Longbow

  Longbow

  The Saga of Roland Inness

  Book 1

  Wayne Grant

  Longbow, Copyright © 2014 by Wayne Grant. All rights reserved.

  Published by Kindle Direct Publishing in the United States of America. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  FIRST EDITION

  Longbow is a work of fiction. While some of the characters in this story are actual historical figures, their actions are wholly the product of the author’s imagination.

  Cover Art by More Visual, Ltd.

  To Tyler and Ben—who inspired this story so long ago.

  Contents

  Prologue

  The Shot

  The Devil’s Day

  The Monk

  Flight

  The Road to York

  Stalked

  Assassin

  The Test

  Shipbrook

  The Jest

  Payment in Kind

  The Abduction

  Pursuit

  Clocaenog

  Escape

  The King is Dead

  To London Town

  The Crossing of Paths

  Long Live the King

  The Tournament

  What Lies Ahead

  Historical Note

  Map

  The Saga of Roland Inness

  Prologue

  It is the Year of Our Lord 1189 and England is in the thirty-fifth year of the reign of Henry II, the first and greatest of the Angevin kings. It has been over one hundred years since William the Conqueror imposed Norman rule over the fractious peoples of the island kingdom. That rule has brought peace, but at a price. For the conquered Saxons, Danes, and Celts of the land, the Norman yoke lies heavy.

  In the larger world it is a time of change and uncertainty. Europe is stirring to the calls from Pope Gregory for a new crusade. The great Kurdish general, Saladin, has captured the holy city of Jerusalem from the Christians and the Church wants it back. It is a fit time for heroes and legends to arise. This is the story of one such.

  The Shot

  Roland Inness stood perfectly still in the shadows of the deep glade. He had seen a hint of movement out of the corner of his eye and knew not if it signalled danger or opportunity. All around him the wood was silent but for the far away screech of a crow announcing dawn in the mist-covered valley below. In these foothills, dirty grey snow still clung to the low places long past the time for the spring thaw.

  The boy was taller than most of his age and sturdily built—though painfully thin. His dark hair hung loose, almost to his shoulders, and brushed against cheeks that had grown hollow during the long winter of famine. He had risen long before dawn, when the stars still hung bright in the sky and had followed paths he knew well far down the mountain’s flank in search of game. He was much nearer the lowlands than his father would have allowed. But this dawn, he hunted alone.

  The valley below and these mountains were the property of the Earl of Derby. Far beyond where his eye could see was rich farmland where green shoots were just beginning to show through the dark soil. In the high hills and moors where he and his Danish kin had been driven by the Normans generations ago, the ground was rocky and poor and food scarce in the best of times.

  And these were not the best of times. The autumn harvest had been a disaster and the winter had been long and snow bound. Old men said it was the cruellest in memory. Long before spring, food had grown scarce and starvation stalked the farmsteads on the high flanks of the Pennines.

  The winter had taken his mother, weakened by hunger and wracked with fever and the early snows had driven deer to seek shelter and forage at lower elevations. The late spring had kept them there. In another month, they would be moving up the valleys and into the highlands where it would be safe to hunt them without fear of offending the Earl. He thought of his young sister, just now beginning to walk. She had cried in the night, her belly empty. His brother Oren never complained, but the boy had grown fearfully thin. They could not wait another month.

  Poaching on the Earl’s land was a flogging offense, but the boy knew the thing he held lightly in his left hand made the stakes deadlier. It was a longbow. If he were caught with this weapon by the Normans he would not be flogged. He would be hung.

  The bow was slightly longer than the boy was tall and rough in appearance. For all its lack of beauty, it was the most lethal weapon in all the world. It could propel a shaft with a bodkin arrowhead two hundred yards and pierce chain mail—or even plate armour at closer range. The Danes had brought the weapon with them in their Viking longboats and had carved out a kingdom with it in a new land.

  The longbow was feared, outlawed and suppressed by the Normans, for it was the only weapon that could defeat their armoured knights—yet in a hundred years of their rule, the bow had not completely disappeared. The art of constructing it was still known to some among the Danes and Rolf Inness, the boy’s father, had patiently taught his oldest son the craft.

  In his tenth year, he had begun. First, in winter, Roland had cut a stave from the strong and supple English yew, making certain that he had both centre and sapwood. Hidden in the rafters of the family’s rude hut, the wood was left to cure for almost two years. At the winter solstice just passed, his father had judged the stave ready for fashioning.

  For days he carefully drew his blade over the wood, following the grain as he had been taught. Once the dimensions were proper, he had worked a piece of antler over the entire length to smooth and toughen the surface. It was not the beauty in the wood he sought, but its strength. Finally, he had attached pieces of carved bone to each end that were notched to secure the fine flax bowstring. When he was finished, it was truly no thing of beauty, but his father had been pleased and that was well enough.

  He had hunted with the new longbow while winter still held the high country in its grip, but there had been no meat for the table. Now, he had disobeyed his father, had slipped out long before dawn and hiked far down the mountain. Once again, he sensed movement at the far borders of his vision and could not resist a slight turn of his head to bring it into view.

  It was a roebuck, still lean from the long winter, but enough meat for a fortnight! The knot of hunger in his stomach urged him on. His Lordship would not go hungry for the want of this deer. Danes and Saxons may starve, but the Normans never went hungry—ever. He slowly raised the bow at his side and nocked the arrow, his eyes steady on the prey. It would be a long shot, but he had made longer.

  Roland strained against the stiff draw of the bow until the fletching of the arrow touched his cheek. He breathed evenly, as he had been taught, focused on the vulnerable point behind the deer’s shoulder and loosed the shaft. The arrow leapt true and the buck was instantly down and thrashing in the brush at the other side of the clearing. The boy unsheathed his rude knife and leapt across the open space to where the deer struggled. Quickly, he slit the animal’s throat and let out a long breath. As the buck grew still at his feet, he slung it over a low branch to bleed out and let himself feel the excitement of the kill for a moment. This meat would be smoked in the cave above his family’s hut, and they would survive another hard season in the Midlands of England.

  He pulled his prize to the ground and started to position the antlers across his shoulders to drag it the long way back home, but stopped and grew still. Something was not right in the forest. A lifetime in these woods had given him a keen sense for when something was amiss and he felt it now. Below him the cries of the crow had grown more insistent and then another sound came from down the mountain, the distinct yelp of a hunting hound on a scent!

  He glanced down at the buck an
d noticed for the first time the sweat glistening on its flanks. This animal had been in flight and had only paused in this glade for a moment, near the end of a long chase. He heard another yelp from below, closer now. Hounds were in hot pursuit, and not far behind would be the Earl’s gamekeepers and men-at-arms.

  Roland’s joy at the kill was instantly gone. His heart hammered in his chest as he fought to stop the rising panic that seized him. The sound of the hounds was distinct now as they responded to the freshness of the scent left by the roebuck in its passage. In moments, they would burst from the woods below along the old game trail. The dogs might be distracted by the downed buck, but the men who followed—they would immediately understand what had happened here and put the dogs on the trail of a new quarry. Roland hesitated but a moment to wrench his arrow from the dead deer.

  No point leaving evidence—or a perfectly good shaft!

  He sheathed his knife, then turned and ran like the devil was on his heels across the clearing and up into the denser underbrush. If the hounds were put on his scent they could run him down in a matter of minutes.

  He had to think!

  As soon as he was out of sight of the clearing he stopped and gathered himself. At that moment, a savage wailing arose as the dogs burst upon the fallen deer. On the verge of despair, the boy suddenly had a vision of a place not far off that might be his salvation. With renewed energy, he turned onto a half-obscured game trail and ran along the flank of the mountain.

  As he ran, the wild baying started to recede. Then, he heard a new sound—the faint but distinct sounds of men shouting. The Lord’s men had found the deer. How soon before they put the hounds on his trail? He stopped for a moment to listen, straining to hear what was happening back in the glade. The sounds had died to almost nothing, but then there was a high-pitched yelp—the yelp of a hound that had found a scent.

  “Damn!” he cursed. They were on to him.

  He bolted down the trail, redoubling his speed as he headed for the place he hoped would save him. Roland had spent his entire young life in the high hills of the Pennines, chasing deer or just running for the joy of it. Now he ran with no joy—only desperation.

  There it was!

  A small but energetic stream emerged from the mist and ferns above him, cut across the game trail and leaped over a boulder field that tumbled out of sight down the mountain. He plunged in up to his knees and started to pick his way down the streambed. The water was numbingly cold and soon he could barely feel his legs. A hundred yards down the mountain he stepped out onto a muddy bank where he, quite deliberately, left the imprint of his leather shoe. From there, he entered the boulder field that disappeared in the mists below. After working his way for several yards downward, he carefully retraced his steps.

  The hounds were well-trained hunters. They would lose his scent on the game trail and circle back. The men would see the stream and set the dogs to casting on either side to pick up his trail. He could but hope that the Earl’s men would think he had taken the easier path downstream, and would urge the hounds in that direction first. If they did it would not take the dogs long to detect where he had left the stream. Everything rested on the hunters believing he had fled downhill across the boulders—and on beating them back to where the trail crossed the stream above.

  Roland picked his way back across jumbled rocks to the muddy bank and carefully stepped backward into his own footprint as he re-entered the stream. Now it would simply be a race. To his left and slightly downhill he could hear the excited howling of the pack as it discovered the old game trail and turned in his direction.

  The streambed was steep and slick with moss and slime. The tumbling water clutched at his leggings, but he no longer noticed the icy cold as he scrambled madly upward. The baying of the pack was growing louder now and he could faintly make out the sound of rough voices not far behind. His lungs were burning as he lunged upwards through the torrent and despite the icy spray, his mouth was as dry as sand. Then, soaked and numb, he found himself once more where the game trail crossed the stream. A hound yelped just out of sight in the dense woods to his left. The boy rose to his feet and plunged further up the streambed—into the ferns and mist above.

  He had barely clambered fifteen yards uphill when he heard the dogs below him splash through the stream. Roland moved with care now, for the men could not be far behind and he must not be heard. Even though he was concealed in the brush and ferns that crowded in on the stream, he needed to put more distance between himself and the hounds, lest they catch his scent directly. He moved with desperate care higher up the mountain.

  As he climbed, he realized that the dogs had gone silent—casting for his missing scent further along the game trail. Then the baying began again as they retraced their path to the stream. Here the sounds mingled with the shouts of the men who followed. Roland could not make out what the men were saying amid the frantic wailing of the dogs and his own ragged breathing. He lay very still and listened intently, as the sounds below started to grow fainter—receding downhill.

  They had taken his feint!

  The boy said a swift prayer and crawled uphill. Far below, the dogs sent up an excited howling as they sniffed out his exit from the stream and the men shouted at the discovery of his footprint. For the next hour the men searched through the jumble of stone. By this time, Roland Inness was far away and over the crest of the nearest ridge. In the boulder field, a tall, spare young man with the face of a hawk turned and looked grimly up the mountain.

  “He’s foxed us,” he said, to no one in particular.

  “Beg pardon, my lord?” said the nearest of the men-at-arms.

  Sir William de Ferrers turned and spat on the ground near one of the hounds.

  “He knew we’d think down…and he’s gone up, I’ll wager.”

  “Up the mountain, my Lord?”

  “Up and over, you idiot! And long gone. We shan’t catch him this day—but he can’t stay hidden forever. I will find this poacher who would take our game and outrun our dogs. There can’t be many of that ilk in these hills.”

  Sir William signalled the men to assemble. He looked up the mountain once more, as though trying to pierce the wall of trees and rock to discover his quarry. Then he turned and sent the nearest hound whimpering with a well-aimed kick.

  “Collect the kill and get these stupid mongrels out of my sight” he growled. The dogs cringed and the men scampered to obey.

  The Devil’s Day

  Lord Robert de Ferrers, the 3rd Earl of Derby, listened intently to the young man in front of him. William, his only son, was not long past boyhood, but he was already a veteran of the constant struggle to maintain control over their domains. Ruling the wild lands—and occasionally wild inhabitants—of their vast holdings in the Midlands of England required constant vigilance.

  His report had, thus far, been only mildly troublesome. Some peasant had been stupid enough to fell a stag being pursued by the future 4th Earl of Derby. It was a bit surprising that this unknown poacher had managed to elude his son, whom the Lord knew to be a relentless and skilful hunter. He was about to receive a second surprise.

  “Guards, leave us. I wish to speak to my father alone,” commanded the young man. The two men-at-arms who had flanked him while he recounted the day’s events turned wordlessly and left the Earl’s chamber. Robert de Ferrers cocked an eyebrow and waited to see why his son had to say.

  “My lord, you will understand that I did not wish this to be widely known,” Sir William began, “but you must know that this poacher—whoever he is—used a Viking bow to make his kill.”

  The Earl stiffened for a moment, then rose and walked to the edge of the hearth where a glowing log cast enough warmth to take the chill out of the room. He stretched out his gnarled hands, scarred in many battles, toward the welcome heat.

  “A longbow? What is your evidence of this?” he asked quietly.

  “The arrow was gone, my lord, but the wound was unmistakable. The poacher slit
the animal’s throat and would be roasting a haunch as we speak, if we had not been hot after the beast. Whoever did this is experienced in the forest and steps lightly, but I could still trace the path back to where he stood to make his kill.”

  “And?”

  “I stepped off the distance – it was near two hundred paces from where the stag was struck.”

  The Earl’s head sank to his chest as the painful logic of his son’s conclusion sank home. Nothing but a longbow could kill at that distance.

  “Aye, William,” he sighed. “I see your reasoning. The men—they do not know?”

  “No, Sire. They are but little keener than my horse at noticing such things.”

  The Earl considered his son with his usual mix of emotions. His heir had been smart enough to divine the meaning of the day’s events and to keep this worrisome news to himself—and for this the older man was thankful—yet here too was the part of his son he abhorred.

  William had all the qualities of a formidable leader, but for this one flaw of openly disdaining those beneath him, both noble and peasant. From earliest childhood, he had shown himself to be intelligent and bold. He was the swiftest runner and most cunning gamesman among the boys his age, but his father’s pride in his son’s victories had often turned to ashes as the boy taunted those he had vanquished. The Earl could care less that William was arrogant.

  God’s breath, but he had arrogance aplenty himself!

  In truth, a humble man could not rule this land, but a man too prideful makes enemies unnecessarily. And even the great Earl of Derby could ill afford too many enemies. Neither his pleading nor punishment had driven the arrogance from the lad. It was an unfortunate flaw in one who would someday be master of Derbyshire.

  “William, this poacher must be found and this bow seized discreetly. For that reason, I give you the task, but have a caution. The last time we encountered such a bow was when you were a babe. We had to fight for our lives to quell the uprising that this infernal device made possible. I lost over half my men-at-arms trying to put down a bunch of peasants who still haven’t forgotten that their sires were Vikings.”