The Alchemist's Revenge

by Martin Archer

  The Venetians quickly retreated leaving several hundred of their men dead and wounded on the field. Others were hit and were able to keep running with our arrows in them.

  For a brief moment, I thought about ordering a charge and attempting to roll the Venetians up. I decided not to do so after I saw the Venetian groups who had not been engaged forming up into new battle lines and most of the fleeing Venetians moving to join them instead of moving towards their galleys. I gave a prudent order instead.

  “Retrieve your arrows and watch your arses when you do. And leave your bows behind so the strings do not get wet.”

  Of course I warned the men to be careful. It was well-known that wounded men often play dead and then suddenly come alive and try to fight off anyone who tries to pull an arrow out of them.

  ****** Lieutenant Paul Jones

  Most of the surviving Venetians began moving into some sort of formation whilst we were amongst their dead and wounded retrieving our arrows. This time they began forming up well out of range and seemed to be acting with more order and organization. Some of the men who had run back toward their galleys seemed to be walking back to join them. And then, miracle of miracles, the rain stopped.

  Commander Ryder did not wait more than a minute after we returned with the arrows before ordering me to take advantage of the end of the rain. He came over to me, and then called and motioned for the two lieutenants whose “Evens” also had dry bowstrings to join us. When they did, he used a nod of his head to point at the Venetians.

  “I want you three to take your archers with dry bowstrings out there and do as much damage as you can to the Venetians whilst they are forming up and whilst they are marching towards us.

  “But do not under any circumstances let your men be cut off or picked off. Fall back as needed to keep your men safe if the Venetians come after you. And immediately have your men stow their bowstrings in their pouches and return here on the double if it starts to rain again. Take at least two quivers each.”

  Then Commander Ryder said something that pleased me immensely.

  “Lieutenant Jones will be in command. He knows how to run to safety when the need arises. Good luck. Jones?”

  “Aye, Commander. Thank you. I am to take the archers with dry bowstrings out there to do damage to the enemy, make sure they do not cut us off, and return immediately with our bowstrings in our pouches if it starts to rain.”

  And that is exactly what we did.

  I twirled my pointing finger over my head to assemble my men around me, told them what we were going to do, and gave them to the count of thirty to get their quivers. The other two lieutenants ran back to their men and did the same. A few moments later we were walking briskly towards the Venetians to do what we had been ordered to do.

  The rain had stopped but the sand on the strand was still firmed up for walking by being wet. I motioned for the men to spread out as we moved towards the waiting Venetians. They were gathering about half a mile down the strand. We could see what seemed to be a steady trickle of shield-carrying men walking up from where their galleys were nosed into shore and waiting.

  “Tread cautiously, lads, cautiously. We will stay in contact as long as possible. But be ready to run like hell if they start chasing us; no taking of foolish chances, eh?”

  Ordering them to take no foolish chances was exactly what the men wanted to hear me say, and I meant it.

  I briefly thought about my wife on Cyprus as I gave my orders. I knew she would be very pleased when she heard I was selected to lead the archers out to harass the Venetians. She was always after me to do something to get recognized. She wanted me promoted so we would have enough coins to build a bigger hovel far away from the insufferable captain’s wife who lived next to us.

  My men followed behind me as I led them out from under the rain sails amidst various cries and shouts wishing us well from the men who would remain behind.

  ****** Archer Stanley Jack’s son of Galley Thirty-nine

  Lieutenant Jones seemed quite pleased as he gathered us around and told us what we were to do. I particularly liked the part about running like hell in order to avoid being cut off. Jones was not so bad as a lieutenant, just too damn keen on volunteering us because he wanted to be promoted.

  We followed the lieutenant as he walked briskly towards where the Venetians were gathering. There surely were a lot of them. Several of my mates stopped for a moment to piss and I stopped with them. Afterwards we ran to catch up.

  The Venetians began pointing at us and moving around a bit as we got closer and closer. After a while, to our surprise, a small group came out and began walking towards us. They obviously wanted to talk.

  Lieutenant Jones was having none of it. He motioned for everyone to spread out and keep going, and gave an order that the sergeants repeated so that we all heard it.

  “Move up into position off to the left, lads, and start pushing as soon as you can reach them. Just do not push at this lot whilst I be gobbling with them. Stanley, you and James come with me and be ready for anything. Keep an arrow nocked and ready at all times.”

  What could James and I do but follow him. So we did.

  We followed Lieutenant Jones as he walked towards the four men who had come out of the Venetian formation and were walking directly toward us. One of them was wearing a priest’s robe and another had fine clothes and a helmet. The man with the fine clothes had his sword in its scabbard. The other two, however, were carrying their swords bared. They looked like tough veterans. James and I had arrows nocked.

  “Hoy,” Lieutenant Jones gobbled at the four Venetians when they got about fifty paces from us. “What do you want?”

  “Hoy,” the man with the fine clothes answered rather arrogantly as the distance continued to close between us. “I am Jacobo Tiepolo, a captain of Venice, and we want you English to pull back into the city to avoid any more unnecessary deaths on either side. We have no quarrel with you.”

  The Venetian gobbled his words in bad crusader French. That was no surprise. Venetians, being a seafaring people, were all merchants of one kind or another and most merchants could gobble crusader French in those days.

  “And let you and your sailors take our galleys? Are you daft?” Lieutenant Jones replied incredulously. “You must not know much about Englishmen or the Company of Archers. Is this your first visit to Constantinople and the Holy Land?”

  That was as far as things got—because the arrows of our mates began to fly as Lieutenant Jones was gobbling his reply. The Venetians looked back over their shoulders in surprise as shouts and screams erupted from their men. So did the lieutenant.

  Lieutenant Jones looked beyond the Venetians for a moment as screams and shouts erupted from the assembled Venetians. He never did see the sword that one of the Venetians suddenly swung that almost took off his head. I certainly did and so, I later learned, did all the Company men lined up under the sails.

  My response was instinctive. I pushed my bow out and put my nocked arrow straight into the swordsman’s side. And it was a good thing I did because his blade had already changed direction and was moving towards me. It missed when my arrow drove him back.

  The Venetian gave a great “whoosh” when my arrow hit him and went down backwards to sit on his arse and elbows still holding his sword. James and I were already running for our lives by the time he hit the ground. So were the three other Venetians, the difference being that they were running in the opposite direction.

  ****** Lieutenant Commander Ryder

  We could clearly see our men when they began pushing out arrows and the fighting that erupted almost immediately amongst the handful of men wearing archers’ tunics who had gone forward to meet with some of the Venetians. It was clear that at least one of our men was down and that everyone who had been at the meeting had run off and left him on the ground. There was uncertainty and much talking in our ranks, with some of the men stepping forward to point and gawk.

  “Silence in the ranks. Get th
ose men back into our lines,” I shouted.

  “Harold, you stay here in command. I think it might be Lieutenant Jones who went down. I am going out to take command of the archers and try to find out what happened. Keep everyone here on high alert. I will send for reinforcements if I need them.”

  I did not wait for an answer. I immediately began trotting across the strand to join up with the archers who were busy pushing arrows into the Venetian mob. Paul was right behind me. We had gotten about half way to them when the entire body of Venetians began moving forward towards our galleys. The archers responded by moving backwards at the same speed whilst continuing to push out their arrows. And then the arrows stopped.

  “Fall back.” … “Fall back.” I could hear the sergeants shouting. For a second I was surprised and angered. And then I realized what had happened—they had used up all their arrows.

  What I did not immediately see, but later learned, was that the Venetian army was already in the process of falling apart. The Venetians who were moving forward to attack us were fewer and fewer. They were leaving behind more and more able-bodied men in addition to their many dead and wounded. Some of the able-bodied men were staying to aid the many Venetian wounded; but many were hanging back because they had had enough. Fighting at sea for prizes was one thing; fighting on land against archers was something else.

  I had barely reached the first of the archers, and had already pushed out a couple of arrows of my own, when I heard drums beating out the marching step and turned to see the men who had been sheltering under the tents marching toward us and putting their feet down to the beat of a galley drum. Harold was coming even though I had told him to stay put.

  At first I was angry that he had not obeyed my orders. But then I understood. Harold had seen what I had not—that the Venetian army in front of us was falling apart.

  Suddenly, right in front of my eyes, the Venetian army dissolved like butter thrown into hot soup. One moment they were moving towards us, the next they were throwing away their weapons and running for their galleys.

  Chapter Forty-one

  A temporary victory.

  “Hoy the Commander,” a voice shouted up to me from Galley Seventeen’s enclosure. “Hoy, Commander. There is a messenger come from Commander Ryder. He says it is important. Should we allow him to go up to you?”

  “Send him up,” I replied, and then turned my attention back to the opportunity at hand.

  The rain had stopped a few minutes earlier. At the time the messenger arrived, I was standing on the narrow roadway atop of the city’s outer wall with all the available men of Galley Seventeen and its captain.

  Scaling ladders were up against the wall under us and more were being manhandled into place. We were waiting for the Greeks at the foot of the wall to begin climbing their ladders since it is always best to push over scaling ladders when men are on them. They were almost ready to raise their ladders and start climbing, and so were we.

  And it was about then that I realized something significant—there was no chance the Greeks gathering below us would ever be able to climb to the top of the wall. It would never happen; the ladders they were about to raise were not long enough.

  The ladders were high enough to reach the top of the wall if they were stood up straight against it. But ladders could not stand straight against a wall if a man was to climb them; they had to lean.

  Someone spying for the Greeks had measured the wall and sent a message as to how high the wall stood. So the Greeks had wasted several weeks making ladders without taking into account that a ladder also had to be long enough to lean against the wall if it was to be climbed. Many of their ladders had turned out to be too short and we had enough pikes to push over those that were long enough.

  Being assaulted by Greeks carrying short ladders had been a common occurrence along the wall all during their attack. And those ladders which were tall enough were easily pushed over with our long-handled pikes. The day looked to be ours even though the Greeks were still trying to climb their ladders.

  After I ordered the messenger to be sent up, I turned my attention to the men standing about me. “Wait just a moment,” I said with a grin. “More of the damn fools are coming across the footbridge. We might as well get them too.”

  The men standing around me smiled back and nodded their heads enthusiastically. As well they might. It always better to kill an enemy before he has a chance to kill you.

  We were waiting because the Greeks below us were in the process of bringing more ladders and men across the footbridge below us. Why they were still trying after the others on either side of them had failed escaped me, but we could not go wrong by inflicting by dropping a few rocks on this lot as well. And that is what we did.

  Galley Seventeen’s men stood back and watched as their captain, Dan Daniels, and I periodically took quick looks over the outer edge of the wall and then placed our little piles of marker stones to show the rock droppers where the Greek ladders were coming up.

  Dan and I were not taking any chances; it had stopped raining and there was always the chance that one of the enemy crossbowmen had found a string that was not wet. Of course, we were not taking chances; Dan and I had both been schooled at the Company’s school at Restormel Castle and been regaled there by my Uncle Thomas’s stories about crusading with murderous old King Richard, him what managed to get himself killed by a boy with a crossbow. That was after he abandoned his men and scampered for home.

  I took one last quick look, and rearranged a couple of marker stones.

  “Alright lads. Get ready. We will go on a count of three.”

  All along the wall on either side of me the men of galley seventeen began picking up the heavy stones and rocks that were stacked up on the parapet all along the wall next to the archers’ slits and placing them on the top of the wall next to a marker stone. Some were so large it was all a man could do to lift them high enough to reach the outer edge of the parapet wall and push them over.

  “Get ready. Here we go.”

  I gave the word a minute or so later when I could see that there were rocks and stones in place next to each of the markers and the Greeks were starting to climb their ladders. “One .. two … three … PUSH.”

  Over the side the rocks and stones went with many of the men moving along the parapet to push off three or four that had already been balanced on top of the parapet wall.

  The Greeks below us did not see them coming until it was too late. There were the crashing sounds of rocks hitting the rocky ground between the wall and the moat, the distinctive sound a rock makes when it lands on a man instead of the ground, and many screams and shouts and splashes.

  We, of course, could not restrain ourselves despite the possibility of a crossbow bolt; we immediately looked over the side of the wall to see what we had accomplished.

  The big rock I had struggled to lift and so carefully placed had apparently bounced off the wall and missed the bridge I had hoped to destroy. It was still standing. But many of the men who had crossed over to the wall on it were down, including some who had been knocked into the moat and disappeared after thrashing about in its foul waters for a few seconds.

  There was no doubt about it; having a rock dropped on your head from a great height can definitely ruin your day.

  ****** George Courtenay

  Our meal was a festive occasion that night. We were drinking bowls of wine and eating burnt meat strips by the light of candles, and telling each other what we had done and seen. Everyone was there including my father who reported he had had a celebratory bowl of wine with the Empress who was much cheered by the day’s successes.

  Eric of the Varangians was also present. He and his men had successfully held the Latin Quarter against the Orthodox rising. They had done so by leaving the people and merchants in the two Greek quarters and their markets to their fates.

  “The rain was sent by God,” Eric was convinced. “Many of the looters stayed inside because of it and not many fire
s were lit. There was only one effort to get into the Latin Quarter and attack the Citadel and it was easily driven away.”

  Everyone was laughing and cheering each other’s stories, and cautioning each other about not knowing what the Greeks and Venetians would do next. Some of the more cheerful amongst us thought the Greeks would give up and go home so that we would soon be able to resume our normal coin-earning operations.

  “It is possible they will leave, but all we can do is wait and see, eh?” That is what I said. But I did not believe it possible, not in the least; I expected them to try treachery or a long siege, or both.

  We also talked about the Venetians. They had scrambled aboard their galleys and sailed away. Richard had not pursued them when they ran for their galleys, and rightly so. He had, instead, begun double-timing the archers under his command to come to help us fight off the Greek attack.

  It turned out that Richard and the reinforcements he was rushing to us were not needed, but we certainly did not know it at the time. There was no question about it, and we all knew it and said as much—he had done the right thing in hurrying to reinforce us instead of chasing the Venetians.

  The Venetians and where they were, and what they might do next, and what we should do, were still being discussed when one of the Commandery’s servants came in and whispered something into Nicholas’s ear. He got up and followed the man out of the hall.

  A few minutes later Nicholas returned and came straight to me.

  “There is someone waiting outside you need to talk to immediately, Commander,” he said as he bent over and spoke very quietly in my ear so that I was the only who could hear.

  Nicholas did not say who it was or what it was about, and I did not ask; if he thought it important, it probably was. Everyone stopped talking and watched as Nicholas spoke to me, and I got up to follow him outside.

  Standing outside near the door was Adam from Gravesend, the Greek-gobbling make-believe lieutenant who had guarded the bishops and the prisoners we had exchanged. The Greeks had made contact with Adam at the tavern he had just happened to mention that he frequented almost every night when his day was done. That was right after he implied that “for enough coins” even the city’s gates could be opened.