"The Archer Who Shot Himself in the Back," (69,408 words;
191pages). It begins with a random murder, ordered by an insane
"Prophet," interrupting the honeymoon of a pair of newly retired
Military Intelligence operatives, and ends with the "Prophet" being
defeated in a polo match against the new bride. "The Archer" story
concerns the events of the first three months after good guys John
Horn and Francesca Flaminare are married. It opens on the
(fictional) island of d'Oc located in the English Channel which,
like the (really existent) island, Sark, is a left-over from the
time when France claimed possession of England and the Channel
islands. Francesca inherits a manor house through her father, and
the couple moves there to enjoy life together. Like Sark, d'Oc is
politically independent and is managed by members of the hereditary
line reaching back to French times-presently knows as "The Dame of
Sark." In this fictional case, the Dame of d'Oc is one Dame
Primrose, and the action begins with a dispute over the ownership
of a medieval castle on a small island just off the coast of d'Oc.
The dispute concerns who is the proprietor of the castle? On the
one hand, there is an insane cousin of Dame Primrose, one Giles
Grimsby, who claims to be a descendent of Ishmael, one of the sons
of the patriarch, Abraham. Giles claims that he is the lawful owner
of the castle, and inhabits it with a band of followers who look to
him as a prophet who is going to unite Christians and Muslims under
his rule. In the course of his travels to collect money and
disciples, he kills several orthodox Christians who loudly decry
his mission as heretical madness. On the other hand, there exists,
to this day, a band of Arabs (I have given them blue-eyes for
effect) who are descended from a regiment of Crusaders whose lord
went over to the side of the Arabs, and, as proof of his
conversion, willed the castle to the descendents of his regiment.
In this story, a Sheik of the tribe sends his son to infiltrate
Giles' group to find out what is going on at the castle, and, when
he falls under suspicion, Giles has him perform a feat of archery
which the Crusaders learned from their foes-namely, to shoot an
arrow into the air so that it lands within a few feet of the
archer. (This permitted the archer to stand on one side of a wall
and kill men on the immediate other side.) When the Sheik's son
shoots the arrow into the air, Giles' men instantly drag him to a
bale of hay just in front of him and he is killed by his own arrow
as it returns. Since only members of that tribe still know how to
do this, Giles knows who the young man was and why he was there.
The Sheik learns of the murder and comes to the island to avenge
it.
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