Reiver , livre ebook

Troubador Publishing Ltd - Mike Routledge

Découvre YouScribe en t'inscrivant gratuitement

Je m'inscris

Obtenez un accès à la bibliothèque pour le consulter en ligne
En savoir plus

87 pages

English

Vous pourrez modifier la taille du texte de cet ouvrage

Obtenez un accès à la bibliothèque pour le consulter en ligne
En savoir plus

A propos
Informations
Extrait

Description

For four hundred years between the 13th and 17th centuries, the Border Reivers terrorised people on both sides of the border. Often encouraged by the respective crowns, Reivers, or Raiders, showed no mercy to those they were attacking. Murder, arson and theft were commonplace and victim's families were said to have been 'bereaved'. Then, as the countries united, offenders were threatened with execution or deportation, and things slowly calmed down. Raids within the border lands became a thing of the past. Two hundred and fifty years later Cumberland and South West Scotland are a long way from the battle fields of World War 1. It's easy to imagine that the violence and horrors of the conflict will only be felt many miles away in foreign lands. Nothing could be further from the truth. The murder of a soldier, arson attack on a barracks full of new recruits, horrific crash of a troop train transporting reinforcements south to the front line and an attempt to sabotage a local munitions works suggest an even more deadly raider has found his way to the border lands. It falls to habitual pipe smoker Inspector 'Smoking Joe' Johnstone of the Carlisle City Police to track him down and eliminate the threat. But can he do so before more lives are lost or before he himself becomes a victim of 'The Reiver'?

Sujets

Historical fiction

War

Informations

Publié par	Troubador Publishing Ltd
Date de parution	02 décembre 2020
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781800467682
Langue	English
Poids de l'ouvrage	2 Mo

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0200€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

Copyright © 2020 Mike Routledge

The moral right of the author has been asserted.

Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside those terms should be sent to the publishers.

Matador
9 Priory Business Park,
Wistow Road, Kibworth Beauchamp,
Leicestershire LE8 0RX
Tel: 0116 279 2299
Email: books@troubador.co.uk
Web: www.troubador.co.uk/matador
Twitter: @matadorbooks

ISBN 9781800467682

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Matador is an imprint of Troubador Publishing Ltd

Dedication

This book is dedicated to my parents Jack and Grace Routledge, whose hard work and self-sacrifice provided me with the foundations to build a better lifestyle than I could ever have hoped for, and to my partner Romana Cecchini, whose love turned me into a better man than I would ever have been without her. I owe all three a huge debt of gratitude that at least, through this book, I can acknowledge publicly.
Contents
Preface
Location Maps
Introduction
Prologue

Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26

Historical Notes and Acknowledgements
The Reiver Trail
Final Thanks
Preface
My tale came about because on researching the local history of Carlisle in World War I, I came across numerous interesting stories and inspirational characters often little known by the general public. I shared these informally with friends and colleagues attending the lunchtime lectures that I organise at the city’s Tullie House Museum. Then one day it was suggested that I should do a talk based on my findings. I started to collect information with a view to doing just that and, as it came together, I noticed that in many instances events and people were linked, even though sometimes the links were quite tenuous. Slowly the idea of a fiction book incorporating them all grew and I decided that this might be an ideal vehicle to celebrate some of the wonderful characters of that time. In a sense it is, therefore, also dedicated to those unsung heroes of the Great War from the city I am proud to call home. I don’t pretend to be a Bernard Cornwall, Simon Scarrow or Allan Mallinson, but I hope the end product is both enjoyable to read and informative.
Although most of the people, places and events in this story are factual, sometimes details and timelines have been adapted to suit the storyline. Any factual inaccuracies are either changes of my doing to support the storyline – and my apologies to true historians for playing with history – or errors for which I take the blame.
Location Maps

Courtesy of Martin Sproul fstop Photography

Introduction
Cumberland and South West Scotland were a long way from the battlefront during World War One and it would be easy to think that this meant that the fighting had little impact on these predominantly rural areas. Nothing could be further from the truth. Their very isolation made them ideal places to prepare new recruits and produce munitions. Here they were out of sight and out of mind of the Oberste Heeresleitung or German Supreme Command. Or were they? Many of the people, places and occurrences in this story are true and much of what is described actually happened. Whilst historians recorded these facts and reported them, the fiction writer can look at them, interpret them differently and pose the question ‘What if?’ So … what if these separate events were not isolated but linked together and what if historians simply chose not to explore this possibility?
Prologue
I curse their head and all the hairs of their head. I curse their face, their brain, their mouth, their nose, their tongue, their teeth, their forehead, their shoulders, their breast, their heart, their stomach, their back, their womb, their arms, their legs, their hands, their feet, and every part of the their body, from the top of their head to the soles of their feet, before and behind, within and without.

The Reivers’ Curse
Gavin Dunbar, Archbishop of Glasgow, 1525

Solway Bank, Scottish West March
Mid-March 1604
Despite the darkness, only occasionally interrupted by a half moon poking through a cloudy sky, the twenty men rode confidently across the rough countryside. They knew the land well and most could have followed the rough track to their destination blindfolded. At their front rode a heavy set man whose once-athletic frame had given way to a late-middle-aged spread that made the wearing of his protective leather jerkin uncomfortable. The light drizzle ran off his steel bonnet and trickled down onto his face, catching in a greying beard which he occasionally stroked to rid himself of the cold, dripping moisture. He grunted with discomfort as his horse slid down a muddy bank and jerked to a halt in the shallow stream at the bottom before kicking on up the other side. His body ached with both age and the impact of the long ride, but he allowed himself a grim smile as the animal reached the top. The small group had crossed the frontier using the Sulwath Ford at the mouth of the River Esk then followed the Kirtle Water north for an hour before turning east towards a band of low hills. No one who lived in these ‘debatable lands’, long fought over by England and Scotland, really took much notice of the boundary, as it had frequently changed over the years. However, he knew that his presence in the Scottish West March would be seen as unlawful and the consequences could be dire. So this would be his last raid. It had to be. After King James had united the crowns of the two old foes almost a year ago he had made it clear that he intended to put a stop to the lawlessness that was endemic in the region. Feuding had become common place and the Border Laws had done little to prevent cattle-rustling, the destruction of property and murder. The new monarch was determined to put an end to this violent, criminal activity and ordered that offending raiders – or reivers, as they were known – should be executed or deported. There’d been warnings before, of course. His father had told him that the church had once tried to put a stop to the anarchy. The Archbishop of Glasgow had gone so far as to excommunicate the reiver families and issued a curse that he insisted was read out from every pulpit in the diocese. But to men with little time for religion or the church, it had caused amusement rather than fear. This time it was different. Many of his friends had ignored the threat and suffered the dire consequences. He was aware that the same thing would happen to him if the band were caught. It was a shame, really, the family he was raiding were only taking back what his idiot of a younger son had stolen from them on a drunken excursion, but the transgression could not be allowed or his own reputation would be diminished. He pulled his cloak closer around his body, but, like the rest of him, it was soaked through and offered little extra warmth. The border weather was an unforgiving foe, even in early spring. As he crested the top of a gentle rise he reined his horse to a stop and looked down into the valley below him where a small Pele Tower stood in splendid isolation.
The fortified stone building was designed to withstand attacks and even short sieges. Square in shape, it consisted of three storeys. The ground floor had no windows and was used for storage and to house the animals in winter. The first floor, consisting of a dining hall and kitchen, was accessed through an iron-reinforced wooden door at the end of a steep, external stone staircase. The top floor was the living and sleeping space, whilst the battlemented roof was flat for look-out purposes and to allow the occupants to hurl missiles or fire arrows down on unwanted visitors. Lights shone out of the upper windows and he could see a handful of men standing on the crenelated walls. It didn’t surprise him that they were prepared for his arrival. They knew he would come and news travelled fast, even in these isolated lands. Normally the idea of attacking such a well-prepared fortification without the element of surprise wouldn’t have been considered. An attempt up the narrow stairway would be suicidal and in most instances the raiders would settle for threats against the inhabitants and taking or destroying anything left outside the protective tower. This time he’d prepared for the possibility although it had cost a deal of silver to bribe one of the servants. The money had come from his son’s purse by way of punishment for the crass stupidity that had created this situation. He hadn’t been happy, but his father didn’t care. The boy had to realise there were consequences to acts of folly.
The group rode down into the valley and stopped just out of range of the odd arrows foolishly wasted by the defenders. Time seemed to drag and for a moment he thought that the traitor had double-crossed them and decided to keep the money, hoping to stay safe within the walls. Ho