by Tony Roberts
The skeptical man regarded Casca for a moment, chewing on something. Then he snorted and got to his feet, standing right on front of Casca. “Cass Long, mm?”
Casca tensed and got ready for a brawl. The others were getting to their feet, too. “Yep.”
The man sniffed, wiped his right palm on his tunic, then presented his hand. “If you fight half as good as you boast, then we’re lucky to have you. I’m Walt of Shrewsbury. Just call me Walt.”
Casca shook his hand, finding it tough and hard, shaped by years of hard work and harder fighting. The others welcomed him in turn. As the last of them returned to his seat, an upturned bucket, the sergeant appeared.
“Look out, here’s Wakely,” Will muttered and stepped back.
Casca watched as the man loped up to him, a curious expression on his face. Wakely was tall, bearded, had a long nose and a large lower jaw. “You the new archer?”
“Cass Long, yes.”
“Mmmm,” Wakely grunted. “Been in fights before, then, by the looks of you.”
“Some.”
Wakely examined the man standing in front of him. “Fought the Frogs before?”
Casca nodded. “They die well.” The others chuckled.
“You’re not Welsh, are you? You got a funny accent.”
Casca thought Wakely’s stilted Cheshire tongue was the funny one. He decided not to mention it though, having experienced the wrong end of a sergeant’s wrath before and he didn’t want to rock the boat too early. If Wakely was a habitual asshole then he’d sort him out in due course. “No but I learned how to use this thing there.”
Wakely pulled a face. Clearly he didn’t like that. “Then you’ll have learned how to do it wrong. In Cheshire we do it the right way.”
“Right you are, Sarge,” Casca said with a straight face. “I’ll watch you loose then and copy your style if that’s alright by you.”
Wakely said nothing, frowning, his mouth open in surprise. Finally he found his voice. “Yeeeeeeahhh, maybe you might learn something.” He gazed at the scarred recruit for a moment longer, then turned away, pausing as he thought he caught the faintest snigger from someone. He looked round at the men. “We’re to be packed by first light tomorrow and ready to march to the docks. Anyone tarrying will be left behind with no pay. Got it?”
“Got it, Sarge,” the men chorused. They all waited silently until he had gone around a tent and out of sight before breaking into laughter.
“Good one, Cass,” Walt declared. “He ain’t no bowman; he’s too short-sighted to see any further than he can piss. By the time he catches sight of a Froggy knight a-coming at him it’s trampling him into the ground. Ha ha ha!”
Casca chuckled. “So he’s a sergeant by default then?”
“Dunno; the Lord Godfrey pays him to make sure we keep in line; no swearing, no looting, no humping, you know the usual sort of thing.”
“Unless it’s authorized, eh?”
“Ha! You got that right, and we hope they let us wherever we’re going!” another nodded emphatically.
“So where are we going?” Casca asked, finding a convenient sack of grain to sit upon.
The others looked at each other, some shrugging, others pulling faces. Will said he didn’t know. “Some say it’s going to be Gascony – the Froggies are making noises about taking it again and the King isn’t happy about that.”
“I heard it was going to be a chevauchee, like John O’Gaunt did in my dad’s time,” one of the others voiced. “We’ll land in Normandy and burn our way through to Bordeaux.”
“Nah, we’re too late for that,” Walt scoffed. “My bet is he’s going to try to take a few ports in Normandy so we can supply a big army next year. Bring these damned Frenchies to their senses. Not enough time to go through all of France.”
Casca didn’t know either, but whatever route is was to be, he was glad to be on the way out of England and the mess over Elizabeth.
CHAPTER THREE
Unfortunately they marched straight into Southampton docks the following morning right under the eyes of Wat Cooper’s spies. It had only been three days since Casca had killed his men and the thieves’ leader had sent out all of his spare men to find this Cass Long and kill him. He had given a description of him to everyone and added the lure of a big pot of money to whoever did the job – provided his head was produced as evidence.
This had the effect of causing some trouble; two men with identical build to Casca had already been killed and their heads presented to Cooper, and he’d had the two people who’d produced the wrong heads thrown into the docks as punishment for getting the wrong man. The local magistrate had wondered at the two headless corpses that had turned up in the alleyways near the docks, and he was getting his ear bent as one of the deceased had been related to a prominent member of the merchant’s guild. Therefore he had increased the patrols of the militia at night.
Now, in the early morning sun, the King’s army was tramping through the city down towards the wide bay the town had been built on. It had been called Hantune for a while, or Market Town, under the Saxon kings, but once the Normans had settled in and made a new society, they had renamed it, although the shire had been called Hantshire, after the town. The sheriff still ran the shire from there.
Casca knew some of this as he tramped down towards the many waiting ships out in the bay, being served by barges either berthed along the jetties or waiting patiently for their turn to dock, pick up men and supplies, then turn and sail out into the Solent to deliver their cargo of men, horses and supplies. Most of the ships could take about ten men. All would await the departure of the King and his immediate retinue on his flagship, the Trinity Royal.
Casca had been a baron in the time of William I, running a small village with his lady Avelline, so he knew something of the way the kingdom was organized. His heady days amongst the ruling elite were long gone and Casca had been absent from England for a long time until he’d returned about a hundred years previously, and then had been gone again for a few generations. Nobody would have known he had been a minor noble in the years following the Conquest.
The long line of men slowed and they all craned their necks, looking at the forest of masts out in the Solent. “Well, would you look at that!” one of the men, Harry Williams, exclaimed. “There must be every ship in the realm here!”
Casca was impressed; King Henry must be pushing the boat out, so to speak, spending money like there was no tomorrow. All this cost money, and a King only had so much available. He must be getting funds from somewhere to finance all this, and he must be confident of winning, Casca mused. The army looked as though it numbered over ten thousand and that wasn’t cheap, especially as it had to be transported over the channel to France.
As he stood there waiting for the long snake to move on, two of Cooper’s guild nudged one another from their vantage point close to a drinking fountain. They had recognized the scar and his build from Cooper’s description. They were under orders to get Cooper himself to verify the man, following the two mistaken killings, and one slipped away while the other kept him in sight as the men edged forward.
There were plenty of people watching, all fascinated by the sight of their King’s army filing onto the many barges. They all enjoyed a war against the French but they didn’t take too kindly to any War Tax to finance it. They were still in two minds about the new monarch; was he God’s choice or merely a son of a foul usurper? The old King had died suffering, so many said, of some vile affliction, a sure sign of divine displeasure.
Casca edged forward, seeing that they were going to board the next barge moored against the jetty, and the men grumbled as they inched towards the gangplank. Few were looking forward to the voyage, even though it was midsummer and the weather would probably be on their side. No storms of winter for them, but Casca worried that they were setting out far too late in the season. Henry surely wasn’t planning on a long drawn-out campaign, since by the end of October it would be too late to do
anything, and that was only about three months away.
“Cass!” a voice came at his shoulder, startling him. He turned to see Elizabeth’s white, frightened face, her hand reaching out through the throng towards him.
Automatically, almost, he took hold of her and pulled the woman through. “What are you doing here, Liz? If Cooper sees you…..”
“He knows!” she gasped, clutching hold of the scarred man. “He’s on his way here to do you in with some of his cutpurses. You’ve got to take me with you!”
“Are you crazy?” Casca said, looking round at the sea of faces, some of whom where pointing at the woman clutching the bowman. “We’re off to war!”
“I’ll cook and clean for you,” she said in desperation. “Please! He’ll kill me! I ran away from his house, and he never forgives anyone. He’s a brute and the devil’s agent; you’re a man, a proper man. Please help me!”
Casca sighed and pulled her round to the jetty side. He took a good look at her attire. He noticed now she had a small bundle tied to her waist and was carrying it under one arm. Scarlet cloak wrapped round a few other objects, probably changes of clothing. She was wearing a long brown dress, tied at the waist by a thin cord, and a thin white cotton shirt covered her modesty on top. Her long dark hair was untied and fell down past her shoulders and her smooth skin, pale like a typical Englishwoman, was accented by deep brown eyes. He thought her a reasonably attractive girl rather than an outstanding beauty, but she was good natured, kindly and had a vivacious, honest laugh. It was her bad luck to be born into a poor family and she’d had to earn her way in a manner many may look down upon, but her circumstances had forced it upon her. It had been her doubly bad luck to fall into the clutches of the local toughie Cooper, but now Casca had given her the opportunity to escape from that life. She no longer had any family to support, her father having passed away the previous winter through the consumptive ailment, and her mother had gone many years before, taken by one of the bouts of the recurring plague that revisited every so often.
“Let’s get onto the ship first, then we’ll see what we can do for you. Sailors are a funny lot,” he said, looking down at her, “they’re very superstitious about having women aboard. Says its bad luck.”
“So I’m a man, then,” she said, tying her hair into a knot.
“And the dress?” Casca pointed out.
“Hey, we can club round and find you a man’s clothes,” Will suggested, standing right behind Casca. “What say you, boys?”
The others muttered their assent, not liking the thought of Liz being hunted by one of the local nasties.
“Thank you,” she said, smiling. “I’ll need a hat, too.”
“Hitch up your dress and tie it at thigh level,” Casca advised. “It’ll reveal your legs but with so many pressed together you should get through. Look at the others, they’ve got a right mixture of outfits.”
Liz noted them and rolled up the hem of the dress and tied it into a knot, making it look like a peculiar type of long skirt. Her legs were long and white and a couple of the men eyed them with interest.
“Eyes off, lads,” Casca said with a smile, “she’s mine.”
“Lucky bastard,” Walt said, standing just to Casca’s right, one place ahead. “We’ll have to make do with the Frenchie girls then.”
“Be my guest,” Casca said.
They filed onto one of the barges, and Casca had to steady Liz as the motion of the small vessel almost made her miss the top board, but she got on thanks to a helpful push on her behind, Casca grinning at her. Liz’s lips twitched. She sat quietly in the center, allowing Casca to be to one side and Will the other. Walt sat right behind and the others all round, so that she was in the middle.
The bargemen cast off, rowing hard, pulling the vessel round and making for a nearby one-masted ship anchored a few hundred yards distant. “That looks like our ship,” Walt observed, looking apprehensive. He’d never been at sea before. “Looks small, doesn’t it?”
“They’re sturdy enough,” Casca replied, “and we’re not going to brave the depths of the seas; it’s a voyage to France, after all. I bet it’ll be a few days only.”
As they got to the gangplank, a couple of sailors could be seen, ushering the herd of men up onto the deck of the ship. Will and Casca pressed close to Liz and the three went up together, a few others very close behind. Liz felt a hand squeezing one of the cheeks of her ass more than once but she had no idea who it was, and she wasn’t going to complain as it would have given the game away.
Once aboard they were directed down a large square opening in the center of the deck, and they descended via a couple of ladders to the hold, and a dark place full of hammocks and ropes, packages and bags.
“Travel in comfort,” Casca said with relish. He nudged Liz over to one side and he appropriated two places, with her against the hull and him in between her and the rest of the cargo.
“Is this going to be a long journey?” she asked, a tinge of fear in her voice.
“I honestly don’t know,” Casca said softly. “Until I find out where we’re going, I won’t. We could be going to Bordeaux in which case it’s going to be a long voyage, but we could just as easily be going to Normandy in which case it’s only going to be a day or two. I doubt we’ll be going far, as its late in the season already.”
Liz nodded. She would put up with whatever came her way, now she was free of the clutches of Cooper.
* * *
Wat Cooper arrived at the docks with a thunderous expression on his face. The man left to observe slipped away from his post and sidled up to the grim-faced leader of the guild. “Well?” Cooper demanded, not one to waste any time on frivolous words. “Where is the bastard?”
“On board that ship there, boss,” the lookout nodded at the ship. “Your woman Liz is with him, too. I saw ‘er taken by Long aboard.”
“You what?” Cooper’s eyes bulged. “You best not be fooling with me!”
“Honest, boss, I lie not.”
Cooper’s fists balled. He turned to the four men with him, all undesirables and outcasts. They remained in the shadows of a large wooden building so that they were not in full view of the residents of Southampton. “You, Garner,” he pointed at one of the four, one who was in deepest shadow. “You pride yourself on never failing a job. Well, here’s one for you; get aboard that ship and kill both of them. You do that and you’ll get a big reward from me.”
Garner stirred. He had a wide brimmed cloth hat on and his features were in dark shade. He grunted. It was true; he was one of Cooper’s best agents, always carrying out his tasks with efficiency and so far had never been detected, whether it was a job to steal something, find something, or kill someone. He slid away along a side street, relatively free of people. He would need to find someone who matched his build, approximately, and take their place, and then get aboard that ship, and fast. It was going to slip its moorings fairly soon, so he would have to act fast.
Cooper snarled at the ship. “I don’t let anyone cross me, none of you ever forget that, got it?”
“Sure, boss,” the lookout nodded.
“Fine; I’ve seen all I need to see. Let’s go. Garner will do his job and we can forget about those two.”
“What about the girl, boss?” one of the others asked. “She’s yours.”
“I can always get another. Always women to have. If I don’t find one then you get one for me, got it?”
“Yeah, got it, boss.”
The shady group slipped away into the back streets, already turning their minds to the next lawless activity on their agenda. Cass Long and Liz were as good as dead as far as they were all concerned.
* * *
They waited out in what was called the Southampton Roads, the stretch of water that led to the port, in between the mainland and the Isle of Wight, a huge offshore island that formed the Solent, the part of the channel that was relatively sheltered.
Casca lay in his hammock, whittling away with
his knife at a piece of wood. He found it passed the time and helped ease boredom. There was only so many times he could check on his clothing, weapons and equipment. Next to him Liz lay, looking at him. She was very different now Casca and his group had worked on her. Gone were her long locks. Casca had told her they had to go, and with some hesitation Liz had given in, allowing her man to use his knife to cut them off, so now she had short locks, nothing going past the nape of her neck. It made her look like a street urchin.
She had a pair of leggings now, made out of cast-offs and tied at the insides of her legs, like the majority of the men in the hold. Her shirt remained but someone had found a tired looking leather vestment that she had on over it. Her dress was gone, ripped into pieces and used as bags and belts amongst them all.
There was a soft cloth cap that Liz now wore, but she would need to get hold of an iron wide brimmed helmet that most of the archers were wearing. That had brought a question from her. “What about my part in the army? What am I supposed to be?”
“Yeah, I mean she can’t be an archer – she hasn’t got the strength or shoulders to be one of us,” Will observed.
Casca had rubbed his chin. “A squire?”
“Naw,” Walt has shaken his head emphatically. “We ain’t rich or titled or anything to have one of those! She looks like a boy, so why not be our page, a fetcher and bringer? We could do with having one, you know, brings us water, replacement arrows, messages and that kind of thing.”
“Pages are usually men-at-arm’s companions, but I can’t think of anything better, so that seems reasonable enough,” Casca had conceded. “How do we run this past the sergeant?”
“Tell ‘im we got a mascot,” one of the others suggested.
The others chuckled. “A mascot? I can’t see Wakely swallowing that! He’s got the purse for our pay and he won’t want to part with any more than he can!”
“Her upkeep will come from my pay,” Casca said calmly. He felt Liz squeeze his thigh in gratitude, thinking she could squeeze him slightly higher if she so wished. He wouldn’t mind in the slightest.
