Friday, October 22, 2021

taster chapter: Milord High Toby 1

 

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,” 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?”

“Younger boy 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.

 

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.

“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 hung. 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.”

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.

The eye-painting set into its top 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.

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.

 

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 fineagle 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 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. 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.

“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.

 

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.

 

Tuesday, October 12, 2021

some pics for Bess



 
... one ring which, as a navigational aid can 'in the darkness find them'....



New union flag

an alternate version as Rob's banner



Wednesday, September 29, 2021

Opinions, please?

 So I'm getting towards publishing Anna-Maria, and I'm still struggling with the title, and I know we had this discussion, but... 

Ok, I am NOT going with the facetious suggestion of a friend 'Dance of Tongues' as I'd pick up the wrong sort of readers. No cunning linguists, thank you!

Is Dance of Words too plain? with Anna-Maria being pedantic to a fault. It's about more than her prolix, it's also about the concealment of Towarzysz Shaggy as someone with a heritable condition [of bear], and how Jeremi Skrzetuski turns around the idea of being misfits and losers into Misfits being something they are proud of; using words to misdirect the captain; and how much is unspoken in the desire of the captain to do Jeremi down. 

Can I use dance of words?


Bess and the Gunpowder Plot chapter 1

 I posted this as a taster, but I am re-posting as a reminder, and will add chapter 2 right away as well. Bess is now on the faculty as more than an usher, but as a Knight of the Garter must also attend such things as the opening of Parliament on November 5th. 

There are those disaffected traitors who do not trust to the tolerance promised by the Queen's grandson, and of course the Necromancer of Spain is still a problem, manipulating Spain's weak king. And as if that wasn't enough, there are always the generally nasty. 

Chapter 1

 

“I have seen it working, but it still offends my sense of logic that astrology should work. I don’t see how the movement of the majestic heavens can affect our small lives below,” said Rafe Sackwild.

Roger Bray was working on astrological charts in the staff room. 

“Well, now, it’s interesting that you should say so, for you accept that there is no logic behind some people being able to produce blue healing flame.”

Rafe sighed.

“Yes, I accept that some people have a talent, as some people have a talent with art or with music.”

Roger Bray smiled.

“Ah, now, music, my other love,” he said. “An excellent analogy.  Some people can play music, others write it, a talent in degrees.  Now as I am beginning to see it, the use of astrology to cast the future is but a form of meditation, and one might as well use a crystal ball or throw about seeds to read the patterns.  The talent is in staring at the heavens and reaching an inner talent of seeing. I did once believe in the immutable message of the heavens, but since teaching, and seeing which scholars succeed, and which ones could barely prophecy that the sun will rise in the east  to herald breaking their own fast, I have adapted mine own thinking.”

“Come, this is interesting,” said Rafe, pulling his chair closer.  “We must infer that you have the necessary talent which is why you have always guided us so well in such matters as hatching and the attacks of enemies.”

“Yes, and I tested it by asking those senior scholars to read the heavens for interpreting the coming year,” said Roger. “Diccon de Bercy, in all seriousness, told me that the hens would be off lay, and that someone would have a display of fireworks.  Tangwystl informed me that she had a tune in her head and could not listen to the stars without writing it down.  Audrey said that she was afraid there might be something wrong with the dragon eggs laid this year, and Bess ... your good lady is very good, you know.”

“She is not my lady,” said Rafe, blushing fierily.

“Oh for goodness sake!  You do realise we have, those of us who have noticed, a book on when your betrothal ring goes on her finger now she is essentially teaching full time, don’t you?”

Rafe went even redder.

“I have not asked her,” he said.

“I would if I was you,” said Roger.  “You want her comfortable when Frostfire comes into season, don’t you?”

“Egad!” said Rafe.  “And she has enough trouble from hearing all dragons.”

“Exactly,” said Roger.  “However, when not distracted, she informed me that her reading of the heavens were that there were somewhere eggs which were neither alive nor dead, and that someone had deadly ideas involving gunpowder.  She got quite upset; it appears to be some plot against the Queen and young Rob.  Rob, incidentally, could not divine his way out of a burlap sack.”

Rafe laughed.

“Nor I; I feel for him.”

“It is not always comfortable, Rafe,” said Roger.  “You see, I have another young sister and brother at my parents’ home, and I have been casting their horoscopes.  And it seems likely that unless I help out, Peter is likely to die.”

“Had not you and Lil been considering rescuing them anyway, the way you rescued Joan?” asked Rafe.

“Lil mentioned this, too, and Joan is keen,” said Roger.  “I cannot help thinking that it seemeth unfair to take children from their parents.”

“As I recall you saying that you took Joan because you feared she would be forced to be a lady in the household of a future husband.  How old is your other sister?”

“Kate is eight ... you are right.  I was disquieted about her ...”

“You can always call on us, you know,” said Rafe.  “Don’t forget we now have portals at our disposal.  We should not have to take all the dragons if you wanted to be a bit more quiet, though one person has to take the portal physically.”

“There is, however, nothing to stop me visiting, and installing a portal in place,” said Roger.

“A good idea,” said Rafe. “Place it in some little-used closet or on the back of a door to the jakes; I will set about designing one painted on cloth, or – even better,  perhaps to gift your stepmother with it as a hanging, or a board, a painting of you with Skysong.”

“Indeed, it would be something to boast of, to have a son who is a draxier,” said Roger.  “I do not think they have any idea that I have Joan, nor that Jennyth, my niece, survived when her parents drowned.”

“All the better,” said Rafe. “Isn’t there a girl in Joan’s year who is artistic?”

“Barbara Kett; yes, she is in Topaz house, and she has nobody to give her a lift home for the holidays and lives too far to go readily.  I will offer her a trip home in payment for a painting.”

“That, I am sure, she will be pleased to accept as an exchange,” said Rafe.

 

Bess whirled into the staffroom.

“We are going to have to rescue Marjorie!” she declared, waving a letter. “Rafe, why are you laughing?”

“Because not so long ago you wanted to strangle her,” he said.

“Well, I’m not sure I’m ever going to like her, but good lack, she has had precious little guidance from her parents, and it would be poor spirited to abandon her when we had reached a level of understanding.  She is to be married at harvest.”  Bess passed over the letter.

“My dear friends and relatives at the school,

My parents have indeed arranged a marriage for me, and it is to a youth named Perkin Aston; I do not know if you recall, but there was a sister, Mary, who was at first with the paying students.  My father formed a friendship with hers, and they plot to harm the school somehow, and marrying me to this Perkin is a seal of their friendship.  I do not like him, he is arrogant and cruel, and I believe he might try to kill my little drakeling, Aurelius.  I am sending him to Isobel to stay, and I beg you to help me. I do not want the school harmed, and though I know I should perhaps stay and marry Perkin to spy on him and his father, I do not want to do so, I am so afraid, and I am afraid for Aurelius.

Your sister, cousin and friend, Marjorie.”

 

“Marry! But that’s a pretty pair of villains come together,” said Rafe.

“Yes, and right glad I am that neither has the ear of anyone powerful,” said Bess. “I wish we might manage to send fabric or paper gates by drakeling, but the risk of what might happen if they twist or bend is too great.”

“I was going to send a portrait with the runes on it, if you will place them, to rescue my sister and brother,” said Rodger Bray.  “Plainly it is a time for rescues!”

“A time for rescues indeed,” said Lord Essex, grimly, coming in on this sentence. “I just had a drakeling from my sister, who was one of the first to have them. She is married to Northumberland, the so-called ‘Wizard Earl’.  She just had time to send a message ere they were all dragged off, her drakeling was very upset, he was sending pictures of them being bundled under blankets and thrown into coaches.”

“Her own drakeling has an inate sense of where she is,” said Bess. “Marjorie and the little Brays must wait, for this is urgent.  When the drakeling has rested  and eaten, he shall ride on the head of one of our dragons, and we will go in immediate pursuit.”

“Could this be what is intended?  To lure us?” asked Rafe.

Essex shook his head.

“My sister said she hid in the priest’s hole in order to write the letter, and her drakeling remained invisible when they forced Percy to tell them how to open it, by threatening one of my nieces; she could hear it through the panelling.  They do not know she has a drakeling, nor that we have message. You overthink things, good Rafe.”

“I’m a philosopher, not a soldier,” said Rafe. “But I’ll willingly fight for the lives of innocents.  I was taught the sword. How old are your nieces, Essex?”

“Dorothy is the oldest child, she is six; Lucy is but four.  Algernon is two and Henry is a babe in arms, born this very year when the queen tried to get my sister Dorothy and Percy to reconcile. It has not succeeded,” Essex said. “Dorothy was going to bring her children to live with Frances and me, until Algernon is old enough to need more of his father.”

“Aye, that seemeth meet to me,” said Bess.  “I will ask my coruscation to speak with this drakeling.  Rodge, Lil will wish to come, and perchance other dominies?”

“No,” said Essex. “Let us warn them, but not leave the school entirely unprotected lest it be a feint, and any force in place watching for many dragons leaving.  We five will be sufficient, methinks, four dragons to take me as a passenger,  and on return, another five adults, for they have taken three servants as well as my sister and brother-in-law, I seem to understand from the pictures of Spellweaver, the drakeling, and four small children.  You can do it, can’t you?”

Bess was later to say that he had put her strongly in mind of a puppy with the look he gave.

“Frostfire informs me that she can take three adults and a child without trouble, maybe more,” said Bess. “I believe her estimate to be accurate.  Lil Bray’s Glitterwing can carry as many. Duskwing and Skysong can carry two adults easily,” she added the two youngest dragons, Bonded to Rafe and Rodge Bray.  “We shall be able to carry as many as need be,” she said.

Essex nodded.

“Then let us array for war,” he said.

 

 

Bess had a hollow feeling in her belly.  It was not exactly fear, though she would admit to being a little afraid.  It was ... apprehension, worry more than fear for herself.  She was going to war, and she was not sure how well she would handle it.  Though she had defended the school more than once, somehow it was different taking the fight to others.  But those innocent children must be rescued.

Rafe gave her a tremulous smile.

“Only Essex amongst us is a warrior,” he said.  “But Duskwing says that those who have taken his relatives will see only dragons attacking, and not our cringing hearts.”

“Certes, I hope so,” said Bess. “At least Frostfire is certain that she can follow Spellweaver’s thoughts of where to go for her mistress. They are remarkable little creatures to find places by pictures of people, without anyone sending them having to know where they are going.”

“It is some innate clairvoyance, perchance,” said Rafe.

“I had not thought of it, but you are likely right,” said Bess.  “And how do we discuss this so calmly, Rafe?”

“Because the alternative is screaming in terror,” said Rafe. “Why are we going to do this, not the Ruby Knights?”

“Because Essex wants gentle people around his sister and her children,” said Bess, who was quite good at divining the way Essex thought.  “I think from what pictures Spellweaver sent, he thinks it not a large band, and so something we might deal with easily, and he wants clever, not martial, and friends not underlings.”

Rafe nodded.

“I don’t say you are wrong, Bess,” he said.  “And perhaps it is as well for us to be tried and tested in such a mission, for the thoughts Rodge has reported on his horoscopes which you, too, have returned are sobering.”

“I fear a mass of gunpowder somewhere, perhaps one of the palaces,” said Bess.

“I wager it would either be Richmond, or the Palace of Westminster when she opens Parliament,” said Rafe.

“That’s it!” said Bess.  “Good; now I might write to Salisbury and tell him to be on the watch.”

“There are altogether too many traitors,” said Rafe.  “And ambitious men as well as those whose religious affiliation ties them too tightly to a foreign power.”

“Yes, and why anyone should put a fat old man with too many rings and more lace gowns than a London courtesan above their rightful monarch I don’t know,” said Bess. 

Rafe laughed.

“Now that’s about as unflattering description of the Pope as any I’ve heard,” he said.

“I feel uncomfortable that Catholics appear to give a form of worship to a man, not God-made-man like Jesus, but a man who is elected by other men,” said Bess. “I may have misunderstood it, of course.”

“It is of no import, so long as any worship God, but as the Bible tells us, ‘render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s, and unto God, that which is God’s,’ our queen being our Caesar,” said Rafe.

“True,” said Bess. “It is only some who would see her usurped and under the orders of the Pope.”

“And I wager Philip of Spain does as he pleases, whatever the Pope says,” said Rafe.

“I won’t say you’re wrong,” said Bess.