Chapter 2, Part 3: The island of Thule
Sir Walter Suffolk was a war hero and a devout catholic. He brought 80 knights, 200 pikemen, 150 welsh longbowmen and other soldiers. He also brought a priest, a scribe and some venetian sailors to help. The knights brought their horses and a stable was built in the ship. It was a large ship and it is a miracle it didn't sink because of the weight of all the men together. The king held a feast before the men parted in a local castle and even the lowest vermin that would sail in the ship was invited, to the local nobles' annoyance. Much of the men drank and fell in love with red headed irish girls from the area and most of them ate the finest meat they had ever eaten in their lives that night. The party was so good that the next day they parted in tears to the lonely seas.
Sir Walter was an optimist. The journey had just started and the men where already feeling homesick, except the venetians who were skilled sailors that only felt at home in the lonely seas and in the alleys of their beloved Venice. They brought a citar, a strange instrument, and played it and sang in the beautiful italian tongue. They were good traders, smart and opportunistic, but also loud and warm like any italian. They were strange folk for the english peasants who were cold and sarcastic. The knights were reserved and only talked between each other and the venetians, but they didn't trust the venetians and kept the stables and the armory locked and under guard all day. By the sixth month, Sir Walter of Suffolk was the only one that still openly showed optimism. He was an adventurer and a conventional knight, upholding chivalrous values and seeking a name for himself and his house in the new island. Captain Giovanni Caboto (or John Cabot) did not show optimism but didn't dispair either. He was concentrated on his task and was only seen by the other venetians, Sir Walter and occasionally by a english knight.
By the eight month some of the peasants were spiting foam and talking in tongues. The priest had an exorcism made, but the men would not stop their gibberish. The venetians held a meeting in private, and everyone felt like someone was missing for some time. Any one day they came out of their secret meetings and yelled: "The sirens of Oddyseus! Everyone cover your ears!". The peasants did so and for days nobody understood a thing that someone was saying and only the venetians, the priest, the scribe and the captain could understand each other through texts and writing. A storm also shook the boat and some parts of the ship were damaged, but the venetians said the weather was changing and they were closing in to the island. Then all of a sudden a green hill was seen in the background! LAND! Everyone removed their ear coverings and started to jump around the ship. The landing was smooth, but it was not the cold island that the captain expected. No, it was a swampland, inhabited by green creatures with thousand teeth and dark poisonous worms that sucks your blood until you are dry.
The knights wore their shiny armour clad in steel and heavy equipment and the peasants work their helmets and pikes and cut through the swamps. They reached a village ruled by naked heathens in feathers that called themselves "Creek". These men where fascinated by english steel and armor, and they had never seen something like that before. Instead, their weapons were made of wood and stone, and after some negotiations they gladly allowed the englishmen to go into their territory after they decided to trade their horses for access, a guide and food. The knights were reclutant, but the strange artifacts held by the natives were too much to deny in exchange for a horse. After all, they all had more horses back at home.
The English expedition trades its horses with the natives in exchange for military access and supplies.
The Englishmen stayed in different villages during their trip. They tried to map the entire region, avoiding areas that were not fully controlled by the new Creek allies as they were occupied by the so called "Cherokee", some evil savages that were descendants of the feared Skraelings. The Creek were a strange people that spoke a strange language and had strange customs. But when Sir Walter and his troops arrived to the end of the Creek territories, the Creek warned them of the belligerent Cherokee and their tomahawks. Sir Walter, a fan of El Cid and a chivalrous knight himself, sought to enter the Cherokee territories seeking justice. But the men were suffering from attrition: out of 1000 men there were now around 700. And there were no horses to do quick reconassaince missions. The men were quickly losing morale and wanted to return to the Creek people and their warm women. Giovanni decided to return as there were no philosopher stones to be found, but instead lots of trade goods to return to the king. As they were returning to Creek land, the Cherokee ambushed the englishmen.
The English expedition is ambushed by Cherokee warriors.
The cherokee were defeated, but their war chants, their strange weapons and war tatooes remained in the minds of the englishmen for ever. The men could not sleep in fear of the Cherokees and many didn't sleep for weeks until a strange fever took their lives. Giovanni thought it was too much and decided to return to England. The journey back home was different as everyone knew how much rime it would take and this time there were fewer men and more food for everyone as there was more space. By 1512 Sir Walter of Suffolk landed in Connaught, with only 15 knights and 130 peasants, but with the venetians, the scribe and the priest. The knights had been the first ones to die in the swampland, stuck in their heavy armors in the many traps and eaten by animals or killed by fatigue. The lightly armored peasants had survived the swampland perfectly and only 4 of them died in Creek land, but the Cherokee warriors killed many of them. The venetians were not armoured or armed and avoided battles, and all of them were safe and sound back in Venice by 1513. The men who returned were in shock when they heard that King Thomas was no longer the king, but insted Queen Mary of Lancaster ruled the kingdom. It seems his will to change God's design transformed him gradually into lunacy, and one night he was finally possessed by the devil after a failed experiment. The nobles and the Lancaster family, unwilling to compromise another civil war, decided to assasinate him and replace him by his sister, a hopeless spender but a very easily manipulable woman.
Queen Mary I of Lancaster rises to the throne in England, inheriting Holland and Gelre.
Editor's note:
Sir Walter of Suffolk and Giovanni Caboto did go into the annals of history, not as a chivalrous knight or the discoverer of the island of Thule, but the first men to reach the Americas after the vikings. It is believed they landed near Savannah, Georgia. A DNA project was made in 2002 and 150 living descendants of the first englishmen to arrive in North America were found, believed to be descendants of peasants and native women. A XVth Century armour was found under the remains of an old creek village, together with other european goods believed to be of venetian origin.
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As promised, there are the two updates I said I would upload. Things are looking good for England. The Lancaster dynasty screwed up big time in Scandinavia, and Lancaster Denmark has been raped by the Hansa. The Kalmar Union was lost and Sweden annexed Norway through several infamy-high wars. Also, Queen Mary inherited Holland and Gelre and mega-Algiers was destroyed by the Venetians. I allied with Sweden just in time to seize Greenland. Also, realizing the importance of Venice, I allied them and joined their trade league, upsetting the Hansa.
Ok again sorry for the long updates, but those were the last two large ones I believe