The Dark Daring Deeds of Geffrey ðe Wulf

By Geoff Boxell

When Sir Alan de Buxhall KG, Constable of the Tower of London to King Edward III and then Richard II, wants a “discreet” deed done he always calls in his distant relative, Geffrey ðe Wulf, the most trusted of his Household Archers.
Wulf, as he is often called, fought for Sir Alan during the knight’s years fighting in France, but in his later years Wulf has joined the Tower garrison. When not on duty at the Tower he retires to his farm at Half-Farthing near Wandsworth in Surrey. When doing dark deeds that the Constable does not want directly credited to him, Wulf is often supported by some of the other rather disreputable members of Sir Alan’s Tower garrison. However, when on a task such as rescuing a fellow Lollard, the infamous John Ball, from the clutches of the Archbishop of Canterbury, he prefers to have his young nephew Gareth Robertson as his companion.
So slip into the – at times murky and violent – world of Medieval England, where prisoners escape from the Tower of London, bows mysteriously break, and an upstart warlord wants to blackmail members of the French King’s court.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Geoff Boxell
• Release date: Aug 23, 2015
• ISBN: 9780473332525

Geoff Boxell

G'day,At the age of seven I asked my mother about King Richard the Lion Heart. Her response was to give me an historical text book she was reading on the subject and tell him to find out for myself! From then on I have been addicted to English history. After leaving school, where the history topics I studied were dictated by my need to pass exams, I concentrated my efforts on the 17th century, with especial interest in the Civil War and Cromwell's Protectorate. However, in the mid '90's I changed direction and began studying Anglo-Saxon history. Since then the Hundred Years War, in particular the events in the reigns of Edward III and Richard II have caught my interest. As a result of this I am now involved with the SCA Canton of Cluain, Barony of Ildhafn, Kingdom of Lochac. I have more than one persona, but my usual one is that of a yeoman archer in the retinue of Sir Allan de Buxhall, KG, Constable of the Tower of London. I run my own Household within the Barony - The Wulfings.Until Government cut backs I regularly acted as a guest lecturer for the Waikato University covering English history topics from the coming of the English to the Restoration.Whilst I spent most of my early career in telecommunications, I later joined the University of Waikato running an experimental ‘virtual’ unit providing education in technology management and innovation. After leaving the University I worked on various technology related contracts but am now retired.I am active Christian and attend the Te Awamutu Bible Chapel. For many years I have been involved in youth work for the church.Born in England, my wife and I moved to New Zealand in 1969. We have three sons and five grandchildren. We live on a large section with lots of trees and flowers and spend a lot of our time working in the garden. Naturally, as an archer, I have an archery butt at the bottom of the grounds.

Book preview

Chapter 1: There Are Some Stories To Tell

The man sat on the upturned log of wood and took a deep breath. He scanned the blue sky with its deep white clouds before mopping his brow with an old rag he had pulled from his belt. He took another deep breath and eased his back against the whitewashed wattle-and-daub wall of the granary. He closed his one functioning eye and smiled as a very light breeze blew across what remained of his hair. He ran his hand over the cropped stubble at the back of his head before opening his eye again and glancing at the millpond where light danced on the ripples. He looked at his hands and grunted. ‘I have my father’s hands; all thin skin, freckles and wrinkles,’ he whispered to himself. He took to looking at the scars his hands were covered in; the ones from being careless with saws, chisels and knives when a child, the ones from sword practice, the ones from sword fights. He turned his hands palm up and saw more scars: a long one on the left hand from grabbing a Frenchman’s glaive too close to the weapon’s head, a smaller but wider one on his right hand, gained whilst scrambling over a castle’s wall in Normandy. Then there was the missing joint on the index finger of his right hand – it should have been two whole fingers missing, but an English patrol had arrived in time to stop his French captors from completing their task. He rubbed the empty socket of his left eye – another memento of his war campaigns in France – and sighed: it was good to have returned to England again, even if he did feel obligated to help his brother Robert at the Waddon water-mill when the grain needed grinding and Robert’s eldest son was in France on garrison duty.

A boy of no more than ten summers came towards him, dangling a jug in one hand and two leather jacks in the other. ‘Ale, Uncle Wulf?’ the lad called out.

‘Don’t you go asking daft questions, young Gareth, and lift they jug up so you don’t spill any of that precious fluid. Hurry up before I die of thirst.’ The man leant over and turned another log of wood up to create a makeshift seat for his brother Robert’s younger son. ‘Small ale, I assume?’

‘’Tis all my Dad will let me have.’

‘He did know it was for me?

‘He said you had to have small ale too, else you would fall asleep!’

Geffrey ðe Wulf sighed a deep sigh. ‘Robert was always a smart-arse.’ He took a jack from the boy’s hand and relieved him of the jug too before indicating with his head that the boy was to sit alongside him. ‘If I do fall asleep, young nephew, it will be because he has worked me too hard.’ Wulf poured ale into his and Gareth’s jacks. ‘It is not as if I haven’t work to do at my own holding of Half Farthing.’

‘So, Uncle, why aren’t you there?’

Wulf grunted.

The boy smiled: ‘Aunt Lucy?’

Wulf grunted again: ‘Aunt Lucy – she not be happy when I am away and not be happy when I am home.’

‘So,’ the boy smiled. ‘You come here for a bit of peace and quiet then?’

‘I certainly don’t come here for the ale – very watery stuff. Nothing like what our family used to brew at The Falcon.’

‘Yet you gave up brewing?’

‘Well, I was a good archer I was, won the Surrey County Championship in –’ Wulf closed his one eye and nodded his head as he counted back the years. ‘In 1328 – I was but fifteen too. That’s when Sir Alan de Buxhall saw me, and me being a distant relative, he offered me an indenture to serve him as a yeoman archer when King Edward …’

‘The First?’ Gareth suggested with a smirk.

‘Cheeky bugger.’ Wulf leant across and gave a gentle cuff to the boy’s head. ‘Edward the Third. He, the King that is, was about to go a-campaigning in Flanders. Sir Alan was a poor knight of the shire in those days and could only afford to contract half a dozen archers. Then he made it up to Knight Bannerette with his own following. Now, of course, his Nibs is Constable of The Tower of London, Knight of the Garter and all that sort of thing. Done well for himself he has, and has ambition to do better too.’

‘Yet you don’t go to war for him any more, Uncle, just do stuff for him in England.’

‘Interesting stuff.’ The old archer tapped the side of his nose with the stump of the index finger on his right hand. ‘Stuff you don’t need to know about.’

Gareth swilled the contents of his leather jack around, whilst watching his Uncle down the contents of his own jack and wince at the taste of the watered ale. ‘I want to be a Household Archer, like you, when I get to be old enough.’

‘Keep practicing at the butts each Sunday after church and prove your ability, boy, and I will have words with Sir Alan for you.’

‘Why do we shoot each Sunday at the butts, Uncle? I enjoy it, but why are we compelled to do so?’

‘It’s the law, boy; all of yeoman worth must do so, and keep bow, arrows, sword and buckler ready to serve the King.’

‘I know, but why and when did it start?’

Wulf topped his leather jack up with the watery ale before answering. ‘We do it so the King always has archers to defend the kingdom and, if it is his will, to take on his enemies abroad.’ The archer sipped his ale, screwing his face up as he did so. ‘Henry the Third was the one who brought the law in. He owed his crown to the archers of the Weald when the French invaded during his father’s time.’

‘King John?’

‘King John. Under the leadership of Willikin of the Weald they cut off French supply-lines from the south coast and Dover. Cut the heads off any Frenchies they caught and stuck the heads on poles along the road. That’s how Sir Alan’s family got to have Salehurst manor: twin brothers fought alongside Willikin and were rewarded with a manor each. Some say one of them was the original Robin Hood, but I don’t think that is true as Robin Hood always fights against King John and not for him.’

‘So King Henry understood how valuable archers were then?’

‘He was only a youngster, eight or nine I think, so ’twas the Old Marshall who would have drawn the law up, but every King of England since has re-issued it.’

‘Yet,’ – the boy went to take the ale jug, but his Uncle shook his head and turned it upside down to prove it was now empty. ‘Yet, archers don’t serve the King, but the Knights Bannerette.’

‘Ah, cunning is that. The King contracts to his nobles the number of knights, men-at-arms, hobelars and archers he wants. The nobles contract out to the Knights Bannerette and it is they who go and recruit the men. Archers are called to attend an Array of Arms, and the best get offered an indenture. In time, if they are good, or at least useful, they may be offered the position of Household Archer.’

‘That’s you, Uncle.’

‘That’s me, young Gareth. As a Household Archer I gets an annual retainer, a new suit of livery each year, a horse, a fancy bow and arrows, and this all on top of my daily pay of sixpence a day when at war, fourpence a day on garrison duty, or threepence a day the rest of the time.

‘I hear that those who joined one of the free companies that ravaged France during the truce got a shilling a day.’

‘True, and Sir John Hawkwood, of great fame, offered me that, if I would join him, but I turned him down.’

‘Why?’

‘The food, nephew; the food. It is bad enough trying to find a decent feed when based in France, with all that garlic, but Italy? The food there is inedible.’

‘If you haven’t been there, how do you know?’

‘I have spoken with those that suffered, that’s how I know. Not only lots of garlic, but everything drowned in oil. Shocking what some people will eat, and they don’t know how to brew a decent ale either.’

‘Not like my Dad?’

‘Worse than your Dad, and that is saying something – no wonder he gave up the brewing trade and went a-milling instead.’ Wulf put his hands on his knees and pushed himself to his feet. ‘Right young man, time we got back to shifting sacks of grain and flour.’

The two started to slowly walk to the water-mill. ‘Uncle, it is exciting isn’t it? Being in an English army?’

‘Boring mostly: I spent most of my time either sitting on my arse waiting for something to happen or riding here and there on my horse for no real purpose. It is rare to actually get into a fight – sentry duty, now there is a really boring job. But, yes, I have had some adventures in my time: lots of stories I could tell.’

‘Will you tell me some stories of your time as a Household Archer, Uncle Wulf?’

‘In time, young man, in time, and maybe you will even take part in some of my future adventures.’

‘Will I?’

‘Only if you keep practicing your archery, young man, only if you keep practicing your archery.’

Lovely Looking Livery

Chapter 2: Just What Is It You Want?

The sun glinted off the scythe blade gripped between Geffrey ðe Wulf’s knees, as the whetstone, held at a very precise angle, whispered over its length; the glint stopping only as the seated Geffrey’s left arm blocked the light. Again the whetstone whispered its gentle caress over the blade. As Geffrey prepared to make another run with the whetstone, a shadow blocked the sun.

‘Good afternoon, Cuz,’ Geffrey said without looking up.

‘You knew it was me?’ asked the owner of the shadow.

‘Your shadow is the only one I know big enough to block a whole scythe-blade and then some.’

‘Really you are a rude man, so it is no wonder you have never moved up the ranks from yeoman to gentleman.’

‘So they tell me Cuz.’ Wulf turned his only eye on his visitor. ‘So tell me, to what does the holding of Half Farthing owe the honour of your visit?’

‘I just came to see if you still know how to do some honest work as well as plundering the poor peasantry of France of their meagre possessions.’

‘Well, you would know all about that Cuz, seeing as it has been under your banner I did the plundering. Anyway: what would someone of your exalted position know about honest work?’

Sir Alan de Buxhall, Knight Bannerette, Lord of Bugzell near Salehurst in Sussex, Keeper and Commander – under Sir John Chandos – of Saint Sauveur in Normandy for His Grace King Edward III, moved into the shed where Geffrey was working and tested the sharpness of the scythe blade with his thumb. The knight was a stocky man; past his prime as a fighter, but with the muscular build that indicated what he had been when younger: he still looked physically formidable. He had a full head of shoulder-length hair that was the colour of golden wheat, except at the temples where silver was starting to intrude. His face was clean shaven and glowed pink from his barber’s morning ministration. There was nothing in his voice that was of note, but his face was noticeable, being strong and having surprisingly few wrinkles for someone approaching his fifties. His light blue eyes were sintered and seemed to change to grey as he turned his head and a shadow fell across his face. ‘Hmmm …’ He took the blade from between Wulf’s knees and sat down alongside his distant relative on the rough bench seat that ran along the back wall of the shed. Wulf put the whetstone between them on the seat. Sir Alan clamped the blade between his own knees and gave gentle sweeps of the whetstone on the opposite side of the blade to the one Wulf had been working.

Wulf watched Sir Alan as he worked the whetstone along the scythe blade. ‘Mark of Plymouth tells me we do it wrong up here and that in Devon they sharpen the scythe blade by peening it with a small hammer.’ He shook his head slowly. ‘Strange people down in Devon, with strange habits.’

Sir Alan continued to work the blade. ‘Strange people, but good archers.’ He tested the edge again with his thumb. ‘It may have been a while since I did this, Cuz, but it is not that many years since I was just a poor knight of the shire who had to work his land as hard as any of his workers.’

Geffrey smiled. ‘You have come a long way since.’

‘True.’ Sir Alan passed the blade back to Geffrey for him to check the sharpness. ‘God willing, I’ve a long way to go yet. Which brings me to my visit.’

Wulf got up and started to refit the blade back into the scythe’s body. ‘I wondered how long it would be before you came round to the real reason you came here – I knew it wasn’t to help sharpen farm tools, or to pay a family visit.’

‘Cuz!’ Sir Alan managed to look both hurt and amused at the same time.

‘Cuz indeed.’ Wulf now picked up a hay fork and started to rummage under a workbench looking for a file. ‘Don’t you dare tell me I’m to return early for garrison service at Saint Sauveur.’

‘Cuz!’ Again the hurt look, this time edged with a hint of cunning. ‘As if I would.’

‘Yes you would. You have done it before when your protection racket to keep the French peasantry supplying the garrison with provender started to unravel because the fool you left in charge pushed them too hard.’

‘Insurance, Gef, insurance. It is not a protection racket: it is insurance against fire and theft.’

‘Fire set by your garrison and theft by the same said garrison.’ Wulf sat down and started to file the tines of the fork.

‘And in all my time as Keeper and Commander have there been any fires or theft from either our garrison or French raiding-parties?’

‘No,’ Wulf conceded.

‘Well then, the peasants must consider it a worthwhile investment.’ The knight then gave Wulf a stern look. ‘It is not as if I take all the profit, is it. Some of the provender I have to sell in order to get money so that I can pay off the nearest French force and that way save your poor peasants from being burnt out or stolen from by their own people.’

‘Hmm,’ grunted Wulf, not fully convinced.

‘Anyway, although the matter involves France I am not here to recall you to garrison duty.’

‘That’s a relief. I get enough grief from my wife now, being away so much, without you adding to the problem.’

‘How is the lovely Lucy, Cuz?’

‘Don’t change the subject, Cuz. What are you here for?’

‘You like clothes, don’t you?’

‘Why?’ Wulf stopped sharpening the hay fork. ‘Where is this going?’

‘Dover actually – it is going to Dover.’

‘Dover Castle is not your responsibility.’

‘No, I have bigger ambitions than that. Dover is the port that King John of France is coming to.’

‘Where has he been then?’

‘France.’

‘France! What was he doing there? I was part of the army that captured him.’

‘Yes I know.’ Sir Alan dusted the sleeve of his jacket, knowing that, if he wasn’t careful, Geffrey ðe Wulf would give him one of his long reminiscences of his part in the Battle of Poitiers.

‘I wasn’t supposed to be there you know. It was you volunteering me for a suicide mission that got me caught up in that little to-do.’

‘Yes Cuz, I know. I volunteered you to act as messenger between His Grace of Lancaster’s army and Edward, Prince of Wales’ army as you were the best chance there was of getting the important message through.’

‘I lost some good men getting there and was very lucky not to get killed myself.’

‘Yes I know Cuz.’ Sir Alan dropped his head and suppressed a sigh. Taking a deep breath, he looked up at Geffrey and gave a winning smile. ‘That is why I have come here today.’

‘I still don’t see what this has to do with me liking nice clothes.’

‘Ah, well:’ Sir Alan warmed to his topic: ‘King John has been back to France to get his people to hurry up with his ransom.’

‘And have they?’

‘Well, no. The matter was complicated by his son, Louis of Anjou, who had been his replacement hostage and lodged at our base in Calais, legging it. Bad for chivalry were that, and that is why King John felt compelled to come back to England.’

Wulf looked back down at the fork and gave another tine a good filing. ‘I would have thought it was to get some decent food instead of the muck they eat in France.’

Sir Alan gave a shake of his head, aware that he was touching on another of his relation’s hobby horses. Taking yet another deep breath, he closed his eyes briefly before speaking again. ‘It doesn’t matter why he is coming back, Gef; he is. Now, can we get back to why I am here?’

Wulf gave a small nod, and tested the fork tine before placing the hay fork on the shed’s dirt floor. ‘So, why are you here Cuz?’

‘Our Sovereign Lord, His Grace, King Edward, has arranged for a suitable escort party to bring the French king back to London, where he will be accommodated in The Tower. Now the escort will be led by Lord Burghesh. Also in the escort will be Sir Richard Pembrugge, and …’ the knight paused for effect.

‘And you have rented me out to go and do some grotty job in Dover that they don’t want to do and that they haven’t got a man unscrupulous enough to do for them?’

Sir Alan stood up abruptly and, his face turning a bright red, yelled at his somewhat cousin: ‘Geffrey the Wolf, there are times when you stretch our family relationship to its limit!’

Geffrey lowered his head and looked suitably ashamed.

Sir Alan gave a discreet smirk. ‘Actually,’ he said, his voice now honeyed, ‘what I was going to say was that I am also to be part of that escort.’

‘Oh.’ This time Geffrey looked genuinely ashamed.

‘So: a step up the greasy ladder of society for me. The King is shewing me great favour in including me: not bad for a poor knight of the shire whose father was lucky not to get himself beheaded for treason in Edward II’s time, don’t you think?’ Sir Alan’s smirk had turned into a smile and he looked very pleased with himself. The knight dusted his place on the seat and sat down again, still smiling to himself.

‘Congratulations, but I don’t see what this has to do with me and, well, as far as I can see, it has even less to do with my liking of nice clothes.’

‘Well, you were partly right about the need of a man of discretion whilst in Dover waiting for the Froggy monarch.’

‘I thought so, you crafty knight you.’

‘I had you going for a while there Cuz. It can be quite fun teasing you.’

‘Hmmph.’

‘Don’t be like that, Gef. Look, all of us knightly sorts need a retinue – I learnt that when I had to be part of the King’s party that met the King of Cyprus last year. Not only do I need a retinue, they have to look flash, and – and this is where you come in Cuz – they have to be both trustworthy and cunning, in equal parts. Oh, and they have to be able to handle themselves if there is any trouble. Not that there will be any trouble, of course.’

Wulf gave Sir Alan a long hard look.

‘Well,’ conceded Sir Alan, ‘we are not expecting any trouble, at least not any real trouble, but it pays to play safe.’

‘So you want me in your retinue.’

‘That’s because of all my men, I trust you the most.’

‘With good reason.’

‘And,’ Sir Alan quickly added, ‘I thought it would be good to have at least one or two of the men who won at Poitiers in the escort. Just to remind His Froggyness of why he is here; in a gentle and casual way of course.’

‘Of course.’

‘Though I don’t think you, the Irishman and Mark of Plymouth singing that song of yours that starts, Whilst we were raiding, all through the French lands and ends, If anyone asks you just who we be, and who our Commander is by name: Edward Prince of Wales is our chief commander, and we the archers who won him fame would go down well; at least not whilst we are riding on the road.’

‘But in a halfway tavern at night whilst his Nibs is trying to sleep upstairs?’

‘That would be shockingly bad taste.’

‘But a gentle and casual reminder?’

‘It is not something I would allow.’ Sir Alan picked the hay fork up from the dirt floor where Wulf had left it and placed it against the wall. ‘You do remember all the words don’t you?’

‘So does my nephew, young Gareth, and he has a very nice voice.’

‘Yes, I could do with a page or two to accompany me. How old is he now? Gareth? Twelve? Thirteen?’

Wulf nodded in agreement. ‘Something like that.You mentioned clothes. The boy will need an outfit, but I already have a set of your livery.’

‘True, but in order to impress, linen might not be good enough; nor even the more expensive cotton. His Grace, the King, has granted me an allowance to ensure that my retinue is suitably attired.’

‘Silk?’

‘Well, samite I thought.’

‘I bet the King gave you money for pure silk,’ Wulf muttered under his breath.

‘Sorry Cuz? I didn’t catch what you said.’

‘Sorry, Sir Alan; I said that it was good of the King to give you the money, and for samite too.’

‘Yes, well.’ Sir Alan strode to the door and beckoned forward Mark of Plymouth, whom he had recently taken into his service. The new Household Archer came forward with the knight’s palfrey, whilst the archer’s own horse was gratefully eating sparse grass that grew between the cobbles of the farm’s garth. ‘So, fancy clothes for you and for Gareth it is then.’

‘Fancy clothes it is then.’

‘Oh.’ Sir Alan, having mounted, looked down from his horse. ‘I forgot to tell you: as part of my now exalted position, His Grace, the King, has allocated me lodgings at The Tower of London. Not small chambers either.’ The knight gave a satisfied smile. ‘So, come and visit me in two days, and bring young Gareth with you.’

Geffrey ðe Wulf gave a resigned nod of his head, and watched his employer and distant relative trot down the muddy lane from Half Farthing with his escort of Mark and another archer riding as a pair behind him. Wulf took a deep breath, which he let out as a sigh as he wondered how his wife, Lucy, would react to the fact that he was back on duty for Sir Alan.

Chapter 3: Nice Stuff – What’s The Catch?

‘What do you think?’ Mark of Plymouth asked in his gentle Devonshire voice.

‘Nice material, though