Not all the former slaves are leaving. A couple of dozen made their marks to train as archer apprentices and most of them from Britain are still with us because they are going to head towards their homes on the galleys and cogs heading for Newcastle and Blackpool with stops along the way. And, of course, we expect some of the archers and slaves will come back. People die and things change so it’s hard to go home after being away for years.
Thomas and I are good examples of why it’s hard to go home; there’s nothing in the village for us and I’ll be damned and dead before I’ll be a serf or churl for whoever is the local lord these days.
Most of the galleys that will be heading for Cyprus and the Holy Land in a few days will be gone until about this time next year, if not longer. And that’s if they’re lucky and don’t get taken or go down in a storm along the way. While they’re gone we’ll be training up more archers and recruiting experienced pilots and sailor sergeants so we can send out the rest of our galleys next year.
And yes, damn it, we probably should have sent the galleys back to Cyprus as soon as we took them off the Moors and got them to Malta.
It is experienced sea pilots and archers we need most of all and, after them, strong young men we can train to be archers – particularly Englishmen and Welshmen we can trust. Sailors and men at arms are not such a big a problem. If necessary we can recruit them along the way as we’ve done in the past. At least that’s our current plan.
Accordingly, the galleys and cogs going to Newcastle and Blackpool will put recruiting parties ashore at various ports along the way and then pick them and their recruits up on the way back. There is a lot of shipping and sailormen on the Thames below London so all of our ships going north past the Thames will visit its various ports and docks.
In addition to ships’ pilots who’ve made multiple visits to the Holy Land and have extensive experience as the sergeants of sailors, our recruiting parties are particularly looking for experienced archers and likely young men we can apprentice to be archers if they are willing to serve aboard our galleys and cogs.
Also, at Thomas’ request, our recruiting sergeants are to keep an eye out and pass the word to the priests and merchants that we are looking for lively young boys who might be smart enough to learn how to read and write and do sums.
The captains of the cogs and the galleys being used for recruiting and supply purposes and the sergeants in charge of the recruiting parties don’t know it, of course, but they are being tested. Each will be given a fairly goodly sum of silver coins they can use to buy the tents and clothes we need and to hire fishing boats and passages for any additional recruits and supplies they find that they have no room to carry. They’ll also each be taking one of the paste chests to show around on the way out and sell on the way back.
Hopefully they will use the coins well and get results and we can promote them; if not, at least we’ll know they’re not up to bigger things.
Our biggest need of all, however, is not likely to be filled - for dependable fighting men who can also scribe and do sums, and thus are capable of captaining major outposts such as Yoram and Randolph are captaining for us in Cyprus and Alexandria.
The chance of recruiting such men is slim to none. Thomas is probably right when he says we’ll have to find likely young boys and educate and train them from scratch if we are to grow power for George to take over when we’re too old.
Anyhow that’s what Thomas wants to do and that’s why we’re looking for likely young lads who can be schooled and brought along with young George. He thinks he’s already found two such boys in Falmouth.
What we’re hoping, of course, is that in the interim before George and his lads take over we’ll be able to identify sergeants from our refugee hauling and our recruiting and supply buying voyages who can be teamed up with scribes who can read and write.
In the meantime we have decided to send some of the prize galleys with little more than skeleton crews back to Cyprus for Yoram to send on to the Holy Land ports - and keep about six hundred of our current strength in Cornwall. Well, it’s six hundred if we include the hundred and twenty or so men who will be going out in the cogs and recruiting galleys and the apprentice archers we are now training.
Every one of the galleys heading to Cyprus and on to the Holy Land is a prize galley we took out of Tunis; and every captain except one is the original captain of its prize crew. Each will sail with the smallest possible crew of sailors and rowers so it can sail between Cyprus and the Holy Land ports with as many refugees and their coins as its captain can squeeze in.
Except for the one man who was removed for gross incompetence, the captains will be the prize captains who got their galleys to England. They were all given the opportunity to keep their commands and they all chose to do so - and in virtually every case are astonished to find themselves elevated above the status in which they expected to spend their entire lives. Thomas and I know the feeling.
The prize captains were selected before we visited Tunis from the men already serving with us. They got their ships all the way to England so we’re giving them a chance to keep them.
Where we’ve made some changes are in the galleys’ pilots and the sergeants of their sailors and fighting men. There seem to be some good sailor men, including a number of ship owners and masters among the slaves we freed when we took the heathen galleys. Some of the best of them will soon be on their way to Cyprus and the Holy Land; others we’re keeping with us to crew the galleys which we are temporarily pulling ashore.
Each of our six sergeant heading for the Holy Land as galley captains is authorized to maintain his crew by signing up replacement archers, men at arms if they need additional rowers, and sailors in the ports they visit along the way. But they are not to recruit more men than they need for replacements - except for experienced archers, particularly longbow men, who are to be recruited whenever they are found. It was repeated over and over again in the “make believe talking” sessions that the galley captains are to keep their crews small so as to allow for largest possible numbers of coin paying refugees.
The “make believe talking” is Thomas’ idea and it absolutely amazes the men; they, like me, had never heard of such a thing. But they took to it with surprising enthusiasm and all claim to have learned a lot. I certainly did whilst I was helping Harold and Thomas learn them what to do.
A big part of our problem is keeping the sergeants honest when there are so many coins involved. That’s why all the passengers the galleys pick up in the Holy Land ports will be delivered to Cyprus and interviewed on the Cyprus docks when they arrive.
As you might imagine, the big question every passenger will be asked privately is how much he actually paid. And it better be what each of our sergeant captains turns over to Yoram – the passengers will be interviewed and checked off when they arrive and corrupt sergeant captains and any of their sergeants and crew men involved will be killed or discharged on the dock.
At least, that’s what we told the captains and their sergeants and that’s what appears in the instruction parchments the galleys are carrying to Yoram and Randolph. They better believe it – for Randolph and Yoram have indeed been ordered to kill them if they hold out on us.
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I’m wearing the gown and miter I took off the bishop I killed in Latika and I’m off to find Lord Edmund’s widow and give her the sad news. William is going to stay behind in Falmouth with Helen and George. While I’m gone he and Henry will organize our men for the winter since it looks like we’ll be staying here - and that means training them for land warfare using horse bowmen in the Saracen style and the new Swiss-style pikes our smiths made for us before we left Cyprus. William and Harold, our master sergeant in charge of our ships in British waters, are also going to begin a week or more of training and role playing for our ships’ captains and their sergeants.
About a dozen of our steadiest archers and men at arms are accompanying me with three of the four horses we bought in Fa
lmouth carrying our tents and supplies and me riding the fourth.
The men are walking so we make slow time. It takes three days over the rough and meandering track before Edmund’s castle comes into view. There is no hurry and after all those weeks at sea it is rather relaxing to walk along the track and watch the local serfs and churls bringing in the harvest. No one bothers us though we certainly draw a number of curious looks and friendly waves from the men and women working in the fields.
We bought all the available horses and carts and wagons we could find in Falmouth. So now we have a grand total of four horses and nine wagons. The local merchants all say there will be more horses available when the harvest is in and the monthly fair comes to town in a couple of weeks. I certainly hope so. The four we have are not all that useful. Plow horses rarely are. And that puts paid to William’s idea of forming a cavalry of horse archers of the type we saw the Saracens use; it will have to wait until we get more horses and some of the archers can be learned to ride.
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My first impression as it comes into view is that Trematon Castle isn’t a very useful castle. Both its keep and the courtyard inside its curtain wall are rather small. Trematon may be a castle but it certainly doesn’t look very strong. It has no moat, just a drawbridge over a small pond in front of the castle gate, and no outer bailey, not even a dirt ring fence to keep in the livestock. Even more worrisome, its curtain wall is very low. I wonder why it’s so low?
The nearby village where the castle’s serfs and churls live is as poor as the castle - no more than a couple dozen or so wooden shacks with a little church and an alehouse. Not one of the shacks has a chimney. They’re all like the one William and I grew up in until the Abbot took a shine to my arse and carried me off to learn and pray.
Our new acquired fortified farm house near the Limasol city walls looks to be much stronger despite having neither a moat nor a drawbridge.
Our approach to Trematon Castle causes some anxiety and the drawbridge over the small pond in front of the gate begins to be hauled up as we approach. But then I order the men to move back and lead my horse slowly forward by myself while I wave my cross at the faces that begin appearing at the arrow slits.
“Who are you and what do you want?” comes the hail.
“I’m the Bishop of Bekka with news from the Holy Land about Lord Edmund.”
A few minutes later the drawbridge creaks noisily as it is slowly lowered - and then it drops back to the ground with a crash and a splash of the mud it lands in. A few seconds later the big wooden gate in the castle’s curtain wall opens and an elderly man comes out wearing an old fashioned Saxon helmet and carrying a spear. He watches impassively as I lead my horse over the bridge and into the enclosure beyond the curtain wall.
The drawbridge over the pond slowly rises behind me and the gate closes with a slam as soon as I enter the courtyard. There is a loud thump as the spear carrying guard and another man drop a big wooden cross bar into place to seal the gate. In the background I can hear the creaking as the drawbridge is slowly cranked back up.
An anxious looking woman comes out of the low door of the castle’s keep with a couple of young girls clinging to her arms. She watches impassively as I dismount and hand the reins to a rheumy eyed old man who walks up and holds his hand out for them without saying a word.
The look on my face is all the woman needs to see – she bursts into tears and clutches the girls to her.
“He’s dead isn’t he?”
“Yes, God rest his soul, he is. I’m truly sorry to have to tell you that Lord Edmund is dead. A big rock was catapulted over the wall and hit him in the head. He never felt a thing.”
Actually that’s a lie. He took an arrow in the shoulder and the rot set in. It took two weeks and at the end William did the right thing and gave him a soldier’s mercy on the night what was left of our company climbed over the south wall and ran.
I watch without saying a word as the girls begin sobbing and clinging to their mother while she tries to pull herself together and console them. Finally she turns her attention back to me and, with her arms still around the weeping girls, uses a nod of her head and a sad smile to motion me to enter. Six or seven men and women stand about in the yard and watch with increasingly sad faces as I duck my head and enter. They instinctively understand the sorrowful news I’m bearing.
“I’ve feared this day ever since the damn fool left,” she tells me. “He had to go, you know. The new Earl levied a huge tax and demanded that Edmund either pay it or join Richard on his crusade so the Earl wouldn’t have to go. And, of course, he couldn’t pay it so off he goes with Richard.”
I give her twenty gold bezant coins the next morning after I conduct a prayer service for Edmund in the village church. I lie with a great deal of sincerity in my voice and say Lord Edmund entrusted the bezants to me to give to her in the event he fell. I think she knows I’m telling a lie but she thanks me profusely - and tells me the bezants are greatly appreciated because they will help her continue to live in the castle for a while longer.
“After that,” she says that evening with a great sigh after the girls have gone off to their bed, “I don’t know what we’ll do.”
I stay for five days and we talk and talk and talk. Edmund’s lady, her name is Dorothy and she’s the daughter of a knight with a manor in Derbyshire, wants to know everything about Edmund and the Holy Land - and the fate of the men who accompanied him and the archers who joined him. It’s quite a tale and it takes some time to tell.
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Lady Dorothy and I are in the castle’s little “great hall” just finishing a meal of bread and onion soup on the fifth day of my visit when one of her villeins comes rushing in to report that a group of men are approaching on horseback.
I don’t know why, perhaps I have a premonition, but I go to the door and tell the men who are waiting for me in the castle yard to go back to the stables behind the keep and stay out of sight – “but arm yourselves and be ready to fight if I call.” Then I go back into the keep and reseat myself at the wooden table in the castle’s very small great hall.
Someone in our camp must have spread news of Edmund’s death for it is the Earl’s brother with four of his men who enter the hall as I am finishing my soup. His name is Ralph, Sir Ralph, and he’s a smelly bearded fellow. He’s not very respectful of priests and bishops either.
“I see you already know about your husband,” he sneers at Lady Dorothy when he sees me sitting at the table. “Well that makes it easier. I’ve came to tell you about your husband and help you move.”
“Move? Why should I move? This is Edmund’s home and my children and I are Edmund’s heirs.”
“You’ll move because the Earl wants you out. You haven’t paid the King’s taxes for two years and now he needs them more than ever. In case you haven’t heard, King Richard is captured and a ransom has to be raised, a big ransom.” Richard is alive? I’ll be damned.
“Now go up the stairs and get your things together. And don’t take anything that belongs to Edmund. We’re keeping it to apply against your taxes.” And with that he grabs her by the arm and thrusts her towards the stairs.
The man who had brought us the news about the riders and greeted them at the gate has come in behind Sir Ralph and his men. I don’t know his name but he is standing against the wall listening to the conversation when I motion him over and whisper an order into his ear:
“Go out back to the stables and tell my men to come around and wait by the door - and to be ready to charge in if there’s a fight.”
Then I inject myself into the conversation.
“I’m sorry Sir Knight, but King Richard’s law is quite clear. Widows of loyal nobles who fall on a crusade are to retain their lands and keeps without payment of taxes for their lifetimes.”
It’s all ox shit, of course. I’m making it up.
“What’s that you say? And who the fuck are you?”
“I am Thomas, Bishop of Bek
ka and Lady Dorothy’s confessor. And until he left the Holy Land I had the honor to be the confessor of our dear King Richard.”
More ox shit. I never talked to the murdering bastard.
“I don’t care who you are, she is leaving.” And with that he takes Lady Dorothy by the arm and starts to pull her towards the stone stairs leading to the room above the hall.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” I say with a snarl that is not at all appropriate for a man of the cloth, “At least not until I give you your last rites. If you touch Lady Dorothy again you’ll surely never leave this place alive. Best you open the door and take a look out front before you do something really stupid.”
It is one of Sir Ralph’s men who opens the great hall’s door – and jumps back in fright.
Seeing a dozen swords and iron tipped arrows pointed at your chest will do that for you every time. Particularly when the men holding them look like the ferocious villains they are - which is how most escaped galley slaves and soldiers newly home from the wars tend to look.
“Who are those men? What’s going on here?” Sir Ralph demands angrily as he turns and looks at me.
“They are some of Lord Edmund’s retainers newly returned from fighting in the crusades.”
That’s a lie too. But why not - in for a copper, in for a gold.
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As soon as the Earl’s brother departs mumbling his threats I send one of my men on a horse to carry a message to William describing the situation and telling him I intend to stay at the castle for a while longer in case Sir Ralph returns. I also suggest that William change the men’s training to emphasize fighting on land and be prepared to march on Trematon on a moment’s notice. I will, I inform my brother, send messengers if we need assistance.
And then, as a precaution and without telling Lady Dorothy, I send three of my men and our horses to camp on the little hill that rises about two miles away. They are to act as lookouts. If any armed men appear one is to ride for the castle to warn us; the other two for William. I also made sure the castle’s water barrel and little cistern are filled and quietly assign positions to my men. I do not mention my precautions to Edmund’s poor lady. She is already distraught enough as it is.
The Archer's Castle: Exciting medieval novel and historical fiction about an English archer, knights templar, and the crusades during the middle ages in England in feudal times before Thomas Cromwell Page 2