Authors: Martin Archer
Tags: #Historical Fiction
The barons are also afraid that if they answer the King’s call and go off to war their neighbors who pay the King’s scutage fee to buy out of serving in the campaign will try to take over some of their lands and women and serfs while they’re gone - which will also surely happen if they get themselves killed or die of the poxes that seem to afflict soldiers when they don’t wear the proper garlic cloves and say the proper prayers. That’s what happened to poor Lord Edmund those many years ago and resulted in us being here in Cornwall.
Thomas thinks we have nothing to fear from our new King because Cornwall is so inconsequential to him because it’s so poor and its revenues so small. According to Thomas, the King knows Cornwall can only support a few knightly fiefs so why would he even bother with us?
Moreover, as Thomas points out to me with a great deal of satisfaction in his voice after he takes a sip of his morning bowl of ale, we’re in the king’s pleasure - we were not allied with the nobles who supported Richard against John when John tried to stay on the throne. To the contrary, we bought the earldom and Cornwall’s six meager fiefs from John himself instead of Richard.
“We will,” Thomas concludes with a great deal of satisfaction after a big gulp of ale and a little belch, “be safe if we go to London for the coronation.”
Of course, Cornwall does have tin mines and tin refineries but they belong to the king so he already gets all their very substantial revenues. It also has some monasteries and church lands which aren’t valuable to anyone because their revenues go to the church. Other than that Cornwall is mostly fishermen and quite poor – so poor even the Romans didn’t bother to build a road to it. They stopped in Exeter forty miles from where Cornwall begins at the River Tamar.
In the end Thomas and I decide to go to London for the ceremony. We’re mostly going because Thomas thinks it’s time for George and the older boys in Thomas’ school to see London. He wants them to see what it’s like to live in a city that is so huge that it has three castles and almost 25,000 people live in it. That’s the argument that tips the balance.
Helen does not want to go because of the new baby. She’ll stay in Cornwall with Ann and our two little ones. Ann being the sister Helen’s mother sent to me from Beirut and Helen sent to my bed when she was pregnant. Now, of course, they’re both pregnant – and they’re both talking about how much I would enjoy being in Cyprus this coming winter with their youngest sister to care for me so they can stay in Cornwall and care for the new children.
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Thomas and the six boys are on Harold’s galley and sleeping in hammocks in the bigger deck castle in the stern where the crew usually sleeps. Ranulph, the assistant master of Thomas’ school, is schooling the younger boys while Thomas is off to London and Rome. Ranulph’s the scribe Thomas found in Rome to replace Angelo Priestly when he and two of Thomas’ boys caught the sweating sickness and died two summers ago.
Harold’s sailors are undoubtedly unhappy about giving up their shipboard castle to Thomas and the boys. But they’re used to sleeping rough and they’ll survive - they’ve taken an old leather sail and used it to make a comfy shelter for themselves back by where the rudder men steer the galley.
I myself am traveling to London on Simon’s galley with Peter Sergeant. We three are sharing its little castle up at the front of the galley. Each of our ships has about one hundred and thirty men on board – ten to twelve sailors and one hundred and twenty or so of our best Marine archers. The Marines sleep huddled together on and around their rowing benches under leather rain skins.
Peter is one of my lieutenants now with six black stripes on the front and back of his linen tunic. When Thomas puts aside his bishop’s robes and wears his tunic he also has six stripes as do Henry, Harold, and Yoram who commands in Cyprus. Our most senior sergeants, which includes all the survivors of our original company of archers, have five stripes, ships’ captains four, regular sergeants three, chosen men two, fully trained Marines one; and apprentice Marines and everyone else none.
We’re a formidable force as we set out to row for London. Everyone except the handful of sailors on each galley is a fully trained Marine armed with a long bow and one of Brian’s Swiss pikes with a blade and hooks. And, of course, each of the galleys has its usual complement of one hundred and sixty swords and ships’ shields for each of us to carry when we’re ashore.
Our force is particularly large both because we have my son George to guard and because after London we’ll split up - I’ll return to Cornwall on Harold’s galley with George and the boys while Thomas and a galley full of Marines, and their squawking and mooing livestock to be eaten along the way, sail to Rome to hand the Pope some of the coins the ‘Order of the Poor Landless Sailors’ collected from our passengers for the Pope’s prayers. While we’re doing that, Peter will lead some of the Marines on to Hathersage to collect this year’s horses and recruits and then continue on overland through Devon to Cornwall.
The amount of coins we carry to the Pope is always small because no one except me and Thomas and Yorum knows how many “coins for the Pope’s prayers” the refugees and pilgrims donate for the Pope’s prayers for their safety – but it is an effective payment for the Pope’s personal protection because we put it directly into the Pope’s hands without any being skimmed off by the thieving Italian churchmen who surround him.
Soliciting prayer coins from our passengers for the Pope’s prayers for their safety at sea was Thomas’ idea. It’s a splendid coin maker for us in addition to buying the Pope’s goodwill and protection.
Monk’s note: The Order of the Poor Landless Sailors was established by Papal Decree in 1196 by Pope Celestine III to provide transportation for pilgrims and crusaders going to and from the Holy Land. The Earl of Cornwall is the Order’s hereditary commander. The Order collects donations from the pilgrims and other passengers it carries and sends them directly to the Pope for his prayers for their safety while traveling on the sea. Bishop Thomas drafted the decree and paid the Pope to sign it and name him Bishop of Cornwall as his personal representative to collect and deliver the Pope’s share of the takings.
The real purpose of the Order, of course, is to protect me and my son George and our heirs from the king and the church’s other bishops while we are carrying out our family’s long run objective of seizing more wealth and power - by making us appear to be a good but very poor family with a powerful protector.
The other provisions of the Pope’s decree are absolutely splendid so far as we are concerned. They should be since Thomas himself scribed the decree and delivered the initial bag of coins needed to get the Pope to sign it without reading it too closely.
The Pope probably signed it because he and the Italians around him had never even heard of Cornwall or, if they did, thought it was so small and meaningless that it could be safely ignored. It is probably safe to say that the Pope would never have signed the decree if he’d known Cornwall would become the home of the Marine archers and what they would do in the years that follow with the powers and recognition that he and the king granted them.
Among the key provisions are the naming of the Earls of Cornwall as the Order’s commanders in perpetuity and, obviously most important of all from my perspective because the church is constantly interfering in earthly matters to increase its wealth and its powers, granting the Order, and thus me and my heirs, the right to reject any bishops, arch-deacons, abbots, and priests we do not want in Cornwall.
It also grants the Earls of Cornwall the right to legitimize by personal decree all of their children to insure the continuation of our line and the Order we command - and thus, of course, the continuation of the little linen sack of gold coins my heirs and I will directly place into the Pope’s hands each year.
William’s young wife and her sisters were obviously the cause of this provision because William so obviously enjoyed knowing them.
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Note from the Bodleian Librarian dated March, 1886 and written along the edge of the manuscript page: “It is quite surprising that one of the purposes of establishing the Order of Poor Landless Sailors is to keep unwanted church and monastic officials out of Cornwall – it supports the idea he might have been writing the history for the King himself. This is a helpful clue as we are still not sure when the monk actually arrived in Oxford to begin writing his history or who his patron might have been. Perhaps the mystery will be solved when you translate more of the parchments.”
Chapter Two
“Oars in. Standby with the mooring lines.”
George and the boys are standing wide-eyed next to me as we approach the dock our ships use when they are in London. They’ve been that way for several hours as we followed William’s galley up the Thames and threaded our way through the mass of shipping at anchor and tied up along the shore. The boys are surprised and awed - they’ve never seen such a big city or so many ships and people.
“Look,” George suddenly shouts. “There’s father and Peter.”
And so it is. William’s galley is tying up immediately in front of us and I can see my brother and Peter Sergeant climbing up from the deck to get on the dock. They see us and wave and start walking to us.
Of course George travels separately from his father whenever possible. If either galley went down we’d still have the other and our family and plans could continue.
“Hello young man; hello brother,” William says as he reaches down to grab George’s extended arm and pull him up on to the dock – and gives him a big hug. Then he and Peter begin reaching down and pulling the other boys up. Harold and I lift them up one at a time to stand on the deck railing and steady them from behind until they can be pulled the rest of the way up to the dock.
When all six of the boys are safely up on the planks of the wooden dock I climb on the galley’s railing myself and William and Peter haul me up while Harold pushes on my arse to help me on my way. Both William and Peter are carrying swords and wearing chain mail under their tunics. I am too. The dozen or so Marines who are scrambling up on either side of us are carrying long bows and ships’ shields in addition to the ship’s swords they are sometimes issued when they go ashore on duty.
Some of the Marine’s senior sergeants have chain mail but most of the Marines do not; it costs too many coins.
“Everything alright?” William silently mouths to me with a questioning look as I come up.
“Aye, it is.” I mouth back with a nod, and then loudly add a comment so all can hear. “Well lads here we are in London all safe and sound; God be praised.”
“A fish jumped out of the water this morning and landed on our deck. I touched it, I did. One of the archers threw it back in.” One of the boys excitedly offers to William.
“Did he now, Tom? Well that was certainly a strong fish to jump so far, wasn’t it?”
“How did it go?” I mouth to William. “Any problems?”
He shakes his head and says, “I’m surprised we couldn’t find dock space closer to Freddy’s stables.
We’ll have to walk a ways and move closer when a space opens up.
Come on lads, were going to have to walk a ways to visit with an old friend. He’s got a lot of horses, yes he does.”
“Send a messenger if you need me or think of anything,” Harold shouts to us as we start to walk away with the boys and he heads off in the other direction with Jeffrey to arrange for water and supplies. “I’ll be moving both galleys further down the dock if enough space opens up.”
Then, after a pause while he stepped around a dockworker taking a shite, he explained why he isn’t walking with us.
“Me and Jeffrey will be at the chandlers buying chickens and sheep and such for while we’re here and our outward voyages. Jeffrey is for sure going to need more food and firewood if the men are to eat enough to row strong all the way to Lisbon.”
Lisbon, of course, being the first stop on Thomas’ long voyage from London to Rome on Jeffrey’s galley. Water goes fast when the men are rowing and there’s not much room on a galley’s deck for chickens and sheep and such no matter how much you cripple them up and cram them in. The need to periodically take on more water and supplies is why Jeffrey and Thomas will have to make a number of stops along the way.
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We’ve tied up at a very busy dock. Almost its entire length is filled with ships and there is activity all along it with pony carts and carrier men carrying things on and off the ships and talking and shouting everywhere. Some of the men that see us walking past them stare at us as we come by and a few of them smile at the boys.
After a bit we come to big and battered old cog with a great crowd of men standing on the dock next to it. They’re merchants from the look of them and the way they are watching each other intently and whispering into each other’s ears when they talk.
Thomas is carrying a rolled up parchment map under his arm and sees the ship and the merchants as a chance to school the boys.