The Archer's Lady

Will and Swein shake hands and Alwen nods and curtsies briefly, while Swein bows his head to the Lady.

"Come, let us go eat, we can have supper at our inn," says Will.

Swein grins, "And how is the fare at your inn, The Piebald Mare, isn't it, Sire?" he asks.

"It be fair enough," Will answers warily, "for inn fare ... it is not home cooking." Will glances at Alwen with a trace of a smile on his lips.

"Then be my guests at my brothers' establishment, The Willow Staff, I can assure you that the fare is as good as home cooked. And it is just around the corner."

"All right. We need to wait for Father Andrew, as the singing has started he will be no longer than a few moments. There are few people who put the Scriptures before Supper, and we can count Father Andrew as one who loves his church but a hastened service doesn't spoil anyways as much as does a hot dinner growed cold. And we must fetch young Hugh too, he be around here someplace, though religion be not his fare."

"Hugh is here?" I gasp.

My childhood friend Hugh, is the youngest of the two blacksmiths who work the forge next to my father's, now my archery workshop in Oaklea. I had no idea that he had made the pilgrimage to Canterbury alongside my parents. He is the last person I would expect to see on any pilgrimage to the Holy Seat of the English Church!

"Aye," Alwen says, "Hugh was so crestfallen that his best friend travels all about the realm without him, and now that Will and I were considering travelling to this city, that the master blacksmith let his recently qualified smith apprentice away for a whole week. He said that if he didn't allow him his leave of absence he was certain that he would hear nothing else from Hugh for months to come!"

Hugh is my oldest friend, he saved my life once when we were teaching ourselves to swim as youngsters in the mill leet and I got out of my depth. He was always getting into mischief as a boy, saddled with the reputation of being lazy and will-full, and accused of all manner of things that he couldn't possibly have been guilty of. I always stood by him and, when my father returned from his long absence after travelling around the country and beyond as a nomadic archer, he took me in as his longbow apprentice and also arranged for Hugh to be indentured to Old Smithy, the blacksmith at the forge next door to our archery workshop.

At first Hugh didn't take to the work, as he found it was too arduous for his undernourished boyhood frame, but he lost his heart to a dear friend of ours, Mary Margaret, another daughter of the time in the village that we now call "the Blessing". It wasn't always thought so, and we children born at that time were all tarred as "bastards" and our mothers shunned as if it was their fault that the menfolk were away at war and the village undefended and all the womenfolk were defiled by a band of outlaw strangers, against which the village had no means of defence.

No, the change in attitude towards the crop of fatherless children came about when Sir William Archer came to our village as inheritor of the Lordship of the estate, and was appointed by the King himself on the very day he knighted Will Archer to become the Shire Reeve of the County. Although Alwen has run the estate in the main, my father ensured that each of the children from the Blessing were given a proper trade for the boys and a generous marriage dowry for each of the girls, as he declared to all at the time, "The sins of the fathers were not the sins by the mothers and the children are innocent of any sins at all and should be given a place among us that is useful and gives them reason to be proud of our village and so be our village in turn be proud of them". In this way he became a "father" to all the bastard children of the village.

At the Blessing of his marriage to Alwen, my half-sister, the guardian who had raised me after my birth mother had died during my birthing, Sir William declared that he adopted me as his and Alwen's son and that I would be the principle heir to his and Alwen's estate.

Later, Alwen and Will told me that I was a result of the union made in gratitude and affection between Will and Alwen's mother, my grandmother, and not at the hands of the marauders, but because I was born early and neither the last born of the many, and with Alwen's father Robert the Innkeeper still away at the time of conception, I had been included in the general group of bastards. Only Father Andrew knew the truth, he owned me with the truth when he thought I was old enough to understand.

So sweet Mary Margaret, who works in the Oaklea Inn as a maid, found herself with a dowry to use if she ever felt the inclination to use it to secure a good marriage for herself. She was 17 annums then and told Sir William that she had no intention of ever marrying because, though she was a friend to many, being such a sweet girl everyone loved to be her friend, she loved no-one man in particular over any other. Sir Will said he would hold her troth in trust until she was ready to take it or hold it for a pension for when she needed it.

It appears that Will, Alwen, Hugh and Father Andrew are staying at an inn near the cathedral, the first mate has found out, and they each have their own mounts stabled within their inn. Although Hugh accompanied them on their journey down to Canterbury, since arriving they had seen little of their companion except for meal times, for the past two days. Father Andrew has a suggestion that he might be found by the castle stables. He gives me directions to follow, as clear as those given to his young cleric. It is starting to get dark out now and I must not tarry if I do not wish to miss my own supper.

Hugh is indeed engrossed in sport at the castle stables. I find him playing horseshoes with the stable lads. In the middle of the stable a short iron spike has been driven into the ground and the stable lads have been tossing horseshoes at the spike, it seems for some while, as more lamps are being lit with tapers to throw more light on the game in issue. They are very competitive and, it appears from explanations to other newcomers, that each thrower is attempting to get three horseshoes in a row around the spike. This is no mean feat as even landing on the iron spike, oft means bouncing off, to the frustrated ire of the throwers. A wooden spike might soak up the energy of the iron horseshoe and slow it down, but the hard iron spike seemed to repel the horseshoes as would the wrong end of a charged lodestone.

Hugh is taking part, pretending to be a poor player and the pot of silver coin was clearly growing, as each round entered cost a penny, and so far no-one was able to get all three in a row. He managed one out of his three shoes to spin about the rod and slip away, so only one had stuck. As he walked away, he grimaced in apparent frustration at his unsuccessful endeavours.

"Hail, Hugh," I say as he walks aby me. He blinks, before recognizing a familiar visage afore him.

"Rob! What in All is Holy are thee abiding here?" he exclaims.

"I am here to see you, Hugh," putting on my most serious countenance, "and keep you out of mischief. Looks like my long journey was not one taken in vain."

"Tosh!" he retorts with a sniff, then his eyes narrow, "Why are you really here, Rob?"

"Well, we hoped to explain why over our evening home-cooked meal."

"Pah! There's none of that here, the food at the inn we're at I wouldn't feed to the wild pigs in Pendale Woods!"

"Well, we are not dining at your flea pit inn, Hugh, but your travel companions are joining my companions for the wellbeing of good company and to feast upon a proper home-cooked meal." I pause for a moment. "So, art thou hungry yet, Hugh, old friend?"

"Yay, Rob, I'm famished, I've been famished for days."

This reply only reminds me of how hungry I am. And I hope that Swein's promises of the quality of his family's even feast will live up to its reputation.

Hugh spins on his heel and returns to where the horseshoes are being tossed.

"Right lads," Hugh announces to his audience, "my stomach's agrowling, and supper's being served to those what don't tarry ere longer than necessary. So I'm prepared to give thee all or naught on this final throw, though it not be my turn as yet. But, if I get all my three shoes wrapped around the spike, the pot's mine, if I fail even by a single shoe, I'll take no more part tonight and surrender the pot to divide equally among you three, and will thank you for relieving me of my purse and allowing me to enjoy me vittals. Agree one and all?"

The three stable lads confer by looks and convey their wishes by the slightest of nods, before the larger of the three pipes up, "Aye, young Smith, ye toss away!"

Hugh gathers up three old horseshoes, sorting through the pile of scrap set aside for melting down, discarding one and picking up two, then leaves himself with three that meet his exacting requirements. He moves to the pitching point, weighs each of the horseshoes in his hand before selecting the order in which he decides to toss them. He adjusts his stance, eyeing the iron spike and the distant betwixt he and it. I smile as he pokes his tongue out of the side of his mouth, in the like manner he once did as one of Father Andrew's school pupils while in deep thought over his chalked sums, while he steadies himself, poised to take his shots with the shoes.

All around the stable the tension mounts among the soldiers, stable boys, and grooms waiting to take out their mounts to hitch up their wagons and take their masters home to supper, while others wait to bring their horses in at the end of the day, after the contest that has fascinated them runs down to its conclusion.

Hugh launches the first horseshoe, which clangs loud, iron on iron, ringing like a bell in the hushed silence of the crowded stable. Even the stable that witnessed the birth of the Christchild could not have been more hushed. The shoe spins around the spike but holds. Even as we watch it slow in its revolution, the second and then the third are launched. Two more clangs and spins before all three nestle as if fused together in the furnace. The throng are stunned into silence for a still moment, then erupts into a tumult of calls of triumph and shouts of pain, as soldiers and grooms about the place exchange coins wagered on the outcome, with groans from the losers and whoops from the winners.

"Well, fellows," Hugh addresses his three opponents, "do you concede or do we settle the contest by other means?"

The larger of the stable lads steps forward, "So, Smith, you could have finished this an hour since?"

"That may have been possible if chance allowed, aye."

"There seems little chance of chance here, methinks."

"Aye, a misspent youth as an idle hand with a handful of horseshoes to allay the boredom, might have had a tipping hand against that of fate. But to finish such a contest early, then where be the sport in that? So, are we good or otherwise?"

"Aye, we have taken our lesson from thee, Mister Smith, so the cost of the lesson is the price we have to pay. Take your winnings and go in peace. We thought by your country accent that the lesson would be the other way about, so we have had the subject of disrespect to add to the paucity of our skill in the game we were partaking of when thee appeared."

"Well, that was good fortune on my part as I didn't have to use any persuasions to bend your will to my benefice."

He gathers up his coins from the pot and fills his near empty purse. Clearly the game was close to its conclusive round anyway, promised supper or no.

We make our way out of the stables and life within continues in its usual frantic routine that applies to sun up and sun down.

"So, where are we heading for this royal feast?"

"To an inn called The Willow Staff, where I am assured that the best meal in these parts are served. But as I do not know where that is, I hope my family, and the others still tarry at the entrance to the Great Cathedral."

Indeed, they are waiting for us and, after introduction of Hugh to Swein, my old friend suddenly realizes that Lady Elinor is in the party.

"Elinor!" he exclaims, as he bounds to her and embraces her, as familiar as if they were regular embracers rather than brief acquaintances who have not greeted each other in three or four years. By her turn, the Lady Elinor is likewise enthused by his embrace and returns it with full vigour. I cannot help but be jealous of the intimacy of their exchange, even though I have sworn by my Knight's Oath to remain aloof from the Madam and to no longer fall prey to those desires which have for so long, and with finality I had sometime thought, tormented me in the years of my apprenticeship and beyond.

They chatter away like children, indeed it is as if the years betwixt have melted from their conscious thought and they are but children again, and I am made to suffer from those very feelings that just six months ago I served a long vigil to subsume in their entirety.

I turn my back upon them, as if in indifference, and follow Swein, who guides us away from the Cathedral through a couple of unlit side streets to an unpreposessive low thatched building with the sign of the willow staff pinned above the entrance, and from behind the lit windows we can see flickering light from lit tallow, and hear the joyous and welcome revelry beyond.

Swein opens the door and we sweep into the busy dining hall. Spaces at the top table are clearly reserved for all of us and the pair of brothers, who look like older and far less svelte versions of Swein, beckon us forward cheerfully to take our places among where the mace and salt cellars are jealously guarded from the lower trestles.

The food is indeed plentiful and has a real homemade taste about it that impress upon us that the cooks have poured their hearts and souls into the preparation, so rarely found now in the endless inns I frequent, even though they tend not to be the poorest ones that my father frequented more oft than not during those last six years when he thought he was as poor as any other roaming vagrant. The ale too, is a quite acceptable drink. Alwen soon excuses herself to visit the kitchens and make enquirers with the staff. The ale is roasted darker and finished sweeter than our Oaklea Ales, and considerably weaker, but the flavour is good and very potable and Alwen no doubt wants to know the recipe to enable her to enlarge the range that our brewery currently offers the county of Bartonshire and a dozen or more hundreds beyond its nearby borders.

After the meal, relaxing with a final ale before lights out, ahead of our return journey to our port of departure upon the Thames river, we discuss our plan of action. My father listens carefully to Lady Elinor's story, with furrowed brow.

"So, Elinor, Gervaise disappeared while carrying a message to your father from the King of France?"

"Aye. So I am told, Sir William."

"Do we know the message, whether it were important or routine?"

"Nay, my father were silent upon what the contents might have been."

"When exactly did this happen?" he continues

"I heard about his disappearance a week before Pentecost, and the news then was already a couple of weeks' old before my father had sent up a hue and cry. He only informed me that my husband was missing after further extensive enquiries."

"So about twenty-eight days after Easter?" Father Andrew asks.

"I guess that's about right, Father."

"That would be about the 26th day of April that he was taken, just over five months ago."

"Aye, that be about right. I was not required for Gervaise's mission, so my husband suggested I check my Breton estates that the spring barley sowing had completed satisfactorily and he was due to meet me there."

"And were you there around the 26th of April?" my father asks.

"No ... my father had another mission for me to undertake that took me to both Edinburgh and Dunfirmline, in the Kingdom of Alba in Scotland. I cannot openly say what that travel was for."

"You are ever secretive, My Lady."

"Sometimes secrets are not mine to give up."

"Then I concede to your rights in that matter."

"After Scotland I did not go directly to Vennes in Breton where our household there were expecting me. Instead I wanted a time of quiet, to think and reflect, and I arrived in Auray in Brittany, where I have a small house with no servants other than a neighbouring fish wife who keeps the house clean and ever ready for me. A house I am sure Gervaise has little reason to suppose I'd visit."

"No-one knew you were there?"

"On my way I sent coded word of my mission to my father, and telling him where I was going to reflect on my findings upon his behalf. Eventually he informed me by messenger that Gervaise had been missing for three weeks, with no trail left to follow, nor had my father any word of his whereabouts nor his condition. I did not know where to start looking for him other than Vennes, where my Steward there had no messages for me, nor had he partaken in any discourse with anyone who had information on the whereabouts of either of us, as my Steward had expected us both in time for the inspection of the spring sowing in April."

"So you thought of Rebecca then, and her network of influence around the duchies of Northern France?" Alwen asks.

"Nay, not at first. It was while I was still with my Steward in Vennes that a messenger arrived with the first ransom demand."

"They must have been watching your estate, awaiting your arrival," Will observes. "What did they demand from you?"

"Aye, they must have wondered where I had been all that time I was absent. As for the ransom demand, it was one that was impossible to give, even to save the life of a husband."

"And that was?" Will continues.

"I would rather not say until we are ... somewhere where there are no walls with ears."

"I understand" my father says. "So, this demand brought Rebecca to mind, so this is now where you want to go?"

"Aye, but she has also disappeared. I sent a message to her in May, but my messenger returned to say that the Bank of the Red Hand in Brugge was no more and the building was occupied by a ship's chandlers, who said they knew naught what happened to the previous occupant, only that the place was completely gutted without as much as an empty cupboard or shelf left upon any wall, nor straw mat left upon the stone flag floor. By the time I had that reply I was visiting my mother in

Buckinghamshire, to hear her counsel on what I learned in Dunfermline."

"Well," says my father, "Father Andrew and I have been to Flanders and Brugge afore many times, Robin and Elinor, too —"

"And I!" Hugh pipes up, "I too have been to Brugge, and do not want to be left out of the party if go there again we must!"

Alwen has her say, "I insist that I be allowed to go, and not be left behind. Rebecca is my particular friend, and I would like to see where she once lived, as I feel I know the port of Brugge intimately from our conversations, though I have never been,never been anywhere."

"I wouldn't dream of leaving you behind, my Fair Lady," Will laughed. "Now that you have for once released yourself from the ties of our tiny corner of Bartonshire, perhaps we should plan an expedition to the Indies or China, or perhaps the fabled pyramids of the Kings of Egypt would be more to your liking?"

"Hush, husband, you may have seen more worlds than I can even imagine, but in my mind I felt I was with you in your heart everywhere you travelled to or tarried even awhile."

"And you were indeed there with me, my precious, in every moment and every place that I was awake and every night in my dreams." With that they squeeze and hug.

Father Andrew says, "It is time we all slept, my children, so we may be fresh for our departure upon the morrow. I will leave word at the Cathedral that a private matter of some urgency has called me away from my voluntary duties here."