George Fraser - The Reavers

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

Cover

Title Page THE REAVERS by George MacDonald Fraser

Dedication Dedication 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 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

Forword 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

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

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.

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?