The Archer's Lady

The gold-threaded embroidered ribbon tied round my left wrist signifies my status as one of the eight competitors and the Tower Guards, employed to keep order in the Field, wave me through to the centre field with barely a second glance at my face.

Damn, I find I am early.

My father always advises waiting until called, preferably out of sight of other archers. That had been my intention, but the unknown Friar had disturbed my concentration and made me move hither both too soon and too quickly in my stride.

The Archer Field Sergeant nods to me in recognition as I put down my bag. He probably knew from day one those likely to stay in the tourney for the long haul as he has alway been civil with me while oft barking at the lesser ranked archers. He waves me ready to come up to the mark. We wait, but only for a minute at most before my opponent stands next to me on my left, with my back to him as I prepare to draw my bow taut.

The archer is shorter than me by a palm of my hand at least, and a whole lot slighter of build, even though a beanpole I am oft alikened to. I glance at him briefly, his head almost completely covered by a huge floppy Flemish beret, but my eyes are irresistibly drawn to a large boil upon the end of his nose, red and angry looking. Boils are common, particularly in the city, where fresh water spare enough to wash in is hard to come by, unlike the many brilliant wells we boast of in Oaklea, in the upper valley of the River Bar. I look away, manners dictate I stare not; my sister Alwen would not thank me to draw attention to any embarrassing defect in anyone, whither opponent or friend.

I concentrate instead on our respective targets, one on the left for my opponent and mine on the right. I check on the wind, both those airs whispering about me, and any obvious deviation down the field, indicated by flags and flapping bunting. It is a lovely late September day and all the gathered throng look forward to the sport, as do I.

"To the mark, young sirs," the Sergeant calls, although we are both only a few inches from where we need be. Almost as one, we dequiver and nock the first of our arrows and draw the bowstring back to our chins and we let fly our opening darts, both at the same time as if we practiced oft together. Even the distance we are away from the targets, the sudden hush of the watching crowd enables us to hear the targets decisively struck and see the Target Marshall wave a gold flag in each hand, testifying a bull apiece.

We draw again, knowing from previous form that we will fire three before pausing, before the Archery Field Sergeant updates the crowd with the scores.

Before we can even release our charged bows, though, a contingent of London City guards, in their long white tabards, marked with a blood-red upturned dagger of the City at each one's right breast, march through the throng to halt in front of where we stand, thus betwixt the targets and us. Despite the heat of being just past the noonday, a pair of ermine-fur cloaked Aldermen, bearing their heavy silver gilt maces of office over their shoulders, stand bold at their head.

"These proceedings are called to a halt!" cries the fattest and oldest one of the pair.

"What's this interruption for?" bellows the Field Sergeant, "We are outside the City Walls and thereby beyond the jurisdiction of your City of London guards."

"We are here to arrest this archer," the fattest Alderman continues, pompously, pointing at my opponent, "in the name of the King!"

"Huh!" the Field Sergeant scoffs, "since when did the City Aldermen of London ever have a kind word for any Norman King?"

"Well," the Alderman says snootily, "ever since when the King's own kith and kin hath turned agin him and incurs His Majesty's extreme displeasure, what affects us all ... and he offers a fine reward for the Lady's capture, that's when we are the King's Men!"

"Huh!" the Field Sergeant snaps, "there be no 'Lady' here, my Lords, just these two fine young gentlemen, who be among the finest archers in the land that I've ever clapped mine eyes upon."

Now the thinner and junior of the two Aldermen takes a couple of steps forward and pulls the floppy Flemish beret-hat from my opponent's head.

Rich dark chestnut hair falls about the archer's ears and tumbles over her narrow shoulders.

"You should see your face, Robin," the girl archer says, looking at me full in the eye, and picking off the 'boil' from her nose with her right hand. "I'm really quite hurt, you know, you not recognising me after we were once so ... close. Have you not missed me terribly these past few years?"

"Well, Lady Elinor," I reply, "you did have me fooled with that angry red spot upon your nose."

"It's half a filbert shell, painted red and stuck on with sticky birch sap. A trick I learned from your father," she laughs, "but, what I really wanted to know was, have you not missed me at least somewhat?"

"I have barely spared any thought of you from then 'til now," I lie, "but I admit to my curiosity being piqued by the circumstances of our sudden and dramatic reacquaintance. So, my Lady, why are we meeting, as we are both not here by the mere chance of coincidence I guess?"

"Oh, Robin, you know with me that nothing ever happens by coincidence," as she smiles that smile. The same one I see every night when I sleep and every morning when I awake and realise she was never there with me betwixt times and never would be.

"I always find it safe to assume as much, my Lady."

"Hurumph!" the fatter Alderman interjects into our conversation, taking our attention from each other, and back to stare at his fat red face, "we are not here for idle chitchat betwixt thee co-conspirators, but to arrest the Countess here for High Treason."

I turn to Lady Elinor, "High Treason, my Lady?"

She nods, "We had a falling out. You know, parents and their children, I'm sure it happens all the time ..." and, noticing my raised eyebrows, adds, "except in your family, Robin, naturally."

I grin, "Naturally."

"Quiet you two," the Elder Alderman insists, "You are both under arrest."

"Both? Why me?" I ask indignantly, "I have never even been here to London Town before."

"You clearly know the Countess well, and that be enough for me to know that thee be likely involved in her treasonous plot, you young cur. Now, guards, seize them both and drag them to the Guildhall!"

"Hold on Alderman," the Lady intercedes, "we are without your City walls, are we not? Besides, we archers are here under the sworn protection of the Tower Guards, are we not, Field Sergeant?"

"Aye, my Lady, you be in my charge, all right," the Field Sergeant booms, stepping between us and the Aldermen and their guards, puffing out his chest, covered with the King's Arms of gules two lions passant guardant.

"Ha! I have thee both in the line of fire," the fat Alderman splutters, waving his arm in an arc, indicating two pairs of archers perched high upon the ancient London City Wall, "if ye do not surrender to me and the good brethren of the City of London, then we will shoot thee down where thee stand, just like dogs."

The Walls are fully 350 feet away, a challenging shot for any archer, but with the two pairs of archers about twenty feet apart, they have height advantage and a clear, clean shot on us, on either side of the Field Sergeant.

"I'll take the two on the left," Lady Elinor says calmly, already aiming and loosening her first loaded arrow towards one of the men on the wall.

Gripping my fully drawn arrow with my thumb pinching it against my forefinger joint, I use my right hand to draw a second arrow from my quiver. I raise my arrow point towards the wall as I nock the second arrow, keeping the two arrow shafts apart with my right middle finger and resting the sharp end against my now up-curving left thumb. I swing the bow at a tilted angle, and release the two arrows before Lady Elinor loads and launches her second arrow from the bow.

She steps smoothly aside, as do I, to avoid the arrows already discharged towards us, which harmlessly strike the ground five or six feet behind us; one arrow in the Lady's case, two in mine.

The first archer, already struck by the Lady in the chest, had discharged his arrow loosely, aimlessly, into the crowd over on the right of the field, before he topples out of sight, backwards off the Wall. On my side, the two archers are simultaneously struck in the chest by my target arrows and disappear from view, before they could recharge their bows. The final archer is struck in the throat as he tries to duck, far too late to avoid the Lady's telling dart.

"Nice shooting, Robin," the Lady says.

"A trick that I learned from my father," I grin.

The Lady draws another arrow to match mine, which is already drawn and pointing at the thinner of the two spluttering Alderman. The Lady's arrow is aimed at the chest of the fat Alderman, his breathing much faster now than it was prior to the brief exchange of arrows. They are only now turning from witnessing their overwhelming advantage crumble to naught, to face us again.

"No arrests today, Aldermen," Lady Elinor firmly challenges them, "my friend and I could hardly miss the pair of you at this range ... and a fully drawn longbow from here would deliver a thirty-three inch arrow able to punch through a quarter inch steel plate at two hundred yards. From this short distance at full draw, my dart would thus penetrate your furs and the jerkins of your guards, this arrow head would punch through three of you aline before it felt full sated of human blood!"

The guards behind start to shuffle to either side, away from behind their Civic leaders.

Four cowled monks ride their black horses up to us, two of them each pulling a spare horse, one of them, I note, is my very own mount, carrying my clothes bag and spare quivers of arrows from my room at the Inn. Clearly, I have already been cleared out of the inn and have no choice but to follow my Lady's lead or resign myself to imprisonment in one of London's infamous dungeons.

More Tower guards appear to surround the City men at arms, leaving us free to leave the field unmolested. I glance once more at the Walls, but no brave or foolish archer has reappeared to provide any threat to our departure.

We mount and ride off two abreast, two monks ahead, two behind, the crowd around us parting like Mose's Red Sea to let us through unmolested, leaving them an unbelievable tale to tell in the taverns tonight and many nights to follow, each retelling gaining in its length and breadth.

"Where is the Count?" I venture to ask of the Lady as we ride abreast, "I am sure this is a spectacle he would not wish to miss."

"Alas, Robin, my dear Count is held for ransom, and for far more than gold, as is, I believe, our mutual friend Rebecca, where even a king's ransom may not yet save her. My father refuses us aid to free either of them. His hands are tied, he swears. So I turn to the one man I have known who is both chivalrous and true."

She smiled that familiar smile and I knew I was once more lost.

"Surely, Robin, you of all common men of my acquaintance, will help a Lady friend in distress?"

Chapter 2

The River

We ride through paths between the fields next to the City, past the bone hill where the throng of so many people, seventeen thousand, I heard once, living in one singular town have their rubbish dumped into what were once the waste of fertile gardens, and we continue down towards the river. We ride in silence past the the imposing Tower of London, the White Tower almost blinding in the late harvest sunshine, as it stands alone, protecting the citizens of London from any seaborne attack up the river Thames.

No hue and cry follow us as we canter down the dusty dry lanes, passing farmers and serfs buying their lunchtime refreshments from the hawkers by the side of the lanes. Once past the mighty tower, the lanes are quieter down by the river. A few fishermen are spreading their nets to dry and making good necessary repairs as they have finished fishing for the day and the catch already fresh sold in the riverside markets, London being forever full of mouths to fill.

I have avoided talking to Lady Elinor, and she too has held her breath during the ride down from the Smooth Field. Soon we start to turn south, following a huge bend in the river, down an elevated causeway road with reed-filled marshes on either side leading down to the river bank. On the road, though, there are few people here heading in either direction along the river and no-one to overhear us save the hundreds of water fowl and the pairs of young monks ahead and behind us as escorts.

"So, tell me Lady Elinor, what are we doing, where are we going, and why should I be going with ye?"

"Robin, surely you know me so well that you could drop the 'Lady' for once and just call me by my given name, Elinor?" She looks at me sideways with a slight smile playing upon her ripe lips.

"Well, truth be that I do know thee, but can I say that I know thee well enough for such familiarity, my Lady?" I reply, "We were acquainted for but a week, during which you led me on a merry dance indeed. But that were over three and a half years since and I have not seen or heard of thee or your husband since. We are hardly on any terms where we can be familiar with exchanges of names and the dropping of any due honours, Lady Elinor."

She pouts with her lower lip pushed out, "I am disappointed, Robin, truly I am," she says, with a hint of a whine in her voice that almost has me smiling at her playfulness, "and I genuinely thought that we had formed an attachment that transgressed the strict formalities of regal court. I am still nought but the uncouth barmaid from Pitstone, you know, as I was mostly until I married, so however grand be my title and the tapestried rooms which now keeps me warm anight, I am no real princess."

"Especially now, as you seem to have upset your father so royally this time about, my Lady!"

"Aye, I appear to have done so!"

Now her grin is broad, her eyes asparkle, and I cannot help myself but smile along with her.

"So how did you manage to do what all his other subjects avoid doing like the very plague?" I venture.

"Well, for my full explanation we will have to wait until we have some clear water beneath our hull."

"And how long will that be?" I ask, as all I can see to the south of us is a huge thicket of tall osiers still in leaf on either side of the road we follow.

"A few minutes on, Robin, as this road leads down to a wharf which provides for a ferry across to Greenviz on the south bank. Our ship awaits us at the wharf, ready to sail."

"So where exactly are we now?" I really have no idea at all where we are. This is my first visit to London and I came through Buckinghamshire and Hertfordshire on my way and never came further east in these parts than the Smooth Field we have recently left in our wake.

"This is Stepney Marsh, with Black Wall upon our left and Marsh Wall on the right. The borough of Stepney want to build dykes all around Marsh Wall and thereafter plan to put in countless wind mills to pump out all the water. Soon there will be rich gardens growing food here for the growing population of the twin Cities of London and Westminster."

"You have knowledge of these plans?"

"Of course, Gervaise bought all this marsh on our right hand side, for just a few pennies per hide, and by his presence as an Earlderman of this borough by right of this purchased freehold, he can encourage the borough in this venture which will be of benefit to many hereabouts. We will rename this garden as Mill Wall."

"And make yourselves a pile of gold and silver in the meantime. Is this why your father —"

"— No! He is upset with me over other matters, that I cannot go into now. I am sure the King worries not about such small barely-populated boroughs as this."

"While I am equally sure that the King worries about all his boroughs."

"Well, his court sits in Rouen for now, so I cannot see him worrying over the wellbeing of his domains in England for the winter, unless ... well it is quite likely that he will stay in Normandy until spring."

Yes, I thought that might be likely but rumours were already abound of what role Lady Elinor's half-sister, Matilda, the Dowager Empress of the Holy Roman Empire, will be asked to perform for her father. Chief talk coming from the rumour grinding mill is that the only officially recogniseddaughter of our King will be our Queen in place of a King one day if the King but hath his way with an adjustment to the Rules of Succession. That is a challenge in itself but there are more fears abound that the childless widow might prove barren, if twelve long years married to the Emperor, who claimed to have been given the crown directly by God Himself, hath proved fruitless upon the bough of succession.

And who, among the Princes and Lords, could the Empress Widow possibly wed next, who was not already within the compass of consanguinity, to her sixth cousins, and would the chosen Prince in their turn not simply seize the throne from his Queen, when opportunity presents, and defy those Lords who were denied their legal opportunity to wed the Empress?

Me? I care not whom I serve as my liege Monarch, be they stag or doe, so I hold still my own counsel upon the matter.

We ride on in silence and soon I see the promised wharf and the wide river Thames opened up afore me, with farm houses dotted in the farmlands a long way off upon the far bank, rising to the southern hills of West Kent, if I have my bearings aright.

Smoke rising from the smoke holes in the roofs of these farmhouses remind my stomach that it is about lunchtime and I have not eaten since the dawn broke early and I partook of the landlord of The Goat Inn's hearty break-feast of hot fresh bread, bacon and cheese and that was a long time since. I think my stomach must have been growling loud enough for the Lady to hear over the hoof beats on the hard dirt road, because she says:

"Hungry, Robin? Not sure if you are wise to eat before we cast off, remembering how you fared last time that we put to sea in a ship."

"How WE fared, if I remember aright, my Lady."

Aye, I remember all too well our last trip together by sea, when we were both so ill that I felt we had died and been sent by St Peter to some cold watery hell.

"So, we sailing somewhere? Anywhere familiar?" I ask.

"Aye, Robin, we are off to return to Brugge."

"To see our mutual friend Rebecca?"

"We know that she is not there, but it was where she was last known to be, and if we ask her neighbours perhaps we will discover where she was taken and why."

She chews her lip uncertainly, looking at me indirectly out of the corners of her eyes.

"Taken?" I ask, "By what agency do you believe has she been taken?"

"We know not, Robin." She looks miserable, "she has been missing for some weeks, I am told, and I think she has been taken by the same knaves who have robbed my husband from me."

"And you have no idea who that might be or why these two kidnappings might be connected?"

"None at all, but I believe they could be connected," she says, "of course kidnappings and ransoms happen oft... Gervaise and I have been involved in a handful over the last decade."

"Involved?" I ask, dreading the answer.

"No, Robin, we have never kidnapped anyone, only joined in the search to track the missing down and help relieve them by force or parley with their captors to secure a release. But without Gervaise by my side all my enquiries through our many contacts have proved fruitless, for either of them."

I nod. "What of Gervaise? You say he has also been taken. How do you know that he is not on some secret errand for your father?"

"He went missing on a journey, aye, 'twas on my father's behest, traveling betwixt Paris and Rouen down the river Seine with a message from King Louis VI, also known as Louis the Fat, of France to the King of England." She says, "that was during the spring season, half a year since, and for the past few months I have received various and increasing demands for ransoms from his captors. I ... I pleaded to Rebecca for help two months ago and discovered that she too, was gone from her demesne in Brugge. My messenger told me that her bank was closed, her network of agents disappeared and unavailable to he or I. No doubt one who is closer to her than I has received the ransom demands for her release and I fear for both her and my husband's safety. And because Rebecca is missing, her system of contacts and friars is also closed to me."