THE REAVERS
by George MacDonald Fraser

Dedication

In remembrance of the law officers

“expert borderers”

John Forster, Lance and Thomas Carleton, Robin and John Carey,

Eure, the Scroops, Buccleuch, Carmichael, Hunsdon

and their equally expert adversaries

Ill-Drowned Geordie, Nebless Clem, Curst Eckie, Fingerless Will,

Evilwillit Sandie, Crackspear, Buggerback, Bangtail, Sweetmilk,

Gib Alangsyde, Auld Wat, Cleave-the-Crune, Sore John, Wynkyng Will,

Dand the Man, Hob the King, Unhappy Anthone, David-no-gude-priest,

Wantoun Sym, Dog-pyntle, Out-with-the-Sword, Willie Kang Irvine,

Jock of the Side, Black Ormiston, Ower-the-Moss, Gav-yt-hem,

Jock of the Peartree, Skinabake, Mouse, Bull, Lamb,

Shag, Richie Graham, Thomas the Merchant,

Sandie’s Bairns, Red Rowan, and many others,

because it would be a shame to forget them

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Dedication

Forword

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Epilogue

Other Works

Copyright

About the Publisher

Foreword

This book is nonsense. It’s meant to be. If I were a “serious” writer, which I’m not (I have the word of an eminent critic for this, and I know he meant it as a compliment, because he put the word in quotes) I might describe it as an octogenarian’s rebuke to a generation which seems to have forgotten fun and become obsessed with misery, disaster, illness, operations, violence, climate change, guilt, obesity, cookery, football, racism, politics, and a general sense of doom. But not being serious as the literary world understands the term, I can offer no such pretentious excuse. The Reavers is simply G.M.F. taking off on what a learned judge would call a frolic of his own.

It began with a novel I wrote fourteen years ago, The Candlemass Road, an Elizabethan swashbuckler set on the Anglo-Scottish border. That in turn had its origin in a play written much earlier; it was never produced, so I used its plot for Candlemass, which was kindly received by readers and critics, being full of bloodshed, brutality, treachery, and betrayal. By one of those ironies of the writing business, I was then able to turn it back into a play, for BBC Radio.

So much for Candlemass, a plain enough tale, but since I can never resist comic experiment, and the wilder the better, I found myself considering a different approach, first imagining and then inevitably writing The Reavers as a fantasy in the style of another book of mine, The Pyrates. Both are eccentric, as advertised by the fanciful archaic spelling of their titles; both are completely over the top, written for the fun of it. In that spirit I offer The Reavers, with gratitude to the happy band of Pyrates-lovers and any others of like mind, now that sufficient time has elapsed for the original Candlemass Road to slip quietly into the shadows of bygone fiction.

G.M.F.

Chapter 1

It was a dark and stormy night in Elizabethan England, a night of driving rain and howling wind, God save the mark! when even the stately oaks bowed their great heads and giant ash trees clawed with spidery fingers at the tempest, duck ponds and horse-troughs were lashed into foam, chimbley pots toppled on the heads of honest citizens, staring owls clung to their perches with difficulty, and broom-riding witches circled crazily over blasted heaths, stacked and waiting in vain for clearance to land, Steeple Bumpstead was whirled away leaving a gaping hole in the middle of Essex, cows and domestic animals were overturned, slates and washing flew every which way, and stout constables, their lanthorns awash, kept out of the way of sturdy beggars and thanked God they were rid of a knave, leaded casements rattled in stately Tudor homes, causing the noble inhabitants to give thanks for roaring fires and bumpers of mulled posset what time they brooded darkly about sunspots, global warming, and the false forecasts of Master Michael Fishe, he o’ the isobars, who had predicted only light airs gentle as zephyrs blowing below the violets, would you believe it, while out yonder, in lonely hamlet and disintegrating hovel, the peasantry scratched their fleas and gnawed lumps of turnip and blamed it on the Almighty (poor churls, what did they know of warm fronts and depressions o’er Iceland?) or on the hag next door, her wi’ the Evil Eye and black familiar Grimalkin and devilish spells, curse her, and wagged their unkempt heads as haystacks and livestock crashed through their thatches, and asked each other in fearful whispers whether such raging fury of the elements portended the end of the world, or the Second Coming, or another bloody wet week, and agreed that it was alle happenynge, gossip, and where would it end?

Well, that takes care of the weather, and before meteorologists start hunting through their almanacks for the date of this monumental tempest, we shall tell them that it befell on a certain February 2 – but make no mention of the year, save that it was sometime between the foundation of Kiev University and the discovery of Spitzbergen, and they can make what they will of that, my masters. Why such reticence? Because the moment a romantic story-teller starts committing himself to actual years, and similar pretensions to strict historical fact, his character is gone, being at the mercy of nit-picking critics who will take gloating delight in pointing out (for example) that Attila the Hun couldn’t possibly have studied Monteverdi’s second madrigal book, because it hadn’t been published in his day, see? Nor were pretzels available in the ’45 Rebellion. Out upon them, pedants.

Another reason is that many of the principal characters in our little moral social fantasy wouldn’t have known what year it was anyway, they being carefree primitives chiefly concerned with sheer survival, clobbering their neighbours, armed robbery, animal (other people’s animals) husbandry, protection racketeering, arson, kidnapping, irregular warfare, and general mischief, all of which, being natural poets, they described as “shifting for a living”. Now and then they pondered about which religion they ought to belong to, inevitably deciding that on the whole they’d let the hereafter take care of itself, thus freeing themselves for any amount of boozing, guzzling, dicing, hunting, racing, and swiving, this last being a popular pastime of the period, and still carried on today under a variety of names.

Indeed, they were a stark and ignorant lot, and if you’d asked them what day it was, it wouldn’t have occurred to them to reply “February the second, good neighbour”; they would more probably have responded with “Candlemass, ye iggerant booger”, because that is how they talked, and they were used to reckoning by their old Christian festivals in that happy, far-off time when there were no desk diaries or wall-planners (though even then the precocious Flemish schoolboy, P. P. Rubens, may well have been making furtive sketches of sporty nudes in his exercise books, in anticipation of the Playboy and Pirelli calendars).

Not that everyone was backward and unlettered in Good Queen Bess’s day, mind you. Sir John Harington, for one, was a man of much learning and science, but since at the time our story opens he had just installed the world’s first flush toilets in Her Majesty’s palace of Richmond, and the royal apartments were ankle-deep in water, with little Tudor plumbers going hairless, hammering pipes and crying “Good lack!” and “Where’s the stopcock, missus?”, he had more to do than worry about what year it was. He plays no part in our tale, by the way, but has been introduced merely to provide a little period colour, like the scenes and characters in the next couple of pages. Irrelevant they may be, but they are familiar and therefore may be useful in evoking the spirit of the Elizabethan Age and letting the audience know what is going on behind the scenes of our tale.

So … on that tempestuous night of February 2, 15—, when Merrie Englande was being sore buffeted by storm, and the plumbers were warning a distraught Sir John that he was flying in the face of nature and the union wouldn’t let them mop up …

In the Mermaid smoker, two playwrights were engaged in a game of envious one-upmanship, with Marlowe snidely advising his rival to get out of drama and into poetry (“because your Saturday-morning serials are a real dead end, I mean, three parts of Henry VI, for God’s sake, people are beginning to ask what next, Kemp and Somers Meet Henry VI?”) and Shakespeare was countering with back-handed compliments about Dr Faustus(“loved the costumes, Chris”) while wondering if he dared hi-jack the character of the grizzled old fatso at the next table, who was being extremely coarse and funny, and didn’t look like the kind who would sue …

and at Richmond, Gloriana herself was standing for her portrait to Marcus Gheeraerts the Younger, in a raging temper and a tent-like gown of cloth of gold with enormous winged sleeves which she was convinced would make her look like a vulture about to take flight,* wherefore she would crop his ears, by God, and that went for that knock-kneed rascal Harington, too, him and his gang of splashing tatterdemalions wi’ their honeyed promises and leave it to us, your grace, shalt have no need o’ chamber-pots hereafter, forsooth! And that reminded her, that pack of upstarts in her Parliament needed instruction “not to speak every one what he listeth – your privilege is Aye or Noe”. And it had better be Aye, or there would be a few by-elections pending …

while in his cabinet her minister, Lord Burleigh, was wrapping cold towels round his head as he struggled to make sense of a list of “those malefactoures of the name of Graham who doo infeste oure Skottische border”, and finding it no easier because his agents” reports spelled the name variously Graeme, Grime, Grim, Gremme, Groom, and even Greene, godamercy, and wishing he had a computer …

a convenience which had not yet been invented, although had Burleigh but known it, the next best thing was in the office across the way, functioning smoothly between the ears of Sir Francis Walsingham, the original “M” who ran Elizabeth’s espionage and dirty tricks operations, and was so secretive that if he wanted a new feather for his hat, he would buy three separate pieces at three different shops and sew them together in the dark. It cost him a fortune in sticking-plaster, and his bedraggled headgear cracked up the mocking gallants in Paul’s Walk, but as Sir Francis dryly observed, you don’t need to be in Esquire to combat the devildoms of Spain …

which at that very moment were preoccupying King Philip II in the Escurial, where he was scoffing pastry (as was his wont) and planning that second forgotten Armada which came to grief in 1597 in an unforeseen hurricane (loyal Master Fishe strikes again!) and wondering if it might not be a better idea to build holiday villas on the Costa del Sol and bankrupt the heretics by luring them into time-share deals …

while in Edinburgh another monarch, James VI (shortly to be James Numero Uno) was hugging himself with glee as he conned the proofs of his new sure-fire best-seller, Daemonologie, or Alle Ye Ever Wantit Tae Ken Aboot Witchcraft But Were Feart Tae Speer, a natural for the MacBooker – a confidence not shared by Master Napier down the street, who was wondering gloomily if his projected treatise on logarithms would even be noticed by the reviewers …

but at least he knew they would work, which was more than could be said for his fellow-savant in distant Pisa of Italy, where Galileo wasn’t sure whether he’d invented the thermometer or not (that at least is how we interpret a cryptic entry in a learned work which states that sometime in the 1590s “Galileo invented thermometer (uncertain)” …

and in the far-off Caribbean a splendid old pirate was being laid to rest in his hammock by grieving shipmates who could not guess, as the deep sea swallowed him off Nombre de Dios, that far from being dead he would live for ever …

And while all these important things were happening, give or take a year or two, elsewhere an ingenious cobbler was creating the first stiletto heels, Henri Quatre was deciding that Paris was worth a Mass, an English eccentric named Fitch was removing his boots after walking much of the way home from Malaya, the game of cricket was receiving its first mention in print, an excited alchemist was identifying a new element and dreaming of Nobel prizes as he christened it “zink” (all unaware that Paracelsus had beaten him to it by half a century), Sir Walter Raleigh was encountering poisoned arrows on the Orinoco, a French physician diagnosed whooping-cough, an absent-minded Italian composed the first opera and promptly lost the score, religious persecution reached a point where autos da fe were causing industrial pollution and Jesuits were being wait-listed for priests’ holes, Japan banned missionaries and invaded Korea, and English vagrants were making a bee-line for the new parish workhouses in the ill-founded hope that these would offer a relaxing change from delving, spinning, swinking, and being turfed out by brutal landlords.

None of which really matters to our story, except as a brief erratic survey of the distant background, and to set our narrative tone, which may already have convinced the reader that he has not stumbled on a supplement to the Cambridge Modern History. Far from it: this is just a tale, and if it takes occasional liberties of style and speech, who cares? If Shakespeare can have clocks striking in Caesar’s Rome, and give his plebs the street-smart backchat of Tudor London, a poor romantick can surely have similar licence. If we seem to treat history lightly in this regard, that is not to say we are false to it; mad fancy may go hand in hand with sober fact so long as the two remain distinct. So, in confidence that you’ll spot the difference, we return to that wild Candlemass night and our story, which is at last getting under way in a desolate waste on the Anglo-Scottish frontier, that blood-red Borderland where the laws of shrewd Queen Bess and canny King Jamy do not run, except for cover, and the motto of the wild frontier tribes (those carefree primitives to whom we referred earlier) is “Thou shalt want ere I want” – a widely held philosophy in any age and clime, recently imputed to the Thatcher and Blair governments, and to trade unions by employers (and vice versa), but only the old borderers were honest and dumb enough to inscribe it on their coats of arms, holler it aloud in their cups, and scribble it on the Roman Wall when the Wardens weren’t looking.

A shocking place, the border, and for those unfamiliar with the works of Sir Walter Scott a brief word of explanation may be in order. As any schoolboy and football supporter knows, England and Scotland beat the bejeezus out of each other during the Middle Ages (Bannockburn, Flodden, and all that), and those unfortunates caught in the middle (i.e., the borderers) were ravaged, savaged, and put upon to such an extent that, when peace finally broke out around the 1550s, they found it uncongenial, and continued to practise the techniques they had learned over three centuries (murder, armed robbery, cattle rustling, extortion, rape, ravagery, savagery, etc.). Well, it was the only trade they knew, and better fun than farming, and if in consequence the border country made our modern inner cities look like eighteenth-century drawing-rooms, the borderers didn’t mind, because anarchy was what they were used to.

The English and Scottish governments, of course, denounced this state of affairs as “totallie unacceptable” – which meant, as it still does, that they accepted it wholesale, and made only a few futile gestures, like confirming (under a sort of Anglo-Scottische Agreement) a special code of laws for the area, which didn’t work, and setting up international commissions which drank deep and stuffed their guts at a safe distance in places like Kendal and Peebles Hydro, surfacing occasionally to issue joint communiqués and assure broadsheet conferences that “thaire wolde bee noe surrender to terrorisme”.

Now and then the March Wardens, sorely tried and underpaid officials with inadequate forces, got exasperated and visited the worst offenders with fyre and the sworde, but since the borderers had forgotten more about both than Genghiz Khan ever knew, and were expert at fading into the hills or defying the Wardens from rather impregnable stone peel towers, Authority could only burn a few villages, pose for pictures by the smoking ruins while the reporters took notes for Ballads and Laments (later collected by W. Scott in “Border Minstrelsie”), and withdraw, followed by raspberries and even coarser noises from the peels. Of course they rounded up the usual suspects, whose convictions were invariably held to be unsound because of sloppy forensic evidence – after all, if your worst enemy turns blue and explodes at your dinner table, the traces of ratsbane on your hands may have come from chessmen used by warlocks at the Necromancers’ Social Club which you visited a couple of months back. One result of this was that the Wardens’ officers took to hanging suspects on the spot (known as “Jeddart justice”, from the town of Jedburgh where the authorities were unusually liverish), but only if they weren’t important people with dangerous friends.

All this was water off a duck’s back to the borderers, who carried on killing and robbing each other as before, and since they never bothered anyone more than fifty miles from the frontier (except on the notable occasion when some of them raided Edinburgh and surprised a Very Important Person in the lavatory, much to his embarrassment*) the two governments were inclined to take a why-the-hell-should-we-care-it’s-a-long-way-off-thank-God attitude, and recommend another Publicke Inquirie.

So that’s the border for you, and we apologise for the brief history lesson. Actually, we haven’t told you the half of it – for example, that in addition to the reivers and robbers, the place was crawling with agents, spies, messengers, plotters, double-0 triggermen, moles and other assorted Smyllii Personae, as they were called, intriguing away like anything between London and Edinburgh. Secret diplomacy was in a fair old state, the question being: would James collect the royal English franchise when Elizabeth fell off her twig, as might happen any day? Rumours abounded that His Majesty was already being fitted out with tropical kit, Scottish courtiers were practising drawls and trying to stop saying “whilk” and “umquhile”, the Scottish National Party were preparing banners reading “Home Rule in England” and “It’s Scotland’s Cheddar!”, London merchants were taking options on supplies of Japanese haggis, and Home Counties landowners were preparing to turn their estates into golf courses. But alle was uncertayne, and remayned to be seene.

Like our story, which is coming up at last, honestly, without further discursions; any more need-to-know history will be sprinkled in lightly as we pursue our headlong tale of adventure, romance, knavery, ambush, disguise, escape, abduction, seduction, and Kindred Mischiefs, deploying an all-star cast of steely-eyed heroes, noble ladies, unspeakable villains, gorgeous wantons, corrupt creeps, maniacs, freebooters, freeloaders, and hordes of colourful extras, in a variety of Great Locations, including lonely fortresses, mysterious mansions, hide-outs, dungeons, boudoirs, bawdy houses, wizard’s caves, dens, kens, and the occasional shed and hovel – for while there will be ample cut-and-thrust, passion tender and blazing, splendid costumes, Technicolored set decoration, and four-page menus, we’ll not neglect the squalid social material for those in search of a Ph.D.

But now we cry “Quiet, everybody, let’s try to get it right first time, action! camera! QUIET!!” – for Scene One, a desperate encounter between one of our Principals and a Supporting Heavy, is opening up with a long shot of that desolate waste which we mentioned several pages ago. Since then the storm has blown itself out, farther south the last witch has taxied thankfully to a standstill (“Talk about fog and filthy air – never been so glad to get off a bloody broom in my life!”), and we pan slowly across dripping bushes wreathed in clinging mist with icy patches which should clear towards dawn, pale moonlight gleams cold on the gullies and moss-hags, and no sound is heard save the plaintive wail of a sodden rabbit and the muffled crackling and swearing of someone trying to get to sleep in a patch of wet bracken, and making nothing of it.

Peering through the fronds we can see that he is a scarecrow figure, ragged and besmirched, hair unkempt, boots leaking, shirt and breeches sadly out of crease, and hasn’t shaved for a fortnight. A pathetic sight, as he writhes vainly to snuggle down on his couch of wet heather, rocks, and mud, but make the most of him, for this bedraggled bum is one of our heroes – yes, he is. Never, you exclaim, not in those trousers! Relax, peer more closely, and note that while he is one who has clearly fallen on evil days (and a couple of dunghills en passant), yet is he modelled on the lines of Gary Cooper crossed with Steve McQueen, six feet two of lean, muscular modesty; the matted stubble cannot conceal the resolute manliness of firm chin and interesting nostrils, nor the caked muck the steady brilliance of grey eyes ready to dance with gentle mirth or harden in stern resolve, whichever is appropriate. Quiet humour sits relaxed on his mobile lips, integrity keeps his ears at a proper angle, humanity will shine in every strand of his fair hair once it’s been blow-waved, and wit, intelligence, and responsibility are evenly distributed over the rest of his active frame. All right?

But at the moment he looks awful, having been pinched for vagrancy in Northumberland two weeks ago, set in the stocks, and then confined in Haddock’s Hole, the most verminous chokey in all the wide border. Paroled a couple of days since, flea-ridden and friendless, he has nowhere to go but up. He is English, goes by the name of Archie Noble, and is a broken man – which doesn’t mean he is a spent force, but is the local term for one who has no chief or protector to vouch for him or sign his passport application, no allegiance, no home, no visible means of support. A wanderer on the Marches, a denizen of Cardboard Hamlet, of no account, but don’t worry, he’s literate and normally quite couth, well-spoken when he wants to be, and once he’s had a bath and a shave and his rags pressed, you won’t know him.

For the nonce he wriggles in damp discomfort, munching a tuft of grass to allay his hunger, and trying to sing himself to sleep with one of those lovely, sentimental old border ballads which were to cast their spell over Wordsworth and the Grasmere Gang two centuries later:

We hangit twa cows on the gallows tree,

We hangit them high, wi’ screech and shudder,

They twisted and turned in the wild, wild wind,

And ye couldnae tell one frae the udder

quite unaware that in the neighbouring gully Destiny is approaching …

… in the unlikely and repulsive shape of Black Dod Pringle, a fell Scotch thief of Teviotdale, returning with his thuggish associates from a raid into Cumberland; he is a squat, ugly, villainous figure clad all in steel and leather, has bad breath, bites his nails, and is commonly called Bangtail – all reivers had weird nicknames, usually based on appearance or behaviour, and Bangtail’s signifies that he is not immune to the allurement of the female form. His gang are called Fire-the-Sheep, Blacklugs, Grunt, Slackarse, and Wandered Tom, and all are members of the Pringle family except the last, who thinks he’s a Turnbull but can’t be sure because he has lost his birth certificate (he says). Like the Mafia, borderers operated in family groups, with close friends and allies to make up the numbers; the big tribes, like the Armstrongs, Elliots, Johnstones, and Maxwells (of Scotland), and the Fenwicks, Grahams, and Forsters (of England) could sally forth hundreds strong, but the Pringles, although under the protection of the powerful Kerr family, were second division players, and Bangtail’s was a typical small raid.

It was also a disgruntled one, because they’d had no luck. Bangtail had got them all excited with big talk of descending like a thunderbolt on the Foulbogsyke Women’s Institute during its annual meeting, raping the committee, and making off with their prize entries of crochet and home-made jam, but the ladies had word of his coming and defied the raiders from the W.I. tower, hurling down missiles of potted meat, jellies, raffia-work, and blazing handbags. Foiled, Bangtail had to be content with running off the livestock, which consisted not of cattle and sheep, but of half a dozen hens and a couple of cats. So it is a sorry band of ruffians that we see riding through the murk, herding their clucking plunder before them, while Bangtail rides well ahead, gritting his teeth in frustration at the memory of the plump and roguish Institute treasurer flaunting her curves on the battlements as she blew him jeering kisses and invited him to climb up and show her his muscles.

Archie Noble came out of his doze at the sound of the reiver’s hoof-beats, starting up from his bed among the bracken. Bangtail saw the bedraggled figure not ten paces away, concluded that here was some lonely wanderer on whom to vent his ill-temper, and with a “Har-har!” of wicked glee clapped in his spurs, couched his lance, and charged, intending to open him up just for laughs. But it wasn’t a good night for Pringles, for the victim leaped smartly aside, whipped a poniard from the back of his waist, and with a tricky underarm throw planted it neatly in Bangtail’s neck, causing him to crash to the turf, his sensibilities outraged and his throat cut. After which there was nothing for Bangtail to do but thrash about a bit, go limp, gasp the word “Rosebud” (which was the name of the plump W.I. treasurer, actually), and expire.

And that’s Bangtail out of the story, and Archie Noble nicely into it. Moving with cat-like agility he retrieved his poniard, glanced keenly about him in alarm (for even heroes don’t expect to find themselves committing manslaughter before they’re properly awake), congratulated himself on his reflexes – and then his eye fell on the dead face glaring irritably up at the pale moon, and a startled wince caused the clotted debris to fall from his unwashed brow.

“Black Dod Pringle, alias Bangtail!” he exclaimed. “Dead by my hand, all unintentional! Now, harrow and alas, but here was dire mischance, and as for mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, forget it! Nay, he’s past mending, and I in jeopardy o’ my life, for those hoof-beats I hear betoken not th’arrival o’ the Salvation Army, I warrant!”

It was customary, you see, for Elizabethan performers to speak their thoughts aloud, for the benefit of the groundlings. But having got his dismay off his chest, our hero moved like a well-oiled ferret (belying his nickname of Waitabout, from his habit of philosophic loafing). Trained frontiersman that he was, his senses told him that five riders, driving hens and cats, were just over the hill (Slackarse’s shout of “Keep them bloody poultry away from the moggies, you four, or the boogers’ll stampede!” merely confirmed his deduction), and with Teviotdale’s top gun going into rigor mortis at his feet, and a bloody poniard in his hand, Archie could see awkward questions being asked by the deceased’s buddies if he lingered. On foot he was coffin-bait, for those expert trackers would read his trail like motorway signs, wheresoe’er he turned and doubled. On the other hand, Pringle’s horse was hanging about, looking bored … yet our hero, hard man though he was, hesitated to take away a vehicle without the owner’s consent, and that was now unobtainable. Anyway, broken men got hung for horse-rustling, didn’t they? Decisions, decisions … and then as a frantic cat came rocketing out of the mist, with an enraged chicken in hot pursuit, and Slackarse’s cry of “What did I tell ye – the bastard hen’s run amok!” reached his ears, Archie Waitabout waited no longer. With one bound he was in the saddle, accelerating smoothly from nought to twenty-five in four seconds flat, and by the time the Famous Five had come on their defunct leader and were speculating about suicide, divine retribution, or (Wandered Tom’s theory) whether Bangtail had stopped to shave and ballsed it up, our hero was a mile away and going like the clappers o’er the misty moor, muttering “Land’s End or bust!” as he counted the cost of his fatal encounter.

Why, what’s to worry, you may wonder – no witnesses, no incriminating broken cuff-links or cigar ash left behind … file the serial number off the poniard, ditch it, and he’s well away, surely? Oh, yeah – what about the horse? In these parts, where everyone knows everyone else, including their livestock, he might as well carry a full confession in Day-glo on his chest. But dammit, you point out, he’s on the moral high ground (self-defence), and no previous record, your honour … But unfortunately, there is: Archie’s past is not entirely unspotted; necessity has driven him to hire out now and then to heavy mobs like the Charltons and the Maxwells; he has lent a hand, and reluctantly committed G.B.H., in those just-lawful pursuits picturesquely called “hot trods”, he has no references or paid-up insurance, and being a broken man and therefore heavily suspicioned of everything, he is ripe to be put in the frame for anything. Like killing, however innocently, the local equivalent of a Chicago capo, whose family have been known to pursue a feud as far as York, and Batley even.

Our boy, in fact, is now without a future. Either the Pringle hitmen will sign him off, or the Wardens will give him a suspended sentence eight feet up in the air – for while a well-connected reiver may get off with a fine plus interest and a promise to behave, broken men can expect only the gallows, decapitation, or the drowning-pit in which offenders were economically dunked to death.

Either way, a parlous plight, and Archie’s brow is furrowed with care beneath the grime, and even the horse is shaking its head and shooting him glances of concern as he leads it through the wreathing mist a couple of hours before dawn. They are cold, wet, fed up with tripping over rocks and falling in bogs; Archie’s stomach is starting to rumble – that last clump of grass had definitely been off – and the horse is burping with fatigue; sustenance they must have, and that right speedily. And just as they are starting to eye each other cannibal-wise, the mist thins suddenly, and in the distance a light gleams in the gloom. The mist thins a bit more, and the outline of a large building comes into view, and then with a final ghostly whiffle the mist packs up entirely, and lo! it’s a great fortified mansion, with crenellations and mullions and a massy stone wall all around with a frowning gateway flanked by a sullen sally-port and a mildly annoyed tradesmen’s entrance above which is a battered notice board reading:

Thrashbatter Tower plc.

Scots KEEPE OUTTE!

Forays by appointment onlie.

Nobilitie, gentrie, Wardens fairlie welcome.

Broken menne are you kidding?

The whole place looks as though it’s been built in a bad temper, bats squeak round its dark central tower, bloodhounds growl in its outhouses, and in its cellar the very mice are bickering in their straw.

Archie is still too far off to hear them, or to read the notice, but even if he could it wouldn’t matter; his eye is fixed on that one small lighted window, which his reiver’s instinct tells him is a pantry containing a half-finished game pie, a mortress of brawn, savoury pasties, toothsome pizzas, sundry kickshaws, and enough booze to raise the Titanic. Slavering slightly, he mounts his steed, murmuring “Hi-yo, Silver!”, and is hurled headlong as the beast rears obediently on its hind legs, whinnying. Picking himself up, and with the William Tell overture whispering gently o’er the moss, he steals forward like a ragged ghost, ears pricked, eyes gleaming like grey fog-lamps, gastric juices fermenting, while the horse takes a dyspeptic glance at the gloomy mansion, obeys its animal instinct, and leans despondently against a convenient tree reflecting that it’s not that hungry …

* See the National Portrait Gallery, and sympathise with Her Majesty

* True, really

Well, it’s probably not the Inn on the Park, but it should furnish our hero a quick snack and a packed lunch for later. Unless … who knows what lurks within this estate agent’s nightmare – phantasms, man-traps, burglar alarms, a police stake-out? Does he realise he isn’t dressed for dining out? But let’s wish him Bon Appetit anyway, and move on to the rest of the cast, wherever they are … a Mad Villain, perhaps? A spy? A corrupt plumber? No, we’ve had enough of Heavies in Chapter One, and it’s time for a touch of glamour, the rustle of silk and whiff of perfume, as we bring on the girls …

Chapter 2

It’s quite a commentary on our so-called scientific progress that while we can send men to the moon (well, possibly you can, even if this correspondent can’t), getting stuck on the high fell road between Scotch Corner and Carlisle is just as liable to happen now as it was in the sixteenth century. In some ways it’s worse nowadays, when your carburettor’s flooded, not a call-box in sight, and nothing for it but a ten-mile walk; in the 1590s you could always huddle up in a corner of your satin-lined luxury coach, swathed in silks and furs, beguiling your impatience with peach brandy and sweetmeats o’ Peru, while outside in the raging blizzard your lackeys heaved and whimpered to get the show on the road, and Coachman Samkin clumphed around giving futile instructions to the grooms, like “Keep them nags in low gear, the chestnut’s over-revving!” – assuming, of course, that you weren’t just any old wayfarer, but the pampered and wealthy Lady Godiva Dacre, proud flower of the nobility, owner of half East Anglia, and accustomed to having every whim, let alone crisis, attended to instanter by droves of head-knuckling servitors. There were a round dozen of these floundering knee-deep in slush as they strove to force the great gilded carriage ahead, and Coachman Samkin waved his lantern and vanished in a snowdrift.

Inside, her ladyship tapped dainty foot and drummed slender fingers in Krupa-like crescendo, signs which her companion, mischievous little Mistress Kylie, watched with covert amusement as she waited for Krakatoa to blow, and tried to think of some remark which would get the eruption going.

“Perchance,” she ventured brightly, “the weather will clear ere long, or mayhap some travellers will fare this way, bringing timely succour. Or a road scout, wi’ spanners and gadgets –”

“– and a team of oxen, and wainropes, and a fork-lift truck!” stormed Lady Godiva, finally giving vent. “God’s light!” she seethed, “was ever poor debutante so sorrily served? Twelve reeking fat knaves that have gorged and swilled enough for a regiment since we left London, and cannot shift me a featherweight coach through a pinch of snow! Yeomen of England, yet! How we beat the Spaniards I’ll never know! Can nothing stir them, jelly-muscled churls?”

“Have ’em lashed with horse-whips,” suggested sweet Kylie. “Mind you, they’re probably too numb to feel it by now, but it’s worth a try.”

“And have ’em run whining to an industrial tribunal!” The fine eyes of scornful Lady Godiva flashed like violet detonators. “With my fair name bandied in the gutter press as merciless employer! Thank you, Mistress Thinktank! Who are you working for, me or the Sunday Sport?”

“Marry, ’tis a thought,” admitted Kylie. “Certes, the tabloids would eat it. ‘My Flogging Frolic i’ the snow with Gorgeous Goddy’, by Postillion Tim … And ’twould be just like them to use that kinky picture of you in Ben Jonson’s last masque – remember, Diana chastising the fauns? All right, all right,” she added hastily as her mistress began to gnash pearly teeth, “just speculating. I always said amateur court theatricals were a lousy idea, but you would fancy yourself in tights … Here, have another snifter.”

And while tactful Kylie sets the decanter merrily a-glug, and Lady Godiva extends smouldering goblet, let us cast an eye over these two ladies fair – or rather, in Godiva’s case, let us gaze in stricken admiration, for they’re not making them like that any more. Superbly tall, with the flawless ivory beauty of some Nordic ice queen, and a shape whose curvature could not be concealed even by the voluminous finery of the day, our heroine (yes, it is she) was a breathtaking mixture of Marlene above the neck and Jane Russell below. Her white brow was lofty, her eyes of deepest midnight blue, her nose classically sculpted, her lips an imperious rosebud, and her ears shell-like gems peeping from beneath magnificent fiery tresses which cascaded like glossy red curtains to shoulders of alabaster smoothness. Her chin and teeth were all right, too. Add to this assemblage a mien before whose frigid disdain accountants trembled and barristers fairly grovelled, clothe her in cloth of silver (by Balmain), and let Van Cleef (or Arpels) loose wi’ gewgaws of price wherewith to deck her slim hands and snowy bazoom, and you have a picture of feminine perfection that would take the paper off the wall. Rumour had it that she had been Master Spenser’s original model for the Faerie Queene before wiser counsels led him to ascribe his inspiration to Her Majesty’s person, and that Shakespeare himself had her in mind when he penned that immortal line in Much Ado which begins “Here’s a dishe …”

In short, Lady Godiva Dacre was the ultimate Elizabethan knockout, and if among the sonnets, songs, wolf-whistles and cries of “Gaw!” with which courtiers paid tribute to her peerless oomph, there were occasional murmurs of “Haughty piece”, “Stuck-up icicle”, and “Payne i’ the butte”, this was no matter for wonder.

For, as our description and the foregoing snatch of small talk suggest, our leading lady’s temper was wilful, headstrong, passionate, and proud to busting. Spoiled from infancy by a doting grandsire and squads of devoted nurses, grooms, and hangers-on, our orphaned heiress had realised at the age of about three that beauty, money, and blue blood had placed in her tiny hand the throttle of a steamroller on Life’s highway, and she had been winding it on ever since. Sent to court as a child, she had modelled herself on the Queen’s Grace, to whom she had been maid-in-waiting for several years; hence those outbursts of tantrum when any inconvenience (like having to sit in a coach moving at one mile an hour through a snowstorm) came to disturb the rose-strewn progress of her existence. We see her now aged twenty-two, journeying north to visit the distant estate of her late grandfather, old Lord Waldo Dacre, recently succumbed to a surfeit of reivers. She wouldn’t have come – too far, too rude, and oh, sweet coz, the people! – had she not been commanded away by the Queen who, it was rumoured, had been itching for an excuse to get shot of an attendant who gave herself impossible airs and whose naturally flame-coloured coiffure was a maddening reproach to Her Majesty’s weekly gallon of henna.

So there’s Lady Godiva … sorry? Lovers, you ask? Well, none of your business, really. Yes, granted, a lady with her equipment and ardent spirit, when aroused by Cupid, might well make the Maneaters of the Kumaon look like stuffed mice … and, indeed, there has been talk, but that’s the court for you. Suffice to say that while she has had legions of open admirers with whom she has dallied coolly before giving them the old-sock treatment, we are not prepared to speculate about anything steamier. Don’t worry, her passionate nature will take off before we’re finished … but mum.

Now, if you can tear your eyes away from our heroine, we turn to little Kylie, her attendant, a perfect complement to Lady G. Kylie is petite, blonde, pert, and chocolate-box pretty, with those generous contours common among saucy milkmaids and well described by the modern expression “stacked”. Inseparable since they won the two-woman bob-sleigh title at their Swiss finishing school, they spar almost continuously, for Kylie couldn’t care less about her imperious employer’s outbursts, and needles her freely, a familiarity which Lady Godiva secretly enjoys because she feels such tolerance becomes her aristocracy. Just let anyone but Kylie try it.

Having brimmed her companion’s goblet with the electric soup, Kylie remarked that it would keep out the cold, and got her head in her hands for her pains.

“Cold, quotha!” withered haughty Godiva. “What shouldst thou know of cold, overweight and padded wi’ blubber as thou art! Nay, had I thy surplus tissue I might sit me starkers on an ice floe and be warm as toast, I’ll warrant!”

“Pleasingly plump and eight stone in my pantyhose, I,” murmured Kylie, no whit abashed. “And who tipped the scale at nine stone two last Twelfth Night? Do I hear the name Dacre?”

“But then I’m not a midget, am I?” riposted Godiva with acid sweetness. “I don’t roll for miles when I fall over, like some butter-balls I could mention. Sure, nine-two is nought to one o’ my stately inches; ’tis but sweet proportion. Oh, come on, top me up again, and if it makes me car-sick, what the hell, it’s better than freezing.”

“Aye, let’s get loaded,” sighed Kylie, dispensing joy-juice. “’Twill make our present plight seem the less woeful, and banish fond regrets that we might ha’ been snug at Greenwich, simpering at Her Grace, dancing corantos, and sizing up the Yeoman Warders … if only someone had had the sense to wear a black wig …”

Lady Godiva’s lovely eyes glinted like dangerous sapphires. “If you’re trying to wind me up, dear heart,” she purred, “you’re getting perilously warm. Well ye know that I am up to here, repining this unlooked for voyage to my Cumbrian estate – but what could I do, with Her Grace insistent and Grandpops handing in his bucket untimely?” Moodily she plucked seed pearls from her ruff and flicked them at the decanter, her bosom quivering in a sigh that would have had strip-club patrons clambering over the seats. “Aye, me, I suppose someone’s got to mind the store, and who but the old goat’s heiress? ’Tis the penalty of uncountable riches and social status that they bring Care and Duty in their wake. Ah, sweet Kylie, sometimes I wish I had been born a poor beggar maid, with no cares but ducks and manure. Or whatever,” she added vaguely.

“’Tis hell in the trenches,” sniffed cynical Kylie. “But when her ancestors collar the monosodium glutamate monopoly from Henry the Seventh, what can a girl do but wallow lamenting in the dividends? Heart-breaking, I call it.”

“It keeps you in tights and Chanel,” flashed Godiva, “so knock it not. Skip off the gravy train an ye list, but remember, baby, it’s cold outside. Aye,” she resumed in pensive mood, “this same wild wind will be sighing its plaintive dirge through the battlements of Thrashbatter Tower, where I was born, ’neath the grim shadow of the lonely fells. We’ll be seeing it shortly, assuming these layabouts get us moving before Easter – a stark and lonely hold, gentle Kylie, fronting the grim border. And yet …” Godiva’s marble beauty seemed to soften in creamy-dreamy reminiscence “… and yet ’twas there I played, as tender little child, by rippling beck and oozing bog, and harkened me to the murmuring of butterflies and badgers in the greenwood, all carpeted with daisies … And what the hell do you want, clodpole?” she concluded as the coach window flew open to admit a rush of freezing air and the empurpled face of Coachman Samkin under a thin sheet of ice.

“’Tis of no avail, my lady!” he quavered through chattering teeth. “My big end’s gone!”

A dozen crisp rejoinders jostled for priority on the red lips of quick-witted Kylie, but Lady Godiva ignored the opportunity, so great was her fury.

“Have ye not tried kick-starting, fool?” she railed.

“Aye, mistress, but ’tis vain! Boot their buttocks as I may, they stagger like men stoned! The wheels slip, wi’out purchase, and us wi’ no chains nor grit –”

“Then find something else!” stormed her ladyship. “Where are your wits, looby? Lay two o’ the smaller lackeys ’neath the wheels, so shall ye find purchase enough! Stay, dolt – cover them with blankets lest their liveries be soiled. Jesu, must I think of everything! And close the dam’ window!”

“Oh, kindly mistress! Oh, sweet consideration!” grovelled Samkin. “’Tis done in a moment, wi’ all despatch! I go, see how I … aaargh!”

His fawning protestations ended in a sudden yowl as tender Kylie closed the window on his fingers, and while he is bathing them in snow and calling for volunteers to prostrate themselves beneath the wheels, we pan and zoom dramatically to the night skyline far above the road. You know the shot – usually it reveals Comanches or Riffs gazing down on the unsuspecting wagon train or Legion column, but this is something more sinister by far: a dozen steel-capped border riders sitting their hobblers like black phantoms in the swirling snow, motionless save for the play of their cloaks in the wind and the fidgeting of the man on the end whose chilblains are killing him. A fearsome sight, and worse when you get close and see the gaunt profiles of the long horse-like faces – and the riders are nothing to write home about either, grim and bony villains with wolfish expressions and hungry sunken eyes, for these are Charltons and Milburns of Tynedale, the hardest of hard men on the English side. Plagued by a power cut in their valley, they have been raiding their own countrymen (nothing unusual on the frontier, believe us) for firelighters and primus stoves; now, on their homeward road, heavy with plundered matches and kindling and a-reek with paraffin, they have spotted the stranded coach, and are arguing not about the practicality but – would you believe? – the morality of attacking it.

You see, if we haven’t already mentioned it, the border reivers had eccentric notions of what was fair game. Livestock of any kind, and the contents (what they called the “insight”, a definition probably unknown to C. P. Snow) of farms, crofts, churches, and other people’s peel towers, were legitimate loot, and murder, arson, kidnapping, extortion, and terrorism were simply part of their business – and none of these things did they consider criminal. But there was a line which no respectable reiver would cross, if he could help it: mugging, pocket-picking, fraud, embezzlement, highway robbery, or oath-breaking – these things were out, as the State Papers testify, and if you think the borderers were crazy, well, that was their code. The line got a bit blurred sometimes, admittedly – which was why the Charltons and Milburns were getting all het up as they eyed the great gilded coach with hungry doubt and their extremities froze. They were talking, or rather growling, in Northumbrian, a form of English incomprehensible to outsiders, chiefly because it features a deep guttural noise as of a motor starting up, in place of the consonant “r”. In translation:

“Ye cannut tooch it, man!” The leading Charlton, a gaunt cadaver known as Wor Jackie, was adamant. “The bloody thing hez wheels, sista! Rob that, an’ yer a flamin’ highwayman!”

“If it’s got a roof, an’ isn’t moovin’, it’s a hoose!” objected a Milburn, producing his dog-eared Reiver’s Year-book.“Haud up the lantern, Sandie! Aye, theer y’are … ‘Any immobile dwellin’ or sim’lar accommodation may be visited, ploondered, th’inhabitants assaulted, the thatch boorned –’”

“An’ wheer’s the thatch on that friggin’ thing?” demanded Oor Kid Charlton, who always supported his big brother.

“Haud on a minnit,” demurred an awkward Robson. “Peel towers hezn’t got thatches, an’ we boorn them.”

“Peel towers hezn’t got wheels, ye daft git! A coach isna an immobile dwellin’, neether!”

“It wad be, tho’ if ’twas in a caravan park or trailer camp.” The Milburn shop steward was consulting his index. “Wheer is’t? ‘Pyped watter … refuse disposal … landlord-bashin’ …’ Aye, here it’s! ‘Trailers, albeit wheeled, shall be deemed crofts, cots, or steadings, so they be stationary …’ Weel, that booger’s stationary, so Ah say we’re in business!”

“Naw, we’s not,” snarled Wor Jackie. “Bastard thing’s moovin’. An Ah doobt if that’s a caravan park.”

“Aw, coom on, man! Hoo d’ye ken, wid a’ the snaw?”

“’Ey, we could run-off th’ hosses! They’re livestock, so we’re entitled – an’ then it wadn’t be moovin’! Warraboot that, Wor Jackie?”

A further moment’s debate followed in which a Milburn was unhorsed and two Charltons received flesh wounds, and then Wor Jackie sheathed his broadsword and gave his casting vote.

“We tek th’ hosses, awreet – but if them fellas that’s pushin’ the coach can keep it moovin’ … hands off! An’ they’re not to be strucken, nor tripped neether, thou base football players! But the minnit they stop shovin’, an’ it stops, it ceases tae be a ve-hickle, an’ we can git stoock in! Awoy, Tynedale! Up the Magpies!”

Like a black avalanche the scrupulous freebooters swept down the snow-clad slope, flourishing swords and supporters’ club scarves, lances couched and rattles a-clatter, and before the bewildered grooms knew what had hit them they had been pinioned and dropped in wayside drifts, and the coach horses had been neatly whipped from the shafts and labelled “Spoyle”. But alas for the reivers’ hopes: the coach kept rolling slowly, because the lackeys behind, all unaware of what was happening up ahead, were packed down in three-two-three and putting in a splendid shove, with Coachman Samkin hovering at their heels yelling: “Keep it tight, back row!” The two loose lackeys who’d been under the wheels were receiving attention from the trainer, but soon they too piled into the ruck, and the coach crunched merrily o’er the snow, to the disgust of the reivers, who could only mooch along behind, foiled but still hopeful.

“This lot’ll be weel knackered afore they’re halfway to Alston,” opined Wor Jackie, wi’ vulpine grin. “An’ then – away the lads!”

Meanwhile, within the coach, its evident progress had restored Lady Godiva to her normal petulance, and she was reduced to complaining about the Peruvian sweetmeats (no soft centres), when Kylie, peeping out of the back window, let out a girlish whoop.

“Gosh, Goddy! Clock this lot! Great hairy chaps in black leather and spurs! Wow! Eat your heart out, Schwarzenegger – it’s goose-pimple time! Oh, good mistress, shall we not bid a couple of them in, for refreshments and the like?”

Lady Godiva cast a languid eye astern, and wrinkled aristocratic nostril. “’Tis but the local rough trade, or itinerant bikers, and far ’neath the notice o’ gentlewomen such as we. Stop smirking, wench, you’re not a groupie!”

“I could be,” sighed wanton Kylie. “Regard me those bulging biceps on the gorilla wi’ the tin vest – and talk about designer stubble! Flutter, my maiden heart!”

“Maiden, my foot!” snapped Godiva. “Why, thou randy minx, hast no shame – Godamercy!” she exclaimed. “We’re stopping!”

It had been bound to happen, of course. One of the back-row lackeys, pausing for breath, had glanced behind, and noticed that he was being shadowed by what looked like a dyspeptic Jack Palance, who stropped glittering blade on horse’s flank and inquired wi’ gloating leer: “Gittin’ tired, son?” Three seconds later a dozen lackeys were in screaming flight across the snow, Coachman Samkin had fainted, the carriage was at a standstill, the Charltons and Milburns were pillaging the rear luggage-rack with cries of “We’re in, Meredith!”, and Lady Godiva and Kylie were exchanging wondering glances (not unmingled with excitement in Kylie’s case) and asking each other what this might portend.

Well, we know, don’t we? Here’s beauty unprotected, and a gang of licentious bandits, not one of them in need of vitamins, working up a head of steam on the spare bottles of peach brandy in the boot – and now they tear open suit-cases and goggle in lustful amaze at piles of frilly undergarments and fishnet hose which even their untutored imaginations have no difficulty in filling. In an instant they have put two and two together, and are climbing over each other to get to the coach door, flinging it wide and feasting lewdly bugging eyes on their gorgeous prey, one of whom sinks back all silkenly a-flutter while the other sits bolt upright, ba-boom! in voluptuous indignation. For one stricken instant the principals regard each other, Wor Jackie licking gaunt chops as he lamps Godiva’s vibrating fury, while Oor Kid leers drooling on buxom Kylie. Then, as often happens in unexpected social encounters, everyone speaks at once:

“Aaarrnghhh!” growls Wor Jackie, pawing with his feet. “Broomphh!”

“Are ye doin’ anythin’ the neet, hinny?” inquires Oor Kid.

“Alack, we are undone!” twitters Kylie hopefully.

“Doesn’t anyone north of the Humber knock!” demands Lady Godiva, bosom flashing and eyes heaving. “Mannerless rabble, shalt lose thine ears, and other bits as well, for this rash intrusion! This is a private compartment! Back, I say, and on your bikes! Dost know who I am?”

“The answer to a randy reiver’s prayer!” squeaked a small Milburn at the back, leaping and ogling. At which the whole sweaty mob, beards a-bristle and visors misting up with unholy desire, surged forward with gloating yells of “Gang bang!” “Bags I the redhead!” “Ah’ll bet the little ’un doesn’t half bounce!” and “Keep th’ hosses, who needs them?”, only to be flung back by Wor Jackie’s iron arm.

“Haud oop!” he thundered. “Are ye men or beasts? Two defenceless gentlewomen, ladies o’ birth an’ beauty, an’ ye’d be at ’em like rootin’ stags gone crackers! For shame! Is there nae decency or order among ye?” His dreadful eye rolled from the lovely twain to his panting followers struggling with their buttons, and back again, what time he doffed steel cap, bared snaggle teeth in a hideous grin, and ran a small comb through his beard. “Them as fancies Blondie, line oop behind Oor Kid! All them for Carrot-top, follow me!” He seized Godiva’s horrified wrist in a paw like a hairy shovel. “Your place or mine, duchess? Coach or snowdrift – choose! Har-har!”

His grating laugh ended in a strangled croak as a dainty satin slipper, scientifically driven, smote him in his tenderest spot; not for nothing had Lady Godiva captained the Benenden karate team. And back with him reeled Oor Kid, neatly head-butted by resourceful Kylie, who had repented her wanton flirtatiousness in the face of brutal assault. As the reivers collapsed in a tangle, their two leaders clutching themselves and making statements, the coach door slammed, Lady Godiva’s crisp command of “Drive on, Samkin!” rang clear – little did she realise that Samkin was three fields away, crouched in a ditch with his eyes shut, whimpering: “Take the credit cards, mister, but please don’t hit me!”, and that the coach was without means of propulsion. Our gallant girls have won themselves but a brief respite, the reivers are staggering afoot again, full of rage and frustrated libido, and if we are to avoid the kind of explicit X-Certificate stuff which no romantic adventure can afford (not as early as Chapter Two, anyway), drastic intervention is called for, preferably in the shape of virtuous muscle – which, thank heaven, is e’en now thundering down the highway, snow flying beneath its charger’s hooves, moonlight glinting on drawn broadsword and gleaming teeth, the latter bared in a reckless fighting smile between a pencil-slim moustache and a rakish little chin-beard. Like a thunderbolt he speeds to the rescue, awakening the echoes with his laughing slogan: “Teckle low, Eccies!”, a cry which consternates the startled reivers and brings hope and joy to beleaguered beauty. For only heroes and idiots make that kind of noise when faced with odds of ten to one, and this character’s got hero written all over him.

No, it isn’t Archie Noble, who at this moment is miles away trying to jimmy a larder window. Archie was in rags, remember, whereas this new chap isn’t dressed, he’s positively Attired, in the latest romantic gear of boots, cloak, Mechlin at wrists and throat, gems o’ price in his baldric, and a plumed hat that would make Sir Francis Walsingham gnash and turn green. He spurs among the astonished heavies, scattering them with plunging hooves and darting blade. In the time it takes to leap nimbly from the saddle and cry “Sa-ha, muckrakes! Hev et thee!” he had his back to the carriage door, rapped on the panels, cried: “Knock-knock – who’s thair? – Hatcher – Hatcher who – Hatcher survice, ladies!”, pinked Wor Jackie in the shoulder and Oor Kid in the leg, and was fronting the dismayed remnants of Tynedale Athletic, perfectly poised, point snaking in and out, clean-cut features reflecting the moonlight, ruby earring fairly dancing with glee of combat, and joyous laughter bubbling on his lips and bursting on his moustache.

A rotten prospect for the remaining reivers, who could read the signs as well as we can – six feet plus, immaculately clad, foppish finery belying steely wrist and sinewy speed, handsome, dashing, merry to the point of hysteria, and obviously slated to get the girl in the last reel: the kind of super-gallant for whom they, being expendable extras, were so much rapier-fodder. But they did their best, flinging themselves on him with despairing cries of “Pantywaist!” and “Snob!”, and falling back, gashed and cursing, before a dazzling point which was everywhere at once, or if you prefer it, simultaneously ubiquitous.

You’ve seen Tyrone Power do it often enough – engaging three blades at a time from opponents who stand obligingly frozen in the lunge position while he cries a cheery reassurance over his shoulder to Maureen O’Hara, carves his call-sign on their linen, stoops to let an attacker fall over him, and finally leaps forward with stamp and sweep to drive them off in panic-stricken rout. And not even breaking sweat.

Our boy was like that, only better: within a minute there was a pile of reivers on the deck, bleeding and going “Aarrgh!”, and only the squeaking little Milburn was left, hacking away gamely at that impenetrable guard.

“Kiss my steel!” cried the gallant gaily, and the little Milburn, seeing the chance to deliver the best riposte in the whole encounter, cried: “Kiss my arse!” and died happy.

Frantic stuff, and watched with finger-twisting admiration by our beauteous duo in the coach, respectively gasping with apprehension and emitting squeals of “Wow! Gotcha!” Now, as their saviour wiped his blade on a lace kerchief and louted low, plumed hat in hand, they let down the window, Kylie fairly gushing with girlish congratulation and even Lady Godiva warming the knight-errant with her most queenly smile. Indeed, a hint of blush undercoat appeared ’neath the ivory satin finish of her cheek, and her ruby lips parted with a soft splooch, for if this was not Master Errol Flynn in Elizabethan costume, she’d never seen him. Kylie, less mistress of her emotions, gaped starry-eyed and gasped: “Golly, quel hunk!” The newcomer shot them a brilliant smile and spoke.

“Oll raight, gurls? Ai hope these belly reskals didn’t hurrt you. Ai’d hev hasted to yur aid even fester, but the road’s in a helluva state, simply fraightful. You shoor yur okay?”

Being unprepared for the accent of Glasgow W2 from this Apollo, Lady Godiva was momentarily taken aback, but came off the ropes with speedy aplomb.

“We are much beholden to you, sir,” said she, all peerless dignity, and extended a white hand over which he bowed reverent curly head, the bristles of his lip-cosy sending electric tingles up her arm to her smooth shoulder, whence they dispersed delightfully through the rest of her, a sensation which would have caused her to go “Eek!” had she not been schooled to hide girlish emotion.

Little Kylie knew no such reticence. Proffering eager mitt in turn, and feeling her knuckles nibbled (this gallant can obviously tell top quality from mere talent, and responds accordingly) she exclaimed: “Yikes! Much beholden nothing! ’Tis miracle that sends such dashing champion to our aid – oh, sir, your footwork was brill, and how may we repay you?” As if I didn’t know, thought the wanton hussy, lowering coy lashes o’er worshipping orbs.

“Och, don’t menshn’it – no bother, reelly,” was the modest reply. “Pleez, just sit taight while Ai round up those varlets of yurs, whurrever they’ve got to. Going laike the cleppers when Ai saw them lest. Heff a jiffy, end Ai’ll be beck!”

And with another graceful bow and flash of gum-gear, he sprang lightly on his horse, and with the command: “Come on, Garscadden – away!” cleared the roadside hedge from a standing start and was off across the snowy fields shouting: “Ho there, leckeys! Get yurselves follen in! Where urr you, desh it? Yur mistress ken’t stay heer oll naight!”

A faint furrow did its stuff ’twixt Lady Godiva’s delicately pencilled brows. “Methinks,” said she, “this gentleman should be a Scot, by his tongue.”

“Who cares about his tongue?” enthused glowing Kylie. “Regard me rather those super shoulders, chiselled clock, sexy legs, and the Mephisto-gleam in his tawny eyes! And what a mover – nay, ’a went through those nasties like a dose of Dr Lopez his salts!” She sighed. “Bit of a waste of beefcake, if you ask me, but that’s the way the farl fractures. What makes you think he’s Scotch, Goddy?”

“His speech, dum-dum!” quoth impatient Godiva. “Had ye but marked the dialogue in Macbeth*,’ stead of ogling the husky who played the Bleeding Sergeant, you’d ha’ noted that the nobles of Scotland – you know, Angus, Lennox, McHaggis, whoever – spoke exactly as doth our rescuer. A quaint affected dialect, which they do term ‘toffee-nosed’, for that it apes gentility – sex are what they keep coal in, and a crèche is two carts colliding on Byres Road,” she explained, but with a musing, dreamy look that suggested preoccupations other than nutty slack and vehicle pile-ups. Aware of Kylie’s slantendicular smirk, her ladyship feigned a yawn. “Thus talks he – aye, and plies pretty rapier enough. For the rest,” she shrugged indifferent shoulders, “I marked him not.”

“Get her!” scoffed Kylie. “You marked him ten out o’ ten! Going to offer him a lift, are we?”

Disdain tilted the exquisite nose and squiggled the delectable mouth of the Thrashbatter heiress. “And if I so condescend,” she snooted, “to one that hath done me service, why, what’s it to thee, sauce-pot? He may be mere gentry and talk as if he had a mouse up his nose, yet is he the most presentable thing I’ve seen this side of Watford Gap.”

“Does that mean I have to ride on the roof?” sniffed Kylie. “Or don’t you mind the competition?”

“That,” quoth Godiva, patting complacent coiffure, “will be the day. Bear us company an ye list, sweet child – but try playing footsie with him and I’ll break your leg.”

Thus it was that when the stranger had scooped in Samkin and the perspiring lackeys, with brisk halloo and cries of “C’mon, churrls, move it! Run laike stegs, you aidle shower!” and they had put to the horses and tidied the fallen reivers into the ditch, he found himself bidden to a seat in the carriage, his horse being anchored astern. Kylie, with pretty becks and flutters, proffered a brimmer of peach brandy, which he accepted with a courtly “Gosh, thenks, offly kaind of you, cheers!” while Godiva appraised him ’neath interested lids and concluded that, eccentric accent or no, this gorgeous specimen had the message for the Soroptomists, in spades. And vanity demanding that she exercise her charm on such male perfection, she thought, mm-m, right, we’ll give him the Languid Glow for openers …

“We are deeply in your debt, fair sir,” she drawled, “and agog to know the name and quality of our gallant preserver. I am the Lady Godiva Dacre …” she inclined her regal scone to give him the full colour contrast of flame-tinted hair, creamy complexion, and violet pools “… and this my small companion, Mistress Kylie Delishe.”

“Is thet a fect?” The cavalier paused courteously in mid-swig, and eyed her with a warmth that sent a tremor through her shapely knees. “Whay, you must be the grend-dotter of the old chep who popped his clogs et Threshbetter Tower lest Martinmess – offly sed, mai hurtfelt condolences.” And if you want a stalwart shoulder to cry on, dive right in, was the message in his smoky eyes, at which the love-gremlins let out her knees another couple of notches. Pity he couldn’t talk like a human being, but it could be a gas teaching him received pronunciation …

“You knew my Lord Waldo?” she murmured, all decorative attention.

“Och, heer end there,” was the airy reply. “Ai hendled a few property trensfurs for him … But enough of thet – let’s tock about yew!” Without warning he leaned towards her, masterful elbow on ardent knee, his classic profile cleaving the astonished air and coming to a stop inches from her own. “Mai God, but yur gorgeous! Who gives a tosser for business and ex-grendfethers in the presence of beauty that out-marvels th’exotics o’ the Orient, end would put Fair Helen hurself to the beck of the stove!” He raised his glass in passionate salute. “Ai pledge yur metchless loveliness, Godaiva – nay, Godess-aiva, I should say!” And he took a saturnine shlurp while her senses did the splits, one half bridling at his presumption, the other rendered momentarily legless by his worshipping regard.

Of course, blast-furnace wooing was nothing new to one of her endowments, physical and financial. Raised at a court where they couldn’t even say hello without vowing undying devotion, she’d heard it all, and knew how to cope with supercharged acceleration of the love-god’s chariot. But now, ere her glance could refrigerate in reproof, he had flipped his glass to Kylie, crying “Ketch!”, done a lightning kneel, ’prisoned Godiva’s hand, and locked his eyes with hers, azure amaze tangling with amber yearn.

“Ye spoke of being in mai debt!” he baritoned. “Ah, the gentlest touch of thet sweet mouth on maine, divaine creechur, the teensiest sook of those juicy wee lips, end that’ll take care of thet! For a furst instollment, anyway.”

It needed not Kylie’s exclamation of “Strewth, talk about Speedy Gonzales!” to summon proud outrage to Godiva’s breast – and then, she knew not how, as the hypnotic spell of mischievous dark eyes and tang-fresh dentifrice enveloped her, some reckless imp of mad desire booted proud outrage aside, crying “Go on, why not?”, and yielding to that wild impulse she lowered tremulous lids and submitted parted lips (was it those outlandish words “juicy” and “wee”, so barbarously sensual, that had defrosted her?) to his smouldering munch. And in that moment she was lost, dignity and modesty joining proud outrage in the corner pocket; no longer noble lady but some abandoned jungle groupie in the embrace of her caveman lover, thrilled and helpless as he swung her with muscular expertise from tree to tree while the Match of the Day music rang in her ears, and Kylie’s distracted cry of “Break, break, a God’s name, or you’ll suffocate!” was as the distant mewing of sea-birds o’er the beach of some tropic paradise …

Their mouths parted with a long, lingering squelch, and through a cinnamon mist in which dark eyes and lambent moustache still glowed, Lady Godiva came to herself and saw, in dishevelled bewilderment, that her erstwhile lip-ravisher was back in his seat with a jeweller’s glass screwed in his eye, examining – nay, it could not be! – her priceless necklace (yes, it’s the Dacre Diamonds, that fabulous collar nicked by Sir Acre Dacre from the harem of Suleiman the Improbable in the Third Crusade), her emerald earrings, sapphire fillet, pearl brooch, gold rings, and even her platinum zip-fastener, dammit! Dumbstruck Kylie was giving a creditable impersonation of a Black Hole – and now the gorgeous swine was slipping the lot in his pocket and regarding his victim with heavy-breathing admiration.

“Not bed et oll – and Ai don’t mean the spurklers, eether,” he added, wi’ sexy significance. “Bai jove, yur ladyship hesn’t spent oll her taime on embroidery. What a smecker! Fur a moment there Ai was too kerried away to concentrate on mai wurk.” He phewed respectfully. “But, please, don’t be alurrmed. ’Twas just technique, to save oll thet ‘Hends up!’ end ‘Stend end deliver!’ nonsense. Quaite offen,” he added modestly, “the patient pesses out, end doesn’t come round till Ai’m heff-way down the stair – or ‘oot the windae’, as they say in Paisley.”

Rage, wounded pride, and a savage desire to see the colour of this unspeakable cad’s insides boiled up in Godiva like vengeful molasses, and found furious utterance.

“Dastard! Rotter! Oh, miscreant and toad!” Blue hatred lasered from her eyes, and her Titian tresses cracked like shampooed whips. “To dare – to have the immortal crust to lay polluting lips on mine, and snitch my rocks all surreptitious!” Her dainty manicures were poised to chain-saw him, but ere she could strike he was snogging again, with gentle mastery, and at that magic touch her fury drained away in bubbles of rapture, tingling her from fiery head to gilded toe-nail, the sea-birds did an encore … and heavens to murgatroyd, she was kissing him back! As he desisted, swaying and looking slightly baffled, Godiva sank back all giddy and misty, as one punch-drunk or ensorcelled.

“Ah, me!” she whispered. “Oh, brother! What … who … what art thou? Do I dream, or is it the peach brandy?” She stirred feebly, like a landed salmon trying to think straight. “Why … thou robber, to steal away my senses, my code of conduct – my jewellery yet!” she yipped, as the last effects of his embrace wore off. “Give it back, base handbag artist –”

“Take it easy!” he implored. “Let me get a wurrd in, or Ai’ll hev to smooch you again, end we’ll be here oll naight – you want to get home, shurrly? You esk who Ai em?” He rose to commanding height, hand on swaggering hip, and chuckled à la Fairbanks. “Know then, proud Godaiva, thet Ai – wait for it – em Gilderoy!”

If he’d said “Ichabod Schmultz’ it couldn’t have meant less to Godiva, but Kylie, who kept up with the tabloid broadsheets, went a whiter shade of pale and squeaked like a goosed budgie.

“Gilderoy!” she quavered, her eyes terrified gob-stoppers. “Not … not Bonny Gilderoy! Cripes! Goddy, we are undone! ’Tis the Claude Duval of Newton Mearns, the notorious highwayman and terror o’ the roundabouts, known and feared from Tyne to’ Solway as the Tartan Raffles –”*

“Och, away, ye’ve been listening to the bellad-singers –”

“What!” decibelled Godiva, now fully recovered. “Oh, direst shame! I, of my gentility, to be embraced by common criminal –”

“No, heer, heng it oll! Criminal, Ai grent you, but not common –”

“– drugged by his loathsome kisses – aye, for I warrant me his ghastly ’tash is steeped wi’ LSD to space out defenceless ladies –”

“No sich thing!” he protested. “Look, ken Ai help it if mai lip-wurk robs wimmen of their reason? It’s a gift – quaite hendy professionally, but it makes it deshed difficult to esteblish any meaningful relationship, Ai ken tell you!” And his voice was so full of wist that Kylie could not repress a studio-audience “Aw-w-w …”, and even distraught Godiva felt a sympathetic pang. Not for long, though.

“Set it to music, cut-purse! Of all the sneaky snakes –”

“Wait! Nay, hear – and pity me!” He did another swift genuflect and raised entreating eyes, nobly anguished with a touch of spaniel. “For et lest Ai em hoist with mai own petard! Aye, this naight hev Ai found me a she who doth turn me on as Ai do she!” He paused, frowning. “Or her? Or me? Ach, who cares, the point is thet Ai em shettered end fettered bai yur kisses – it was thet lest smecker that did it! Efter years of osculatory immunity, Ai em keptive of thet little bestard Cupid.” He heaved a sigh that lurched the speeding coach. “Peerless Godaiva, mai heart is et yur feet!”

The impulse to tell him to pick it up and stick it trembled on her tongue, but dived off unuttered. Fury told her to kick him in the slats, yet her emotions were cartwheeling before his adoration, and the memory of his embrace sent fire whooshing through her veins. Torn by conflicting passions, she hesitated – and then remembered that she was the scion of one who had conned a monopoly out of Henry the Seventh.

“Fair words!” she sneered. “Enslaved wi’ love o’ me, quotha – that’s a laugh! Prove it, then! Lay me those looted goodies where you say your heart is – at my feet! That’ll do for starters!”

Shock, amaze, reproach, and angst scampered after each other o’er his flawless features, and he fingered dubious beard. “Oh, here! Thet’s a bit much, desh it! Ai mean, what a precedent! Gilderoy restoring plunder on request – whay, Ai’d be the leffing-stock of every thieves’ ken in the country! End Ai’m not sure,” he added solemnly, “thet yur ladyship couldn’t be done for receiving stolen goods. Ai couldn’t hev thet. Nay,” he clarioned winningly, “take mai love, end forget these trumpery toys, et least until Ai can get legal advaice, end you’ve hurd from the insurers –”

“Oh, base!” cried Godiva. “Oh, false insinuating crumb! Hand them over, you … you kissing bandit, you, and void my sight!”

“You ken’t mean it!”

“Why not give them back in return for another kiss and a waltz by the roadside?” ventured Kylie. “Highwaymen do, all the time.”

“Not this skunk! ’Tis how he gets the stuff, the viper!”

“Rensoming valuables by necking end dencing is raight out these days,” said Gilderoy, shaking his head. “Honestly, it got so that every coach you stopped, some gruesome old beg would be sitting there with her lips purrsed and a consort of viols in the beck seat.” He continued his imploring kneel, arms wide. “Murciless enchentress, Ai appeal to –”

What would have ensued none can say – a right to his jaw from raging Godiva, another dumb suggestion from Kylie? – for at that moment there rang out a distant challenge on the frosty air: “Hold! In the Queen’s name!” and Gilderoy reacted like an electrified lizard.

“The polis, demmit!” he exclaimed, and with one bound had a leg over the window-sill, wincing sharply as he came down on the frame. “Hither to me, faithful Garscadden!” An instant only he paused, and searing passion flame-throwered from his eyes to envelop her ladyship.

“To our next joyous meeting, sweet Godaiva! Thay beauty shell draw me laike a megnet, end we’ll get everything sorted out, you’ll see! For the nonce, the tall timber bids me away!”

“My jewels!” screamed Godiva. “Help! Aid, ho! He’s taking off with my ice … the gorgeous brigand,” she faltered, eyes misting.

“How about one for the road?” pleaded Kylie hopefully, puckering up with her eyes closed, but Gilderoy was gone with a last “Adjoo, mai love!” and a rattle of coconut shells as he thundered away. Constabulary voices were raised afar, crying: “’Tis Gilderoy, the Peebles Predator! After him! Tally-ho!” while our girls clung to each other, bosoms a-flutter and ankles jellified, like partners in a dance marathon. Then:

“Well, that was fun,” mused Kylie. “Can’t complain about boring old travelling, can we? Nay, but Goddy – oh, sweet gossip, what’s amiss?” For Lady Godiva’s damask cheek was flushed like strawberry puree, e’en as she gnashed pearly incisors, and two great tears welled up, teetering on beauteous lids ere they blooped over to burst on her angelic chin.

“Oh, dear Kylie, I am distraught, my senses riven every which way!” she lamented. “To be so cruelly deceived – my tender heart so wrung, my treasures ta’en … Gosh, but he’ll pay for it, the two-timing rat! What, trifle wi’ me, will he?” And she punched the upholstery with mortified yowls, only to prostrate herself on it a moment later, sobbing and whimpering “Sorry, cushions!” in remorse.

“Nay, mistress, what gives?” cried Kylie, all anxiety. “You rage, yet heave great sighs! Grind teeth, yet flutter maidenlike! Your mascara’s a mess, incidentally, and you need a hairdresser, pronto –”

“Ah, fond child, I’m in a state!” Godiva raised her lovely tear-streaked face, oomping piteously. “I hate the smooth Scotch crud … and yet … oh, when he kisses, ’tis like being eaten by a pagan god! In his arms I am molten Jell-o! What am I to do? The softer, weaker, wanton, love-happy me yearns for him e’en now … the low-down rock-snatching renegade!” She sat up, dabbing herself, and sighed dolorously. “And yet … my better, sweeter, gentler self is consumed wi’ such longing … to see him dragged to the gibbet, half-hung and disembowelled, his quarters sent by parcel post, and what’s left swinging in chains for the crows’ elevenses … the adorable sexy big beast!” She did another gnash and sigh, her eyes shining like soft acetylene. “He hath rendered me schizo quite. Ah, faithful Kylie, of your charity, advise me. What am I to do?”

“Abate these fancies, you’ll get over it,” counselled Kylie, setting compassionate arm round Godiva’s shoulders. “Sure, this Gilderoy is Superman on wheels, but the woods are full of them. Thy timely need is for a nice warm bath, a flask of peach brandy on the bedside table, and a good, long sleep …” The sound of hoof-beats and stern voices was heard outside the coach. “In the meantime, the marines have landed, so let us e’en compose ourselves – who knows, there may come now some gallant young officer whom you’ll want to bowl over, and ’tis not meet that the proud Godiva D. should be seen looking like a lovelorn bag lady.”

“Ah, little Kylie, so wise beyond thy years,” murmured Godiva, kissing her companion’s cheek. “Thy comfort is vain, I fear, yet would I requite thee for it.”

“No problem,” said Kylie promptly. “Lend me some of your spare jewellery, buy me a runabout coach ticket, and wish me luck.”

* Alert readers may think they have spotted an anachronism in this paragraph, since the first public performance of Macbeth did not take place until 1610. In fact, Godiva and Kylie had attended the sneak preview held in the 1590s, after which the play was shelved for more than a decade because Burbage refused to appear in a kilt.

* For the record, Gilderoy, alias Patrick Macgregor, was a dashing Scottish highwayman whose victims included Oliver Cromwell and Cardinal Richelieu (yes, he operated in France, too). He was famously handsome and well-dressed, and the lethal quality of his kisses is suggested by the ballad in Percy’s Reliques which refers to his “breath as sweet as rose”, and describes him as “sae trim a boy” with “two charming een” and “costly silken clothes”. No wonder Kylie was impressed.

On which tender note we end Chapter Two, with our Heroine in bittersweet turmoil, Gilderoy off with her bijouterie, and Kylie wondering hopefully if he’s got a younger brother, maybe. Elsewhere the surviving Charltons are emerging from the ditch, demanding Band-Aids and revenge, and as for Archie Noble’s supper … but let’s not talk about food just yet, for in a cave under the dreaded Eildon Hills things are happening which would ruin the keenest appetite…

Chapter 3

The Eildons are those three peculiar eminences, rather like green slagheaps, which you see on crossing the border at Carter Bar. They’re just hills, but there’s something not quite canny about them in that regular landscape, and you’re not surprised to learn that legend links them with sorcery and black magic, for it was here that a celebrated medieval necromancer, mathematician, and Scotsman-on-the-make, Michael Scott, known locally as Mike the Magic, cast some of his best spells, when he wasn’t blinding the experts with legitimate science at the universities of Bologna, Toledo, Paris, and Oxford. He must have been pistol-hot, academically, but however sound he was on Aristotle, astronomy, and long division, his forte was wizardry, and long after his day the Eildons continued to be a sort of social centre for alchemists, witches, thaumaturges, Satanists, and enough supporting fiends and goblins to stock a Dennis Wheatley novel.

Especially in the sixteenth century, which is why we now approach the fearsome triple hills with wary tread, chewing garlic and muttering “Tripsaricopsem’ to ward off evil spirits, for it is still dead o’ night, and bitter cold wi’ sleet and wind, and as we stumble through the gullies, leaping three feet whenever a bat squeaks or a sheep rumbles, and Fearsome Shapes seem to come and go in the murk, frankly we’d rather be in Philadelphia. But this is where the plot is happening, down there in a dank and dismal cave at the very roots of the Eildons, where five sinister figures are seated about a boardroom table of polished black basalt, in the centre of which a cauldron has been sunk; it bubbles fitfully, and green steam wreathes along its rim – but this, like the ultra-violet fog carpeting the floor, and the spark-shimmering red glow visible in the arches ’neath the Exit and Toilets signs, is really no more than set-dressing to terrify the tourists. Likewise, the five s.fs. round the table may be eccentric, but they’re not supernatural, being perfectly ordinary Villains hatching the usual diabolic scheme of fiendish normality – mind you, it’s a pip, if we do say so, but there’s nothing necromantic about it, just political skulduggery on an earth-shattering scale which, if it succeeds, will play havoc with the history of our tight little island. Let’s look them over.

First, at the table head, looking like an emaciated Gandalf, is the Wizard – silver hair to his waist, a face that would split kindling, glittering eyes, long bony black gloves, gown of cobra fur covered with cabalistic signs, etc. But if his appearance is outlandish, there’s nothing other-worldly about the framed diplomas and group pictures hung on the nitre-streaked walls of his lair: honorary degrees from St Andrews and Tarzana, autographed likenesses of Ibn Khaldun, Cagliostro, and Roger Bacon, a pennant inscribed “Hold ’em, Yale”, and a colour print of the All Souls Come Dancing team with the young Wizard in a sequined jacket in the front row.

On his right at the table sits a paunchy, oily, utterly repulsive specimen in Gaudy Finery, hairy fingers a-glitter with gems, yellow jowls quivering and piggy eyes disappearing in folds of flesh as he munches candies from a silver comfit-box and washes them down with copious draughts of Malaga. Robert Redford he’s not, but the Spanish Ambassador to Scotland, Don Collapso Regardo Baluna del Lobby y Corridor, scion of one of the noblest houses of Castile and ancestor of at least one memorable Viceroy of the Indies in the next century.* He is perspiring freely, conscious that as an accredited envoy he’s got no business to be here, but orders are orders, so he has snuck down privily from Edinburgh, disguised as a prop forward for the Escurial Inquisitors who are due to compete in the Langholm seven-a-sides (a rotten pretext in his opinion, but it was King Philip’s personal brainwave, so who’s arguing?). Dropping off the team bus at Hawick, disguised in domino and snow-covered boots, he has made his way across country to this summit of evil.

Opposite him sits the reigning Scottish Traitor of the Year, Lord Anguish. Left to ourself, we would have dressed him in normal garb of the period, but since this is an American co-production he has got to wear a full outfit of the MacDali tartan, with a soft-watch sporran, red whiskers, golfing stockings, and a three-foot feather in his tam-o’-shanter. A ghastly sight, but wait till he starts talking, hoots awa’ wi’ ye and whigmaleeries being the least of it. He is half-drunk, and lolls och-ing and aye-ing in his chair, dunking a haggis sandwich in his goblet of Chivas Regal.

Fourth man up is an inscrutable monk, cowled, habited, and betasselled, whose marzipan features and beady currant eyes betray no emotion save when fanaticism grips him – at autos da fe, Inquisitorial interrogations, and Real Madrid home games – and his mask-like face hardens into cruelly ascetic lines, his currants glitter with a baleful light, and his lips contract into steel-trap implacability. Yes, Mr Pickwick one minute, Peter Cushing the next, that’s Frey Bentos, and you won’t be surprised to learn that he isn’t really a cleric at all, but an operative of the Spanish secret service, former head of their New World bureau (hence his Deep South accent), and now the Escurial’s top banana in charge of Operation Heretic, as the new super-plot is officially called. For several years Frey Bentos has been a mole, under cover as chaplain to old Lord Waldo Dacre at Thrashbatter Tower, where he ministers to the peasants, organises garden fetes, emcees concerts, and trains the pensioners’ bowling club, while secretly furthering King Philip’s vile machinations and waiting for Der Tag, or rather, La Dia. Lord Waldo had no idea what a tarantula was running his Sunday School; nor will Lady Godiva when she moves in. A worrying thought, but that’s the devildom of Spain for you.

Fifth – well, fourth-and-a-half really, since he’s an Amazon pygmy – is Clnzh, a squat, misshapen mannikin complete with blowpipe, poisoned darts, and designer loincloth. Frey Bentos found him on top of a motel wardrobe while on leave in Acapulco, and if a South American savage seems a bit over the top for the border country, well, Clnzh adds a bit of colour, and you’d have been pretty let down if we’d made him an Etterick and Lauderdale district councillor. But isn’t he a bit conspicuous, you ask, tooling about Tudor Britain in war-paint and feathers? Not at all; being small, hairy, and ugly enough to break mirrors, he is perfect casting as a local brownie or goblin, with which the frontier was infested in those days (see W. Scott, The Black Dwarf). Clnzh sticks to Frey Bentos like plaster, but seldom speaks, letting his blowpipe do his talking for him; he is barely house-trained, and has just had to be restrained from drinking the cauldron.

So there they are, and before anyone notes that two of them are Hispanic and a third ethnic minority, we must point out that this is the sixteenth century, when the heavies were invariably Spaniards devoted to the overthrow of Anglo-Saxon culture, religion, institutions, and everything True Blue, so we simply cannot give our villains a balanced racial mix. Anyway, come on, one of them’s Scotch. God knows what the wizard is, but he’s a British resident, and you can bet that’ll be enough for the Inland Revenue.

And now things are happening: the steamy surface of the cauldron is clearing, developing snowy lines, crackling with static (some damned goblin using a hairdryer close by), and finally settling in a sharply defined picture of two people crouched over a roulette wheel, their eyes intent on the spinning goolie. One is a nondescript male in a feather bonnet, doublet and trunk hose, with a straggling beard, goggle eyes, and slobbery lips; as the ball rattles into its slot he gives a cackling cry of “Bingo, new shoes for the bairn!” But none of the five viewers minds him; their eyes are focused on his companion, a voluptuous brunette of sultry mien whose gold lamé halter and jeans are visibly creaking under the strain of her steatopygous charms. Her crimson lips twist in a contemptuous smile as her grotesque companion rakes in the chips. The Wizard adjusts the fine-tune on the cauldron and speaks.

“The Isle of Man casino. Note the three-legged croupier in the background, and, if I turn up the volume, the roar of 750 cc Hondas and Yamahas.” He fiddles the controls and the picture freezes on a close-up of the gloating punter in the feather bonnet. “How say you, senors – is’t a true likeness?”

Don Collapso pursed doubtful lips. “He dozzn’t look mooch like the Kinga Scotland to me.”

“No?” purred the Wizard. “And what says our Scots friend?”

Lord Anguish belched, stirred, and peered blearily at the cauldron. “Nivver saw the man before in ma life!” he declared.

“You are certain?” said the Wizard dangerously. “Look again, drunkard! Look well.”

Lord Anguish paled beneath his ginger whiskers, blinked, took a quick shlurp of Chivas Regal, and changed his mind.

“It’s him!” he cried. “Hullaw rerr, Jimmy, hoo’s it gaun, son? I mean, God bless Your Majesty! Hey, but, whit’s he daein’ in the Isle o’ Man? It’s no’ Gleska Fair Week yet, surely?”

The wizard smiled cynically and turned to the monk. “Frey Bentos?”

“Ah seen worse lookalikes,” conceded the master spy, shrugging beady eyes. “Sho’nuff, he might impersonate His Scottish Majesty indifferent well, if he kin do th’accent an’ slobber convincin’ly. The way Ah heerd it, no one’s bustin’ a gut to git close to King James anyhow, so Ah guess this impostuh could git by.”

“Eez he revolting enough?” wondered Don Collapso. “I mean, onteel you’ve eaten weeth the Scotteesh monarch, you ain’t seen-a nothin’! I sat nex’ heem at a Holyrood banquet … boy, talk about Friday night at the abattoir! Deez-gusteeng!”

The Wizard stabbed a talon-like finger at the cauldron image. “He has been trained for years, coached to perfection in Parliamo Glasgow and all aspects of Scottish culture. Our leading experts in drooling, stammering, and eye-rolling have tutored him to a point where I am sure he will nauseate even such an outstanding slob as yourself, Don Collapso.” He glanced at the ambassador, who was cramming a fistful of sweetmeats between liver lips, and shuddered. “And his Latin pronunciation is perfect – wayni, weedy, weeky, and so forth.”

Lord Anguish surfaced, waving a doubtful haggis sandwich. “Aye, but is he bent? Gay, ye ken – ambisextrous. A’body kens Jamie the Saxt is the original chocolate moose. Whit aboot that?”

The Wizard frowned. “In that respect, I admit, our impostor has proved a disappointment. He showed not the slightest interest in a screaming pansy introduced to him during training – an agent known, incidentally, as the King’s Quair.”

“You mean King’s Queer, surely?” objected Frey Bentos.

“No, Quair,” said the Wizard. “He was an Irish pansy. However,” he continued, “it boots not, since the real king is not averse to female company also. Mind you,” he added, glancing at the cauldron-screen, which now showed the plume-hatted impostor slavering lustfully as he poured roulette chips down the cleavage of his statuesque companion, “’twere well if we fed that little blighter bromide before he reaches Scotland, or people may start wondering.”

“Who’s thee beembo?” asked Don Collapso, smacking eager lips.

“That, senors,” said the Wizard significantly, “is none other than the Castilian hidalga whose skill and daring as a secret agent are known and feared from the Indies to Cathay, the Mata Hari of Manzanilla, mistress of disguise and intrigue, she who set up the fatal hit on Henri Quatre of France, filched the industrial secret of caviar from Ivan the Terrible, and brought the Paris ambulance service to a standstill on St Bartholomew’s Eve! Yes, senors,” and his eyes shone with admiring glitter, “’tis she, none other, La Infamosa!”

There were startled gasps around the table, and even Clnzh stopped toying with his girdle of shrunken heads. “La Infamosa!” they whispered. “Wow! Por los Entranos de Dios! So that’s what she looks like! How d’you disguise those, for Goad’s sake? La Infamosa! An’ I colled her a beembo! Well, if that doan’t beat fried chicken!” etc. The Wizard switched off the cauldron and rapped sharply on the table.

“Enough, senors! It sufficeth that La Infamosa is bringing this impostor to our border country where,” he leaned forward, glinting evilly, “the real King James is about to begin one of his periodic hunting and reiver-hanging trips. Thus the scene will be set for the first stage of our master-plan, Operation Heretic, which will consist of the secret substitution of our impostor for the Scottish monarch. Full details of how this switch, codenamed Jimsnatch, is to be accomplished, are contained in dossiers which you will collect at the door on your way out; nothing has been overlooked. Aye, senors – only a few days hence, we shall have the authentic James the Sixth under wraps, while our impostor will be lording it in Edinburgh and occupying the royal box at Murrayfield, unsuspected by any!”

“And then?” Don Collapso gulped Malaga with wolfish eagerness.

“Then!” quo’ the Wizard, rising to his full skeletal height, sparks flying from his silver coiffure, “then, when the bastard Queen of England turns up her toes – Ah, God, let it be soon! – our impostor will succeed to the English throne! Think of it, senors! Our man in Whitehall, wi’ power unlimited! In no time flat under orders from the Madrid hotline, he will have the English state on the brink of collapse! First,” he chuckled malevolently, “he will alter the county boundaries, then decimalise the currency, make them drink beer by the litre, introduce comprehensive education, bring in hordes of asylum-seekers, subvert the heretic Church of England with gospel singers, undermine the national diet with garlic and peppers, cause psychedelic music to be played in their pubs, dribble away their sovereignty to foreign powers, and even,” his voice sank to a grating whisper, “install a baseball diamond at Lord’s.” A gasp of awe-struck amazement greeted this diabolic proposal. “The fibre of the English will be shredded to tatters! They won’t know who they are, even! Aye, where the great Armada failed, thanks to the endemonised Drake and the abominable disinformation of those villains Fishe and McCaskill, our great Operation Heretic will be a stone-ginger shoo-in!”

“Hallelujah an’ Opus Dei!” interposed Frey Bentos, getting all fanatical. “Yes, sirree, an’ the way’ll be paved for peaceful takeover by our good ole boy King Philip an’ the True Faith! ’Fore yuh kin skin a cat, the red’n’gold bannah of Castile will be a-wavin’ an’ a-flutterin’ o’er the Tower o’ London, they’ll be standin’ in line for bull-fights at Wembley, an’ con-fused Anglo-Saxons will be drivin’ on the right-hand side an’ takin’ wrong exits with the road-signs bein’ in Spanish an’ all! Yes, suh!”

Delighted exclamations sounded round the table, Don Collapso choked with glee on his Malaga, Clnzh gibbered in savage triumph, and only one cautionary belch marred the general jubilation.

“Haud on a meenit,” cried Lord Anguish, looking owlish as he voiced the national pessimism. “Are we no’ a wee thingy pree-mature? Ye’ll substitute this impoaster fur Oor Jimmy, ye say – but suppose some o’ oor guid Scots lords sees the difference an’ blaws the whustle oan him –”

“You will see to it that they don’t!” snapped the Wizard. “By judicious distribution of gold and unlimited Cutty Sark – why, half the Scottish nobility are crooked anyway, or crazy enough to sell their souls for a Partick Thistle season ticket, and the other half will go along just for laughs. They would, in their own parlance, boil their grannies down for soap!”

“Aye, a’ right!” quavered Anguish. “But even if ye get oor nobility tae recognise the impoaster – or raither, no’ tae recognise him,” he added, sniggering, “are ye sure he’s up tae the job? Does he ken the wurrds of ‘Flower o’ Scotland’, for instance?”

“He sings it in his bath!” snapped the Wizard. “Word perfect!”

“Aye, weel, naebuddy in Scotland is,” sniffed Lord Anguish, “so ye’d better tell him tae forget them pronto.” He inhaled another portion of dunked haggis and slipped comatose from his chair.

“La Infamosa shall be informed,” said the Wizard. “Nay, senors, nought shall go amiss – our plan is silky smooth and lubricated to perfection. But should some unforeseen impediment occur, know that a secret mini-Armada, manned by Mediterranean football hooligans, is e’en now lying off the Solway coast disguised as peaceful shrimp-shooters, ready to invade at a given signal and spread fire, sword, and Continental diseases throughout the Borderland. But it won’t come to that,” he added confidently. “Any questions so far?”

At this Clnzh emitted a series of grunts and whistles which, being translated by Frey Bentos, meant: “How does first-stage Jimsnatch actually work?”

“Pertinently inquired, aborigine,” the Wizard commended him. “As you saw, senors, the impostor and La Infamosa are at present masquerading as tourists in the Isle of Man – where, for tax purposes, we have based Operation Heretic plc. This very daybreak, disguised respectively as an accountant and an exotic dancer from one of the hotel cabarets, they will make –”

“La Eenfamosa deezguised as a streeper?” gloated Don Collapso. “Fabuloose casting, Weezard! I can’t wait, hubba-hubba!”

“She will impersonate the accountant,” said the Wizard coldly, leaving the obese Iberian bewildered. “They will travel by smugglers’ sloop to the Cumbrian coast, journey overland by express hay-wain to Carlisle, and there lie secure in a safe house, a bordello-cum-library known as the Thynkynge Man’s Strumpet –”

“Eet sounds kind-a public,” Don Collapso was beginning.

“Prithee, peace, Excellency! ’Tis an ill-frequented ken, since lusty gallants care little for books, while serious readers take no joy in slap and tickle. There, I say, they will lie safe, in the Priest’s Hole Suite, ’twixt the sauna and the reference section – and there Frey Bentos will rendezvous with them tomorrow night, convey them hither, and thereafter to a secret spot marked X – see map reference in dossier – which lieth i’ the forest nigh Peebles Hydro, where King James lodges with his hunting party. Ye will all three keep your heads down i’ the forest until –” the Wizard’s voice sank to a sinister hiss “– King James’s hunt shall happen by. You, Don Collapso, will be with the royal party on a Distinguished Foreign Visitors’ ticket, and on some pretext of bird-watching or bug-hunting or being taken short or whatever, will lure away His unsuspecting Majesty from his attendants –”

“To thee seeclooded spot marked X!” yipped Don Collapso excitedly.

“– where he will be bushwhacked by seasoned local talent, a highly regarded Scottish combo known as Bangtail’s Boys* whose services have already been booked by this drunken sot on the floor.” The Wizard’s lips writhed in a bloodless sneer. “Poor peasants, they know nought of our dark design, but think ’tis straight kidnap, and will turn his maj. over to us for a cut of the ransom and ten per cent of the residuals on the memoirs they fondly suppose he is going to flog to the tabloids when we release him – which, of course, we won’t! Nay, senors, ’twill be the Big Sleep for Jacobus Rex! Our impostor, already on the spot, having changed into His Majesty’s garments, will presently return to the hunt, accompanied by Don Collapso, the royal attendants will suspect nothing – and that, fellow-conspirators, will be Stage One (Jimsnatch) happily concluded! Thereafter, Operation Heretic’s final consummation, the Enterprise of England, Mark II!”

Demonstrations of delight and congratulation broke out among the assembled baddies at the conclusion of the Wizard’s diabolic briefing. Don Collapso hurled his plumed bonnet on the floor and went into the Mexican Hat Dance, Clnzh dived into the cauldron and splashed with abandon, Frey Bentos resumed his imperturbable mask, and Lord Anguish rolled over croaking: “Hey, barman, whaur’s ma bluidy pint?” But we will not linger on this scene of Villainy Exultant; shuddering wi’ dismay, we pull back and up to a long downward shot of the cavern, atmospherically bathed in eerie violet and crimson lighting, with green steam rising from the cauldron to envelop the conspirators in ghastly fog. With Don Collapso’s triumphant “Olé’s!”, Clnzh’s animal barks, and Lord Anguish’s rendering of “I Belong tae Glasgow’ sounding in our ears, we flee appalled from this nest of evil and zoom dramatically o’er the border wasteland, cleaving the thinning mist until we close on that lighted window in Thrashbatter Tower behind which, with any luck, Archie Noble must at last be stoking the inner man to some purpose …

Considering that the light in the Thrashbatter kitchen was supplied by one guttering rushlight, far too dim to make out sell-by dates, let alone lists of ingredients, our stalwart reiver hadn’t done too badly. After pondering the great hams which hung in rows from the smoke-blackened rafters, the chines of beef, game pies, cold roasted fowls, and assorted joints littering the massive tables, and stroked his chin thoughtfully over the oven-ready trenchers of made dishes in the adjoining ice-house, he had chosen a carefully balanced snack consisting of a mortress of brawn for starters, pickled herrings for the fish course, a couple of sirloins removed with a brace of ducks, and a morsel of Stilton to clear the palate. A bowl of custard he had rejected as holding too much cholesterol, and now stood sipping a flagon of Diet Sack and nibbling a sugar-free comfit as he reflected that a kitchen so amply stocked with goodies argued an establishment doubtless furnished with other necessaries – like clean rags to replace those dropping in mouldering lumps from his athletic frame, and, if fortune smiled on him, washing facilities, bath gel, talc, and a hair-brush.

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