Sea Warriors

by Martin Archer

  Yoram’s galley must have been one of those moored to the quay, for he walked up with a big smile on his face and his arms held wide in an enthusiastic greeting as our sailors prepared to throw their mooring lines to the men waiting to catch them.

  “Hoy, Thomas; hoy, George. Welcome to Lisbon,” he shouted as our galley bumped up against the quay. In the background I could hear a sergeant swearing at a luckless sailor who hadn’t properly placed his big linen bag of rags and twigs to hold his galley’s hull away from the quay.

  ******

  “Come on up here and let’s go have a bowl of wine and some olives and get out of the sun,” Yoram said as we squinted up at him in the bright sunlight. “I’ve been out to visit our hospital and we’ve got a lot to talk about.”

  Yoram wanted to talk because we had been thinking about setting up our trading post in the hospital with John Heath as our post sergeant and young William Ryder as his scribe.

  Our hospital was a small house with a walled courtyard near the harbour and in many ways ideal for us. It was one of the four hospitals we’d set up for our archers who had been unable to continue because they were elderly or disabled from wounds. We’d bought this one from one of Lisbon’s merchants back when we’d left more than a dozen archers and a couple of sailors here to recover from poxes and the wounds they’d received in the battle we fought with the Byzantines in front of Constantinople’s walls. Now it only housed five of them.

  The Company’s other hospitals for our ill and elderly, as you might imagine, were located in Cornwall, Malta, and Cyprus. It was quite surprising how many of our retired and disabled archers and sailors preferred to live in warmer places than England.

  Some of the men we originally left in the Lisbon hospital had died and others had recovered from their wounds and returned to Cornwall when my father recalled our men and galleys to fight the French. And surprised us when he did—we had all thought we would be going on a big raid against the Moors in Tangiers or Algiers.

  Those who had recovered came out of the safety of an honourable retirement because they didn’t want to miss getting a share of the prize money from whatever raid was being planned. They had returned to active duty by joining our galleys bound for Cornwall to join the raid when they stopped in Lisbon to replenish their supplies.

  Not everyone we had left in Lisbon recovered and went back on active duty. Some of them had died and five of our wounded men from Constantinople were still living in the hospital. They had remained in Lisbon when the recall came because they were too crippled or sick to continue as archers. They’d been pensioned off with full pay and a bed of their own.

  Making it known we would always take care of our sick and wounded men and those who lived long enough to be too old to fight or work as sailors greatly pleased our men. It was, according to my father and Uncle Thomas, a big reason so many archers and sailors were willing to make their marks on our company’s articles. They said it was a common fear of every man that he would be turned out and left to starve when he was no longer useful or needed, and that kings like John do it after every war. It appears to be true; I’d heard our men talking about it more than once.

  ******

  What Yoram found at our hospital, he told us as we sat in the shade of a big tree behind one of Lisbon’s taverns drinking a splendid wine, is that one of the five men who had remained in Lisbon had recently died when his leg turned black and rotted; the other four were still living there. And just yesterday, two more men had been taken there to rest and recover because they were no longer fit—one whose arm had been broken by the log holding down his galley’s sail when the wind suddenly shifted and another who had a great pain in his side and most likely needed a barber to bleed him.

  When the hot sun began to go down and it was safe to walk without being made dizzy by the sun and falling down, Harold and Yoram and I went to see the place for ourselves. We were expected and warmly welcomed, but I could clearly see the worry on the faces of the men who greeted us and the women they’d attracted as caretakers.

  Our hospital was a one-room, stone building with a tiled roof, as is common in these parts, and a small walled garden. It was near the quay and had thick stone walls to keep it cool in the scorching hot summer days and the cold winds out in the winter. As was inevitably the case in all our hospitals and posts, our men were there with a number of women who had somehow moved in to care for them.

  Using the house as a hospital for such men presented us with a problem. It obviously wasn’t big enough to house both the invalids and John Heath and the sailors and guards he would need if we are to establish a permanent trading post in Lisbon.

  “What do you think we should do?” my uncle asked me as we walked back to the quay in the dusk to spend the night on Harold’s galley.

  “We can’t turn them out,” I said to my uncle and Harold as I used my tunic to wipe the sweat from my brow.

  “It wouldn’t be right and it would dishearten our men. Being crippled and abandoned or getting too old scares our men more than being killed. There is nothing we can do except find a new place for either the men in the hospital or for our post.”

  “Good lad. You’re absolutely right,” said Harold.

  With that, we began talking about how we should go about finding another place here in Lisbon for John Heath and his men—and we kept talking about it until Harold gave a little snore and Uncle Thomas blew out the candle lantern.

  ******

  The next day Yoram took Harold and my Uncle Thomas to visit the merchants who had helped him sell five of our prizes and were provisioning our galleys and transports for the next leg of their voyages. Several of them spoke French and were able to translate for the others. The merchants were enthusiastic about helping us establish a post to provide shipping services to Lisbon’s merchants with armed transports and fast galleys. They enthusiastically described several places that might be empty and available.

  One place in particular caught our attention. It was further away from the quay and the market and sounded as if it might be bigger than our hospital. According to the merchants, it had a much larger walled compound where we might be able to build another building if we needed more space. It had the additional virtue of not requiring many coins to buy it.

  An older, French-speaking merchant walked next to me as we went to look at it early the next morning before it became unbearably hot. He was emphatic that merchants accompanying us, including him and his brother, wanted to help us locate in Lisbon.

  “We want you here in the city because we like the idea of being able to ship our goods in armed transports,” he said. He and his brother and the other merchants, he explained, had “lost too many cargos to the Moorish pirates by shipping them in the unarmed transports of the local ship owners.”

  Yoram had obviously told Lisbon’s merchants about our plan for putting archers on our bigger prizes to defend them against pirates.

  On the other hand, the merchant warned me, “The local ship owners, even those who bought your prizes, will not want you here in Lisbon earning coins by carrying cargos that they would otherwise carry.”

  Do Harold and Uncle Thomas know this? I must remember to ask them.

  “Be wary of the ship owners and remember what happened to the Venetians in Constantinople when they got too big,” he quietly cautioned me under his breath.

  “The ship owners know you English are interested in Lisbon and they are of two minds about it. They like the idea of having you here so they can buy your prizes, but they won’t like losing some of their cargos to you even more. Besides that, some of them trade with the pirates.”

  It turned out that the ship owners of Lisbon would be the least of our problems, at least initially.

  ******

  The first place the merchants showed us would have been perfect if it had been a little closer to the market and the quay. It was empty and just across a narrow lane from a church. There was a carriage-making yard on one side of it, a wo
od yard on the other, and its price was quite low.

  We looked at several other places after we looked at the first one but they each had major drawbacks; one was much too small and expensive, and the other was poorly located up against a hill such that attackers and robbers could look down upon it.

  After much discussion amongst ourselves, we bought the first place and took possession of it. John Heath and his men moved in immediately.

  Our invalids in the hospital were mightily relieved and thankful when they heard about our purchase of the new post; so, to my surprise, were our able-bodied men as well. Morale and spirits seemed to lift everywhere when the decision was announced. Uncle Thomas was right about the need to continue caring for the wounded men after a war or at the end of their useful service.

  ******

  Two days later, we were about to follow the galleys and transports, which had already sailed for Ibiza as their next supply stop on their way east, when one of John Heath’s men came running up the quay all out of breath and asked us to come quickly. There was a problem.

  Uncle Thomas and I hurried to our new post with a couple of hastily summoned men from our galley’s archers as our guards. One of whom, quite fortunately as it turned out, was wearing a sword and carrying a galley shield.

  A red-faced and distressed John Heath was waiting for us when we arrived. He was clearly glad to see we were still in Lisbon.

  “You need to talk to the priest,” John said anxiously as he pointed to the church across the way. “Some local hard men just visited us and demanded a donation of fifteen silver coins for the church across the way. They said they came from the priest and we’d have to pay that much each month or do without their protection and that of the Church.”

  “Did they now?” asked Uncle Thomas as he settled his mitre on his head. “Did they say what would happen if you didn’t pay?”

  “Aye Lieutenant, err I mean Bishop, that they did. They said we’d have the same fate as the previous two owners of this place if we didn’t pay; we’d suffer and die as they did if we didn’t pay the necessary. I said I would talk to you immediately and get back to them this very day.”

  “Well then,” said my uncle, “let’s go talk to the priest and sort this out.”

  ******

  We started towards the church with John Heath and our two guards. Then Uncle Thomas changed the direction he was walking. He turned around and we walked behind him in the hot sun as he went next door to visit the carriage works in the compound next to ours.

  “Hello. Hello,” cried Uncle Thomas jovially as he waved his crozier about and we followed through the gate of compound next door. I don’t know where he gets his juices to be so happy; I’m hot and sweaty and uncomfortable.

  A white-haired man wearing a leather apron and four or five workmen looked up in dismay as we walked through the gate. He was obviously the master carriage maker and he became quite distraught when he saw Thomas in his bishop’s robe and mitre. He began waving his arms about and jabbering at us as his journeymen and apprentices looked at us with undisguised hostility.

  We immediately had a problem, a big problem; none of the carriage-wrights could speak English or French and none of us could speak Portuguese. What the white-haired man could, and did do, was jabber away nonstop whilst tearing at his hair and over and over again shouting, “No mas dinero; no mas dinero,” and pointing at the church across the way as he waved his hands around in a most pleading and defeated manner.

  Uncle Thomas and I got the message. At least, I think we got it. Uncle Thomas waved his cross at the man, and then at his apprentices for good measure, and we left with the white-haired man still yelling at us. He was distraught and unhappy and being consoled by his apprentices and journeymen as we walked out of his yard.

  After we left the carriage-wright’s yard, Uncle Thomas sent John and our guards back to our post to get out of the heat. There was no one about as he and I marched in the sun’s terrible heat across the dusty lane to the church and entered through its open door.

  Chapter Seven: George

  Meeting the priest and what happened next.

  It was a rather common, everyday church such as one sees all over Christendom. That is to say it was about a dozen paces wide and about forty paces long with a dirt floor and a high ceiling with openings at the top of the side walls to let the light in and the hot air out. It was surprisingly cool because of its thick walls. There was an altar at one end and a confessional box on the left side. A small wooden table with short benches on both sides was in the far corner. A wooden cross was nailed up on the far wall.

  What was unique about the church were the people in it—two slatternly women were sitting around a rough wooden table with a shirtless burly man who might have been a priest and a couple of rough-looking men who didn’t at all resemble clerics. They looked up as we entered and the men stood up. The men with the priest didn’t look very friendly. The looks they gave us were clearly intended to intimidate us.

  “What do you want?” demanded the shirtless man in Portuguese as he took a sip of something from the wooden bowl he had in his hand and then stood up. We couldn’t understand the words but their meaning was clear.

  Uncle Thomas answered him in Latin.

  “I’m the Bishop of Cornwall and I’ve come to talk to you about your request for a monthly payment from the Pope’s ‘Order of Poor Landless Sailors,’ the men who just moved in across the way.”

  “I don’t care who you are; they’ll pay if they know what’s good for them. And what’s it to you?” The man’s response was in Latin; we’d found the priest.

  “I’m the Pope’s nuncio to his Order of Poor Landless Sailors and this,” Uncle Thomas said nodding to me, “is Father George, one of their priests. We’ve come to ask you to reconsider.”

  The response of the shirtless priest was arrogant and surprising. “Don’t bother asking; we won’t. Just pay us and go away until next month. We’ll protect you until then and each month thereafter if you pay. And don’t bother telling me you’ll complain to the archbishop. My father’s away to the north with the King and he wouldn’t pay any attention to you even if he was here.” He smirked as he claimed his relationship with the archbishop.

  He said it as he moved closer to Uncle Thomas and gave him a little push in the chest with his finger to intimidate him as he said. “You and your English merchants will pay us every month or you won’t be able to stay in Lisbon.”

  “Ah well,” said my uncle. “Perhaps it’s God’s will that this priest and his men get what they deserve to be paid, isn’t it Father George?”

  “God’s will?” I responded with a question in my voice.

  “Yes, God’s will, George. God’s will is important. Have you forgotten its meaning?” Uncle Thomas gave me a hard look as he said it.

  “What?” … “Oh.” … “Oh, yes, now I remember. ... I’m sorry,” I said. ... “I forgot. It won’t happen again.”

  “Are you ready to accept God’s will, Father George?” my uncle asked with an even harder look and a displeased edge to his voice. He looked at me intently. I nodded apologetically, and rightly so; I’d missed his signal.

  “Please be kind,” I said to the two toughs in a pleading voice as I stepped towards them with both of my hands up next to my shoulders in supplication as if I was praying to the heavens. “It is important to accept God’s will.”

  The priest’s two hard men sniggered at my abject behaviour even though they couldn’t understand the words. They stopped sniggering, and the looks on their faces turned to dismay as my wrist knives came out, and then stunned disbelief as they flashed towards them.

  They didn’t even have time to cry out or get their hands up before I got one of the men fully in his throat with the knife in my right hand. I felt the tip of my knife hit bone and gave it another hard push and a twist. At the same time, the other man, the one I’d almost missed and merely nicked on the side of his neck, flinched backwards and instinctively tw
isted and turned away from my knife. He stumbled against the table and knocked it over. It overturned with a great crash.

  I never did see how Uncle Thomas took the bare-chested priest. I was too busy stepping forward to get to the other hard man. He had instinctively turned away and stumbled into the table in response to my thrust and his sliced neck. He didn’t have time to react before I crowded up against him, put my arm around his neck, and cut his throat from behind with a great ripping pull.

  The younger of the women just stood there with her mouth open in amazement and her hands held up to cover it. Then she started screaming. The other woman made a run for the door as Uncle Thomas was bending down to pick up his mitre which had fallen off in the brawl. She didn’t make it. He was on her like a cat on a mouse and knocked her to the ground. That’s when she started screaming and Uncle Thomas punched her in the mouth. His mitre fell off again. It never did fit properly.

  The younger woman stopped screaming as I pushed my second man to the floor. She just stood there with her eyes wide in surprise and her mouth open in dismay as she watched him clutch at his throat amidst a rapidly widening pool of blood. She had no teeth in front; the priest or one of his men must have knocked them out.

  ******

  Both of the women were sobbing and trembling with fear by the time Uncle Thomas got to the front door and put the wooden bar in place so no one could enter. The younger woman looked at the little priest’s door in the rear of the church. I could tell she was considering trying to make for it in any effort to escape. I shook my head at her and said, “Don’t even think about it.” She couldn’t understand me, of course, but she got the message and didn’t move.

  We waited whilst the priest and his hard men finished their dying in the great pools of blood that began forming around them. The first man I’d gotten in the neck bone didn’t begin his leg trembles so, after a minute or two, Uncle Thomas used a leg that had broken off the table to hit him in the head and give him a mercy.