The Archer's Castle: Exciting medieval novel and historical fiction about an English archer, knights templar, and the crusades during the middle ages in England in feudal times before Thomas Cromwell

PUBLISHER’S NOTE FROM 1906

       This is the second of the great medieval stories taken from the parchments written by an unknown monk of the Priory of St. Frideswide in Oxford.  That’s the monastery Cardinal Wolsey dissolved and Henry the Eighth subsequently re-founded as the College of Christ Church after he broke with Rome in order to divorce his wife and wed the royal whore.    

       The parchments with the monk’s writings were found in a trunk under a pile of rubble in the Bodleian library basement some years ago.  The monk’s assignment, as he describes it below in his own hand, is to piece together personal stories from what’s left of some earlier parchments into one great history of the kingdom. 

       According to the monk, the Englishman who paid for the history, a name the monk never reveals, wants something similar to that which the great Livy wrote for Rome so many years ago with its use of the current idiom so everyone can read it and its emphasis both on what actually happened and what everyone was thinking when they did whatever it is they did. 

       Among the problems the monk says he has to overcome, of course, is that the exciting tales in the earlier parchments contain so many surprises and often have missing parts where the mice have eaten them. 

       Another problem is that they are written in Latin and in various early versions of what is now called Middle English and Old French – so he must both piece the fragments together and update their words and idiom.  

       What follows in this volume is mostly from the tales of William, the captain of a company of English archers, as they were faithfully recorded by his friend and scribe, Yoram of Damascus.  The position of the Church is that the changes and excitement the archers caused in England and the Holy Land were God’s Will.   The monk is obviously not so sure.  According to him, sharp blades and ambitious men are a much more likely explanation.

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                                Here Begins the Second Story

PREFACE

       The trip from Cornwall to the new monastery in the village on the other side of the Thames takes almost ten days.  That is much longer than I expected and it occurs because the ox carts move so slowly with their loads of parchment records and letters.  But it is useful, all thanks to God, because it gives me time to organize my thoughts as to how to employ the monks as scribes.  By the time our ox carts ford the Thames and reach the monastery I know how I am going to proceed.

       My assignment is to piece together the parchments into one great history of the kingdom similar to that Livy wrote for Rome so many years ago with its emphasis on what actually happened and what everyone was thinking at the time. 

       One of the problems I’ll have to overcome, of course, is that the exciting tales the parchments tell contain so many surprises and often have missing parts where the mice have eaten them.  Another is that the parchments are in various languages.  Some are written in Latin and Greek while others are in various early versions of what is now called English and French – which means I’ll have to bring them together and translate them into today’s English if I’m to more accurately convey the writers’ thoughts and experiences to those who read about them in the years ahead.

       What follows initially is mostly from the tales of William, the captain of the English archers as they were faithfully recorded by his friend and scribe, Yoram of Damascus.  The Church says the changes and excitement the archers caused were God’s Will.   I’m not so sure.  Sharp blades and ambitious men seem a much more likely explanation.

                                 Book Two

                      “The Archers Castle”

        People on the little Falmouth dock and the fishing boats tied along it are standing up and looking as more of our galleys come into Falmouth harbor.  It’s no wonder they are – that’s Harold’s galley and he’s leading in a long string of galleys and our other cog under its captain sergeant, Martin, the archer from Yorkshire.  If my older brother Thomas’s count is correct that’s almost all of our ships.

      Of our twenty one galleys and two single-masted cargo cogs that left Malta, all but one of our galleys are now in Falmouth Harbor.  The missing galley has somehow disappeared just like our two prizes from Tunis that did not show up at the rendezvous.   So today we have twenty galleys and two cargo cogs here in Falmouth harbor with eleven hundred and ninety two men including ten of the original one hundred and ninety two archers that set out from Windsor with King Richard seven years ago.  That is, of course, if none of our men have run since we last counted before we left Malta.

       One of the cogs has an interesting cargo that we don’t understand or know what to do with.  The cog Albert and his crew cut out when we raided the harbor at Tunis is full of little wooden chests containing balls and bricks of smelly flower paste.  My priestly brother Thomas thinks they are the same as what the poxed captain was being fed when we bought our first ships off him – the ships we bought to get home on with the money we took from the Bishop of Damascus after Thomas killed the murderous bastard.

      
He’s usually right, my brother Thomas is – he memorized part of the bible and read all nine books in the monastery before he left to rescue me and take me crusading with that untrustworthy man who thinks he’s our king.

       The paste is very interesting.  It takes the pain away from wounds. At least it did for poor Peter when he got his hand sliced and it rotted so bad that he died despite the barber bleeding him. Worth its weight in gold to soldiers isn’t it
? 

       I wonder where the paste comes from?  Thomas thinks we should ask the Saracens where they are getting it the next time we catch one.  He thinks we could earn a lot of gold bezant coins selling it, coins we will surely need if we are to carry out our plan to advance my son.

                                         Chapter One

       “We spent much too much time trying to get what’s left of the archers back to England and dreaming about all the big things we’ll do for little George when we finally get him here.”

       “Aye, and not enough time thinking of practical things – like where my son will spend the winter and how we’ll find food and warm clothes for the men.”

       My brother Thomas and I are standing on the bank of the River Fal and that is my priestly brother’s comment and my reaction to the activity we are hearing and watching on the river - and the shouting and cursing we can hear coming from the galleys and cogs out on the river.  

       They are trying to make their way upstream against the river’s current.  And kindest thing that can be said about the situation is that things aren’t going very well at the moment.

       “They’ll come up further if we unload them.” Thomas muses.

       “Aye, but not by much, goddamnit,” is my frustrated response. 

       “Maybe we’re trying to find a place to camp on the wrong river,” Thomas suggests. “There are others around here you know.”

       Thomas is right, of course.  But we’re here for good reason and we’re doing the best we can.  At the moment we’re using galleys to pull our two big ocean going cargo cogs up the river. What we are trying to do is get them as far up the river as they can go before they touch bottom and can go no further – which is turning out to be not very far at all. 

       The galleys themselves, of course, can be rowed a bit further upstream than the cogs because they have flatter bottoms and they aren’t weighed down with a high mast and the heavy cargos the cogs are carrying - the weapons and Saracen iron from Acre and the grain and oil they are carrying to feed our men and brew the ale we drink.

        My brother Thomas and I are standing not far from the edge of the river on the side of a gentle hill that runs down to the river.  From here we can see and hear the activity on the cogs and the galleys pulling them.   Harold is obviously chivvying them along.  Every so often we can hear his curses and orders all the way over here on the riverbank.

       Looking past our ships we can see the roofs of the two dozen or so houses in the little village of Falmouth.  They’re off there in the distance at the mouth of the river where the harbor begins.  It’s harvest time and ever since we got here the local serfs and tenants have been in the fields around us from dawn to dusk. 

      
And it’s hard work they’re doing as I damn well know; I used to be one of them before me Mum died and Thomas came back from the monastery to teach me my letters and take me away to help the King go crusading.

       We’re here because we are trying to kill two birds with one stone – get to Lord Edmund’s wife so we can tell her he’s dead by the Saracens and find a place where we can establish a winter camp and protect our ships and coins while we recruit more archers and train them to fight on ships.

       “Well your lordship,” Thomas inquires with a smile and a twinkle in his eye, “what are you going to do now?”

       “I don’t know.  But look sharp.  Here comes trouble.”

       Coming towards us are a couple of horsemen.  We stand quietly and watch as they approach.  Neither looks too threatening though one is clearly

wearing an armored shirt of chain mail like we ourselves always wear under our long baggy sleeved tunics.  Neither of them is wearing a helmet nor carrying a drawn sword so we don’t draw our swords or string the bows we always carry.

       The knight is a white haired man with a genial smile.  He holds up his hand in a friendly greeting as he approaches.

       “Hello Hello,” he says as he swings himself off his horse and dismounts with his hand held out and a friendly smile on his face.  “I’m Percy.  Sir Percy actually.   The Earl’s sheriff for Falmouth.”

       “Hello, Sir Percy,” I say as I take his hand and smile back.  And then Thomas does the same.

       “I’m Lord William and this is Thomas, the Bishop of Bekka and our company’s priest.  We weren’t aware that the Earl had a sheriff here in Falmouth or we’d have come to visit you and announced ourselves.” 

      
It still feels funny to name me a lord and Thomas a bishop – but we bought the titles fairly with our prize money and there you are.

       “Oh, no bother.  No bother at all.  I’m new here myself aren’t I?  Don’t even have a proper place for you to know about - just an old house in the town is all.”

       Ten minutes of friendly conversation and it’s totally obvious that Percy is a harmless old soul who is grateful for the excitement of our arrival and anxious to hear stories about our adventures with King Richard on the Crusade.

       
His man Otto I’m not sure of.  He looks us over carefully and listens intently while I give a very general description of where we’ve been and a fairly lame explanation of why we are here.

       “Our archers are from all over England so we probably should have gone to London, that being the center of things so to speak.  But this is the closest port to Lord Edmund’s fief at Trematon and we promised him we’d look after his wife if he fell.”

         Sir Percy beams his approval.

       “It’s good men you are for keeping your word.  His widow and children will appreciate it, poor things.”

        Then we talk about many things in an effort to get to know one another - Falmouth and the local community, Percy’s years of war in France, and our plans to stay over the winter and what we might do to recruit men to take back to the Holy Land to help us rescue more refugees with our ships.  Sir Percy likes that too. 

       What we don’t tell the old fellow is that we’re rescuing the refugees to get their coins and jewels – people with coins pay a lot to us when they think the Saracens will kill them or take them as slaves if they don’t escape.  So do merchants and pilgrims who want to travel in war galleys that pirates are not likely to attack.

       We are also very carefully not to mention anything to our amiable visitor about our plans for young George or our intention to establish a permanent base in Cornwall - and no one, not even Sir Percy, in any way even hints whether he supports Richard or John in the argument that seems to be raging as to which one should be on the throne if Richard is still alive.

       All the Sheriff and his man know when they ride away is that what’s left of a company of English archers and a bishop forced from his people by the Saracens have returned to Cornwall from the crusade - and intend to stay here for a while before they return to the Holy Land to carry more refugees and pilgrims to safety. 

       What they also don’t know is anything about our humble origins or the questionable titles we bought in Cyprus or my brother’s plan for my son George.  He doesn’t even know Thomas is my brother – which is a secret we’ve decided to keep. 

      
But at least the sheriff speaks English.  The people in the village and hereabouts speak a local dialect we can hardly understand.

       “Ah well.  Back to business,” Thomas sighs.  “What about pulling the galleys out over there between the trees if we can’t get the cogs any further up the river?  The ground looks solid and it’s level enough with a bit of a slope so the rain waters will run off.  We could put the men’s tents and hovels over there by the trees.”