Chapter 1: The Smooth Field

I stiffen as the black cloaked friar passes me. Although I have never met this particular monk, it appears he knoweth me, or knoweth enough of who I be to recognise me as distinct from Adam or any other ordinary man.

Our eyes meet briefly, his head almost bobbing, before he casts his look downward. My eyes follow where his own eyes alight. He flashes the palm of his left hand to me briefly. It is completely overpainted in red ochre.

It is a sign, and not one I would expect to find exposed to me so far from my accustomed paths in the middle regions of the English shires.

The monk moves on without a backward glance, without even a single break in the determined stride of a cleric with divine purpose. Soon he is lost in the human tumult, assembling eagerly to witness the archery event on a place the locals hereabout London Town call the Smooth Field, one set aside for citizens’ entertainment just outside the ancient north walls of the City.

I make no sudden movements after the departure of the friar, but continue to stand where I be, waiting for a time to pass.

No one observing me must know I have received any message. I kick at the ground in apparent boredom. Slowly, I fade a step back into the shadow of the London Wall behind me, forsaking the noonday sun which has been gently warming the night’s chill out of me. There, from the dark shadows I feel more free to inquisite my surroundings, but see no-one obviously about betraying their observation of me and my movements. Still vigilant, I strap both my bulging quivers of target arrows to my waist, gather up my bag and longbow, before striding out into the sunshine, heading away from the newly-built walls of the St Bartholomew’s Priory next to the London Wall, close to the crowded Aldersgate, which disgorges its folk into the countryside and commons surrounding England’s primary city.

Within moments I am onto the Smooth Field, joining the mass of unwashed humanity heading onto the grassland, where the final rounds of the richest archery tournament in the realm, the highlight of the week-long Michaelmastide Fayre, was to be held.

I wonder why I was warned by that messenger, for surely that was what the red hand message implied, and why I would be under some observation, and by whom, as I walk to the field.

I am nobody in these parts, of course, merely a humble archer from the far distant West Midlands. One who talks with an accent that London folk find as strange and amusing, no doubt, as I find theirs be to my rude country ears.

If I am to be attacked and robbed, it will not be now. Presently, I have very few coins to rub together and am even relying on my winnings at the tournament to pay the tariff that I have built on credit with the landlord of The Goat Inn in Long Lane, where I have stayed alone but in good comfort in a small single room away from the noisy street, and dined quite acceptably these last three days. The landlord had accepted me with a nod on accepting the scrap of scrip with the red hand quill-scratched on the worn palimpsest I had been given as a token by a Black Friar a few days before. The landlord escorted me without a word to the quiet empty room that had thus been reserved for my use, even though the inn was otherwise heaving with crowded guests, doubled and tripled up mostly, attracted by the last great Fayre of the summer season, before the grinding malaise of winter.

I regularly encounter Rebecca’s red hand sign and her black cowled Friars. They have insinuated their presence into my travels ever since I resumed touring the tourneys last year, after completing my bowmaking apprenticeship, trained in the fine arts of the Welsh longbow by my father these last five years. The first Black Friar that I saw upon the road was Brother Cleric Michael, the huge red-haired friar I knew already from our adventure at the Battle of Oaklea. He joined me on the road after I won my first tournament travelling on my own, there without the guiding advice or protection of my father. With Michael I exchanged most of my fat prize purse for a scrip of parchment.

I knew him, Brother Cleric Michael, a former brother in arms. I trusted him with my life, so why not the larger part of my coin when he advised that I do so? I remember him saying that it was unwise for a lone man on the road with so heavy a pocket, and I saith the truth of the same back to him if he did indeed carry off my prize as he had requested.

“Ha! And what makes thee think I am alone, Master Robin?” Brother Michael had replied with a twinkle in his eye.

And it is true, monasteries and convents abound wherever, whether they be in city, town or countryside, with well-trod trade routes betwixt them. Nor do you ever see a poor abbey or monastery, nor ever yet a skinny monk.

But how odd, though, the strange marriage of the holy cross, the rosary beads and the red hand symbol of the Jewish banker? A harmony among mortal man may be desired in the Heavens of the same shared God, no doubt, but Christian and Jewish fellowship is vigorously denied within our earthly shires and the great schism of two great religions worshipping the same one God is preached as sacrilege to the simple-minded congregations from chapel pulpits. But under the red hand, there is a sense of peace and harmony, no doubt to the profit and prosperity of both sides of the worship divide.

From time to time a Friar, sometimes known or more times unknown to me, will hand me a sealed parchment from Rebecca, informing me of the growing value of my investments, made up from the monks’ regular and perfectly timely collections. They seem to know where I will be before I decide where to go!

As at Lincoln City the week before last, word came that I now owned a virgate of land in Sherborne, Dorsetshire, sited convenient betwixt priory and the manor which will one day become more valuable as that portion was being desired for future expansion by both parties. Also, I recently came to own two oxgangs in the outer environs of the City of York, fresh planted with beans and oats by my new tenants and set for a fair return for all involved in the venture by harvest time.

Perhaps that was the redhanded monk’s warning, that I was to be relieved of the larger part of my winnings by a trusted monk and render myself safe from predation, and be noted in due time that my accounts at the Inn have been settled and the balances invested for my old age.

Such things are not that important to me, though, a once boy, now a recent man of 22 years of age. It has been a long spell away from my home manor and I am as eager for pleasant family company as any deprived child might be. I so wish to be home in Oaklea before Lucifer’s Day dawns and the trees shed their summer cloaks of green in brittle sheets of red and gold. I hope these present attentions do naught to delay me in my intentions and keep me away from the half-siblings that I miss so much, especially since they grow like weeds in the fertile tilth of the loving family of my father and half-sister.

This tournament is the biggest I have ever been involved in. Usually dozens of archers might participate in the tourneys of towns and larger villages. But here, so close to the mighty city of London that the drawn crowds’ applause echoes off its very walls, there must be a thousand or more bowmen who started their darts to fly at the commencement of competition three days thence. In the early rounds I was pitted agin eleven other archers at the same time, all dozen of us aline, each firing off a dozen arrows apiece at once. Only one of the twelve, the one with the least misses, found himself through into the next round. Then eight archers, again all afiring side by side; then be six competitors; and yesterday we were in ranks of four bowyers, when bulls were far more the common score even than outer rings.

Today, the final day, we are down to the very last eight archers left of the tumult that began, each of us unbested by those we’ve been matched with in the prior two morns. Now we are to be paired off, one opposed one other, loosening twelve shafts apiece to decide the best of each pairing. And only the best of those eight proceeds to the final four, before the last pair of would-be champions settle betwixt them who claims the fattest archery purse prize in all the realm.

I daresay it will be enough for the burliest Black Friar to haul away and deposit in the Red Hand Bank on my behest. At least this day I will have a purse of some sorts, for all those who reach the last eight will win some bright glint of silver, but whether t’will be enough to satisfy the landlord of The Goat Inn’s tally for my three day stay in a private chamber, is another matter, city prices being so exorbitant.

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

Damn, I find I am early.

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

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

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