Authors: Martin Archer
Tags: #Historical Fiction
Chapter Five
Things are going well in London. Winter is almost done and Roger Miner and I have already sent off two galleys and a cog packed with new archers and untrained recruits. And we’ve got another thirty of them ready to go.
At the moment our new recruits and my ten guardsmen are sleeping and eating in Simon’s galley, the one that is always here with our coin chest on board. That’s where our new recruits wait until one of our galleys or cogs is able to return from Cornwall to pick them up.
Our latest recruits are about evenly divided between untrained men and archers with their own longbows.
While they are waiting for our ship to come in the recruits live and cook and practice sword fighting on Simon’s galley; some of them are so ill-clothed we have to advance coins to them so they can buy hooded skins to wear and sleep in. It’s been such a cold and wet winter it’s a wonder they survived long enough to get to us.
Roger is my new second now that Peter is gone back to Cornwall. Roger’s an archer from Yorkshire. Before he went off to the crusades with us he helped his father dig coal. That’s probably how his arms got strong enough to pull a long bow.
He replaced Peter when Peter carried an important parchment back to Cornwall with our first batch of newly recruited archers – the one telling William about the mercenary company I may have recruited.
As you might imagine, Roger is known to everyone as Roger Miner since we have several other Rogers in our company. Roger must be a popular name up there.
I say ‘may have recruited’ when I talk about the mercenaries because you never know for sure about mercenaries, do you? All that is certain is that their captain took a few of our coins and made his mark on an agreement to bring one hundred and fifty men and fight for us anywhere in England. According to the Nuncio, who sent the mercenary captain to me. The mercenary captain is a Scot named Leslie and, according to the Nuncio, he is known to have that many men in his company and to provide them if the price is right.
It’s a very good contract for the mercenary captain if he can actually provide the men and they are actually willing to fight. I had to take him on the galley to show him the coins before he would make his mark – though I’m rather sure he doesn’t know what is written on the parchment since he held it upside down when he was pretending to read it before he made his mark and accepted some coins to bind himself and his men to us.
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At the moment I’m in London and one of our new archers, Joseph from King’s Lynn, is on his way to Coldfield with Leslie to inspect his mercenaries and report back to me if they are real. Coldfield’s about a three days march from Cornell’s castle in Derbyshire. It’s a good place to marshal our mercenaries because from there we can either march to either Cornell’s Castle or to the old Roman road Cornell will almost certainly take when he leads his men to Cornwall. Joseph’s taking three of our guards with him for protection when he or a messenger comes back to report.
There are supposed to be a company of hundred and fifty mercenaries waiting for me in Coldfield. Almost all of them are lowland Scots and mostly swordsmen. At least that’s how many I agreed to hire when their captain and a couple of his sergeants visited me in London.
Apparently Leslie heard about me being in London both from the Nuncio and from a couple of their men who had talked to one of our archer recruiters. He thought I was recruiting archers for Cyprus and came to see if I needed swordsmen as well.
The mercenaries’ captain is a big white-haired older man named Robert Leslie. According to him, he and his men are part a clan that lost a big fight over some cattle land more than thirty years ago and had to flee for their lives. Ever since then, if Leslie is to be believed, they’ve been moving around and hiring themselves out as mercenaries to fight on the side of one English lord or another.
Presently they are raising sheep on some of Whitby Abbey’s grazing land on the moors northeast of Thirsk in exchange for guarding the Abbey.
Or not looting it more likely.
As you might imagine, I question Leslie rather closely before I part with some of my coins. Leslie himself is a strange man and there’s no denying it – his eyes and face look a bit different.
“Who are your people and how is it that you are mercenaries instead of living in Scotland?” I ask.
“The tale in the clan is that our blood was not pure because my father’s father, or maybe his father before him, was a mercenary from somewhere else who came here and was adopted into the clan when Malcom was King. Always outsiders we was when I was a lad, and so was my father before me.
“My cousin’s family was always feuding with us. Pushed us out and took our lands, didn’t they? Claimed we wasn’t really part of the clan. So here we are – fighting’s all we know to do.”
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Finally we retire to the ale house at the end of the dock, the White Horse, and drink ale until we reach an agreement. One of our archers, Joseph from King’s Lynn, and three of the guards will ride back with Leslie to visit his men – to see if they are real. If they are and are willing to move to Coldfield, and on to another place, I’ll accept the price we tentatively negotiated for one hundred and fifty men to conduct a castle siege and battles against an English lord for up to eighteen months.
Eight days later the three guards return with a message from Joseph saying that Leslie’s men are very real and very hungry, and are already marching towards Coldfield. So I send the three guards riding back with a message and a sack of coins for the mercenaries’ initial payment along with two more of my guards to help guard the coins from robbers - leaving me with only one guard left who knows how to ride.
The message they will tell Joseph and the mercenaries is to resume their march and meet me in ten days just south of Wakefield in Yorkshire’s Calder Valley. That’s about a two days’ march from Cornell’s Hathersage Castle.
The mercenaries don’t know my plan, of course, because they can’t be trusted to keep secrets; all they know is that they’ve been hired to fight an English lord somewhere in England. They won’t be told who and where and when until they need to know.
And I’m still not sure myself about the when and where; only the who.
Sometime in the next week or two, before the campaigning season begins, I’ll ride up to Calder Valley with Roger and the rest of my men and take command myself. Only after I get there will I decide whether to attack Cornell on the road to weaken him or wait until he gets close to Cornwall and then attack his fief at Hathersage Castle so he is motivated to turn around and return.
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It’s cold and nasty early spring morning in London. The smoke from the cooking fires and fireplaces is so bad that it’s hard to breathe without coughing and choking.
Until a few minutes ago I’d been wrapped up in a horse blanket and snoozing in the stable waiting for a couple of archers from Sheffield who showed up earlier looking to enlist and then disappeared before I could get here to talk to them. Now I’m awake and pacing up and down and beginning to get worried, very worried.
What in the name of God should I do? I’ve taken a deep breath and said ten Hail Marys and I’m still uncertain.
It all started a few minutes ago when one of my recruiters, Bob Little, who has been visiting villages in Sussex, gallops in to report that an army of mercenaries, hundreds of them, have landed at Eastbourne due to bad weather in the channel – and, according to what they’ve been saying in the local ale houses, will soon be marching overland to rendezvous with Lord Cornell at Sarum on the Salisbury plain.
Apparently they’ve been delayed because they had trouble unloading their horses.
There are notable names among the mercenaries according to Bob. The big one is their captain. It’s a name we know because he accompanied Richard on his crusade - the well-known Belgian mercenary captain and former priest, Albert Kerfuffle. And that’s not a surprise since most of the mercenaries Bob saw in the taverns are apparently from the lowlands of Belgium and the Hollands.
According to Bob Little, there is no doubt about it – the mercenaries in the Eastbourne ale houses say they’ve made their marks to accompany Lord Cornell to Cornwall.
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We leave in a hurry for Sarum – all my remaining guards and all the newly recruited archers and other men waiting for a galley to take them to Cornwall. It’s going to have to be a quick trip. I want to intercept the mercenaries before they get to Sarum. The stable master will have to take care of any new recruits that straggle in during my absence.
But what do I do when I find Cornell’s mercenaries? Can I buy them off? And where is Cornell? Is he already marching? And if he’s already marching why haven’t I heard from Howard? My head is spinning.
Everything is organized within a few hours.
Simon offloads the men I am taking with me and moves his galley away from the dock to make it harder for anyone to rob our coins now that he’ll only have himself and his sailors to guard them. He’ll come in on the dinghy each day to see if any newly recruited archers show up at the stable where the recruiters are sending them.
For my part, I hire four two-horse wagons and ostlers to drive us to Sarum and care for the horses. I also hire a couple of riding horses for me and a messenger.
This time I have enough sense to require they be amblers or else there will be no payment.
Our trip to Sarum is bone jarring and fast; helped, perhaps, by the gold bezant I promised our hostlers if they get us to Sarum before Kerfuffle and his men and my willingness to buy replacement horses along the way.
It works - we get to Sarum before the mercenaries even though we have to replace two of the horses and temporarily abandon one of the wagons at a village smithy near Winchester when it breaks a wheel. More importantly, by the time we see the city walls of Sarum I’ve got an idea and the beginnings of a plan.
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Sarum is a peaceful town and its gates aren’t closed or guarded during the day. Our wagons clatter into the city through the Portsmouth gate. As I had hoped, neither Cornell nor Kerfuffle and his men are here yet. At least there is no sign of them.
I’ll never hear the end of it from William if Cornell’s mercenaries don’t come here.
Roger waits with the men while I head straight to the nearest ale house, the one with the sign of a stag painted above its open door. I can see what looks like another tavern further down the street. I’ll go there next.
I jump down from my horse, slap my miter on my head, and enter the tavern waving my cross at the astonished ale wife and carrying one of my bags of coins. A couple of bleary eyed drinkers, a man trying to fix a broken chair in the corner, and a bedraggled whore are the only other people in the place.
“Hello all and God’s blessing on all here” … “Are you the ale wife?” I ask the plump white haired woman who is almost certainly the ale wife. I wave my cross to bless her when she nods and mouths a silent yes - and at the same time drop what is obviously a heavy bag of coins on the table next to her.
She nods again warily and the man puts down his tools and straightens up to look and listen.
“I’ve come to buy your services and all your ale and other spirits for Saint Epher’s Day. Some fine Belgian and Hollander lads, several hundred of them actually, will be arriving in Sarum in a day or two and will want to celebrate Saint Epher’s day when they arrive. That’s the day the church pays and they get to eat and drink all they want in the name of their saint.
I like the name Epher; it’s a good name for a Belgian saint, don’t you think? That’s why I made it up.
Well, many of them can’t speak proper English, can they? So that’s why I’m here – to help them by paying for all their food and drink in advance. Just for Saint Epher’s Day, you understand.” ….
“Oh, dear me, yes; I almost forgot. Lord Cornell is on his way to Sarum and will soon be here himself. These men are in his service. He’ll pay for any food and drink you provide to the men after their Saint Epher’s Day feast. Just keep track of how much they drink. His Lordship will pay you and the church, of course, will guarantee the payment. Indeed we will. Such a generous man is Lord Cornell.”
With that I pour a rather large pile of coins out on the table. The woman’s eyes widen and her mouth drops open, and the man comes over with the big welcoming smile every ale wife’s husband wears when a drinker with coins comes through the door.
Good. No flies on this one when coins are available.
“And how many of Lord Cornell’s good Christian men do you think you can provide with food and all the spirits they can drink in one evening?”
Thirty minutes later and a bowl of ale later and I’m down the lane to the next tavern to repeat the process and again lighten my bag of coins.