Chapter 9

Twenty-one months later

It had to be important. Everyone in the manor knew not to bother us once the bedroom door closed unless it was critically urgent. A disappointed Grace turned to Claire to finish what I’d started while I threw on my robe and answered the door. Months ago, we’d installed a partition completely blocking the view into the room from the open doorway. Of course, it didn’t block the quiet gasps of pleasure, but it was usually a female slave who was sent to interrupt us, and most had experienced their own quiet gasps of pleasure in this bedroom. Frequently, the slave who interrupted us would stay and join in the festivities.

My presence was requested downstairs immediately. It seemed that an exhausted Castilian messenger had just arrived from York accompanied by one of my messengers.

One task I had completed was to establish a series of outposts, mostly at manors along the main roads. A messenger riding hard day and night could change horses at least ten to twelve times. Messengers with urgent messages could get a new horse or send another messenger in his stead if he was too tired to continue. Weather permitting, a message from Lancaster could be delivered to York in just over half a day.

The network linked every manor in Lancashire and Yorkshire, including manors north and south from London to Glasgow. The King had liked the idea so much that he had extended it from London to the manor or castle that was the seat of power in each shire.

The poor messenger was exhausted and nervous; I recognized him immediately. He was the Castilian archer I had selected for my demonstration with Sebastian. He calmed down immediately when I greeted him in his native tongue. My two newest Princess brides had been teaching me the absolute basics of their two languages and were threatening to teach me French and Arabic.

The messenger handed me a thin scroll with a brief note:

I dispatched messengers to every manor in Yorkshire and Lancashire with a summary of the message and a request for troops. Every French ship in one of our ports was to be seized immediately and its crew detained. Every foreign ship was to be commandeered with a promise that they would be compensated for the use of their ship.

Each Baron was told how many troops I wanted to take with me, as was Eduardo. He had been beyond stunned when I originally authorized him to re-arm two thousand of the captured soldiers with the crossbows and the curved swords they seemed to like so well. I did request that they be pressed to learn English as quickly as possible to prevent any language problems if their services were ever needed. I wanted to take all of his troops with us for controlling the ships full of French cargo and captives I hoped to be returning with, and for maintaining order in the cities we captured so my archers could be used for attacking. I authorized him to re-arm an additional two thousand former troops to serve as defensive troops while we were gone--just in case.

Altogether, I was taking thirteen thousand troops with me, five thousand mounted archers, a thousand light cavalry, five thousand archers afoot, and the Iberian cavalry--assuming we could get enough ships. I was glad the ten ships we kept had been converted to easily load and unload the horses each could now carry. My missive to James authorized him to change my orders if he felt a change was warranted. He had spent a lot of time tutoring me in military planning and strategy as well as about raising, training, and maintaining our troops.

He has also come to believe that I was onto something preferring mobile archers with a superior range. Recounting my test by Baliol and watching what we did to the Castilian ships near London helped. Seeing what we were able to do to the Castilian and Aragonese cavalry even before they could organize their charge sealed the deal. He warned that we would need to be extremely wary of surprise attacks, as a lack of melee troops would make such an attack catastrophic.

I sent the final messenger to London. I trusted Sebastian enough to respond to his plea. Even knowing that there was bad blood between England and France, I still didn’t want to start a war with the French without the King’s permission. I explained what we were doing and why, even sending Sebastian’s request along. I also let him know I was leaving behind a defensive force equivalent to the thirteen thousand troops I was taking, a defensive force that would be extremely wary of a surprise attack while so many of our troops were gone.

I let him know that we would be sailing by Sandwich in about four days’ time. If I had his permission to proceed, a ship flying the English flag above a French flag would sanction attacking the French. An English flag above a Castilian flag would indicate I should attack Castile. With the Iberian troops aboard, I hoped not to see that. Two English flags would mean return to London, and an English flag and my personal banner would mean to go home and forget it. I had sent one of my banners with the messenger just in case.

Once again, I left Robert in charge of Lancaster and George in charge of York, with James to oversee everything in my stead. James was also tasked with overseeing the preparation and potential deployment of defensive troops should the need arise. Once again, I left Margaret’s father in charge of the manor. Evidently, he and his three wives had been doing the same thing I was when my messenger interrupted him, and we teased each other about the hardship of having so many wives.

Four days later, we saw a ship approaching off Sandwich with an English flag over a French flag. I was pleased and hardly surprised since there had been so much animosity between our two countries. The ship drew alongside, and a messenger yelled out for us to slow down. A second fleet would be joining us soon. They were just weighing anchor and preparing to get underway when he left London. They also sent over a couple of well-wrapped messages. One of the men aboard our ship threw a rope over one of our masts and then heaved them the other end. A pouch with the messages was tied off to a second rope, one secured to the first rope with a metal ring. We pulled the second rope in quickly to keep the pouch out of the sea as the ships rolled with the waves.

I was dumbfounded that he only signed his first name, although his seal was included at the bottom, even more than by the fact that he put me in charge of twenty-one thousand troops with permission to wage war against France.

Inside this document were four more small notes:

Once in Paris, seek Jacques, an elderly gentleman working as a groundskeeper at the castle. He has a lot of information about the castle and the people therein which may be useful. Memorize his name and destroy this document.

In addition, the enclosed missive from King Philip requesting our help is a forgery, but a particularly good one. It might gain you access to places without the need for bloodshed.

The document mentioned was a personal request from King Philip to King Edward requesting military assistance as his troops in Castile and Aragon had encountered several large concentrations of Marinid troops intent on conquering Castile and then moving northward towards France. It even had a signature and a Royal Seal. Of course, I had no idea what a real signature or seal from the French King looked like, but he said they were good forgeries.

The third was a diagram with a note:

If you besiege Paris, there are four secret underground exits from the city. Watch them for anyone leaving. They might even come in handy to gain entrance to the city. There are also three secret exits from the castle into the city to watch.

The map showed where each exit was and there was a sketch of the exit for each secret tunnel.

The final document was a reiteration of the fact that I was in command of the invasion force and my orders carried the full authority of the King. It also gave me authority to set the terms of any peace treaty with the French.

By the time I’d digested the documents, the tips of the masts of the first few ships of the second fleet were just visible and we turned towards the Seine River.

The captain of the Portuguese-flagged ship I was aboard was true to his word, delivering us safely to the port of Rouen in the middle of the night, avoiding the small islands in the middle of the river along the way. By the time the grey of the false dawn touched the chill morning air, Rouen was ours. Despite the temptation to plunder the extremely wealthy city, the King wanted Normandy for England, and plundering the city would only upset the citizens further, making the transition much harder. If we decided not to keep Normandy, we could always loot it as we left. I left four thousand troops in the city, a thousand of mine, a thousand of the Iberian troops, and two thousand troops belonging to other Barons.

I left one of the Barons in charge of the city with strict orders not to aggravate the citizens. There was to be no looting, pillaging, damaging the city, or hurting the citizens unless they rebelled. If that happened, only the citizens involved were to be captured and jailed, even transported to York or London to be held if necessary. That was what I did with the deposed Duke of Normandy and his captured troops.

My men were quickly tasked with rounding up every decent horse they could find within half a day’s ride of the city. Fortunately, horse breeding was one of the industries in this area and we quickly secured enough additional horses to mount ten thousand troops. I put Captain Leigh in charge of the remaining troops. They needed to march the roughly seventy-five miles to Paris, acquiring horses along the way. I made sure to remind everyone that we were supposedly here at the behest of the French King to assist in repelling Marinid troops. A small fleet of shallow-draft fishing and cargo boats would meet us near Paris with the remainder of our arrows and would bring food in case a siege became necessary.

Before mid-morning the next day, we went past one of the manors between Paris and Rouen. Several of their troops challenged us but were appeased when I showed them the forged plea for assistance. Being so outnumbered, the Baron and his men were quickly captured. One hundred Iberian troops, fifty light cavalry and fifty crossbowmen, stayed behind to secure the manor. Several of the Iberian cavalry took six hundred horses that we secured from the manor and led them back to our troops. By the end of an exceptionally long day, we had captured six manors, and we were halfway to Paris. At each manor, we sent the horses back to the troops still on foot.

Three thousand tired, but eager troops arrived on horseback by the next morning, and we continued on towards Paris. One last manor was captured after a brief exchange of arrows; theirs fell woefully short. I was surprised at the amount of loot we had been able to confiscate from the Barons. I kept track of the loot from the Barons whose holdings were in Normandy; planning to return at least part of it should we keep Normandy and they agreed to remain.

I’d also seen enough to convince me that moving here might not be such a bad idea. Normandy was over twice as big as Yorkshire and Lancashire combined. Rouen had a population bigger than London, and the area under cultivation was far greater than what we cultivated in Yorkshire and Lancashire. There was a ready supply of stone, and cattle and horses were very prolific here, something that would help supply mounts for my troops and keep people fed. I realized as we approached Paris that I was seriously considering moving.

When we were about five miles away, I sent four thousand troops east of the city and four thousand to the west to cross the river. They were to cut off access to the southern half of the city. I put Captain Rutledge in command of the troops on the south shore, with two of the Barons under his direct command, each responsible for half of the troops. Baron Rand had impressed me with his attitude and suggestions thus far, so I placed him in command of the troops on the north shore with the other two Barons each responsible under him for half of those troops. I maintained overall command and went to find a good spot from which to attack.

After securing the four secret exits from the city, we set up positions around the city to defend against attack from every direction and then staged our best archers in tall buildings around the city, being sure to stay at least two hundred yards from the walls, but no more than three hundred fifty yards.

I claimed the bell tower at an Abbey barely two hundred fifty yards from the north wall and began systematically eradicating the troops on and inside the walls.

The occasional volleys of flaming arrows into the city set off the expected fires, which the soldiers and civilians rushed to put out. It was almost too easy to pick off the soldiers this way. I could see that other archers were having similar success and by nightfall, we had killed or wounded close to five hundred soldiers. We had no idea exactly how many there were altogether, but we saw fewer healthy troops left than dead and injured.

Half of our troops had slept all day and were fresh the first night while the French troops were tired and beleaguered. As I expected, we caught someone at every secret exit leaving the city, hoping to secure reinforcements. We waited until their partner closed the door behind them before we moved in to capture them.

As I did with the bandits who originally started this, each man was tied to a tree with their ears bound tight enough they couldn’t hear what the others were saying, although they could watch.

One man was a lot bigger than the rest and had been the most belligerent of the four, so I started with him. I figured once he cracked, the remaining three would spill their guts.

“If you tell me everything you know, you will be allowed to live. If you refuse, I will torture you until you talk or die. If you decide to talk before you die, I will stop the torture and you will be allowed to live, as long as you survive your injuries. Is there anything you’d like to tell me?” I asked, oh, so politely.

“Fuck you!” he spat. He watched my knife nervously as I cut off his clothes.

“Last chance,” I warned, getting a similar response to the first. Each man was tied securely around the waist and neck to the trunk of a tree. Their arms were tied to branches above their heads and their ankles and thighs tied to trees several feet away. Despite that, he tried his best to double over when my knee caught him in the nuts. Before he recovered, his scream probably woke anyone actually asleep in Paris as the blade of my hunting knife was buried in the tree trunk, securely pinning his cock to the trunk between his legs. Now he had three holes through which to pee.

I gave him a chance to recuperate before continuing. “Do you have anything to say, yet?” I asked. He just shook his head. His eyes bugged out even further when he saw the wood mallet and the two spikes nearing his testicles. “Wait, I’ll talk,” he sobbed as I lined up the first spike with his left nut.

“Fine, but I warn you, the first time I think you’re stalling or lying, the torture will begin again and won’t stop until you’re dead, understand?” Defeated, he nodded as best he could. Removing my knife, I allowed one of the nuns to care for his wound while he told me what he knew. They were down to three hundred mostly healthy troops inside the walls and hoped to get past our guards to secure assistance from nearby towns and manors. When both the nun and I had finished with him, I cut him loose and had him carried away to a cell.

The next three men told me everything they knew with no further convincing needed.

Baron Rand came to find me with a huge grin on his face. We had secured the walls in both halves of the city and captured two hundred French soldiers. They were extremely demoralized and gave up with little or no fight. Some of our troops had filled several small boats with straw, set them ablaze, and let them float downstream into the docks. While they burned, the French were distracted and had their night vision ruined from the light of the flames. Ten of our men on each side of the river waded and swam upriver into the city storming the walls, surprising, and overpowering the remaining French guards, and opening a gate on each side of the river for the rest of our troops.

The only task remaining now was to capture the island with the Palace. It sat between the two halves of the city we now commanded. Two of the secret exits from the Palace had been secured. Only the one on the east end of the island remained unguarded but they would still have to use the bridges or the river to escape the island. We had the bridges well-guarded. The river had fishnets we had appropriated stretched across it both upriver and downriver.