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 (5 page)

       What is absolutely astonishing, to Thomas and I at least, is that Guy’s defeat and capture at Hattin ended his kingship of Jerusalem and here he is as the new King of Cyprus.  The Christian kings and nobles who ransomed him after Hattin and then helped him buy the Cyprus crown for one hundred thousand bezant gold coins are as dumb as stones according to my brother. 

       Thomas thinks their stupidity and ignorance comes from drinking bad wine and bodes well for my son’s future.
  Thomas is quite knowledgeable about such things and well educated as everyone knows.  He read all nine books at the monastery before me mum died and he left to rescue me and take me crusading with Richard.

       On balance our success and the prospect of prize money attracts many more recruits in Malta than we lose in desertions.  Most of those we accept to apprentice as archers are strong young Maltese lads although we do pick up a few sailors and a couple Brindisi’s bored veterans. 

      
It’s hard to understand why any of our men would run here on Malta – It’s a small island, the wine is too sweet, and tavern girls smell bad.  Besides, the men on our successful raid don’t get their prize money until they get their prizes to Cyprus.

       I also have time to talk to meet the local bishop in the tavern to talk about finding likely young boys capable of being learned their letters and sums along with George and his chums.  We’ll pick up any of the boys the bishop and his priests find for us on the way back to England in the fall.  I tell him they’ll be learned Latin and become priests themselves one day. 
And so they will – but not to serve the church. 

      
The bishop is enthusiastic.  He says he’ll do it “for the church” even though I am sure he thinks we intend to use the boys for fucking the way the priests do now that the Pope has ordered them not to marry; I think he’ll do it and there will be boys waiting when we return because I promise to pay him a bezant gold coin for every very smart boy he procures.

       “No Excellency,” I tell him for the second or third time as I bang my hand on the wooden table so hard that my bowl of wine jumps.
I’m getting aggravated.

      
“We do not want good looking boys; we only want smart boys who can be learned up to read and write Latin like priests and do sums.  They can be ugly as sin if they are quick to learn and lively.”

       Our big intake is from the hundreds of slaves we freed from the Algerian galleys.  Most of them quickly make their marks in exchange for food and transport to Cyprus and the Holy Land; the rest take of running as soon as their feet hit dry land. 

       We’ve got the slaves who stayed with us on double rations to strengthen them up and we’ll sort them out when we get to Cyprus. If the past is any guide there will be some men from Britain and a lot of potential Marines and good sailormen among the others who have nowhere to go. 

      
A legion of men with no homes to go home to is what they mostly are - and so are we, Thomas and me, except that we have George and each other and a couple of castles including the big one with three rooms and an escape tunnel.  

       It’s a good thing we signed up so many of the slaves even though many of them are sick and will die of the coughing pox – spreading our men out over the prizes means all of our galleys are going out of Malta shorthanded - even though I changed my mind about adding over a hundred archers and men at arms to one of the new cogs so it can sail as one of our pirate takers.  Instead it and other two will sail as cargo cogs with only sailors in their crews. 

       We’ve got enough sailors because so many of the Algerian slaves came off of sailing ships their galleys took; it’s Marine archers we’re short of, particularly those who know how to use a longbow.  We don’t have any to spare for another pirate-taker.

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       It is a stirring sight to see and hear as the drums begin to beat and our three new cogs and all but one of our twenty five galleys move out of the harbor on the last Saturday in April.  One of the galleys under William from Lewes is staying behind to gather up any late arriving prizes
.  I’m not hopeful.  Perhaps the last two prizes have been retaken.

      
We’ve got candles in the lamps on our masts and once again we’ll try to stay together for as long as possible.
 
It’s probably not all that important that we stay together because it’s a rare pirate that will go after a war galley.  They are, after all, much more likely to be carrying fighting men than valuable cargos. 

       On the other hand, it’s better to be safe than sorry since the Algerians may be out in force as a result of our raid - and recognize our prizes as their own and try to take them back.  As we well know, even the best crew of sailors and Marine archers can be overwhelmed if they have to fight a large number of enemy ships or boarders at the same time.

       In any event we stay together for three days before a passing squall causes us to separate in the night.  In the morning several of our galleys are visible in the distance but we make no effort to rejoin them.  The days that follow are sunny and the wind favorable so we only have to row periodically.  The men spend their time working on their weapons and clothes and yarning about how they’re going to spend their prize money.

       Harold and I spend much of our time at sea talking with some of the slaves recently freed by our galleys, particularly those who claim to be master mariners who know these seas and the streams along the coasts where water and safety are available.  There are likely some strong arms among the Algerian slaves we freed but not an experienced archer among them.  We’ll have to train those we decide to keep. 

       Several of the men Harold and I talk with were ships’ masters and sergeants before the Moors took them and claim to be able to read and cipher as well.  But it soon becomes apparent that only one them actually possesses both skills.  His name Robert and he’s from Yorkshire. 

        Robert’s family, so far as he knows, were serfs or tenant farmers.  He’s not sure.  He’d been learned his sums and letters in the monastery where his village priest had sold him as a young boy when the pox took his family back when old Henry was king.  At least that’s what the monks told him before he gave up being a novice priest and ran off to sea from the nearby port of Whitby.

       “It’s better to be a galley slave,” is Robert’s only comment when I ask him how he liked being in the monastery.  But he can read and do sums and is willing to make his mark and join us as a sailor sergeant.  I’m going to keep him close to me for a while to see if he might be useful.  Anyone who distrusts priests can’t be entirely hopeless.

      
Talking with Robert Monk raises an idea I’m going to discuss with Thomas when I get back to England – if Marines and sailors are too set in their ways to learn to read and write maybe Thomas can find the men we need at the monasteries and we can learn them to be Marine archers and sailors.  If not, we’ll have to keep looking for boys Thomas can learn to be both and wait for them to grow up.

                                 Chapter Four

       Cyprus is joyful and pleasing as we row into the Limassol harbor on a wonderful early summer day.  It’s like coming home and, truth be told, in many ways it is.  It’s certainly a nicer place to live than England because of the weather.  The problem, of course, is what my brother Thomas keeps reminding me - that my son and I are English and will always be outsiders here no matter how much we try to fit in. 

       Besides, just living here would be boring and my brother and I have bigger things in mind for George.

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       Yoram and a number of our men are waiting at the dock as I vault over the galley’s deck rail and join them.  Yoram gets a big embrace and there are big smiles and handshakes and backslapping all around.  I’m glad to be here and there’s no denying it. 
Of course Yoram gets a big embrace and I hug him off the ground and dance him around.  We’re friends who have been through a lot together - and I want to establish his importance in the eyes of our new men.  There are a lot of eyes on us and the word will get around.

      
And by God there’s Brian and Henry!

       “Brian is that you?  Can it be?”  And another big hug although this time I’m a lot more careful and don’t pick him up and swing him about.  Brian’s got a bad leg doesn’t he?  And good old Henry gets a big handshake and a hearty clap on both shoulders for the good man he is.

       We four walk arm and arm up the beach with a big and happy crowd following behind and everyone talking and waving their arms about.  Good friends, being alive and unhurt after a battle, and prize money will do that for you every time.  My young helpers and fetchers Peter Sergeant and Robert Monk follow behind us and take it all in.

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     Yoram’s report is quite interesting.  The six galleys we sent back from England last fall have been bringing in a constant stream of refugees and lots of coins – lots and lots of coins and refugees.  Many of the coins they bring are ours from the payments we receive for carrying refugees and pilgrims.  But others are coins being sent by merchants and others who are willing to pay us to hold them safe until their owners show up with the proper parchments and claim them. 

      
They are depositing coins with us for safekeeping?

      
“When did this depositing thing start?  Who is doing this?”

       “At first it was the leather merchants from a village outside Acre.  They buy their leather from Cyprus and don’t want to chance losing their payment coins to pirates.  So they offered to pay u a fee if we would carry their coins here and guard them until they need to spend them.  Then the story got around and others began sending coins to get them safely out of the Holy Land in case the Saracens come and they have to run for it.” 

       “It’s turning into a good way to earn coins.  It all started when we charged a fee to carry coins here for the leather merchants so they could buy hides and other things here in Cyprus without having to risk a sea trip.”

       “And, of course, I’m very careful – I keep all of our coins on one side of my room and all those that belong to others on the other side.”

       Yoram is seriously worried that an effort will be made to seize the coins.  He takes me up the stair to show them to me - and what I see surprises me, it truly does.  He has so many chests of coins stacked up on both sides of his room that there is hardly any space left in the middle for his family.  And it isn’t just an attack to rob us of them that worries me.  I know how heavy a chest of coins is and I’m afraid the floor will give way and drop them on the archer sergeants sleeping in the room below.

       “And all the new galleys will bring in even more coins and refugees,” Yoram tells me.  “A whole lot more.” 
Well I certainly understand why Yoram is keeping so many of our Marine archers here as guards.

       “Well, I certainly understand why you’re keeping so many of our archers here,” I tell him.  “It was a very good decision and you were absolutely right to make it.”

       Another of Yoram’s problems are the refugees who come with the coins.  He is continuing to employ all the refugees who will work for food – they are presently working on a third wall and already starting a fourth.  And we’ve got four eighty-oar galleys in very stages of construction in the little shipyard we set up next to the beach last year.  The first of them is about ready to launch. 

       The place is like a beehive and the hive is getting stronger and stronger.

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       Later that afternoon, as soon as we have a chance to walk together and talk privately, I ask Yoram what else he thinks we should be doing. 

       “There are three things I think we should try to do in order to earn more coins,” Yoram suggests very deferentially.
I can tell; he’s obviously thought about this for some time.

       “One is to buy one of the old copper quarries from the Roman days and use it to mine the stones we need for the faces of our new log walls.  There’s one fairly close that might be good for us.  It’s obviously been closed for years but we can put some of the refugees to reopening it for us and move them there to live and cut stones to face the logs in our new walls.” 

       “Another thing is to buy some of the trees on the king’s lands and use some of the refugees to cut them and bring the logs here for use in building our new curtain walls and maybe even use it in our shipyard - except I’m not so sure about using the local wood for building galleys.  The local shipwrights don’t like it.  Besides, we’re still getting good ship building wood from the Lebanon despite the fighting, even from the Saracen ports if you can imagine that. And it’s already cut, isn’t it?” 

       “I thought we were getting the logs we need for the new walls from the local merchants?”  
We don’t want to alienate the local merchants.

       “Well we are, William.  We are.  We’re buying our logs and shipyard wood from the two local wood merchants.  Unfortunately, or so they claim, they don’t have many tall trees left to cut.  The problem is that the good logs that stand high enough to use in our walls are hard to find.  The problem is that most of the tall trees still standing are on the king’s hunting lands and can’t be cut.”