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 (7 page)

       After that I’m going to spend the afternoon with Brian and Henry to see what they are doing while Harold, Thomas, and Henry interview the slaves and the latest refugees to see what skills they have and where we might use them.  Some of those who want to stay will be assigned to jobs and training and others to crews for our galleys and cogs.

       In a day or two when the assignments are complete we’ll begin sending the new galleys off to the Holy Land ports and the cogs to fish for pirates.  We’re going to begin regular visits to more ports now that we have so many galleys.

       We’re on our way to Thomas Cook’s kitchen in the outer courtyard when who should show up, and be standing there with big smiles on their faces and outstretched hands to be shaken, but a group of merchants including Aaron from here in Limassol and several men I’d met before but definitely didn’t expect to ever see again – Aaron’s friend Reuben from Latika and two of the merchants I’d met in Alexandria whose names I could never pronounce in the first place.

       Our plans for eating and spending the afternoon change when it turns out they’ve come all this way to welcome me back to Cyprus and invite me to eat and drink with them and several of their fellow merchants.  And the intensity of their invitation suggests they have something else they want to talk about and it is important.  Hopefully it isn’t that Latika has fallen and is no longer a refuge for Christians and Jews fleeing the Saracens
. 

       That can’t be it; we have men and galleys constantly visiting there so Yoram would have told me immediately.

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       They enthusiastically invite everyone so Harold and Yoram and Henry come with me to the merchants’ meal and so do Peter Sergeant and Robert Monk.  It’s a great meal and it goes on for the entire afternoon. 

       Peter and Robert don’t say a word.  This is their first time outside of England and they are wide eyed and clearly astounded by the variety of things available in the Limassol market and all the different foods that are set in front of us - just as Thomas and I were last year. 
It seems like ages ago in another life; aye, that it does.

       We talk of our families and our health and many other things before the real reason for the merchants request for a meeting comes out.  And, of course, one of the things we talk about is the old quarries for the perfectly understandable reason that we would like to use to get the stone we need to face our new log walls.

       “They’re copper and limestone mines from the olden days of the Romans,” suggests Reuben.

       “They were shut down long ago when iron began replacing bronze.  Probably even before that when the island ran out of trees to make the charcoal that has to be burned to cook the ore.  You ought to be able to get them off King Guy for song – he’s greedy that Frenchman is.  Always trying to raise our taxes isn’t he.”

        Copper?  That can go with tin to make coins can’t it?

      
“Uh, Reuben.  What do you know about the old mines - are any of them still operating?”

       “They’ve all been closed for a long time.  I doubt anyone even knows when they were last worked.”

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       I learn a lot from the merchants before they finally bring forth what they want so I can stagger home with a full belly.  They want us to either place more galleys in Latika and Acre or establish a defendable compound with a strong force of defenders where their families can temporarily gather to escape by sea - or both.  And, oh yes, and what do I think about them opening trading posts all along the coast of the Holy Land and acting as our agents to book cargos and passengers? 
Ah.  That’s it for sure.  They’ve seen the coins we’re earning and want a cut. 

      
“That would be quite dangerous for you wouldn’t it?  Opening trading compounds all along the coast, I mean.”

       “Yes, but quite lucrative for everyone.  And our agents and their families would be able to escape on your galleys if the Saracens come.”

      They have a very specific proposal.  They will put an agent with his own defendable walled compound in every port still in Christian or Jewish hands including Constantinople, Antioch, and Beirut, and perhaps even in some that the Saracens have taken over, such as Aleppo and even inland at Damascus and Jerusalem.  Our Marine archers would be the compound guards and row them to safety on a galley standing by as we now do for them in Acre and Alexandria.

      
Constantinople, Beirut, and the smaller Christian ports I can understand.  But the Saracen port of Aleppo, and inland at Damascus and Jerusalem? Impossible.

       “Aleppo, Damascus and Jerusalem?  Forgive me, but the Saracens control them so that’s hard for me to understand.” 
Or believe. 

       “Yes, but we think we can put agents those cities if we use Saracen or Jewish guards instead of your archers.  They may be controlled by the Saracens but trade is trade as you well know - and you English have fearsome reputations for protecting your ships and whatever they carry.  That’s why more and more of the merchants and landlords are paying to send some of their coins here for you to hold for them.  They are much safer here with you than in Syria and Egypt.”

      
Damn, he’s right.  If everybody knows about it we’re in real danger and it can only grow as we do.

       “Well, that’s not exactly true.  You do know, I hope, that we keep very few of our coins here?  We are fully aware of the danger here.  That’s why the coins we receive are taken to England.  We send a fast and heavily armed galley and bring them back only when they are needed.” 
That’s not exactly true but it will be soon.

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       I sober up on the walk back to our camp and Harold and Yoram and I spend the rest of the evening talking about the merchants’ proposal.  Yoram likes it if the merchants don’t get too big a share of the coins. 

       “We don’t have enough men who can scribe and sum to run that many compounds ourselves, but we do have the ships and many of the refugees would prefer to continue on from Cyprus to Beirut or Constantinople or even Rome.  They would undoubtedly pay more to get there.”  Cyprus, he suggests, could be our hub.

       We talk late into the night and a conclusion is reached.  Yoram’s enthusiasm carries the day; if the merchants will agree to our terms we’ll stick to the sea and let them operate as our agents in most of the Holy Land and Egypt – but not in Rome, Beirut, Antioch, and Constantinople.  Those cities are too important to leave to others.  We’ll operate in them ourselves with our own sergeants and compounds and guards.  We’ll also agree to continue stationing escape galleys in ports such as Acre and Alexandria for an annual fee. 
Though how we might provide an escape galley for the merchants and notables of inland cities such as Aleppo and Damascus is quite beyond me.  Maybe they mean it would wait at the nearest seaport.

       Yoram is particularly adamant about maintaining total control of whatever we do at Constantinople.  He thinks the crusade now forming in Europe will go there first and there will be many rich crusaders willing to pay to be taken there and many rich refugees willing to pay to flee them. 

      
Thomas heard the same thing from the Papal Nuncio in London, about the crusade going to the Holy Land via Constantinople, I mean.

       Early the next morning I send word to Aaron and Reuben that Yoram, Harold, and I would like to meet with them again to talk about their proposal.  I suggest we meet at Reuben’s market stall once again for dinner. 

      
Why not?  The food is good.  But this time I will be drinking sweetened tea instead of celebrating my safe arrival and drinking wine.  It’s very good wine, you know – very sweet.

                               Chapter Five

       One of the two galleys we left in England came in this morning with messages and a couple of parchment money orders - and who should be on it in command but Bob Farmer with Little Mathew as his chosen man.  And they’re not the only ones who returned to rejoin the company after going home for a visit.   

       Bob Farmer and Mathew Little have all kinds of news and bring me a long parchment letter from Thomas.  It seems Andrew Brewer also returned to Falmouth looking for us and so did Alan the smith and a number of the English refugees and slaves we’d carried back to England.  Most of them are at Restormel with Thomas and he’s been using them to good effect.  He’s got them training as archers half the time under Andrew Brewer and then spend the other half either working on new wall for Restormel or helping in the smithy or brewery or stables.

       Thomas’ parchment reports that George is healthy and doing splendidly; his school at Restormel now has nine boys plus George; and, Praise God, there has not been a peep out of Earl of Devon according to a message Thomas received from Launceston a few days ago. 

       Thomas believes our victory over Earl FitzCount and his men has caused the other local knights and lords and manor holders to pull back and count their blessings that they did not become involved and die with him.  He writes that the gentry on our Cornwall manors, such as they are, are beginning to come in to meet and greet and their rather modest rents and taxes seem to be coming in normally.

       “I wave my cross at them as your representative and tell them you’re a fair man and you’ll leave them alone if they behave themselves and stay loyal and pledge their liege.  If not, I tell them you’re a hard man it’s into the river for them and no prayers whether they’re alive or dead when you throw them in.”

       What Thomas is not yet doing is telling the men running the manors under the Earl’s control to free their serfs and slaves and make them tenants so they can pay higher rents and taxes.  That’s coming, he writes, but not yet.  He wants me there with more archers when the order is given - in case they rise in rebellion.

      What he is doing is sending some of our trained men out as recruiting sergeants to talk to the parish priests and find boys for his school.  They do it at the same time they pass the word that we are looking for archers and strong men willing to become archer apprentices. 

       “We want bright lads capable of learning to scribe and sum, not lords’ lads” is what our recruiting sergeants are told to say to the priests about the boys they are seeking.  The recruiting sergeants are also acting as spies and talking to the priests to see if anyone is organizing against us. 
That’s very smart; the priests know everything and they love to talk.

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       Our second meeting with the merchants goes well.  Yoram and Harold come with me and we spend the entire afternoon hammering out a detailed agreement that covers everything except Alexandria and Antioch.  We finally end up agreeing that we’ll talk about them later when we see how everything works out in the other cities.

       Basically I agree that we will station as many evacuation galleys in whatever ports the merchants specify for the same yearly price and terms per galley they are now paying at Acre; they will have an agent representing us in Damascus and Jerusalem and at each port on the coast of the Holy Land and elsewhere except for Constantinople and any other ports we reserve to ourselves
(editor’s note: another parchment in the chest specifies Antioch, Beirut, Malta, and Rome);
and they will receive a fee of one coin of every ten we are paid in fees for carrying the passengers, cargo, and money order parchments they arrange.

       Before a final agreement is reached I make much of the fact that every passenger and cargo recipient will be closely questioned when they arrive as to how much they paid and that our ships’ captains will have the right to refuse to carry any passenger or cargo or money payment order - and we will immediately return and kill any of their agents who attempt to cheat us.

       “You won’t have to come back to do that,” Aaron assures me as the other merchants nod grimly.  “Because they will already be dead.” 

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       Today four prizes taken by one of our cogs arrive one after another.  Then Albert’s cog itself came in to collect its prize money and take on a new company of Marine archers for another trip.  It’s a big day for Albert and he is beaming as he stands with me and Yoram while we pay his men and shake their hands.   

       Later in day the other pirate taking cog, William Chester’s, also comes in with a totally different tale to tell - William ran into a great pirate fleet of more than twenty galleys off Alexandria and almost didn’t escape.  Only his archers saved him and almost ran out of arrows in the process. 

      
There’s a lesson to be learned from William Chester’s experience according to Harold - our ships need to sail with more bales of arrows and archers on board.  Yoram and I promptly authorize Brian to spend coins to employ more fletchers and smiths and I order Henry to recruit more archer trainees and step up everyone’s training.  As soon as possible we’ll only send Marines to sea if they are both archers and swordsmen.  We definitely need more ships’ shields and long bows in addition to more of the new bladed pikes. 

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       The days that follow are filled with preparing our galleys and cogs for their new assignments and training the men who will sail in them.  We have the galleys and sailors we need to provide more services to the Holy Land ports but we are woefully short of archery qualified Marine archers and longbows for them to use.