George Fraser - The Reavers

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 …

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 …”