Castling The King

by Martin Archer

  It was whilst the men were kneeling along the stream drinking water from it that we began unlocking their ankle chains and giving them their fish. The men never said a word even though they appeared to be incredibly grateful and ate ravenously.

  The slaves ate and watched silently as John and one of the new archers moved down the chain using the key to free them. They just stood there with shocked looks on their faces even after they were freed.

  It wasn’t until later we would learn that they had been beaten and starved by the slavers if they spoke so much as a single word.

  Whilst the chained men were being unlocked, two more scarecrows staggered out of the three rough, barnlike hovels where the slaves apparently were quartered when not at their labours. They tried to make their way to us making pitiful cries and holding out their hands as beggars. One of them went down on his knees and fell to the ground. He was struggling to get up so I picked up a handful of fish from one of the bales and walked over to give them to the poor sod and help him to his feet. That’s when I found the full horror of the place.

  I was handing a dried fish to the man on the ground when I looked past him and into the entrance of the barnlike hovel. There was a body on the dirt floor just inside the door.

  “John!” I shouted over my shoulder as I started for the entrance.” You stay there and mind the food and wains. The rest of you get over here and look alert. Swords out. Check out the barns; see if anyone is in them.”

  ******

  What we found and learnt was horrible. There were dead and dying men in every slave barn. Apparently, those who could no longer be made to work were unchained and left to starve to death. I took one look inside the slave barn and shouted to the man who spoke English. I told him to order the men who’d already been released from the long chain to come help us.

  “And you come here and help too,” I called out to the three women who had climbed up onto one of our wains and were busy stuffing themselves with dried fish from one of the sacks we had broken open.

  We carried the starving men out into the sunlight and tried to save them. We used the water skin we’d brought with us and some of the wooden food bowls we found in the slave barns to bring them water whilst we covered them with some of the filthy bedding John found in one of the slave barns and tried to feed them. The dead we left in the slave barns where they lay.

  The slaves were docile and did whatever we told them to do without a word of disagreement or protest. Almost immediately I assigned three of them to bring water and fish to the seven men we’d found in the barns who were alive but too weak to stand.

  More and more of the slaves began to speak as they worked and ate – in English. Suddenly it was as if a weir had broken, and their words came out in a great torrent. They were, to hear them tell it, mostly serfs and churls and even franklins who had been picked up by wandering bands of slave takers. They had been brought to the mine in chains and told by the captain of the slave drivers, the man I had killed, they now belonged to the king.

  English slaves belonging to a king who claims to follow the church which forbids Christians from owning slaves unless they are heretics? Is that possible? I know the church has serfs who can’t leave its lands, but I thought the church was opposed to slaves unless it owned them. Well they’re free now, so the blame is mine if the king gets angry; I hope Uncle Thomas was right when he told us the king is far away and neither knows nor cares about folk such as us.

  ******

  Darkness fell and things became even more hectic as another long chain of men came out of the mine, followed shortly by another. The missing overseers still did not appear.

  We did the best we could. Cooking fires were lit and the food stores we found in the captain’s cottage were passed out along with our dried fish. Soon we were grinding corn and cooking flatbread.

  After a while we settled into a routine. The hungry men lined up in front of the three cooking fires we had going just outside the entrance to one of the slave barns. As each flatbread came off the fire, it was handed to the next man in line, along with a two dried fish. He then took his food and walked back into the slave barn to the end of the line to repeat the process. This continued all night long, by the light of the moon and the cooking fires, until every man had gone through the line at least four times and some many more.

  The men doing the cooking and corn grinding came from the first men we released. They worked quite gladly, and well they should under the circumstances. They sat next to the cooking fires to stay warm and took fresh bread and fish for themselves as they worked and provided food to the others. We never did find the missing slave drivers. They must have scurried from the tunnel under the cover of darkness.

  It’s just as well the slavers ran. The slaves were getting stronger and stronger by the hour, and, if half the stories I’d heard in the past few hours were true, they probably would have torn the slavers to pieces. If they’d been taken alive, my archers and I probably would have chopped the bastards down ourselves.

  We pulled the bodies of the dead men into one of the slave barns and burned it down as we were leaving two days later. The men who still weren’t strong enough to walk were placed in the wains, along with what was left of the food. We couldn’t wait any longer to leave or we wouldn’t have enough food to reach Restormel.

  Chapter Eight

  A new beginning.

  Becky and I were devastated. We had waved enthusiastically when we saw George ride into Penzance with all those wretched men, and he had smiled and waved back most friendly. But then Becky and I and Mum and Da were in the wain, and the bishop’s men were getting ready to start for Restormel without George. He was still just standing there. He’s obviously not coming with us. Why is that? Doesn’t he live at Restormel with his sisters?

  “I thought he was coming with us,” Becky said when I asked her.” Didn’t you?”

  “Well, he’s standing over there talking to those archers,” I said.” Let’s climb down and go ask him.” And so we did even though our mum called out to us to come back because it was time to go.

  “Hello, Sergeant George. Are you not coming to Restormel with us?”

  “Hello yourself, Beth, and you too, Becky. I’m not heading for Restormel yet, I’m sorry to say. Things have changed as they always seem to do. I’m to wait here in Penzance for two or three weeks until a replacement sergeant can be sent to make sure the food is being properly given out and the work is being done proper in return. But I’ll be there sooner or later, and I hope I see you when I arrive. I expect I’ll be seeing a lot of you two, since my uncle just told me you’ll be helping my mums take care of my little sisters. Is that true? I hope it is.”

  “It is, George, it is; or at least we think so. That’s what we’ve been told.” He hopes to see us. Mums? Did he say mums?

  ****** Thomas

  George’s absence was quickly noticed when I returned to Restormel with George’s archers and the surviving slaves. I had some explaining to do to my brother.

  “I had to leave George in Penzance because we need a sergeant there to make sure everything is done proper,” I told William.” I wanted to leave some of the archers with George but I couldn’t, because I needed every one of them to help bring the slaves here.”

  William doesn’t need to know I left George there to be learned more about women and neither do his stepmothers. That will be my secret and Mary’s too.

  “George is fine, William, but what do you think we should tell the king about his mine and the slaves and about George and his men killing some of the slave drivers? Or should we just ignore what we know about the slaves and mines and see what happens?” I was changing the subject, don’t you see?

  “Don’t do anything at the moment, my dear priestly brother,” William said to me.” I think we need to send out more parties of archers to see what’s happening at the other mines before we make any decisions about what to tell the king.”

  I agreed with William and told him
so.

  “You’re right and we should do it soon before it gets any colder. But they’d better not be finding any more slaves or serfs, or there’s going to be big trouble. As you might recall, it was right here at Restormel where I told the tin miners to free their slaves and turn them and their serfs into churls with their own gardens and such.

  “Right here sitting at this table is where I met with the miners,” I said to William as I poked my long finger on the table.” It was right after we took the castle and our galleys were still in Falmouth Harbour. You weren’t here when the miners came because you’d gone off on your horse with George to tell Harold to move our galleys over here to the Fowey.” And on the way you stopped at Bossiney to visit Edmund’s widow and children. That was before FitzCount and his newly arrived Normans came from Launceston and slaughtered them and then tried to murder you.

  ******

  Seven grim-faced, three-stripe sergeants, every man a long-serving veteran, gathered around to get their orders and learn about the experiences of George and his men at Lannwenep. They had seen the sad state of the slaves George’s men and I had brought in, and they were not in a good mood.

  One of our archers had recognized a man who been taken from his home village as a slave, and the word had spread. William and his lieutenants and I pretended not to hear the angry words spoken by our men about the king and their treasonous suggestions as to what should happen to him. It might be acceptable for heathens and foreign soldiers who had been captured to be held as slaves in England, but never Englishmen taken from their own villages by the king or anyone else.

  We had learned from my nephew’s experiences and proceeded accordingly. This time all but one of the sergeants going out to inspect a mine took eighteen archers with him plus a wain full of food and an outrider on a good horse to come back quickly and tell us if he needed more food or reinforcements. The seventh sergeant took thirty men and three wains of food to the big tin refinery and mine at Truro.

  The seven sergeants had listened intently as John Short told them in great detail how George and he and their men had gotten to Lennwenep and what they’d seen and done. The sergeants had nodded appreciatively and growled their approvals when John described how George had stood up to the mine captain and killed him on the spot. They had growled them again when John described how he and Edward had killed the other two and told them how George had organized the freeing and feeding of the slaves.

  Good! It will soon get around about George being willing to stand up and lead his men in a fight. It will make it much easier for the archers to accept the boys as sergeants.

  “George and John did exactly the right thing,” William told the sergeants, “and so did Edward. Our response to finding slaves on our lands will always be the same as if we find them on Moorish galleys—we free them and feed them. The only difference is, instead of killing the slavers outright the way we do pirates by tossing them over the side, those who survive are to be brought back here for judging.”

  There were a lot of questions and rightly so.

  “Yes, Ralph, we’re also freeing the serfs at the mines as well, even if it means fighting. Bring them all with you—and their families too. Tell them they can come here and work for their food and shelter as free men if they have a mind.”

  “Yes, that’s it exactly; you’re only to leave the mine captains and their overseers who haven’t acted as slave drivers and used their men as slaves. Also, you are to leave behind any serfs or churls who do not want to stop working at the mine even after they know they are free.”

  “Yes, you may do as George and John did—kill anyone who tries to stop you from freeing the miners and their families. No man can go wrong if he fights to free them.”

  “Yes, you’re exactly right, Tom. If there is any doubt, you are to bring the overseers you take alive here to Restormel for judging. One reason you’ve all been given more men than George and John is so any slavers you find who’ve tortured and starved their slaves and serfs won’t be able to get away in the confusion.”

  William and I were death on anyone who mistreated their serfs and slaves, just as we were on churchmen who betrayed their believers. It made us think of the way we and our mum were treated when we were lads, and we didn’t like it. What mostly worried us was not knowing what the king and his chancellor and justiciar would say and do when they found out the king’s slaves and serfs had run with our help and his mines were no longer producing.

  ******

  George rode in over the Restormel drawbridge and clattered into the bailey two weeks and two days after I left Penzance with the girls, their parents, and the slaves he’d freed. He came in with the file of Horse Archers I’d sent to Penzance with a horse for him to ride.

  Of course I sent some of Raymond’s men to bring George in. I wanted to make sure he wasn’t attacked by robbers on the road, as is often the fate of single travellers.

  It had been a most interesting two weeks whilst George was still away in Penzance with Mary. One after another our mine inspection sergeants returned. Three of the seven brought in the mine captains and their slave drivers in chains, and every one of the sergeants was accompanied by newly freed serfs and slaves. Several brought in hungry free people as well. Only two of the king’s seven mines and his Truro tin refinery were in operation when they left, and how long the refinery would continue to produce white tin for coins seemed questionable, even if the king’s other mines were somehow restarted.

  Andrew, who was once a cartwright’s apprentice and made his mark on our articles as Andrew Cartwright, was the sergeant who took thirty men and famine food to the Truro mine and refinery. He found only free men at Truro but also a possible solution to what could be a big problem for us. It seemed the captain at Truro didn’t think his refinery would be able to operate much longer, because the shortage of nearby trees for wood to burn meant the charcoal the refinery required to heat the ore was beginning to cost more coins than was being fetched by the resulting tin.

  What Andrew discovered was that the captain at Truro was quite worried about what the king and his chancellor would do to him when they heard there would be no more tin revenues for the king because of the shortage of wood to burn. At the time, neither Andrew nor the captain knew the day of reckoning was even closer to hand because most of the mines that had been supplying him with raw and partially processed ore had just been shut down by the loss of their slaves and serfs.

  I questioned Andrew closely and decided to go to Truro for a visit to see for myself how the refining was done and confirm what Andrew told us. Why? Because with a few coins for the Truro captain, we might be able to blame the king’s loss of his tin revenues on the shortage of wood for charcoal instead of our freeing of the mines’ serfs and slaves and our topping of their drivers.

  ******

  William convened a court of sergeants each time one of our mine inspection parties returned with slavers. The sergeants took it quite seriously, as well they might, since most of them started life as village lads and many had been serfs or slaves at one time or another. They lined up the mine’s English serfs and slaves and questioned them closely as to how they had been treated. A few of the slave drivers were released when their former slaves and serfs spoke well of them. The rest were dragged weeping and begging and promising to change to a gallows the archers erected near the camp.

  My brother doesn’t like men who mistreat slaves and serfs and their families, does he? He kicked the stool out from under them himself and spit on them when he did. It’s no wonder our archers and sailors both adore and fear their captain.

  By the time the sergeants’ courts finished their work Cornwall had, to the best of our knowledge, no serfs or slaves other than those at the monasteries where we had as yet made no real effort to free them. The only exception was here at Launceston’s own St. Stephens Monastery where there were now no slaves or serfs. We didn’t have to do much to get the monks at St. Stephen’s to come to Jesus about their slave
s and serfs. The abbot heard about the fate of the Penzance priest and the slave drivers and serf drivers and quickly freed those at his monastery. We know because five of them promptly walked to Restormel with their families and signed on to work for us.

  ******

  The slaves and serfs we freed from the king’s mines followed the usual pattern for such men – some stayed, some left, and some died. Initially we had just under four hundred former mining slaves and serfs in our camp. It was clear to William and me, however, that many of them would not become strong enough in time to pull an oar in the attack we hope to launch against the French.

  In addition, over one hundred of them left to try to return to their home villages and countries as soon as they regained their strength. We let them go and carried them on our cogs and galleys whenever they were going in the direction they wanted to travel. William even gave the poor sods some fish and a few copper coins to help them on their way. Others of the men we freed, perhaps most of them, had no homes left to which they could return. We let them stay with us as free men in exchange for their labour. Some of them ended up applying to be apprentice archers when they got strong enough.

  Almost every evening as William and I talked about where we might find more rowers and apprentice archers. We even talked about visiting the monasteries to recruit their slaves and serfs “to fight for the king” and tried to guess how many men we’d get. But it was only talk. Each time we decided to wait until we knew how the king reacted to the parchment the Truro captain sent to explaining how the famine had caused the miners to flee from some of the mines in order to search for food, and informing him some of them had enrolled as sailors to help him fight the French and rebel barons.

  What I somehow forgot to mention in the parchment I scribed for the Truro captain to send to the king was how we caused closure of his mines by freeing the men who were being kept as slaves and hanging the slavers who had been mistreating them. It also didn’t mention the coins and employment the king’s Truro captain received for sending the parchment.