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)

by Martin Archer

  And after a pause I add somewhat softly in a most respectful voice, “Lord William did that for you without even being asked, Your Majesty. He is truly one of your most faithful servants.”

  Except, of course, I did that for William and he doesn’t like you or trust you or want to pay your taxes or see you on the throne.

  The King just stands with his head cocked to the side and listens as I go on to tell him various other blathers about William being such a good man and loyal servant of the crown.

  When I finish, the King just stands there in the flickering candle light for a minute. Then he abruptly turns and walks out with the others falling in to walk behind him. So there I am standing in the darkness as the candle light and muffled voices and clattering shoes of his departure recede into the distance.

  “Wait here,” The Papal Nuncio commands before he hurries off to follow them. Do I have a choice?

  An hour or so later the Nuncio returns with a servant holding a candle lantern. He is smiling.

  “The king has accepted his chancellor’s advice and decided to do nothing to replace Lord William; he will let it be a test of arms with God deciding who is the rightful Earl.” …. “And I’ll need another fifty gold bezants for Longchamp for getting William a chance to stay in Cornwall.”

  While I was counting the bezants into his hand he asked the crucial question.

  “Do you think you can win?”

  Chapter Three

  Thomas is back from Richard’s court and his tidings are not good. It appears that Isabel or someone in her family has prevailed upon King Richard to sell a Derbyshire lord named Harold Cornell the same earldom we bought from Prince John and recognize his right to Restormel. Cornell’s claim apparently is that he’s a cousin of Isabel’s late husband, the unlamented Baldwin. We don’t know if Cornell and Isabel are related or if Isabel is betrothed to him or bedding him.

  The good news is that Cornell lives in Derbyshire so it will most likely take a long time for him to get himself and his men to Cornwall. The bad news is that we don’t know anything about him – how many men he will bring, how he will fight, and the nature of his experience and ability.

  Worse, and perhaps most important of all, we don’t have any idea as to who will fight with him and why, or for that matter when and where. Both Baldwin, and then his apparent cousin, FitzCount of Launceston, were accompanied by knights from Devon and both of them and Isabel apparently have relatives there - so it’s likely some or all of the surviving Devon lords and knights will side with the Derbyshire lord. We killed a lot of the stupid bastards at Trematon and Launceston, but certainly not all of them.

  What’s worrisome is that Cornell probably knows something of what happened and is so sure he can defeat William that he bought the Cornwall earldom knowing that William also claimed it and is in possession of the three castles.

  And will we really be up against just the Derbyshire lord’s forces and the survivors of the Devon gentry who supported Baldwin and then the efforts of FitzCount to take Baldwin’s place in Restormel and between Isabel’s legs? Who else will take their side?

  According to Thomas, King Richard’s Chancellor sent a message via the Papal Nuncio suggesting the King will treat any fighting that occurs as a tournament and stay out of it so that God’s Will prevails. That’s certainly better than the King sending his men to help Cornell root us out - but it’s still worrisome because both the Chancellor and the Papal Nuncio may have been lying to us about Richard’s neutrality in order to gull us out of more coins.

  Trusting the word of a King’s courtiers, particularly if they are churchmen, is a fool’s game.

  Moreover, even it is true that the King said he wouldn’t interfere and would leave the outcome to God, Richard is not exactly famous for keeping his promises.

  Just ask the men who surrendered to Richard at Acre – which you can’t do because he butchered them to a man despite giving his word that he would let them go free.

  All we know for sure is that there is almost certainly going to be a war between us and Lord Cornell - and many of our best fighting men are in Cyprus or the Holy Land. The only thing certain is that it’s a damn good thing I kept so many of our archers here instead of sending them out to Yoram.

  Hmm. I wonder if Cornell knows how effective the new long bows and pikes are in the right hands and how best to fight against them? They are so new that even those of us who have them don’t know how best to fight against them.

  @@@@@

  Thomas and I spend all morning looking at both of our parchment maps and talking about our men and their weapons and what we should do. A plan finally begins to emerge after hours of our talking and pacing up and down and trying to make sense of our maps.

  The damn maps are obviously not very accurate, at least they’re not about Cornwall - they’ve both got Launceston east of the Tamar, for example, and Trematon on the coast.

  Only one thing is for sure; Cornell and his men going to have to come through Devon and cross the River Tamar to get to us here in Cornwall – and the only cart path running through Devon to Cornwall runs through Salisbury and crosses the Tamar River ford near Launceston. So that’s almost certainly the way they’ll come.

  Thomas says the Romans built the cart path as far as Exeter almost a thousand years ago and some of the Roman stones are still there; isn’t that something?

  It’s not certain, of course, but Lord Cornell will likely come with his men in the early spring when the traditional campaigning and tournament season begins. So Thomas and I have decided to take a couple of risks.

  One is to do what we think Cornell will do - wait until the harvest is in before we call up the local men to act as carriers and fetchers. The other is to strengthen our forces by quickly sending some of our more experienced men out into Wales and the English counties around London to recruit archers and likely lads to train. We’re temporarily between wars so hopefully there are some useful men sitting around who will prefer to fight for us instead of starving.

  Using some of our best archers as recruiters is a big risk because they’ll be gone and we’ll be weaker if Cornell hurries here. It worries me immensely and Thomas even more. He agrees about sending out the recruiters but he wants to immediately recall everyone we have at Trematon and most of the men from Launceston - he’s so adamant about it that I agree.

  Sending some of our men out to recruit also means we need places and men in London and Bristol where we can collect the archers who are recruited and send them on to Cornwall in our ships. It is unlikely our recruits will be able to walk safely through Devon either on their own or in a group, though some men may hear that we are recruiting and try to reach us on their own by walking here. All in all, it will be much safer and faster if we bring them here on our cogs and galleys.

  Who should we send to do the recruiting and who should arrange a place in London where the new archers can assemble? It’s a good question and a real problem because I’ve got to stay here to lead the fight in case Cornell arrives sooner than we expect.

  After a lot of discussion we finally decide – Thomas himself will take our archer recruiters to London on a fast galley. He’ll take Peter and the same guards he took before and set himself up at a tavern or stables.

  Thomas and his guards will stay in London; the recruiters he takes will spread out through England from there and send the archers they find back to him in London and he will send them on to Cornwall. Evan, an archer sergeant from Wales who seems quite dependable even though he can’t read or do sums, will take a smaller number of men to Cardiff and do the same throughout Wales.

  Our recruiters will be two dozen or so of our veteran archers who have already received prize monies. I hate to part with some of our best veterans even temporarily, but they are the ones most likely to know who has potential as an archer. Even better, they will be able to talk personally about our company and the substantial rewards our new recruits will have a chance to earn if they make their mark
s to join us.

  @@@@@

  Fourteen archer recruiters and my ten guardsmen will be traveling to London with me and Peter Sergeant in the morning. So will about forty swordsmen to act as the recruiters’ guards to keep them safe from the outlaw bands that plague the roads.

  We’re going out on one of our newly caulked galleys, the one commanded by Simon from Ditchling. They’ll ride out from there and begin working as recruiters in the counties around London. An additional six of our veteran archers with three guards apiece will be going to Cardiff under the command of Evan. He’s one of our Welsh archers who seems particularly dependable.

  Of course I’m sailing on Simon’s galley - he was the sergeant captain on my recent trip to London; he knows the Thames and the London docks.

  And because it is so dangerous to travel the roads alone each of my archers and those of Evan will be accompanied by two or three men at arms who haven’t yet qualified as archers.

  Our archer recruiters seem enthusiastic about our plan. And they should be - those who weren’t already sergeants have been promoted and they were schooled all day yesterday by William and me on what they are to do. Perhaps more importantly, they’ve been promised “prize money” for every longbow archer they find who makes his mark on our agreement and every archer trainee they bring in.

  We’re hopeful for our recruiters’ success, of course, but we expect some to run with the bags of coins they will be carrying and others to fail for one reason or another; we just don’t know who will succeed and who will not.

  In any event, our recruiters are more than ready to go and I’ve finished drafting the parchments they and their companions will carry from fair to fair and from church priest to church priest. And, of course, wherever possible our recruiters will join with the merchants who travel from town to town to attend their fairs.

  Many of the fairs have archery contests and those that don’t will soon have them if our archer recruiters and their coins have anything to say about it.

  Our archer recruiters can’t read, of course, but the parchments each carries explains in Latin that he is recruiting archers and men at arms to help protect Holy Land pilgrims and refugees - and that he will be conducting archery tournaments and awarding prizes in order to find the archers and other men he wants to talk to.

  What the parchments don’t say, but each of our recruiting sergeants will offer if he thinks encouragement is necessary, is that the local priest or fair will also get a payment that could be as large as the winner’s prize.

  The parchments additionally say that the archer sergeant and his men are also looking for very quick and healthy young lads whose families are interested in having them study for the priesthood and seeing more of the world. I added that so we can get some more lads to learn to scribe and sum with George.

  I myself will be temporarily based in London with my guards and Peter Sergeant as my second once again. We’ll have to quickly find a stable or tavern so the recruiting sergeants will know where to send their recruits before they set out to find them. Evan, of course, will have to do the same in Cardiff.

  Our very first stop will undoubtedly be at a stable since we intend to hire horses for our recruiters and Peter and I, and Evan in Cardiff, can always sleep in the horses’ stalls until we find something better. Hopefully the stable where we hire the horses will be able to send an ostler with each of our recruiting parties, someone who can teach them how to ride and care for their horses.

  Finally there is the unanswered question about whether or not we should hire mercenaries or deal with the lords who are willing to sell the services of their knights and men at arms. We have more than enough coins at Restormel to pay for their services; but do we really want to hire men who may well stab us in the back if someone else offers them more money? And, if we do, how and where should we employ them?

  What William and I finally ended up deciding is to use our cogs and galleys to bring only individual archers willing to join us to Cornwall - and use any mercenaries we can hire to attack Lord Cornell’s castle in Derbyshire.

  Cornell might think twice about taking all his men to Cornwall when he hears we are trying to hire mercenaries to attack him in Derbyshire, particularly since we are going to do so if we can find some to hire. At least that’s our thinking.

  @@@@@

  It is a warm and somewhat sunny afternoon in July when our two lightly crewed galleys untie their lines and slowly row down the Fowey. I’m wearing my bishop’s robes and William and George and my schoolboys are standing on the bank waving farewell as my galley slowly slides by with our recruiters doing the rowing.

  I feel very sad about leaving the boys but try to keep a big smile on my face.

  “Don’t forget to do your sums,” is the only thing I can think to say. Then I give a final wave and turn away to watch a couple of sailors begin to lay out the big leather sail so it can be raised quickly if the wind in the channel is favorable when we reach the mouth of the river and turn left towards London. It wouldn’t do at all for them to see my eyes watering.

  The galleys will stay in Cardiff and London until Evan and I send them back to Cornwall. Hopefully they’ll be loaded with archers and archer trainees to help with the rowing when they return. Simon’s galley, I’m rather sure, will be coming back without me.

  @@@@@

  London’s port and the waters below it are as crowded as ever with every possible type of ship you can think of from dinghies and fishing boats to great ocean-going cargo ships. Some of them are huge cogs with two or three masts and decks that are almost a hundred paces long with castles at each end.

  Our little galley is using its oars carefully as Simon slowly threads his way through the pack of big sailing ships and fishing boats waiting for the wind and tide. The big ships may be able to carry more cargo and passengers and are less vulnerable to storms but we can go up the Thames to London using our oars.

  An hour later we edge up against the same dock we used a couple of weeks ago when I visited Windsor. And the same little man with the sing song voice and funny hat greets us. But this time he is all smiles and welcome.

  “Allo Simon, welcomz back yer iz,” he shouts as grabs the mooring line Simon throws him. “Enz you too yor reverence.”

  “Allo Alfie. Ouz iz you and yer mizzus?”

  “Quite gud she iz, Simon, quite gud. Iz youz be at em White Bull anight for zum spiritz?”

  The change in our reception by the dock master is so different from last time that I ask Simon about it as I climb up on the galley rail so he can help me get up on the dock.

  “Alfie and I decided to be friends after I stood a couple of rounds of drinks for him and his missus at the White Bull over there. It’s got something new the Bull’s ale wife makes from cooking malt and adding berry squeezings. Burns your throat, it does, but its got a kick like a horse. Knock you on your arse it will.”

  Then Simon smiles a big smile and adds, “it’s so strong that after two or three bowls I can understand everything Alfie and his missus are saying.”

  Peter and the rest of our men, almost fifty of them in all, are gathered behind me and ready to follow me up. I’d spent much of the trip listening to those who’d been here with me a couple of weeks ago tell the others all about London and Windsor.

  Some of what I heard our “London veterans” told them were obviously tall tales but the men who’d never been here before hung on every word and seemed quite impressed.

  @@@@@

  As soon as Peter and I climb off the galley we head for the stables in the lane behind the dock. That’s where I hired the horse carts and drivers the last time we were here. And that’s where I run into a problem. Bert, the craggy faced stable master, only has a couple of saddle horses left and I need almost fifty and a dozen ostlers.

  “Not to worry, youz worship; not to worry. If youz got the coins I’ll have the horses for youz and youz lads here in the morning. Amblers they’ll be with smooth gaits for men who’ve never rid
den before. Ostlers too. And youz and youz men can sleep in the stalls, yes youz can.”

  It takes a while but we finally agree on a price for the use of each horse and ostler for as long as I need them. But one look at the horse manure piled high in the stalls is enough to convince me that Peter and I should sleep with Simon in the little captain’s castle at the front of the galley deck so long as it is here, and the men should sleep on the galley to guard the coin chest.

  “Peter, there’s a couple of months of horse manure in every stall so we’re going to stay in the captain’s castle with Simon until either the galley leaves and we’re forced to find another place to sleep or the stalls get mucked out.”

  We took a room at the White Bull last time but once is enough; too loud and too many fleas and rats and no place to piss or shite except in the street. On the other hand, according to Simon, the Bull’s a real good place for drinking even though the girls smell bad. The ale wife’s got something new she cooks; Simon says it’ll knock you on your arse if you’re not careful.”

  @@@@@

  Freddy, the stable master, is as good as his word and, sure enough, the stable and its courtyard are full of horses and ostlers in the morning. I’m still counting coins into the hands of the assembled stable masters when the fun begins.

  I wish I knew more about horses. Some of these look like they’re ready for the stew pot.

  Most of our men have never been on a horse before and some of the toughest and bravest of them are downright scared. Others are still severely drunk from being introduced to the White Bull’s new drink last night or hung over with terrible headaches.

  “Whatever it is the Bull is selling, you cannot,” Peter announced loudly last night as he staggered into the little deck castle last and woke me up by falling down, “drink it like wine or ale.”

  Idlers in the lane and from a nearby smithy drift over to watch as our men try to climb aboard their horses. The men’s total lack of experience certainly shows.