What we both agree is that we should try to take Launceston before it’s time for our galleys to sail for the Holy Land in the spring; what we don’t discuss is what we’ll do if we don’t take Launceston before it’s time for the galleys to sail.
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Two days later our men our men have finished burying the dead and we start for Launceston. Well, almost all of us do. Sir Percy gallops in from Falmouth to take over Trematon and we leave a couple of dozen dependable men with him.
Sir Percy is more than a little pleased with his new appointment.
“I’m honored and the wife will be pleased, won’t she? Finally got herself a proper castle to fuss over, doesn’t she?”
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It takes almost a week to get to Launceston - because we have to stop at Restormel to get the tents and supplies and weapons we’ll need for a winter campaign.
When we finally get to Launceston we find the castle’s drawbridges up and its battlements manned. So they probably already know we’re coming for them. Some of FitzCount’s survivors must have reached them before we arrive and begin our siege.
No way I’m going to throw our men away attempting an attack on Launceston Castle. It’s too strong. We’ll have to encircle it and starve the bastards out with a siege.
Two weeks cold and boring weeks later and a surprise messenger arrives – my brother Thomas and he is accompanied by Bishop Pierre of the diocese of Cornwall and Devon. And Thomas quickly takes me aside and tells me that the Bishop may not know that he’s been to London to see the Papal Legate about splitting off Cornwall as a separate diocese with Thomas as its bishop.
The Bishop’s story unfolds in front of the fire in Launceston Village’s only alehouse. He’d heard about the Earl’s intention to attack Trematon and was on his way there in an effort to try to stop the attack.
With a great sigh of lament the good man explains that his mule went lame and he has painful bunions and corns so he only gets as far as Restormel before he learns he is too late. It’s at Restormel where he first hears about me bringing my men to Launceston. That, he says, explains why he is come here with Bishop Thomas - to once again offer his services as an honest broker in the cause of peace.
It is a heartwarming story except for the not so minor fact that while the good Bishop is telling his tale to me Thomas is standing behind him shaking his head negatively.
What Bishop Pierre proposes is that he approach Sir Henry and his betrothed in the castle and see if he can work out some kind of compensation of land and money for the blood has been spilled and the wrong I’ve been done by Sir Henry. “And, of course, something for Lady Dorothy’s family as well.”
“It sounds like a wonderful idea and a good man you are for being willing to make the effort,” I respond to him as I see Thomas emphatically nodding his head behind him that I should agree.
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“He’s lying through his teeth” are Thomas’ first words as soon as we are alone. “They must have gotten word to him somehow. How else would he know FitzCount and the viper are here? What I learned from the Papal Nuncio when we talked about Cornwall’s worthies is that he is FitzCount’s cousin. What I don’t think he knows is that we are brothers; he thinks I’m an unemployed bishop teaching children for my food and a place to lay my head.”
That afternoon the good Bishop Pierre of Cornwall and Devon walks up to the drawbridge, and into the castle after it is lowered and then quickly raised behind him.
“Praise God,” the Bishop of Cornwall and Devon shouts to us as he comes back over the drawbridge beaming several hours later. He has good news. FitzCount is willing to make amends with a considerable, a very considerable, amount of money and land so that “bygones will be bygones.”
I didn’t even know he had that much.
Moreover, the good bishop has taken it upon himself to arrange a meeting between FitzCount and me to finalize matters and make our marks on an agreement and arrange the payments. If I agree we’ll meet in the tiny Launceston religious chapel where pilgrims stop to pray on the road to Devon. It’s the tiny wood and stone building near the dirt track that runs along the edge of the village to the castle.
To enhance and guarantee everyone’s safety, and to insure the Church will accept and bless the agreement, each of us will be accompanied by only a bishop – he and Thomas. And, oh yes, I will, of course, have to temporarily pull my men back out of the village so Sir Henry feels safe to walk down the track and enter the pilgrims’ chapel.
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Henry FitzCount’s offer of coins and land in exchange for peace is incredibly generous. As a result, Thomas and I and the good bishop of Devon and Cornwall eagerly await FitzCount’s arrival the next morning.
We are not disappointed. After Thomas and the Bishop walk through the village to make sure it is empty, Fitzcount walks briskly over the drawbridge and waits while the two bishops use the door to the priest’s dressing room to go into the little chapel to make sure it is also empty. It is.
FitzCount and Bishop Pierre enter first as we had previously agreed. Then Thomas and I follow them into a tiny little room where the priest has barely enough space to turn around while he puts on his robes.
By the light of the holes high on the walls that pass as windows we can see FitzCount and the good Bishop standing on the dirt floor of the chapel. It’s a tiny little thing with its little wooden altar against the wall and space for four or five people to pray.
FitzCount and his cousin motion us to shut the door to the priest’s dressing room and come in. We do. What FitzCount is offering in compensation is so great that we have decided to accept it and kill him later – except that we fully expect some kind of trickery and betrayal. We just don’t know what it will be.
We soon find out. I am reading the agreement and nodding my agreement to its generous terms when the door to the little dressing room opens – the door I shut behind me a few minutes ago, and three men crowd into the little chapel carrying the long broad swords favored by French knights. They are not in armor and have mud and dirt on their jerkins.
Where the hell did they come from?
The Earl snickers and says “You’re both under arrest” as his men reach out to take each of us by the arm. They are confident and holding swords at their sides and we are unarmed and outnumbered.
“Are you sure you’re doing the right thing” I ask rather benignly.
“Oh yes. Restormel is mine and Edmund’s castle too.” And then with a bit of arrogance and a big smile he adds “and your heads are mine too.”
“And you Bishop. Do you agree about that?”
“Yes I do. God wills it.”
“We’ve heard those words before, haven’t we Thomas?”
“Yes we have. Indeed we have.” Thomas agrees sadly. Then he looks at me in the faintly lit little room and does what I expect; he blinks a heavy blink with both eyes and we both silently count to three as we’ve practiced so many times in the past.
Then both our hands came out from under our baggy tunics with the knives each of us has strapped to his wrists. Thomas gets his man very cleanly but I’m a split second late and partially miss the man holding on to my right arm – he jerks back instinctively as he raises his sword and tries to bring it around so I only succeed in slicing him across his cheek and across his eye.
My man screams and reaches for his eye instead of swinging his sword around and coming at me with it. Bad mistake. I get him in the throat with a thrust from the knife in my other hand and finish it by shoving my first knife high into his stomach and push downward. He looks at me in stunned surprise as he staggers backwards a half step to the wall and slowly begins to slide down it as I push him down. Thomas is already cutting into the third when I lean over slice into his throat with the knife in my other hand to help finish him off.
It’s over in the blink of an eye and the Earl and the Bishop are as surprised and unprepared as their men who are still choking and kicking on the floor.
“I wish we had more time to talk,” I say with a snarl over the bishop’s high pitched squeals. “I’d like to know more about why you think God wills stealing from widows and murdering innocent children.”
Then Thomas just stands there while I use my other knife to do the wide-eyed would-be Earl despite his pleas and screams. He knocks over the stub of a candle on the little altar and scrambles away backwards and gets almost to the door to the Priest’s little dressing room before I reach him – and cut off his balls and dingus so he’ll bleed to death. It takes him quite a while and he sobs and screams all the way.
“Where the hell did they come from?”
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Thomas and I explore the tiny priest’s dressing room while Henry is finishing his dying. Finally we find it – the wall with the pegs to hold the priest’s vestments swings out. There is narrow tunnel behind it with a candle still burning in a ship’s lantern.
“I’ll go get some men,” Thomas says.
“Best you go out the front door and keep the chapel between you and the castle so they can’t see you from the walls,” I suggest.
Twenty minutes later three brave volunteers, or ambitious men seeking the recognition they’ll get, are silently leading us very slowly down the narrow tunnel. I’m the fourth one in the line. Thomas and twenty or more of our men are behind me.
The tunnel is some kind of mine shaft and it is damp and cold and oppressive.
We are walking and stumbling along very slowly and cautiously in the dark. Each man’s hand is holding tightly on to the hooded coat of the man in front of him and his other hand is inevitably holding a sword or bow and touching the ceiling so as to not knock his head.
Our man in front is carrying a candle lamp. Everyone else is shuffling along in the pitch black dark and periodically scrapping the side of the tunnel and either skinning his knuckles or banging his head. Everyone instinctively knows not to say a word.
It’s a slow journey and seems to go downhill. Then it changes and goes mostly uphill with a stone step or two every so often that inevitably stubs the toes of each of us. It ends at a wooden door.
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Our lamp carrier stops. As I look around the men standing ahead of me I can vaguely see the outline of a wooden door. I hold both my breath and my sword as he pulls and it creaks as it opens a crack. After a long wait we start forward again. Now we’re in a widened passageway, almost a cavern, and walking up a slope past what look like old mining tools and large rocks that have been pushed aside. We almost immediately reach another wooden door.
Once again our lamp carrier slowly cracks it open and peers inside. With the door squeaking loud enough to wake the dead he pushes it open and enters and once again our line begins moving.
I can smell the urine before I even get to the door. I’ve smelled cat piss like this many times before and I know exactly what we are entering – it’s a store room for the castle’s food and it’s got cats in it to keep away the mice and rats. The cats piss and shit on the floor below the barrel and sacks of food and that’s what I smell.
Our lamp carrier stops and holds it high. What we can dimly see in the flickering light is a cavern filled with sacks of grain and tubs and barrels of what must be butter and cheese. There are big piles of turnips and onions stacked on wooden planks. Everything is sitting on logs to keep them off the ground and allow the castle’s cats to get at any hungry mice and rats. There are even deer carcasses hanging from hooks in the wall. We’re in the castle’s larder.
“Keep holding it up” I order the lamp carrier in a whisper as more and more men slowly shuffle into the room. Everyone is extremely tense and excited including me.
“Go forward and help guard the entrance. Don’t let anyone in. Be silent.”
That’s the message I whisper into a number of ears as I push the men past the lamp carrier towards the entrance at the other end of the cavernous room. I’ve got an idea.
I begin whispering new orders when all the men are finally out of the tunnel and into the storeroom.
“Pick up a sack of grain and carry it down the tunnel to the pilgrim’s prayer house. Stack it up inside. Wait there. Don’t go outside and show yourself. Piss or shite in there if you have to go.”
For what seems like forever our men carry food out of the castle. Periodically I stop the carrying so the men in the little prayer house can return through the narrow tunnel to get another load. Some of the men start stuffing onions and turnips into empty sacks.
Then it happens. Someone in the castle comes to get food from the storeroom. The door opens, and a terrified woman screams and drops her candle. There are more shouts behind her. And then, goddamnit, the draft of air through the open door causes our candle to flicker and go out. Everyone starts talking at once.
“Silence goddamnit. Silence.” .… “No talking. Defend the door. Don’t let anyone in,” I shout in the darkness to the guards at the storeroom entrance. “We’re going to keep carrying the food out. Get the damn meat off the hooks if you can’t find any more grain sacks or cheeses to carry.”
“And get that candle she dropped.”
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An unknown number of Launceston’s defenders rush to the scene – and then back away. No one likes fighting in the dark. It’s a standoff we are winning because we are continuing to remove the food.
Finally a voice calls in French. “Who are you?”
“Henry FitzCount and his bishop have run away and now your food is gone,” I answer. “Save yourselves and Lady Isabel. Sortie from the gate and we will not block your way.”
Of course not – since you’re a totally dishonorable French knight our archers will stand to one side and shoot you down as you go past.
“How do we know we can trust you, Monsieur?”
“You cannot. But in about an hour you’ll be able to see from the ramparts that we have pulled back from the entrance and there are boats at the river crossing. And you can leave the castle servants without losing your honor - Lord William will retain them in their positions if they pledge their liege to him.”
Not that you care about honor or have any left to lose.
Our standoff continues for over an hour until what is left of the food is on its way down the tunnel. There is now no need to fight our way into the castle and lose men. So we follow the last of the food as it goes into the tunnel.
I am pulling everyone back because I want the knights to come in and see that their food is gone – and I want to organize the archers to give the knights the warm welcome they deserve when they sortie, as they most certainly will if we got all of their food.
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Within an hour our archers are off to the side of the castle gate in five deep formations in their companies with the pikemen in the first two ranks as usual. We wait all the rest of the day and early evening – and nothing happens. Could they have escaped through another tunnel? It’s possible. What we’ve learned from the villagers is that the whole area is honeycombed with mines and tunnels.
We finally dismiss the men long after the sun goes down and the night gets colder. We are billeting them in the low ceiling hovels that comprise the village homes and they are sleeping with their clothes on and weapons at hand.
Thomas and I are exhausted and asleep in the smoke filled hovel nearest the little pilgrim’s chapel where we killed Henry FitzCount and his men. The chapel has guards in the tunnel. It is not being used as a shelter because it is stuffed to its low ceiling with bags and barrels of foodstuffs from the castle.
The villager and his family are sleeping shoulder to shoulder with almost two dozen or more of our men. It is so crowded most of have to
sleep sitting up. But the heat of our bodies warms the place and we are content.
Dawn is still two hours away when both of the castle’s gates suddenly open and Launceston Castle’s two drawbridges begin to come down almost simultaneously. Visibility barely exists because of the cloud cover and waning moon. It is, I must admit, the best time for a sortie and I should have seen it coming.
Our men pour out of the village when the sortie begins and the alarm sounds. Most are not even close to their company’s position when the mounted French knights begin pouring out of the castle and over the drawbridges.
Some of our men reach their places and begin closing up to provide compact formations as we have so often practiced. Most of our men, however, are not ready. They are either lost in the dark or are still coming because they have further to run.
Thomas and I dash out the door and arrive at the nearest company just as the horses ridden by the first French knights begin clattering across the second drawbridge. A quick thinking sergeant is already bellowing out orders to the archers and pikemen. And impressing me by making decisions. I must remember to get his name.
“Launch at the near drawbridge and keep shooting. Launch at the drawbridge and keep shooting. Shoot… Shoot. Godamnit… Up pikes… Up pikes. Pike men crouch down.” Are they coming to fight?
Within seconds it is clear that the knights and their men on foot are trying to escape from Launceston rather than coming to fight us. Thomas and I and everyone around us are launching arrows as fast as we can shoot. We can hear the clattering hoofs and see vague outlines of the horsemen but we can’t see specific targets. It’s too dark.
“Do you think it will work?” my priestly brother gasps as he grabs another arrow from his big quiver and shoots again.
“Can’t tell. We’ll know soon.” I gasp back as I launch one right behind his. It was a hard run to get here and we’re both still out of breath.
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 9