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) (7 page)

       They're probably the wife and mother of the Oakhampton lord.  Courtenay was his name according to the prisoners we questioned. 

       The castle's high curtain walls with their archers' slits remain unoccupied as Henry and I ride into the cobblestoned bailey at the head of one of the Marine companies.  The castle gate is open behind us and the drawbridge is down. 

       There are no servants about and no one comes to take our horses.  The place feels deserted but everywhere it smells of piss and shite as most baileys do if a castle has people living in it.

       Thomas and the boys are waiting outside and well away from the walls on the other side of the drawbridge - just in case.  The boys ride in whooping joyously in response to my beckoning wave and smile inviting them to come in and join us.

      Henry marches in the front as the other company of walking Marines comes in behind them quite smartly with their drum beating the step. 
Henry likes that sort of thing, doesn't he? 

       Oakhampton Castle's bailey is going to be full tonight, that's for sure, but it's better we're all inside with our horses and wagons until we know for certain that there are no more potential attackers in the area.

        All the while the women stand there, unmoving but watching us intently.

       "You better come with me Thomas when I tell the women that they've seen the last of Lord Courtenay.  They've probably already guessed that he's gone but they may need a prayer of two to console them."

@@@@@

       Thomas and I take off our hats and bow respectfully as we walk up to the women.  Little courtesies are important at times like these.

       "Good day to you, ladies.  I am William, the Earl of Cornwall and the Commander of the Order of Poor Landless Sailors.  Accompanying me is Bishop Thomas, the Bishop of Cornwall."

       The younger lady nods so I plunge on.

       "Mmm.  I regret to inform you that Lord Courtenay and all the visiting lords and many of the knights and squires who were with them were killed yesterday when they launched an unprovoked attack on me and my men."

       "All of them?  You killed all of them?  All the lords?"

       "Yes, we did.  There were a few survivors among their knights and squires and they named the bodies.  We still aren't sure why they attacked us."

       The two ladies fly into each other's arms and look at us incredulously as they hug each other - and begin smiling and laughing and crying tears of joy.

@@@@@

       Our first order of business is to organize the castle to meet our needs.  The basic problem is simple - the Oakhampton's keep and bailey look to be too small to accommodate all of our men and all of our horses and supply wagons. 

       And, of course, it's absolutely filthy as most inhabited castles always are.  There are piles of dog and people and horse shit everywhere. 
Thomas will be furious, that's for sure.  He's big on shite, you know.

       Normally the castle's size wouldn't have been a problem because it is so well designed and sited that it could probably be held by a mere handful of men. 

       Our problem with Okehampton's size is very different - we have too many men for it to accommodate.  But until we know more about the situation we don't want to leave any of our men outside the protection of its walls where they might be vulnerable to a counterattack.

      After we thoroughly inspect the castle we make a number of decisions. 

       First, and perhaps most importantly, we decide that all the men can squeeze into the stables, smithy and other outbuildings and tents erected along the inside of the curtain wall.  It will be tight but they'll all fit in if my lieutenants and I and the boys sleep in the great hall and all of the horses are tethered and fed in the middle of the bailey. 

       We thought about billeting some of the Marines in the dozen or so hovels in the nearby little village where the castle's servants and serfs live - but decide against it, at least initially until we learn more about the situation and are reasonably sure we won't be counterattacked.

      A brief look at the castle and one thing is for sure - we'll have to do immediately is set up a bigger kitchen.  The castle's present kitchen is barely large enough to cook for the lord and his immediate family.  And then, of course, there is Thomas' inevitable question as to where everyone will piss and shite.

        "Where does everyone piss and shite?"  

       "Anywhere?"  Thomas repeats back incredulously when one of the castle servants answers him with a waving gesture around the bailey. As you might expect, Thomas immediately bustles off with the boys in tow to get piss holes and shite holes dug and rail at the sergeants for not having already done so. 

       It's obviously going to be another learning moment for the boys and from the loudness of Thomas' voice and the way my priestly brother is waving his hands about he's making much of it.  Thomas has been big on pissing and shitting and what we drink ever since he was in the monastery and read an old parchment about how the Romans soldiered. 

      
I learned long ago that it's best to go along with Thomas in such matters.  Keeps him sweet, doesn't it?

                        Chapter Eight

       Supper that evening is both a delight and full of surprises, very big surprises indeed.  The name of the lady in the castle is Isabel and the older lady is her dear friend and the one and only maid she's ever had. 

       Lady Isabel has somehow heard about my son and Thomas's other students being with us.  She insists that they join us at the long table in the great hall along with my lieutenants. 

       Isabel and her maid are newly arrived here themselves but yesterday they had seen, Isabel tells us, a nice stag hanging by its antlers in the food dungeon.  If we agree, she will order it to be brought up and cooked along with bread in the French style of loaves instead of flatbread.

       We men have much to talk about and the long table in the great hall is crowded and noisy because of the playful and overly excited boys.  They've been in a real war and are full of themselves. 

      
Not a man among us made anything of the fact that several of the boys had obviously pissed themselves; many of us would have done it ourselves if we hadn't known to piss before the fighting starts.  They need to be learned that.

       All in all it is a very nice meal, certainly nicer than I expected, probably because Thomas had the lady send to the village for the castle's cook and servants.  They and the other villagers had been cowering in their hovels ever since Randolph and his men galloped up to block the castle entrance.

       The evening lasts so long that the two candles lighting the hall burn down and begin to gutter.  Our dinner had a difficult start but was most enjoyable after Thomas straightened out the cook and the newly returned castle servants on a couple of matters before we even sat down on the benches and took our first sips of ale.

       Firstly, Thomas tells the servants, so long as we are here the straw and everything on the floor of the castle's great hall is to be swept out before they serve the food and no one is to ever piss or shite on the floor the great hall or anywhere else in the keep or bailey or dungeons. They and everyone else in the castle are to go outside and use the holes that have been dug for that purpose - or else.

       For another, he tells the two servants when he sees the portions they are bringing to us, the boys being smaller than the men are does not mean they are to be given smaller portions.  To the contrary, the boys are at all times to be fed all they want until they stop eating. 

       "And two eggs and cheese for each boy every morning in addition to their bread and gruel and breakfast ale, every day." 

       The lady listens intently as Thomas gives his orders to the servants and then during our supper when we discuss the battle and its implications for us and our travel plans.

       She also addresses many questions to Thomas about the boys and their schooling and his orders about the piss and shite.  It's something she hadn't heard.

       Her questions are so sincerely asked that Thomas becomes ever more charmed by her and animated with his answers and explanations.  It's been years since I've heard him talk so much to a woman. He much prefers the company of men.

       About all we know about the lady when we sit down at the table is that she is not a grieving widow. That much is certain from her joyful response to the news that the lords had fallen.

       At the time it didn't seem right to question her about her reaction - so it was not until we are finishing the last of the meat and the boys are getting sleepy that we learn about her and the reason for her joy.

        "You now know a bit about us, dear lady, and how it is that we ended up here and had the pleasure of meeting you."  Thomas observes with a friendly smile.

        "But we know nothing about you except that you and your maid are recently arrived. How is it that you are here?"

       "My cousins made me come here with them a few days ago," she says with a bitter tone in her voice and a grimace on her face. 

       "They were the only men left in my family after my father's death and the wars in France so I didn't have a choice.  They said it was for my safety since they wouldn't be able to protect me if they left me at home." 

       "But, of course, it wasn't about my safety at all - they brought me south to marry me off again, this time to one of the local lords, probably someone named Courtenay from what I overheard."

       "Ah, I think I understand,"  Thomas offered with a great deal of sympathy as Henry, Peter, and I nodded our understanding. 

       "Your cousins brought you here to marry you off?"  Thomas inquires. "Your husband and father must be dead and you have no brothers.  Is that it?"

     "Not quite, my dear bishop, not quite." she replied with a bemused and somewhat sad look on her face visible in the flickering candlelight. 

       "It's true that my father is dead and I have no brothers, I never did have any brothers actually.  But my husband isn't dead, or rather the man who used to be my husband; he's still alive, of course." 

       "The problem was that our marriage was never consummated.  It was allowed by the pope after my father died so my husband could get the lands I would inherit, and then later the pope annulled it because we were distant cousins and my husband wanted to marry someone with more land." 

       "Well that must have taken some coins," I comment as I take a big swig of ale and swish it through my teeth as I put down the bowl.  "If there's one thing we know is that it's costly to buy a favorable decision from the pope.
 
Who was the unfortunate man who lost you and your lands?"

       "Why, King John, of course."

       I knock over my bowl of ale and Thomas gasps.

@@@@@

       Our meal is finished and we are all filled up and belching politely from an elegant sufficiency of food and ale.  That's when Lady Isabel leaves temporarily with one of two candle lanterns to go outside to relieve herself and then walks up the narrow stone staircase to the room where she and her one and only servant have been living. 

        She needs, Lady Isabel explains, to make sure Mathilde, her servant, has been provided with sufficient food and ale. 

       While she is gone we send the boys to their bedding along one of the walls of the castles great hall and light two more candles.  They can listen from there until they fall asleep.

       A few minutes later Isabel, Lady Isabel, comes back to sit with us once again.  And more of her story all comes out as we sip on fresh bowls of the castle's ale and quietly listen. 

       Isabel is the daughter of a long-dead minor Norman lord from Gloucester and the ex-wife of King John.  Her marriage was the annulled without ever being consummated based on their blood relationship as very distant cousins.

       Her two remaining male relatives, cousins almost as distant as the king, brought her and her one and only servant south with them.  They came to plot with some of the southern barons to take John’s throne and install her as queen - and then quickly marry her off to whichever one them will then become England's king. 

       My cousins think, Isabel explains, that if King John is dead they can find someone to marry me who will pay the pope enough to have my annulment canceled.  Then, because her marriage to John was initially recognized by the church, she'll be the queen and they can marry her off to make her new husband the king.

        “We are distant cousins by blood, you know, John and I, even if my grandmother was not married to John's grandfather.  Betrothed to John is what my father did for me just before he died.  That was when I was but four and John ten; we wed when I was fifteen and my father already gone." 

       "As soon as my father died, John's mother wanted him to get on with marrying me to get my lands. She promised my cousins, the only men left in my family, that they could stay on their fiefs if they agreed."