In the Autumn season of the Year of Our Lord 1173, the Kingdom of Henry II was in a state of monstrous turmoil, the land tormented by the heinous scourge of Civil Strife. Each man looked upon his brother with suspicion, knowing not whether he stood loyal and steadfast for the King, or faithless and perfidious for the treacherous queen and her brood of turncoat offspring. Status nor rank were guarantee of loyalty, whether high and mighty or lowly scapegrace, none could be trusted in this age of disorder and disturbance.
Sir Ranulf de Glanville, King Henry's faithful lieutenant in the North, impatiently snarled at his bungling page, Walter, as he fumbled with the fastening of his great leather war belt. "Where is that false-hearted priest," he bellowed, "form up the host, we'll track him down and I'll see his duplicitous neck stretched from the highest branch of Saint Ebba's Oak!"
Brother Fornicatus, the man Sir Ranulf had trusted implicitly as an advisor and confessor throughout the long, laborious campaign against the rebels and their loathsome Scottish confrères, had disappeared in a most un-godly manner, with certain consequential scrolls tucked beneath the billowing folds of his cassock and was last seen heading north, towards the camp of that vile barbarian, Lord Donnchad, Earl of Fife.
Exhausted from his precipitous flight from the English camp, Brother Fornicatus stumbled wearily into a deserted farmstead, where the fugitive found himself a place of concealment and began to fervently pray that his Scottish paymasters would find him before a furious and vengeful Sir Ranulf arrived to mete out his own particular brand of justice!
After an uncomfortable night in his chosen hiding place, Brother Fornicatus was awoken by the sound of a veritable multitude of braying voices, clearly not belonging to Humphrey, and the tramping of numberless feet emanating from every possible direction. A thoroughly alarmed Brother Fornicatus curled himself into the smallest possible space... although he could see nothing from his refuge, it was clear that both forces had arrived and this desolate farmstead was about to become the scene of a dreadful confrontation.
This little encounter turned out to be much shorter than I imagined it would be. Brother Fornicatus' hiding place was determined randomly and, had he been anywhere else other than the well, his escape from the field of battle would have been much more problematic for the Scots. As it turned out, the Wild Charge rule caused just enough of a delay for Sir Ranulf and his knights to prevent them reaching Brother Brian's spearmen before they could leave the table. The sacrifice made by the skirmishing bidowers in diverting the attention of the knights, will go down in folklore, although I'm not sure that they would see it that way! For those of you familiar with the traditional Scottish nursery rhyme, "Ding Dong Bell, Brother Fornicatus is in the Well!", this brief skirmish is the origin of that tale. The story of Brother Fornicatus has, I feel, many more chapters to run and I am already perusing the Scenarios section of Lion Rampant for the next exciting, and hopefully little longer, instalment.
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