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 (3 page)

       We bought all the available horses and carts and wagons we could find in Falmouth.  So now we have a grand total of four horses and nine wagons.  The local merchants all say there will be more horses available when the harvest is in and the monthly fair comes to town in a couple of weeks.  I certainly hope so.  The four we have are not all that useful.  Plow horses rarely are. 
And that puts paid to William’s idea of forming a cavalry of horse archers of the type we saw the Saracens use; it will have to wait until we get more horses and some of the archers can be learned to ride.

@@@@@

       My first impression as it comes into view is that Trematon Castle isn’t a very useful castle.  Both its keep and the courtyard inside its curtain wall are rather small.  Trematon may be a castle but it certainly doesn’t look very strong.  It has no moat, just a drawbridge over a small pond in front of the castle gate, and no outer bailey, not even a dirt ring fence to keep in the livestock.  Even more worrisome, its curtain wall is very low. 
I wonder why it’s so low?

       The nearby village where the castle’s serfs and churls live is as poor as the castle - no more than a couple dozen or so wooden shacks with a little church and an alehouse. Not one of the shacks has a chimney.  They’re all like the one William and I grew up in until the Abbot took a shine to my arse and carried me off to learn and pray.

      
Our new acquired fortified farm house near the Limasol city walls looks to be much stronger despite having neither a moat nor a drawbridge.

       Our approach to Trematon Castle causes some anxiety and the drawbridge over the small pond in front of the gate begins to be hauled up as we approach.   But then I order the men to move back and lead my horse slowly forward by myself while I wave my cross at the faces that begin appearing at the arrow slits.  

       “Who are you and what do you want?” comes the hail.

       “I’m the Bishop of Bekka with news from the Holy Land about Lord Edmund.”

       A few minutes later the drawbridge creaks noisily as it is slowly lowered - and then it drops back to the ground with a crash and a splash of the mud it lands in.  A few seconds later the big wooden gate in the castle’s curtain wall opens and an elderly man comes out wearing an old fashioned Saxon helmet and carrying a spear.  He watches impassively as I lead my horse over the bridge and into the enclosure beyond the curtain wall.

       The drawbridge over the pond slowly rises behind me and the gate closes with a slam as soon as I enter the courtyard.  There is a loud thump as the spear carrying guard and another man drop a big wooden cross bar into place to seal the gate.  In the background I can hear the creaking as the drawbridge is slowly cranked back up.

       An anxious looking woman comes out of the low door of the castle’s keep with a couple of young girls clinging to her arms.  She watches impassively as I dismount and hand the reins to a rheumy eyed old man who walks up and holds his hand out for them without saying a word. 

       The look on my face is all the woman needs to see – she bursts into tears and clutches the girls to her.

       “He’s dead isn’t he?”

       “Yes, God rest his soul, he is.  I’m truly sorry to have to tell you that Lord Edmund is dead.  A big rock was catapulted over the wall and hit him in the head.  He never felt a thing.”

      
Actually that’s a lie.  He took an arrow in the shoulder and the rot set in.  It took two weeks and at the end William did the right thing and gave him a soldier’s mercy on the night what was left of our company climbed over the south wall and ran.

      
I watch without saying a word as the girls begin sobbing and clinging to their mother while she tries to pull herself together and console them.  Finally she turns her attention back to me and, with her arms still around the weeping girls, uses a nod of her head and a sad smile to motion me to enter.  Six or seven men and women stand about in the yard and watch with increasingly sad faces as I duck my head and enter.  They instinctively understand the sorrowful news I’m bearing.

       “I’ve feared this day ever since the damn fool left,” she tells me.  “He had to go, you know.  The new Earl levied a huge tax and demanded that Edmund either pay it or join Richard on his crusade so the Earl wouldn’t have to go.  And, of course, he couldn’t pay it so off he goes with Richard.”

       I give her twenty gold bezant coins the next morning after I conduct a prayer service for Edmund in the village church.  I lie with a great deal of sincerity in my voice and say Lord Edmund entrusted the bezants to me to give to her in the event he fell.  I think she knows I’m telling a lie but she thanks me profusely - and tells me the bezants are greatly appreciated because they will help her continue to live in the castle for a while longer.  

       “After that,” she says that evening with a great sigh after the girls have gone off to their bed, “I don’t know what we’ll do.” 

     I stay for five days and we talk and talk and talk.  Edmund’s lady, her name is Dorothy and she’s the daughter of a knight with a manor in Derbyshire, wants to know everything about Edmund and the Holy Land - and the fate of the men who accompanied him and the archers who joined him.  It’s quite a tale and it takes some time to tell.

@@@@@

       Lady Dorothy and I are in the castle’s little “great hall” just finishing a meal of bread and onion soup on the fifth day of my visit when one of her villeins comes rushing in to report that a group of men are approaching on horseback. 

       I don’t know why, perhaps I have a premonition, but I go to the door and tell the men who are waiting for me in the castle yard to go back to the stables behind the keep and stay out of sight – “but arm yourselves and be ready to fight if I call.” Then I go back into the keep and reseat myself at the wooden table in the castle’s very small great hall.

        Someone in our camp must have spread news of Edmund’s death for it is the Earl’s brother with four of his men who enter the hall as I am finishing my soup. His name is Ralph, Sir Ralph, and he’s a smelly bearded fellow.  He’s not very respectful of priests and bishops either.

       “I see you already know about your husband,” he sneers at Lady Dorothy when he sees me sitting at the table.  “Well that makes it easier.  I’ve came to tell you about your husband and help you move.”

       “Move?  Why should I move?  This is Edmund’s home and my children and I are Edmund’s heirs.”

       “You’ll move because the Earl wants you out.  You haven’t paid the King’s taxes for two years and now he needs them more than ever.  In case you haven’t heard, King Richard is captured and a ransom has to be raised, a big ransom.” 
Richard is alive?  I’ll be damned.

       “Now go up the stairs and get your things together.  And don’t take anything that belongs to Edmund.  We’re keeping it to apply against your taxes.”  And with that he grabs her by the arm and thrusts her towards the stairs.

       The man who had brought us the news about the riders and greeted them at the gate has come in behind Sir Ralph and his men.  I don’t know his name but he is standing against the wall listening to the conversation when I motion him over and whisper an order into his ear:

       “Go out back to the stables and tell my men to come around and wait by the door - and to be ready to charge in if there’s a fight.”

       Then I inject myself into the conversation.

       “I’m sorry Sir Knight, but King Richard’s law is quite clear.  Widows of loyal nobles who fall on a crusade are to retain their lands and keeps without payment of taxes for their lifetimes.”

      
It’s all ox shit, of course.  I’m making it up.

      
“What’s that you say?  And who the fuck are you?”

       “I am Thomas, Bishop of Bekka and Lady Dorothy’s confessor.  And until he left the Holy Land I had the honor to be the confessor of our dear King Richard.” 

      
More ox shit.  I never talked to the murdering bastard.

      
“I don’t care who you are, she is leaving.” And with that he takes Lady Dorothy by the arm and starts to pull her towards the stone stairs leading to the room above the hall.

       “I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” I say with a snarl that is not at all appropriate for a man of the cloth, “At least not until I give you your last rites.  If you touch Lady Dorothy again you’ll surely never leave this place alive.  Best you open the door and take a look out front before you do something really stupid.”

       It is one of Sir Ralph’s men who opens the great hall’s door – and jumps back in fright. 

      
Seeing a dozen swords and iron tipped arrows pointed at your chest will do that for you every time.  Particularly when the men holding them look like the ferocious villains they are - which is how most escaped galley slaves and soldiers newly home from the wars tend to look.

       “Who are those men?  What’s going on here?” Sir Ralph demands angrily as he turns and looks at me.

       “They are some of Lord Edmund’s retainers newly returned from fighting in the crusades.” 

      
That’s a lie too.  But why not - in for a copper, in for a gold.

@@@@@      

       As soon as the Earl’s brother departs mumbling his threats I send one of my men on a horse to carry a message to William describing the situation and telling him I intend to stay at the castle for a while longer in case Sir Ralph returns.  I also suggest that William change the men’s training to emphasize fighting on land and be prepared to march on Trematon on a moment’s notice.  I will, I inform my brother, send messengers if we need assistance
. 

       And then, as a precaution and without telling Lady Dorothy, I send three of my men and our horses to camp on the little hill that rises about two miles away.  They are to act as lookouts.  If any armed men appear one is to ride for the castle to warn us; the other two for William.  I also made sure the castle’s water barrel and little cistern are filled and quietly assign positions to my men.  I do not mention my precautions to Edmund’s poor lady.  She is already distraught enough as it is.

       It’s a good thing I prepared.  Three days later Sir Ralph returns with a number of armed men and his brother Baldwin, the Earl of Cornwall himself, from his seat at Restormel Castle.  

      
Hmm.  It’s harvest time and they brought half a hundred men from Restormel who should be working in the fields.  Trematon must be more important than it looks.  Or maybe Baldwin is too stupid or doesn’t care if his people don’t have enough to eat this winter.

       This time they don’t get in.  Finally, after his men pull far enough back at my insistence, we lower the drawbridge over the pond long enough for Sir Ralph and the Earl to cross over and reach the gate.  I open the gate a crack and speak with them with half a dozen or so of my guards behind me in case they try to push their way in.  The rest are up on the walls keeping a watch.

       Their message surprises me and I tell them as much.  Sir Ralph, it seems, is now offering to marry Edmund’s widow.  Marriage, of course, would extinguish any rights she might have to the castle and make Sir Ralph the undisputed owner of both the castle and Lady Dorothy.  I raise my eyebrows, wave my cross to bless them, and agree to convey the offer to her and get back to them. 

       “Tell her to hurry up and make up her mind,” Baldwin demands rather arrogantly.  “Until she accepts my brother no one gets in or out.”  He is quite full of himself and seems to think he holds the upper hand. 

      
Earl Baldwin’s a rat faced little bastard and my initial impression is that he is even more arrogant and stupid than his brother.  Taking his men away from the harvest proves it.

       “I take that as a threat to do violence and I’m sure Lady Dorothy and her men will too,” I respond harshly. “So be warned yourself.  Until she decides to remarry and chooses your brother, you and your men best keep well away from Trematon’s walls - because in a couple of minutes I’m going to tell her guards that it’s time for them to begin breaking your blockade even if it means hurting you.” 

      
Actually, I made a mistake; we should have killed them right then and there while the drawbridge is up behind them.  Ah well, done is done.  I’ve made many mistakes in my life haven’t I?

       After launching a few more threats and warnings the two nobles hurry away and the wall in the curtain gate slams shut behind them. Only then does the drawbridge begin to go down so they can cross the pond and return to their waiting men.  Their heads are together and they are whispering and waving their hands as they cross the bridge.  My response is obviously not the cowering agreement they expected. 

       Within minutes the drawbridge is back up and we watch from the walls as the Earl’s men spread out and surround Trematon.  That’s when I climb to castle turret and wave the signal sending one of my lookouts on the hill galloping to Falmouth to get William.  Then I order my guards to pick off any of the Earl’s men who get within range of their arrows. 

      
And I must admit that I that I did suggest in the first message I sent to William that killing the Earl and his brother might be an opportunity for us. I hope William agrees.  If fighting starts it won’t end until either the Earl and his moron brother are dead or we are.  And that could be a good thing, the Earl and his brother being dead I mean – the Earl’s castle may be available if he is gone and we move quickly.