Just thought that I would try something different. I love history and I just thought that I would try to spotlight a virtually untapped period of it. This first chapter is mostly backround information.

Warning- Be prepared to learn something.


I sat outside my family's new English home, watching the stars and thinking. The Freeman's had gone through a lot to get to here. Back in Africa, where I was born and lived for the majority of my life, my village had gotten into a little trouble.

You see, ever since the seventh century, Arabs had been coming to Africa and trading it's people as slaves. But the village of Fez, Morocco (present-day) never believed that this would happen to them.

Two years ago, on March 23rd, 1384, Saracen knights invaded Fez and began taking it's citizens prisoner. Luckily, however, the night before they came, I had been practicing martial arts on a nearby hill from an Oriental book that washed up on the beach one day, and I saw the army advancing. I ran back to the village to warn my family:

"Grandad, we have to get out of here right now!" I shouted.

"Boy, watchu talkin' about"

"An Arab company is advancing in the outskirts of the village, towards us!"

"Are you sure?" Grandad asked, slightly worried.

"Completely"

"Wow, I never thought that this would happen to us. Huey, go wake up your brother and tell him to help you pack your things. I'll do the same. We'll meet outside the hut in ten minutes. Only take what you can carry; we may be traveling for a while"

I did as I was told, and in about ten minutes, Riley and I were outside of our "former" home, with small knapsacks strapped to our back.

"All right boys," said Grandad, "Let's get a move on"

An hour and a half later, from the viewpoint of a mountain overlooking Fez, we saw our village go under seige from the Saracens.

A few weeks later, we all started to get hungry, and I was worried about what we would do for food from now on; we only had enough food we packed from home to last for a few more days. Fortunately, while passing through another village (Rabat), we learned that Abu al-Abbas had been reinstated as leader of the area (currently Morocco) and he just happened to be in Rabat. We told him our story, and he took sympathy upon us by giving us food for at least a couple more weeks, spears to hunt more food with, and a cart to carry it all in. He also promised us that a boat would be waiting for us when we reached the coast to take us wherever we needed to go.

Abu kept to his word, because when we did reach the coast, there was a large ship waiting to take us to our destination. The only problem was, we didn't know where wanted to go:

"Okay boys, I do not want to stay in this godforsaken land for another second. Where should we go?" asked Grandad.

"Well, let's think about it" I said, "Where can we go? We definitely can't go to the Middle East. That pretty much only leaves far Eastern Asia and Europe. I would personally like to live in Japan and learn to become a Ninja"

"Which one would take longer to get to?" asked Grandad.

"Well, Eastern Asia, but…"

"We're goin' ta Europe, boys!"

And it was decided just like that. The captain set sail for Europe.

"Grandad, I think you should reconsider" I said.

"Hush boy. Now where do y'all want to live in Europe?"

"Shoot, I don't know nothin' bout no Europe" said Riley.

"What about you Huey?"

"I told you I don't want to live anywhere in Europe"

"Boy! We are livin' here and you are goin' ta enjoy it! Now, choose were we should live, or I will and we could end up in some hell-hole!"

I sighed, "From what I have learned about the Crusades from my books, it seems the nation of England would be our best bet for escaping Middle-Easterners. But I have no idea what the country is like today, 114 years after the last real English involvement in the Crusades (Ninth Crusade)"

"England it is!" yelled Grandad.

"Did you hear what I just said?"

"Well, where else are we supposed to go?" Grandad asked.

"Japan!"

"Hush boy"

So we sailed on to England and eventually landed in the English port town of Hastings. The town looked as if it had seen better days. We learned from a local inn keeper that in the 13th century almost all of Hastings had been washed away by the sea, and that in the years 1339 and 1377 French raids had left sections of the town burned to the ground. Grandad didn't think that we should be living in a town that was so susceptible to destruction, so we decided to keep moving.

Oh, and did I forget to mention how everybody looked at us in Hastings. It was like they had never seen an African before, oh wait, the probably haven't. Well this is going to be fun.

We loaded the cart filled with all of our supplies of the ship, waved goodbye to the captain, and continued on our way out of Hastings. Grandad didn't really know where we were going, so on the way out we asked a peasant where the best town to live in around here was. He told us of a town to the Northwest known as London, where King Richard II of England resides. We figured that since the king lives there, it must be a pretty decent place.

After a few days, we began to run out of food again. However, just as we were on our last loaf of bread, we saw a caravan being robbed off in the distance. I was feeling in a charitable mood that day, so I took out the katana that had washed up on the shore along with the martial arts book long ago back in Africa, and ran towards the robbers. When I reached them I swung my sword at what appeared to be the leader. He blocked it with his and aimed a kick at my stomach to throw me off balance. Luckily, I broke away just in time and dodged it. While I was in the process of pivoting to dodge the kick, I spun around and hit him right in the back with my katana. This did cut him pretty badly, but not enough for him to give up. He backed up, and called the other two robbers over to fight me. As they were running towards me with their swords pointed forward, I held my katana with two hands, used it to get under their swords as their points came within inches of me, and knocked them out of their hand. This did the trick, for within seconds, the three burglars were running off into the horizon.

Actually, the drivers of the caravan had run off too, while we were fighting. It turns out that it was one of John of Gaunt's personal caravans that was on it's way to the ship that was carrying John to Castile. It seems that he is trying to make good his claim to the throne by right of his second marriage to Costanza of Castile in 1371, but that's another story.

"Wow, look at all this gold shit" Riley said, in awe of all the treasure before.

"What should we do with it, Grandad?" I asked.

"Well, seeing as the owners of this here treasure trove seem to have run off and aren't coming back, I think we owe it to them to at least put it to good use" explained Grandad.

"Nice logic" I said.

So we pretty much took everything, even the caravan with the horses, so that when we finally reached the gates of London, we looked like regular Noblemen.

"And who might you be, sir?" a guard asked Grandad, who driving the caravan.

"Uh, well, you see…"

"We are rich ambassadors from the far off land of Africa here to settle in your fine city" I interjected, "We will survey it and send reports back to our Motherland of how the great Nation of England really does it all"

"Well, thank you sirs. Please continue on"

"Good work, boy" said Grandad approvingly as we drove into the streets of London. This section of London seemed to be a poor district, for there were many beggars and such pleading for money from entrants to the city. With our new found wealth, Grandad decided he wanted to live somewhere nicer, so we decided to keep on moving. We continued to delve deeper into the city until Grandad settled on a street called Leadenhall Street; it seemed like a good neighborhood. This trip had taken two years to complete.

And that leaves me here, sitting on the stoop outside our new house in Leadenhall Street, London.


I tried to stay as historically accurate as possible. By the way, there may be a few spelling and/or grammatical errors.