The Archer's Castle: Exciting medieval novel and historical fiction about an English archer, knights templar, and the crusades during the middle ages in England in feudal times before Thomas Cromwell
Author: Archer, Martin
Date: 2014-12-29
Publisher: Martin Archer via MartinArcherV@gmail.com

PUBLISHER’S NOTE FROM 1906

This is the second of the great medieval stories taken from the parchments written by an unknown monk of the Priory of St. Frideswide in Oxford.  That’s the monastery Cardinal Wolsey dissolved and Henry the Eighth subsequently re-founded as the College of Christ Church after he broke with Rome in order to divorce his wife and wed the royal whore.

The parchments with the monk’s writings were found in a trunk under a pile of rubble in the Bodleian library basement some years ago.  The monk’s assignment, as he describes it below in his own hand, is to piece together personal stories from what’s left of some earlier parchments into one great history of the kingdom.

According to the monk, the Englishman who paid for the history, a name the monk never reveals, wants something similar to that which the great Livy wrote for Rome so many years ago with its use of the current idiom so everyone can read it and its emphasis both on what actually happened and what everyone was thinking when they did whatever it is they did.

Among the problems the monk says he has to overcome, of course, is that the exciting tales in the earlier parchments contain so many surprises and often have missing parts where the mice have eaten them.

Another problem is that they are written in Latin and in various early versions of what is now called Middle English and Old French – so he must both piece the fragments together and update their words and idiom.

What follows in this volume is mostly from the tales of William, the captain of a company of English archers, as they were faithfully recorded by his friend and scribe, Yoram of Damascus.  The position of the Church is that the changes and excitement the archers caused in England and the Holy Land were God’s Will.   The monk is obviously not so sure.  According to him, sharp blades and ambitious men are a much more likely explanation.

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Here Begins the Second Story

PREFACE

The trip from Cornwall to the new monastery in the village on the other side of the Thames takes almost ten days.  That is much longer than I expected and it occurs because the ox carts move so slowly with their loads of parchment records and letters.  But it is useful, all thanks to God, because it gives me time to organize my thoughts as to how to employ the monks as scribes.  By the time our ox carts ford the Thames and reach the monastery I know how I am going to proceed.

My assignment is to piece together the parchments into one great history of the kingdom similar to that Livy wrote for Rome so many years ago with its emphasis on what actually happened and what everyone was thinking at the time.

One of the problems I’ll have to overcome, of course, is that the exciting tales the parchments tell contain so many surprises and often have missing parts where the mice have eaten them.  Another is that the parchments are in various languages.  Some are written in Latin and Greek while others are in various early versions of what is now called English and French – which means I’ll have to bring them together and translate them into today’s English if I’m to more accurately convey the writers’ thoughts and experiences to those who read about them in the years ahead.

What follows initially is mostly from the tales of William, the captain of the English archers as they were faithfully recorded by his friend and scribe, Yoram of Damascus.  The Church says the changes and excitement the archers caused were God’s Will.   I’m not so sure.  Sharp blades and ambitious men seem a much more likely explanation.

Book Two

“The Archers Castle”

People on the little Falmouth dock and the fishing boats tied along it are standing up and looking as more of our galleys come into Falmouth harbor.  It’s no wonder they are – that’s Harold’s galley and he’s leading in a long string of galleys and our other cog under its captain sergeant, Martin, the archer from Yorkshire.  If my older brother Thomas’s count is correct that’s almost all of our ships.

Of our twenty one galleys and two single-masted cargo cogs that left Malta, all but one of our galleys are now in Falmouth Harbor.  The missing galley has somehow disappeared just like our two prizes from Tunis that did not show up at the rendezvous.   So today we have twenty galleys and two cargo cogs here in Falmouth harbor with eleven hundred and ninety two men including ten of the original one hundred and ninety two archers that set out from Windsor with King Richard seven years ago.  That is, of course, if none of our men have run since we last counted before we left Malta.

One of the cogs has an interesting cargo that we don’t understand or know what to do with.  The cog Albert and his crew cut out when we raided the harbor at Tunis is full of little wooden chests containing balls and bricks of smelly flower paste.  My priestly brother Thomas thinks they are the same as what the poxed captain was being fed when we bought our first ships off him – the ships we bought to get home on with the money we took from the Bishop of Damascus after Thomas killed the murderous bastard.

He’s usually right, my brother Thomas is – he memorized part of the bible and read all nine books in the monastery before he left to rescue me and take me crusading with that untrustworthy man who thinks he’s our king.

The paste is very interesting.  It takes the pain away from wounds. At least it did for poor Peter when he got his hand sliced and it rotted so bad that he died despite the barber bleeding him. Worth its weight in gold to soldiers isn’t it?

I wonder where the paste comes from?  Thomas thinks we should ask the Saracens where they are getting it the next time we catch one.  He thinks we could earn a lot of gold bezant coins selling it, coins we will surely need if we are to carry out our plan to advance my son.

Chapter One

“We spent much too much time trying to get what’s left of the archers back to England and dreaming about all the big things we’ll do for little George when we finally get him here.”

“Aye, and not enough time thinking of practical things – like where my son will spend the winter and how we’ll find food and warm clothes for the men.”

My brother Thomas and I are standing on the bank of the River Fal and that is my priestly brother’s comment and my reaction to the activity we are hearing and watching on the river - and the shouting and cursing we can hear coming from the galleys and cogs out on the river.

They are trying to make their way upstream against the river’s current.  And kindest thing that can be said about the situation is that things aren’t going very well at the moment.

“They’ll come up further if we unload them.” Thomas muses.

“Aye, but not by much, goddamnit,” is my frustrated response.

“Maybe we’re trying to find a place to camp on the wrong river,” Thomas suggests. “There are others around here you know.”

Thomas is right, of course.  But we’re here for good reason and we’re doing the best we can.  At the moment we’re using galleys to pull our two big ocean going cargo cogs up the river. What we are trying to do is get them as far up the river as they can go before they touch bottom and can go no further – which is turning out to be not very far at all.

The galleys themselves, of course, can be rowed a bit further upstream than the cogs because they have flatter bottoms and they aren’t weighed down with a high mast and the heavy cargos the cogs are carrying - the weapons and Saracen iron from Acre and the grain and oil they are carrying to feed our men and brew the ale we drink.

My brother Thomas and I are standing not far from the edge of the river on the side of a gentle hill that runs down to the river.  From here we can see and hear the activity on the cogs and the galleys pulling them.   Harold is obviously chivvying them along.  Every so often we can hear his curses and orders all the way over here on the riverbank.

Looking past our ships we can see the roofs of the two dozen or so houses in the little village of Falmouth.  They’re off there in the distance at the mouth of the river where the harbor begins.  It’s harvest time and ever since we got here the local serfs and tenants have been in the fields around us from dawn to dusk.

And it’s hard work they’re doing as I damn well know; I used to be one of them before me Mum died and Thomas came back from the monastery to teach me my letters and take me away to help the King go crusading.

We’re here because we are trying to kill two birds with one stone – get to Lord Edmund’s wife so we can tell her he’s dead by the Saracens and find a place where we can establish a winter camp and protect our ships and coins while we recruit more archers and train them to fight on ships.

“Well your lordship,” Thomas inquires with a smile and a twinkle in his eye, “what are you going to do now?”

“I don’t know.  But look sharp.  Here comes trouble.”

Coming towards us are a couple of horsemen.  We stand quietly and watch as they approach.  Neither looks too threatening though one is clearly
wearing an armored shirt of chain mail like we ourselves always wear under our long baggy sleeved tunics.  Neither of them is wearing a helmet nor carrying a drawn sword so we don’t draw our swords or string the bows we always carry.

The knight is a white haired man with a genial smile.  He holds up his hand in a friendly greeting as he approaches.

“Hello Hello,” he says as he swings himself off his horse and dismounts with his hand held out and a friendly smile on his face.  “I’m Percy.  Sir Percy actually.   The Earl’s sheriff for Falmouth.”

“Hello, Sir Percy,” I say as I take his hand and smile back.  And then Thomas does the same.

“I’m Lord William and this is Thomas, the Bishop of Bekka and our company’s priest.  We weren’t aware that the Earl had a sheriff here in Falmouth or we’d have come to visit you and announced ourselves.”

It still feels funny to name me a lord and Thomas a bishop – but we bought the titles fairly with our prize money and there you are.

“Oh, no bother.  No bother at all.  I’m new here myself aren’t I?  Don’t even have a proper place for you to know about - just an old house in the town is all.”

Ten minutes of friendly conversation and it’s totally obvious that Percy is a harmless old soul who is grateful for the excitement of our arrival and anxious to hear stories about our adventures with King Richard on the Crusade.

His man Otto I’m not sure of.  He looks us over carefully and listens intently while I give a very general description of where we’ve been and a fairly lame explanation of why we are here.

“Our archers are from all over England so we probably should have gone to London, that being the center of things so to speak.  But this is the closest port to Lord Edmund’s fief at Trematon and we promised him we’d look after his wife if he fell.”

Sir Percy beams his approval.

“It’s good men you are for keeping your word.  His widow and children will appreciate it, poor things.”

Then we talk about many things in an effort to get to know one another - Falmouth and the local community, Percy’s years of war in France, and our plans to stay over the winter and what we might do to recruit men to take back to the Holy Land to help us rescue more refugees with our ships.  Sir Percy likes that too.

What we don’t tell the old fellow is that we’re rescuing the refugees to get their coins and jewels – people with coins pay a lot to us when they think the Saracens will kill them or take them as slaves if they don’t escape.  So do merchants and pilgrims who want to travel in war galleys that pirates are not likely to attack.

We are also very carefully not to mention anything to our amiable visitor about our plans for young George or our intention to establish a permanent base in Cornwall - and no one, not even Sir Percy, in any way even hints whether he supports Richard or John in the argument that seems to be raging as to which one should be on the throne if Richard is still alive.

All the Sheriff and his man know when they ride away is that what’s left of a company of English archers and a bishop forced from his people by the Saracens have returned to Cornwall from the crusade - and intend to stay here for a while before they return to the Holy Land to carry more refugees and pilgrims to safety.

What they also don’t know is anything about our humble origins or the questionable titles we bought in Cyprus or my brother’s plan for my son George.  He doesn’t even know Thomas is my brother – which is a secret we’ve decided to keep.

But at least the sheriff speaks English.  The people in the village and hereabouts speak a local dialect we can hardly understand.

“Ah well.  Back to business,” Thomas sighs.  “What about pulling the galleys out over there between the trees if we can’t get the cogs any further up the river?  The ground looks solid and it’s level enough with a bit of a slope so the rain waters will run off.  We could put the men’s tents and hovels over there by the trees.”

“Aye, you could be right, Thomas, you could be right.”…  “Well, yes you are; this could be the best place we’ve found so far - but only if we can anchor the cogs in the river here so we can get them close enough to shore so we can unload them and work on them.  If we can’t get the cogs close enough, we’ll have to go back down the river a ways to that place we looked at down below the big rock where the river bends.”

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“Samuel, the sun has just come up, the wind is from the east, and you are rowing easterly into the wind loaded with refugees.  You have thirty experienced Marine archers and ten sailors on your galley.  Your lookout on the mast has just reported seeing two war galleys dead ahead of you that are turning towards you.  What orders do you give?”

Harold is the master sergeant of our sailors and that’s the kind of question he and Thomas and I have been asking our sergeant captains for the past three days – prior to selecting sergeants to captain the six galleys we will soon be sending back to the Holy Land and other destinations to carry refugees and other coin-paying passengers and cargos from the Holy Land.

Talking with all our sergeant captains at the same time about what a sergeant captain should do when various events happen is something Thomas suggested.  He said such “make believe talk” was quite helpful for him when he was at the monastery learning to be a priest.

I didn’t think much of the idea but went along with it because Thomas is so educated, what with memorizing some of the bible and reading all nine books at the monastery before he left to rescue me and take me crusading.  Now I can honestly say that the “make believe talking” for our galley sergeants has been interesting and helpful, at least for me.  Hopefully it has for our sergeant captains as well.

What we’ve been doing for the past three days is confronting all of our sergeant captains with different situations and asking what orders they would give and what they would expect their men and their galley to do after they give them.  Their answers, of course, range from quite the right thing to do to damn foolish.  Then everyone talks about them until everyone understands the best orders to give and why they should be given.

When we finish Thomas and I will select the galleys.  And begin wondering how many of them will not return, and which of our galleys and men will not.

In a couple of days six of our galleys will begin voyaging off to Cyprus and the Holy Land along the same basic route we followed to get here a couple of weeks ago.

Not all of our galleys are going east. One has already left for London and with five of the surviving original archers, a dozen or so of the English galley slaves we freed, and miscellaneous sailors and men at arms.  They’re men who originally came from London or want to try to walk to their old homes from there.

After the men are dropped off the cog’s sergeant captain will try to buy some sacks of grain we can grind for flour.  He’ll buy them at the big market for merchants selling grain near London’s long dock.  I know because I helped carry sacks to the cog when our company of archers went out with Richard.  There were one hundred and ninety two of us then; now we are only ten here and another seven in the east.

Another galley and both of our cogs will soon be following the returning archers and make many more stops at ports along the way.  They’ll be going all the way to Newcastle and Blackpool with stops in the smaller ports along the way to land recruiting parties and place supply orders.  But before the cogs can leave, however, we’ll have to unload their cargos - and that means finding a place where we can safely store them.

The rest of our galleys, eight in all, are in the process of being pulled out of the water.  They will be laid up for the winter because we don’t have enough men to crew them – because of desertions and because almost five hundred of our best fighting men will be staying with us to guard our ships and coin chests.  So will the two hundred or so likely looking recruits we picked up along the way and have begun training as apprentice archers.

It’s a long process to train archers isn’t it?  They need to develop strong arms and learn how to use them.  And ours need even more training than most because we’ll be using them on both land and sea.

Surprisingly enough, at least to me, most of the hundreds of galley slaves we acquired and freed when we cut the galleys out of Tunis, including more than half the Englishmen, have volunteered to stay on with us as sailors and make the return trip to Cyprus and the Holy Land.

Some probably to get closer to home before they run; but many, it seems, don’t have anywhere to go and don’t know what else to do.  Poor sods.

Not all the former slaves are leaving.  A couple of dozen made their marks to train as archer apprentices and most of them from Britain are still with us because they are going to head towards their homes on the galleys and cogs heading for Newcastle and Blackpool with stops along the way.  And, of course, we expect some of the archers and slaves will come back.  People die and things change so it’s hard to go home after being away for years.

Thomas and I are good examples of why it’s hard to go home; there’s nothing in the village for us and I’ll be damned and dead before I’ll be a serf or churl for whoever is the local lord these days.

Most of the galleys that will be heading for Cyprus and the Holy Land in a few days will be gone until about this time next year, if not longer.  And that’s if they’re lucky and don’t get taken or go down in a storm along the way.  While they’re gone we’ll be training up more archers and recruiting experienced pilots and sailor sergeants so we can send out the rest of our galleys next year.

And yes, damn it, we probably should have sent the galleys back to Cyprus as soon as we took them off the Moors and got them to Malta.

It is experienced sea pilots and archers we need most of all and, after them, strong young men we can train to be archers – particularly Englishmen and Welshmen we can trust.  Sailors and men at arms are not such a big a problem.  If necessary we can recruit them along the way as we’ve done in the past.  At least that’s our current plan.

Accordingly, the galleys and cogs going to Newcastle and Blackpool will put recruiting parties ashore at various ports along the way and then pick them and their recruits up on the way back.  There is a lot of shipping and sailormen on the Thames below London so all of our ships going north past the Thames will visit its various ports and docks.

In addition to ships’ pilots who’ve made multiple visits to the Holy Land and have extensive experience as the sergeants of sailors, our recruiting parties are particularly looking for experienced archers and likely young men we can apprentice to be archers if they are willing to serve aboard our galleys and cogs.

Also, at Thomas’ request, our recruiting sergeants are to keep an eye out and pass the word to the priests and merchants that we are looking for lively young boys who might be smart enough to learn how to read and write and do sums.

The captains of the cogs and the galleys being used for recruiting and supply purposes and the sergeants in charge of the recruiting parties don’t know it, of course, but they are being tested.  Each will be given a fairly goodly sum of silver coins they can use to buy the tents and clothes we need and to hire fishing boats and passages for any additional recruits and supplies they find that they have no room to carry.  They’ll also each be taking one of the paste chests to show around on the way out and sell on the way back.

Hopefully they will use the coins well and get results and we can promote them; if not, at least we’ll know they’re not up to bigger things.

Our biggest need of all, however, is not likely to be filled - for dependable fighting men who can also scribe and do sums, and thus are capable of captaining major outposts such as Yoram and Randolph are captaining for us in Cyprus and Alexandria.

The chance of recruiting such men is slim to none.  Thomas is probably right when he says we’ll have to find likely young boys and educate and train them from scratch if we are to grow power for George to take over when we’re too old.

Anyhow that’s what Thomas wants to do and that’s why we’re looking for likely young lads who can be schooled and brought along with young George.  He thinks he’s already found two such boys in Falmouth.

What we’re hoping, of course, is that in the interim before George and his lads take over we’ll be able to identify sergeants from our refugee hauling and our recruiting and supply buying voyages who can be teamed up with scribes who can read and write.

In the meantime we have decided to send some of the prize galleys with little more than skeleton crews back to Cyprus for Yoram to send on to the Holy Land ports - and keep about six hundred of our current strength in Cornwall.  Well, it’s six hundred if we include the hundred and twenty or so men who will be going out in the cogs and recruiting galleys and the apprentice archers we are now training.

Every one of the galleys heading to Cyprus and on to the Holy Land is a prize galley we took out of Tunis; and every captain except one is the original captain of its prize crew.  Each will sail with the smallest possible crew of sailors and rowers so it can sail between Cyprus and the Holy Land ports with as many refugees and their coins as its captain can squeeze in.

Except for the one man who was removed for gross incompetence, the captains will be the prize captains who got their galleys to England.  They were all given the opportunity to keep their commands and they all chose to do so - and in virtually every case are astonished to find themselves elevated above the status in which they expected to spend their entire lives.  Thomas and I know the feeling.

The prize captains were selected before we visited Tunis from the men already serving with us.  They got their ships all the way to England so we’re giving them a chance to keep them.

Where we’ve made some changes are in the galleys’ pilots and the sergeants of their sailors and fighting men.  There seem to be some good sailor men, including a number of ship owners and masters among the slaves we freed when we took the heathen galleys.  Some of the best of them will soon be on their way to Cyprus and the Holy Land; others we’re keeping with us to crew the galleys which we are temporarily pulling ashore.

Each of our six sergeant heading for the Holy Land as galley captains is authorized to maintain his crew by signing up replacement archers, men at arms if they need additional rowers, and sailors in the ports they visit along the way.  But they are not to recruit more men than they need for replacements - except for experienced archers, particularly longbow men, who are to be recruited whenever they are found. It was repeated over and over again in the “make believe talking” sessions that the galley captains are to keep their crews small so as to allow for largest possible numbers of coin paying refugees.

The “make believe talking” is Thomas’ idea and it absolutely amazes the men; they, like me, had never heard of such a thing.  But they took to it with surprising enthusiasm and all claim to have learned a lot.  I certainly did whilst I was helping Harold and Thomas learn them what to do.

A big part of our problem is keeping the sergeants honest when there are so many coins involved.  That’s why all the passengers the galleys pick up in the Holy Land ports will be delivered to Cyprus and interviewed on the Cyprus docks when they arrive.

As you might imagine, the big question every passenger will be asked privately is how much he actually paid.  And it better be what each of our sergeant captains turns over to Yoram – the passengers will be interviewed and checked off when they arrive and corrupt sergeant captains and any of their sergeants and crew men involved will be killed or discharged on the dock.

At least, that’s what we told the captains and their sergeants and that’s what appears in the instruction parchments the galleys are carrying to Yoram and Randolph.  They better believe it – for Randolph and Yoram have indeed been ordered to kill them if they hold out on us.

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I’m wearing the gown and miter I took off the bishop I killed in Latika and I’m off to find Lord Edmund’s widow and give her the sad news. William is going to stay behind in Falmouth with Helen and George.  While I’m gone he and Henry will organize our men for the winter since it looks like we’ll be staying here - and that means training them for land warfare using horse bowmen in the Saracen style and the new Swiss-style pikes our smiths made for us before we left Cyprus.  William and Harold, our master sergeant in charge of our ships in British waters, are also going to begin a week or more of training and role playing for our ships’ captains and their sergeants.

About a dozen of our steadiest archers and men at arms are accompanying me with three of the four horses we bought in Falmouth carrying our tents and supplies and me riding the fourth.

The men are walking so we make slow time.  It takes three days over the rough and meandering track before Edmund’s castle comes into view.  There is no hurry and after all those weeks at sea it is rather relaxing to walk along the track and watch the local serfs and churls bringing in the harvest.  No one bothers us though we certainly draw a number of curious looks and friendly waves from the men and women working in the fields.

We bought all the available horses and carts and wagons we could find in Falmouth.  So now we have a grand total of four horses and nine wagons.  The local merchants all say there will be more horses available when the harvest is in and the monthly fair comes to town in a couple of weeks.  I certainly hope so.  The four we have are not all that useful.  Plow horses rarely are.  And that puts paid to William’s idea of forming a cavalry of horse archers of the type we saw the Saracens use; it will have to wait until we get more horses and some of the archers can be learned to ride.

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My first impression as it comes into view is that Trematon Castle isn’t a very useful castle.  Both its keep and the courtyard inside its curtain wall are rather small.  Trematon may be a castle but it certainly doesn’t look very strong.  It has no moat, just a drawbridge over a small pond in front of the castle gate, and no outer bailey, not even a dirt ring fence to keep in the livestock.  Even more worrisome, its curtain wall is very low.  I wonder why it’s so low?

The nearby village where the castle’s serfs and churls live is as poor as the castle - no more than a couple dozen or so wooden shacks with a little church and an alehouse. Not one of the shacks has a chimney.  They’re all like the one William and I grew up in until the Abbot took a shine to my arse and carried me off to learn and pray.

Our new acquired fortified farm house near the Limasol city walls looks to be much stronger despite having neither a moat nor a drawbridge.

Our approach to Trematon Castle causes some anxiety and the drawbridge over the small pond in front of the gate begins to be hauled up as we approach.   But then I order the men to move back and lead my horse slowly forward by myself while I wave my cross at the faces that begin appearing at the arrow slits.

“Who are you and what do you want?” comes the hail.

“I’m the Bishop of Bekka with news from the Holy Land about Lord Edmund.”

A few minutes later the drawbridge creaks noisily as it is slowly lowered - and then it drops back to the ground with a crash and a splash of the mud it lands in.  A few seconds later the big wooden gate in the castle’s curtain wall opens and an elderly man comes out wearing an old fashioned Saxon helmet and carrying a spear.  He watches impassively as I lead my horse over the bridge and into the enclosure beyond the curtain wall.

The drawbridge over the pond slowly rises behind me and the gate closes with a slam as soon as I enter the courtyard.  There is a loud thump as the spear carrying guard and another man drop a big wooden cross bar into place to seal the gate.  In the background I can hear the creaking as the drawbridge is slowly cranked back up.

An anxious looking woman comes out of the low door of the castle’s keep with a couple of young girls clinging to her arms.  She watches impassively as I dismount and hand the reins to a rheumy eyed old man who walks up and holds his hand out for them without saying a word.

The look on my face is all the woman needs to see – she bursts into tears and clutches the girls to her.

“He’s dead isn’t he?”

“Yes, God rest his soul, he is.  I’m truly sorry to have to tell you that Lord Edmund is dead.  A big rock was catapulted over the wall and hit him in the head.  He never felt a thing.”

Actually that’s a lie.  He took an arrow in the shoulder and the rot set in.  It took two weeks and at the end William did the right thing and gave him a soldier’s mercy on the night what was left of our company climbed over the south wall and ran.

I watch without saying a word as the girls begin sobbing and clinging to their mother while she tries to pull herself together and console them.  Finally she turns her attention back to me and, with her arms still around the weeping girls, uses a nod of her head and a sad smile to motion me to enter.  Six or seven men and women stand about in the yard and watch with increasingly sad faces as I duck my head and enter.  They instinctively understand the sorrowful news I’m bearing.

“I’ve feared this day ever since the damn fool left,” she tells me.  “He had to go, you know.  The new Earl levied a huge tax and demanded that Edmund either pay it or join Richard on his crusade so the Earl wouldn’t have to go.  And, of course, he couldn’t pay it so off he goes with Richard.”

I give her twenty gold bezant coins the next morning after I conduct a prayer service for Edmund in the village church.  I lie with a great deal of sincerity in my voice and say Lord Edmund entrusted the bezants to me to give to her in the event he fell.  I think she knows I’m telling a lie but she thanks me profusely - and tells me the bezants are greatly appreciated because they will help her continue to live in the castle for a while longer.

“After that,” she says that evening with a great sigh after the girls have gone off to their bed, “I don’t know what we’ll do.”

I stay for five days and we talk and talk and talk.  Edmund’s lady, her name is Dorothy and she’s the daughter of a knight with a manor in Derbyshire, wants to know everything about Edmund and the Holy Land - and the fate of the men who accompanied him and the archers who joined him.  It’s quite a tale and it takes some time to tell.

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Lady Dorothy and I are in the castle’s little “great hall” just finishing a meal of bread and onion soup on the fifth day of my visit when one of her villeins comes rushing in to report that a group of men are approaching on horseback.

I don’t know why, perhaps I have a premonition, but I go to the door and tell the men who are waiting for me in the castle yard to go back to the stables behind the keep and stay out of sight – “but arm yourselves and be ready to fight if I call.” Then I go back into the keep and reseat myself at the wooden table in the castle’s very small great hall.

Someone in our camp must have spread news of Edmund’s death for it is the Earl’s brother with four of his men who enter the hall as I am finishing my soup. His name is Ralph, Sir Ralph, and he’s a smelly bearded fellow.  He’s not very respectful of priests and bishops either.

“I see you already know about your husband,” he sneers at Lady Dorothy when he sees me sitting at the table.  “Well that makes it easier.  I’ve came to tell you about your husband and help you move.”

“Move?  Why should I move?  This is Edmund’s home and my children and I are Edmund’s heirs.”

“You’ll move because the Earl wants you out.  You haven’t paid the King’s taxes for two years and now he needs them more than ever.  In case you haven’t heard, King Richard is captured and a ransom has to be raised, a big ransom.”  Richard is alive?  I’ll be damned.

“Now go up the stairs and get your things together.  And don’t take anything that belongs to Edmund.  We’re keeping it to apply against your taxes.”  And with that he grabs her by the arm and thrusts her towards the stairs.

The man who had brought us the news about the riders and greeted them at the gate has come in behind Sir Ralph and his men.  I don’t know his name but he is standing against the wall listening to the conversation when I motion him over and whisper an order into his ear:

“Go out back to the stables and tell my men to come around and wait by the door - and to be ready to charge in if there’s a fight.”

Then I inject myself into the conversation.

“I’m sorry Sir Knight, but King Richard’s law is quite clear.  Widows of loyal nobles who fall on a crusade are to retain their lands and keeps without payment of taxes for their lifetimes.”

It’s all ox shit, of course.  I’m making it up.

“What’s that you say?  And who the fuck are you?”

“I am Thomas, Bishop of Bekka and Lady Dorothy’s confessor.  And until he left the Holy Land I had the honor to be the confessor of our dear King Richard.”

More ox shit.  I never talked to the murdering bastard.

“I don’t care who you are, she is leaving.” And with that he takes Lady Dorothy by the arm and starts to pull her towards the stone stairs leading to the room above the hall.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” I say with a snarl that is not at all appropriate for a man of the cloth, “At least not until I give you your last rites.  If you touch Lady Dorothy again you’ll surely never leave this place alive.  Best you open the door and take a look out front before you do something really stupid.”

It is one of Sir Ralph’s men who opens the great hall’s door – and jumps back in fright.

Seeing a dozen swords and iron tipped arrows pointed at your chest will do that for you every time.  Particularly when the men holding them look like the ferocious villains they are - which is how most escaped galley slaves and soldiers newly home from the wars tend to look.

“Who are those men?  What’s going on here?” Sir Ralph demands angrily as he turns and looks at me.

“They are some of Lord Edmund’s retainers newly returned from fighting in the crusades.”

That’s a lie too.  But why not - in for a copper, in for a gold.

@@@@@

As soon as the Earl’s brother departs mumbling his threats I send one of my men on a horse to carry a message to William describing the situation and telling him I intend to stay at the castle for a while longer in case Sir Ralph returns.  I also suggest that William change the men’s training to emphasize fighting on land and be prepared to march on Trematon on a moment’s notice.  I will, I inform my brother, send messengers if we need assistance.

And then, as a precaution and without telling Lady Dorothy, I send three of my men and our horses to camp on the little hill that rises about two miles away.  They are to act as lookouts.  If any armed men appear one is to ride for the castle to warn us; the other two for William.  I also made sure the castle’s water barrel and little cistern are filled and quietly assign positions to my men.  I do not mention my precautions to Edmund’s poor lady.  She is already distraught enough as it is.

It’s a good thing I prepared.  Three days later Sir Ralph returns with a number of armed men and his brother Baldwin, the Earl of Cornwall himself, from his seat at Restormel Castle.

Hmm.  It’s harvest time and they brought half a hundred men from Restormel who should be working in the fields.  Trematon must be more important than it looks.  Or maybe Baldwin is too stupid or doesn’t care if his people don’t have enough to eat this winter.

This time they don’t get in.  Finally, after his men pull far enough back at my insistence, we lower the drawbridge over the pond long enough for Sir Ralph and the Earl to cross over and reach the gate.  I open the gate a crack and speak with them with half a dozen or so of my guards behind me in case they try to push their way in.  The rest are up on the walls keeping a watch.

Their message surprises me and I tell them as much.  Sir Ralph, it seems, is now offering to marry Edmund’s widow.  Marriage, of course, would extinguish any rights she might have to the castle and make Sir Ralph the undisputed owner of both the castle and Lady Dorothy.  I raise my eyebrows, wave my cross to bless them, and agree to convey the offer to her and get back to them.

“Tell her to hurry up and make up her mind,” Baldwin demands rather arrogantly.  “Until she accepts my brother no one gets in or out.”  He is quite full of himself and seems to think he holds the upper hand.

Earl Baldwin’s a rat faced little bastard and my initial impression is that he is even more arrogant and stupid than his brother.  Taking his men away from the harvest proves it.

“I take that as a threat to do violence and I’m sure Lady Dorothy and her men will too,” I respond harshly. “So be warned yourself.  Until she decides to remarry and chooses your brother, you and your men best keep well away from Trematon’s walls - because in a couple of minutes I’m going to tell her guards that it’s time for them to begin breaking your blockade even if it means hurting you.”

Actually, I made a mistake; we should have killed them right then and there while the drawbridge is up behind them.  Ah well, done is done.  I’ve made many mistakes in my life haven’t I?

After launching a few more threats and warnings the two nobles hurry away and the wall in the curtain gate slams shut behind them. Only then does the drawbridge begin to go down so they can cross the pond and return to their waiting men.  Their heads are together and they are whispering and waving their hands as they cross the bridge.  My response is obviously not the cowering agreement they expected.

Within minutes the drawbridge is back up and we watch from the walls as the Earl’s men spread out and surround Trematon.  That’s when I climb to castle turret and wave the signal sending one of my lookouts on the hill galloping to Falmouth to get William.  Then I order my guards to pick off any of the Earl’s men who get within range of their arrows.

And I must admit that I that I did suggest in the first message I sent to William that killing the Earl and his brother might be an opportunity for us. I hope William agrees.  If fighting starts it won’t end until either the Earl and his moron brother are dead or we are.  And that could be a good thing, the Earl and his brother being dead I mean – the Earl’s castle may be available if he is gone and we move quickly.

@@@@@

The next day Sir Ralph plays the fool despite my warning.  He arrogantly trots his horse around the pond and right up to the wall on the north side of the castle.

“What is Lady Dorothy’s decision?” he demands as he looks up to where I am standing at an archer’s slit on the castle wall.  He is sitting on his horse not ten feet below me.

I know her decision because we have talked about it ever since the Earl and his brother first proposed the marriage.  I even share a few of our plans for George and assure Lady Dorothy that the Earl of Cornwall is no match for William and his men.  So I deliver her message myself – I shoot an arrow straight down into his upturned face.  I wasn’t always a priest you know.

The sight of his stupid brother falling off his horse seems to really anger the Earl.  A few moments later there is a great hue and cry as Baldwin and his men surge forward towards the castle walls waving their swords.  And then they get to the walls and look up to find a dozen or more defenders firing arrows and dropping rocks down on them – and turn around and run and stagger the other way leaving Sir Ralph and more bodies on the ground.  They had forgotten to bring ladders.

That afternoon the Baldwin and his men leave, but not before they work themselves into a rage and start to attack Trematon village.  They begin by torching one of the houses and cutting down a couple of villagers who hadn’t been smart enough to run when the fighting started at the castle.  But then the Earl stops them.  Apparently it suddenly dawns on the fool that his men are destroying some of the very property he wants to add to his own estate.

In any event, Baldwin and his men miss most of Trematon’s people because just about everyone is either in the fields for the harvest or inside the castle with Lady Dorothy.  In the end, after standing around thinking about the situation for a while, the Earl leaves Sir Ralph and the rest of his dead next to the castle walls and goes home with his men to get reinforcements and beat his wife or whatever it is that nobles do when they don’t get what they want.

We buried them without prayers three days later when they began to smell.

We’ll probably see the Earl of Cornwall and his men again when his harvest is in and more of his retainers are available.  So as soon as he and his men are out of sight I send yet another messenger to William describing what has happened and suggesting some precautionary steps that he might take.  And while I wait for William’s response I spend my time counseling and consoling Lady Dorothy and her daughters - and composing messages and documents to take to Prince John and the Pope.  Always best to be ready isn’t it?

Chapter Two

Thomas’s second message reaches me while I’m drilling the men on how to respond to attacks by mounted knights and men at arms using the newfangled Swiss pikes Brian produced for us before we left Cyprus.  It is quite an encouraging message; Thomas thinks Baldwin has gone to his Restormel Castle and will return to Trematon with more of his men right after the harvest is in.

My brother is right as usual – catching the fool out of his castle is too good an opportunity for us to pass up.

I send the messenger back on a fresh horse, newly acquired and the only one we have, to tell Thomas we’ll be coming.  Two hours later we are marching along the cart path to Trematon.  We start quickly because I’d already loaded the horse carts with the supplies we need and some of the coin chests – and sent rest of our coin chests to be loaded on our galleys.  Once they’re loaded, all we’ll have to do to protect them is push the galleys back into the water with a handful of men on each to act as guards.

Harold will have the men untie them and let them drift down to the safety of Falmouth Harbor if the Earl surprises us and attacks here at our camp instead of at Trematon.

One thing the Earl’s behavior accomplishes is making up my mind as to where we should spend the winter.  Falmouth and Trematon are going to be our base until the spring.  After that, who knows?

Our galleys will stay on the River Fal with a small guard of sailors under Harold’s command until we know it’s safe to pull them ashore.  The cogs, of course, will have to stay at mouth of the river when they return.  Everyone except the sailors on them will go to Trematon.  We’ll send the horse carts back to get more supplies from the ships if it looks like we might need them.

The other thing on my mind is Sir Percy.  Right after Thomas’ second messenger arrives with his message Sir Percy trots into camp on his horse leading another horse carrying his shield and all his armor.

“Hello Hello” he says as he slides off his horse and holds out his hand with a friendly smile.  “I’ve come to say goodbye.  I’ve been summoned to the Earl’s muster.  Well we all are, aren’t we?  The Earl’s knights I mean.  All seven us from around here and our men.  Probably two hundred or so I’d think.  Not that I have many men mind you.  Just Roger don’t you know.  But I sent him straight away to Restormel Castle to tell the Earl I’d be coming.  Yes I did.  Have no choice in the matter do I?”

“What’s happening, Sir Percy?  Why the muster?”  I know damn well why he’s mustering his men.  And Sir Percy knows I know.

“Why Lord Edmund’s widow has flummoxed him hasn’t she?  He was going to marry his brother to her to get her castle but somehow he got himself killed instead of married.  Damn shame, of course.”  He’s trying to warn me and Thomas.

“It could be dangerous.  She’s got a lot of friends, doesn’t she?”

“Oh aye.  She does.  She certainly does.  But Baldwin’s full of himself and he’s got a lot of men in his manors doesn’t he.  But most of them aren’t real soldiers, of course, so it will probably go badly for us.  Probably be another Hattin.”

“Well then.  Why go?  Why don’t you just stay in Falmouth and let them fight it out without you?”

“Can’t do that.  Honor you know.  Gave my word didn’t I?  Probably shouldn’t have pledged my liege but I did.  Be the death of me I suppose, but there you are?”

“Would you excuse me for one moment, Sir Percy?  There’s a matter I must attend to.”  ….. “Harold,   Harold come over here for a minute will you please?  I want you to meet a friend of ours, a very good friend.”

“Sir Percy, this is Harold.  He’s the sergeant captain of all of our sailors and he’ll be wintering right here in Falmouth with our ships.  Harold, this is my friend Sir Percy.  We’re friends even though he’s the Earl’s sheriff here in Falmouth.”  The men smile at each other as they shake hands.

“Do you know how to swim Sir Percy?”  I ask. “No?  Well that’s good.”

Then the faces of both men show surprise, a great deal of surprise, when I tell Harold what I want him to do next.

“Harold.  We’re taking Sir Percy as a prisoner and holding him for ransom.  I want you to immediately take him out to the cog you’ll be on while we’re gone.  Keep it anchored in the harbor at all times and on no account is Sir Percy to be allowed ashore for any reason until I return - and on no account is he to be bound or in any way mistreated.”

I’ll give Harold much more detailed instructions about Sir Percy in a few minutes when we are alone - we don’t kill or mistreat our friends.

@@@@@

Dividing one’s forces is never a good idea so all of our men except Harold’s sailors are accompanying the supplies and coin chests we are taking to Trematon.  If the Baldwin and his men come this way they’ll find our camp deserted and all our ships in the river; we’re taking everything except the spare weapons and the amphorae filled with grain and other stuff that we’ve loaded on to the galleys.  They’ll be safe on the galleys while we’re away and so will Sir Percy.  I thought about leaving one of the coin chests with Harold but finally decided against it.

George and the two boys from Falmouth Thomas is schooling with him are riding on the first wagon and taking everything in with big eyes.  They’ll fall asleep in about an hour if the past is any guide.

It takes almost five days for our column to reach Trematon.  One reason it takes so long is that every day we stop several times along the way to practice such things as what we’d do if our convoy is attacked and how we’d face an enemy force and maneuver if we have time to get organized.

And since every man is carrying a bow in addition to his other weapons, every training session ends with an archery tournament with a silver coin for the winner and a copper coin for the second.

The tournaments don’t delay us at all – the men shoot their arrows as they walk or ride past the targets and then a working party picks everything up and throws it on the last wagon.

Our targets are the sheep we cook and eat at the end of each day - and pay too much for because we want the serfs, churls, and free-holding franklins to be helpful with information in the coming battle with Earl Baldwin and thereafter.  It seems to be working; I don’t know how they learn of it but by the end of the second day the people along the route are bringing sheep and cattle to us in the hope we will buy them and use them as targets.

It isn’t just walking and practice that makes us slow.  It’s also the not insignificant fact that we are only able to buy one additional horse after Thomas leaves and the messenger is riding it back to Trematon.  So it’s the men who are pulling the horse carts and making fun of each other and complaining about it.  Which is a good sign, soldiers complaining out loud and teasing each other; it really is.

I thought about taking Percy’s two horses but quickly decided against it.  Instead I and a man take them to Falmouth with a ransom note and a suggestion that his wife send it to the earl; taking things from the local people is not the reputation we want to have.

Even the blown horse ridden in by Thomas’ messenger isn’t being used.  It’s still needs some time to recover so it is being walked by one of our sergeants a couple of miles ahead of us.  He will mount it and ride back and sound the alarm if he sees any dangers in front of us.  He’s not alone.  More than a dozen of our men are under his command and walking in a long line that stretches out a mile or more on either side of him.   I’ve got a couple of men walking way out on either side of us and behind us too.

I don’t know much about the Earl Baldwin’s military ability so I am taking precautions.  Some of the men aren’t full trained yet and I am determined that we will not be taken by surprise.

Trematon comes in sight in the late morning of the fifth day.  I send my main column to the north under Martin and continue on to the castle with about a hundred men who will join the castle’s defenders and some of the supply carts.

Thomas is right.  Trematon is not all that defensible – unless it has a big force inside as it soon will have.

@@@@@

Thomas sees us coming and rides out to meet me on one of Trematon’s two horses.  And the very first thing he does when we walk together into Trematon is introduce me and George to Lord Edmund’s widow and the two bashful little girls who peer around her sheepskin skirts.

“Lady Dorothy, this is my brother William I’ve told you so much about.  And that little fellow there is his son George.  George’s two friends are Roger and Cyrus from Falmouth.  They are learning their letters and numbers with George as I think I mentioned to you.”

It’s fun to watch the young ones peek at each other and try to pretend they are not.  They’re all quite curious it seems.  Even Lady Dorothy notices and smiles.  So do Thomas and I.

Our supply carts are pulled into the castle’s little bailey and the horse is turned over to one of the men who will be riding our horses as message gallopers. The sheep and cattle we bought along the way for targets and provisions stayed with the main column for food.  We’ll bring some into the bailey for the castle’s use if we have time.

We’ll decide tomorrow where our main body of men should be located.  The important thing for now is keeping them far enough away from the castle so that any of the Earl’s spies and gallopers, if he even has any, won’t see them and know that he is walking into a trap.

The sergeant of our watchers immediately mounts our horse and trots off with one of the local men as a guide running alongside.  The two of them will join the gallopers with our other horses where Thomas has them watching for the Earl.

They are watching the river ford everyone says the Earl’s forces will have to use if he leads his men west from Restormel towards either Trematon or Falmouth.  Their job is to lie low and watch the crossing – and send a couple of gallopers to tell us when the Earl’s men reach it and which way they are heading after they wade across.

All the rest of our men who walked in with me, about eighty of them, jam themselves into the castle’s little bailey along with the horse carts and begin the usual chores of campaign life – setting up tents, digging shite holes, and collecting water from the brook nearest the castle walls.  And they do so under Thomas’ watchful eye - he’s big on keeping piss and shite out of the water and away from the camp isn’t he?  He claims that’s the way the book he read at the monastery says the Romans did it.

@@@@@

It doesn’t take long to get the men in the castle organized and out of sight.  Then Thomas and I take the castle’s two horses and ride out to inspect the surrounding area.  We’re looking for the best place to locate the rest of our men, the ones who continued on to the north when I walked into the castle with the others.  Some of the nearby woodlands look quite promising.

After we ride around a bit we dismount and stand in an open area next to one of the woodlands.  From up here we can see the castle and the lands surrounding it.  It’s time to talk about how we’re going to proceed.

I suggest that perhaps we might have the men inside castle put up a token resistance and retreat into the keep - and let the Earl’s men into the courtyard.  When they’re inside we can use our larger force of men to surround the castle and they’ll be trapped in the compound without food and water.  Then we’ll kill the Earl and his knights and let his peasants and everyone else go home.

Thomas doesn’t like the idea.  He says he read a really old book about Rome in the monastery that described just such a battle - and how the men inside the compound won.  The Romans trapped one enemy force inside the walls of their fortress by building a wall around it - and then built a second wall to keep out the relieving force that soon arrived.  They held both walls until the people in the fortress starved and so many died that the rest surrendered.  Then the would-be relievers gave up and went away.

After thinking about it I agree with Thomas that letting Baldwin and his men into the compound is not a good idea.   Holding a keep and luring an attacking force into the walled compound in front of it is a good idea for many castles but probably not for Trematon.  Its keep is too weak - if they can batter down the door the Earl’s men may be able to quickly break into it from the courtyard and kill everybody before we can starve them out or get into the compound and stop them.

So we go to a different plan - I’ll lead the men in a charging run out of the trees and take the Earl and his men in the rear as soon as the Earl begins mounting an attack on the castle walls.  Since we’ll be on foot with a couple of miles to run it will take about twenty minutes to get there.  That means the wall and the keep will have to be held at least that long – and it’s virtually certain that Trematon can be held that long since we now have more than enough fighting men inside to bleed them on the walls and then sortie and win even without my surprise attack.  Of course we have a lot of men in there; my son is in there with my brother.

Alternately what we’ll do if the Earl and his men don’t launch a major attack on the day they arrive is creep out of the trees in the dark like robbers and storm into the Earl’s encampment at dawn.  I’ll make that decision when I see where they camp and how they act.

Whatever we do, Thomas and I agree, we must do everything possible to kill Baldwin while he’s outside his own castle and vulnerable.  Otherwise we’ll have to lay siege to his castle and his vassals and his relatives and friends, if he has any, might be able to come and relieve him.

In any event, by the time the sun goes down we have decided to hide me and a large force of our men here in the trees – all the men who continued to the north with Martin while I was leading the smaller party into Trematon Castle.

There is another stand of trees closer but it’s too close.  The Earl’s men might come across our men when they go out searching for firewood for their cooking fires.

Then we go back to the castle to have dinner with Lady Dorothy and the children.  I hope it isn’t roast mutton.  I know Lady Dorothy and her tenants have a lot of sheep but I’m getting tired of mutton after five days of eating the archers’ targets.

I’ll ride north in the morning and lead the waiting men to their new positions.

@@@@@

Early the next morning, after a fine evening of conversation and mutton stew, Thomas and I use Trematon’s two horses to ride north for about an hour to meet Martin and the men who will be our ambush force.  They are camping beside a little stream that runs into the River Fal below the ford.

Martin calls the sergeants together as soon as we arrive and I briefly explain the situation as soon as they gather around.  Then we lead the men on a march to the woodland where we will be waiting until the Earl arrives with his men.

We reach the woods about noon and Thomas and I immediately begin working with Martin and his sergeants while the men make camp next to the little brook that runs through the trees.  The first thing we do is walk out and assemble on the little hill between the trees and Trematon so I can point to landmarks and explain what we are going to do and why.

It is important Martin and his sergeants understand what we’re going to do and why and where we’re going to do it – it will be them and their men I’ll be leading out of the woods to counterattack the Earl’s men.  We’ll do it either when they begin their attack the castle or in their camp if they attempt a siege.  And Martin and the sergeants and the chosen men who are their seconds certainly need to know what to do and who to follow if Martin or I go down.

“Okay.  Everyone listen up.  That’s Trematon Castle over there.  It’s going to be attacked by the Earl of Cornwall and some of his men in a couple of days.  He wants to evict the widow and her two young daughters who live there and add it to his lands that are east of here.”

“And he’s pretty stupid in addition to being greedy.  He thinks the castle’s weak and only defended by the woman and a dozen or so of her people of whom not a one is a soldier.  He doesn’t know it now has more than a hundred of our men inside its walls.”

“We don’t know how strong a force the Earl will bring or whether he will attack or just try to starve them out.  But since he only thinks he’ll only be fighting a dozen or so untrained men it’s likely he’ll attack when he finds out she won’t let him in.  Then there will be a fight where we’ll not only outnumber and surprise the bastards but we’ll also be much better trained and more experienced than they are.”

Which is always how it is best to fight.  When you’ve got the enemy by the balls, I mean.

“What the Earl also doesn’t know is that a hundred or so of our men, and my son George and his little friends, are already inside the castle under Bishop Thomas’ command.  All the rest of us will be waiting here in the woods to fall upon the attackers’ rear. At least that’s the plan.  And here’s how we’re going to do it.”

After two hours of explaining and pointing and answering questions I’m losing my voice but I think they get it enough to explain to their men.

“So now we’re going to go back to the men and begin practicing.  This afternoon we’ll simulate a charge against a force at the Trematon walls and then early tomorrow morning we’ll move out of our camp in the dark so we can practice an attack against an enemy camp in the dawn’s early light.”

“But before you go back to your men and explain what we’re going to do, you also need to know what to tell them not to do – they are not to allow their men to wander out of our camp or to light fires and show smoke during the day.  They are also to be absolute quiet and only talk in whispers when we are forming up for our attack whenever it might be.

“And know this.  It is important to the success of our attack that no one is seen by the Earl’s spies or peasants they might chat up.  We don’t want to lose any of our men by being stupid.  So it’s on every sergeant and chosen man’s head that his men never let themselves be seen and do all their cooking in the middle of the night - so the smoke is all gone by the time the sun comes up.”

“And one more thing when we fight it’s important that every one of your men is wearing his sailors cap and either carrying a bow or a small ship’s shield – it’s the only way the men in the castle will know who is a friend and who is not.”

We really need something so our men can identify each other in the confusion of a battle.  Maybe a colored tunic?

@@@@@

After our session with Martin and his sergeants Thomas rides back to Trematon and I go with Martin to his camp.  Starting tonight I will begin sleeping in the woods with them until the Earl and his men show up.

And, of course, Thomas and I are doing a number of other things to provide the Earl and his men with a warm welcome – such as putting out gallopers on his likely route so we’ll know when he is coming and who he is bringing with him.  Also, and even though we don’t tell the sergeants because they don’t need to know, we’ve got a dozen or so of the castle’s new men in the empty village and scattered around in the outlying fields posing as shepherds.

The arrogant sonofabitch is not going to sneak up on us and surprise us if I can help it.  Not with my son and brother in the castle he isn’t.

@@@@@

A galloper just arrived on a blown horse after a brief stop at the castle to sound the alarm - the sergeant captaining the messengers reports a force of several hundred men led by the Earl are approaching the river crossing.

Another blown horse?  Our horses are really very poor; they have no bottom do they?

The result of his warning at Trematon, the galloper tells me with a big smile when I inquire, is a lot of running around and shouting sergeants.

Several hours later a second galloper arrives – the Earl is taking the footpath towards Trematon - and he’s bringing a little over two hundred of his men with him to deal with the dozen or so men he thinks are inside with Lady Dorothy.  They’re carrying many long ladders and he’s at least two days away at the slow speed they’re moving.  None of his men split off to go to Falmouth.

It sounds safe enough since they’re at least a day away so I decide to walk in to Trematon with a squad of men.  I want to see what’s going on at the castle and talk to Thomas – we don’t want any unnecessary casualties so it’s important for him to remind his men that everyone coming out of the trees will be wearing a sailor’s cap and carrying either a small ship’s shield or a bow.  Also I’m tired of eating fire-blackened mutton with the men.

And it’s a good thing I do, walk in I mean.  Thomas promises he’ll once again warn every man in the castle not to shoot or stab or drop rocks on our own men.

Then, before I walk back, Thomas and I, and George and his little friends, have a delicious dinner of mutton stew with Lady Dorothy and her girls.  She is greatly relieved and thankful when she hears that my son and Thomas will be staying in the castle with her and her children.

And I’m really getting tired of mutton although the bread and onions are very good indeed.  Her cheese is very questionable - I have the runs right after we eat.  At least I think it’s the cheese.

After dinner I lead my little squad of men back to the woods where we’ll spend the night.  I doesn’t look like the Earl and his men will arrive until the day after tomorrow but I want to once again practice our attack on his sleeping camp just as the sun comes up in the morning.

Yesterday morning’s practice attack didn’t go very well and this time we’ll go for another of the likely places where the Earl might pitch his camp.

@@@@@

We’ve been getting periodic reports from our gallopers as to the location of the Earl and his men.  So it is no surprise this afternoon when a disorganized mass of men comes over the little hill to the east and starts down towards the castle.

A few minutes later and here comes a party of mounted men bringing up the rear.  Undoubtedly it is the Earl and his knights.  He probably called them and their men in from their distant manors even though their harvests are almost certainly not in.  Well not all of his knights, of course – I’ve got Sir Percy tucked away with Harold on one of our galleys.

Except for the Earl and his men everything is very quiet and nothing is moving except for some deer nibbling on tree branches as they drift past our camp.  From here in the woods I can just make out that the castle gate is closed and the drawbridge over the pond is up.  The place looks deserted.  And that’s the way it should look because yesterday the sheep and tenant farmers and the castle’s serfs were all moved to the most distant fields and our fake shepherds recalled.

The village looks empty too.  It should.  It is empty.  And the villagers are good half day’s walk on the far side of the castle so they should be safe too.  Besides, the Earl wants to own them so he’s not likely to kill them.

Our men seem almost glad to see the Earl and his men.  Probably because it means the waiting is over - as every soldier can tell you, it is the waiting before the battle starts that grinds you down because you start thinking of all the terrible things that might happen.

In any event our men are excited and curious.  They all start talking and moving towards the edge of the trees to get a better look.  A few sharp words from the sergeants moves them back.

We can’t have them doing that – we don’t want to take the chance of being seen and ruining our ambush so that more of our men are hurt before we finish them off, the Earl and his men that is.

The immediate question is what will Baldwin do now - attempt to parley with the castle to see if Dorothy has changed her mind?  Pitch a camp and organize an attack?  Or charge right in and have a go at the castle?  I doubt he’s going to approach for a parley after what befell his stupid brother but you never can be sure with these hereditary lords who come over from France.  They’ve got weak blood you know.

Ahh.  Well, we’ll soon find out.

As we watch from the tree line we can see Baldwin’s men putting down their loads and beginning to gather around the Earl and the little group of horsemen.  At least I think that’s Baldwin; I hope so.  And there goes a mounted knight towards the castle with a man running next to him.  Then they stop well short of the wall.  He must have heard about what happened to the Earl’s brother when he approached the wall.

Now what’s he doing?  Of course, I bet the man’s blowing a horn to get the castle’s intention.  Well, I’d wager he’s already got it but I suppose the formalities have to be observed.  Richard is a stickler for such things but the rumors say John is not.

Hmm.  I wonder what he is saying and if Thomas is going to reply.  He said he was going to keep the castle totally silent until someone gets careless and comes within crossbow range.  It happens, you know.  They think you can’t hear them because they are too far away so they come closer.  I got a Saracen that way for Lord Edmund.  Caught the wind and stuck him in the throat, didn’t I?  Probably the best shot I ever made.

@@@@@

From up here in the castle keep we can see more and more of the Earl’s men gathering.  It looks like they are being pushed into some kind of line.  And they’re carrying ladders, lots of ladders.  Well, it won’t be long now and we’re as ready as we can be.  Time for me to go back down on the ramparts to be with the men.

As I wave at Lady Dorothy and start down the narrow winding stone stairs I start wondering once again if Baldwin will lead his men or send them and watch from a distance.  Our plan is for my men here in the castle to put up the weakest possible defense needed to keep the Earl’s men out until the Earl himself comes close enough to be pot shot for a poacher’s goose.  So we’re going to act as if we are only a few.

That’s only one of the reasons I’m going to be with the men on the ramparts – to make sure everyone stays with the plan and doesn’t reveal himself.  Another is to remind them once again that our men who will be coming out of the woods will all be wearing sailors’ caps and carrying either bows or ships shields.

Motivating the men to do the right thing is important.  I thought about promising a gold bezant coin to whoever kills the Earl.  But I decided not to because then everyone will almost certainly shoot at extreme range in hopes of getting lucky - and that may cause Baldwin to hang back.  So I’ve offered five copper coins for each ladder that is pushed away with a man on it and two silver coins for every man who kills an attacker who gets over the castle wall.  I’ll be reminding them of that as well.

William is undoubtedly watching and will decide when his men are to attack and hit Baldwin’s army in the rear.  But just in case I’ve got a couple of my steadiest men up at one of the tower windows with a flag and a lantern.  I’ll have them waved if I need William to launch an immediate attack for any reason.

George and Lady Dorothy and the children are up there too.  I’m not taking any chances.

@@@@@

Things are tense out here in the trees.  The mounted knight and his bugler have returned and are talking to the group of mounted men.  One of them must be Earl Baldwin.  Oh.  Now what?  Yes.  Here they come.  But why so few?

A small group of men is moving forward.  Of course.  They’ve probably been ordered to go forward and see if the castle is as abandoned and undefended as it appears.  They are all carrying shields and two or three of them seem to be carrying a ladder.

About ten men cautiously walk up to the lowest spot on Trematon’s north wall and place the ladder against it.  A man starts to slowly climb the ladder with his shield up.  Then something happens and we watch as the ladder slowly tips over and he falls to the ground waving his arms and dropping his shield.  The men at the wall start to run but then they stop and come back.

I bet someone reached out of one of the archers’ slits with one of the Swiss pikes Thomas asked us to bring him and pushed the ladder over.  They’ve got a notch between the blade and the staff that is just right to do it.

In a few seconds three or four of the men in the Earl’s advance party are standing around the man who fell and trying to get him on his feet.  The rest of the Earl’s men are once again just standing around next to the wall.  But no one has his shield up or is acting alarmed particularly alarmed.  There must have been no arrows or shouts from the inside.

After a minute or so a rider detaches himself from Baldwin’s party and rides towards the men standing next to the wall.  He must be shouting some kind of order for once again the men start putting up the ladder.  This time they’re going to try a little further down the wall.

Once again something happens and the ladder falls over when the man on the ladder gets close to the top.  And once again the men gather around the fallen man without raising their shields.

At this point the rider trots a little closer.  Then he dismounts and walks to the wall.  The way he is standing looks like he is shouting something up to the people in the castle.

After a while, he turns back and remounts his horse and slowly trots back to Baldwin.  The men by the wall start to follow him.  They don’t get very far.  The rider turns his head and says something to them over his shoulder as he trots away and they turn and walk back to the wall.  The man who went down on the second ladder is still on the ground next to the wall.  From here he doesn’t appear to be moving.

There is brief conversation when the rider reaches the party of mounted men and I can make out arms being waved about.  Then several of the mounted men wheel away and a few seconds later all Baldwin’s men begin slowly walking toward to the castle walls.  The Earl and his little party of mounted men are right behind them.  We can see the banners fluttering on their lances as their horses trot forward.

“Get ready but hold fast.  It isn’t time yet.” I shout.  All along our line of men in the trees the cry is repeated by the sergeants.  Almost.  Almost.

Baldwin’s men are carrying several dozen or more ladders, maybe a lot more.  That’s actually pretty smart because it means there will be more climbers than defenders so that some will be able to get over the wall – if there are only a few defenders as Baldwin apparently believes.

In what seems like only an instant the great mass of the Earl’s men moves forward and gathers below the castle wall.  They begin slowly and cautiously climbing the ladders and all of the men on the ladders with shields have them up.

Less than half of the Earl’s men appear to be carrying shields but Thomas’ men must still be waiting – the Earl’s men who aren’t climbing don’t have their shields raised.  And once again the ladders begin to go over as the climbers get close to the top.

Then it happens.  In a trice an absolute stream of arrows and rocks pour from ramparts on to the men gathered below.  I can’t see them come down at this distance, of course, but I can certainly see the sudden reaction of the men who must be receiving them.

And a lot of the arrows on the north side seem to be being directed at the Earl and his horse – I think that is what is happening because there seems to be a particularly great amount of confusion in the area where Baldwin and his knights have been sitting on their horses.   Most of the horses are down or staggering except for one that is running off without a rider.  All the men at the walls with shields have them up.

“Charge,” I shout as loudly as I can as I point my longbow toward the castle and the men around it.  “Charge.”

@@@@@

We burst out of the trees as a great mass of men and begin running towards the battle going on in front of us.  There are a few shouts but they soon end as we begin trotting towards the castle.  We’ve practiced this before and we know need to save our breaths for the run and the fighting that will follow.  At least, praise the Lord, it looks like we’ll significantly outnumber the castle’s attackers.

I’m moving well and most of the men are staying up with me.  That’s good because we want to crash into the Baldwin’s men in one great irresistible mass.  And like everyone else I’m wearing a sailor’s cap and carrying a little shield in addition to my bow and two quivers; one with longs and one with heavies.

A couple of our men are way out in front of us.  They are clearly racing each other to be the first to engage.  They must have very good legs and very small minds because they are moving ahead despite the orders to move together and spread out.  And as I look back I can see a few of our men lagging behind.

Damn.  Another mistake. I should have placed a steady man back there to chivvy them along and take the names and kick the arses of those who are deliberately avoiding the fight.

Generally things are going well.  At least so far.  Our men are following their sergeants and spreading out as we move towards the castle.  That’s good because our plan is to sweep around the castle and the men at its walls like the horns of the ox - so the men gathered at the castle wall are inside the horns and can’t escape, particularly the Earl.

Unlike Thomas who will wait to the last moment so Baldwin isn’t warned away, I’ve already put a bounty on him – ten silver coins and a gold bezant for the man who kills him.

We are still some distance from the castle and moving fast when the Earl’s men begin to see us and begin to become alarmed.  Our arrival is obviously unexpected and they don’t know what to do.

The indecision of Baldwin’s men doesn’t last long.  One after another they begin to scatter and run.  Some of them even run soon enough and fast enough to get away before the horns of our attack close around them.  A few foolish souls even turn around as if they’re going to stand and fight.  But then they too begin to run.

Among the early runners attempting to escape are a couple of knights in armor who are somehow able to swing themselves on to their horses.  One of them gallops away safely through the shower of arrows and rocks falling on the crowd of panic stricken men but the horse of the other suddenly goes down.

I’m puffing and have a pain in my side by the time I finally reach the pile of dead and wounded men on the ground where I’d last seen the Earl and his mounted retinue.  And there he is.  Baldwin is in the middle of a pile of men and horses on the ground – deader than a plucked chicken in the cook’s pot.

He is seriously dead and there is no half way about it.  Thomas obviously had every archer shoot at Baldwin as soon the fighting starts and keep shooting.  Baldwin’s armor didn’t save him - he and his horse and the ground and men and horses closest around him have the crossbow bolts and the arrows of our strongest longbow men sticking out of them everywhere.  Their metal tips will go through chain mail don’t you know?  He and his horse look like one of those little cushions with pins it that I saw in the Damascus market.

Thomas’ archers obviously continued to shoot at the Earl long after he died.  Of course they did.  Thomas wanted to make sure of him so he obviously did what he’d said he intended to do – lead our best archers to where the Baldwin is approaching the wall and shout out a promise of a silver coin for every arrow or bolt he pulls out of the Earl or his horse.  No doubt some of them are from Thomas himself but there are so many it is likely some of the men will get a good handful of coins.  And worth every penny isn’t it?

We’ve got what we want and there is no doubt about it - Cornwall needs a new earl.

“Stop killing.  Take prisoners” …. “Stop killing.  Take prisoners.”

@@@@@

Thomas waves down to me from the castle ramparts and a few minutes later the castle gate opens.  He comes out with some of his men and a big grin on his face.  He’s very excited with an urge to talk as we shake hands and clap each other on the shoulder.  All the men are as excited as he is and so am I.  Everyone is talking at once.

“Well we got the bugger didn’t we?”

“Aye.  That we did, Thomas.  That we did.”

“Well then.  Let’s see to the prisoners.  Are you still going to let them go home if they pledge their liege to you?   I hope so.  First thing tomorrow I’ll say prayers over all the dead, theirs and ours and then go with you to Restormel Castle.  ”

And that’s what we do.

@@@@@

Our review of the battle is not pretty as we walk together and talk that night after dinner.  We made a lot of mistakes and we know it.  Thomas called me to task and rightly so.

“We won big but were damn lucky to do so.  What if Baldwin had kept his wits and had a reserve come in behind us once you’d spread out your men and commenced your attack?  We would have been the ones slaughtered.  Or what if he’d crossed the river somewhere else and he’d showed up before I had time to send for you?  Or what if he had trained his men so they had turned from the castle walls and faced your wild charge in a steady formation?”

“Aye, Thomas.  You’re right.  We took some big risks and I made a really big mistake by not holding back a reserve force.  And we should have had more spies and horsemen out there to warn us in case Baldwin had come another way.  And more horses; we should have had many more horses, so we could move our men about faster.”

“Well done is done and we were lucky the Earl was so inept, God rest his useless soul.  Now what?”

“Why now we get ourselves off to Restormel Castle and help John and Richard find a new lord for Cornwall and maybe a new bishop for the county as well.”

Chapter Three

Thomas and I see to our wounded and then we move around from campfire to campfire joking with our men as they begin celebrating their victory by roasting sheep from Trematon’ flock.  Everyone is excited and happy – both for our victory and because in the morning many of the men will be going on with us to the late Earl’s seat at Restormel Castle. Later this afternoon Thomas and I will have a more private victory dinner in the castle with Lady Dorothy and the equally excited children.  We’ve been promised lamb chops and new cheese.

By noon the next day the dead are buried and Thomas and I are on horses and riding towards Restormel Castle at the head of a column of hundreds of our men.  A number of wagons carrying our tents and unused supplies are traveling on the cart path with us.

Not all of our men are in our column, of course; a goodly number are remaining at Trematon to guard the castle and our prisoners and care for the wounded.

It is an interesting trip along a well-worn footpath and several times we see men running across the fields and through the woods.  They’re probably escapees from the Earl’s defeated army trying to get home.  We pay them no mind and wish them well.  Indeed, a few of them actually come to us and join our ranks when we happily shout and wave them in.

Without exception those who join us are hungry and unarmed - serfs and churls who were with Baldwin to fulfill their obligations.  They apparently came in because we shouted at them to join us and they’re used to following orders.

Restormel Castle comes into sight the next morning as we wade across the River Fowey.  It’s quite an impressive sight and Thomas and I are taken aback when we first see it in the distance on the high land overlooking the river.

As a castle Restormel is just plain different - it’s perfectly round and it’s perched up on a great mound of earth so that the whole surrounding countryside can be seen in every direction.

There’s also a fairly sizeable village next to the castle and it’s right on the cart path we’re traveling.  No doubt that’s where some of the castle’s farmworkers and servants live.

When we get closer we can see that the castle is as strong as it looks.  Around its high stone curtain wall is a moat with a drawbridge - and around the whole of it including the moat is a second great circular earth and timber curtain wall and second moat and drawbridge.  Both drawbridges are up.

“Getting us in there by force is not going to be easy.  So it’s a task for me to handle by myself as a bishop.” Thomas tells me with a grin.

“You and the men stay here while I go forward.”

@@@@@

I’m by myself as I ride slowly up to first drawbridge.  “Hello the castle,” I shout.  “I’m Bishop Thomas.  Let me in.”

Nothing happens so after a while I dismount and take a piss.  Then a couple of faces appear on the wall above the gate.  I’m just shaking my dingle when the gate opens a crack and a man in clothes of a field worker slips out and the gate quickly closes behind him.

“I’m Bishop Thomas.  I have news about the Earl.  Let me in,” I once again shout across the moat.

“The Earl’s dead” is the shouted rely.

“Of course he’s dead.  He went against Prince John didn’t he?  And I know he’s dead for sure.  I buried him and said the prayers, didn’t I?  Now open the gate and let me in.  I need to talk to whoever is in charge of the castle.  Is that you?”

“Of course, not.  Sir Miles is the Constable.”

“Well take me to him man.  Get on with it.  And get me bowl of water while you’re at it.  I’m thirsty, aren’t I.”

“Sir Miles is not here.  He’s with the Earl.”

“If he’s with the Earl he’s dead I probably buried him and said the words for him too.  Who’s in charge here at the moment?  Is it the Earl’s wife?

“Not her.  She’s run off to her father this morning, hasn’t she?”

Then a voice hails me from the top of timber wall next to the drawbridge.

“Who are you and what do you want?”

“I’m Bishop Thomas.  I’m here for Prince John and I want to talk to whoever is in charge of the castle.”

“That’s me.  Robert.  I’m the Constable’s sergeant.”

“Well drop the bridge and open the gate Robert Constable Sergeant.  We need to talk.”

“I have my orders from the Earl himself to keep it closed.  I darest not.  No offense to you Bishop.”

“None taken.  None taken.  But the man who gave you those orders is dead and buried.  So they no longer apply.  I’m here with Prince John’s new lord for the castle, Lord William.  If you don’t open the gate to him in the next five minutes you’ll be guilty of a treason most foul against your sovereign and you’ll be excommunicated before you are executed and burn forever in hell.  Now open the gate and save yourself.”

A few minutes later and down comes the drawbridge and the gate opens.

@@@@@

Our men are pouring into the castle as Thomas addresses the Constable’s sergeant and a small group of Baldwin’s retainers gathered in the castle’s great hall.  There are enough men here to hear his message.  They’ll soon spread the word.

“Prince John sent Lord William, this man right here by my side, to take the Earl’s place at Restormel Castle.  I’m Bishop Thomas and I’m here representing Prince John.”

It’s all ox shit, of course.  Prince John wouldn’t know Thomas even if he leaped up and bit him in the ass.  But that’s what Thomas tells the wide-eyed sergeant and the castle workers including a couple of the survivors of Baldwin’s attack on Trematon who’d already made their way back to the castle.  Must of run all the way, didn’t they?

Not everyone is so easily gulled.  The local priest comes bustling in from the church inside the castle grounds and barely pauses long enough to hesitantly kiss Thomas’ ring before he starts asking questions.  He’s apparently the second or third son of a minor lord with a manor near Truro and full of himself.

Ten minutes later he’s in full flight back to his church to organize prayers for all those who died when the treasonous earl attacked Edmund’s poor widow.

Restormel’s priest stops asking questions and leaves right after Thomas ignores him and proceeds to explain to the little gathering that I as their new lord am obliged by Prince John to take the head of anyone who supports the dead Earl’s treasonous behavior.  That does not apply and will not apply, Thomas assures them as I nod in solemn agreement, to good vassals such as themselves who loyally supported the dead Earl because he was their liege lord and will similarly pledge and honor their liege to Lord William as the new lord of Restormel.

Loyalty and adherence to tradition are important to both Prince John and Lord William and will be rewarded, Thomas explains as I once again nod my head in solemn agreement.

Tradition is important be damned.  I’ll not have my son a serf as Thomas and I were berthed just because serfdom is an “English tradition and supported by the church” as I once heard Richard say when we were sitting around a campfire at Acre.”

An exception will be made in the case of the local priest, Bishop Thomas assures his listeners - since he not one of the late Earl’s vassals, and is obviously a man of the cloth; he’ll be burned if he is not loyal to Restormel’s new lord.

I smile and nod as I listen.  Thomas is bending the truth, of course, as a man must sometimes do.

Chapter Four

Life at Restormel slowly regains normalcy in the fall and early winter.  Revenge and recriminations do not occur.  To the contrary, the old Earl’s vassals, every single one of them from the two surviving knights to the tenants and serfs who work for them and the knights who fell with Baldwin, learn they will not be prosecuted for being the loyal vassals of the late Earl.  Everyone is assured that Prince John and Lord William value such loyalty and will reward it.

I also pass the word that it will be instantly fatal if I ever find a slave in Cornwall or a serf is not allowed to make his mark and become one of my men or join the Company of Archers.

What I don’t tell them is that in a few months when things settle down the serfs will also all be freed.

@@@@@

It’s a busy time.  Harold sends a messenger from Falmouth reporting that several of our ships, both of the galleys, are back in port and returned loaded with seasick recruits who are as hungry as wolves and quickly recovering.  He’s heard of our victory at Trematon and wants to know if it’s now okay for the men and Sir Percy to go ashore.

We decide that Thomas will stay at Restormel and that I’ll ride straightaway to Trematon to get George and then on to Falmouth to give Harold his orders and make sure he got my orders to set Sir Percy free.

Of course I’m going to ride; the channel’s much too rough to take small boat down the River Fowey and try to row to Falmouth; we might get blown out into the Atlantic and take weeks to get back or worse.

Before I leave we make a number of decisions.  One is to make Restormel our headquarters for the winter and perhaps permanently.  It is, after all, obviously much more defensible than Trematon. Another is to move the ships from the River Fal to the River Fowey so they’ll be closer to Restormel.  The Fowey runs nearby even though it is much too shallow this far upstream to get even the galleys all the way up to Restormel.

@@@@@

William is off to Trematon and Falmouth by the time the Abbot and a couple of monks from the Bodmin monastery arrive to kiss my ring.  Rufus, the Bodmin Abbot, has heard that Restormel has a new lord and he’s here with his brother monks because he wants the land back that Baldwin’s predecessor expropriated and “the evil Lord Baldwin refused to return despite it being stolen most foul.”

Abbot Rufus is sure that I as a distinguished bishop of the church understand the monastery’s needs and will do the right thing by helping the Abbot convince William to return his lands.

“Oh yes.  I do understand.  I do indeed.  I’ll certainly help,” I assure the Abbot and his delegation.

Monks are useless thieves and no mistake; kept me mum and me hungry with their demands for food to get their prayers didn’t they?

Bodmin’s monks are no more than out the door and severely disappointed by William’s absence when the Archdeacon of Cornwall shows up.  He’s come all the way from Exeter and wants lands and money “for the perpetual prayers of the church.”

The archdeacon is absolutely astonished to be greeted by a bishop with a ring to kiss but he’s obviously a fast thinker.  He’d heard about my appointment but hadn’t realized I was already here.  He’s arrived intending to relieve Baldwin of his sins by accepting coins and land in exchange perpetual prayers for him in the local monasteries and churches.

He quickly changes his tune when he discovers the Baldwin is neither among the living nor greatly lamented.  Without missing a beat he suggests a donation to the church, which he would be happy to accept, for the prayers needed to “consecrate” the new lord and enlist God’s help in carrying out his duties.

Alas, I inform him with appropriate sorrow and sincerity, “it’s a pity Earl William did not know you were coming to Restormel or I’m sure he would have waited to greet you and accept your generous offer.  But I’m sure you’ll be most pleased to know that I’ve already consecrated Lord William in his new responsibilities and prayed extensively with him for his success.”

“But more prayers never hurt do they, Archdeacon, and I’m sure he’d want them.  Unfortunately you’ve just missed him.  Lord William is off to Trematon and Falmouth to see after his affairs.  Perhaps you can find him there and pray with him.”  Though pigs will fly before you’ll get a penny or an acre from either of us.

Both the Abbot and the archdeacon get the same reassuring answers to what I assure them is their “very reasonable” requests for money and lands – I will personally recommend their requests to William since I am sure the churches in the Holy Land will get a share of the resulting benefits.  They both enthusiastically agree that my “request” for a cut is an absolutely splendid idea.

What they both also get in addition to my demand for a share of the proceeds, and both reluctantly decline, is a sincere offer of transport to the Holy Land so they can pray for Lord William at holy places where it will do the most good.

It’s the first time William and I have been solicited so directly for coins by high and mighty churchmen and we need to learn how to better handle them. Just telling them to piss off doesn’t sound right.  Now that we’re gentry we need to do it more smoothly.

They probably ignored us in the past because we had no coins or land for them to gull us out of, wouldn’t you think?

But we’ve got to come up with something so they go away quickly.  It seems each time a churchman shows up begging for coins he expects to be fed and dined as well.  We can handle that, of course.  Feeding them I mean.  But what is so unbearable is having a good meal ruined by having to listen to them drone on and on.

When William returns, I’m going to suggest that hereafter we ask everyone who shows up what they want as soon as they arrive and, if they are clerics, we’ll offer them passage to the Holy Land instead of money - and then regretfully announce that we are immediately leaving to “practice military training and maneuvers for the next crusade” and the cooks are going with us.

There is little doubt in my mind of will happen; if they are clerics most of them will leave immediately when they see they have no prospect of either coins or free food and ale. If that doesn’t work and they still want to stay we’ll carry them off to the next ship we have outbound to the Holy Land and send them on a pilgrimage whether they like it or not.  They can help row.

Besides, it’s true about our need for more training and maneuvers.  Our plan is for fighting men who are going to be different – they’ll need to know how to fight both on land and on sea.

Then a totally different problem arrives – a coiner and three mine overseers.  All are named Wartha or something like that.  It is hard to tell from their incomprehensible speech in what seems to be the local dialect of this part of Cornwall.  They aren’t here to cadge food and coins; they’ve come because they’ve heard about their new lord’s edict against slavery in Cornwall.

They want to know if it applies to the tin mines on the Restormel manors whose tin revenues belong to the throne.  According to them, without slaves there will be no tin and without the tin there will be no coins for Prince John.  Coins?

“Coins?  What about coins?”

“No one will work in the tin mines except slaves.  Too dangerous you know.  So we have to have slaves if the coiners are to get tin to mix with the King’s silver and copper.”

What follows is a long and tedious and hard to understand explanation about how tin is mined and heated and stirred and such to produce coins in Cornwall for the king.  It’s a pity William isn’t here to hear it.  It finally becomes apparent that only the miners have slaves; Wartha the coiner is here only to support the Warthas who are mine owners.  His only concern is getting enough tin.

Finally I end it by telling the increasingly shaken miners that they are quite fortunate Lord William departed leaving me in charge - otherwise their heads would be on pikes at the gate for disobeying his order to immediately free all the slaves on his lands.

“Besides you’ll get more tin and be able to coin more coins for the throne if the miners work willingly for pay instead of grudgingly because you are forcing them.  The same applies to your serfs.  So I’m going to help you since I know both Richard and John in addition to William - I’m going to tell Lord William you came to tell him that freeing your slaves and serfs and producing more coins for the throne is what you are going to do.”

“Yes, there’s no doubt about it.  King Richard and Prince John will be greatly pleased when they hear you’ll be providing them with more coins.”

William and I need to look into this closely.  Maybe there’s a way we can get some of the coins or even make some for ourselves.

@@@@@

It’s a brisk early morning in late September and as soon as the sun comes up I’m off to Trematon to get George with over a hundred of our men as an escort.  From there we’ll go to Falmouth to meet with Harold and arrange for our ships to move to the Fowey the next time there is favorable weather.  Martin will remain at Restormal with Thomas and keep training the men who stay here.

We eat a hardy breakfast in the moonlight and leave before dawn because I want to see if a company of men can walk from here to Trematon in one day with a forced march.  It’s quite chilly early on but the day is beautiful and our spirits are high as we tread the footpath – until we get our feet wet crossing at the ford.  The water is damn cold and that’s a surprise.  But we carry on and warm up considerably when the sun finally comes out.

It’s dark by the time we see Trematon in the distance.  Actually it’s not Trematon we see but rather the light of the lantern I had a couple of our horsemen carry to Trematon yesterday so we can find it if we arrive in the dark.

Our march is somewhat of a success.  A couple of men drop out but most of them make it in time to crowd into the tent next to the shed that serves as the castle’s cook house now that it has more mouths to feed.  The castle knows we are coming and is ready.  Waiting for us when we arrive are pieces of cheese, bread bowls of piping hot lamb stew with turnips and onions, and bowls of strong ale.

I eat in the hall on the first floor the keep.  George and Lady Dorothy and the children come down the stairs from the tower room and join me in front of the fireplace.  It is a joyful time and, unlike the men who have to share bowls or use the big ladle, I have my own bowl for the beer Dorothy sends a girl hurrying off to get for me from the cookhouse.

Two hours later Dorothy and I climb the stairs in the dark and lay ourselves down to sleep next to the sleeping children.  The children are all together on one of the sheepskins stuffed with straw so we take the other.  And that is fine until we pull the big sheepskin over us and lay side by side and try to sleep together in the dark.

It doesn’t work.  We touch by accident and then we tentatively touch when it clearly isn’t an accident and then we touch and touch until she gets up on her knees and I get behind her and in her.  She never says a word and neither do I.

Later that night I suffer from drinking too much beer and wake up to use the piss pot.  She gets up and uses it herself right after I finish.  Then she crawls back under the skins and in one big motion pulls my head to one her breasts and pushes it into my mouth.  After a while we begin to touch each other until she throws her leg over me and sits herself on my dingle quite pleasantly.  Not a word is spoken.

@@@@@

Breakfast the next morning is quite normal.  We talk of this and we talk of that and we pay attention to the children.  Then it’s time for me to go to Falmouth.  The men who have been guarding Trematon will stay for a few more days and then most will go back to Restormel.  We’ll leave a dozen or so steady men here for the winter.

I’m taking one of the wagons in case the children get tired and need to ride.  The men will pull it just as they did to get us here.  One of Lady Dorothy’s men will come with us.  He’ll ride one of Trematon’s two horses so that we’ll have a messenger if we need one.

“Be sure to send my horse back and come back yourself when you can,” she asks me as I lift the boys up on to the wagon. “Every so often I need something to ride.”

@@@@@

Three days is all it takes for us to reach Falmouth and start up the footpath along the river to our ships and camp.  It’s a peaceful scene on a cool crisp morning.  Smoke is coming up from cooking fires and men are everywhere.  Some of the men are lounging about working on their arrows and weapons and two big groups are standing out by the archery range.

All the loungers stand up as we approach and there are friendly waves among the men as they recognize old friends.  And here comes Harold all a smile to welcome us and shake my hand with enthusiasm.  It is a nice and friendly setting even if it’s still damp from last night’s rain.

“Hello Hello Lord William and welcome you are and you too Master George.  Have you and the boys eaten, William?  Would you like some bread and cheese?  We’ve even got some butter churned and mashed berries for the bread.”

“Hey, Harold.  And it’s good to see you too.  Come to hear your latest news and bring you up to date on mine, aren’t I?  And also to eat some of your bread and cheese if you’ve got any handy for us.  The boys and me are always hungry, aren’t we?  The men too.”

Harold has much to tell.  He launched the galleys as soon as we left for Trematon but held them on the river until word came of our victory.  Then he reestablished our camp and began cooking and training the men on shore again - though he kept the ships fully crewed and all the men slept on them at night.

Our two galleys returned while I was gone and they were loaded with archers and some promising lads who think they’d like to become apprentice archers.  He’s got them all over to the archery range to practice and he thinks some of the experienced archers might be quite useful.

“”Oh yes, I almost forgot – I released Sir Percy as soon as I got the word.  Took him down the river to his wife in a dinghy didn’t I.  Done it myself actually.  He’s a fine old bloke, he is.  Has a lot of good stories.  Gave him a gold coin for his trouble like you said I should.”

Harold’s other good news is that somewhere along the line the sergeant captaining one of the galleys found three likely young boys of George’s age – one orphan whose priest spoke highly of him and two brothers whose mother wanted them to have a better life.  Within minutes the six boys go from shyly meeting each other to running off to the river shallows together to chase frogs.

Harold’s eyes go up when he gets the news that we will be moving from Falmouth to the River Fowey because we intend to make Restormel our permanent base instead of Falmouth.

“The Fowey runs right up to Restormel doesn’t it?” I ask.

“Aye, it does.  But I doubt we’ll be able to get too far in from the mouth before it gets too shallow.  We’ll have to find out won’t we?”  Then after pausing a moment to think, he adds “Well then.  I better get a move on, hadn’t I?  The weather in the channel is already getting iffy.”

Chapter Five

Moving to the Fowey takes longer than we’d hoped.  We get the galleys loaded and down the river to Falmouth Harbor quick enough.  But when we get there the weather in the channel isn’t helpful and the winds wrong.  We’ll have to wait and make a run for it when the weather finally changes.  Galleys don’t do all that well in heavy weather don’t you know?

About the only good thing about waiting in Falmouth is that I get to visit with Sir Percy and we have a fine old time at his favorite alehouse.  And maybe it’s good we waited - while we are waiting one of our cogs came in with more recruits and the winter clothes its sergeant captain had been ordered to buy.

The cog’s captain sergeant is one of the slaves we freed along with Harold, and he’s also named William by the way.  He’d been the master of a London cog taken off Malta by the Tunisians and they kept him to row.  It seems the winds that are keeping us here brought the cog to us from London quite nicely despite the foul weather.  And William Sailor has good news - if we want to sell, he has found a buyer for the flower paste.

“I passed the word and a funny looking apothecary fellow is waiting when I docks again at Southampton on me way back here.  I gives him a look in the box and he knows exactly what it is, doesn’t he?  Says he and his guild will pay eight hundred silver coins for each box.”  My God.  The stuff’s worth its weight in gold.

@@@@@

Five days later the weather clears and we make a run up the coast to the Fowey.  The boys and I and a lot of the men are seasick all the way.  But we get there and leave the cog in the little harbor at the mouth of the river - and take the galleys as far upstream as they can go.  Probably nine or ten miles.

There’s an area that looks like it might be somewhat sheltered on the Restormel side of the river about a mile short of where the river shallows.

Harold thinks it will do for a sailors’ camp and there is a footpath along the river all the way up to Restormel with several brooks and little trickles that will have to be waded.  They’ll pull the galleys ashore and sleep in them.

If Restormel is to be our principal base then our first thing to do is bring our supplies and coins up the path along the river and build some kind of log and tent barracks for the archers and men at arms inside the second wall.

Hmm.  And perhaps we should build a third wall to make it even more difficult for anyone trying to get in. I’ll have to talk to Thomas about that. As it turns out, it is Trematon that needs another wall more than Restormel.

@@@@@

Before we start unloading the ships again Harold sends four of our smallest dinghies and our strongest rowers to see how much further up the Fowey they can go.  The men and I, all except the sailors doing the rowing of course, are going to walk to Restormel.   Harold and I load the boys and a couple of shovels and axes in the last dinghy so they can ride in it as its “cargo.”

All the men except the rowing sailors and the boys walk on the footpath along the river.  We’re quite a crowd – several hundred men - and a ferocious looking lot we are with our beards and weapons.  We meet some walkers on the way and they run for it.  We also meet some monks going from Bodmin to another monastery.  They promise to pray for us in exchange for some of the bread and cheese we are carrying.

To my surprise we get quite far up the river and can even see the castle in the distance in front of us and off to our right.  But we’re blocked when the river widens and the water spreads out over a sandbar.  Hard shoveling and scrabbling at the ground with sticks and hands cuts a little groove so we get on through with our “cargo.”  We are able to another mile or so and that’s it.  We can go no farther.  Empty we can go further towards the castle, and perhaps all the way; but this is as far as we can go with cargo even if the rowers get out and wade.

We’ve gone as far as we can go because we’ve reached a wide patch of rocks with the water flowing over it just inches deep.  We might get even closer if we remove the rocks but it’s getting too cold to do that now – and we have other more important priorities such as training our archers and men at arms and providing them with shelter for the coming winter.

All in all I’m well satisfied.  Now we know what we know about the Fowey.  So I keep going towards Restormel with the men and Harold and his sailors begin floating back to our galleys to load our coin chests and other cargos bound for Restormel.   They’ll begin rowing them upriver immediately and men from the castle will come down to where they are unloaded and carry them the last few miles.

@@@@@

Thomas is absolutely thrilled when he hears we are in sight.  He mounts a horse and gallops down to the river to meet us.  He is particularly pleased to see George and meet the new boys.

“Enough for a proper school” is how he puts it.

Our mood is upbeat even though dark clouds are over us and a chill wind blows as we walk to castle and talk along the way.  Thomas’ tales of the clerics and the tin miners and coiners are quite interesting.  He’s right that we need to know more about them, much more.

Coiners eh?  I wonder how they do it.

And he’s also right when he says that his schooling of George and the boys will have to wait because he needs to go to London to carry petitions and gifts to Prince John and the Papal Legate.  He’s concerned because another version of what happened to the dearly departed Earl may have already reached Prince John and his councilors.

We want Prince John to know of the Earl died fighting to seize property from a widow to sell to help ransom Richard so he can displace John.  Our hope, of course, is that John will see us as allies in his battle to hold England and confirm our possession of the Earl’s lands and castle.  And, of course, we also hope he’ll follow Richard’s practice of selling titles and lands to raise money.

In other words, we hope to do the usual with the nobility and bribe him out of a title.

Chapter Six

Early the next morning Thomas leaves for London to see Prince John and the Papal Legate.  He takes two dozen of our best archers and swordsmen with him “just in case.”  The chests of paste are known to be valuable and London’s merchants and the moneylenders who serve them are well known to be thieves when large amounts of coins are at stake.

Thomas’ plan is to go down the Fowey and take whichever galley or cog Harold suggests will be the safest in the dangerous early winter waters of the channel.  And that’s exactly what he does.  He and his men sail in the cog loaded with the wooden chests the apothecaries want to buy.

@@@@@

It is early November and the London air is thick with smoke when the storm tossed cog carrying me and my seasick men finally ties up at a Southampton dock.  William Sailor and the cog will wait at the dock while I hire a coach to carry me and three of my steadiest men to meet the London apothecaries.  We’re all wearing chain mail under our tunics and carrying swords.

Not to put too fine a point on it but the apothecary is absolutely astonished when I enter his shop, hold out my ring to be kissed, and announce I have one hundred and sixty five chests of “the soldiers friend” flower paste in the hold of a cog tied up at Southampton for the unbelievably low price of two hundred silver coins per chest.  We’re holding back twenty chests for ourselves.

“You really have that many chests?  My God.  Is it safe?  Is it guarded?”  And then, he cautions me, that he and his friends will need time to raise the money to buy so many chests.  He’ll know more, he assures me, if a few hours.  Then he plies me with questions as to how we got it and where the cog is docked.

@@@@@

It’s a dismal day and the cobblestones are slick in the thick smoky fog as our apothecary walks us to an inn and I buy a share of two rooms – one for me and one for my men.  I’m hungry and I’ve got time so I order some chops and ale from the inn keeper and settle in to wait.  I’m ravenous and thirsty after so much barfing at sea.

But then I get to worrying.  Somehow I don’t trust the apothecary.  He asked too many questions.  So after I finish eating and pissing I hire a coach and send one of my men to tell William the cog’s sergeant captain to beware of armed robbers and anchor away from the dock.  “And don’t let your men go ashore except two or three at a time in the dinghy.”

In the morning I wake up scratching after a nice sleep and a lot of bug bites in a bed I share with a couple of Yorkshire merchants.  Everything is okay until I stand up and bang my head on the low ceiling beam.  And then a delegation from the apothecaries’ guild shows up and tries to negotiate a lower price while I’m still feeling poorly from last night’s ale.

I’m sorry, I explain over my shoulder to the anxious apothecaries as I piss in the alley next to the inn.  “Lord William authorized me to sell the cargo for two hundred silver coins per chest.  I cannot sell for a single pence less.”

They grudgingly agree – and then a second problem arises.  They don’t trust me any more than I trust them.  We’re both afraid of being cheated or robbed.

You’d think they’d believe a bishop, wouldn’t you?  But they don’t – probably had too many dealings with them don’t you know.

Finally we agree on how to proceed - the guild members will come to the dock on horse carts and then come aboard one at a time with their coins.  When each man leaves with his chests the next man will come aboard.  I accept because it sounds safe and I think they really want to buy the chests.

We meet on the dock the next morning.  A long line of horse carts arrives with apothecaries and their coins just as our cog is tying up to the dock with our chests of paste.

The exchange process takes several hours and turns out to have more value than just the coins we receive - it gives me a chance to talk with the apothecaries who are waiting for their turn to buy chests.  They are a learned group and they have useful information about their upper class customers and the king’s tax collectors - very useful information indeed.

It seems both the absent Richard and Prince John are operating kingly courts and each is claiming precedence over the other in terms of receiving the kingdom’s revenues.  Richard’s court is run by the man who is his chancellor and supposed to be ruling in his absence, William Longchamp.  Longchamp and his men are trying to raise money to pay Richard’s ransom.  John and his men, on the other hand, are trying to prevent Longchamp from ransoming Richard so they can continue in power.

It’s hard to believe but one of the apothecaries told me the opportunity to enrich one’s self as the chancellor of the realm is such that Longchamp paid three thousand pounds for the right to be Richard’s chancellor and represent his interests while he’s away on his crusade.

Who is really in control of the kingdom is all quite confusing and no one is more confused than the head of the apothecaries’ guild.  He doesn’t know what to do.  Last week the guild received a demand for the immediate payment of five years of taxes from Chancellor Longchamp to help fund Richard’s ransom – and then it received a visit a few days later from a keeper of Prince John’s wardrobe warning them not to pay it because Richard is dead and the money belongs to Prince John who wants it paid directly to him.  A keeper of his wardrobe?

“What pray tell is a Keeper of his wardrobe?”

What the guild master tells me is quite interesting.  Apparently a king’s wardrobe is where he stashes his tax collections and the rents from his lands.  It lets him fund his wars and diplomatic initiatives without having to go to Parliament and ask for permission or new taxes.  The men who gather up the taxes and rents and guard the wardrobe where they are stored are the “keepers of the Wardrobe.”  Being a keeper is a very lucrative position as you might imagine because so much treasure and coins pass through your hands.

What I also learn is that John and the keepers of his wardrobe are embroiled in a great argument with Richard’s Chancellor.  It seems Prince John’s wardrobe keepers are constantly taking the taxes and revenues that are being collected.  The Chancellor is not happy – he says they belong to the king and should be going into the king’s wardrobe, the one he controls.

@@@@@

The exchange of money for our flower paste goes well.  And any thought the apothecaries might have entertained about sending thieves to seize the chests evaporates when the cog returns to the dock and they see all of our armed men on its deck.

It takes more than an hour but we finally finish and the coins are safely stowed away in the cog’s hold.  Then I hail a horse cart for a ride through London’s smoky and foul smelling streets to Prince John’s court.  It is in one of the towers surrounding London.

When I get there I piss once again against the side of the building, give the lice on my balls a good scratch, and then spend almost an hour talking to the Head Keeper of Prince John’s “wardrobe.”  He is mightily impressed that Lord William supports Prince John and prevented one of Richard’s supporters from stealing a poor widow’s castle so he could sell it to raise ransom money.  He is even more impressed when I explain the financial benefits to himself and Prince John if William keeps the castle and replaces the late Earl.

How do I get in to see him?  All it takes is pushing my way through the crowd of petitioners at the door and slipping a pouch of silver and copper coins (mostly coppers with a couple of silvers on top) to one of John’s minor “wardrobe keepers” who is keeping them out.  He bows me in.

I did what I did because the apothecaries told me that Prince John’s “wardrobe” is like that of Richard’s and our previous kings.  It contains his clothes, armor, and treasures.  He keeps everything separate so it is not under the control of Parliament but rather under the control of the “keepers” of his wardrobe.

He keeps his coins in a wardrobe.  Isn’t that something?  I’d never heard of such a thing.

Initially the Head Keeper of John’s wardrobe, his name is Sir Wilfrid Blunt and his teeth must be rotting his breath is so foul, is quite suspicious.  He calms down a bit when I explain that Richard’s supporter, the late Earl of Cornwall tried to evict Lord Edmund’s widow so he could sell the manor to raise money for Richard’s ransom - and that Lord William is a supporter of Prince John’s and killed the treasonous Earl to save the woman and help prevent the ransom.

The damn fool; if he hadn’t been so belligerent we might have bought Trematon ourselves instead of killing him.

Sir Wilfrid likes my explanation but he is still suspicious.  Why, he wants to know, is Lord William so opposed to Richard and so in favor of Prince John?

Well, of course, I can’t tell him that we never had a chance to buy Trematon or we probably would have done, can I?  Instead I explain about surrender of Acre.  Richard killing heathen Saracens doesn’t bother Lord William one whit I assure Sir Wilfrid; Richard breaking his word and slaughtering the Saracens after he promises he will let them go if they surrender bothers Lord William considerably.

“Because it will make it harder for us to win back Jerusalem if the Saracens feel they cannot safely surrender to honorable gentlemen such as your good self and Lord William.”

At that point Sir Wilfrid begins giving me a sales pitch like some of the horse traders in the Damascus market - telling me that King Richard is probably dead and that it is the French who are promoting the so-called ransom so Prince John won’t have money to pay mercenaries to fight them.  And other ox shit things like that.

I, of course, assure Sir Wilfrid that he is exactly right and those are exactly the reasons why Lord William greatly supports Prince John’s efforts to remain in control of the English throne.

“Prince John has to remain in control of England, you know, so he can raise money to fight the horrible French to regain the lands Richard abandoned.”  Of course Sir Wilfrid knows that.  He just told it to me himself a few seconds ago.

Then I assure Sir Wilfrid that Lord William and his men would be most certainly be honored to join John’s army and follow him against Richard’s supporters and to France in a heartbeat – except unfortunately they can’t because William’s fighting men are what some are now calling Marines or naval infantry, men who are trained to fight on both land and on ships - and they are already all off to the Holy Land to fight the Saracens and save the Christian refugees Richard abandoned.

Only Lord William’s new apprentice archers, I explain, are ever here in England and they’ll be leaving for the Holy Land as soon as they finish getting ready.  Unless, of course, we need them here as we certainly do.

“Indeed it is to help Prince John and the refugees that I have come to you, Sir Wilfrid.”

Then I go on to explain that Lord William is in possession of Restormel Castle in distant Cornwall and needs to keep it so as to have a place to train his Marines before they take ship to the Holy Land.  Having such a castle for training purposes and using it to help maintain Prince John in control of England are so important that Lord William and the refugees would deem it an honor to contribute everything they have to Prince John, and cover your expenses as well, of course.

“All it requires,” I assure Sir Wilfrid, “is that Restormel permanently remain in William’s hands as its earl.  Say fifty pounds for the castle and five for your trouble?”

Sir Wilfrid’s eyes light up and we begin to negotiate in a manner befitting the gentleman he is.  We quickly spit on our hands and shake for fifty pounds of silver for Prince John and eight for Sir Wilfrid.

“I need eight,” Sir Wilfrid explains to me, for “the priests who will join me in praying for Earl William’s success.”

It’s all agreed.  And because it is for such a good cause - he’ll drop everything and have the documents ready first thing in the morning so his men can accompany me to Southampton to get the coins.

And because Sir Anthony is a great gentleman, and didn’t become one by being slow to seize an opportunity, the first thing I do is send one of my men rushing back to Southampton in a hired carriage to make sure the cog is anchored away from the dock and the men remain on high alert.

Sir Wilfrid’s willingness to quickly sell Restormel and the earldom to William is explained by what I learn the next afternoon from a talkative old law reader in the alehouse where I am passing the time waiting for the return of the Papal Legate.

It seems the father of the late Earl’s wife is wasting no time in marrying her off again.  He has found the poor widow a new husband, Henry FitzCount of Launceston Castle – and he is in London on the same mission as mine.  Worse, goddamnit, he has been similarly successful by going to King Richard’s chancellor, William Longchamp.

I don’t have time to find out what FitzCount offered Longchamp and it really doesn’t matter.  The reality is that there are now two people claiming to be the Earl of Cornwall – and we’ve got Restormel and Trematon and he has Launceston.

Oh shite.  William will be pissed.  Now we’ll either have to kill the bastard or leave more men in Cornwall.

Although I’d dearly like to stay I don’t have time to find out more from the talkative law man.  So I buy the good man another round and take myself off to visit the papal legate to discuss the importance of having a bishop in Cornwall who understands the importance of collecting money for him to send to the Pope.

Maybe my new friend still be here when I return; I certainly hope so.  He’s a purse full of news and information.

The papal legate is a seedy young Italian fellow with greedy eyes and a command of Latin even worse than mine.  He listens to my tale with growing interest.  And he quickly agrees with my lament that the bishop currently responsible for Cornwall is far away in Exeter and never visits.  The result, I strongly suggest, is that the church is leaving a lot of Cornish coins uncollected that should be going to Rome.

At least that’s my story and I stick quite firmly to it – in addition, of course, to offering a bit of a prepayment to help cover the good man’s expenses.

@@@@@

While Thomas is gone we begin seriously training both our archers and our apprentices as to how to fight on foot with pikes.  It is something we need to do - the Earl could have scattered us and won if he had come in behind us and attacked with a small group of either armored knights and men at arms on horseback or a highly organized group of men fighting the way Thomas says the Romans used to fight.

Indeed that’s what we are trying to teach our men, to fight as a group instead of individually; so they support each other and such like.  What’s really difficult is teaching the men to march in step so they can stay close together and we can move them around in close packed groups the way Thomas says the Romans did.  It’s slow going because they’re just as likely to start out on one foot as the other.

We spend hours every day practicing and I think they’re starting to get it.  Some of the archers are becoming very good shots even when they are walking in step with their fellows.

A letter arrives from Yoram on Cyprus while I’m waiting for Thomas to return.  It comes not on one of our ships but on a Bristol cog from Cyprus carrying spices and refugees.

Its captain refuses to deliver it until Harold hands him the one hundred silver coins Yoram promised we will hand to him when he does.  It’s a high price but Harold pays it - and then gets to worrying that he might have done the wrong thing.  So he sends it by galloper and offers to come himself in case he needs to explain his decision to pay so  much.

Harold doesn’t have to come.  He’s made a good decision and I immediately send back the galloper with a message thanking him for making it.  And when I send it back I send it with questions – what does it mean that the letter came during the storm season?  Is that when the pirates are in harbor so it’s safe for ships to sail?  And, oh by the way, would he please ask around and find out when exactly is the storm season around Algiers?

What I don’t ask might be the most important question of all - why aren’t we earning these coins carrying messages instead of paying them?

Yoram’s letter is an encouraging letter.  He reports that the six galleys we sent back to him all arrived safely and that they and our other galleys have already made a number of trips carrying refugees from the Holy Land ports to Cyprus.

His bad news is that poor Athol finally died and there are now so many refugees camping and working about our fort on Limasol that he doesn’t know what to do with them all.  The second curtain wall is almost finished and unless he hears otherwise he’s going to start a third to keep the men busy.

His other bad news is even worse - one of the galleys we left with him has either been sunk in a storm or been taken by pirates.  He suspects the latter but doesn’t know.

That’s worrisome because pirates rarely attack war galleys since they usually carry only fighting men.

Yoram reports the galley we left in Acre under Simon, Angelo and young Andy is doing quite well.  But he’s worried about Randolph even though he’d heard indirectly from our men at Acre Randolph has been making profitable day trips.  Apparently he is using his galley to move refugees up the coast whenever one of Yoram’s galleys is in port and can cover its absence.

He says he’s worried about Randolph because he hasn’t heard from him for a while and because the refugees report the Moslem priests are telling their people that God wants them to kill everybody who isn’t a good Moslem - the way the crusaders sometimes kill non-Christians when they come across them.

Chapter Seven

Trouble and Thomas return to Restormel on the same cold winter day.  Thomas is no more than tucking into a good meal and telling me and George his news when a galloper arrives from Trematon.  They are besieged by a large force and desperately need help.

Two minutes later and the men are jumping into their formations and horses are being saddled in response to a beating drum and atrocious bleats on some kind of metal horn we bought off a Falmouth merchant.  Unfortunately no one knows how to blow the damn thing.

And yes we now have horses.  Fourteen of them - some bought at the Falmouth fair; some from the peasants after the crops are in.  Most them are barely usable.

“Thomas, you stay here with George and the boys.  I’m going to leave you all of the apprentice archers in the training company and all the local men.  Some of the new archers have become quite good and they’re all highly motivated.  It will give you a strong force in case this is a ruse to draw us away.  I’m taking Henry with me as my second and Robert will stay as your chosen man.  Don’t take any chances.  Bring in the men and livestock from the villages as well and keep the drawbridges up at all times.”

With that I send off our gallopers to scout ahead and we begin a forced march towards Trematon.

@@@@@

We arrive in the middle of the morning and we’re too late.  The castle is fallen.  We know as soon as we come in sight and see the gates open and all the men loitering around it.  I’m on horseback with the gallopers around me.

“Form your squares.  Form your squares.” I shout over my shoulder.  And a few seconds later begin to hear the order repeated by the sergeant captains of each of our five companies.

It only takes a few minutes before we are five companies of men marching forward in step to the cadence of the big drum each company carries.  It’s an impressive sight.  Let’s hope it works.

As we march forward we can see men beginning to pour out of Trematon in response to our arrival.  Some of them are carrying things – the spoils of war it would seem.  Some are mounted but most are not.

We are marching forward and I can see the men on horseback around Trematon chivvying the men on foot into a large group.  Then three of them gallop over the field towards us.

“Who are you and what do you want?” one of them shouts.

We keep coming and I shout an answer back.

“I’m the Earl of Cornwall and I want you outlaws off my lands.  Who are you?”

“I’m Sir Stanley of St. Emlion he answers in French and these are my fellow knights in the service of Henry FitzCount, lord of Launceston and Cornwall?”

“Have you seen the signature of King Richard or Prince John on FitzCount’s charter for Trematon and Restormel and Cornwall – yes or no?”

There is no answer and we keep coming.  So I shout my question again as we close.  Still no answer and two of the three knights turn their horses so as to stay ahead of us.

The third knight remains for a moment longer and raises his arm.  He obviously wants to stop us for a parley.  We do not and he finally turns away but keeps looking back as he retreats ahead of us.  He wants to talk but he’s seen the bows my horsemen are carrying and is wisely staying out of range.

“What of Lady Dorothy and her children?”  I shout after him; “are they alive and well?”

The look on his face tells me all I need to know.

“Any knight who participates in the killing of the children of an English or French noble will be excommunicated, lose all his titles and land, and be declared an outlaw.  That is King Richard’s law and I am sworn to uphold it and I intend to.” I shout to him.

It’s all ox shit, of course, but if that’s not Richard’s law it should be; it’s certainly mine.

Sir Stanley starts to say something but then he turns away and begins trotting after his fellows before we reach him.  They are headed towards a group of mounted men standing in front of a mass of foot soldiers assembling next to the Trematon walls.

“Ride away quickly, far away, if you are an honorable knight and do not raise your sword against children; stay and die in disgrace and purgatory if you do.”

That’s what I shout after him as I raise my arm to stop my men on horseback who are drawing their bows.  In the distance I can see thirty or forty mounted men gathered around a standard.  They are looking and pointing at us.

My gallopers and I stop our horses and wait as our columns pass by on either side of us to the beating of their drums.  Twenty men wide and five deep they are.

And they’re in step and keeping straight lines; they look good by God.

Well of course their lines are straight; they have to be straight don’t they? – because each file of five is helping to carry two of the long Swiss pikes in their left hand and every man is carrying two quivers of arrows even though only three of each five has a bow.  The other two are the pikemen.  The pikes are straight so the men carrying them walk straight.  It looks damn impressive.

“Archers nock while marching”

That’s the order I shout as the marching men come past me.  Our lines break up a bit as they come to a low stone fence but reform on the other side as the men come over it.

And here come the mounted knights of our enemy.  They are walking at the moment but they are obviously soon going to break into a trot and then charge. A great mass of infantry is walking and running in a disorganized mob behind them.  But not all are coming – several mounted men have turned their horses and are trotting away.  And some of the mob of men behind them are not walking forward.

“Ready with the Pikes”… “Halt.” That’s what I shout as the knights get closer and break into a trot and close their helmet visors.

I raise my right arm but wait until I’m sure it isn’t a false charge.  It isn’t and they break into a gallop.

After a brief pause to let Cornwall’s knights get close enough, I shout the order.

“Up pikes.”  … “Set pikes.”

It’s an impressive sight as our column halts and the pikes the men have been carrying with their left hands are suddenly elevated and revealed for the first time.  Several of the mounted men and many in the mob walking behind them are impressed when they see our disciplined ranks and our pikes come up– they pull up and stop.  It is finally beginning to dawn on them that we are not an ill-trained mob of hastily mobilized villeins as most of the knights’ men seem to be. And, of course, once their visors come down the knights can hardly see at all.  Bad luck for them.

The column sergeants are watching my right arm.  I drop it and keep pumping it as soon as the knights drop their visors and begin their charge.

All along the columns the sergeants shout “Launch.  Launch.”

Our men give a great cheer as a great cloud of arrows reaches out towards the charging horsemen and the pikes come up – and the charging knights keep blindly coming on even though more and more of their horses go down.

So far so good.  We have a lot of shafts.

The result is what any veteran soldier would expect – even highly trained horses don’t react well to being shot with arrows so that less than half the knights reach our pikes and none get past them. Well that’s not exactly correct.

Charging horses always stop when they impale themselves on two or three long pikes set firmly in the ground.  It’s their riders who don’t stop - they fly through the air and knock over our files like bowling balls on the village green.

Once the knights are down they don’t get up.  The knights who fly off their horses and land in our ranks promptly have their throats cut and their eyes stabbed. And those on the ground in front of us don’t get up either.  Not after I give the command to resume our march and our men march past them and stab them as they go by.

Some of what’s left of the charging mob on foot behind the knights actually get close to our pike men before they go down.  Most do not.  They either immediately turn and run or are felled by the cloud of arrows that continually rains down upon them both as they charge us and then when they turn away.

@@@@@

Discipline falls apart after the battle.  Our sergeants lose control as our men spread out over their fallen foes to plunder them.  But I’m not there to stop them.  I’m riding for the castle with my gallopers – and only swerving off to use my sword to cut down a couple of the running men who are close enough to the path I take.

What I see as I ride over the lowered drawbridge and through the gate are bodies everywhere.  But what see when I dash up the stairs two at a time to upper level is even worse – Dorothy and the two girls are literally hacked to pieces.

@@@@@

Henry FitzCount is not among the dead knights.  He must have held back when they charged.  And to my surprise the next day FitzCount sends two heralds.  They propose a truce and a parley.

I agree.  Nothing to lose and if I can get close enough to Percy I’ll kill the bastard truce or no.

It happens this way.  The next morning two knights appear in the big field behind Trematon with a man blowing a trumpet to announce them.

My irate response is loud enough to be heard by my men in the formation behind me.

“Are you two cowardly children killers like Henry FitzCount or are you real knights?” are my first words before they can say anything.

I’m goading them you see; and heating up my men while I do it.

“We are knights, Monsieur,” the older one answers from about twenty paces away.

“I am Phillip of Calais and this is Louis.  He’s from Calais also.”

“I do not believe you.  If you were knights you would not be in front of us on behalf a cowardly killer of young girls, the children of a lord who fell fighting the Saracens with King Richard.”

“King Richard will cut off your balls and dingles, you know.  That’s what Richard will do when he hears that you are with that cowardly children killing scum FitzCount.”

I keep taunting the two knights without giving them a chance to speak; I want my men to hear what I say.

“FitzCounts’ such a coward he abandoned his men and knights and ran from the field didn’t he?  Did you run away with him when he abandoned his men and ran?   If so, why should I parley with cowards such as you two and the disgraceful peasant you represent?”

The two French knights are taken back.  This is not at all the reception they expected.

“No monsieur, we are sworn to King Richard and newly arrived in England this very day.”

“I will accept your word though I find it hard to understand.  I personally served with Richard in the Holy Land and I know he has no use for cowards who are only capable of killing children.”

And then I add very slowly and pointedly, “or those who choose to ride with them.”

“Sir Henry is not a coward,’ interjects the younger man.  He sent us here to challenge you to a “trial of arms” to let God settle the dispute between you.

“He issues a challenge does he?  Well that’s good news.  Very good news even though my men will be sorely disappointed – every one of my men was taken to see the children he butchered and each and every man has sworn to kill him.  I myself and Bishop Thomas have each offered a thousand pounds for the coward’s balls and dingle.”

The two French knights are truly stunned as I continue.  They still don’t realize I’m speaking to my men as well as to them.

“So Henry FitzCount challenges me eh?  Well that means I name the place and weapons is that not so?  And no substitutes are allowed so he cannot hide?”

“Of course,” responds the older man.

“Good.  I name tomorrow at noon right here on this very spot.  Both of us on foot with no else within two thousand paces.  Is that acceptable to you and you will swear on your honour to have him here and not a substitute?

“Yes, Monsieur, that is acceptable.  We swear it.”

“Good.  And as his seconds will you swear to denounce him to King Richard as a coward and take all your men and leave his service if he refuses to pick up his weapons and fight me here at noon?”

“Of course, Monsieur.”

“Good.  I’ll meet him here on foot at high noon.  I’m English and he’s English so the weapons I choose will be English - daggers and English longbows.  No other weapons.  Are you agreed?”

The French knights are surprised by my choice of weapons but they nod their agreement.  With that I turn my horse and canter back to my men.

Of course I choose the weapons I know best.  I’m not stupid you know.

@@@@@

At noon the next day my men are all assembled in their companies and ranks behind me.  They are watching as I walk out into the empty field with a couple of bows, four quivers of arrows, and a skin of water.

Even Thomas is watching.  He’d heard about the challenge from a galloper yesterday and damn near killed a horse to get here from Restormel.  A smaller crowd of fifty or so men is assembled and watching from some distance away on the other side of the field.  Most of them are mounted so I assume it is Henry FitzCount and the surviving knights and squires of Launceston Castle and its manors.

After a while a man dismounts and begins walking into the field from across the way. Hot damn the fool is coming.  I just wait and let him come to me.  The two bows I’ve brought with me are strung and my arrows are stuck in the ground for fast access.

He stops and waves his hand in the air.  Suddenly five or six horsemen break away from the crowd on the other side and begin galloping towards me with their swords in their hands.  A trap!

Thomas and I’d been worried about such a betrayal because the knights that delivered FitzCount’s challenge are French.  They have all have the pox, you know, and it affects the way they think.  It’s well known they get it because they eat disgusting things like toads and snails.

I suspected treachery.  That’s why I didn’t go all the way to the middle of the field.

My response to their charge is to drop my bow and run for my life as fast as my feet can move.  My head is down and I’m moving my legs as fast as I can when I hear a booming English voice give a command from somewhere in front of me.

“Nock your arrows and shoot as soon as the bastards are in range.  Keep shooting.  Rapid advance.”

I don’t look back but I know Henry’s men are close when I hear arrows begin to fly over me and pounding hoofs behind me.   I’m totally out of breath as I literally fling myself headfirst into the frontline ranks of our pikemen.  Safe by God.

Unknown hands pull me to my feet.  Only then do I turn around and look as I gasp and try to catch my breath.

Most of my assassins’ horses are on the ground along with four of their riders.  One horse is still on its feet with its rider is attempting to gallop away through the cloud of arrows coming down all around him.  And then he too goes down too.  Closer in one of my would-be assassins is struggling to get out from under his fallen horse.

Didn’t know about English archers and longbows did you?

I’m still gasping for breath when I hear the sergeants begin shouting “Cease launching …  Cease launching.”

After a moment’s pause to catch my breath, and a heartfelt thank you and acknowledging wave of my hand to the men in the ranks around me, I begin walking out to the downed knights.  Thomas and several of the sergeants are close behind me.

The second closest rider is still trying to get out from under his horse as I walk up to him.  “Ransom… Ransom” he is shouting anxiously.

I look down at him and respond “Honour…  Honour” as I lean over and stab him in the eye - and push my dagger in as far as it will go.

My third and fourth would be knightly assassins are already dead from multiple arrow hits and broken bones.  The fifth is not.  He’s out at the far distance of arrow range so his horse undoubtedly went down in the first flight of arrows.

That the knight’s horse went down so quickly probably saved him when the archers turned their attention to those still on their horses who got closer to them.  This one, like the other three, appears to be French.  He is in French armor and his leg is broken.  His armor looks to be so heavy that he probably couldn’t get up by himself even if his leg wasn’t broken.

By now the white heat of my anger is gone and I’m tired, very tired.  Exhausted actually.  So I sit myself on the ground and watch as Thomas and a couple of sergeants question him.

“Tell me everything.”  My priestly brother demands of the knight as he rips off the man’s helmet.  “Who gave you the orders and what have you been promised?”

Our captive and Thomas have an interesting conversation, a very interesting conversation.  He’s French and at first he refuses to talk and babbles on about paying a ransom and pleading for mercy.  But he soon changes his mind when Thomas pulls him out from under the horse with a sweet smile and twists his leg a couple of times – his broken leg.

He is a French knight recently arrived at Launceston and he has surprising information.  He is desperate to tell us everything he knows and we get it all.  Then Thomas stops twisting his leg and motions for one of the sergeants to cut his dishonourable goddamn throat.

We are alone on the field.  The mounted party at the other end of the field turns and rides away as we walk back to our men.  Behind me our men are stripping the knights of their armor.  They will make a nice trophies if we don’t sell them or melt them down.

@@@@@

What the late and unlamented French knight tells Thomas and me is quite surprising - it is the Earl Baldwin’s widow, Isabel, who is responsible for all the deaths and trouble.  It was she who demanded Baldwin evict her half-sister Lady Dorothy from Trematon and then attack it when the eviction fails.  And when her husband and his brother are killed it was she who demanded Henry FitzCount attack Trematon and kill Lady Dorothy and her children.  That was her price for her hand and Baldwin’s lands.  What he can’t tell us is why.  Kill her own sister and her nieces?  Her own sister?

What is particularly surprising is that Isabel and Henry FitzCount are already on their way to his Launceston Castle and are betrothed to be married in the spring.  They left yesterday right after we retook Trematon - before FitzCount sent the French knights with the challenge I accepted.  It was all a hoax to get me out in the open so they could kill me.

Good God - she probably thinks I am dead and FitzCount will end up with the lands and revenues of both Trematon and Restormel.  Then what? Will she kill FitzCount and use her lands to trade up again with another marriage to another lord.  I don’t doubt it - she is obviously as ambitious for herself as we are for George.

“We’ve got to settle this once and for all, William.  It won’t wait.  We’re all in danger, even George, until that woman and her Frenchmen are gone to hell where they belong.”

Thomas thinks we should march our men on Launceston Castle and keep them there until we starve them out take it.

“Let’s go starve them out kill the lot of them.  We need to get it over with before they kill us and little George,” is Thomas’ council.

George?  My God what will we tell George about Lady Dorothy’s daughters? It will give him nightmares.

I tell Thomas I agree with him.  And I do – both to end the risk to George and because I can’t get the sight of Dorothy and her two little girls out of my mind.

But first we need a plan.

Chapter Seven

Launceston is in Cornwall on the Devon border just before you get to the River Tamar.  The Tamar is the great natural barrier, a moat if you will, where Cornwall ends and Devon begins.  Cornwall is mostly important for its tin mining and refining.  The mines are on the lands belonging to the lords and their manors but the tin and the right to mine it and refine and coin it belong to the crown.

Indeed, Thomas suddenly remembers, some of the tin miners who visited him came from Launceston.  When we get there we need to look them up to find out what they know and make sure their slaves and serfs are free and they have increased the number of coins they are sending to London for Richard and John to argue over.

Things move right along.  Before we trek back to Restormel we appoint some men to garrison the castle and send a galloper to Sir Percy in Falmouth telling him to come to Trematon and be its castellan.

Where Thomas and I are not in agreement is about Restormel.  Thomas wants to come with me to Launceston and I want him to stay in command at Restormel.

I finally win Thomas’ grudging acceptance because my argument is better – George and the boys need him at Restormel for their schoolings; and I need him there to organize the supplies and reinforcements I’ll need if I am to take Launceston and the heads of the vipers in it.

What we both agree is that we should try to take Launceston before it’s time for our galleys to sail for the Holy Land in the spring; what we don’t discuss is what we’ll do if we don’t take Launceston before it’s time for the galleys to sail.

@@@@@

Two days later our men our men have finished burying the dead and we start for Launceston.  Well, almost all of us do.  Sir Percy gallops in from Falmouth to take over Trematon and we leave a couple of dozen dependable men with him.

Sir Percy is more than a little pleased with his new appointment.

“I’m honored and the wife will be pleased, won’t she?  Finally got herself a proper castle to fuss over, doesn’t she?”

@@@@@

It takes almost a week to get to Launceston - because we have to stop at Restormel to get the tents and supplies and weapons we’ll need for a winter campaign.

When we finally get to Launceston we find the castle’s drawbridges up and its battlements manned. So they probably already know we’re coming for them.  Some of FitzCount’s survivors must have reached them before we arrive and begin our siege.

No way I’m going to throw our men away attempting an attack on Launceston Castle.  It’s too strong.  We’ll have to encircle it and starve the bastards out with a siege.

Two weeks cold and boring weeks later and a surprise messenger arrives – my brother Thomas and he is accompanied by Bishop Pierre of the diocese of Cornwall and Devon.  And Thomas quickly takes me aside and tells me that the Bishop may not know that he’s been to London to see the Papal Legate about splitting off Cornwall as a separate diocese with Thomas as its bishop.

The Bishop’s story unfolds in front of the fire in Launceston Village’s only alehouse.  He’d heard about the Earl’s intention to attack Trematon and was on his way there in an effort to try to stop the attack.

With a great sigh of lament the good man explains that his mule went lame and he has painful bunions and corns so he only gets as far as Restormel before he learns he is too late.  It’s at Restormel where he first hears about me bringing my men to Launceston.  That, he says, explains why he is come here with Bishop Thomas - to once again offer his services as an honest broker in the cause of peace.

It is a heartwarming story except for the not so minor fact that while the good Bishop is telling his tale to me Thomas is standing behind him shaking his head negatively.

What Bishop Pierre proposes is that he approach Sir Henry and his betrothed in the castle and see if he can work out some kind of compensation of land and money for the blood has been spilled and the wrong I’ve been done by Sir Henry.  “And, of course, something for Lady Dorothy’s family as well.”

“It sounds like a wonderful idea and a good man you are for being willing to make the effort,” I respond to him as I see Thomas emphatically nodding his head behind him that I should agree.

@@@@@

“He’s lying through his teeth” are Thomas’ first words as soon as we are alone.  “They must have gotten word to him somehow.  How else would he know FitzCount and the viper are here?   What I learned from the Papal Nuncio when we talked about Cornwall’s worthies is that he is FitzCount’s cousin.  What I don’t think he knows is that we are brothers; he thinks I’m an unemployed bishop teaching children for my food and a place to lay my head.”

That afternoon the good Bishop Pierre of Cornwall and Devon walks up to the drawbridge, and into the castle after it is lowered and then quickly raised behind him.

“Praise God,” the Bishop of Cornwall and Devon shouts to us as he comes back over the drawbridge beaming several hours later.  He has good news.  FitzCount is willing to make amends with a considerable, a very considerable, amount of money and land so that “bygones will be bygones.”

I didn’t even know he had that much.

Moreover, the good bishop has taken it upon himself to arrange a meeting between FitzCount and me to finalize matters and make our marks on an agreement and arrange the payments.  If I agree we’ll meet in the tiny Launceston religious chapel where pilgrims stop to pray on the road to Devon.  It’s the tiny wood and stone building near the dirt track that runs along the edge of the village to the castle.

To enhance and guarantee everyone’s safety, and to insure the Church will accept and bless the agreement, each of us will be accompanied by only a bishop – he and Thomas.  And, oh yes, I will, of course, have to temporarily pull my men back out of the village so Sir Henry feels safe to walk down the track and enter the pilgrims’ chapel.

@@@@@

Henry FitzCount’s offer of coins and land in exchange for peace is incredibly generous.  As a result, Thomas and I and the good bishop of Devon and Cornwall eagerly await FitzCount’s arrival the next morning.

We are not disappointed.  After Thomas and the Bishop walk through the village to make sure it is empty, Fitzcount walks briskly over the drawbridge and waits while the two bishops use the door to the priest’s dressing room to go into the little chapel to make sure it is also empty.  It is.

FitzCount and Bishop Pierre enter first as we had previously agreed.  Then Thomas and I follow them into a tiny little room where the priest has barely enough space to turn around while he puts on his robes.

By the light of the holes high on the walls that pass as windows we can see FitzCount and the good Bishop standing on the dirt floor of the chapel.  It’s a tiny little thing with its little wooden altar against the wall and space for four or five people to pray.

FitzCount and his cousin motion us to shut the door to the priest’s dressing room and come in.  We do.  What FitzCount is offering in compensation is so great that we have decided to accept it and kill him later – except that we fully expect some kind of trickery and betrayal.  We just don’t know what it will be.

We soon find out.  I am reading the agreement and nodding my agreement to its generous terms when the door to the little dressing room opens – the door I shut behind me a few minutes ago, and three men crowd into the little chapel carrying the long broad swords favored by French knights.  They are not in armor and have mud and dirt on their jerkins.

Where the hell did they come from?

The Earl snickers and says “You’re both under arrest” as his men reach out to take each of us by the arm.  They are confident and holding swords at their sides and we are unarmed and outnumbered.

“Are you sure you’re doing the right thing” I ask rather benignly.

“Oh yes.  Restormel is mine and Edmund’s castle too.”  And then with a bit of arrogance and a big smile he adds “and your heads are mine too.”

“And you Bishop.  Do you agree about that?”

“Yes I do.  God wills it.”

“We’ve heard those words before, haven’t we Thomas?”

“Yes we have.  Indeed we have.”  Thomas agrees sadly.  Then he looks at me in the faintly lit little room and does what I expect; he blinks a heavy blink with both eyes and we both silently count to three as we’ve practiced so many times in the past.

Then both our hands came out from under our baggy tunics with the knives each of us has strapped to his wrists.  Thomas gets his man very cleanly  but I’m a split second late and partially miss the man holding on to my right arm – he jerks back instinctively as he raises his sword and tries to bring it around so I only succeed in slicing him across his cheek and across his eye.

My man screams and reaches for his eye instead of swinging his sword around and coming at me with it.  Bad mistake.  I get him in the throat with a thrust from the knife in my other hand and finish it by shoving my first knife high into his stomach and push downward.  He looks at me in stunned surprise as he staggers backwards a half step to the wall and slowly begins to slide down it as I push him down.  Thomas is already cutting into the third when I lean over slice into his throat with the knife in my other hand to help finish him off.

It’s over in the blink of an eye and the Earl and the Bishop are as surprised and unprepared as their men who are still choking and kicking on the floor.

The Bishop just stands there with his mouth open and watches in the split second it takes us to cut down their men.  Then he squeals like a pig as I step forward and jerk the knife out of my man’s throat - and put it at his stomach and slowly and deliberately push it in all the way to its hilt while I hold his robe so he can’t back away.

“I wish we had more time to talk,” I say with a snarl over the bishop’s high pitched squeals. “I’d like to know more about why you think God wills stealing from widows and murdering innocent children.”

Then Thomas just stands there while I use my other knife to do the wide-eyed would-be Earl despite his pleas and screams.  He knocks over the stub of a candle on the little altar and scrambles away backwards and gets almost to the door to the Priest’s little dressing room before I reach him – and cut off his balls and dingus so he’ll bleed to death.  It takes him quite a while and he sobs and screams all the way.

“Where the hell did they come from?”

@@@@@

Thomas and I explore the tiny priest’s dressing room while Henry is finishing his dying.  Finally we find it – the wall with the pegs to hold the priest’s vestments swings out.  There is narrow tunnel behind it with a candle still burning in a ship’s lantern.

“I’ll go get some men,” Thomas says.

“Best you go out the front door and keep the chapel between you and the castle so they can’t see you from the walls,” I suggest.

Twenty minutes later three brave volunteers, or ambitious men seeking the recognition they’ll get, are silently leading us very slowly down the narrow tunnel.  I’m the fourth one in the line.  Thomas and twenty or more of our men are behind me.

The tunnel is some kind of mine shaft and it is damp and cold and oppressive.

We are walking and stumbling along very slowly and cautiously in the dark.  Each man’s hand is holding tightly on to the hooded coat of the man in front of him and his other hand is inevitably holding a sword or bow and touching the ceiling so as to not knock his head.

Our man in front is carrying a candle lamp.  Everyone else is shuffling along in the pitch black dark and periodically scrapping the side of the tunnel and either skinning his knuckles or banging his head.  Everyone instinctively knows not to say a word.

It’s a slow journey and seems to go downhill.  Then it changes and goes mostly uphill with a stone step or two every so often that inevitably stubs the toes of each of us.  It ends at a wooden door.

@@@@@

Our lamp carrier stops.  As I look around the men standing ahead of me I can vaguely see the outline of a wooden door.  I hold both my breath and my sword as he pulls and it creaks as it opens a crack.  After a long wait we start forward again.  Now we’re in a widened passageway, almost a cavern, and walking up a slope past what look like old mining tools and large rocks that have been pushed aside.  We almost immediately reach another wooden door.

Once again our lamp carrier slowly cracks it open and peers inside.  With the door squeaking loud enough to wake the dead he pushes it open and enters and once again our line begins moving.

I can smell the urine before I even get to the door.  I’ve smelled cat piss like this many times before and I know exactly what we are entering – it’s a store room for the castle’s food and it’s got cats in it to keep away the mice and rats.  The cats piss and shit on the floor below the barrel and sacks of food and that’s what I smell.

Our lamp carrier stops and holds it high.  What we can dimly see in the flickering light is a cavern filled with sacks of grain and tubs and barrels of what must be butter and cheese.  There are big piles of turnips and onions stacked on wooden planks.  Everything is sitting on logs to keep them off the ground and allow the castle’s cats to get at any hungry mice and rats.  There are even deer carcasses hanging from hooks in the wall.  We’re in the castle’s larder.

“Keep holding it up” I order the lamp carrier in a whisper as more and more men slowly shuffle into the room.  Everyone is extremely tense and excited including me.

“Go forward and help guard the entrance.  Don’t let anyone in.  Be silent.”

That’s the message I whisper into a number of ears as I push the men past the lamp carrier towards the entrance at the other end of the cavernous room.  I’ve got an idea.

I begin whispering new orders when all the men are finally out of the tunnel and into the storeroom.

“Pick up a sack of grain and carry it down the tunnel to the pilgrim’s prayer house.  Stack it up inside.  Wait there.  Don’t go outside and show yourself.  Piss or shite in there if you have to go.”

For what seems like forever our men carry food out of the castle.  Periodically I stop the carrying so the men in the little prayer house can return through the narrow tunnel to get another load.  Some of the men start stuffing onions and turnips into empty sacks.

Then it happens.  Someone in the castle comes to get food from the storeroom.  The door opens, and a terrified woman screams and drops her candle.  There are more shouts behind her.  And then, goddamnit, the draft of air through the open door causes our candle to flicker and go out.  Everyone starts talking at once.

“Silence goddamnit.  Silence.” .… “No talking.  Defend the door.  Don’t let anyone in,” I shout in the darkness to the guards at the storeroom entrance. “We’re going to keep carrying the food out.  Get the damn meat off the hooks if you can’t find any more grain sacks or cheeses to carry.”

“And get that candle she dropped.”

@@@@@

An unknown number of Launceston’s defenders rush to the scene – and then back away.  No one likes fighting in the dark.  It’s a standoff we are winning because we are continuing to remove the food.

Finally a voice calls in French.  “Who are you?”

“Henry FitzCount and his bishop have run away and now your food is gone,” I answer.  “Save yourselves and Lady Isabel.  Sortie from the gate and we will not block your way.”

Of course not – since you’re a totally dishonorable French knight our archers will stand to one side and shoot you down as you go past.

“How do we know we can trust you, Monsieur?”

“You cannot.  But in about an hour you’ll be able to see from the ramparts that we have pulled back from the entrance and there are boats at the river crossing.  And you can leave the castle servants without losing your honor - Lord William will retain them in their positions if they pledge their liege to him.”

Not that you care about honor or have any left to lose.

Our standoff continues for over an hour until what is left of the food is on its way down the tunnel.  There is now no need to fight our way into the castle and lose men.  So we follow the last of the food as it goes into the tunnel.

I am pulling everyone back because I want the knights to come in and see that their food is gone – and I want to organize the archers to give the knights the warm welcome they deserve when they sortie, as they most certainly will if we got all of their food.

@@@@@

Within an hour our archers are off to the side of the castle gate in five deep formations in their companies with the pikemen in the first two ranks as usual.  We wait all the rest of the day and early evening – and nothing happens.  Could they have escaped through another tunnel?  It’s possible.  What we’ve learned from the villagers is that the whole area is honeycombed with mines and tunnels.

We finally dismiss the men long after the sun goes down and the night gets colder.  We are billeting them in the low ceiling hovels that comprise the village homes and they are sleeping with their clothes on and weapons at hand.

Thomas and I are exhausted and asleep in the smoke filled hovel nearest the little pilgrim’s chapel where we killed Henry FitzCount and his men.  The chapel has guards in the tunnel.  It is not being used as a shelter because it is stuffed to its low ceiling with bags and barrels of foodstuffs from the castle.

The villager and his family are sleeping shoulder to shoulder with almost two dozen or more of our men.  It is so crowded most of have to sleep sitting up.  But the heat of our bodies warms the place and we are content.

Dawn is still two hours away when both of the castle’s gates suddenly open and Launceston Castle’s two drawbridges begin to come down almost simultaneously.  Visibility barely exists because of the cloud cover and waning moon.  It is, I must admit, the best time for a sortie and I should have seen it coming.

Our men pour out of the village when the sortie begins and the alarm sounds.  Most are not even close to their company’s position when the mounted French knights begin pouring out of the castle and over the drawbridges.

Some of our men reach their places and begin closing up to provide compact formations as we have so often practiced.  Most of our men, however, are not ready.  They are either lost in the dark or are still coming because they have further to run.

Thomas and I dash out the door and arrive at the nearest company just as the horses ridden by the first French knights begin clattering across the second drawbridge.  A quick thinking sergeant is already bellowing out orders to the archers and pikemen.  And impressing me by making decisions.  I must remember to get his name.

“Launch at the near drawbridge and keep shooting.  Launch at the drawbridge and keep shooting.  Shoot… Shoot.  Godamnit… Up pikes…  Up pikes.  Pike men crouch down.”   Are they coming to fight?

Within seconds it is clear that the knights and their men on foot are trying to escape from Launceston rather than coming to fight us.   Thomas and I and everyone around us are launching arrows as fast as we can shoot.  We can hear the clattering hoofs and see vague outlines of the horsemen but we can’t see specific targets.  It’s too dark.

“Do you think it will work?”  my priestly brother gasps as he grabs another arrow from his big quiver and shoots again.

“Can’t tell.  We’ll know soon.” I gasp back as I launch one right behind his.  It was a hard run to get here and we’re both still out of breath.

What Thomas is asking about is what we did right after it got dark last night - we scattered two wagon loads of caltrops right where horses will step as they come off the Launceston Castle’s drawbridge.  We are using every one of the caltrops we got from the Acre fortress.  I brought them with me when I came to Launceston.

Well of course I did; we’re not exactly virgins when it comes to besieging a castle are we?  Or being besieged in one for that matter.

There is a lot of shouting and noise everywhere.  But then it begins to change and grow with the familiar sound of horses and knights hitting the ground as they come off the drawbridge.  The growing rain of arrows and the horses impaling their hoofs on the sharp points of the caltrops are doing their job.

It’s what we expected.  Once one horse goes down in a narrow area those coming on fast behind it also begin going down as they crash into those who’ve gone down in front of them.  That’s particularly true in the darkness when the frantic horses and their riders can’t see enough to avoid the downed horse and knights in front of them and don’t have any place to go even if they do.

We can’t see it very well in the moonlight, but we can certainly hear it. Within seconds it is obvious that there is a growing pile of screaming men and horses at the end of the drawbridge and constant splashes as some the rearmost horses and riders are forced off the bridge and into the water of the moat.  Behind the charging knights are their archers and men at arms running hard in a desperate effort to escape.  They add to the confusion and make things worse by trying to get away by climbing over the growing pile of kicking horse and struggling men.

Chapter Eight

A few of the knights in the very front rank of the sortie ride free and some of the French men at arms are able to climb over the huge and growing pile of horses and men and run away.  Most do not.

Hours later in the dawn’s early light we begin pulling the dead and injured from the great mass of horses and men.  It is obvious that many of the men and horses trapped at the bottom of the huge pile died of suffocation.

Later in the morning we begin fishing drowned knights and men at arms out of moat to get their armor and weapons.  But the water is so cold I quickly call off the effort – they’ll still be there in the summer.

Missing is Lady Isabel.  She’s not among the dead and injured.  It’s possible she’s still in the castle so I send a party of men under Henry the London archer sergeant in through the tunnel to explore while Thomas and I deal with the prisoners.

The archers, men at arms, and servants of the knights – the men stranded on the drawbridge and outside the castle gate because they followed the knights, are immediately freed – after they point out the knights among the survivors who rode with Henry FitzCount on the attack on Trematon or stood with him during his fraudulent challenge.  They all did, the bastards, and now they are getting what they deserve - they are all being thrown in the carts with the dead and taken shivering and moaning and crying for mercy to be thrown in the river.

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What remains of Henry FitzCount disappears while we wait to see who is in the castle - our men throw him and the bishop into one of the carts that is taking their dead and wounded knights for a swim in the Tamar to wash away their sins.  It will be a permanent swim because their sins are so great for killing children and betraying their knightly oaths.

Besides, as I explain to Thomas, the ground is too frozen to dig and our men have worked hard enough.  The knights’ horses, of course, will be butchered and eaten unless they might still be usable.  Waste not, want not, as the good book says.

Thomas and I talk while we watch the carts being loaded and the dead and injured horses cut up.  We’re waiting to approach the castle gate and our mood is somber as we talk and watch the dead and wounded knights being stripped of their armor and shoes and thrown into the carts.

The shrieks and pleas of the wounded knights fall on deaf ears as they are thrown into the wagons – every one of our men saw the butchered children and watched the dishonorable bastards ride away from the field outside of Trematon.

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Our victory raises a number of questions.  Should we bring Sir Percy here to Launceston or move here ourselves or stay at Restormel?  We decide to stay at Restormel at least until next summer – primarily because that’s where the boys are and it’s closer to the River Fowey ships where our ships are anchored and beached.

We also decide on Martin the archer from London to be the commander at Launceston.  Martin’s not the brightest candle but he’s steady and we’ll leave someone like Peter to be his second.  Peter’s the fast thinking sergeant who had the archers shooting at the sortieing knights even before Thomas and I got there to give the order.  Sir Percy and his wife will stay at Trematon.

What we don’t decide as we stand there stamping our feet to stay warm is whether our fleet will be based at the mouth of the Tamar or the Fowey next year.   My initial thought is that the Tamar is too close to Devon and its earl who is potentially unfriendly because he may or may not be FitzCount’s cousin.  That’s what I tell Thomas.

What we finally agree as we stand there in the cold morning air and watch the sun rise is that it is too important a question to answer quickly because the answer will affect where we end up locating our permanent headquarters and train our men.

Thomas and I are still standing just out of arrow range in front of the castle talking when the gate opens and Henry and the men who entered through the tunnel wave us in.  There is no sign of Isabel and she’s not among the dead and wounded at the drawbridge.  There are only cowering servants, including a number of Isabel’s and a handful of local men at arms who declined to join the escape effort.  All will be pardoned and retained if they will pledge their liege and were not present at Trematon.  If they were present?  Well, then they’ll join the knights and bishop swimming in the Tamar.

Then it dawns on me where Isabel might be.  There must be a mine under the castle and Isabel who came here to live here with FitzCount is likely to know where other mine tunnels enter the castle and where they go.  I immediately send a messenger to tell Martin to ask the servants and begin looking for other entrances to the mine under the castle.

Chapter Nine

Spring of 1193 arrives with flooded rivers throughout Cornwall when the rains come and the snows melt on the hills.  We respond by launching the beached galleys and floating everything down to the mouth of the Fowey.  It’s just as well – it’s time for me to take our galleys and cogs back to the Holy Land and earn more coins.

Getting them while the getting is good is always the best policy isn’t it?

While I’m gone Thomas will be in charge.  He’ll stay at Restormel with George and the boys and a very strong force of men to discourage the Earl of Devon and his friends from attacking us.

Thomas’ main task while I’m gone will be to do what he truly loves to do - he’ll learn the boys to scribe and sum and, additionally, supervise the training and assignments of any additional men he recruits from the steady stream of men who constantly walk into our camps seeking to make their marks and join us.

He’ll also meet with the franklins and the masters of our manors to negotiate alternatives to their paying of their taxes and rents with coins – bringing us foodstuffs and firewood and horses, for example.  Horses for sure; we really need more horses.

Possessing land and castles is beyond my wildest dreams.  But, truth be told, I’m getting bored and ready to head back to the Holy Land.

End of Book Two

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Sample pages from Book Three

“The Archers Return”

The storm lasts almost two days.  Then the weather clears and we pass Gibraltar both rowing and running before the wind with a leather sail up on our stubby mast.  And we’re not alone.  One of our cogs, the one with the big patch on its sail captained by Albert the archer from Chester, comes up on us so fast that we have to row to keep up so we can talk as we pass the big rock with the huge Moorish castle on its peak.

But why are there no Moorish galleys here to collect tolls and taxes?

Harold and Albert manage to keep our two ships together until we reach the harbor at Palma two days later.  To my absolute delight our other cog is already at anchor and so are four of our galleys.  There are happy hails and waves as we enter the harbor and drop our anchor.  Within minutes dinghies are rowing towards us from our other ships.

Palma is on Mallorca Island which is under the nominal control of a batch of Moors called “Burburs” or something like that.  What’s good for us, and the reason we’re here, is that the Moors are having a bloody civil war and the island’s Burbur ruler is a deadly enemy of the Caliph who rules Tunis and Algiers.

All and all, as we know from our last visit, Palma is apparently a fairly civilized place with many Christians and Jews living on the island.  Genoa and Pisa have had commercial establishments here for years.  We’ve come back to Palma again because we didn’t have any problems when we rendezvoused here last year on our way to England and when some of our galleys successfully stopped here last fall on their way back from England to Cyprus.  Once again that seems to be the case - the local Moslems seem pleased that we’d given the Tunisians a poke in the eye.  At least that’s the story we got from the local merchants when we were last here.

“It’s good to see everyone here and safe once again,” I tell the captains as they come to report.

“Nothing’s changed.  We’ll leave here and rendezvous in Malta and then in Cyprus as soon as the rest of our galleys arrive and the weather’s good.  In the meantime you can give your crews two hour shore leaves during daylight hours.  But only a few men at a time and not after dark.  Explain to your men that they have to stay close both because we want to be always ready to fight in case the Moors come and because we’ll be leaving for Malta as soon as the rest of our ships arrive and re-provision.”

We want everyone to think we’re going to Malta from here.  We’re not.

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Martin Archer is also the author of the five novels of the acclaimed “The Soldier” saga which follows a young soldier through his entire career as a professional soldier - from his first taste of combat in the bitter fighting of the Korean War and then in Vietnam and the wars that might have subsequently occurred after Vietnam or will occur in the near future.

Sample pages from Book One of “The Soldier” saga

Book One

SOLDIERS AND MARINES

Dust and gravel periodically spray out behind the Jeep as it slowly backs up towards the top of the low ridge.  The early morning sun is bright and already hot, and the periodic sound of thunder in the background has been coming closer for two days.

Three men are in the slowly backing Jeep as it moves over the abandoned farm land and up towards the ridgeline.  The passenger sits impassively almost as if he’s in a trance.  The gunner on the mounted machine gun crouches and squints down the barrel into the sun as he constantly moves it to the left and right.  He is chewing furiously on a mouthful of gum.

Everyone in the Jeep is trying to be as quiet as possible.  But it’s not working because of the engine noise and the periodic burst of sound each time the Jeep runs over a patch of rocks or breaks a stick.  Each of the men is terribly anxious without saying it out loud.

The occupants of the Jeep are nervous.  And rightly so.  It’s the morning of July 29th and thirty four days earlier the Soviet-trained North Korean army poured over the border into South Korea.  It catches the poorly equipped and under trained garrison troops of the South Koreans and their allies by surprise - they are everywhere overrun and either killed or pushed back.

The sky is partially cloudy and the flat field of the upward sloping rocky farmland is empty of life and crops.  There are great towering white clouds to the north, but at the moment the men are traveling in bright summer morning sunshine.  It’s dusty and hot on the rough track across the abandoned farm.  The mud ruts from a previous rain are baked hard and the men in the Jeep don’t know what they will find when they get to the top of the rise they are slowly approaching.  But they are highly visible as they slowly bounce over the uneven ground and seriously worried about it.

“Careful, goddamn it, careful,” the passenger hisses in an unnecessarily low voice as they slowly approach the summit.  He is twisted around and trying to see over the crouching gunner behind the gun mount.  The driver is slowly backing the Jeep upwards towards the top of the rise.

Damn the passenger thought to himself as he tries to stand so he can see better, and just when I was about to rotate back home for a new assignment.   He is about six feet tall with close cropped gray hair, about 190 pounds, and, although he never did really think about it, glad he only has daughters who won’t be called to serve.

He’d picked up the driver’s carbine ten minutes ago, checked its banana clip to make sure it is full, and clicked its fire selector from single shot to automatic.  The carbine had ridden wedged between him and the driver until they reached the start of the gradually rising farm land a couple of miles back.  Now, holding the carbine in his right hand like a pistol and trying to keep his balance by holding the edge of the lowered windshield with his left, he is standing as high as possible in the slowly bouncing and rocking Jeep in an effort to see around the gunner and over the top of the ridge.

The passenger is a fairly chunky man wearing the shoes and summer uniform of a garrison officer instead of boots and battledress.  His pants are filthy and ripped, but that’s what he’d been wearing when the war started and he hadn’t taken them off yet.  There is a colonel’s badge on the summer soft cap he’d grabbed off the bedroom table and jammed on his head when he’d gotten the 3am call about the invasion and rushed to headquarters.

Brown hair streaked with white pokes out from under the Colonel’s cap.  It was cropped short and neat when the war started, but it hasn’t been cut or combed for weeks.  He is forty two years old and desperately needs a shave and something to eat.  He’d been the commander of a tank battalion in Germany during the big war and knows trouble when he sees it.

What happened? Why weren’t we ready? Even bouncing along in the Jeep he can’t get the disbelief out of his mind.   Once again the United States and the United Kingdom have been caught flat footed and ill-equipped.

The Jeep lurches to a stop at the colonel’s whispered order.  He hoists himself on the barrel of the carbine and slowly raises himself up as high as possible.  Damn, still not far enough to see what’s on the other side.  The colonel isn’t taking any chances.  He’d quickly learned in Germany that it is really stupid to show yourself on a ridge line until you are damn sure you know what’s on the other side.

He hasn’t slept for days, his clothes are filthy, and he is totally exhausted.  Being worried and backing slowly up a hill in a jeep brought back fleeting memories of the earlier war.  He almost smiles at the memory.

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** Read more:  Search Amazon.com for “Martin Archer” or

“Soldiers and Marines.”   Martin Archer can be contacted
at MartinarcherV@gmail.com.  He would value your suggestions
regarding these novels and publishing print versions
of them.**