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arrived in London, I traded places with William and switched my bedding and chamber pot to Jeffrey’s galley - and William had his moved to be with the boys in the rear castle of Harold’s castle. 
           I’m in no particular hurry to get to the coins to the Pope and we’ve got two full seventy man companies of Marines on board Jeffrey’s galley as rowers - so the coins and I should be quite safe unless the weather catches us out.  And, of course, at each port where we stop for water and supplies I’ll be asking around for archers to recruit as potential Marines and for boys who might be capable of learning to scribe and sum.  If I find any I’ll either load them on board or arrange to collect them on my way back to Cornwall next month.
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           Lisbon’s port is a beehive of activity.  The city the port serves is a huge sprawling place many times larger than London, and the size of its busy port certainly reflects it.  If anything, Lisbon’s port seems even busier this year than it was when I was here last year on my annual trip to Rome to give the Pope his share of the pilgrims’ and refugees’ prayer coins.  William stopped here for water and supplies on his way home to Cornwall earlier this year and said the same thing about it. 
           I wonder why the city is booming? Perhaps the fighting in the interior between the Moslems and Christians is driving people into the city.  That they would come here is a bit surprising since it’s only been a dozen or so years since a big force of Arab pirates raided Lisbon and took off more than three thousand Christian and Jewish women and children to sell as slaves and use as wives.
           A few minutes after we tie up Jeffrey and I are in the harbormaster’s office paying our fee for the right to tie up to the dock for the next seven days.  I’m wearing my white tunic with six stripes over my long chain mail shirt; Jeffrey’s a Marine and his tunic has four stripes as the galley’s sergeant captain.  He’s not wearing chain mail even though he has some in our little ship’s castle.  I always wear mine and I always wear my wrist knives under my robe.  I’ve had to use them too many times, haven’t I?
           The harbormaster twice asks us what we are bringing into the city; he seems quite disappointed that we are neither loading nor unloading cargo.  His disappointment is understandable as I pay our modest fee for merely docking to pick up water and supplies - he undoubtedly gets a cut of the taxes and fees he collects.
           Then Jeffrey and I are truly surprised when the door bangs open and Martin Archer bustles into the harbormaster’s office with a big smile on his face and his hands outstretched to shake ours and pound our backs.  He’s wearing a rather fancy shirt and skirt instead of a simple Marine tunic with the five stripes of a senior sergeant that is usually worn by all the original archers.
           Martin relocated last year from Launceston to be our agent in Lisbon with a learned scribe from Cambridge to read and write his parchments and tell his lies as required.  It seems that one of the boys who always seem to be hanging around on the docks we visit had seen us tie up and run to get him.  
           Martin shows up so quickly that we don’t even have to hire someone to show us the way to our company depot north of the dock, the depot William bought several years ago with some of the coins we got for the cargo ships he took out of Tunis on our second raid. 
           It is quite encouraging that Martin shows up so quickly.  It suggests he’s got watchers on the dock to report arriving ships and steer potential travelers and cargos to us.  Could it be that we misjudged him?  William will be pleased when he hears.
           Martin’s been here for about a year.  He came from Launceston and, although he doesn’t know it, he’s here because we decided Launceston