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 (14 page)

       What we don’t decide as we stand there stamping our feet to stay warm is whether our fleet will be based at the mouth of the Tamar or the Fowey next year.   My initial thought is that the Tamar is too close to Devon and its earl who is potentially unfriendly because he may or may not be FitzCount’s cousin.  That’s what I tell Thomas. 

       What we finally agree as we stand there in the cold morning air and watch the sun rise is that it is too important a question to answer quickly because the answer will affect where we end up locating our permanent headquarters and train our men.

       Thomas and I are still standing just out of arrow range in front of the castle talking when the gate opens and Henry and the men who entered through the tunnel wave us in.  There is no sign of Isabel and she’s not among the dead and wounded at the drawbridge.  There are only cowering servants, including a number of Isabel’s and a handful of local men at arms who declined to join the escape effort.  All will be pardoned and retained if they will pledge their liege and were not present at Trematon.  If they were present?  Well, then they’ll join the knights and bishop swimming in the Tamar.

      Then it dawns on me where Isabel might be.  There must be a mine under the castle and Isabel who came here to live here with FitzCount is likely to know where other mine tunnels enter the castle and where they go.  I immediately send a messenger to tell Martin to ask the servants and begin looking for other entrances to the mine under the castle. 

                                  Chapter Nine

       Spring of 1193 arrives with flooded rivers throughout Cornwall when the rains come and the snows melt on the hills.  We respond by launching the beached galleys and floating everything down to the mouth of the Fowey.  It’s just as well – it’s time for me to take our galleys and cogs back to the Holy Land and earn more coins. 

      
Getting them while the getting is good is always the best policy isn’t it?

       While I’m gone Thomas will be in charge.  He’ll stay at Restormel with George and the boys and a very strong force of men to discourage the Earl of Devon and his friends from attacking us. 

       Thomas’ main task while I’m gone will be to do what he truly loves to do - he’ll learn the boys to scribe and sum and, additionally, supervise the training and assignments of any additional men he recruits from the steady stream of men who constantly walk into our camps seeking to make their marks and join us.

        He’ll also meet with the franklins and the masters of our manors to negotiate alternatives to their paying of their taxes and rents with coins – bringing us foodstuffs and firewood and horses, for example. 
Horses for sure; we really need more horses.

      Possessing land and castles is beyond my wildest dreams.  But, truth be told, I’m getting bored and ready to head back to the Holy Land.

                                            End of Book Two

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          Sample pages from Book Three

                  “The Archers Return”

       The storm lasts almost two days.  Then the weather clears and we pass Gibraltar both rowing and running before the wind with a leather sail up on our stubby mast.  And we’re not alone.  One of our cogs, the one with the big patch on its sail captained by Albert the archer from Chester, comes up on us so fast that we have to row to keep up so we can talk as we pass the big rock with the huge Moorish castle on its peak. 

      
But why are there no Moorish galleys here to collect tolls and taxes?
      

       Harold and Albert manage to keep our two ships together until we reach the harbor at Palma two days later.  To my absolute delight our other cog is already at anchor and so are four of our galleys.  There are happy hails and waves as we enter the harbor and drop our anchor.  Within minutes dinghies are rowing towards us from our other ships.

       Palma is on Mallorca Island which is under the nominal control of a batch of Moors called “Burburs” or something like that.  What’s good for us, and the reason we’re here, is that the Moors are having a bloody civil war and the island’s Burbur ruler is a deadly enemy of the Caliph who rules Tunis and Algiers. 

       All and all, as we know from our last visit, Palma is apparently a fairly civilized place with many Christians and Jews living on the island.  Genoa and Pisa have had commercial establishments here for years.  We’ve come back to Palma again because we didn’t have any problems when we rendezvoused here last year on our way to England and when some of our galleys successfully stopped here last fall on their way back from England to Cyprus.  Once again that seems to be the case - the local Moslems seem pleased that we’d given the Tunisians a poke in the eye.  At least that’s the story we got from the local merchants when we were last here.

       “It’s good to see everyone here and safe once again,” I tell the captains as they come to report. 

       “Nothing’s changed.  We’ll leave here and rendezvous in Malta and then in Cyprus as soon as the rest of our galleys arrive and the weather’s good.  In the meantime you can give your crews two hour shore leaves during daylight hours.  But only a few men at a time and not after dark.  Explain to your men that they have to stay close both because we want to be always ready to fight in case the Moors come and because we’ll be leaving for Malta as soon as the rest of our ships arrive and re-provision.” 

      
We want everyone to think we’re going to Malta from here.  We’re not.

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Martin Archer is also the author of the five novels of the acclaimed “The Soldier” saga which follows a young soldier through his entire career as a professional soldier - from his first taste of combat in the bitter fighting of the Korean War and then in Vietnam and the wars that might have subsequently occurred after Vietnam or will occur in the near future.

   
Sample pages from Book One of “The Soldier” saga

                     Book One

       SOLDIERS AND MARINES

       Dust and gravel periodically spray out behind the Jeep as it slowly backs up towards the top of the low ridge.  The early morning sun is bright and already hot, and the periodic sound of thunder in the background has been coming closer for two days.

       Three men are in the slowly backing Jeep as it moves over the abandoned farm land and up towards the ridgeline.  The passenger sits impassively almost as if he’s in a trance.  The gunner on the mounted machine gun crouches and squints down the barrel into the sun as he constantly moves it to the left and right.  He is chewing furiously on a mouthful of gum.

       Everyone in the Jeep is trying to be as quiet as possible.  But it’s not working because of the engine noise and the periodic burst of sound each time the Jeep runs over a patch of rocks or breaks a stick.  Each of the men is terribly anxious without saying it out loud.

       The occupants of the Jeep are nervous.  And rightly so.  It’s the morning of July 29
th
and thirty four days earlier the Soviet-trained North Korean army poured over the border into South Korea.  It catches the poorly equipped and under trained garrison troops of the South Koreans and their allies by surprise - they are everywhere overrun and either killed or pushed back. 

       The sky is partially cloudy and the flat field of the upward sloping rocky farmland is empty of life and crops.  There are great towering white clouds to the north, but at the moment the men are traveling in bright summer morning sunshine.  It’s dusty and hot on the rough track across the abandoned farm.  The mud ruts from a previous rain are baked hard and the men in the Jeep don’t know what they will find when they get to the top of the rise they are slowly approaching.  But they are highly visible as they slowly bounce over the uneven ground and seriously worried about it. 

       “Careful, goddamn it, careful,” the passenger hisses in an unnecessarily low voice as they slowly approach the summit.  He is twisted around and trying to see over the crouching gunner behind the gun mount.  The driver is slowly backing the Jeep upwards towards the top of the rise.

       Damn
the passenger thought to himself as he tries to stand so he can see better,
and just when I was about to rotate back home for a new assignment.  
He is about six feet tall with close cropped gray hair, about 190 pounds, and, although he never did really think about it, glad he only has daughters who won’t be called to serve.

       He’d picked up the driver’s carbine ten minutes ago, checked its banana clip to make sure it is full, and clicked its fire selector from single shot to automatic.  The carbine had ridden wedged between him and the driver until they reached the start of the gradually rising farm land a couple of miles back.  Now, holding the carbine in his right hand like a pistol and trying to keep his balance by holding the edge of the lowered windshield with his left, he is standing as high as possible in the slowly bouncing and rocking Jeep in an effort to see around the gunner and over the top of the ridge. 

       The passenger is a fairly chunky man wearing the shoes and summer uniform of a garrison officer instead of boots and battledress.  His pants are filthy and ripped, but that’s what he’d been wearing when the war started and he hadn’t taken them off yet.  There is a colonel’s badge on the summer soft cap he’d grabbed off the bedroom table and jammed on his head when he’d gotten the 3am call about the invasion and rushed to headquarters. 

        Brown hair streaked with white pokes out from under the Colonel’s cap.  It was cropped short and neat when the war started, but it hasn’t been cut or combed for weeks.  He is forty two years old and desperately needs a shave and something to eat.  He’d been the commander of a tank battalion in Germany during the big war and knows trouble when he sees it.

       What happened? Why weren’t we ready?
Even bouncing along in the Jeep he can’t get the disbelief out of his mind.   Once again the United States and the United Kingdom have been caught flat footed and ill-equipped.

       The Jeep lurches to a stop at the colonel’s whispered order.  He hoists himself on the barrel of the carbine and slowly raises himself up as high as possible. 
Damn, still not far enough to see what’s on the other side.
  The colonel isn’t taking any chances.  He’d quickly learned in Germany that it is really stupid to show yourself on a ridge line until you are damn sure you know what’s on the other side. 

       He hasn’t slept for days, his clothes are filthy, and he is totally exhausted.  Being worried and backing slowly up a hill in a jeep brought back fleeting memories of the earlier war.  He almost smiles at the memory.

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** Read more:  Search Amazon.com for “Martin Archer” or

“Soldiers and Marines.”   Martin Archer can be contacted

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