The Archer: Historical Fiction: exciting novel about Marines and Naval Warfare of medieval England set in feudal times with knights,Templars, and crusaders during Richard the lionhearted's reign

by Martin Archer

  “So which galley should we send and who should we send with it?” I ask.

  “Well,” my priestly brother responds with a burp and a chuckle, “if he keeps brewing ale as bad as the swill we’re drinking, we ought to send Andrew the Brewer and hope the galley sinks.”

  “Ah, away with yourself,” I respond. “Andrew Brewer will do better, a whole lot better, when he can buy the proper grain in England, won’t he? But seriously now, Thomas, who do you think we should send?”

  “Well, not Yoram, that’s for sure. I certainly agree with you about that. Cyprus is much more important to us than Acre and he’s the best man to be captain here when we’re not around. On the other hand, maybe we should stay here for a while longer, maybe even until next year?”

  Then, after a pause to take another sip, and grimace as he swallows it, Thomas continues.

  “We’re running out of archers and most of them want to go home. But Henry might be willing to take command of the Acre galley with Angelo as his pilot and that young Anderson lad, the one Yoram says is so quick in his mind, as his chosen man or even his second sergeant. That might work, you know. Angelo and Andy already know about the contract; hell’s bells, they were with Yoram when he negotiated it.”

  “Good minds think alike, oh priestly one. Those are the three I was thinking of myself. But if we do that, we’ll want to select their men carefully. Acre’s far away and we don’t want to send troublemakers who’ll spend their idle time conspiring to take over or run off without the merchants if push comes to shove and the Saracens come. If we commit we must honor our commitments if we are to continue to earn coins in the East.” That’s for damn sure.

  “That may be harder to do than it sounds, William. We don’t know the new men well enough. But you’re right about sending a galley to Acre. It’s too good an opportunity to pass up. We’ll just have to do the best we can.”

  “Well then, which galley should we send?”

  “That’s easy – whichever Harold and the sailors say will do the worst in heavy weather. We’ve got a long way to go to reach England and the sailors all say the seas get rougher past Gibraltar. That’s why George has to go in the one that looks to be the safest; probably the second one Harold took off the pirate chief, the big one.”

  “And the old cog, oh priestly one; what about the old cog?”

  “I think we should leave it here and have Yoram sell it; or maybe break it up and use whatever we can from it for the two new galleys the shipwrights have started building. Or maybe we can pull it out of the water and the shipwrights can repair it enough so we can use it as pirate bait again next summer.”

  Then, after a pause while we both take sips of our ale, Thomas makes a suggestion. “Why don’t we just go along with whatever the shipwrights suggest?”

  Which will almost certainly be to repair the cog since that will give them more work.

  “Aye, but it will surely mean repairing the cog if that’s what gives them the most work.”

  With the simple decisions out of the way we get down to talking about the tough ones: Should we load up and start for England in a few days or should we be greedy and have our galleys make another run or two, or even three to the Holy Land ports? And even more important, should we take George to England or should we stay here him here over the winter? And, of course, what we both have long agree is the biggest question of all and the one we always turn to – what is to be George’s future and how do we help him get to it?

  “If George stays, I stay,” says Thomas emphatically. “He needs to learn his letters and sums and I’m going to be with him to make sure it happens.” And so am I – he needs his father and I need my son.

  Then we talk and talk and talk until, after many more sips and refilled bowls and trips to the piss pot, we seem to be of a single mind and quite tipsy.

  It is half way to dawn when I finally carry George along the path between the string beds of the sleeping and snoring archers and up the ladder to his bed in the loft. Then I have to pee so badly that I barely make it back to the pissing jar.

  @@@@@

  Things fall into place in the morning and change a little at the same time - Henry wants to pass on the opportunity to be the captain at Acre. He is anxious to return to England. So we decide to send out Angelo the pilot as the captain and young Anderson as his sergeant. They were present when Yoram negotiated with the merchants so they’ll know what is expected of them.

  Not all the archers want to go back to England.

  “Ah’ve got yon fletchers to watch over, William, and I want to make sure poor Athol is treated proper. He’s coming around a bit now even though we’ve given up fixing him and stopped bleeding him.”

  Yoram, on the other hand, is extremely pleased ecstatic I’d say to be able to stay here in Cyprus as our captain; and, to everyone’s surprise, Henry wants to stay here with him to make sure our newly recruited archers and apprentice archers keep training and working.

  There is, Yoram explains to me after Henry tells us that he wants to stay on Cyprus after all, a lass in one of the refugee families who has caught Henry’s eye.

  The big decision I make, and announce to my brother and then to everyone else, is that George and Thomas and I will all be going to England early in August - and that all the galleys and all the coins will be coming with us to make sure we get a proper place there.

  Actually we’re only going to take most of the coins; we’re going to hide a goodly number under the floor of our little citadel in case we lose the chests we take with us.

  Our first stop will be Cornwall to tell Lord Edmund’s wife that he has fallen and find a defensible home for George and our men. I seriously consider taking George and the men to Kent; but I decide against it now that we have our galleys and plan to use them in the waters off the Holy Land.

  Kent is too far from Cyprus and the Channel waters between England and France are far too dangerous. It also has a powerful Duke and is too close to London and the King Richard’s castles and relatives - it’s not the best place for George’s future.

  @@@@@

  We’re not going to England until the end of July or thereabouts – and maybe even later than that. It means our galleys will have time before we sail to make two more trips to the Holy Land, and maybe even three. And why are we taking them all to England instead of leaving them here to make more coins off the refugees? That’s the question Thomas asks me.

  There are two reasons we’re going to take them all, I tell him. One is that we want to arrive in England with as many fighting men as possible so that we can acquire a strong place to camp before winter arrives. The other is that I’ve decided to make a couple of stops along the way – to visit our friends at Algiers and Tunis. They won’t be expecting us.

  “Not with George, you won’t,” Thomas almost shouts. “I won’t have you risking him.”

  “Of course not,” I hurry to assure my priestly brother. “He’ll be in the safest galley and far away with you in a Christian port when the men and I visit the pirates.” I emphasize ‘with you.’

  @@@@@

  Things are moving right along. We now have Harold’s battered old cog, a headquarters fort on Cyprus, a fortune in gold and silver coins, and eight galleys if we include the one with Randolph in Alexandria and the one that Angelo will take to Alexandria.

  It also appears that the fourth galley Harold took as a prize is gone - lost in the storm. It’s the one that had Quick Ralph, on board as its prize master. With Quick gone and Randolph in Alexandria we are down to sixteen archers including me and Brian and Athol.

  And soon there will only be fifteen – tomorrow Angelo is piloting the flimsiest of our galleys to Acre with Simon in command with thirty five of our men and sailors and Andy Anderson as his sergeant.

  Simon’s not the swiftest of our archers but he’s steady and does what he’s told; he’ll keep the men busy and trained up and he’ll do his best if push comes to shove and the merchants need to be evacuate
d - which is exactly what I have told him and Angelo and Andy to be ready to do at all times. Where they take them is up to the merchants. Cyprus might be best.

  Simon in Acre, Randolph in Alexandria, and Henry, Brian and Athol staying in Cyprus with Yoram means I’ll only be taking twelve of the original one hundred and ninety two archers back to England with me – and we’re not even close to getting there.

  Chapter Twenty Two

  “THE BISHOP’S TALE”

  July passes quickly as our galleys shuttle back and forth to the Holy Land and bring back ever more coins and recruits and refugees with them. We didn’t lose any ships or archers although Henry had a close call off Tyre. A couple of Tunisian war galleys tried to take his galley to get some gold that he was rumored to be carrying in addition to the refugees he was bringing to Cyprus.

  Henry got away by the skin of his teeth when one of his Genoese crossbowmen chanced a long shot and put a lucky bolt straight into the chest of the pirate who seemed to be giving the orders on the nearest galley. And got three silver coins from Henry for his trouble and three more from William when they reached Cyprus.

  Henry must have made some kind of promise to God or gotten daft from the pressure because the first thing he did when he got back to Cyprus was to come see me and ask me to marry him up with his lass and he’d decided to stay in Cyprus after all. And the illness spread. Within the day Yoram and Lena showed up with the same request and so did the two English widows with a couple of bashful young shipwrights in tow. We had so many wedding celebrations that Andrew brewer couldn’t possibly brew the ale fast enough and we had to buy wine in the city.

  @@@@@

  We are keeping busy while we wait for the return of our last two galleys and we’re almost ready to depart for England. The four galleys already in the harbor have been loaded, the sailors and archers and apprentice archers who are here have been assigned to their places, and the relocation of the quarters and barracks of those who will stay is complete. The hired workers and the refugees and freed slaves who are still with us as churls are now out beyond the second wall along with Brian’s fletchers, Tom Cook’s kitchen, and the smithy of Alan the smith and his helpers.

  Once we sail for England only Yoram and his family and the siege supplies will be allowed inside our little fortress; only Henry and the sergeants who remain will be allowed in the inner courtyard behind the first curtain wall; and only the archers and apprentice archers who remain will be allowed in the outer courtyard behind the second.

  It will be Yoram’s and Henry’s most important job to see that all the doors and gates are constantly barred and guarded to insure the safety of their families and the men who remain.

  Both Thomas the cook and Andrew the brewer are coming with us to England. One of the refugees is taking over from Tom Cook as the sergeant of the kitchen. But the brewing and free ale will end - anyone who wants a drink after Andrew Brewer leaves will have to go to one of the wine taverns or ale houses in the city.

  To further support the idea that there will be no coins in the citadel for thieves and raiders to steal, we have done what we did in Alexandria - prepaid the local merchants for our food and supplies from now until next summer. The merchants are very pleased with the prepayments and agree to wait until we return for any additional payments that might be due from whatever Yoram buys while we are gone.

  @@@@@

  Things are getting more and more hectic for William and me as we get closer and closer to leaving for England. And not everything is going smoothly.

  As expected, the shipwrights recommend that the cog be pulled out on to shore to be refreshed and rebuilt. Their plan was to pull it out on the beach next to the two galleys we have under construction and repair it there. It is a fine plan except it doesn’t work. They get it out of the water all right – and then it tips over and crushes the leg of one of the carpenter’s apprentices as it comes down. At the moment they are still trying to figure out how to right the cog so they can evaluate the damage.

  Also as we expected, not all the men who made their marks to join us are willing to go with us to England. Already several dozen of them have run. England, it seems, is a strange and distant land for many of the archers and some of the men at arms we recruited on the docks of the Holy Land don’t want to be apprentice archers and learn to use longbows.

  William and I spend much of the time with Harold and the pilots looking at parchment maps and talking about the ports we’ll try to make along the way and the rendezvous points for when we get separated. We are trying to be very careful because we know what happened to Richard’s queen and his sister. It was a close run thing - they should have waited for better weather.

  Our current plan is to wait until the weather looks good and the winds favorable, which they tend to be this time of year. Then all six galleys will hoist their sails and row for Rhodes. The coins we don’t bury will be divided between them. We’ll be rich in England if even one of them gets through.

  George and I will be in the big galley because it looks to be the most seaworthy. Hopefully by using lanterns at night we’ll be able to stay together all the way to Rhodes and on the legs thereafter as we hop from port to port on our way to England.

  After Rhodes we’ll repeat the lantern using process at night and try to island hop together from Rhodes to the Christian ports of Valletta on Malta and then to Cagliari on the southern end of Sardinia and then to Palma on Mallorca and then past Gibraltar to Lisbon. With good winds and hard rowing we might be able to reach Lisbon in ten to twelve days.

  Obviously it’s going to take longer since the winds won’t always be good and at each port we’ll be waiting for the laggards and lost to catch up and good weather. The big delays, however, will be the raids William intends to conduct against the bases of the Moorish pirates. While we’re on our way home to England he hopes to take some of our galleys and men from Malta to Tunis and back and from Mallorca to Algiers and back.

  After the raids we’ll hug the Spanish and French coasts until the weather looks good and we can dash across the channel to a final rendezvous at Falmouth. Harold thinks it is the safest route and will probably take us about thirty days if there are no big storms and we constantly rendezvous to wait for our laggards.

  @@@@@

  Tempers flare and the atmosphere gets tenser and tenser as the date for our galleys’ departure for England gets closer and closer. Yoram and Henry are spending most of their time gathering supplies and doing what they can to speed up the construction projects to make their new families safer.

  William, on the other hand, is concentrating on planning the voyage and organizing and training the men. He wants to know what he and his raiding party will be going up against so he has been talking to every slave and sailor he can find who has ever been to Tunis and Algiers. How is the harbor laid out? Where are the galleys and ships? That sort of thing.

  William’s emphasis on having the men constantly practice for the trip to England is causing Yoram and Henry a great deal of anxiety. They don’t know of William’s secret plan to raid the pirate ports and want the men to spend their time working to strengthen our Cyprus defenses.

  Of course, they’re anxious; they’re the ones whose families will be killed or sold into slavery if our defenses don’t hold.

  I talked to William about Yoram and Henry’s concerns but he is adamant. He insists that everyone going to England spend all their time practicing. For William, strengthening the compound’s defenses is of lesser importance because the work can continue after we leave; what comes first for William is practicing the destruction of the pirate fleets at Tunis and Algiers.

  Only I know his plans even though he is understandably keeping them secret so that no one else knows about them, not even Yoram and Henry.

  Improving the defense of our compound and its little two room citadel, and filling it with enough arrows and supplies to withstand a prolonged siege, is what Yoram and Henry are concentrating on. It’s not going w
ell.

  The outer curtain wall and its gate and battlements are far from finished despite the fact that we seem to have hired every available man on Cyprus. Little wonder that Yoram and Henry are worried that after we sail the governor or some of his men will raid it in an effort to rob the coins we’ve been earning.

  The sad reality is that our defenses may not yet be strong enough to defeat a sustained effort. In particular, the well being slowly dug in the inner courtyard has not yet reached water.

  William and I repeatedly debate a big question - should we warn off the King’s governor or kill him now before he has a chance to act or do nothing? Buying him off is not a good way to go because then he’ll just keep coming back for more. On the other hand, if we kill him before we leave the next governor King Guy appoints may be even more dangerous.

  William finally reaches a conclusion. He decides our best move is to scare governor enough so that he stays away – so off I go to the governor’s castle on the hill above Limassol.

  @@@@@

  King Guy’s young governor is one of his new French knights, one of those who only recently came out to replace the knights the king managed to get killed at Hattin. He’s rumored to be a distant cousin of the King’s or somebody’s bastard. Fortunately the governor is courteous enough or bored enough to immediately receive me in his filthy great hall.

  It stinks even more than last time; he must not have a dog to eat the scraps he and his men throw on the floor. We don’t have one either, of course, because I insist. Instead of dogs we have a refugee woman who sweeps the dirt floor in our great hall every day as part of her duties.

  “Thank you for seeing me so promptly Sir Phillip, ah governor that is. It’s good to see you again. As I’m sure you may know, Lord William and a few of his archers will soon be off to England for a few months to recruit additional men. So I’ve come about a sensitive matter – making sure our compound is not raided while we are gone. It won’t be the coins the raiders will be after, of course, because we’re taking them all with us to England. No, it will be to destroy our compound to discourage us from coming back.