Harold and George were aboard the cog because I’d sent a galloper to Fowey Village explaining the need for fast action and asking Harold to drop everything and get the next supply cog up the river as soon as possible. He and George were on the cog to make sure it got safely up the river; I was waiting at the river wharf to make sure the cog’s cargo of food supplies was quickly loaded on the waiting horse wagons and they were immediately sent off to Okehampton.
We were in a hurry and rightly so. We needed to get the food supplies from the cog to Okehampton Castle, move the local population out of harm’s way, and raise the castle’s drawbridge before Sir Thomas Brereton and his force of knights and soldiers arrived to “help” us fight the barons and the French.
We will almost certainly be able to get Raymond’s men and the women out of the castle and the archers from Launceston inside to replace them, even if it means a fight, but I’m not at all sure the food supplies will reach Okehampton before Brereton arrives. It’s going to be difficult, but we’ve got to try. Without more food, anyone who attacks Oakhampton is likely to take it.
******
I was standing on the riverbank with Peter and Harold and their sergeant assistants because I couldn’t stay away; I wanted to see how they were responding to the order I’d sent them. What I saw as I dismounted my horse and joined them was reassuring—a long line of horse drawn wains being loaded on the cart path that runs along the river past the wharf. Bustling and shouting archers and sailors had formed a line and were passing the sacks of food and weapons from man to man, all the way from the galley and across the bobbing wharf and on to the line of men who are loading the wains and carts.
Everything appeared chaotic, but if you looked closely you could see it was highly organized.
“Where’s the sergeant in charge of the supply train?” shouted Peter as I stepped back to avoid being knocked aside by a sailor carrying a great armful of bladed pikes. They were being loaded in the wagons for the archers to use if the wagons are attacked.
A grimacing, white-faced four-striper hurried up to Peter and knuckled his forehead to salute. Sweat was pouring off him, and he was holding his right side. It was instantly apparent that he was in a great deal of pain.
“My God, Anthony. What happened to you? Are you all right?” Peter asked.
“I’m fine, Peter. Just a little twitch in my side, that’s all. It started yesterday and won’t stop. I’ll get through it.”
“Little twitch, my arse. You’ve got a big hurt, and I can see you do.”
Damn! If Anthony’s hurt is where he’s touching with his right hand, he’s probably either got a rip from lifting something heavy or one of those really painful inside hurts that can kill a man.
******
I watched as Peter sent off the agonized sergeant to see if the barber could do anything for him. Then things went from bad to worse; there were no senior sergeants immediately available to take his place. They’d all gone with their companies to the training camps we’d set up around Fowey Village. Worse, the men left behind to labour on the wharf and drive the wains and horse carts were new archers who had recently been apprentices. Only a handful of the older chosen men had been left to sergeant them.
“Those wagons have got to go this minute, even if I have to ride with them and sergeant them myself,” I said to Peter and Harold.” We’re running out of time.”
“I’ll take them, Father,” my son George volunteered. Peter, Harold, and I turned and looked at him in surprise.” I’m rested and ready to go, and I know how to deliver supplies.”
Harold turned and looked at me and then shrugged; so did Peter.
Chapter Thirteen
George
My father stared at me thoughtfully for what seemed like a long time. Finally he nodded and said, “Well, he’s young and green and the only sergeant we have available under the circumstances. He’s read the parchments and heard us talking, so at least he knows what needs to be done and why.”
I ran to the front of the column and slapped the nearside horse in the rump to get it moving forward on the muddy cart path. When I got past the wain at the front of the line, I stood there pumping my arm to encourage the drivers to move faster. After the last wain came past, I ran back and sheepishly asked my father if I could borrow his horse.
******
Our wains moved right along all afternoon and into the night under the moonlight. We continued all the next day and all the next night except for a few hours yesterday and then again last night to rest the horses. There were two men on each wain so they could take turns driving the two-horse teams. We made good time because we drove the horses hard with only the briefest of stops for corn and water.
Periodically, the column stopped when wheels broke or the wains got stuck for some reason or another. But the column never stopped for long—we either quickly fixed the problem or we pulled the broken wain aside and a swarm of archers off-loaded its supplies on to the empty wains travelling at the end of the column.
We started with five empty wains, and four of them were in use by noon of the third day when we reached Launceston ford and began to move across the River Tamar and into Devon. The wains they replaced were left empty and abandoned along the side of the road. We’ll come back and fetch them on our way back home.
Everything changed a few miles before we reached the Launceston ford when we met the first of several outriders coming west on the road from Okehampton. From them we learnt Raymond and the women from the castle and the Horse Archers and local villagers were now safely across the Tamar and have reached Launceston. They will rest there and then go on to Restormel as soon as our convoy passes and the road is clear. The outrider also told us a large force of knights led by a king’s man by the name of Sir Thomas Brereton had reached Okehampton and was camped in front of the castle’s raised drawbridge—and was desperately in need of food.
A few minutes later, our own outrider galloped in to report a large force of men coming towards us on the cart path from Launceston. It was Raymond and his Horse Archers, more than a hundred of them. They were coming to give us the same warning about possible trouble ahead with Brereton and escort us to Okehampton.
Raymond’s force turned out to be every man he had available. The rest of his men were busy moving the local livestock and the mares and stallions of our horse farm further west beyond Bossiney.
Even though I knew the approaching riders were almost certainly Raymond and our Horse Archers, I dismounted my men and had them quickly hobble the cart horses and form up seven men deep in the battle formation we use to fight mounted knights and their men-at-arms. It’s good practice for us and out here one never knows for sure.
“Hello, Uncle Raymond. It’s good to see you again.”
All of the original archers are my uncles and have been since they helped my father and Uncle Thomas carry me over the wall of Lord Edmund’s castle and bring me to England along with the coins and galleys they picked up along the way.
“Hello yourself, young George. How are you, lad? I got the parchment about a wagon train of siege supplies being on its way to Okehampton, but I didn’t know you’d be leading them. We’ve come to escort you. There’s trouble ahead, isn’t there? The damn king sent an army to stop the barons from reaching Rougemont. Doesn’t trust us to do the job, does he? He’s a damn fool, that’s what he is. Sent them into a famine without food, didn’t he?”
I got the wains moving again, and then Uncle Raymond and I talked as we rode together. We hadn’t seen much of each other for years, and we hadn’t had a chance to talk at all at my father’s big dinner at Restormel.
Raymond told me the archers from Launceston arrived in time for all his men to leave before the king’s men appeared. He also said almost all the Okehampton villagers and those who’d come there to labour for famine food had walked to Launceston so they could keep eating.
That the local people and those who came in to work for famine food are no longer at Okehampt
on is important, yes it is. It means twenty of the wains—those with famine food destined for the Okehampton villagers and the people coming in to them because of the famine—will now go to Launceston because that’s where the people are. Only thirty-eight wains will go on to Okehampton carrying the corn and dried fish for the castle’s siege reserves. It should be enough for a garrison of fifty archers to hold out for more than a year, maybe even two if they eat the horses.
******
We moved the thirty eight wains over the Tamar ford above Launceston behind a great screen of Raymond’s Horse Archers without even slowing down. I was at the ford watching the last three wains lurch and splash their way across the river to join the column on the other side when I saw the Horse Archers in the screen coming back fast and quickly dismount into defensive positions at the head of the column. Almost immediately, their horse holders began galloping the horses across the ford to the Launceston side of the river. It didn’t look like a practice to me, and from the looks on the men’s faces as they galloped past us, they didn’t think it was either.
My response was to put my horse into a great splashing gallop across the ford, shouting for my men to dismount from their wagons, hobble their horses, and form up in battle formation on the left.
It was the best I could do in response to what Raymond told me I was to do if it looked like there might be a fight. Between us we had almost two hundred heavily armed archers. Unfortunately, my seventy-six were mostly newly promoted archers who were apprentices until a few weeks ago. Good men all, but green as grass like me.
I stayed on my horse and called out my orders as the archers jumped down from the wains, grabbed their bows and pikes, and formed up in the seven men deep fighting formation we use against knights. They quickly began laying out their weapons. My men were side by side on the left of the column in an eleven man front. I didn’t divide them and put some in the rear of the column, because there was no place for them to stand except in the water.
Uncle Raymond came trotting up on his splendid black Arabian gelding as my men finished getting into position. He was sitting erect and alert, every inch a battle captain.
“There’s a big force of riders coming this way on the Okehampton road, Sergeant George,” he said to me quite formally.” There are at least a hundred of them, maybe more. My outriders say they look like knights and their men-at-arms. It’s probably Brereton and his men. Come with me.”
We rode side by side until we got out in front a good ways past the hastily placed range markers of our strongest archers. Then we stopped on the cart path and waited. A few minutes later one of Raymond’s outriders, a chosen man wearing two stripes, came pounding down the road on a lathered horse and pulled up to report.
“Knights ahead, Lieutenant. I counted about a hundred of the bastards all together. Maybe half are knights wearing armour, and they’ve all got helmets and either hauberks or cuirasses. I’m not sure they know we’re here. They’re riding real easy and have their helmets off.”
“Good man, Ralphie. Stay here with us and let your horse cool down and rest a bit. This here is Sergeant George. We came out of Syria together in rags years ago, and we’ve been with the archers ever since.” Then he added with a smile, “We were both a lot younger then, eh George?”
Ralphie and I smiled at each other and lifted our hands to acknowledge the introduction. What I saw was a slender man with full, brown beard and two stripes on the Egyptian gown he wore under his hooded winter cloak.
“Ahh. Yes, here they come,” Raymond said to no one in particular.
In the distance we could see movement through the leafless trees to our right front. They were on the road, not coming at us in battle formation.
******
About two minutes later the first of the riders came around the curve in the path and into full view. When the leaders saw us they pulled up their horses and looked at us. After a short wait, they put on their helmets and began slowly and cautiously walking their horses towards us as more and more riders came into view behind them.
Ralphie had been right; there were at least one hundred of them. From the looks of them and how they rode, they’re almost all knights and fighting men. From this distance I couldn’t tell for sure, but it didn’t seem to me that any of them were carrying bows.
Raymond raised his open hand in greeting, put a big smile on his face, and slowly walked his horse towards them.
“Come with me,” Raymond ordered.” Smile and act friendly, but be prepared to turn and run for it.”
We walked our horses forward, and so did the men coming towards us. The distance between us closed rapidly and they kept coming. When we got to within about two hundred paces, Raymond turned his horse around, and we headed back in the other direction towards our men to maintain the distance between us and the approaching army. I was anxious and kept looking back over my shoulder.
“Always keep enough distance so you can get away clean without getting hit by a short push from your own men,” Raymond muttered to me. I started to unsling my bow, but Raymond hissed at me to stop.” Act friendly, damn it.”
Turning around and walking our horses to maintain a safe distance from the on-coming riders had the desired effect. One of the men at the front of the horsemen raised his hand and the main body of riders behind him halted. Three riders rode forward towards the three of us. All were helmeted knights with their visors up, and all had some form of a bear’s head painted on their shields. Their swords were not drawn, and none of the three were carrying bows. The leader’s hand was raised in a somewhat dismissive and insolent gesture of peaceful greeting as they trotted up to us.
At least it struck me as being dismissive and insolent as Ralphie and I followed Raymond’s lead and turned our horses back to face them as a friendly group of men would do.
“Who are you and why are you here?” Raymond asked in a deep, strong voice before anyone else could speak.
“I’m Sir Thomas Brereton and we’re king’s men. Who are you?”
“We’re part of the Earl of Cornwall’s army, and this is our road between Launceston and Okehampton. Are you travelling in peace? Do you need someone to guide you?”
“What we need is food. Do you have any?”
“We’ve barely enough for ourselves. There’s a famine fallen on the land, as I’m sure you know,” Raymond replied with a sad smile and a pleasant sound to his voice.
“What have you in the wains?” was the knight’s response. He asked with a tone of arrogant demand in his voice as he made a gesture of his hand towards the line of wains behind the archers.
“Supplies for Okehampton,” Raymond replied.
Uncle Raymond was trying not to provoke them. I probably would have said “that’s no concern of yours” and been rather arrogant about it. On the other hand, Raymond was an experienced negotiator and I was not. It was very interesting; I was fascinated.
“We’ll see about that,” the knight said. He gestured for the man on his right to ride forward and look.
“Hold!” Raymond raised his hand in a signal for the rider to stop.” Those men down there in front of the wains are archers, and they are under orders to launch on anyone who comes within their range. There’s no need for your man to die for nothing, is there?”
Raymond continued after a brief pause.
“Well then, Sir knight, you say you and your men are supporters of the king; well, so is the Earl of Cornwall. The king will not be pleased if his supporters fight each other instead of the French and the rebel barons, will he?”
Sir Thomas’s reply was more than a little curt and arrogant.
“He will want you to feed your betters; that’s what will please the king. We’re taking the food in those wains.” And with that the knight wheeled his horse around and began to ride back to his men.
“Wait,” said Raymond.” There’s no need for us to fight, Sir Thomas. Let’s all be reasonable and try to find a solution. These are hard times for everyone.”
The knight wheeled his horse around and came back a few steps to listen.
“I’ll tell you what, Sir Thomas. You send your men forward one at a time, and we’ll give each of them enough corn and dried fish to get to Ilchester where William Marshal is reported to be camped. He’s received a shipment of food I’m told.”
“No. I’ll tell you what, you insolent cur. I’ll give your men two minutes to get their personal belongings out of the wains and be gone. Then I’m going to take them and what’s in them for the king.”
******
Raymond started to say something, but then he shrugged, kicked his horse in the ribs, and led us back to our men at a canter.
“Well, I tried, didn’t I?” he shouted over his shoulder to me as we trotted back to our men
“Give your reins to Ralphie,” Raymond ordered me as he dismounted and shouted “Skinny Bill, get over here. I’ve got a job for you and your lads.”
Then he turned to Ralphie.
“Ralphie, get you down to the horse holders and tell them to bring the riding horses back across the ford. Only the riding horses of Bill and his men, mind you, not his supply horses. Tell John to have the other horse holders stay where they are and stand firm.”
Ralphie knuckled his forehead in a salute and galloped off leading our horses. Less than a minute later an extremely plump and very short beardless archer without a hair on his head came jogging up with an expectant look on his face and short of breath. He had the three stripes of a sergeant on his tunic and one of the reddest faces I’ve ever seen. Skinny he was not, but somehow the nickname seemed to fit him.
“Bill, they’ll be bringing up your men’s riding horses in a couple of minutes. It looks like there’s going to be a fight. Mount your men and take them through the trees over there and get around behind that lot.”
Raymond pointed to where he wanted Bill to take his men and then added his fighting orders.
Castling The King Page 10