The Archer's Gold: Medieval Military fiction: A Novel about Wars, Knights, Pirates, and Crusaders in The Years of the Feudal Middle Ages of William Marshall ... (The Company of English Archers Book 7) (13 page)

       Administering the shire is too much for Thomas to do all by himself in addition to learning George and the ever growing number of boys in his school.  He cannot, after all, be in two places at the same time. 
And truth be told, Thomas doesn't want to be responsible for the shire; he wants to run his school and be left alone.

       After thinking about the problem and confirming for himself that some of the reports are true, William assigns the task of administering the shire this year to Peter.  He's to stay in Cornwall and assist Thomas rather than going out to the Holy Land with William as he has done in the past. 

       Furthermore, when William returns in the spring Peter will go with Thomas to Rome to see how we pay the annual fee to keep the Pope sweet
.  Peter is becoming to William what Cromwell has become to King John - his key lieutenant.

       What William doesn't do is visit Isabel at Oakhampton.  He never learns that she is pregnant and more than a little bitter because he doesn't visit.

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        In the middle of September of 1202, after a pleasant month of enjoying the company of my extended family, autumn arrives and I'm more than ready to leave on my annual trip to the east.  It's time to take our newly trained Marine archers out to the Holy Land and bring back the veterans who've been out there for more than four years and want to return. 

       Tori is going with me. She lost our infant daughter six months ago and needs cheering.

       "I can go with you?  Oh thank you thank you," 

       And with that Tori runs off to share the good news with her sisters and begin packing all the various necessities she'll need to insure our comfort in the little forecastle of Harold's galley - bedding, piss pot, garlic cloves to ward off the pox, sewing needle, and so forth.

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       Our departure is accompanied by all the usual excitement and fears.  Both Henry and Harold are going with me.  As I look at them I realize that they've become grizzled veterans - and so have I.  It's a good thing George and the older boys are almost learned up enough to go on active duty.

      In the background Henry and I can hear Harold swearing at a couple of sailor sergeants.  It seems he doesn't like the way they've had their men stack the live sheep on top of the dead ones. 

       "Stack'em higher goddamn it and lash them down better.  The same with the cook's goddamn firewood.  I don't want them falling over in a storm and blocking the path to the stern castle or to the shite board.  And throw all them goddamn chickens except the egg hens up on top of the sheep."      

       "Harold's in uncommonly good form today, isn't he?"  Henry said with a chuckle as we watch him pick up a stringer of flapping chickens and throw it at the luckless men.

       "How are things looking, Harold?" I ask my lieutenant a few minutes later after we've stepped off the galley just before it begins drifting down to the mouth of the river.  That's where it will wait for us until we come down on the last galley and finally climb on board to stay.

       "Not foul at all.  Not foul at all," he answers with a smile.  "We've got an uncommonly good crew on this galley.  I'm ready to let them go and check out the next one." 

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       All the Marines including me seems to get seasick during the first couple of days.  But then we get our sea legs as the sailors call them and it passes. 

       Rowing helps because it distracts the men's stomachs.  Even I rowed for a while on the first day.  Having Tori to rub my back and squeeze my shoulders and legs helps too.  For some reason bouncing up and down at sea doesn't bother her at all.

       Seven days later we lead two other galleys into Lisbon's harbor for our first rendezvous and a day or two of rest.  We replenish our supplies of water and take on some additional food while we wait.  Our missing galley and its embarrassed pilot and sergeant captain show up late the next morning.

       Tori didn't mind the wait at all.  This is her third visit to Lisbon and she loves shopping in its great market with all the many different things in its merchants' stalls. 

       As always she was quite well treated and is never bothered or taken advantage of as young girls sometimes are.  The merchants made sure of that since she had coins to spend and some of them remembered her from years past.  It probably didn't hurt that she went from stall to stall with me and two or three ferocious looking Marines watching over her. 

       I think the Marines actually hoped someone would bother her so they could impress us with their response.  Me? I'm content to watch her happiness and the way it makes the merchants smile. 

       Her smile is contagious don't you know and she came away with a new dress and bedding and all kinds of useless things - a new mirror, some newfangled scissors that cut hair and such using two knives that are stuck together in the middle, and a gift for each of her sisters.

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       Lisbon is a great port with many dangers to inexperienced young Marines.  Henry's no fool.  He only lets the Marines go ashore in groups of three and only during the daylight hours while we're taking on supplies and water. 

      One of them runs and his two luckless guarantors have to take off their tunics and get three hard lashes each from one of the sailor sergeants while everyone hoots and jeers.  That's not too bad.  Lisbon is a great city - we usually we lose two or three.

       Then it's on to Malta and another rendezvous.  This one is a port visit and a rendezvous we truly need.  A storm so severe that it sank a couple of cogs separates our four galleys.  We're the second of our galleys to arrive.  The third came later in the day. 

       Then we wait and wait and get increasingly worried about the fourth.  But it too finally arrives flying it spare sail - it got tossed around so much it somehow lost two Marines and the sail it started out with even though it had been furled. 

       And sad to say we don't see Brindisi, the interesting old pirate who been the lord here when I first visited years ago.  He was missing when we were here last year too. 

       They say he's been arrested by the King but no one knows why or where he is.  What's so strange is that the King of Sicily hasn't appointed anyone to replace him
.

                     Chapter Sixteen

       We have a joyous reunion on Cyprus with Yoram and the ever cheerful Lena and her ever growing brood of children.  And then again with the Limassol merchants Aaron and Reuben.  They've prospered with us. 

       We've all come a long way since those poor and desperate times more than ten years ago.

       Our wide-eyed new Marines climb off and look around with concern and excitement.  Lisbon and Malta had been new and wondrous.  Limassol and our fortress is different and more important; if they survive this will be their home for some years to come.

       Yoram proudly gives me a tour of the latest updates to our fortress that was once a rundown farm house a couple of miles from the Limassol city walls.  We're installing interior defense walls to divide our interior compounds and turn them into kill zones. 

       So long as we have enough food reserves, and we do, it will take serious trickery or a very large and determined army to have any chance at all of getting inside our three curtain walls and taking this place. 

       Yoram reports that our carrying of parchment money orders and accepting coins to guarantee merchant payments is earning more and more.  He's also had some interesting inquiries from various merchants and landed families about our helping them finance the purchase of manors, bridal dowries, and imports of the flower paste and other items from beyond our distant borders.

      I gave him an "all right" to make some collateralized loans so long as those who arrange and receive them understand that we will take their collateral and kill them if they don't pay.

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       We'd only been in Cyprus for only a couple of weeks when word comes that the Venetians are going to carry the crusaders to Zara to collect the money that Venice says it is owed.  I've been a crusader and know what that means so I head straight to Zara with all our available galleys and our merchant friends Aaron and Reuben. 

       There are good coins to be made carrying refugees to safety.  And where there are crusaders there is always fighting and fighting means refugees willing to pay to escape.

      Tori comes with me because I have no idea how long I'll be gone or if I'll even be back this year.  I hope so, if only to take this year's coin chests to Cornwall.

       Henry and Harold will stay in Cyprus - Henry to see to the training of the men and Harold to organize the sending of more galleys on to Zara as soon as they return from their current assignments and can be made ready.  

       If I don't return this year Harold will organize and command the ships carrying this year's coin chests to Cornwall.

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       We arrive in Zara's harbor on the same day as the first of the crusaders begin arriving in Venetian ships. Things are a bit tense at first but I immediately meet with both the city's leaders and the crusade's leaders to bribe them to let us evacuate the "good Christians" - meaning, we all understand, those people God has so richly blessed that they can pay a large number of coins for us to carry them to safety. 

       I agree to pay two gold bezants for each person the crusaders let us carry to safety and one hundred bezants to commander of the city's soldiers after the siege; we'll charge at least ten bezants or their equivalent in silver and get even more when the refugees are on board by making much of needing contributions to the pope for his prayers.

       The crusaders tell me they like the idea letting people pay to leave because it will mean few defenders in the city; the commander of the city's guards says he likes letting people pay to leave because it means fewer mouths that have to be fed
.  Such ox shite; they're all like us - they're here to get as many coins as they can.

       Reuben and Aaron rush into city and literally run through its market and up and down its streets shouting that transportation to safety is available from the English for twelve bezants payable when they board the ships.

       Then they stand at the gate with some of the city's soldiers to make sure the desperate people lining up to march to the dock have the necessary coins to pay and are only bringing what they can carry in their arms. 

       Those that don't have the money or don't want to leave their possessions behind are told to hurry to safety out of another gate. 

       Not everyone with money pays and leaves.  Some don't because they think they have time because the crusaders are just starting to arrive; others because they think the crusaders will not do more than pretend to attack because the people of Zara are Latins who came under the protection of the pope and the catholic church when they threw off the Byzantines. 
They obviously don't know the crusaders.

       It's a strange scene.  There is a long line of people coming out of the city's port gate and walking to the dock to board our galleys at the same time more and more crusaders are arriving and taking up positions around the city walls to launch an assault. 

       What makes it even stranger is that the people in the city keep coming out of the gate and boarding our ships even after the crusaders start their attack two days later.  I even hurriedly charter some of the Venetian transport ships that have discharged their crusaders to carry refugees to Constantinople. 

     The refugees finally stop coming out and the port gate is not closed until three days before the city falls.  I wait for another twenty four hours in Gerard's galley and then we return to Cyprus with the last of the refugees a king's ransom in money and jewels. 

       And, of course, the crusaders kill just about everyone in the city when they sack it.  I never did have to pay the one hundred bezants to the commander of the city's soldiers.

                             Chapter Seventeen 

       There is a wave and froth coming up on either side of our galley's bow as it cuts through Mediterranean under sail. We're alone on the sea.  We lost sight of Galen's galley during the rain storm last night and haven't seen her since. That's the galley Peter was on until he moved over and joined me on Rolf's about a week ago.

       "Perhaps
Galen's is waiting back where he lost saw us
," Peter suggests once again as he has every few hours since sunup. 

       I merely grunt and don't reply. 
All the men jammed together and the close quarters we're sharing in the forecastle with Rolf, the galley's sergeant captain, is getting tiresome.  My mood is not good.

       Most of our Marines are resting on their rowing benches yarning or snoozing; some are playing "finger throwing" games and "dicing" with little blocks of wood they've carved, and others are using the shite plank or engaged in the archery practice and tournaments that have to go on almost continually because we have so many Marines on board.

       Archery practice is required every day even when we're at sea - at least thirty shots per day for every man, and preferably a hundred, is the company rule to keep our Marine's arms strong and their eyes sharp.