The Archer: Historical Fiction: exciting novel about Marines and Naval Warfare of medieval England set in feudal times with knights,Templars, and crusaders during Richard the lionhearted's reign by Archer Martin

Author:Archer, Martin [Archer, Martin]
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
Published: 2014-10-16T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eleven

“THE TRIUMPHANT RETURN”

“Ahoy, Lord William, welcome home.” That’s the smiling dockworker’s cry to me as he catches the rope thrown by one of our sailors and a mob of people begins to assemble.

It’s good to be home even if isn’t really home and it’s even better to be a lord with a title fully bought and paid for. Who would have thought it? And Thomas a bishop. My mother would be speechless if she knew. I wonder if she does. I’ll have to ask Thomas.

Our return to Cyprus with our two galleys full of newly recruited fighting men and paying passengers creates quite a stir when we come into the Limassol harbor a couple of hours after sunup - particularly when we begin unloading the warped and rusty Saracen weapons and it becomes known that one or more of our galleys will be immediately going back for another load and more refugees.

Thomas must have seen us enter the harbor - for he’s there with George when I climb down to the dock. So the first thing I do is give George great big hugs and swing him round and round while he shrieks with glee. Then I hold him tight while Thomas brings me up to date on what’s been happening while I was gone.

What follows is a familiar scene: Our refugee passengers with coins hurry into the city to find food and lodging; our new recruits and the rest of our passengers, those who bought their way to safety and don’t have a clue as to what to do next, follow us around the city walls to our compound; the four Hospitallers we are carrying quickly disappear; and Aaron hurries into the city to report on the success of our trip and tell the merchants to forget the arrow heads and swords and concentrate on providing us with arrow shafts and bows, particularly long bows.

Aaron is very pleased when I inform him we will keep our word and buy all the swords and arrow heads the merchants have already accumulated for us at our previously agreed price. Although I have no idea what we will do with them now that we have so much old metal off the Saracens. Sell them?

@@@@@

Our return from Acre results in a frenzy of activity. The biggest immediate task is to get one of our galleys back to Acre as quickly as possible to pick up another load of refugees and the rest of the rusty and deteriorating Saracen weapons. We can always use more coins and the Saracen weapons are just too important to leave behind.

It means one of our galleys needs to immediately sail for Acre and then come straight back so it can help convoy the cogs to Alexandria. And that, of course, requires decisions from me as to who is to go to Acre and which galley is to be used. I don’t know who will end up going to Acre but it isn’t going to be me.

Thomas and

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.