The Archer's Gold: Medieval Military fiction: A Novel about Wars, Knights, Pirates, and Crusaders in The Years of the Feudal Middle Ages of William Marshall ... (The Company of English Archers Book 7) (21 page)

       First to arrive is the emperor himself although we are not supposed to know who it is and pretend we don't.  He is, after all, in a monk's habit with its hood up and covering his head.  The emperor, it seems, is departing with the gold, his eldest son, and many of his guards - and leaving the rest of his family and his courtiers and soldiers behind. 

       The only problem is that he has chartered one galley and his secret cargo is on another which has developed a dangerous leak.  It is a problem that is easily solved.  His own men can move the gold chests from where they are to a much superior eighty oar war galley with one of our very best captains and his fine crew.

       "We English are proud of our reputation for honoring our contracts; it's good for business."

       That's what I tell the monk through the white haired man acting as his interpreter.

        "That's why we had the two requirements to which your representatives agreed when we made our contract" - which I promptly unroll and point out.

       "First, since my men are never allowed to touch personal cargos, your men, not mine, must inspect the crates and move them to the galley which is to sail to wherever it is that you tell the galley's captain you want to go."

       "Second, you must somewhere along the route of your voyage hide the crates at a secret place of your choice without any of my men ever knowing or seeing where you hide them.  That way we English cannot be blamed if anyone knows where the gold is before you use it to hire mercenaries."

       Nothing could be fairer or more reasonable; our integrity is greatly appreciated and our requirements quickly reaffirmed.   

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       We are soon gathered around the special cargo hold and the narrow hatch is pulled back and a candle lantern held down to reveal the crates stacked down below.  Every one of them is open and ready for inspection and there is room for a man to stand next to them and inspect them.

       "Please choose someone your trust to climb down the ladder into the hold and inspect the contents of your crates, Excellency.  He can seal them up after he inspects them and pass them up here for your men to carry to the galley you and your party will be traveling on - it's that one over there.  It's the best and safest one we have."

       There is a brief conversation among our visitors and a young dandy in fine clothes climbs down the wooden ladder into the little cargo hold.  He's carrying a candle lantern which Peter handed him. 

       He quickly holds something up for everyone to see and shouts up to the men standing around the opening above him.  They are looking down into the hold and watching intently.  There is no doubt about it.  The gold bars are in the crates. 

       "Use this and screw down the screws to seal the lids so nothing falls out, then pass them up here," I have the interpreter tell him as I take the screwdriver one of  our carpenters hands me and toss it down for the dandy to use.

       That's when things go wrong.  He obviously doesn't have a clue as to what to do.

       "Come out," I tell him.  He can't understand the words but the motion I make with my hand is clear.  He hands the lantern to me when I hold out my hand to take it as he is climbing up the ladder; he's happy to be rid of it and wipes his hand on his pants.

      "You do it Evans," I say to one of my men as soon as the dandy climbs out of the hold. 

       Evans immediately climbs in and gets to work.  I hold up the lantern so he can see to work in its dim light and the people standing around the hatch can see him do it.  Evans works fast and he knows what he is doing.  The boxes are quickly resealed and Evans promptly climbs out.

       Once again I motion for the dandy to climb down. 

       "Hand them up to the men up here."  The boy tries despite the fact that they are obviously too heavy for him to manage.  And when he does finally get a crate on his shoulder and manage to climb part way up the ladder he can't get the crate through the hatch opening.  It's clear that the opening is slightly too narrow with the ladder in the way. 
What a mess.

       "Come out," I tell him with a resigned look on my face and beckoning motion of my hand.  What I am telling the young man to do is unmistakable despite the fact that he doesn't understand the words.  Once again he climbs out.

       While he's climbing up the ladder to get out I shout over my shoulder, "Where's Bob Little?  Peter, send someone to get Bob Little."

        Bob arrives a minute or two later and I tell him what to do.  He climbs down into the hold and Peter pulls the ladder up.  Bob is one of the tallest men in our company. Well over six feet some say. He doesn't need to be on the ladder to pass the crates up to the deck.

       Crates begin coming out of the hold as fast as they can be carried away by the emperor's guards.  When all the crates are out Peter puts the ladder back in and Bob climbs out.  I hold the lantern up high and wave it over the empty hold so everyone can see that the hold is truly empty. 
Good grief; that was an ordeal.

       Twenty minutes later we hear the rowing drum on the chartered galley and watch in the moonlight as the emperor and his crates leave the harbor. 

       According to our revised contract, the galley's destination is wherever in the world the emperor wants to go.  Somewhere along the way, wherever and whenever the emperor decides, the galley will stop while the emperor's guards unload and hide the gold.

        Even if it takes a week or more, the sergeant captain and his crew will wait in their galley while the emperor's men hide the crates.  That way he and his men can return whenever they wish and retrieve it at their leisure when they need it to pay the mercenaries - and we English are not to blame if it goes missing.

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       The bishop and his servants and a chest full of coins to pay us arrive a couple hours after the emperor sails away with his guards and retainers.  The bishop had heard rumors of the emperor's fleeing the city and is visibly relieved when the dim light of the lantern I am holding reveals the open crates and the gold that is his personal responsibility to spend. 

       His relief grows into a broad smile when one of his priests goes down to inspect them and verifies that they are full of gold bars. 

      After his priest reseals the crates he'll pass them up the ladder and the bishop's men themselves will carry the crates to the galley, our very best, which will take the bishop to wherever in the world he wants to go "to hire people to help us" and wait somewhere along the way while he hides them.

       Not surprisingly, the crates still don't fit through the opening.  So once again  Bob Little is called.  He climbs down and passes them up to the bishop's men to be carried to the galley that will carry the bishop and the crates to wherever he wants to hide them.

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       We go through the same exact process once again when the chamberlain arrives the next morning with his payment, and yet again with the admiral in the afternoon.

       Only when the admiral's galley is fading out of sight over the horizon do Peter and I go down to the newly built room in the cargo hold where the hundred crates of hastily gathered rocks had been stored. 

       It's hard to work in the dark - our shipyard carpenters can seal the little door between the two compartments when we get back to Cyprus.

                           - End of the Book -

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        This has been Book Seven of  "The English Archers" saga. Books one through six of  the saga are available in Kindle editions.  The parchments for the Eighth book are currently being pieced together and translated at the Bodleian Library.  It will be released sometime in the autumn of 2015. 

       Readers may also enjoy the similarly action-packed novels of Martin Archer’s  acclaimed “The Soldier” saga.  They follow a young soldier who stays on active duty after a war and becomes a professional soldier - and then fights and serves everywhere  from Vietnam to the Middle east and in the coming wars between China and Russia and between Israel and the Arabs. 

       All of Martin Archer’s novels are available as Kindle eBooks and will sooner or later be available in print. (Search for "Martin Archer" on Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk,  Amazon.com.au, and other Amazon websites serving other countries. )

                       
Other exciting eBooks by Martin Archer

“Soldiers and Marines”   (The story of a young frontline soldier’s years of fighting in Korea)

“Peace and Conflict” (An older and more mature Chris Roberts fights in Vietnam with the Legion and then with the allies.)

“War Breaks Out”   (Moscow orders and invasion of Germany and NATO fights back.)

“War in the East”   (The West sides with Moscow when China invades the Russian east to reclaim its lost territories.)

“The Islamic–Israeli War”  (A Coalition of Islamic countries launches a surprise attack on Israel that forever changes Israel and the Middle East.)

  
Sample Pages from Book One of the Archer Saga

                       “THE ARCHER”

                       Chapter One    

“THE ARCHER AND THE BISHOP”

      The weary men straggle out of the desert and into the port late in the morning.  There are eighteen of them, all English archers, and most of them have walked day and night for the past three days. 

       The only exceptions are two wounded men on a makeshift litter being dragged behind a dusty camel and a brown robed priest riding on an exhausted horse and holding a sleeping young boy.  The boy is wrapped in a dirty priest’s robe to protect him against the chill of the spring day.

       The dirty and begrimed young man walking at the front of the column stops and waits until the priest reaches him. 

       “How’s George?”

        He gestures with a tired wave of his arm towards the sleeping child as he asks.

        “Your son is fine,” answers the priest as the horse stops. 

        The boy wakes up and twists around to get more comfortable in the Priest’s arms when the horse stops.  Then he sits up straight and looks around. 

       “Put me down Uncle Thomas, I want to walk with my father and the men for a while.  My arse is sore and I’m thirsty.”

       And with that he wriggles out of the priest’s arms and slides off the horse.  He is barefoot and wearing a rough brown shirt that hangs to his knees.   Edward the tailor made it for him before he’d been killed by the unlucky stone that had been catapulted over the wall by the Saracens and hit him in the head. 

       “Look Papa, what is that?” 

       The boy asks the question as he massages his rear with one hand and with the other points to the flat gray expanse of the Mediterranean that spreads out beyond stone houses and the ships in the harbor.

       “That’s the big water I told you about, the one that is so salty you can’t drink it.  And those things out there on top of the water are the big ships.  They’re called cogs and they carry people across the big water just like the boats on a river can carry people across the river.  The only difference is that those out there are much bigger.”

        The boy is not convinced as he stands there studying the scene in front of us.

       “They look little.”

       “They’ll look bigger when we get closer.”

       “Really?”

       The boy looks back intensely at the scene in front of him.  Then he shakes his head and looks back at his father questioningly.

       “Your Uncle Thomas is right, George.  All of us can fit on one of those cogs with room to spare.  The big ones can carry as many as a hundred men or even more.  That’s how your uncle Thomas and I and all the archers got here from England.  Almost a hundred of us came on each boat.  And that’s how we’ll go back – all together.”

      
Except we’ve got to get our pay so we can hire a boat and there will only be eighteen of us instead of the one hundred and ninety two that came out from England with King Richard seven years ago - and that’s if we can get the arrow out of Brian’s leg without it rotting and Athol the ox drover stops getting dizzy and falling down when he tries to walk.

       The city is so packed with Christians and Jews fleeing the oncoming Saracens that the city gates are closed and the master of the caravanserai adjacent to the city is only allowing his traditional merchant customers and rich refugees to enter.  Everyone else is camping and starving outside - thousands of them.  Even at a distance we can smell the people and their livestock and see the dust they are raising.