay with you to translate. They can do it because we have been in Constantinople guarding whoever is the emperor since before my grandfather’s time. Many of my men are like me. Their families have lived here for generations and they can gobble Greek better than they can crusader French.”

  Within minutes George and Henry had Varangian translators assigned to them and so did the coin wagons, the sailmakers sewing up the wounded, and the archers at the gate.

  Despite the newly arrived translators and Eric’s threats, there was jostling and complaints as the archers from the galley company guarding the gate herded the unhappy camp followers further and further down the road. Their displeasure meant nothing so long as they were well away from coin wagons and the growing line of men waiting for their coins.

  ******

  The archers on the city’s outer wall watched as the number of returning sortiers slowly grew from periodic ones and twos to a steady stream that got larger and larger throughout the day. Our need for translators to tell them what to do and where to go was not the only problem. The men coming in with weapons and wounds brought more and more unexpected problems with them as the day wore on.

  One of unexpected problems was the number of wounded men coming in by themselves or with the help of their mates. There had been wounded yesterday, but not many, and they had somehow been sorted out. Today there were more wounded coming in, apparently because the men were more willing to fight with the Greeks who were carrying weapons.

  At the same time, there appeared to be fewer of their mates coming in with them to care for them. The problem had been solved by quickly sending to our galleys for some of our sail makers and their needles and thread; we would sew them up if their mates were staying out to fight for weapons.

  The wounded were soon being taken to hastily erected tents where our galleys' sail makers, hurriedly brought in from the galleys in our moorage, were standing by for the inevitable sewing and barbering that followed every battle. Those most painfully wounded were give flower paste from our galley stores; mercies were left to their friends.

  Another problem was that the returnees were almost all were hungry and thirsty. Hunger could always wait. It was something the villagers were used to enduring; it was thirst that became a problem.

  Yesterday the thirsty men returned directly to their tents after they had rampaged through the Greek camp and, when they got there, were able to enjoy whatever was their regular source of water.

  Today the states’ men were staying out longer and coming back thirstier. But today, because we were paying out coins, they could not return to their tents for food and water until they were paid. To prevent fraudulent claims, men who went past the archers holding back the crowd were not allowed to return carrying weapons they could claim entitled them to coins. So they all had to wait in the hot sun until it was their turn to show their captured weapons and be paid.

  Another problem was the men who died whilst
they were being sewed and barbered and the dead men brought in by their mates who then turned around and went out searching for weapons. Yesterday there had been fewer of them and their mates had taken charge of their bodies. Today those of the states’ dead who were not immediately claimed were carried some distance down the wall by the auxiliaries attached to the archer company at the gate, and laid out there for their mates and the camp followers to find.

  “Not to worry. Tomorrow we will gobble the church words and bury those who are not claimed,” Commander Courtenay announced.

  Prince Ivan and his lieutenants and personal guards, all knights, were among the early returnees. They came in right after the wounded young hostler. It was clear that the prince had copied yesterday’s action by Commander Courtenay—he had led his men out of the gate and into the Greek camp, and then moved aside in order to make a safe and early return “so my men can get all the coins.”

  ******

  We were looking out of the archer slits of the wall above the gate and could hear the distant sounds of fighting, but we could not see much what was happening because of the great clouds of dust. The sounds continued to move further and further away until the middle of the very hot afternoon.

  At first only a few of the returnees brought in weapons for coins, and what they brought was mostly just a spear or two. According to my new translator, they were the men who had gone out so they could say they had done so—and then quickly returned so they could stay alive a bit longer. He spit towards them as he described them.

  “It is a good sign that so few of the states' men have come in early,” Henry Soldier suggested hopefully as he stood with his hands up to shield his eyes from the sun. He was doing what we had all been doing all day long—futilely attempting to look into the dust cloud hanging over the Greek camp to see what was happening. “It means those who want coins are still out there fighting to get them.”

  After a brief pause he added, “We can hear them even if we cannot see them.”

  Commander Courtenay was apparently not so sure. He just grunted to acknowledge that he had heard, not that he agreed or disagreed. But he said nothing and just continued to stand on the wall above the gate and watch both the Greek camp and the roadway below with its coin wagons on either side of it and the large group of camp followers who were now waiting anxiously five or six hundred paces beyond the coin wagons. A line of archers and Varangians kept them there.

  ****** Galley Captain Steven Harper

  My men and I had been at the gate all day. The number of returnees began increasing after the sun passed overhead and increased dramatically by mid-afternoon. More and more of the returnees were carrying captured weapons, and a few had priests and nobles as prisoners for which they were paid a silver coin for priests and knights and a gold coin for bishops and nobles. It was a prize money scheme for weapons and prisoners that was working unexpectedly well. My lads and I were more than a bit jealous that we had not been sent out with them.

  The lines of desperately thirsty states’ men in front of the coin wagons began to grow. I could see that Commander Courtney was worrying because he and his lieutenants were looking out from the top of the wall above the gate and pointing. So I climbed the stairs to see for myself.

  What I saw was more and more of the states’ men walking and riding through the sacked camp towards the gate. They looked tired and were coming from all corners of the Greek camp. It was quite a scene—and, for the first time, the sounds of battle were coming closer.

  There were already long lines of anxious men waiting with their captured weapons at each coin wagon. It was obvious there would soon be many more.

  I was still standing up there when I heard Lieutenant Commander Henry Soldier speculate that seeing more and more of the states’ men withdrawing to return to the sally gate might have emboldened the surviving Greeks. Commander Courtenay allowed as how he was probably right. If it did, he said, it might give us a new problem—the Greeks returning to their sacked camp as the states’ men fell back might turn into a counter attack.

  There was increasing chaos and confusion at the gate by mid-afternoon as more and more of the states’ men returned and the sound of the fighting drew closer. In addition to the fact that we were running out of copper coins, the returning men did not know water was waiting for them. As a result, some of them had gone past the gate and walked to the nearby estuary to drink the fresh water coming out of the rivers that fed it. If they did not hurry, the arrival of the returning Greeks might well cut them off.

  It was well past high noon when the Commander announced a decision and began giving us new orders. I was there when he did.

  “Henry, we need to get more archers up here on the wall and also out by the moat to cover the withdrawal of the last of the states’ men. Summon the nearby galley companies to gather here at the gate as soon as possible. We may need to lead some of them out to establish a defensive line to hold off the Greeks whilst the States' forces return.

  “Captain Harper,” he said to me. “Lead your company across the moat and form them up seven-deep about a hundred paces beyond.”

  I, of course, immediately repeated the order and ran down the stairs to comply.

  ****** Commander Courtenay

  Despite the dangers of a possible counter attack engulfing the states’ men remaining the Greek camp, the stories of the men who had already returned and the large number of Greek weapons they were carrying seemed to suggest that the states’ forces had scored a great victory. If it was true, it meant that five thousand or so of them had destroyed most of the Greek camp which had had about thirty thousand Greek soldiers in it along with many thousands of camp followers and sutlers.

  Sudden attacks on unsuspecting and disorganized enemies will do that every time if the attackers are aggressive enough. And the prize coins had apparently made the states’ men much more aggressive than they had been yesterday.

  On the other hand, not all the Venetian-carried Greeks in the camp had been killed or despite initially being taken totally by surprise. Far from it; many of them had undoubtedly been alerted by the noise and the arrival of fleeing people in time to snatch up their arms and either retreat with their possessions or use them to fight back.

  The noise and dust of the fighting coming closer suggested the Greeks were rallying and beginning to push the remaining state forces back as more and more of them withdrew. It would almost certainly not be an orderly withdrawal, and that, no doubt, would embolden those among the Greeks who were willing to fight.

  ****** Lieutenant Commander Henry Soldier

  Things really picked up about an hour before sunset. A great and totally disorganized mass of returning states’ men could be seen approaching out of the dust. Even so, the distant dust cloud hanging in the distance over the far end of the Greek camp suggested that some of the states’ men were still fighting the Greeks for their weapons, but perhaps that was just wishful thinking.

  Of all things, it was water the returnees began wanted more than coins. The archers had almost lost control that afternoon as the new arrivals began riding past the coins wagons to get water and then tried to return with weapons to get coins. Many succeeded such that some of the weapons we paid may have come from the camp instead of the Greeks.

  Orders had been quickly given and water was hurriedly fetched from the nearby estuary by camp followers who were paid one copper for every skin they brought to the line of waiting men. Some ran back and forth to the water three or four times that afternoon and early evening. It ended up being a great coin earner for the women of the camp—and in the process it totally depleted our supply of copper coins long before the coins for the last captured spear could be paid.

  At the same time, those of the returnees who were waiting with captured weapons were pointedly told that if they rode past the coin wagons and into their camp for water they risked not being paid—they would not be allowed to return to collect the coins because it would look as if they were bringin
g weapons from the camp instead of from the Greeks.

  No sooner had the water problem had been solved than another arose.

  “Archers are disciplined and were willing to quietly line up for their prize monies; this lot is not.” Someone remarked.

  Commander Courtenay was concerned.

  “Henry, the coin lines are getting too long. They are almost out the gate and soon will be if we do not do something to speed things up.

  “We need to get down there and open new lines before the men waiting in line start thinking that they might not be paid. God only knows what might happen then; they may turn on each other and us.”

  And that was exactly what the Commander and I did. The line was starting to stretch out through the gate by the time they set up three more weapons paying lines and began passing out coins. The tension that had been growing immediately disappeared when the lines suddenly shortened, particularly when those waiting in line could see the men in front of them being paid.

  And then another problem arose—we suddenly realized that we were running out of copper coins. We had not brought enough even though we did not know it at the time. And the water carriers walking up and down the lines made the coin problem worse because they were being paid an immediate copper for each water skin they brought to the lines of waiting men.

  The result was that we ran out of coppers; we had gold and silver coins, but not enough coppers.

  Michael Oremus and young George, the commander’s son, were sent galloping off to get more coins. While they were gone the Varangians walked up and down the line asking men to club together with their mates for immediate payment in silver or gold.

  Offering gold and silver, instead of coppers, had to be done because there was a shortage of copper coins. We had offered ten for a spear and the usual rate was forty coppers for one silver and twenty silvers for one gold bezant. We had silvers for the swords and prisoners, but not enough coppers for the men who had only brought in a few spears.