Sir William identified himself and asked some pointed questions. He seemed surprised when I told him I’d been in charge of the men driving wains filled with famine food, and we’d been assisted in fighting off the robbers by some hundred or so of the Earl of Cornwall’s seagoing men. The Earl of Cornwall’s men, though they were only seamen, were accompanying us as guards at the bishop’s request, because there had been reports of a band of robbers on the road. We were, I explained to Sir William, using the wains to bring famine food to the people living in Okehampton and its manors.
“The bishop sold some of the church plate and relics to get enough coins to buy the food,” I confided to him as I’d been ordered to do.” He’s a good man. All the people love him.”
It was quickly apparent that all Sir William knew about the battle was what had been scribed on the parchment my father sent him.
In response to Sir William’s questions I described how the earl’s lieutenant had tried to reason with the robbers and even offered them food if they would go away in peace. Then I used a stick and scratched on the dirt to describe how the robbers charged down the cart path against us.
“It was terrible, Sir William, just terrible. Several of the Earl of Cornwall’s best seagoing men were killed and others wounded when the spears they braced into the ground stopped the robbers’ horses in their tracks. The robbers came flying off their horses and landed amongst them.
“It was the arrows what did for the robbers. Some of the Earl’s men had bows and began shooting arrows when the robbers charged down the road towards us. The robbers pulled down their visors and let their blindered horses continue charging down the road at us until they ran themselves straight onto the long spears the sailors were carrying.
“The bishop thinks it’s God’s Will that anyone who attacks or works against the Earl and his men soon dies or comes down with a terrible pox,” I whispered so the men standing nearby could hear.” He says God protects them because they keep their word and are always willing to fight to free Englishmen who are slaves.”
I don’t understand why my father told me to be sure to confide this to Sir William loudly enough so others could hear; I hope he’ll tell me.
Sir William nodded.” How do you know Sir Thomas was among the robbers?”
Good! Now I’ve got him thinking of Brereton and his men as robbers just as Father wanted me to do.
“The Earl’s men took several prisoners, Sir William. One of them identified Sir Thomas.”
“The king won’t like this, not one bit. He’ll give Brereton and his men a good going over, I’m sure, and so will I when I find them.”
“Well. . . uh. . . Sir William, that might be difficult,” I said and explained the difficulty.
We spoke a bit more, and I scraped the ground with a stick once again to show where my drivers and the earl’s seafaring men had stood, how the robbers attacked, and where we left the robbers’ bodies as a caution to others. Two hours later, a stunned and almost speechless Sir William was on his way back to Ilchester, and my two escorts and I were pounding down the cart path on our way to Restormel.
Chapter Sixteen
William
Our archers and sailors continued to train and practice as the weather got warmer as spring arrived. Everything remained relatively quiet for several weeks. It was a fine time indeed. My women were pleased to be with me, and I took George and the boys hunting. We had a fine time and brought in many hart and wild boar for all to eat.
Then two different gallopers came into camp less than an hour apart. Their messages changed everything. The first, a king’s messenger, brought me a parchment from William Marshal. Sir William reported he’d had a sad but satisfactory visit to Okehampton in the spring to learn more about the tragedy that had befallen the late and apparently somewhat lamented Sir Thomas Brereton.
It appeared, Marshal wrote, “Sir Thomas mistook a train of church wains your men were defending to be French invaders and attacked them in the belief he was fighting for his king. His family and friends will miss him.”
Such ox shite. Marshal knows damn well what happened to Brereton, but it’s fine with me if he wants to pretend the damn fool died fighting for the king. He’s probably trying to save Brereton’s fief in Chester for his son.
What now concerned him, Marshal scribed, was information he’d just received from the king suggesting my men and I would soon be sailing to free slaves from the Moors at the request of the Pope. He wanted to know if it meant we no longer intended to help the king intercept the barons who were now thought to be bypassing Ilchester and assembling their forces around Exeter.
I immediately dispatched a reply. I lied a little, but mostly I told the truth. I assured Sir William the report the king received was not accurate. My men, I wrote, were preparing to fight the French and their allies. I swore it on my oath. I also swore we had no plans to sail against the Moors until the threat of a French invasion was finished. But now at least we know King John has a spy somewhere in our camp.
What I wrote about our preparing to fight the French was true. What I didn’t tell Sir William was that we had no intention of helping the king fight the barons except in Devon and Cornwall. What I also didn’t tell Sir William was that my mentioning the Moors and the freeing of their slaves was a ploy to gull the French king into thinking he could safely assemble his transports without simultaneously boarding his army to protect them.
The second messenger brought much more important news. Henry and his men had been fishing off Harfleur every day for the past fortnight and spent time in the Harfleur taverns each evening after they sold their catch. They reported that the gathering and supplying of the French fleet in and around Harfleur looked as if it would be completed in less than a fortnight. The French soldiers and mercenaries mustering south of Paris were expected to begin their march to Harfleur in the coming week.
It was time, Henry suggested, for him to return to his tavern and his wife and for us to sail for France. And then, Henry being Henry, he had his messenger tell me we’d all made the right choices when we decided to be archers, pirate takers, and tavern keepers; it was a lot easier and less dangerous than being a fisherman and much drier and warmer as well.
******
It was a warm day with great billowing white clouds overhead. I was daydreaming about being with Beth as I stood with my father and his lieutenants. We were watching archers board the two galleys tied up along the Fowey Village quay. We’d board ourselves shortly and be gone for no one knows how long. The coast of Africa is a long way away, so we may be gone for many months—even longer if we have prizes to take on to Cyprus.
Beth was greatly distressed about me going. I’d just returned from taking her to Restormel. She’ll stay there with her sister and my mums and little sisters whilst I’m away. No one will say for sure, but the archers and everyone else, including me, think we are about to sail for Tunis or perhaps Algiers to take prizes and answer the Pope’s call to free the Christian slaves.
I was thinking of Beth and straining to hear what Harold was saying to my father when out of the corner of my eye I saw two of Raymond’s outriders ride into camp. I watched as they made inquiries and then headed their horses straight for us.
We gathered around and listened as the outriders made their report. It seems another party of armed men with the coats of arms of some of the rebellious barons has avoided Ilchester by coming in from the north. They are at this moment moving down the road past Okehampton and bound for Exeter.
Harold and everyone else listened carefully to the outriders, and my father asked them quite a few questions before they knuckled their foreheads in salute and rode off to care for their horses and get something to eat and drink.
After they rode off, to my surprise, Harold complained about the archers on the quay being loaded too slowly. He told me go to the quay and let the sergeants know he wanted them to speed up. Then I’m to order another galley to be brought to the quay and be ready to take
on its archers as soon as the one now loading rows away to anchor in the estuary with all the others. When the next two are loaded only Harold’s galley will remain, the one my father and I and Harold will be on when we sail for the Mediterranean to help free the Christian slaves.
These orders don’t make sense, I thought as I jogged down to the quay. Why are we still going after the Moors? Shouldn’t we be using our men to stop the barons from gathering at Rougemont as the king commanded us?
Later that evening Harold’s galley was anchored with the other fully loaded galleys in the harbour. He and I were in the forecastle playing chess by the light of a candle lantern. That’s when I asked him why we had ignored the barons travelling to Exeter and continued to load archers to take them to fight the Moors.
“Your father is a shrewd man, George. If we help the king totally defeat the barons, the king will not need us anymore to hold this part of England. Letting the barons assemble and then only partially defeating them means the king will still need us. That’s a good outcome so long as we kill the Earl of Devon and end up with Rougemont Castle and Exeter.”
******
Not all of my father’s lieutenants sailed with us to take Moorish prizes. Peter stayed behind to command the men my father left behind to protect Cornwall. Raymond also did not sail with us even though many of his Horse Archers had been temporarily assigned to galleys as archers for the duration of our raid. He stayed behind as Peter’s number two. Uncle Thomas also wasn’t with us. Just before we sailed he and Uncle Yoram had ridden off to London for some mysterious reason they would not share with anyone, not even their apprentice sergeants.
When I asked Francis, Uncle Thomas’s apprentice sergeant, why he and my uncle were going to London, he said he didn’t know. Maybe he does know and won’t say. Francis was jealous of me and the other boys who were going on the raid. He’d never been outside of England, not even to Wales.
Uncle Yoram’s absence was the most surprising. I would have thought he’d be sailing with us since we’ll undoubtedly be going on to Cyprus with our prizes. Cyprus, after all, is where we usually take them.
Two days later the weather in the channel looked good and we were waiting for the last of the sergeants captaining our galleys to finish climbing aboard Harold’s galley. When they are all on board my father is going to tell them our destination and Harold is going to give them their sailing orders. They had waited to announce our destination until the weather was good enough to cross the channel. We all understood and appreciated the reason for the delay was because they didn’t want word of our raid reaching the Moorish port we are going to hit. I was thinking it would be Algiers.
******
“All right. Everyone listen up,” my father shouted as he raised his arms to command everyone’s attention and silence. The men crowding the deck, mostly four-stripe sergeants captaining the galleys anchored all around us, went silent. What they heard next is not at all what any of us expected to hear.
“Many of you men think we are going after Moorish prizes. You’re wrong. We’re going after French prizes and a lot of them.”
The men on the deck, including me, were truly gobsmacked. For a brief moment, there was a burst of gasps and oohs and aahs, then there were murmuring voices, and then cheers. Everyone was pleased; we’ll be back to England or to wherever we’re stationed a lot sooner than everyone expected.
Once again, my father raised his hands to quiet the men. Then he explained.
“At this moment, King Phillip is assembling a huge fleet of French transports at Harfleur along with an army of soldiers and mercenaries for the fleet to carry to England to fight our king and take over England.
“Empty French transports are what we hope to find, but we cannot be sure. Lieutenant Henry has recently looked at them. He thinks if we hurry many of the French transports will be empty of men except for their sailors—but we won’t know for sure until we get there and try to take them.” Henry? Did he just say Henry?
“But here’s the thing. We’re not going to do what we’ve done in the past and cut out a few prizes and sail off with them. This time we’re going to stay in the harbour among the French transports until we’ve taken or destroyed all of them, every damn one.”
There was a dead silence for a few seconds as the words and their meaning sank in. The sergeant captains looked at each other in amazement. This was an opportunity for prizes and prize money beyond everyone’s greatest dreams. Suddenly there were great cheers from every man. I yelled until my throat went dry and my father finally raised his arms for quiet.
The sound of the sergeants’ cheering rolled out over the harbour and estuary, and spirits rose everywhere among our anchored galleys. The men didn’t know what their sergeant captains had just heard, but they knew it was good and their spirits rose. Some of them even started cheering themselves, though they didn’t know why.
It was a while before my father could continue, even after he raised his arms.
After the cheering finally stopped, there were almost two hours of specific instructions. Many questions were asked about such things as when to withdraw and how to take more prizes in addition to those taken by each galley’s prize crews. A new parchment map of France and the channel was handed to every sergeant captain. We’ll row for France in the morning if the weather holds good.
I had wondered why Harold had me take his map and the blank parchments to Bodmin for the monks to copy and had me wait until they finished so I could bring them straight back; now I know.
Chapter Seventeen
William
Our armada of war galleys lit the sky over the harbour that night in a way no one has ever before seen or probably ever will again. It was as if the stars overhead had come down to the water to twinkle at us and light the night. It all came about because of Harold’s order for all galleys to stay close together. His purpose was simple: he wanted us all to fall upon the French at the same time when our raid began.
Harold’s order was for every galley to hang all the candle lanterns from its fire bundles to show its location. The reason for flying all the lanterns was so our helmsmen could hold our fleet tightly together. As a result, the harbour sparkled with little points of light as far as the eye could see. It was as if the stars in the night sky had somehow fallen to earth.
I’ve never seen such a sight, and the veteran sailors and archers said they hadn’t either. There seemed to be as many lights sparkling on the water as stars in the sky. We spent hours on deck just watching with delight. The lights flickered in the swells like the fireflies we sometimes saw in the marshes along the river.
Harold and I ate with my father and Randolph before Randolph went to his galley and my father turned in for the night. Harold was not inclined to sleep after the sergeant captains left to row their dinghies back to their galleys, so I could not sleep either. We played chess instead.
******
Harold and I played chess most of the night by the light of a swaying candle lantern as we listened to the creak of the galley’s hull and the periodic calls of our lookouts when we got too close to another galley in the crowded harbour. I wasn’t sure whether it was excitement about the coming battle or fears of a collision keeping us awake. Probably both.
“This is a good game for you if you’re to captain the archers someday,” Harold said with a sound of approval in his voice.” It’s a game of war and Thomas was right to teach you and the other apprentices how to play it.”
It shocked me when he said the words, and I sat up straight and studied at him closely. What he’d just said was true, and it was the first time I realised it.
“Your father’s the master of using its lessons, isn’t he? And here he goes again using the channel as his board. He’s giving up a lot of this year’s refugee coins to put his fleet in place to protect King John from King Phillip’s knights and bishops. Yes he is. He’s castling King John with our fleet to prevent King Phillip and his men from moving across the channel to
knock over John.
“Oh, it’s a sly old fox and a good captain your father is, no two ways about it. We could have waited for Phillip to sail for England with his knights and tried to kill him in the channel with our galleys before he got there. Or we could have waited until Phillip and his knights and soldiers got across the channel and helped John kill him with our archers and pike men.
“But he doesn’t do either, does he? He’s content for us to pass up the Moorish prizes and refugee coins we would have taken in order to protect King John and his knights and the rest of his people with a wall of galleys, because he only wants to check King Phillip; he wants to leave him standing so the game will continue, and King John and his knights and bishops will leave us alone to get richer because they still need us.”
“But how will the game end, Uncle Harold?”
“It won’t end for a while, lad, no it won’t. Certainly not until we’re rich enough to take both kings and all their important men off the board at the same time and put the board away, as you and I best do now so we can get some sleep.”
******
We remained at anchor the next day as well, because the wind was wrong and the sky turned overcast. I could tell my father was anxious to leave, because he constantly paced the deck and seemed to consult our galley’s parchment map every twenty minutes. We stayed put because Harold kept insisting we should wait for better weather so our galleys could stay together and arrive at the same time.
Harold shook me awake the next morning about an hour before the early light of dawn. There was already a lot of quiet commotion on deck, and my father was already up. Through the open door, I saw him standing on the deck. My first thought, even before I headed to the shite nest to piss into the sea, was a question: is the weather good enough for us to risk the channel?
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