The Archer's Return: Medieval story in feudal times about knights, Templars, crusaders, Marines, and naval warfare during the Middle Ages in England in the reign of King Richard the lionhearted (6 page)

       “Okay.  That’s two things and they both sound reasonable.  What’s the third?”

       “I think we should use the additional galleys to expand to serve more cities than just those related to refugees escaping from the Holy Land.  Rome and Constantinople would seem to good places to earn more coins.  We’ve got refugees here who would have paid more if we had offered to take them beyond Cyprus.  Then we’d have more coins and fewer refugees to look after.” 

       “Well you’re right about that too – adding more cities to those we already serve is something Thomas and I have been talking about.  Malta, for example, comes to mind because it’s a good stopping place between England and the Holy Land.” 
Yoram’s a smart fellow indeed; Thomas is right – he’s our most valuable man.  Do you suppose it’s because he knows how to read and do sums.

       Yoram then shyly tells me that while I was gone he took it upon himself to make a couple of changes that immediately earn my instant approval and thanks.  One is that he is giving our galley crews much longer shore leaves so that he always has the Marine archers of at least two ships, several hundred of them, living in the tented barracks areas inside the walls at all times. 
Hmm.  He’s right we need the Marine archers here even if it means their ships and sailors have to stand idle in the harbor.

       Our coins are supposed to be a secret so the Marine archers are only told they are on shore to practice their archery and learn to use the newfangled Swiss pikes Brian is producing.  And that’s what they do every day they are on shore.  Henry supervises the sergeants conducting the training; Brian supervises the fletchers and smiths making their weapons.  Once the Marine archers are fully learned up with using pikes their ship goes back to sea and another ship comes in so its Marines can take their place. 

       Yoram’s other change has been to start sending our galleys to more ports along the Holy Land coast because “they have rich refugees too.”

Yes, Thomas is right about Yoram – he is our best man.” 

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       That evening after the sun goes down and work stops the five of us get together to sit outside and talk and eat chicken and drink bowls of the sweet local wine.  Brian Archer, Henry, Harold, Yoram and I are sitting on stools outside our little keep - and Yoram’s very pregnant and cheerful Lena is constantly tripping off to bring us bowls of wine and chicken from Thomas Cook.  It’s a relaxing time and we have much to discuss. 

       One of the first things I inquire about is the French knight who is the king’s cousin and Limassol’s governor.  Yoram and Henry immediately begin laughing.  Ever since Thomas spoke with him last year and told him about the assassins he has locked himself in his castle and won’t come out unless he is summoned by the king – and that apparently fears him even more.

       After a while Thomas Cook comes and joins us.  Thomas is one of our original archers who now prefers to stay in camp and supervise the cooking.  And a good cook he is. 

       Thomas is like Henry – last year he’d decided to stay in Cyprus instead of returning to England with us; he says just the thought of getting seasick again is enough to make him ill.
 

       We talk about everything – they tell me what’s happened here and in the Holy Land since I left, who’s run or died or gotten poxed; Harold and I tell them about Algiers and the battles we fought in England and why.  And most of all we talk about what to do with our all our newly arrived cogs and galleys. 

      
My God we’ve got 31 galleys and five cogs stationed here and more than two thousand men if you include all the slaves we’ve freed.

       The death of Edmund’s wife and children absolutely enrages all the old archers who’d known Edmund and they growl their approval when I tell them how we avenged them.  And, of course, both Henry and Brian sit up and listen carefully when they hear about the effectiveness of the Swiss pikes on land and the long bows everywhere.  I tell them that we need more pikes and long bows produced and every Marine archer trained to use them.  They nod with both determination and satisfaction when I tell them it is now their highest priority.

       My young helpers and fetchers Peter Sergeant and Robert Monk sit quietly in the corner and say not a word.

       We all agree.  There is no question about it - a large force of archers and other Marines needs to be here on Cyprus as guards at all times because of all the coins that are upstairs in Yoram’s room and because we’re such a threat to the pirates and the local governor that they may try to eliminate us.  We also agree on the need to keep our Marines trained up so they don’t get themselves killed because they aren’t schooled enough to use modern weapons or don’t have them. 

      
Or, if Thomas is right, they die of a pox because they aren’t careful about where they piss and shit and stick their dingles.

       Keeping enough men here and training and equipping them with modern weapons is important.  On the other hand, we also need to keep our galleys and cogs constantly at sea with enough Marine archers during the sailing season so they can earn coins by gathering up refugees and carrying coins and coin earning parchments, cargos, and passengers. 

       Before we stagger off to sleep we have an answer everyone seems to like – we’ll establish and equip more companies of Marine archers than we need for our galleys and cogs.  Then each time a galley or cog comes in its sergeant captain and sailors can take it right back out with a fresh company of Marines - and leave its current company for training and to act as guards until its turn comes to go to sea again. 

       Up until now each galley and cog has had its own Marine company and, except for archers, we’ve only recruited when we need to replace someone who has been lost or run.  But deciding how many additional Marine companies we will need and how to recruit them is something that will have to wait until tomorrow.

     
At the moment I’m in no shape to decide anything except that I’m cheerfully full of sweet wine and need to walk to the piss pot by the gate and take another piss.  Then I’m going to crawl on to one of the string beds in the downstairs room of our little tower where our senior sergeants sleep.

       Tomorrow we’ll begin passing out the prize money for the Algerian prizes that have already reached Cyprus.  We are, of course, still waiting for two of our galleys and five prizes to come in.  But the men were promised their prize money when they got their prizes to Cyprus and many of them are already here.  They need to be paid or they’ll start getting anxious.  Maybe when we finish handing out the prize coins we’ll have time to talk about the additional Marine companies and what they will require. 
And, most important of all, where we’ll find the additional archers and longbows.

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Bright and early the next morning, right after we’ve come back from pissing and shitting, Yoram and I and the senior sergeants walk out of the tower to a horse cart waiting in the courtyard.  I myself am carrying one of the sacks of coins over my shoulder and drop it on the cart.  Yoram carries the other and Peter Sergeant and Robert Monk walk ahead of us wearing chain mail shirts and carrying swords.  Peter is carrying a sword for me along with his long bow and the two quivers of arrows and two bow strings every archer is expected to have with his bow at all times. 

       Harold and the other senior sergeants are also wearing mail shirts and carrying their swords or bows.  Even Yoram is wearing a chain shirt which, he explains a bit sheepishly, his wife made him put on even though he’s not a fighting man. 

      
Of course we are ready to fight; one never knows what will happen when a lot of coins appear in public and everyone knows they are coming. 

       It is my decision to pay out the men’s prize money on the dock so everyone can see them get paid and our sailors won’t have to leave their cogs and galleys unattended to get their coins. 

       We could have paid out the prize coins in private in the sergeants’ courtyard.  I decide to pay it on the dock, however, because it is important that everyone knows we will keep our word and pay what we owe. 

       Yoram disagreed last night when I announced today’s prize payments.  He is against paying out in the open so everyone can see and only reluctantly agreed to participate.  He thinks seeing all that money will encourage robbers and pirates to try to steal our treasure and hurt his family in the process.

       He may be right but I, on the other hand, think it is just as likely to have the reverse effect and told him so - everyone will think we’ll have no coins left until we sell the cogs because that’s the story we’ll tell to the merchants when we negotiate with them. 
I guess we’ll see. 

       In any event, Yoram seems in good cheer despite my decision about paying the men in public and last night’s heavy drinking.  He smiles at me and moves forward to lead the horse after he dumps his sack on to the cart next to mine.  My head, on the other hand, is still a bit sore.  But it’s a bright sunny day and everyone we meet is absolutely full of smiles and good cheer so I soon recover. 

       Everyone’s cheerfulness as we bounce down the cart path to the beach is not surprising even though many of the onlookers are local men who were not on the raid and won’t be sharing in the prize money.  They’re pleased because they can see we’re keeping our word and promptly paying what the men on the prize crews have been promised. 

       Being paid promptly and in full is very important to men who risk their lives for the coins they earn.  Yoram and I know all too well what happens to those who don’t pay fighting men what they are due.  Indeed that’s how we met – when my brother killed the thieving bishop who tried not to pay us and we ended up with all of the bishop’s many coins instead of just those we’d earned.
 

       The bishop’s greed got us started on our way up, didn’t it?

       A number of our similarly armed senior sergeants fall in and walk with us as we come out our little keep at sun-up and walk behind the horse cart towards the sergeants’ gate.  The sergeant’s gate is the narrow gate in the original curtain wall. Only sergeants, no one else, are ever allowed through it into the little courtyard between the wall and the little stone farmhouse that is our keep.

       The two room farmhouse behind the wall is our compound’s citadel.  That’s where Yoram and the important commanders and master sergeants such as Harold and I and the original archers live and where we keep our coin chests – Yoram and his family and coins in the room upstairs; what’s left of the original archers and the other senior sergeants such as Harold in the room downstairs. 

     Only sergeants without women live in the courtyard between the tower and the first wall where we are walking and only the Marine archers without women are allowed into the much larger courtyard between the first and second walls.  Similarly, only sergeants and Marine archers with wives live between the second and the third wall that is still going up – to keep the sergeants and archers close and their women and children away from men’s affairs and the coins.  Everyone else lives outside the new third wall - including our archers in training, sailors temporarily on shore, and the refugees and freed slaves. 

      
Most of them will soon be moving further out when Yoram starts building a fourth curtain wall even further out.  Then only the archers in training will be barracked between the third and fourth walls.  Defense in depth is what Thomas says the Romans called it.  Or was that circumvallation?  I forget.

       More and more men and women join our parade as we move through the courtyards towards the beach.  Everyone is cheerful and smiling and there is much banter and waving and good cheer. 
It’s good to be alive and I’m very proud and trying not to show it.

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       Men and women are following as we make our way to the Limassol dock where an even greater crowd is waiting.  A line forms with the sergeant captains at the front, and then the prize captains, and then the sergeants and, finally, a long line other ranks. 

      
Of course the sergeant captains are first; rank has its privileges as the bible requires.  Besides we need them standing there to make sure we make the proper payment when one of their men comes up. 

      
It’s a long line.

       “My God, Yoram, do we have enough coins?”

       “Aye William, that we do – many more than enough with chests and chests to spare.”

      
Yoram counts out the coins as Harold stands next to me saying what each man is due.  And, of course, Harold and I thank them and shake their hands. 

       For some of the men it is quite an emotional and overwhelming day – it’s the first time they’ve ever been paid or had their hand shaken.  For many it is a big whoop of joy and they’re off to the taverns and brothels or to the moneylenders standing nearby; for others it’s is abashed grin as a new wife standing in line with him promptly holds out her hand before he can even turn away
. 

       I sure hope the local barbers have a lot of herbs and medicines on hand and we don’t lose too many men to the leaks and the pox.

       Most of the crowd is dispersed by the time we finally finish passing out the prize money and begin to walk back to our stronghold with a couple of almost empty coin sacks.  We’re off to get something to eat from Thomas Cook and reminisce about days and friends gone by.