The Bow (8 page)

Yesterday he had met Mark the Carter near the crossroads
for Kew. Mark never never said much, usually just a wave of the hand,
but this time he had news: there was talk in Turnham Green that
Thomas, Earl of Dorset was raising a company of soldiers to go to
France in the New Year. They were leaving from Southampton for
Harfleur sometime in January.

Short term indentures were being issued for nine hundred
men at arms and fifteen hundred archers: men-at-arms 1 shilling 6d ;
archers 6 pennies a day.

He pushed the heavy curtain aside and stooped to enter
the cruck.. Hettie looked up and smiled. He smiled back:

‘
I’m for France,’ he said.

The port heaved and bustled with life. Everywhere people
hurried to and fro, pushing past each other with kits and knapsacks,
handcarts and barrows. In the harbour, high masted cogs crowded
against the quay, and workmen struggled to clear the piles of
supplies and munitions which lay outside the warehouses. Scaffolding
covered the shattered walls of the town, and stonemasons called out
to labourers and journeymen as they swarmed up and down the ladders
with mortar and fresh dressed stone. Great winches and pulleys raised
the heavier blocks, while burghers cloaked in furs, stood about
anxiously eyeing the walls and muttering about the lack of progress.

It was Wednesday, and although the Earl of Dorset’s
expedition had just arrived in port, the townsfolk were determined to
hold their usual mid-week market. The stalls were up, the goods were
displayed and the market traders were calling their wares. Country
folk, and villager folk, charcoal burners and woodsmen, free farmers
and peasants rubbed shoulders with men-at-arms, squires, spearmen and
archers. French patois, Flemish, Norman and Breton dialects mingled
with all the accents of England and Wales. Sergeants pushed, soldiers
idled and captains strode. Fishwives shouted, bakerboys scampered and
old folk raised their eyebrows and shrugged.

James liked Harfleur. It stank but he liked it. The
citizens were tough, but not unkind, and although it had been badly
damaged by the recent siege it was easier to find a billet there,
than it had been in Calais.

He eased his bowstave across his shoulder, and pulled
his cloak about him. There was a cold breeze coming in off the Seine
estuary, not enough to drive away the stench of the town ditch, but
enough to chill him to the marrow.

But it was good to be ashore after a long, bumpy
crossing, and he was hoping if he hung around in the market place he
might come across some of his companions from Agincourt. So far he
had seen no one he knew. Back in Southampton he thought he had once
caught sight of John ap Meredith, but it turned out to be a stranger
from the borders.

After wandering the market square and adjoining streets
for a time, he found lodgings above an apothecary shop. It was just
across from the house of a tailor from Ghent, and as he watched the
workers stitching and cutting he promised himself that he would bring
Hettie back more than just ribbons this time. This time he would buy
fine cloth, colourful cloth, perhaps even a fur. That would make the
burgesses of Chiswick and Isleworth chatter: a yeoman’s wife in the
finest fur! And perhaps then, after all that had happened he could
promise Hettie that he would go no more to France. And there would be
no more tears, and he could be a farmer nothing more, and farm the
five hides that ran down to Chiswick Eyot.

There was another archer and two men-at-arms sharing his
lodgings in what was little more than a store-room set above the
family quarters. The men-at-arms were Scots, and said little, and
that in their own heavy brogue, but were kind enough, lending James
some fine wax oil when he was looking to treat his bow. The archer
was a different matter, a young apprentice from Norwich, tired of his
master’s beatings and eager to prove himself in the wars. He was
called Ralf, he never stopped talking and he carried a bow too big
for him by half a hand. His straw coloured hair stuck out at all
angles from under his leather cap, and his hands and arms were
stained with the mark of his trade: tanning.

‘
I can shoot six a minute!’ he announced proudly one
night as they sat about the family table eating bread and soup. ‘Six
fine arrows, true to the mark at fifty paces and a draw of one
fifteen pounds.’

The apothecary’s daughters gasped, wide-eyed, but
their father just nodded politely, and his wife seemed not to have
heard.

‘
What think you, James? What think you of that?’

James looked up from his soup. ‘Six a minute, you
say’, he said.

‘
Aye, six a minute! No less! That will make Frenchie
tremble.’

'Ta’d make me tremble, if ae was next ta ye’, said
one of the Scotsmen quietly.

Ralf looked confused. He reddened. ‘How so?’

The Scotsman just shrugged, so James answered for him:

‘
Because, Ralf, ye have to be firing at least eight a
minute if you’re going to stand any chance of stopping Frenchie at
all. At six a minute ye’re a dead man.’

The daughters’ eyes grew even wider, but Simon the
apothecary just smiled and returned to his soup. With a grunt, Ralf
pushed his bench back:

‘
And how do you know that?’ he said.

‘
I know,’ said James. ‘That’s all.’ He
finished his meal, stood up, bowed to the Simon and his wife, and
went out into the street. Ralf followed him.

‘
I can shoot, you know,’ he said. ‘My father
taught me. He fought in the Welsh Wars against the Glendower.’

‘
I’m sure he did,’ replied James, looking up at
the stars. It was a clear night and the moon had risen with a
frost-ring.

‘
He taught me five a minute on an old ash bow, and
then when I came to Norwich, my master taught me six on a yew-wood.
Only thing he ever did – apart from beat me that is. Funny thing,
really. He’d kick me around all week, an’ treat me worse than his
dog, then on Sundays he’d take me down to the long meadow with all
the other lads, an’ teach me how to shoot. Like I was his son or
something.’

‘
Well, he didn’t teach ye enough. You put up six a
minute against the French an’ the master bowman will have ye back
among the baggage boys before ye can say hail Mary.’

For a while Ralf didn’t reply. He scuffed at the
cobbles with his boot, and turned and stared across the street at the
sign of the tailor.

‘
Is that so,’ he said at last.

‘
Aye, it is,’ said James.

Ralf paused again. ‘Teach me then!’ he said
suddenly.

‘
Teach ye what?’

‘
To shoot more than six. To shoot eight.’

James didn’t reply. There was a group of drunken
sailors coming up the street from the docks. They were singing. He
watched them until they wandered by and disappeared down a side alley
and into a tavern.

‘
You want to shoot eight?’ he asked Ralf.

'Aye I do.’

‘
Afore we march?’

‘
Aye, well . . .if it can be done.’

‘
Well, ye’d need to find yourself a masterbowman,
and one with time on his hands and a wallet to fill.’

‘
Not you, then?’

James sighed. ‘Listen, lad. It took my older brother
and then my father five years to get me to shoot eight a minute on a
little half bow. Then it was another three years to get to five shots
on a full bow with a one -twenty pound draw. Two more years, and I
was doing eight a minute on a one-fifty pounder my uncle made me.
It’s the one I carry now.’

‘
Eight a minute on a hundred and fifty pounder!’
Ralf gasped.

‘
We all of us shot twelve a minute at Agincourt when
it mattered.’

Ralf’s face fell and his shoulders sagged. He took a
few steps and sat down on the cobbles, his back to a water trough.
‘I’d never do that!’ he said.

James came and sat beside him. ‘Not this side of
Michaelmas,’ he said. ‘But a good masterbowman could see you
right within a twelve month, if ye have as much willing as I think ye
have.’

‘
And in the meantime?’

James laughed. ‘Get down to the bowyer and find a
stave of Spanish yew that draws one-ten. That way ye’ll put eight
arrows in the air, even though they’ll bounce off all but leather
and mail at fifty yards.’

‘
But that’s no good!’

‘
Aye, you’re right, but it’ll look pretty enough,
and should fool the master until you build up a bit more brawn and
get back to the one fifteen or even a twenty.’

‘
And how long is that?’

‘
As long as ye want to make it, lad. But I wouldn’t
hang around if I were you. Stay out of the taverns, leave the wenches
alone and get down to the butts as much as ye can.’ He hesitated.
‘I’ll give ye a start, and then try to find a masterbowman to set
ye right.’

Almost without thinking, Ralf grabbed James by the arm
and shook his hand. ‘Thank you!’ he blurted out.

'Ah, think nothing of it!’ James got to his feet and
headed off down the street. He turned and called over his shoulder:

‘
Oh, and buy yourself a horse! You’ll be needing one
for the march.’

'A horse? A horse? Where do I find a horse?’ Ralf
shouted.

James laughed again. ‘If you have the money, lad, the
horse will find you!’ Moments later he was gone, leaving Ralf alone
by the water trough.

The young apprentice looked all about him then shrugged:

‘
I should’ve stayed in Norwich,’ he said, and went
back into the house.

For the next three weeks Ralf trained hard down at the
butts. Most of the time James was there too, keeping an eye on the
young archer and looking to his own training. He had almost given up
finding a master bowman to tutor Ralf when he noticed a group of
Welsh longbowmen in their familiar green and white tunics. They were
gathered by one of the targets on the western side of the meadow. He
wandered across. As he came up to them, he recognised one straight
away. It was Yevan ap Griffiths, and he was half-turned away from
James, checking the horn-tip on his bow. He looked around as James
greeted him:

Hey up, there! It’s young James Fletcher! What are ye
doing here, boyo? I thought ye were away to that young wife of
yours, and an easy life in an English village.’

James smiled and grasped Yevan’s outstretched arm:

‘
Well met, Yevan! I’m here for enough to buy me some
land, then I’m away back to my home.’

‘
Hah hah! Are ye now, then? The fields of France are
white with the bones of Englishmen who thought the same. I thought
ye’d learnt your lesson, James. That Frenchie nearly skinned ye at
Agincourt, if I remember it right.’

‘
Aye, and it was your good self that kept me on my
feet. What company are ye with?’

Yevan put his head on one side and winked: ‘Why Dorset
of course, but I fight in the pay of a young English captain fresh
from Wales and eager for the wars.’

James looked carefully at him: ‘You’re not saying ..
.’

'Aye, I am, boyo! It’s William Bretoun. Left his kin
in Yeovil and came to the valleys to find men fit for the fight.’

‘
The devil ‘e did!’

'Ye can leave the divvil out of it, boyo! It’s Captain
William now, and he’ll do me for a man to follow, and a wage to
draw.’

'It’s his indenture then, ye signed.’

‘
Aye, and fixed to the seal of our lord of Dorset.
We’ve all signed, ain’t we lads?’

The others nodded, and turned back to their weapons.
James smiled again, and took a pace back. ‘Well, ye know as well as
any that I can’t leave my captain – like enough as I would – I
carry the indenture of a Wiltshire man.’

‘
And more fool you, young James, but I’ll keep an
eye out for ye on the march and in the battle line.’

For a while James said nothing, but stooped and picked
the stork of a barley grass, and chewed on it.

‘
There’s a lad over there,’ he said at last. ‘He’s
shooting everything and anything at the butts.’

‘
Oh, aye.’

‘
Name of Ralf. Lodges with me and two others. Knows
Tom Tattle about archery, but he’d like to know more.’

Yevan grinned. ‘Go on, and maybe I’ll catch your
drift.’

‘
Well, I can train him up for brawn and puff, but I
can’t teach him the tricks, see. Not like you, leastways.’

‘
Ahah! The tricks o’ the trade! Ho, James, so this
is where ye are leading me.’ He wrinkled his brow. ‘How much does
this Ralf lad draw?’

‘
Eight at one fifteen.’

Yevan threw back his head and roared: ‘What’s this
you say? Eight at one fifteen! Be damned to your silliness James
Fletcher! What am I meant to do with that?’

James shrugged and smiled. ‘As much as ye can, Yevan.
There’s silver in his wallet, and fire in his belly. I’m sure you
can take the one to feed the other.’