We promptly sent more than enough coins to the king for the required transfer fee. He accepted them and signed the parchment deed Thomas prepared, which granted the ownership of Okehampton and its lands to me and my heirs as a permanent freehold. That was important; it meant my heirs would inherit without having to pay any transfer fees.
The contract for Oakhampton was the same as the parchment contract on which John made his mark when he was Richard’s regent and we bought the rights to Cornwall’s manors as freeholds after we killed the old earl when he tried to take Bossiney from Edmund’s widow. We used the same type of contract to get Launceston and the manors of Henry FitzCount after he slaughtered Edmund’s widow and attacked us in an effort to get his poxy hands on all of Cornwall.
Courtenay didn’t get far on his crusade, and he never did get his hands on Cornwall or his dingle between Isabel’s legs. We dumped the murdering bastard’s body in a ditch and pissed on it. On the other hand, we actually did help those few of his lordly friends and their retainers who survived attacking us get to the Holy Land, even though Courtenay couldn’t go with them. We chained them to the rowing benches of one of our galleys bound for Acre and sold them to the Saracens.
Presently, as was also provided for in the parchments on which Courtenay made his mark before he departed, Okehampton is the home of Isabel of Gloucester who was once betrothed to the king when he was landless. According to all the parchments Thomas drafted and had properly witnessed and recorded in the local parish, my priestly brother conducted the ceremony marrying Courtenay and Isabel at the same time Courtenay sold his castle and its lands to me.
That the marriage and the sale of Oakhampton may have happened after Courtenay stopped breathing is not likely to become a problem. After all, no one knows for sure whose bodies were thrown in the ditch. Moreover, many witnesses made their marks on the parchment documents and, in so doing, clearly proved everything was done and recorded most proper before Courtenay sailed away to be a crusader.
Courtenay did a good deed and probably saved Isabel’s life by marrying her. Until Thomas conducted their wedding and recorded it in the Okehampton parish church, she was in real danger from the king because of their earlier betrothal which raised religious questions about the validity of his current marriage. It also was a problem because whoever married her after John died might have a claim to the throne if she was proclaimed to be his lawful wife and queen after his death.
Now Isabel is no longer a threat to the king. She’s married to someone else, so the ambitious men of her family and the rebellious barons can never claim she is the king’s widow and force her into the bed of whomever they want to be the new king. Isabel’s situation is simple: if she ever finds someone she wants to marry, she’ll receive a parchment from the Holy Land sadly informing her that she has become a widow. Then she’ll be free to marry. Fortuitously, Thomas already drafted the parchment with its sad message and she has it in her hope chest.
In any event, Isabel’s problems are all in the past thanks to the parish records which show Courtenay married her before he departed to help recapture Jerusalem for the church. Today, Okehampton Castle is where Isabel lives and where we base Raymond and the company of Horse Archers he sergeants.
Raymond is one of the original archers and a senior sergeant in the company with five stripes on his Egyptian gown and his tunic. His Horse Archers are the men who protect the approaches to Cornwall and its roads and cart paths. The best riders among them are the outriders who ride over our lands and roads looking for outlaws and robbers and watching for potential invaders.
******
It was a galloper from Raymond who reached us late on an autumn afternoon with news of a large party of barons and their retainers on the Roman road who had come past Okehampton and gone south to Rougemont and Exeter.
The galloper came immediately, so we knew about the meeting of the barons even before it started. Unfortunately, it was more than a week after the meeting ended when an Exeter merchant told the captain of one of our galleys all about it—and gave him the names of the barons who went with Devon to France to offer the English crown to Phillip.
We were fortunate to find out why the barons were meeting. We only found out about it because the merchant’s daughter and her husband worked as servants at Rougemont Castle and mentioned it to her father when he commented he’d just been down at the quay and seen the Earl and some of his men and noble friends sail off for France.
Luckily for us, and all thanks to God, one of our company’s galleys coming from London stopped in Exeter on its way to Fowey, and the sergeant captaining the galley was smart enough to know the importance of the story he’d been told by the merchant. In recognizing its importance, he marked himself as a mindful man with promise.
Wasn’t it amazing that great lords who think they are smart enough to replace the king would think they can talk freely in front of their serfs and servants because they don’t have ears and minds of their own?
Unfortunately, by the time our galley rowed up the Fowey and its sergeant captain reported the news, it was much too late to intercept the Earl of Devon and the three barons who accompanied him to France.
Had we received the news soon enough, we almost certainly would have dispatched all of our available galleys in an effort to intercept them and discover how well nobles and their men can swim when they’re wearing their armour. We could not do that, so I did the next best thing—I sent both a galley and galloper with parchments to King John containing the names of the barons who were at the meeting and those who went with the earl to Paris to offer his throne to Phillip of France.
Another thing I did, in the hope that the three barons travelling with Devon might return from France along the same route, was to send a galloper to Raymond at Okehampton telling him to try to capture and hold any nobles or their retainers coming up the old Roman road from Exeter. I told him to notify me immediately so I could ride over and question them, though I knew in my heart I was almost certainly closing the barn door long after the oxen had gotten out.
In any event, two days later the weather was good, and I rode for Okehampton with Henry and Peter and a strong company of archers, every man a veteran without an apprentice among them. Thomas and Harold rode with us so we talk together about how, and particularly where, we would fight the French and the barons if they come.
Harold came with us even though he doesn’t know much about fighting on land. His expertise is that of a sailor and fighting at sea, which is exactly why I required him to come with us. He’s going to have an important role in what I have in mind for fighting the French.
Harold is my lieutenant in charge of sea operations, just as Henry is my lieutenant in charge of land operations. They were galley slaves together on one of the galleys we bought off a poxed captain with the bishop’s coins. My other lieutenants are Peter, who is my assistant, Yoram, who is permanently on Cyprus, and my priestly brother Thomas.
I wanted everyone to see Oakhampton because it will likely play an important role if, or perhaps I should say when, we fight the Earl of Devon. Besides, I hadn’t been to Okehampton since I “bought” the fief from the king after we killed Lord Courtenay when he and his friends attacked us on the road.
In any event, I was long overdue for a visit and it gave me a chance to ride my fine new horse, the one I took off the Algerian horse transport when we cut it out of the Algerian fleet last year. He’s a beauty and no half way about it. He runs faster than the wind blows, even though I’m not much of a rider and have to use a saddle with stirrups and hang on for dear life.
******
Our march to Okehampton was leisurely, and we were warm enough in the autumn sun so long as we kept moving and wore our coats and kept our hoods up. Everyone enjoyed the trip except Harold. It was the first time he’d ever been on a horse and his arse got sore. Within an hour or so of leaving Restormel, he’d switched to riding in the horse cart carrying our food and the bladed pikes and extra arr
ows we always carry with us whenever we travel. It brought us great merriment when he swore mighty oaths never to mount a horse again and bemoaned the fate of honest sailors who make their marks to join an archer company.
“They’re best for eating, not for riding,” he assured us with a great grimace, “and I’ve blisters on me arse to prove it.”
We practiced with our longbows all along the way. I rode my splendid stallion and also spent a lot of time practicing the bringing of my wrist knives out from under my clothes in the blink of an eye. There were still some uneaten cattle and sheep in the fields, but the corn had failed for the second straight year.
Henry and peter had watched me practice drawing my knives many times but never asked me about them. Perhaps it didn’t seem appropriate to question me, as I outranked them as their captain. For some reason, I suddenly felt called to explain how I’d come to have them and how I’d used them in the past. They were surprised to learn that Thomas had given the knives to me and taught me how to use them as a young lad.
It was right after Thomas came out of the monastery to rescue me from being a serf when our mum died and took me off crusading with Richard’s company of archers. He said I needed to know how to use them in case someone tried to do bad things to me. Strangely enough, I don’t know how or why Thomas learned to use them; one of the monks at the monastery taught him, I think. I asked once, but my brother only smiled and waved away my question.
Henry and Peter knew all about my use of my hidden wrist knives at Launceston and had heard about me using them in France in front of the king and William Marshal, the commander of his army, but neither had heard the story of how Thomas and I had used them to kill the murdering bishop who tried to avoid paying us the coins we’d earned fighting for Lord Edmund. They also hadn’t heard the details as to how Thomas had used his knives on the crusaders and churchmen who tried to stop him from delivering the Pope’s letter to the crusaders two years ago.
For some reason, I told my lieutenants almost everything except why Thomas taught me to use them in the first place. Thomas listened intently and barely said a word as I told the story to my fascinated men. But somehow I could sense he was pleased to have his accomplishments recognized and so obviously respected.
My lieutenants have always treated Thomas and whatever he says with a great deal of respect, even though he’s a priest and now a bishop bought fair and square—as they rightly should have done, since he was one of the original archers and my initial lieutenant in the early days, long before any of them had even joined us.
We talked as we rode and then talked more as we sat around the campfire eating and drinking at night. My lieutenants’ great respect for Thomas increased even more as they heard of what he’d done in the early days before they joined us and of his willingness and ability to fight. I could sense it and so, I’m sure, could Thomas.
By the time we reached Okehampton, we had the beginnings of a plan to fight the French and the rebellious nobles who want to replace King John.
Chapter Three
William
Okehampton is a splendid castle and quite defensible, with a high curtain wall and a moat around it. The October sun was still well up in the sky and warming us as we rode over the drawbridge and clattered into the castle’s bailey. The archers marched in behind us carrying their longbows and long bladed pikes and were quite impressive as they marched in unison to the beat of a marching drum in the cool crisp air.
Raymond and Wanda, his beautiful wife from the land beyond the great desert, were waiting with smiles and barrels of new ale for everyone. Also waiting for us was Lady Isabel with her lady’s maid hovering in the background. I smiled and nodded to Isabel’s maidservant, receiving a curtsy and modest nod of acknowledgement in return. I well remember being more than a little surprised and taken aback at how ever-present and watchful she was when Isabel and I first met and whilst we got to know each other.
Everyone at Okehampton took care not to stare at my face except when they thought I wouldn’t see them sneaking a look.
It’s not a problem; I’m getting used to it, I really am.
One of the first things we did after enjoying the welcoming food and drink, as we always do, was carefully inspect the castle with particular attention to its fortifications and siege supplies and, of course, its various gates and doors and all the ways someone might get in. They were all more important than ever in these days of famine and rebellious barons and a possible invasion by the French, particularly since we were known to be supporters of the king and the nearby Earl of Devon was the king’s implacable enemy and wants our lands.
Raymond’s men were busy with their training and patrols most of the time. Even so, they’d started the construction of a second wall and towers around the first to enclose a much larger outer bailey. The work had sped up recently, using the local men and women who had brought their families to Okehampton to receive distributions of the famine food in exchange for their labour.
Isabel, who was overseeing the food distribution both here and in the manor’s two other villages, reported there were already over three hundred new people living outside Okehampton’s walls, in addition to the servants and farmers in the castle’s home village. One of them even opened an alehouse, and the village now has two smiths. There was talk, she said, about one of the new arrivals intentions to build a mill on the stream bringing water to the castle and its moat.
We tried the alehouse’s ale that evening when we supped. It wasn’t all that good. It’s God’s pity Alan Brewer isn’t here from Cyprus to teach the alewife how to brew it or show her how to add juniper berries to her brew.
Despite the availability of Raymond’s Horse Archers, the new workers, and all the effort, the work of expanding the castle’s fortifications was not going fast enough for a number of reasons—an unfortunate circumstance given the very real possibility that sooner or later we’d be at war with the Earl of Devon. In fact, the initial timber and earthen portions of the new outer wall and its towers were nowhere near complete, and the big stones which would cover them had not yet been mined from the old ruin about seven leagues to the north.
One reason for the slowdown was the fact that the tall trees we needed for the new wall and its towers were located some distance away. Also, we were short of the woodcutters and work horses needed to bring in the long tree trunks needed to frame the wall. Fortunately, the castle was already quite formidable without the additions still under construction.
But is it formidable enough to withstand an attack or a long siege by the French and barons, or should we withdraw to the west if they come? Launceston and Restormel are much more intimidating.
******
We gathered in Okehampton’s great hall in the evening to eat and drink and finalize our plans. Isabel lit three candles so we could see and had the food served and a barrel of new ale put out. Then she sent the two serving girls home to the village, and she and Wanda retired to eat together in their rooms upstairs.
I had explained to the women why the servants had to be sent home. We did not want our plans leaked by the castle’s servants the way Devon and the barons leaked theirs.
Raymond joined us for the eating and the long planning session which followed and rightly so, as he’s one of our most experienced, five-stripe, senior sergeants and his Horse Archers will be in the thick of the fighting. Raymond is one of the original archers and his men are archers and know how to fight on cogs and galleys as well as on land and horseback. It’s a good thing they do, because the first fighting is going to be against the French invasion fleet.
“Yes, you heard correctly,” I told my men.” We are not going to wait for the Phillip’s army to reach England and join up with the barons after the spring planting is finished. We’re going to go after the French transports whilst they are still assembling to carry his knights and men-at-arms and mercenaries to England.
“Our objective is to get to the French fleet before the French troops come
on board, because they’ll be most vulnerable and easiest to take or destroy when there are no fighting men aboard them to resist us. Hopefully we’ll take or destroy so many of the transports that the French king will change his mind and decide not to lead his army to England after all.”
After a pause I added a caution.” Phillip’s deciding not to come is unlikely if he accepts the nobles’ offer, but we can always hope.”
The archers and sailors we take to attack the French shipping will want to take them as prizes rather than destroy them. It’s part of what we do for our coins, isn’t it? The other part being the carrying of refugees and pilgrims and money orders and such from port to port.
“Despite whatever damage we might initially do to the French fleet, the possibility of conquering England with substantial support from the English barons is probably too good of an opportunity for Phillip of France to ignore. Realistically we’re unlikely to be able to stop the French king from coming across the channel and trying to take England, even if our initial attack on his shipping is successful. There are just too many French ports from which he can sail and too many places on the English coast where he can put his men ashore and be welcomed by the local barons. We can’t watch them all, even if we deploy all our galleys.
“The most we can do is weaken Phillip’s force and delay its arrival by taking a lot of prizes we can use or sell and then doing our best to stay out of the way whilst the kings and the barons fight it out. Best of all, we tell each other with much drunken laughter late in the evening, we’ll take all of Phillip’s transports, and he’ll buy back the ones we don’t want to keep for ourselves so we can take them again.
“Hopefully, if the French do come despite our attacks on their fleet, they’ll land somewhere far away where they will do Cornwall no harm, such as in East Sussex where William of Normandy landed years ago and seized England.”
Castling The King Page 2