Archers and Crusaders: Historical fiction: Novel of Medieval Warfare by Marines, Navy sailors, and Templar knights in the Middle Ages during England's ... (The English Archers Saga Book 6) Read Online Free PDF

We’re not like that and deliberately so; we who are ‘poor landless sailors’ don’t make any effort to acquire land or solicit donations except from travelers for the Pope’s prayers; they do both and rather aggressively. 
           Indeed, last year we signed Hathersage over to the Templars when old Leslie died and his son was deaded in France fighting for King Richard.  Our only price was thirty brood mares and our only condition was that Hathersage keep sending us three young brood mares each year and a handful of acceptable young recruits – which is all we ever wanted from Derbyshire in the first place.  Having isolated fiefs scattered around England is not part of our plan for George’s future and the future of our people.
          Our desire to stay out of sight and mind in England does not mean we don’t need or hold property.  To the contrary, the main reason we’re in London is because we need to station someone here to represent us - which means we need some kind of a depot where he can safely live and meet people to do our business and protect our coins.  Our problem about establishing such a depot, as always, is that an appropriate place near the docks is always easier to find than a dependable man to live in it who knows how to read and do sums.  We inevitably end sending a dependable illiterate and hiring a scribe.  Which, if we employ a local scribe or a drinker, means the local thieves are likely to know when we take in coins and where in the depot we hide them.
           “Well your Eminence, what do you think?  It’s fine isn’t it?”
          What Freddy’s friend Tommy is asking me about is a rather rundown shop space with a rickety ladder going up through a trap door to a room that can be used as a living quarters above the shop.  It’s located about two blocks from Freddy’s stables and three blocks from the Long Dock where our galleys are moored.
          “I don’t know, Tommy, it’s in bad shape isn’t it?” 
           Actually it’s perfect for our depot both because it makes us look poor and it will look like a palace to one of our older men who has spent most of his life sleeping on the ground or on a rowing bench.  William will be pleased when he sees it even though we’ll have to do a lot of work to strengthen all of its doors both inside and out.  Later we’ll find a second place nearby that we can use as an escape house and dig a tunnel to it.
    @@@@@
           It’s once again raining in London on the next day when we walk from our galleys for another look at the empty storefront.  According to Tommy it was a linen merchant’s shop until its owner and his children died of the sweating sickness last summer. 
            We all crowd into the little room and the more we look at it the more we like it.  Ninety four silver coins and it’s ours forever.  William digs into the purse he is carrying and we pay it on the spot.  He hands it to an anxious and obviously relieved older man who swears he is the current owner as the father and only heir of the dead merchant.  The seller makes his mark on a parchment and accepts the coins as a beaming Tommy stands by.
           It is understood by everyone that if the old man isn’t the true owner Tommy himself will return our coins and whatever more we require for our trouble - or lose his head most painfully.
           Peter and a handful of his men will remain in London to buy horses and start the construction we’ll require if our new property is to be a permanent depot.  We’ll put a new wall across the back of the room after we get the tunnel started.  Then someone who is upstairs and hears robbers or enemies will be able to climb down into either the main shop or into the new little room in the back where the escape tunnel will begin.  I wonder if we have any carpenters and miners among our men who’d like to spend a few months in London?
           “William,