Sea Warriors

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Sea Warriors Page 10

by Martin Archer


  George said nothing but he nodded in silent approval with Tinker. Good. It’s important the lad understand that good men must be recognised, and the sooner the better.

  Other sailors began carrying quivers of arrows up to the lookout’s nest and on up the mast to the lone archer above them. Another archer climbed the mast to join those already in the lookout’s nest.

  Our galley’s sailors had been continuing to throw grapples to lash us tighter to the Moor whilst Alan was working at the top of the mast. Every grapple we had was hooked on the big Moor, including several new ones Sergeant Tinker’s crew put together in record time using our anchors. We were soon lashed tightly up against the big Moor and being pulled along by it sails.

  We were just placing one of our galley’s two wooden ladders against the side of the dhow when the Moors began something new, despite the steady stream of well-aimed arrows coming down on them from the archer at the top of our mast—they began tipping heavy chests and wooden boxes over the side of their deck railing to fall down upon us.

  The first chest caught us totally by surprise, even though our men up on the mast had seen it coming and tried to warn us as they launched arrows at the men carrying it. We hadn’t understood what they were saying until the first chest came crashing down and squashed one of the sailors trying to hold the ladder in place—so an ambitious volunteer could climb it to reach the big dhow’s deck.

  Dropping the chests stopped our boarding efforts for what seemed like hours. Every time a ladder was raised someone on the deck above us would brave our archer’s arrows and drop something down on the men below or both. Finally, the archer at the top of the mast shouted that the deck was clear—the dhow had either run out of men willing to brave the archer’s arrows or things to drop on us.

  Both of the ladders were hurriedly set up and a long line of anxious archers climbed them and poured on to the deck of our new prize. Things moved quickly after that and the dhow soon joined our prize galley and sailed for Cyprus via Malta with a large number of archers on board to protect it.

  It will be up to Harold and Yoram to decide whether to sell the prizes or take them into our service. Either way, our men will get their prize coins. The men who are on the prizes will get their coins when they reach Cyprus; those who continue on with us will get theirs at the next port we reach.

  If the good weather holds, our next port will probably be Ibiza now that we have stopped calling in at Palma ever since William was attacked in Palma’s market.

  ******

  George and Sergeant Tinker and I spent a good deal of time discussing our prizes and how we took them as we accompanied our prizes to Ibiza. We agreed that it was a damn good thing the dhow didn’t have any infantry shields on board to protect them from our brave archer, the large shields soldiers fighting on land hold above their heads to ward off arrows.

  I asked George to remind me to send a parchment to Harold telling him how difficult it had been to take the dhow.

  “If I know Harold and your father,” I told George, “I suspect each of our transports, even those with a force of archers on board to protect them, will soon have some of the bigger shields on board and big rocks or chests to throw down on galleys trying to take them.” Hmm. Could the ballast rocks be used?

  “Surely, there must be pirates in the waters where big boats like the dhow come from,” said George. I wonder how the pirates take them?

  Chapter Fifteen

  Thomas Learns of William’s travails.

  George and I made a port call at the Moorish port of Ibiza and enjoyed three days of rest in a sleeping room, which a local merchant, one of the merchants who provide our galleys and cogs with foodstuffs, had quickly arranged for us in a taverna near the quay. It was a beautiful place with a garden with large shade trees where we could sit and talk. The food and wine was excellent and we enjoyed meeting the local people who sat at its tables and ate and drank late in the evenings when the temperature cooled.

  Each day we ignored the heat and walked through the city gate to visit the market and talk to the multi-lingual local merchants. Many of whom I already knew from the tavern and my many previous visits. They all said they liked the idea of armed cogs and ships. George was very excited about the response. I was a bit more cynical.

  “Of course, the merchants told us they liked the idea of using armed cogs and ships. We’re good customers because we make so many port calls in Lisbon. They probably would have been equally enthusiastic if we had inquired about their interest in using unarmed cogs and ships.”

  Our sailors and archers, as you might imagine, were pleased with our calling in at Ibiza to replenish our water and supplies. They took advantage of our visit and their prize monies to gorge themselves on wine, good food, and women. All in all, Ibiza was a sailor’s delight and the price of supplies was quite reasonable after a bit of bargaining.

  In general, the merchants in Ibiza’s market were pleased at our custom and did not try to take advantage of us. They knew that if they did we would take our coins to the other ports in this part of the Mediterranean. It helped, of course, that the merchants were inevitably easy to deal with as they spoke many languages including French.

  They all knew our galleys and cogs going back and forth between England and the Holy Land used to make port calls to take on supplies in Palma—and that we stopped calling in at Palma and buying supplies from its merchants after William was attacked and terribly wounded.

  ******

  Whilst we were in Ibiza, George and I worked together to draft a “just in case” parchment to send to William on the next galley or cog of ours which resupplied in Ibiza on its way to Cornwall. We’d do the same when we reach Lisbon. We also sent a parchment off to Cyprus to Harold and William telling them about our three-masted prize and how we took it with the help of an archer strapped to the top of the mast.

  In the “just in case” parchment, I commented on the peacefulness of the local situation despite it having a Moorish ruler, reported once again on our prizes, and added some additional thoughts about our sale of the relics. I wanted William to know as much as possible in case we ran into bad weather or pirates and didn’t make it to Cornwall.

  George and I also decided we needed to begin the process of getting the ambitious and purgatory-fearing princes to buy the priceless relics that went missing from Constantinople “if our searches uncover any of them.” Accordingly, we began drafting parchments for William to sign and send to the Christian princes after they had received the Pope’s generous offer of avoiding purgatory and personal advancement in their lives today. Drafting them helped us pass the time.

  ******

  It was with mixed emotions when we cast off our mooring lines and began to sail for Lisbon and on to Cornwall on our fourth morning in Ibiza. It had been a most enjoyable port call even though some of the men came down with the dripping pox from dipping their dingles in the slaves who were the local public women. To everyone’s astonishment, not one man deserted; probably, of course, because the island was small and Islamic.

  Everything changed when we reached the Lisbon quay. John Heath, our post sergeant in Lisbon, had jumped on to our galley’s deck even before we finished mooring to tell us about William’s shipwreck and capture. All John knew was that William’s galley had been wrecked in a storm whilst it was on its way to Cornwall and that William and the other survivors were being held for ransom in Hastings.

  He knew about the travails of my brother and his men because Peter Sergeant, the lieutenant in command of our forces in Cornwall, had immediately begun preparing for a war of rescue. Peter had, quite rightly, sent out an emergency recall notice ordering all of our galleys and archers back to Cornwall.

  The news and the recall notice turned what was left of our leisurely passage into one of great urgency.

  Gone was any thought of spending a few days resting and enjoying the city’s pleasures. Our men barely had enough time to run to one of the many taverns along the water
front for a bowl of the surprisingly good local wine before our galley finished being resupplied. We immediately rowed out of the harbour with the sail up and every oar double-manned and pulling hard.

  Leaving Lisbon so quickly didn’t seem to bother the men at all. To the contrary, it pleased them; rescuing their fellow archers always took precedence over everything so far as the men of the company were concerned, and rightly so—promising never to abandon a fellow archer was, after all, in the articles of the company on which every one of us had made his mark.

  Besides, the men told each other, fighting to free their fellow archers and sailors from the Hastings portsmen might mean more prize money since each of the portsmen owned at least one galley or cog. Only one man ran despite Lisbon’s obvious charms. We often lost more.

  We had gotten the news about the shipwreck and ransom from John Heath as soon as we tied up at the Lisbon quay. Almost immediately heavily loaded horse carts and porters descended on us and began to hurriedly load water and supplies. John had arranged them.

  There were also a number of strong, young Portuguese fishermen standing by at our local post to join us. They were volunteers willing to come to England with us as additional rowers. John had recruited them so that there could always be two men on each of our galley’s oars and there would always be fresh arms available to spell the rowers when they needed to rest or eat or use the shite nest.

  According to John, he had had many volunteers as soon as he put out the word among the local fishermen. The Portuguese, he told us, seem to always have trouble finding things to keep their young men busy and the fish catches from the waters off Lisbon were down this year. In any event, recruiting additional rowers for our galleys returning to England and arranging for their rapid provisioning were splendid ideas and put John squarely into my good books.

  John also brought us three Portuguese galley slaves who came from England and one who claimed to be either a Scot or a Welshman depending on who he was telling. He’d bought their freedom as our post-sergeants were always to do when they find British or French slaves—if they can’t safely free them by force or persuasion. Killing their owners and overseers to free them is allowed, but only if there is no other way and can be done quietly so no one knows who did it.

  According to John, three of our galleys had already come through Lisbon on their way back to Cornwall, “with their crews rowing hard and spoiling for a fight.”

  It was all he could do, John told us, to keep the handful of archers assigned to guarding our Lisbon post from deserting to join them. Though we all immediately assured each other that an archer leaving his post in order to fight to free his fellow archers might be accused of poor judgment, but never desertion.

  ******

  We rowed night and day and made a very fast passage from Lisbon to Cornwall. Indeed, the entire voyage had gone rather quickly despite our overly long stay in Ibiza. It had only taken us six weeks from the time we cast off the mooring lines on the Tiber until we entered the mouth of the River Fowey.

  George and I were anxious and worried and pacing about on the deck as our galley moved up the Fowey towards Restormel and the riverside camp where the apprentice archers were learnt to push arrows from a longbow and walk together to the beat of a rowing drum.

  “Hoy there, what’s the news of the captain?” I shouted as we rowed up to the little floating wharf lashed to the side of the river in front of our training camp. “Do you know where he is?”

  “He’s up to the castle with his women taking care of him and the men who came back. They’re all doing right nicely is the word.”

  “Was he hurt?” George asked as he vaulted over the deck railing and began running up the footpath along the river. He was away and running before I even had a chance to climb on to the floating wharf, which was now bobbing up and down from George jumping on it.

  “Not much,” the man called after him. “The bastards just starved and beat him and the other lads. Beat some of them to death, didn’t they? But he learnt them good, didn’t he?”

  I breathed a sigh of relief when I heard the news and began trudging up the path to follow George to the castle, all whilst mumbling thank you prayers under my breath and wondering what had really happened.

  Well, I’ll know soon enough.

  ******

  The evening began as one big family reunion with all of William’s children running around and trying to get our attention. We started supping early, long before it got dark. After we finished eating all the wives and children retired to their rooms so we could talk private-like, including Peter’s new wife and George’s very pregnant Beth, who was still clinging to him and weeping with joy when I reached the castle.

  Raymond and his men had started back to Okehampton yesterday after delivering William and the survivors. Raymond hadn’t known that George and I would be arriving today or I’m sure he would have stayed. As a result, only four archers were present for what turned out to be one of the most important councils we ever held—William, George, Peter, and me.

  We had much to talk about and many things to consider. The future of the Company of Archers seemed a bit uncertain and we needed to decide what to do next. It would have been helpful if Yoram and the Company’s other lieutenants and senior sergeants had been there to give us their opinions and help us decide, but they weren’t.

  After the women retired to feed their infants, William led off by walking us through everything that had happened to him after George and I left London to sail to Rome. The details were quite upsetting and reminded me of how Yoram and his men suffered when they were captured by the King of Cyprus. George was visibly upset and angry at his father’s treatment and that of the men who’d been stranded with him.

  “Do you think the King knew the Hastings men were holding you and approved?” he asked his father.

  “Well, William Wrotham showed up and told me about the ransom, didn’t he? So the King must have known. But then again, maybe he sent Wrotham to free us. It’s hard to know? I didn’t have a chance to talk to him.”

  “That bastard,” George said to his father with a great deal of indignation in his voice. “Letting you and the men suffer like that; maybe we should help the barons top the King after all.”

  “Steady, lad, steady; we’re playing the long game here,” I said. I shouldn’t have to tell him this.

  “The Earl of Devon’s our main threat and he’s John’s enemy for sure. We need to get rid of the Earl of Devon first and we damn well need to do it in such a way that we end up with Exeter and the Earl’s holdings. We can settle things with the King and Wrotham afterwards—if they deserve it.”

  “Your Uncle Thomas is right, George,” Peter said. “It sounds bad about the King, yes, it does; but we don’t know enough about the role of the King and William Wrotham to be sure, do we? We need to get our hands on one of the Hastings men and find out what really happened.”

  Then Peter took a sip from his bowl of ale and added something important that had us all nodding in agreement.

  “Besides, we may not yet be strong enough to take on the King and all the barons and knights who might step forward to help him—but we’re getting there and we will be sooner or later—particularly if we kill the Earl of Devon and put a good fear on the men of the Cinque Ports by eliminating the portsmen of Hastings and their boats.”

  We all growled our agreement. The time had come, I thought, to tell William and Peter about the Pope’s interest in acquiring the relics.

  “There is something else, something very important, that might change everything,” I told them. George nodded in agreement as I said it.

  “The Pope has come up with something big, and it doesn’t include King John.”

  With that, George and I told William and Peter about the Pope’s plan for acquiring the Orthodox relics, including John the Baptist’s gold-covered hand and Saint Paul’s silver-covered head, that went missing from Constantinople when the crusaders sacked the city—the relics
we had removed from the Patriarch’s residence and carried to Cornwall. William and Peter were as astonished as George and I had been when we first heard about the Pope’s plan and how much we and Cardinal Bertoli and the Pope might profit from it.

  “Is it possible?” exclaimed William when we finished telling them about it.

  “Yes, it is,” I told William, “particularly since we already have John the Baptist’s missing hand and the rest of the Orthodox relics right here in Cornwall and no one knows we have them.

  “All anyone knows, except us, is what the Pope has told them—that the relics are believed to be hidden by the Orthodox priests at several places in Greece and are actively being sought by good Christians with the help of many prayers.”

  Then I took another sip of wine, wiped my beard which one of my lads had trimmed for me, and told them my plan.

  “I’ve been thinking about it; perhaps there’s a way we can do things a little differently and get more coins for them than we’d fetch with the Pope’s plan.”

  Then I told them my idea and we talked and laughed and planned late into the night.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Thomas’s plan takes shape.

  My ribs stopped being sore and I recovered my strength as I settled back into the routine of life in Restormel. Life with my family was immensely enjoyable and I soon joined Peter in the training of our archer apprentices.

  Similarly, Thomas returned to his students, and George went off to Fowey Village with his pregnant wife’s sister to help put the learning on our archer apprentices as to how to capture galleys and cogs at sea. Thomas put on his bishop’s robe and said the words in the little church in Restormel Village that made it right and proper for George and Becky to know each other. Beth seemed quite pleased and Becky promised to return to help when the baby was ready.

  ******

  My lieutenants and I spent the weeks after Thomas’s and George’s return from Rome talking and arguing about how and when we should follow up on the Pope’s parchments to the princes. The Pope had offered the princes various earthly benefits and an opportunity to avoid purgatory in exchange for the relics we carried out of Constantinople and now have in Restormel. That made the relics priceless and neither the Pope nor the princes nor anyone else knew we had them.

 

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