#I've done only the briefest research on wikipedia so there may be historical inaccuracies please do send corrections

[v-thinks-on]

In the year 1187, I began as a journeyman to the village apothecary. When the call came to follow the noble King Richard the Lionheart, like many young men, I eagerly went. The Crusades brought honours and penitence to many, but for me it had nothing but misfortune and disaster. After months of delirious fever, I was fortunate to return to my native England with little worse than a limp and a lame shoulder.

I had neither kith nor kin in England, and was therefore free as air—or as free as a man with neither health nor livelihood can be. Under such circumstances, I found myself wandering the countryside, where all the loungers and idlers live by their wits and the fleeting generosity of strangers. It was a meaningless, comfortless existence, spending what little health I had far more freely than I ought.

I knew I could not last like this for much longer; I had no choice but to make some drastic alteration in my style of living. The day I had come to this conclusion was in late spring, graced with the charming weather of my native isle; a heavy blanket of grey hanging above the tree tops and a chill in the air, which made my shoulder ache and my legs stiff, and I feared a turn for rain.

I hoped it was not far to the next village. It had already been some days since the kindly innkeeper, who had traded some food and a place to rest for the night for a poultice for his ailing daughter, had pointed me in this direction. These woods were dangerous, he had said, but there was a man in these parts who might be able to help a poor wanderer such as myself. It seemed an unlikely solution, but even a brief respite would be a relief to me.

The deeper I went into these woods, the thicker the growth became; the trees gathered tighter together and it became increasingly laborious to pick my way through the dense undergrowth. Only a dim light filtered through the canopy of clouds and leaves above, leaving the whole forest in twilight, with who knew what manner of men or creatures lurking within—I thought I spied the glint of a Sacaren spear, but it was only a shiny drop of dew upon a thorny bramble.

However, the whiz of an arrow through the air was unmistakable. I had no sword—I was no knight, merely a village apothecary who had gone to tend the brave souls who followed the King into battle, but when the battle began, all men became soldiers—but still I tensed for a fight, glancing around me in search of my assailant. But I saw nothing, only the deep dense woods and an arrow embedded in the tree behind me, mere inches from where my head had been.

“You had better be careful, an old campaigner travelling through these woods alone.”

I started at the voice which sounded just into my ear and turned to find myself face-to-face with a long, thin man who appeared to have materialised from the woods themselves. He was dressed all in green, with aquiline features, and rough bow in hand, another arrow already knocked into place.

“You were at Acre, I perceive,” the man said.

“Y-yes,” I said, too startled to protest at the pronouncement, “did you also follow King Richard the Lionheart?”

He shakes his head, a laughing curl to his thin lips, though there’s a darker irony lurking in his keen eyes. “I have only heard tales of the destruction.”

I can only bow my head in acknowledgement; the evidence of my hardships is unconcealable.