Toby King is the son of a viscount, and also a soldier, doing duty to his king and country during the second Jacobite uprising. Searching for deserters he and his family fall victim to an ambush targeted specifically at his family. Toby survives thanks to a love-token, and in his state of officially missing, believed dead, acts the part of a highwayman attacking other bandits to garner proof of the assassination of his father and twin brother.
Chapter 1; 1746, the Scottish Borders in the aftermath of the
’45 rebellion
It was a routine mission, tracking down a group of deserters
and bringing them back to Stirling Castle for justice. It was also, for Toby, a chance to get out in
the thin, autumnal sunshine with his father and his brother, Thomas, and their
companions, George Deering and Mark Hynes.
“It’d be nice weather to go out after a deer or two, wouldn’t
it, Toby?” remarked Thomas.
“Aye, if we were not constrained by duty,” said Toby.
Thomas laughed.
“I wager when these renegades are rounded up, the colonel might
see his way to giving us leave to do so.”
Toby chuckled. As the
colonel was their father, Colonel Lord Lorrington King, Viscount of
Fairniehope, this was a standing joke.
Lord King was known to his men as ‘The Auger’, for eyes which could look
right, it was said, into a man’s soul.
Though the Kings were originally a sept of Clan Gregor, Toby’s family
had long held lands in the lowlands and had sided with the English king against
the Stuart pretenders.
“There are few enough rebels about since Culloden,” he
said. “The greatest threat is those who
have turned to crime, their hands against all.”
“And those deserters who have no king nor God but greed,” said
Thomas, dryly.
The crack of a musket came from a point of concealment, and
Toby watched in horror as a black mark appeared on his father’s forehead, and
then red blood blossomed around it like some obscene flower. And then, slowly,
so awfully slowly, his father slid backwards from his horse and fell with a
horribly boneless crunch to the earth of the road below. Then it was George,
blood spurting out of his neck. Toby
fired in the direction of the muzzle-flashes, as did Thomas and Mark. And then
pain burned like fire across Toby’s side, and he swayed on his mount. And
somehow he knew that the only way he might survive would be to let himself come
off the mare, and lie with the other, horribly still bodies.
He was the last man down, more for luck than judgement. And he
listened, tears in his eyes from pain and grief as he heard the crunch of
boots.
“Got the three of them that count,” said a satisfied voice.
Toby was furious, it was a voice he knew, the voice of one of the deserters, a man named Daniel Hart.
“Sure they’re dead?”
“This one might take longer to bleed out, but he’s getting
there,” said their leader, kicking Toby in the ribs where the bullet had taken
him. Toby swallowed the cry of pain and managed to convert it into a harsh
breath as if he had trouble breathing. “Yes, got him in the lungs,” added his
assailant. “Come on; I want my monkey of gold from Charles King for clearing
the succession for him. And such a nice
natural way to do it,” he laughed a harsh laugh, and the sounds of the boots
departed, and then the sounds of galloping hoofs.
Toby pulled himself to his knees, wondering why he wasn’t hit
in the lungs.
His dented snuffbox, driven hard into his ribs, bruising them,
seemed to be the reason, the ball diverted and merely scoring his side well
enough to bleed convincingly. In truth, the bruise hurt worse! He checked his father and brother for any
signs of life; but there was none. Nor yet any life in the sightless staring
eyes of George, the dandy, his fine mechlin neck-cloth dyed red with the
outflow of his life’s blood from his neck. Mark, the merry jokesmith, would
crack no more jokes, the agonised rictus of his mouth a cruel travesty of its
living, laughing smiles.
Toby groaned; and dizziness overcame him and he lay swooning,
still clinging to his beloved snuffbox, its top featuring a painting of his
true love’s eye, surrounded by pearls.
He came to, having his wound bathed.
“Dinnae ye gae undoin’ me handywork forebye, Maister Toby,”
said a voice with a soft, highland lilt with a touch of the Fifer.
“I know your voice,” gasped Toby.
“Aye, iphm, an’ ye shuid, for ye saved ma life.”
“Camsron Dubh!” said Toby. “Papa was looking for an excuse not
to hang you; he hates... hated... hanging men.”
“And ye made a guid plea for me,” said the Dubh. “Ye’ll be laird now himself an’ yer brother
are gone. Here; I fetched off his signet for ye.”
Toby slipped the ring onto his finger, almost unthinking,
nodding to the weather-beaten man, perhaps ten years his senior, with hair the
colour of a fox’s pelt, and eyes like the unfathomable brown depths of a peat
bog.
“Thanks, Dubh, but it’s not as easy as that,” he said, grimly.
“The deserters we came to round up were paid by my cousin, Charles, to make
sure of inheriting. I fear that if I go back to Stirling, he will lay false
witness to say I killed my father, brother, and friends, and then I shall be hanged.
If only there was a way to identify a musket ball!”
“Aye, weel, a spiteful, cunning wee bawsack is the sort o’
fandan as wuid dae that,” agreed the Dubh. “Wit’s yer plan, laird?”
“I... I want to bury my brother, father, and friends, and a
fifth grave to hide that I am alive,” said Toby. He swallowed. “I’ll need to
take their linen, so I’ve spare clothes, then I’ll need a countryman’s clothes.
I’ll... I’ll bring them to justice somehow, and have them testify against my
cousin. I’ll wear a mask and pretend to be a highwayman, but I’ll hunt such men
down, for Daniel Hart and his men will be likely to join such.” He laughed, a
slightly forced laugh. “Toby on the High Toby, as I understand the vernacular
term is for highwaymen.”
The Dubh spat
“Aye, iphm,” he agreed, “Ye’ll want a new horse; yours has been
taken, and ye’d no want tae be reckernised. And ye’ll no’ want me tae ca’ ye
laird, forebye.”
Toby blinked.
“You intended to stay with me?” he asked.
The Dubh shrugged.
“Och, weel, someone has tae dae so; yer a puir shilpit wee
bairn as has need o’ tak’in’ care o’ himself.”
Toby reflected that at least the Dubh was a Campbell, and was officially named
Camsron Andrew Beathan Campbell, or Cambuill in his own idiom, and so a clan
loyal to the British. And it would be nice to have a companion in his
endeavours.
He sighed for thought of fair Aillie Campbell, a rather
better-born member of the clan, whom he was to have wed; and got out his
snuff-box again.
He caressed the eye-painting set into its top, glad that it was
undamaged.
“Aye, iphm, the fair lady saved ye,” said the Dubh.
“She will grieve, thinking me dead, and will maybe love again,
but better that than that she give me away ere I have the proofs I need,” said
Toby, numbly, his thumb caressing the painting.
“Deid! Dinnae be a wee naif,” said the Dubh. “I’ll see she kens
fine weel that ye live, and that ye’ll find the man wha’s behind this, and
she’s a braw lassie and will no’ shoot off her puss.”
“Do you think....” worried Toby.
“Losh! It’s no’ thinkin’, ah ken she’ll be ready tae dae a’ she
micht.”
Ensconced in a gamekeeper’s bothy, and with the Dubh gone to
town for supplies, Toby had the opportunity to reflect upon the probable folly
of his actions. . It was more a but’n’ben than a bothy, having an outer room
and an inner one, though plainly enlarged from the simple one-roomed bothy it
had once been, and it was comfortable enough.
Well, it was wise to let Charles think he was dead; that was
undoubted. He would dress well enough...
he needed money.
“Dubh, are you up to breaking into King’s Keep?” he asked, when
that individual returned.
“Weel, ye ken ony problems we’re likely to encounter, laird,
and better to dae it the noo than when Mr. Charles is in residence,” said the
Dubh. “What are we looking for?”
“The strong box,” said Toby. “You took my father’s keys, and I
have my keys, it should be easy as
falling off a log.”
“Och, weel, that’s as maybe,” said the Dubh.. “But ye’ll no’
treat it ony way but cautiously, forebye.”
“No, Dubh,” said Toby, chastened. . “I’ve my father’s looks,
though, so likely any servant who catches a glimpse of me will think I’m the
laird’s ghost.”
“Aye, weel, yon hawk-nose is seen only on your kin, and yon
shilpit usurper nae blessed with nose nor auger-een o’ blue steel in sich dark
features; he’s a ruddy face, forbye, and hair like dirty tow aneath his wig,
no’ a crop o’ black furze like yours,” said the Dubh.
“I hate wearing a wig, my hair won’t lay down under it, and I
hate shaving it,” said Toby.
“Losh, man, grow it. Ye can a’ways pooder it white as a doo’s
breast syne ye want.”
“I think I will,” said Toby,
familiar with the word ‘doo’ for dove.
Two precious villains crept up to King’s
Keep, which was more of a defensible
country house than a castle. Toby had a key to the back door, to use when
returning from riding, but it had been bolted.
He shrugged, and went searching in the stable for a large knife, which
he used to finagle the latch on a pantry window.
“I always got in this way if I got locked out,” he told the
Dubh.
The Dubh sniffed. It was a speaking sniff.
In stockinged feet they padded into the laird’s library, and
Toby unlocked the strongbox.
“Papa keeps this for emergencies,” said Toby, in an undertone.
“This is an emergency.”
“Losh, are we takkin’ the lot?” said the Dubh, startled, but
retaining a quiet voice.
“Yes, we are, and we’ll cache most of it,” said Toby. “And
anything else of value worth taking including firearms, and good steel. Plenty
of ammunition, too. We’ll be busy most of the night.”
“You’re sair trusting of a poacher.”
“We’re comrades,” said Toby.
“Och, weel, ye’re the laird,” said the Dubh. The gold and
silver filled a number of sacks, then there were sacks of firearms and shot.
Toby wandered off and came back with another sack filled with silver plate.
“Hideous service, it was a wedding present, so Papa had to use
it, it’s more use to us melted down and sold,” he said, showing the Dubh.
“Melt it with bits of rock in it, and we’ll claim to have found
a vein,” said the Dubh.
“Splendid!” said Toby.
“How are we going to get this all away afore daylight, laird?”
asked the Dubh.
“We aren’t,” said Toby. “We’re going to bury it in the midden,
wrapped in oilcloth for now, and take a sack each away every night until it’s
all gone.”
The Dubh shrugged.
It seemed as good an idea as any.
Rumour travelled as always on rapid feet, that Colonel King and
his sons and their friends had fallen in with trouble and were dead. The bandits
had left the distinctive horses to return on their own; the laird and his sons
must be presumed and declared dead for Charles King to inherit.
And Aillie Campbell was sobbing her pretty green eyes out for
the sweet man she had been going to wed, a friend since childhood.
She kept mostly to her chamber, refusing to answer knocks on
the door from her mother or father.
The knock on the window had her run to the casement, and then
drawing back in shock at the visage of a strange man with wild red-brown hair.
She drew in her breath to scream.
“Hoots, wumman! Haud yer whisht syne ye want news o’ Laird
Toby,” said the man, scrambling agilely over her sill.
“Toby? He isnae deid?” Aillie did not usually have much of an
accent, but the strong emotion made it stronger.
“He’s in hiding, frae that bawsack cousin o’ his wha’ arranged
tae hae the auld laird and baith sons killt, forebye,” said the Dubh. “And ye
cannae let on that ye ken; but he wanted ye tae ken ‘twas yer snuffbox wha’
saved him from a ba’ in the bellows. And that when he can prove it, he’ll be
bye tae court ye agin.”
“Oh, thank you!” whispered Aillie, her eyes like stars at this
news, shining even brighter for her recent tears. “And praise be to the Good
Lord that ‘twas ma giftie as saved him!”
“Aye, iphm, but ye ken, ye mustnae seem tae tak’ it weel whiles
yet,” said the Dubh. “But thinkin’ ye’d hae some appetite back, syne ye kennt
the news, here’s some vittles tae keep yer belly frae scrapin’ yer backbone,
whiles ye baw yer heid off in yer room f’ the luiks of it.”
“How very clever you are!”
“Weel, lassie, Ah’m a Campbell, too, forebye, and the best
breed in a’ Bonnie Scotland,” said the Dubh.
Aillie made a full and satisfying meal of raised game pie – the
Dubh was an excellent cook as well as a good shot – with bread and cheese, and
she had a pump in her own room for washing as well as for drinking. She thought
it the best banquet she had ever had.
And for the first time since the
news had come, she sat in front of her mirror, and brushed the tangled mass of
her auburn hair, braiding it neatly, for
if Toby lived, her appearance suddenly mattered to her again. She sighed at the
ravages her tears had wrought to her normally creamy complexion, spattered with
freckles over her small, straight nose, the same colour as the highlights in
her hair, smiling that Toby used to say that he must count them to know how
many kisses she needed to appease the fairies. Well, it did not matter that she
looked ravaged, for she must act grief-stricken for her Toby’s safety.
Toby and the Dubh transferred all the treasure from the midden
to a cave used at times by poachers, where they buried it under scree to look
like a rockfall. It was a fallback headquarters.
“We need to rid the area of lawlessness generally,” said Toby.
“Aye, iphm, Ah’m no’ discontentit tae be lawless,” said the
Dubh.
“There’s poaching which hurts nobody, and then there’s armed
bands who set on innocent folks,” said Toby.
The Dubh chuckled.
“Takkin’ tae the High Toby,
which is wha’ they ca’ highway robbery, tae stop highway robbers,” he
said, deriving much lively amusement in this idea of word play.
“I thought we might prey on those who hold up coaches by
falling upon them when they attack,” said Toby.
“Aye, iphm, syne we can get news, it’ll work, forebye,” said
the Dubh. “And I’ve word of some guid horseflesh too.”
A few days later, Toby had a black stallion which was half wild
still, black smallclothes and stockings, bucket-topped boots, a black frieze
coat, and tied his dark brown hair back with a black bow, a black mask on his
face, and a black tricorne to throw its contours into shadow.
He was ready.
