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It’s a dismal day and the cobblestones are slick in the thick smoky fog as our apothecary walks us to an inn and I buy a share of two rooms – one for me and one for my men. I’m hungry and I’ve got time so I order some chops and ale from the inn keeper and settle in to wait. I’m ravenous and thirsty after so much barfing at sea.
But then I get to worrying. Somehow I don’t trust the apothecary. He asked too many questions. So after I finish eating and pissing I hire a coach and send one of my men to tell William the cog’s sergeant captain to beware of armed robbers and anchor away from the dock. “And don’t let your men go ashore except two or three at a time in the dinghy.”
In the morning I wake up scratching after a nice sleep and a lot of bug bites in a bed I share with a couple of Yorkshire merchants. Everything is okay until I stand up and bang my head on the low ceiling beam. And then a delegation from the apothecaries’ guild shows up and tries to negotiate a lower price while I’m still feeling poorly from last night’s ale.
I’m sorry, I explain over my shoulder to the anxious apothecaries as I piss in the alley next to the inn. “Lord William authorized me to sell the cargo for two hundred silver coins per chest. I cannot sell for a single pence less.”
They grudgingly agree – and then a second problem arises. They don’t trust me any more than I trust them. We’re both afraid of being cheated or robbed.
You’d think they’d believe a bishop, wouldn’t you? But they don’t – probably had too many dealings with them don’t you know.
Finally we agree on how to proceed - the guild members will come to the dock on horse carts and then come aboard one at a time with their coins. When each man leaves with his chests the next man will come aboard. I accept because it sounds safe and I think they really want to buy the chests.
We meet on the dock the next morning. A long line of horse carts arrives with apothecaries and their coins just as our cog is tying up to the dock with our chests of paste.
The exchange process takes several hours and turns out to have more value than just the coins we receive - it gives me a chance to talk with the apothecaries who are waiting for their turn to buy chests. They are a learned group and they have useful information about their upper class customers and the king’s tax collectors - very useful information indeed.
It seems both the absent Richard and Prince John are operating kingly courts and each is claiming precedence over the other in terms of receiving the kingdom’s revenues. Richard’s court is run by the man who is his chancellor and supposed to be ruling in his absence, William Longchamp. Longchamp and his men are trying to raise money to pay Richard’s ransom. John and his men, on the other hand, are trying to prevent Longchamp from ransoming Richard so they can continue in power.
It’s hard to believe but one of the apothecaries told me the opportunity to enrich one’s self as the chancellor of the realm is such that Longchamp paid three thousand pounds for the right to be Richard’s chancellor and represent his interests while he’s away on his crusade.
Who is really in control of the kingdom is all quite confusing and no one is more confused than the head of the apothecaries’ guild. He doesn’t know what to do. Last week the guild received a demand for the immediate payment of five years of taxes from Chancellor Longchamp to help fund Richard’s ransom – and then it received a visit a few days later from a keeper of Prince John’s wardrobe warning them not to pay it because Richard is dead and the money belongs to Prince John who wants it paid directly to him. A keeper of his wardrobe?
“What pray tell is a Keeper of his wardrobe?”
What the guild master tells me is quite interesting. Apparently a king’s wardrobe is where he stashes his tax collections and the rents from his lands. It lets him fund his wars and diplomatic initiatives without having to go to Parliament and ask for permission or new taxes. The men who gather up the taxes and rents and guard the wardrobe where they are stored are the “keepers of the Wardrobe.” Being a keeper is a very lucrative position as you might imagine because so much treasure and coins pass through your hands.
What I also learn is that John and the keepers of his wardrobe are embroiled in a great argument with Richard’s Chancellor. It seems Prince John’s wardrobe keepers are constantly taking the taxes and revenues that are being collected. The Chancellor is not happy – he says they belong to the king and should be going into the king’s wardrobe, the one he controls.
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The exchange of money for our flower paste goes well. And any thought the apothecaries might have entertained about sending thieves to seize the chests evaporates when the cog returns to the dock and they see all of our armed men on its deck.
It takes more than an hour but we finally finish and the coins are safely stowed away in the cog’s hold. Then I hail a horse cart for a ride through London’s smoky and foul smelling streets to Prince John’s court. It is in one of the towers surrounding London.
When I get there I piss once again against the side of the building, give the lice on my balls a good scratch, and then spend almost an hour talking to the Head Keeper of Prince John’s “wardrobe.” He is mightily impressed that Lord William supports Prince John and prevented one of Richard’s supporters from stealing a poor widow’s castle so he could sell it to raise ransom money. He is even more impressed when I explain the financial benefits to himself and Prince John if William keeps the castle and replaces the late Earl.
How do I get in to see him? All it takes is pushing my way through the crowd of petitioners at the door and slipping a pouch of silver and copper coins (mostly coppers with a couple of silvers on top) to one of John’s minor “wardrobe keepers” who is keeping them out. He bows me in.
I did what I did because the apothecaries told me that Prince John’s “wardrobe” is like that of Richard’s and our previous kings. It contains his clothes, armor, and treasures. He keeps everything separate so it is not under the control of Parliament but rather under the control of the “keepers” of his wardrobe.
He keeps his coins in a wardrobe. Isn’t that something? I’d never heard of such a thing.
Initially the Head Keeper of John’s wardrobe, his name is Sir Wilfrid Blunt and his teeth must be rotting his breath is so foul, is quite suspicious. He calms down a bit when I explain that Richard’s supporter, the late Earl of Cornwall tried to evict Lord Edmund’s widow so he could sell the manor to raise money for Richard’s ransom - and that Lord William is a supporter of Prince John’s and killed the treasonous Earl to save the woman and help prevent the ransom.
The damn fool; if he hadn’t been so belligerent we might have bought Trematon ourselves instead of killing him.
Sir Wilfrid likes my explanation but he is still suspicious. Why, he wants to know, is Lord William so opposed to Richard and so in favor of Prince John?
Well, of course, I can’t tell him that we never had a chance to buy Trematon or we probably would have done, can I? Instead I explain about surrender of Acre. Richard killing heathen Saracens doesn’t bother Lord William one whit I assure Sir Wilfrid; Richard breaking his word and slaughtering the Saracens after he promises he will let them go if they surrender bothers Lord William considerably.
“Because it will make it harder for us to win back Jerusalem if the Saracens feel they cannot safely surrender to honorable gentlemen such as your good self and Lord William.”
At that point Sir Wilfrid begins giving me a sales pitch like some of the horse traders in the Damascus market - telling me that King Richard is probably dead and that it is the French who are promoting the so-called ransom so Prince John won’t have money to pay mercenaries to fight them. And other ox shit things like that.
I, of course, assure Sir Wilfrid that he is exactly right and those are exactly the reasons why Lord William greatly supports Prince John’s efforts to remain in control of the English throne.
“Prince John has to remain in control of England, you know, so he can raise money
to fight the horrible French to regain the lands Richard abandoned.” Of course Sir Wilfrid knows that. He just told it to me himself a few seconds ago.
Then I assure Sir Wilfrid that Lord William and his men would be most certainly be honored to join John’s army and follow him against Richard’s supporters and to France in a heartbeat – except unfortunately they can’t because William’s fighting men are what some are now calling Marines or naval infantry, men who are trained to fight on both land and on ships - and they are already all off to the Holy Land to fight the Saracens and save the Christian refugees Richard abandoned.
Only Lord William’s new apprentice archers, I explain, are ever here in England and they’ll be leaving for the Holy Land as soon as they finish getting ready. Unless, of course, we need them here as we certainly do.
“Indeed it is to help Prince John and the refugees that I have come to you, Sir Wilfrid.”
Then I go on to explain that Lord William is in possession of Restormel Castle in distant Cornwall and needs to keep it so as to have a place to train his Marines before they take ship to the Holy Land. Having such a castle for training purposes and using it to help maintain Prince John in control of England are so important that Lord William and the refugees would deem it an honor to contribute everything they have to Prince John, and cover your expenses as well, of course.
“All it requires,” I assure Sir Wilfrid, “is that Restormel permanently remain in William’s hands as its earl. Say fifty pounds for the castle and five for your trouble?”
Sir Wilfrid’s eyes light up and we begin to negotiate in a manner befitting the gentleman he is. We quickly spit on our hands and shake for fifty pounds of silver for Prince John and eight for Sir Wilfrid.
“I need eight,” Sir Wilfrid explains to me, for “the priests who will join me in praying for Earl William’s success.”
It’s all agreed. And because it is for such a good cause - he’ll drop everything and have the documents ready first thing in the morning so his men can accompany me to Southampton to get the coins.
And because Sir Anthony is a great gentleman, and didn’t become one by being slow to seize an opportunity, the first thing I do is send one of my men rushing back to Southampton in a hired carriage to make sure the cog is anchored away from the dock and the men remain on high alert.
Sir Wilfrid’s willingness to quickly sell Restormel and the earldom to William is explained by what I learn the next afternoon from a talkative old law reader in the alehouse where I am passing the time waiting for the return of the Papal Legate.
It seems the father of the late Earl’s wife is wasting no time in marrying her off again. He has found the poor widow a new husband, Henry FitzCount of Launceston Castle – and he is in London on the same mission as mine. Worse, goddamnit, he has been similarly successful by going to King Richard’s chancellor, William Longchamp.
I don’t have time to find out what FitzCount offered Longchamp and it really doesn’t matter. The reality is that there are now two people claiming to be the Earl of Cornwall – and we’ve got Restormel and Trematon and he has Launceston.
Oh shite. William will be pissed. Now we’ll either have to kill the bastard or leave more men in Cornwall.
Although I’d dearly like to stay I don’t have time to find out more from the talkative law man. So I buy the good man another round and take myself off to visit the papal legate to discuss the importance of having a bishop in Cornwall who understands the importance of collecting money for him to send to the Pope.
Maybe my new friend still be here when I return; I certainly hope so. He’s a purse full of news and information.
The papal legate is a seedy young Italian fellow with greedy eyes and a command of Latin even worse than mine. He listens to my tale with growing interest. And he quickly agrees with my lament that the bishop currently responsible for Cornwall is far away in Exeter and never visits. The result, I strongly suggest, is that the church is leaving a lot of Cornish coins uncollected that should be going to Rome.
At least that’s my story and I stick quite firmly to it – in addition, of course, to offering a bit of a prepayment to help cover the good man’s expenses.
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While Thomas is gone we begin seriously training both our archers and our apprentices as to how to fight on foot with pikes. It is something we need to do - the Earl could have scattered us and won if he had come in behind us and attacked with a small group of either armored knights and men at arms on horseback or a highly organized group of men fighting the way Thomas says the Romans used to fight.
Indeed that’s what we are trying to teach our men, to fight as a group instead of individually; so they support each other and such like. What’s really difficult is teaching the men to march in step so they can stay close together and we can move them around in close packed groups the way Thomas says the Romans did. It’s slow going because they’re just as likely to start out on one foot as the other.
We spend hours every day practicing and I think they’re starting to get it. Some of the archers are becoming very good shots even when they are walking in step with their fellows.
A letter arrives from Yoram on Cyprus while I’m waiting for Thomas to return. It comes not on one of our ships but on a Bristol cog from Cyprus carrying spices and refugees.
Its captain refuses to deliver it until Harold hands him the one hundred silver coins Yoram promised we will hand to him when he does. It’s a high price but Harold pays it - and then gets to worrying that he might have done the wrong thing. So he sends it by galloper and offers to come himself in case he needs to explain his decision to pay so much.
Harold doesn’t have to come. He’s made a good decision and I immediately send back the galloper with a message thanking him for making it. And when I send it back I send it with questions – what does it mean that the letter came during the storm season? Is that when the pirates are in harbor so it’s safe for ships to sail? And, oh by the way, would he please ask around and find out when exactly is the storm season around Algiers?
What I don’t ask might be the most important question of all - why aren’t we earning these coins carrying messages instead of paying them?
Yoram’s letter is an encouraging letter. He reports that the six galleys we sent back to him all arrived safely and that they and our other galleys have already made a number of trips carrying refugees from the Holy Land ports to Cyprus.
His bad news is that poor Athol finally died and there are now so many refugees camping and working about our fort on Limasol that he doesn’t know what to do with them all. The second curtain wall is almost finished and unless he hears otherwise he’s going to start a third to keep the men busy.
His other bad news is even worse - one of the galleys we left with him has either been sunk in a storm or been taken by pirates. He suspects the latter but doesn’t know.
That’s worrisome because pirates rarely attack war galleys since they usually carry only fighting men.
Yoram reports the galley we left in Acre under Simon, Angelo and young Andy is doing quite well. But he’s worried about Randolph even though he’d heard indirectly from our men at Acre Randolph has been making profitable day trips. Apparently he is using his galley to move refugees up the coast whenever one of Yoram’s galleys is in port and can cover its absence.
He says he’s worried about Randolph because he hasn’t heard from him for a while and because the refugees report the Moslem priests are telling their people that God wants them to kill everybody who isn’t a good Moslem - the way the crusaders sometimes kill non-Christians when they come across them.
Chapter Seven
Trouble and Thomas return to Restormel on the same cold winter day. Thomas is no more than tucking into a good meal and telling me and George his news when a galloper arrives from Trematon. They are besieged by a large force and desperately need help.
Two minutes later and the men are jumping into their formations and horses are being s
addled in response to a beating drum and atrocious bleats on some kind of metal horn we bought off a Falmouth merchant. Unfortunately no one knows how to blow the damn thing.
And yes we now have horses. Fourteen of them - some bought at the Falmouth fair; some from the peasants after the crops are in. Most them are barely usable.
“Thomas, you stay here with George and the boys. I’m going to leave you all of the apprentice archers in the training company and all the local men. Some of the new archers have become quite good and they’re all highly motivated. It will give you a strong force in case this is a ruse to draw us away. I’m taking Henry with me as my second and Robert will stay as your chosen man. Don’t take any chances. Bring in the men and livestock from the villages as well and keep the drawbridges up at all times.”
With that I send off our gallopers to scout ahead and we begin a forced march towards Trematon.
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We arrive in the middle of the morning and we’re too late. The castle is fallen. We know as soon as we come in sight and see the gates open and all the men loitering around it. I’m on horseback with the gallopers around me.
“Form your squares. Form your squares.” I shout over my shoulder. And a few seconds later begin to hear the order repeated by the sergeant captains of each of our five companies.
It only takes a few minutes before we are five companies of men marching forward in step to the cadence of the big drum each company carries. It’s an impressive sight. Let’s hope it works.
As we march forward we can see men beginning to pour out of Trematon in response to our arrival. Some of them are carrying things – the spoils of war it would seem. Some are mounted but most are not.
We are marching forward and I can see the men on horseback around Trematon chivvying the men on foot into a large group. Then three of them gallop over the field towards us.
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 7