Wednesday, July 18, 2007

Escape from Paris

Just before dawn, on the Seine quietly passing St. Cloud the crew of all three Piraguas are giddy with relief as off to the west there is a glow in the sky signaling to them of a mission well undertaken, Paris is burning to the ground.
Now to get to Harfleur and back out to sea for their rescue. Once the plot is unveiled they will not be safe. Now the question becomes is it safe to continue down river as the missing man knows the escape route, or should they temporarily abandon the river and move overland to Poissy and pick up the river once again. The decision is made plans are changed, the boats are tied together, the two best swimmers row all three across the river, beach the boats and swimming back across the river. They trek cross country to the west north west towards Poissy and the river again.
Somewhere near Bougival they come to a woods, delving deep into the woods Komnenos posts a guard while the rest sleep. The guard changes every hour, the second guard in his scout around the cold camp comes across the hideout of a trio of highwaymen. Word of them is passed from guard to guard until all have rested at least four hours then they surround the highwaymen's camp.
With no alarm given the Byzantines rush the camp, knockout the highwaymen before they awake, they supply themselves with 'new' clothing, a few weapons, food, and some coin of the realm. They tie up the highwaymen while they are unconscious and leave the camp with three horses. Not far down the road they come to a farm where they trade a horse and coin for a wagon.
By late afternoon it is 12 miles from where they left the boats when they reach Poissy. Three men go into town to see about obtaining a boat big enough for all. While the rest of the men skirt Poissy and move further down river towards Villennes and await the boat along the river bank.

3 comments:

Gallia said...

With respect and compliments to the writer, this appears to be a dream in the mind of one of the surviving officers now asleep in the jail built in Paris by l'Comte de Bastille some years before. I say this since I composed a response to the attack and because burning down the whole of Paris is too much to contemplate. Congratulations on a good story.
Sincere Regards,
Bill

Richard said...

Bill
Ah Ha! I see, when I started to compose this your response was not yet up. So it must be a dream. Darn.
Unfortunately for Paris at least what was burning water does not put out Greek Fire. So rain away, unless the rain came down at four or more inches an hour and actually smothered the flames the fires, by the ancient texts, would still be burning. Well, I thought it was an interesting attempt, at least the river side for a couple of hundred feet burned.
Bob XXII thought it was an interesting idea to take revenge on the Franks for burning Constantinople in the 12th century, hey we're slow to react.
Richard

MurdocK said...

There appear to be conflagrations in both west (Paris) and east (St. Argard and Debnića) that are pressing in on all of the imagi-Nations of Uropa.

Will there be more meetings on the fields of Mars?