16 comments/ 28986 views/ 42 favorites The Archer By: Spencerfiction "And the next bowman to shoot at the butt is William Fletcher, who came ninth and fifth in the first and second rounds. Please show him your encouragement, one and all." There is a light round of applause in reply to the Town Crier's booming announcement and one or two slight insults arise from a group of locals, who have clearly partaken of more flagons of ale or mead than is wise so soon past the forenoon, before I step up to the oche. I pull a light-tipped target arrow from my worn leather belt quiver and notch it into the taut string of my tall Welsh longbow. I glance around the throng gathered at the archery field just outside the town walls. This is the main town of this shire but it seemed smaller, poorer, meaner than it had last time I came through. It has been five, no six years since I was here in this market town last and won that particular year's contest. I was known by another name then, and no-one here knows or has thus far acknowledged that they recognise me. The circular straw-stuffed target, with its red-painted outer and inner circles, gold centre, with bright white lime wash daubed betwixt, has been moved a further twenty paces away down the field. Even my rheumy old eyes can see the target quite clearly in the cloudless early May afternoon sunshine. There is a slight breeze, running from left to right, but I adjust my aim allowing for those light airs and elevate enough to take account of the longer distance. I draw my bow string comfortably up to the greying three-day-old whiskers on my chin, before letting the arrow fly. It arcs in flight and hits the target on the outer circle, which is good enough for my purposes. Then I loose my final two shots, both very slight improvements, which I am sure will edge me into the final round upon the morrow. I hope by my efforts to conceal my talents without raising too many concerns from the local favourites, the wager mongers or the throng gathering to see the spectacle, now that the average archers and worse have been winnowed from the assembly by the earlier rounds. The town is a small poor one, a city once that has now fallen on hard times, and the reduced archery purse on offer is in proportion to the present size and economic potential of the area. It has a noisy noisome farmer's market both today and the morrow, thus providing a large throng with an interest in the present competition. A rude-constructed and dilapidated stone motte and bailey stands on a rise by a bend in the river in which the town nestles. A group of soldiers from the castle have descended to watch the competition and jeer at the competitors. They are a ragtag outfit, wearing a variety of old and ill-fitting armour and I presume their sheathed weapons are likely to be equally unimpressive. They make no attempt to marshal the unruly crowd; clearly no-one of any quality seems to be in authority here. I decide I will not come this way again. This shire has always been a problem for me; I find I am drawn back here, time and time again, more times than I care to admit even unto myself, which only adds to my eternal torment. Loneliness tears at my heart like a starving dog worrying a flesh-picked hambone. I turn my attention back to the field and closely watch the remaining contestants as they complete the last round of the day, the penultimate round of the main contest, watching with as casual and uninterested an air as I can maintain, in case I am being watched. I have the measure of the prior shooters to me, mostly locals, judging from the ribaldry of the crowd and casual exchange of nicknames. I recognise two old mercenaries, who are also playing the same tentative and watching game that I am. They try to ignore me as I do them. They are likely where my competition lies. A further entrant in the contest is a spare-framed lanky youngster, a stranger to the town like us veterans, without any rapport with the crowd. The youth is clearly trying his best and not quite achieving the return appropriate to his efforts. I find my attention drawn to him. He looks like a nice lad, not as boldly disrespectful as the local town boys who have been given far more rope than is good for them. The gangly youth holds a vintage longbow, one far too powerful for him; his belly needs to thicken up and relieve a notch or two on his belt before he will be able to realise that bow's full potential. The ancient bow itself certainly intrigues me, it seems it hath a familiar look about it. When the round ends and the survivors for tomorrow's final round are announced by the Crier, I garner up my accoutrements and watch a different round of shooting, this time reserved for the younger boys of the town. Meanwhile the crowd ebbs away, no doubt to the inns and eating houses dotted around the stinking market. It is now that the gangly beanpole introduces himself to me. "Robert of the parish of Oaklea in the west of this fair shire," he declares seriously, puffing out his chest with pride, "But everyone at home calls me Robin," he finishes his introduction with a disarmingly shy boyish grin. "Good afternoon to you, young Robin of Oaklea," I reply with an easy smile. I try not to betray my inner emotions as the name of his parish careens through my head like the flooding waters of a collapsing dam. I concentrate on the youth, only the youth, with the cold calm I learned under fire in war: no matter how huge the horde of knights charging at you, if you accept that you can only deal with one target at a time, you might survive. Focus, Will Fletcher, this is not an army, nor a nightmare haunting your nightly sleep but a single near-child who should be shooting targets with the children gathering on the field of play even now, not standing up toe-to-toe with the men. He is tall, I ken that aplenty. He is a full inch taller than I and still has some growing left in his bones. His dark hair is overly long for my taste but then he doesn't have the problems I have of travelling over country on foot, sleeping rough when inns are full, or not available or where rooms are too expensive when my stock of silver pennies are short. Pennies are always short in these recent lean years. My hair is thinning much on top of my head, rather like a monk's, so I keep it cut short in the Norman fashion. The youth hasn't started shaving either, judging from the bum fluff on his chin, as downy as the sparse hairs clinging onto my own pate, although the fresh whiskers on my chin be hard and bristly. I fear I will have to cut off a quarter penny for a shave or perhaps as much as a half at town prices but presently require all my coin intact for stakes upon the outcome of the final round in the archery contest. The youth enquires if I might permit him leave to trifle a butt or two with a trial of one of my longbows, all fashioned in the Welsh style and apparently identical in appearance to his own antique monster, upon the practice grounds. I assent to his polite request with a forced smile; reminders of the past pain me but the youth piques my interest. At the outset of my spring tour of the May Fairs in various parts of the country, I usually set out with a dozen or more longbows, fashioned during the long Welsh winter, hoping to sell the most part of them on my travels through the shires. Many of these transactions, in but ones and twos, immediately follow the results of the local archery contest. I am rarely beaten in these events, so I aim to ease through the early rounds relatively unimpressively, to lengthen my odds, and thereby wager a few small silver coins at favourable odds for the final shoot-out. By this device I invariably earn as much or even more coin than the winning prize itself, by the simple manipulation of the fortunes, or otherwise, of chance. Unfortunately, my reputation as an archer of some renown has ruined my chances of securing good odds against my chances of winning, so each spring I have to travel further north, east or south from my home to compete against strangers and seek out unfamiliar wager mongers among the throng. These last two winters though, have been particularly hard. I lost my mother and invalid father three winters ago and now have to entreat my neighbours to work my allotment strips during the spring and summer, paying them two-tenths of the resulting produce, leaving me barely enough food in store to survive the winter. I have no living relatives, my only cousin, a fisherman, drowned at sea these four winters past. Thus I am forced to tarry at home in the early spring to sow my beans, onions, leeks, peas and root crops. This means having to resort to returning to some of my older haunts this year, resulting in changing my name to Fletcher and thereby carrying rather more fletched and unfletched arrows for sale than longbows. Even so, I have as a consequence missed the early spring and Easter fairs, this early May Fair being my first contest of the season. Following this tournament, a three-week break will dent my earning potential until the next rounds begin in the richer towns downstream towards the coast. This young Robin has some natural talent as a bowman, I observe on the archery training ground, for a young near-man clearly with little or no competitive experience. He is somewhat sloppy in his approach, though, loosing his arrows while holding onto his full-drawn breath, thereby tensioning his shoulders. This makes him anxious and stiff, to the ruination of his aim. Veterans of wars, standing in long line abreast, facing a charge of French or Burgundian heavy knights, wisely learn that you take two deep breaths of air, draw bead on your target as you exhale your second breath and release the dart when your lungs have completely emptied; your body still, nerves ice cold, as you deliver that first telling arrow deep into the pounding heart of the leading horse. After that, you veterans of many battles, breath evenly and deeply, unhurriedly, as you notch, draw, and release eight or nine iron-tipped shafts a minute until the horses stop coming. They always stop coming, if you do as I did back in the day ... always. Farmers, husbandmen and town tradesmen, though, drafted into the line by those who know nothing about the art of archery or war and care about their welfare even less, dither and hesitate to kill the horses. Too early in the charge they aim for the armoured knights astride, who laugh full scorn at the ineffectual darts like they were wasps' stings. Farmers, husbandmen and town tradesmen sense the futility of their actions, rush and fumble their shots in their panic and are trampled and die under the hooves of heavy French cavalry, leaving widows to grieve for their menfolk thereafter. Hunters and soldier bowmen, though, kill the horses without a second thought or hesitation and the eager pikeman waiting at the archers' shoulders move ahead to hack and stab at the floored horsemen, too heavy to rise and defend themselves without their squires' aid. Hunters and soldier bowmen invariably survive the battlefield but the lords and baron gentlemen often refuse to release them to return home, as they are too valuable for war to rot bent over working the fields. Some like me have no lord to serve. That hasn't always prevented me being swept up into the draft for battle but makes it easier for me to slip away at the earliest opportunity and return to my roots in North Wales. I have been known by several names over the years, apWilliams, Archer, Bowman, Stringer, Fletcher, all preceded by my own given name, William, after my father William, craftsman bow maker of Wales, before me. I offer the youth, Robin, the use of a lighter, slender and rather whippy bow, counsel the boy on his breathing, which he listens to carefully and almost achieves, hitting the target far more assiduously than his previous measures. He has a natural eye and talent for the Welsh longbow which I recognise needs to be encouraged. I tell him that were he to repeat his improved aim upon the morrow, being the lowest qualifier and therefore the primary competitor to trouble the target butt, that he could set a high benchmark which would discourage the aim of many of his peers. "Would you permit me to use this marvellous bow in the contest, then, Sire?" he asks with eyes wide open. "Aye," I assent, knowing full well that the improvement in his scoring could be so impressive I might double the bargains for my wares following the contest, whether I was successful in winning a prize myself or no. He grins like a mule with a sack of carrots. He is a curious young man, indeed. His clothes, while old and well-worn, were once well-made in good cloth, possibly hand-me-downs from an older brother or father where there once was wealth. Possibly still monied, in these straightened times, when 'tis dangerous to openly display one's means and attract attention. I try my best to deflect attention from myself too, although I have little wealth myself. If I believe his family are wealthy, even if he can't rattle the one and a half shillings for his new bow, the father may well indulge the son. The winter had been a long hard one and everyone's reserves have dwindled by consequence; pickings, legal ones at least, are as rare as goose teeth. "How may I address my thanks to you for the loan of this splendid bow?" the boy enquires. I smile and introduce myself as Will Fletcher. He looks askance, saying he has been informed different, and asks outright if I am indeed also known as the infamous William the Bowman who had travelled these parts previously, most recently known to have done so some six summers past. I pull the callow youth closer and hiss in his ear that I am simply Will Fletcher and that any mention of a Will Bowman in my presence or in any association with me is not to be countenanced. He foreswears ever mentioning the name again but persists in beseeching me to privately confirm or deny to him my true identity. "And why do you need to know this, young man?" I ask, staring into his wide, innocent young eyes. "My guardian has charged me with finding you, Sire, for I understand you travail these parts but once upon each five or six seasons and my guardian wishes that you in particular would honour us by partaking of our May tournament this year, as our very especial guest archer." "And why would your guardian wish this particular travelling William Bowman fellow to participate in your tourney? Is this some new event? I am sure that myself and all the other archers of my nodding acquaintance have long ahead planned out their time this early in the spring and summer seasons. This is the very last tournament of the opening spring series and many of us will wish to return to our homes and rest or work our fields for three weeks until the next round of fairs commence at Whitsuntide." "That is where the Oaklea tournament would bridge the gap betwixt events, sir; it commences in but three days' time and a venerable purse will be offered at the two-day event, many times richer than this one, but offered only on one very singular condition." I smile at the innocence of youth. Merchants and City Aldermen alike approach travelling entertainers all the time, aiming to entice them into promoting a new market or restored roadway. Damnation, even a manufactory of coloured bolt cloth needs to draw a crowd to whip up trade. And what are archers in these troubled times but entertainers? An archery contest always draws large and mainly boisterous crowds, eager for food, drink, accommodation and, among the marketers and provisioners, those who earn hard silver coin through sporting wagers and the subtle weaving of odds which gives them an advantage of profit, whichever archer in due course wins the pot offered up as prize. There are always incentives offered by the promoters of such events, and where there are incentives there are always strict conditions applied, always. "And the single condition which applies in this case?" I smile and ask of the youth. "That the champion archer William, also known in times past as Will the ... aforesaid, enter unto the tournament as a competitor. My guardian was very specific, no William B-, the archer, bow and arrow smith of renown, then no high-prize will be offered in the tournament," the youth insists. "So, let me see if I ken this aright? Provided this legendary Will you mention, apparently so well known in these parts despite the paucity of his frequenting, can be found and persuaded to participate in your village tournament, it will proceed as richly as indicated. Otherwise, if this Will cannot be enticed, no such event will be promoted?" "Messengers have already been sent in all directions from Oaklea to announce the event and therefore a smaller but still tempting prize will be offered. So there will still be a popular contest held, that should attract the best archers in this and nearby shires. A messenger awaits even now at my lodgings, to fly hotfoot back to Oaklea, should you agree to participate, in order to redouble the efforts to cry out the announcements to the four winds. "T'will be an event unmatched in the entire region," Robin grins, his smiling lips stretched wide enough to split. "If such a miracle were to happen, what is the value of the prize purse and what are the particular inducements for the said champion to enter?" I ask. "The purse consists of five prizes, for four different events, each of them for a prize of ten shillings in silver, plus minor prizes for high scores, with an additional pound of silver for the final shoot-off between the four winners," replies the youth with a grin of anticipation of the event on his lips. "And the inducement for this er, Will ... Bowman?" "Sorry, Sire, I should have told you those earlier. Full board and exclusive lodging in our inn's finest bedchamber, no sharing will be required with any other guest. This includes the evening of the completion of this morrow's contest, until you require yourself to depart for the next tournament come Whitsuntide. In addition, upon completion of the contest, whatever the final outcome, will be a one-off payment of five pounds of silver." God's oath! Five pounds of silver alone is as much as I would clear in five years of making and trading bows and fletching arrows, without the effort of travelling and lodging expenses involved in earning that tidy purse. Along with the prizes, perhaps winning two or three of the five of them, would see me with enough coin to rent a workshop and finish paying the rent for my old cottage in which to see my few remaining years out. It is an irresistibly tempting offer but I bear concerns regarding the reasons behind such a generous set of inducements to one particular man. "Why should such a sum be on offer merely, it appears, to uncloak this William the Bowman?" I whisper, careful of hidden ears, despite the desertion of the practice grounds, all the other competitors having departed to the taverns for supper. "Oh, the Archery Fair is to celebrate the impending blessing of the marriage of my sister and guardian, Lady Alwen of Oaklea." *** I well remember the village of Oaklea, I was there last six summers ago. I was there seeking my banker, Jacob, who had disappeared from his substantial city house without trace. It was in late summer, as was my habit, to meet with him in the east coast city in which Jacob traded as a merchant and banker. It was not a large river port but was successful enough to support a comfortable number of merchants, mostly dealing with wool and grain going out of the country, and dyed cloth from Flemish weavers and spices from much farther afield coming in. All merchants need bankers and middle men with contacts and understanding with which to smooth the passages of trade and the exchanges involved, not all of which are in coin acceptable on each side. The Archer Customers of such Jewish bankers, like myself, who have no fixed abode during most of our trading seasons and, for our own protection, rather secretive about the exact whereabouts of our winter quarters, need a secure and trusted means of investing savings, securing sufficient return to furnish for the comfort of our old age and eventual retirement from the daily toil of labour, travel and trade. Jacob used the flow of such coins thus deposited to fund and spread risk across a number of trading adventures and enterprises. The trust of savers like me were rewarded with due interest and guaranteed security. Over time, amounting to a dozen years of honest dealings between us, Jacob became a beloved and trusted friend. But royal politicking, being fickle and driven by greed and avarice above the bounds of common sense or decency, decreed on trumped up religious reasons that the hitherto settled Jewish bankers be driven out of the country and their coffers emptied by confiscation into the royal treasury. Thence, no doubt, to be spent on wine, courtly finery or financing fruitless skirmishes with other quarrelling royals from a rival house, none of such monies would be invested in trade of goods or services, to the detriment of the living conditions of their loyal subjects. Thus the Jewish quarter of the city, where Jacob had lived and worked for many years, was cleared out by force and a family of impoverished haberdashers apparently now shiver in Jacob's stripped hall. With no trade of fine raw wool going out and no woven cloth coming in, the new tenants starved just as hard as the sheep farmers, burning oak furniture, which was too solid to remove as plunder, for firewood. Meanwhile the sheep farmers had turned to thievery and were running the shire reeve's men ragged on the county highways and byways. Kings! Anointed by the Almighty, be damned! Even the dullest farmer knows that you save sufficient of the best grain for sowing next season; grinding the whole crop to flour may mean a loaf or two more bread this winter but guarantees starvation when harvests fail and nights grow long and cold once again. Madder than March hares, kings and princes are, only necessarily rarer and far less palatable. An alewife on the West road, on the approach to the city, had espied and recognised me as I purchased some pie to fortify myself at her inn, as my horse rested, prior to my journey into the heart of the city. She took me to one side, whispering that she had a message left from our mutual friend Jacob, that he had gone from the city to the "inn with the well". She had no idea where that location was but Jacob had assured her that I would recognise the reference and that she would be rewarded by me for the information. Even the inns were suffering from the straightened state of the vanishing market: the traders no longer coming to a city with nothing to trade in exchange for wool, now worthless and barely worth the effort of cutting off the poor animals. I pressed a little silver into the alewife's palm in thanks and proceeded by a roundabout route, to avoid being followed, to Oaklea. This place I hadn't visited since my youth, barely a year or two older than this young Robin, whose very presence reminds me of my own miserable history, the memories of which I have tried to bury deep within my soul ever since. THE VILLAGE OF OAKLEA It had been a hard winter back the first time I visited Oaklea, almost twenty years ago now. In the early spring of that year the king had campaigned in France against the Burgundians or possibly some other perceived ducal or royal rival and had rounded up as many able men for the purpose as deemed possible. I had quartered the winter safely from the military draft in the wilderness of the mountains and hills of North Wales, making longbows with my father. I had brought part of our stock to the rural manor of Oaklea, having heard of the famous annual tournament held there at the inn, which was the richest prize of all in this English shire at the time. I found nought but devastation in the village upon my arrival. With all the men vanished from the large village, the constable and lord along with them, a thieving band of mercenaries had gone through the place a month before and taken everything of value. My coin was eagerly snatched from my proffered hand at the famous inn, the alewife there almost my mother's age but still youthful in spirit and very comely in appearance. I was weary from my long journey on foot and I wasn't alone of like company. Others also came, lured by the expected promise of archery prizes, trading and profit, and stood there empty-handed and disappointed. The alewife's husband had also been taken off to war, forced along with the others into the military draft and had not returned, having buried his precious wealth in the ground before he left; where it was, no-one in his family knew. The ale in the inn was, however, noteworthy in quality and plentifully produced in anticipation of the spring throng, so the archers and associated traders determined to stay at the inn. A worthwhile prize of sorts was raised from the agreed entry fees of the participants, aided by the mutual interests of the wager mongers who had also thronged to the manor in expectation of filling their purses. I won the first prize that year surprisingly easily, just a leather bag of a meagre few silver pennies, three or four shy of a shilling, I recall. I was but a boy then, and it was the very first tournament I had entered and won with my bow. I had been apprenticed in the bow-making craft to a master, my own beloved father, inheriting from his loins a natural good eye for a target. I traded nearly half of the bows I had brought with me at the completion of the contest. Most of the other competitors left immediately after for other fairs, but I tarried a couple more days, after the alewife sought an additional boon of me. The marauders that attacked the village prior to our arrival that spring not only took all they could carry off, they also took by force the virginities of all the village maids as well as compromised as many of the wives who were considered comely enough for their brutal attentions. I remember blushing furiously at what my youthful ears were unaccustomed to absorb and was grateful that the alewife explained the circumstances in the softest of tones while we were alone in the low flickering light of the night fire, which minimised from her view my gross embarrassment. I was a big lad for my age then, tall and powerful enough to draw my father's longest longbow, thus I believe, the alewife thought I was much older and more experienced in the innermost workings of the adult world than I truly was. What she was most concerned by was that her daughter was early with child without a husband, which was both an unhappy circumstance for any young woman and her child, particularly for a family of some standing in the community. There was no other suitable male of marriageable age left in the village. The local lord had cleared out all the able men of nearby vills at the same time, the policy of a fool - as are most nobles of my limited acquaintance. The alewife ushered her only daughter into the room. She was a sweet, slim, flaxen-haired girl, with the biggest and bluest eyes I had ever seen. She was petite and shy, Alwen by name, and she shyly curtsied before me. I had not seen her before this juncture, her mother the dame and the maids in the inn had kept her well hid from view. She was a beautiful girl, so startling in her angelic appearance that she literally took my breath away. The mother's request was that I marry Alwen, so that she would have her child born within the social recognition and blessings of holy wedlock. I would not have to tarry longer than a day or two at the most in the village, the alewife assured me. The priest would marry us in the church upon the morrow and I would be free to go on my way the following morn and not have to take the slightest legal or financial responsibility either in the upkeep of my bride or the raising of the fatherless child. The inn would care for them and, at a future undetermined date, the alewife would have the marriage annulled on grounds of the absent husband's abandonment. There would be no hue and cry, a simple acceptance of a marriage of convenience tidily terminated to the benefit of all participants. Thus I would have no long-term commitment to mother or baby; the child would benefit from not being born a bastard out of wedlock and Alwen would have her present impeccable respectability duly maintained. I declared that I would sleep upon the outrageous proposal a further night before deciding my course of action. The alewife offered to let me sleep on it that night in company with her daughter, as she was already just showing with child. I declined, though I was not much more than an overgrown callow youth myself. I could not sleep with a girl so young I announced adamantly, who was, despite her condition, clearly an innocent. That was a laugh, I told myself, I was less than a handful of years older than Alwen and wholly an innocent myself! As an alternative inducement, therefore, the comely alewife offered herself to me in her daughter's stead, erroneously believing me to be of full maturity myself. She too, had been a forced provider of carnal pleasure to the villains who imposed themselves on the village women. She had resigned herself to the subjugation, hoping by taking them on turn by turn, they would spare her daughter and divers other innocent maids residing as servants at the inn. Alas, there were too many soldiers and one mercenary strayed to sample the pleasures of the daughter. Although she was otherwise quite well hid, she emerged from her secure hiding place through her own innocent curiosity. The alewife assured me that she herself was barren and unable to bear another child. Alwen had been her only offspring in full twenty years of marriage to her absent husband, the only man she had ever enjoyed private relations with prior to the last moon's passing when the women of the manor were imposed upon so cruelly. She suggested instead to gladly take me to her bed if it would make my consideration of her marriage proposal to her daughter more palatable by the morrow. Alas, I was weak and, ashamed to my thinning hair roots even now at my advanced age of almost eight and thirty years. I admit that I partook freely of her ale in plenty that eve and her curvy body apparently well enough to favourably consider fulfilling the proposed arrangement. If I would wed her daughter, it would be on the understanding that it was for our mutual temporary benefit only and no long-term commitment of one to the other, freeing both of us to marry for love in the future, as fate determined or faith decreed. Come the morrow, I was the only sojourner left from the visiting parties at the inn and the alewife broached the subject, that was so close to her heart, once more as I broke my fast. I pondered upon the problem and her proposed solution further, during which she added slyly that, as the husband of the daughter, I would become the son of the innkeeper, and therefore would face no imposition of the normal tariff for my extended stay at the inn. Also, I would have my sack filled with pastries, cold meat cuts and bread for my journey plus as many skins of their freshest ale as I could carry. The inn had done so well out of the ad hoc archery competition that, in addition to my prize, I would be given six shiny silver pennies to fill my purse and, as a final incentive, knowing how marketable my father's longbows were, the alewife would purchase the remainder of my stock to sell on to future travellers. This meant I would be free to travel home immediately; I lived with my parents, who were still alive back in those days. My father had been invalided in battle the year before, hence my being forced out to earn the bread for the family much earlier than planned. I would have earned half a season's income in the first month of the year. Good news indeed for my family. I was tempted by the offer and additional inducements. Once I had toted up the list of benefits in my head, I agreed to the marriage with no further hesitation on my part. The priest Father Andrew was duly summoned from the chapel at the top of the hill. He was an old man then, as old as I am now, with lively eye, and silken tongue. He was nowhere near as unworldly as I was, or indeed as would be expected of an adherent to the cloth of Christ. Father Andrew was a man experienced both in war and want, who had settled for the priesthood and dedication to his flock somewhat late in life. Ensconced in my bedchamber at the inn, the priest, Alwen and I sat alone, her mother sent forth from the chamber by the priest. Father Andrew spake to both our impressionable minds of love and marriage and what such constitution meant for the benefit of families. I tried to explain to the venerable father that this was a marriage of convenience, ordained by bargain rather than love but he waved away my protests. Alwen spake but not a word throughout the Father's sermon. All marriages are forged in heaven, Father Andrew preached sagely, whether they be of momentary convenience or otherwise. We should accept that a bond was thus formed between us, girl and near-adult boy, he smiled. "Both of you have obligations to your families," he winked, the one and only priest I have ever witnessed thus, "But you are also committed to each other in front of the ever seeing eyes of God Almighty. He alone will decide the eventual outcome of your blessed union." The priest knew that I had been sent into the world to trade and barter, to bring the larger share of my bounty home to support my own ageing family. Alwen too, had serious responsibilities ahead, the pain of childbirth, the rearing of the child and, in due course, the day to day work and management of the inn and hostelry; until she married once more to someone more suitable than an inveterate travelling tradesman and competitor. Both of us in our separate ways had strong family bonds which tied us hither and thither, but there also existed a unique bond between us, guided by the Almighty, the priest asserted, which we were honour-bound to respect as long as time itself. Even now, in my middle years, I remember his words in my sparse bedchamber and repeated at that simple ceremony held in the mean church, all that this small parish and its tight-fisted Lord of the Manor could afford. I remembered my vows to honour and cherish a girl, made woman too soon by man's carnal greed and wicked violence; a girl, my beautiful bride, a person I hardly knew, had barely spoken to, and never even touched except that last brief binding kiss. We exchanged rings, ones that the alewife had sometime taken in payment from hard-up visitors. I still wear mine to this day, though not in public view, but securely bound on a twine cord around my neck; cold metal made warm by contact, as close as possible to my heart. As we kissed that single brief kiss between us all those years ago, I pressed my slim linen purse containing six silver pennies into her hand, whispering she was to hold them to use for herself or the child when necessary, one rainy day. Thus my thoughts now run through my greying head as sleep comes late to my weary bones, the disquiet in my mind following the lively exchange with my new young friend, Robin. Memories that return burn me deep into my very soul. *** The morning is misty and murky, still within the grip of the late nip of winter as the declining season gradually releases its cold hold on the land, reluctantly giving way to the burgeoning emergence of spring. The sky is a bright blue, clear of all bar thin streaky cloud, so the sun soon burns off the lingering dew by the time the archers keenly break their fast and gather in anticipation on the archery field. I seek out the gaming clerks as soon as they appear on the scene and place my stakes of chance with several of them. Some bookkeepers are old acquaintances who had already suspected that they remembered me of old and raise their eyebrows at the particularity of my investments, before shortening the odds in consequence, but only after shaking my hand to cement the honour of my wagers. Young Robin steps forward as the lowest of the qualifiers from the previous round at the commencement of the final round. The target is now placed a hundred and fifty paces away from the oche, but can clearly be seen in the bright mid-morning light. Robin relaxes his flesh-spare but broad-boned shoulders, breathing easily as directed, draws his smaller borrowed bow to its fullest extent and lets fly. The first arrow, one of a dozen I had freshly refletched for him during the previous evening, flies straight and true, landing just inside the top of the gold centre bull. The gathered crowd, which is large, as befits the draw of the contest, gasps at this feat by such a callow youth, who had shewn so little likely promise in earlier rounds. There is much speculation that the first shot is a fluke and therefore cannot possibly be repeated by the second arrow of his set. Pledges are swiftly placed accordingly, stakes and promises of odds eagerly exchanged between the interested parties. The particular bookmakers I had spoken to earlier, I notice, appear more than willing to take wagers that the feat will not be repeated, before the attention of all in attendance focusses back to the field as Robin draws his bow for his second shot. The second arrow describes a perfect arc and buries itself deep in the target, the feathered end vibrating violently following the impact. But all eyes strain towards the point of the dart, where has it landed? The crowd whose view is blocked by larger spectators in front of them, try to surge forward to see up the field. Others, whose eyesight is obscured, weak or fading, desperately question younger, taller men around them, keen to learn if their wager has found success or not. Many different opinions of the result are bandied back and forth, yays and nays by turn. Spirits rise and fall according to this opinion or that. "Centre of the bull!" cries the master of the target, waving a flag for the benefit of the steward at the firing point. A very few cheers and many more groans come from the crowd while cut and whole silver coins exchange hands with many more smiles from the money changers than the gamblers. Further wagers are placed for the final shot due from Robin, although much fewer stakes are placed than hitherto, the odds narrowing from the heights they were. Robin smiles at me as he steps up to the oche again. He shakes any tension out of his shoulders and relaxes. Robin breathes as I taught him, nocks the arrow in the string which has been reversed twisted with additional threads woven in at the nocking points for extra strength and stability. He exhales his second breath completely as he draws bead and releases the arrow. Once more the throng holds its breath as the dart soars and flies, to bury itself in the bull, almost touching the second arrow. Dead centre once again! A ripple of spontaneous applause runs around the crowd. I look around at my fellow competitors. A few look ashen. The two old veterans see me looking their way and nod to me with a grin. They know the way the land lies, having experience of so many of these exhibitions. Nobody else comes close to Robin, try though they may. Alan of Wakefield, a veteran archer I have met many times on my travels, wins second prize, pipping my earlier effort by a whisker. No matter, all present in the throng know it was my bow loaned to the youth that won the prize for Robin and I sell all my spare bows and five belt quivers of arrows, all that I had been able to carry on foot on this trip. And, as a bonus to the few pennies won in prize money, I had a full purse of silver collected from the bookmakers who had happily made fortunes themselves from Robin's unexpected triumph. The Archer Robin is excited at winning first prize, of course he is. I still remember my first win, and not only because the youngster puts me so in mind of it but the circumstances which followed. We pack up our few belongings for the short journey to Oaklea. I am certainly travelling much lighter burdened than previously, having just my own bow and quiver to carry. Robin offers to carry my small bag of personal belongings on the journey. Robin has a nice chestnut bay to ride, while I am as usual tramping to our destination on foot. We leave the town in mid afternoon, knowing we had a four to five hour brisk walk to Oaklea, so we can't leave our departure too late if we are to arrive before risking encountering the dangers of travelling in the dark. We talk much along the way. Robin questions me of the places I have visited, while I wish to hear more about his village and his home life, if only to learn more of his guardian, the Dame Alwen. Eventually, we get around to the subject of his home village and the inn, the future running of which he considers boring, compared to the excitement of the tourney. His long-ailing invalided father died early in the cold damp of the immediately past winter, he says. His recently-widowed sister, Alwen, runs the inn efficiently, as she has done for many years and would continue to do so even after her wedding. His own mother he cannot remember, she died when he was an infant and his sister Alwen had been guardian and surrogate mother to him for as long as he could remember. I am sorry to hear that the alewife had died. I do not have any particular feelings for her in my heart, but not only was she kind to me, she was the only woman whose bed I had shared since that night she made me a man. It seems to me that the innkeeper had taken his grandson Robin on as if he was his own child and kept hid from him the fact that he was actually his 'sister' Alwen's child. This means, I suppose, that Robin will inherit the inn in three or four years' time when he becomes of age. In practice this probably means that Alwen will continue to run the inn until Robin took a wife for himself. I cannot help but wonder who Alwen had once been married to (after divorcing me, of course) and to whom she was now due to wed but Robin doesn't mention the deceased husband nor any nephews or nieces. I remember from our conversation last night that he called his guardian the "Lady Alwen", so it appears her second husband was either a lord or a knight at least. Robin does not elaborate and despite my curiosity I do not feel I want to add to the pain in my heart by asking him about her marriages, either. Robin does, however, boast that the inn's ale has a fine reputation that brings visitors from far and wide. Here I can afford to smile openly at his swelling pride. When I followed up Jacob's flight from the city to the mysterious "inn with the well", that the city alewife directed me to some six years ago, I already knew that the Jew could only mean that he was sheltering in the inn at Oaklea. *** Sometime before, it must be some ten years since, I had heard from other travellers on the road, that the inn at Oaklea was lately being avoided, their famed but ancient water well, the source of the particular quality of its ale, had collapsed during the previous winter flooding and the tenants of the inn couldn't pay to have a new one dug. Also the local manor had become so impoverished that the landowner couldn't afford to maintain the manor's assets. There was talk of the inn closing and the tenants being evicted, Alwen's family finding itself at its lowest ebb. The annual archery contest of Oaklea had never resumed after my only involvement, so my rival competitive archers on the circuit had no longer any reason to visit the village or its now-fading tavern, except en route to other fairs or markets. On my instructions ten years ago, my banker friend Jacob had travelled to the inn, as soon as could be arranged, and advanced the innkeeper the cost both of water source divination and the construction of a brand new well, using the best construction methods available. It cost me two years' archery earnings, but the inn insisted on repaying the debt in full and with interest, which they achieved within three years. Only the inn owner, Alwen's father knew who invested, Jacob assured me, everyone else was told that the aid came from a distant family member who preferred to remain anonymous. I was at the time, I believed, still married to Alwen, which made me family after all. That was then, where am I now in relation to my ex-wife's family? That is another matter. It is hot and dusty on that road as my dreaming thoughts return to the present. With half a mile to go, in the gathering dusk on a surprisingly well-maintained road, the youth could no longer contain his excitement, so with a smile I willingly let Robin go on ahead, eager to regale his sister of his archery adventure. Also, I don't think he has ever been away from home for so long in his short life before. "Thank you Will," the youth gushes, "I am eager to get home and ... I know I shouldn't tell you this, not yet anyways, but I only found out a week ago that my beloved sister is also ... my ... mother!" Robin looks at me shyly. "It would take me too long to explain, Will, and I'm not sure I understand the whole story myself, but to discover that I'm not an orphan is too much information for me to hold in!" He gallops off on the bay, and leaves me alone with my thoughts reeling over his last statement. Of course he was Alwen's child, I had known since the moment I saw him wield my father's old bow, one of a handful bought by the alewife. And, as my wife's child, he was, during the time that I was married to his mother, however briefly, Robin was also my son by dint of the law of marriage. My son! A child raised straight and true, a son to be proud of, however violently he may have been conceived. Alwen had truly raised him as a boy to be rightly proud of, a man worthy of the name in the making. If she was indeed a Lady, as she appeared to be, then he was also a Lord in the making. I have no time for lords, but in Robin, just this once, I believe I might make an exception. Such thoughts I am left with to chew over! Without the youngster's enthusiastic and constant chatter, the world about me seems suddenly silent. I reflect on how ridiculous this situation is, how difficult will I find facing his guardian-sister-mother, the Lady Alwen again? Surely, after all this time, the girl that once was will not remember me. We saw each other all too briefly and I had changed much, the years betwixt the wedding and now have been hard and unkind to me. Most of the time we were together, in my chamber and before the altar, her eyes were downcast. Only when I lifted her veil and tenderly kissed her pretty face just that once, the very moment we were wedded man and wife, did she lift up her long pale-lashed lids and stare deep into my soul with those huge blue eyes. Just the once. We kissed with our eyes wide open. Those eyes I would never ever forget. They were with me every night. They are with me now. How was Alwen even aware of my one and only return, I wondered, just six years ago? I had espied her myself then, serving jugs of ale brought from the kitchen, but I kept my hood up with my face in shadow the whole time I talked in the back room of that inn with Jacob and his beautiful daughter Rebecca. Rebecca, of course! Girls gossip all the time. Rebecca would be about a year or two greater than Robin's age now, almost a full-grown woman herself. A raven haired beauty now, no doubt, as she was always a beautiful child. With my nomadic lifestyle and the inaccessibility of my home hamlet in Wales, I had had no contact with Jacob since helping him to a ship captained by my fisherman cousin and away from England to safety. But it was quite possible that Alwen corresponded with Jacob or Rebecca. I saw Alwen reading her ledger and writing out a bill from my vantage point when I entered through the inn's back passageway, seeking out my homeless old friend. Also, that same year I was truly inspired in my bowmanship and won every single contest I entered in that shire and the neighbouring ones to the west of the English Midlands. Fellow travellers may have spread the news of William the Bowman's exploits, as I was known at the time. That was one of the reasons why I had previously dropped using Will Archer as my name and was now Will Fletcher, an archer who had absolutely no reputation at all. I wonder as I walk alone, how could I so easily fall into her mother's marriage scheme? Youthful enthusiasm to do right by the wronged girl? Maybe. Open to bribery by a doting mother? Certainly I gave in to temptations offered. All of these things, I was both Samaritan and Judas. I walked away some nineteen years ago feeling like a sneak thief, with pieces of silver rattling in my purse and fat skins of ale to wash down my twin guilts of abandonment of a wife ripening with child and the additional unwanted shame of cuckolding the absent innkeeper. I tried to assuage my guilt by leaving Alwen a few token pence, but those other acts were my baptism into adulthood and have haunted me all my lonely nights since. Too tired, hungry, thirsty and dusty to turn away from my destiny now. Robin has my bag, including all my coin, me, the one who trusts no-one! I am left only clutching my knife, bow and meagre quiver of arrows, the later two for my protection on the road as well as testimony to my art and trade. Now I find, my left boot sole is in urgent need of a cordwainer's attention; my left big toe feels every single sharp stone on the road and as a consequence I am developing a slight limp. My fate is thus sealed in regard to my destination and my next night's necessary rest. Even if I wanted to change direction, I wouldn't get very far. I reconcile my fears with the knowledge that at least I know I will not be recognised at the inn for who I once was, one Will Archer, the first husband of the now dame innkeeper. Old and bald and grey, where a few hairs cling tenaciously to my pate, I am but a shadow of my former youth. I hope also that, since her new marriage, the Lady Alwen has grown fat with a host of babes feeding on her gross teats and I can laugh heartily at my good fortune of being rid of her and rest thereafter with the dreamless sleep of a much happier man. I can hope, can't I? OAKLEA REVISITED Walking from the east, I climb the steep hill past the old Saxon stone church, the scene of my only wedding ceremony, at the top of the hill and the drystone wall around it. Curiously, I notice a line of yew trees, often associated with churchyards, outside the line of the curtilage of the church. My memories may be dim in some respects, but I was sure those ancient yew trees were inside the graveyard all those years ago. Yew trees always attract my interest for potential bow wood stock and I cannot fail to notice, as I tarry catching my breath after my long hill climb for a few moments, that many are the boughs and stems which could be cut and split for longbows, were the church or the noble landowners willing to allow me leave for the few pennies I can afford to pay. There are two new-built low stone buildings, built better than ordinary workshops, with fine weather-tight slate roofs, next to the church. The farthest one a smithy, its still-smoking forge and anvil in an open-sided lean-to by the side, now clearly shut down for the night, the embers cooling in the gathering dusk. There is a well at the top of the hill with a stone wall around it. Like the buildings, clearly of recent construction, the impoverished manor must have having taken a significant turn for the better in the past decade. Clearly, Alwen's precious lord is or was a man of some substance and intelligence, investing in his land's future, probably the somewhat wiser son of the wastrel old fool that went before. A lone young boy sits on the well wall, warmed by the late afternoon sun high on the hill and cheerfully kicking his heels as young boys are wont to do in lieu of freer activities. Next to him is a pail of water, the sides glistening wet in the evening light, showing it has only recently been hauled up from the depths. The boy seems barely strong enough to have pulled up the bucket, but no-one else is in the vicinity. "Good evenin' Sire, are you William, known as the bowman?" the urchin asks of me, with a tentative smile on his lips, though his chest puffs out in pride of his appointed role as look-out. "Aye," I cannot help but grin in reply to the eager child, entrusted with this important task and apparently glad of it. He hops off the wall, saying "There's fresh-drawn water in the pail, m'Lord for your refreshment. Ev'rything's ready for thee; yon inn is at the foot of the hill on the right. I'm right away down the hill now to let the Lady know you're safe arrived." With that, he trots off down the hill, to his supper and shortly after that, no doubt, abed. Beyond him I can see the main well-maintained stone lane that runs downhill through the village, with the inn on the right hand side and its stables behind, with vegetable and herb gardens, green with fresh spring shoots, beyond that down to the shallow brackish stream. I remember crossing that little brook last time I came, so I could visit Jacob without being seen by the dame of the inn. Even from here I can see that the stream is very much deeper and wider, the lowering sun glistening off the surface, and impossible now to ford. It appears the old mill, burned to the ground by those original marauders, must have been rebuilt and the millpond to drive the wheel restored and greatly enlarged in the past six years or so since my visit. I slake my thirst at the well, dipping my hands into the cool water in the pail and splash some over my head to the blessed relief of the back of my hot neck. The sun is sinking below the distant hills and the valley bottom is already plunging into darkness, the lamps are lit and the downstairs windows of the inn are flickering aglow with inviting lights. The inn looks prosperous, as I walk gingerly, favouring my limp, down the hill towards my destination. I bear the tension of much trepidation of my reception on my shoulders, as well as the discomfort of my left big toe. Spring flowers sway in the gently cooling evening breeze, rooted into earthen pots and wooden tubs along the outside walls and a garland of late daffodils surround the welcoming open doorway, reminding me of my distant home. I walk inside the great hall of the inn. There are fresh reeds strewn on the earthen floor, with stone flags near the great fire against one wall, stacks of firewood ready to replenish the roaring blaze to chase away the cooling air as the sun readies itself to drop behind the western hills. Compared with the low bright late-afternoon sunset, my ancient eyes take some time to adjust to the ambient glow from the rushlights that illuminate the hall within. "Will!" cries Robin, his tall, gangling form rises from a settle near the fireplace and advances toward me, "Come, I will take you up to your chamber. I sent your baggage up with a trusted servant directly upon my arrival. Are you thirsty and hungry?" "I am still a little thirsty, Robin, thank you. It's dusty on that road. But just a little water will suffice for now, I assure you." Clearly the boy messenger was not reporting back to Will, I am certain he would have met me by the doorway if he knew I was coming down the hill directly. My thoughts turn to the Lady Alwen once more, as they ever do, ever will, until we settle the ambiguous state of our affairs for once and for all. "I will have a jug of sweet fresh drinking water sent up, Will," the youth smiles, developing into the perfect host, "A bath is ready to be drawn for you, with hot water being prepared and I have laid out some clean fresh robes on the bed for you. Wait, you are limping, sir, are you hurt?" "No, Robin, my old boots have just stepped a league too far and have given out, my toe is a little sore, that is all." "When you get to your chamber I will take your worn out boots and send for the cobbler. You would have passed his workshop next to the church. He will fashion you a fair copy by the morrow's dawn." "No, Robin, they can easily be repaired during tomorrow. I fear that the workshop is presently shut up for the night." "Nonsense, Will, the cobbler is enjoying his very first ale in the hall downstairs. I will despatch him with your boots to effect a decent repair immediately and fashion a copy while about it in the finest Moorish leather, otherwise he will not get his accustomed skinful this eve nor any other!" "Thank you, Robin, you are too kind, lay on to my chamber then." I cannot help but chuckle at the enthusiasm of youth, when anything is possible. I take a chance as he turns his back though, to glance around the room. No sign of Alwen, thanks be to heaven. If the Lady had any inkling that it was her old husband Archer who was in attendance and not this other infamous archer Will Bowman, the woman's curiosity would know no bounds. At this time of the early evening she will be in the kitchens supervising the preparation of the main meal. I take a deep breath, sigh with relief, and hobble after my young host. Robin leads the way up a grand new-made oaken stairway, the like of which I have never seen outside of the largest city, leading to the first floor galleries. Then we traverse a long passage into a new-built part of this old inn, before entering a large well-appointed bedchamber. At the far end of the room, a huge high bed is covered in furs and deep pillows, with rich dark red brocade curtains around it to keep at bay unwelcome debilitating draughts. On the bed is spread a cream linen bed smock, next to fresh white linen under- and over-shirts and a fine pair of dark brown woollen breeches. On the floor lay a pair of kid slippers, provided for my comfort. All around the room are lit white beeswax candles, throwing clear bright smokeless light across the room. The very walls are covered in rich tapestries, the waxed and polished oak floorboards strewn with divers rugs and woven wool carpets. This inn is like no other I have stayed in, if this is the quality of but one of its bedchambers. A prince or cardinal could not have found better welcome. A roaring fire in the grate, supplied with a stone-faced chimney on one wall is blazing away, fuelled by coal. This is a fire fit for a king surely, rather than an inveterate fashioner of even the very best of longbows. In one corner of the chamber, with its own sheltering curtains swept aside to reveal, sits a wooden tub bath which even now is being filled by a succession of smiling maids carrying jugs of steaming water. A knurled old male servant arrives then with a jug of cool fresh-drawn water and a cup fashioned from incised crystal glass, the like of which I have heard spake of by tellers of tall tales but never seen before, pouring me a measure which I drain gratefully. I hand the cup back to the servant gingerly, the breakage of which I would have to work until I died to repay. He acknowledges my thanks with a simple wordless nod and departs. I assume he may be deaf and dumb. The bath duly drawn and filled, the maids file out the door with their empty jugs for the last time, giggling like children as they pass. Robin's smile of pride at his inn's overwhelming hospitality is a backlit stained glass window to behold. He pulls the curtains close to around the tub and urges me to get my distressed boots off. He asks me to go behind the curtain and pass out my soiled clothes, which he promises he will have clean and hot iron pressed before cock's first crow. Behind those thick cushioning curtains, the still air is already steamy and warm, the water hot and inviting, real soft soap in a dish set on a three-legged stool next to the steaming bath.