The Archer's War: Exciting good read - adventure fiction about fighting and combat during medieval times in feudal England with archers, longbows, knights, ... (The Company of English Archers Book 4)

                                    Book Four

                            “The Archer’s War”

                                         By Martin Archer

PREFACE

       This is the fourth 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 Boleyn girl.   

       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 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. 

       Whoever commissioned the history 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 could read it and its emphasis both on what actually happened and, most importantly, what everyone is actually thinking when they are doing and saying whatever it is that they are doing and saying. 

       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 the parchments are written in various languages.  Some are written in Latin and Greek while others are in various versions of what is now called Middle English and Old French – which means he must both piece them together and rewrite them into today’s English.  

       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 are God’s Will.  The monk is obviously not so sure.  According to him, sharp blades and ambitious men are a much more likely explanation.

       This particular story is a combination of the parchments that have been translated and pieced together to describe the experiences of William and the archers after King Richard is shipwrecked - and then, while disguised as a Templar knight, captured as he attempts to return overland to England from his failed crusade. 

       Leopold of Austria captures Richard and sells him a few months later to the German Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. The German Emperor, following the custom of the day, offers to free Richard in exchange for a huge ransom of sixty five thousand pounds of silver. Some of Richard’s supporters, particularly those in France who won’t be taxed to pay the ransom, consider it a harsh but just amount, particularly since Richard himself levied a similar ransom on the Saracens; those in England who will be taxed to pay it are not so sure.

       And there are complications in England where Richard’s French mother and his other supporters intend to raise much of the money. Richard’s estranged and rebellious younger brother, Prince John, who has been reigning in England ever since Richard left for the crusades, is trying to prevent the money for Richard’s ransom from being collected so he can continue in power.  The result, according to the unknown monk, is great upheaval and conflict throughout England. 

       This is how the monk pieces together the various parchment stories and personal recollections of what happens when William and his company of archers are caught in the middle of it all.        

                              “The Archer’s War”

                                    Chapter One

       We can see the little village of Fowey off to our left as our galley slowly rows into the Fowey harbor. 

      “We’re almost there, Helen.  Restormel Castle, your new home, is a little ways up this river.  It’s called the River Fowey, by the way, and that little cluster of houses off to the left is Fowey village.  The people eat fish and the greens and such they find in the forest.  Funny people, they are; they live here in England and always have, but they speak some kind of local language no one can understand.  Strange isn’t it?”

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       We row up the Fowey against the current until we reach our boats and training camp just below Restormel.  Along the way we come across two boys sitting on the bank with fishing poles.   They wave enthusiastically as we pass and run a few steps along the river footpath to keep up with us.

       Then they stop and just stand there looking back down the river in amazement when they see all of the other galleys coming up behind us and hear their rowing drums.  Helen and everyone on deck give them a friendly wave.

        “Are they biting?” someone shouts over to them.

       The boys smile back and then suddenly turn around, listen for a moment, and run into the woods.  Someone’s mother must have called.

      
Probably Cornish squatters since there are no farms along here due to the periodic flooding and the use of land on this side of the river as a hunting ground for the Restormel lords.  Ah well, they look like good lads and we’re not much into hunting are we?  It’s easier to kill sheep and cattle when we’re hungry.

       Our ship building camp comes in sight as we come around a slight bend in the river and can see it ahead through the trees.  It’s changed very little since we left in the spring. The same tents and sleeping hovels are there along the tree line with the beginnings of the two big cogs under construction and a dinghy covered with rough cut boards to act as a floating dock. 

      
Our sailors and archer trainees are kept busy working on the new cogs when they aren’t engaged in their other duties.  Keeps them out of mischief doesn’t it?

       The dock is tied to two trees so it can’t float away. Our old two-masted training cog and one of the two war galleys stationed here are tied to trees growing along the riverbank just below the dock.  The other galley must be off somewhere on an errand or recently lost.

       The cog and galley are used to teach our archers and pike men how to behave and fight when they board an enemy galley or one of the sailing ships called cogs – the big cargo ships with their high sides that are so difficult to climb aboard unless you know how. 

       Teaching our archers and pike men how to board an enemy ship is one of the reasons why we have the old cog and some sailors here. We also have a couple of other cogs we use to move people and supplies among the ports from here to Liverpool and Newcastle, and particularly to and from London.

      
They’re usually here; I wonder where they are? 

       Harold himself is in our galley’s bow and throws a mooring line to a couple of ragged looking men standing on the floating dock.  They are some of our shipwrights by the look of their clothes and the tools in their hands.  And a welcome sight they are, that’s for sure; several of our galleys are badly in need of repairs. One of them leaks so severely it’s a wonder it got here at all.   

       Apostos from Cyprus, the head shipwright, obviously heard the cries of the men who could see and hear us coming.  He is walking towards the dock with a big welcoming smile on his face and his hand held up in a greeting.  And there is Jeffrey the sergeant in charge of the archers’ training, by God. 

      
I wonder why Jeffrey’s here.  Normally he’s at Restormel where we train the archers and barrack them.

       Apostos and Jeffrey both get big handshakes and claps on their shoulders from me and Harold as we climb over our galley’s deck railing and on to the unsteady dock. 
It’s good to see them again; it surely is.

       “Hello Jeffrey, it’s good to see you.  What brings you down here with the people who have to work for their bread?  Going for a sailor are you?”

       “My God no, William.  But it’s good to see you too, William Captain, and that ugly sailor with you. Have a good trip did you?” 

      
Yes, we have so many Williams among our archers that we’ve all ended up being named with a second name.  William Lewes, William Farmer, William Smith and so on and so forth.  I’m the one who marshals our men so now I’m sometimes William Captain.

       “
Middling, Jeffrey, just middling.  We hit Almeria and got away with almost nothing; but then we hit Cadiz and made off with fourteen galleys and a very nice cog.  We sent them off to Cyprus with prize crews, didn’t we?  I’ll tell you all about it when we have a chance to hoist a bowl together.”

       We talk about many things as we stand and watch as the rest of our ten galleys come in one after another and tie up to trees along the bank.  But most of the talk is about how fast we can get the seaworthy galleys resupplied and headed back to Cyprus and the need to have the two leakers pulled ashore to be repaired and how long that might take.  And, of course, the most important question of all, at least so far as I’m concerned – how many fully trained Marines do we have available to immediately send back to Cyprus with their own longbows? 

      
Yes, I know; I’ll soon be having the same conversation with Thomas but we’ve not a day to spare and I want Jeffrey and everyone else to get started immediately - we have an obligation to the merchants who have begun acting as our agents in the Holy Land ports to quickly replace the galleys we sent to Constantinople and Antioch. 

       We’ve got enough galleys, of course, because of from those we took out of Cadiz and we can always find sailors in the ports along the way; what we’re mostly missing are archers with long bows who know how to fight on both land and sea – the ones we’ve taken to calling Marines.

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       I don’t have to wait to see my son and my priestly brother.  There is a great “allo” and here they come along the cart path from the castle.  Someone standing on the castle wall must have seen the galleys coming up the river and they’ve come to greet us.

       And it’s a right merry time when they do – George breaks into a run and is totally out of breath when he jumps right into my arms.  So I hold him up off the ground and dance him around and around with many hugs and kisses while I’m trying to shake Thomas’ hand and hug him too.  And I’m absolutely delighted that George is delighted to see me.  The men around are all beaming at each other and shaking hands and everyone is talking to everyone else at the same time.

       “It’s good to see young man, I’ve missed you, I truly have.  And you too, Thomas.  You’re both a good sight for these tired eyes.” …  “And by God, George I think you’ve grown bigger.  Good on you, my boy, good on you.” 

      I begin to get things underway after things settle down a bit.  Apostos, Harold, and Jeffrey listen intently and I keep my arm around George while I explain to Thomas what needs to be done.

     “Thomas, I’ll explain later but we need to get as many of these galleys as possible resupplied and turned around and started back to Cyprus as soon as they can be made ready.  And they’ve got to carry as many archers and men at arms as you can safely spare.  Harold will be in command as the fleet’s master sergeant; I’ll be staying here for a while, at least until next spring and maybe even longer.” 

       Then, after a pause while I motion Helen to come down from the galley and join us, I continue.

       “Oh, and Apostos, a couple of these galleys need a lot of repairs.  And one of them probably should be pulled ashore immediately before it sinks - that one over there where the men are still bailing.  But once you get it ashore I want you to ignore it.  Concentrate your men on fixing those that need minor repairs so Harold can take them back to Cyprus as soon as possible.”

       Helen’s joining our group causes a bit of a stir.  Most of the sergeant captains who sailed here with me have seen her but Thomas and George don’t know about her at all.

       “Uh, George, Thomas, everyone, this is Helen.  She is my.. uh…  uh…She is with me.”

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       All afternoon our horse carts, some pulled by horses and others by men marshaled for the purpose, move back and forth between the boat camp and Restormel – carrying coin chests and various things up to the castle; returning with amphorae jars full of oil and sack of grain to feed the men on the galleys. 

       Thomas moves quickly and after a while cattle and sheep begin being driven in to be slaughtered so the newly arrived men can eat their fill and regain their strength.  Geese and ducks and chickens arrive also and cooking fires spring up everywhere.

       It’s been a long voyage without proper meat and the men did well at Almeria and Cadiz; they’ve earned it all.

       Later that day as the sun goes down there is a real dinner in Restormel’s great hall – for George and the boys, Helen, all the master sergeants, and a couple of Augustinian priests coming to hold services at the Launceston Priory or join it, I’m not sure which. 

      
The priests probably stopped here for a last good meal before walking on to the priory.  Tonight it’s mutton stew.

       The talk is merry and the boys are in awe of Helen and play “throw fingers” games with her; the newly arrived sergeants captaining the galleys are mostly just in awe – they’ve never been in a great hall before let alone supped in one as members of its lord’s entourage.