Kings Pinnacle (2 page)

As soon as the collision
occurred, Alex turned and ran like a hare, past the old reverend’s
lectern, toward the back of the toll house and away from the men
blocking the front door. He knew that there was another door on the
side of the toll house that led out into a small garden tended by
the reverend and his wife.

He threw open the side door
and dashed outside. Shouting, “Sorry, Reverend,” over his shoulder,
he raced past the small vegetable garden and around the toll house
to the rail where his horse Hack was tied. Alex had already untied
Hack at the hitching post and was running alongside him away from
the toll house by the time Elizabeth, Patrick, and the other young
men spilled out the toll house front door into the road.

Hack was a spotted bay pony,
and he was born to run. Hack instantly knew that something was up
when he saw Alex dash up and untie him. Alex had grabbed the reins
on the fly and continued sprinting alongside Hack for a short
distance. Then he grasped the saddle horn and leaped into the
saddle of the running horse in a single bound, yelling, “Yeah,
Hack!”

Border horses were unmatched
in speed and stamina, and Alex had owned Hack since he was a colt.
In addition to his speed, Hack could also pick his way across boggy
moss lands where Alex couldn’t see the trail. Hack and Alex were
like brothers, rather than horse and master. Alex had always had a
way with horses. No one really understood why; they just accepted
it as a fact.

“Never trust the hand of a
Reiver,” Alex shouted over his shoulder as he flew out of sight
around the bend in the road before Patrick and his companions could
even mount their horses. Patrick knew he couldn’t catch Alex, so he
stopped in his tracks and threw his reins to the ground with a
dejected look.

It was almost spring
weather, near the end of March, and it had been unseasonably warm
for northern England or southern Scotland. The leaves were just
beginning to bud on some the trees that grew along the road. The
grass was just showing a hint of green in a few places as the dust
that was thrown up from Hack’s hooves settled back down on the
road.

The border area was also
very thin on law enforcement with the king located so far away in
London. It was ripe for plunder and robbery. Most of the land was
not really arable but it could be used for grazing. Outlaws often
rustled cattle and sometimes kidnapped people for ransom. The
Reivers had been all but stamped out long ago, but one small band
still existed on the border--the one that Alex belonged
to.

* * * *

Patrick

“
You’ve done me a great
service, Pattie, and I’ll not forget it,” said retired British Army
General Sir James Murray, as he took another puff on his
long-stemmed pipe.

The general and Patrick were
standing in the library of the Murray’s manor house on his estate
near Rothbury, north of Newcastle. They were both looking out the
window in front of the fireplace at the horses being worked out on
the race track beside the house. Patrick had been in the house many
times since he was a youngster. Sir James Murray was his mother’s
younger brother and a family favorite. He threw lavish parties at
his manor house and was a well-respected lord in northeast England.
However, those who knew him well also knew that he was ruthless and
greedy. He prided himself on his thoroughbred horses but couldn’t
quite achieve the success at horse breeding and racing that he
thought he deserved.

“Uncle Jamie, if you don’t
mind my saying so, you are going to have to do something about my
cousin Betsy, and do it fairly quickly I’m afraid,” Patrick said in
an exasperated tone.

“You’re right Pattie, I know
it. I should have married my daughter off at least a year ago, but
she can be very strong-willed. She told me that this border
ceremony was just a hand-fasting and not a full blown wedding, but
I intend to do something about her as soon as I can arrange it. Sir
George Hastings has a country estate over near Alnwick, and he lost
his wife recently in child bearing. I am of a mind to marry
Elizabeth to him,” replied Sir James.

“How did the Mackenzie runt
get involved with Elizabeth anyway?”

“It was actually partially
my own fault. I hired the lad as a hostler and horse trainer last
year. He and that horse of his, which is nothing more than a cur,
can outrun the fastest of my thoroughbreds, and I thought he could
help me improve the performance of my stock. The lad appears to
have a way with horses, you know,” replied Sir James.

“But recently, for some
reason, Mackenzie was gone more than he was here,” Sir James
continued. “My head groomsman caught him and Elizabeth in a
compromising situation behind the stables and the lad lit out like
his shirt was on fire. I thought that was the end of it, but I was
wrong.”

“You know what they say, ‘An
outlaw by the grace of blood’, and I intend to see if he bleeds,”
said Patrick. “A commoner, like the Mackenzie runt, has no place in
English society, and I intend to make an example of him, so that
everyone who knows him will learn what happens to commoners who try
to marry into the nobility.”

Patrick firmly believed in
the divine right of kings and nobles whose duty it was to rule the
lesser peoples of the earth. He thought that you were either born
to rule or else you were common folk. It was unthinkable for a
common person to try to improve his station in life. Patrick had
been born in Edinburgh. He was Lord Pitfour’s second son and was
raised among a number of major figures in the Scottish
Enlightenment, including the philosopher and historian David Hume
and the dramatist John Home. He had a large number of cousins
through his English mother's family including Sir William Pulteney,
5th Baronet Commodore George Johnstone, and, of course, retired
General Sir James Murray.

Since Patrick was his second
son, Lord Pitfour and his wife encouraged Patrick toward a career
in the military at an early age. He was educated at the London
Military Academy and served briefly in Germany with the Royal North
British Dragoons (Scots Greys) as a captain during the Seven Years’
War. He left the Greys, under what some considered mysterious
circumstances, to return to England.

Even though his fate had
allotted him the role of the second son, Patrick felt that he was
meant to be a solider and was satisfied with his lot in life. He
had a military mind, but he was not well adapted to leading men. He
had no empathy at all for the men that served under him, and he
gave them very little thought and consideration. His military
interest lay in firearms, swords, artillery, fortifications and
other such military subjects.

As he gazed into the fire in
the fireplace, Patrick kept thinking about that phrase written by
his Scots Greys commanding officer on his performance report that
was filed with the Greys’ adjutant.

“…
possesses a fine
military bearing and mien, although he is not well-favored by the
men under his command.
”

Patrick didn’t care if the
men under his command favored him or not. He was a Lord’s son, and
he expected the men under his command to follow his orders, and
follow them to the letter, without question. He had expressed that
sentiment to his Greys’ commanding officer, who was also a Lord’s
son, just prior to his discharge. The fact that he had brought up
several of his men in front of a court martial for failure to
follow orders never entered into his thinking about why he might
have been discharged from the Greys. He was actually still quite
puzzled about his discharge. He suspected that it was most likely a
personality conflict with his commanding officer.

“Thank you, Pattie. As a
reward for your service to me and for a small favor I shall ask of
you, I intend to purchase you a commission to command a company in
Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Johnstone’s Highland Light Infantry,
the Seventieth Foot,” said Sir James.

“Uncle Jamie, I can’t thank
you enough. You really are much too generous,” said Patrick, even
though it was exactly what he had been angling for. In fact, he had
done everything in his power to deliver that suggestion indirectly
to his uncle.

Patrick had seen this rescue
as a way to curry favor with his uncle and as possible
stepping-stone to further his military career and
ambitions.

“What is the favor you ask
of me, Uncle Jamie?”

“I want to see the Mackenzie
lad hanged,” said Sir James, steely eyed as he watched his horses
train on the track beside the house and blew smoke toward the
window.

“It would be my pleasure,”
replied Patrick. Since he had already planned on killing Alexander
Mackenzie anyway, it would be no problem to see that
done.

* * * *

Alex

“
Alex, lad, yer gang to
hae to lie low for a spell, or maybe even leave Scotland for a
while and lat be the lass,” said John Mackenzie, Alex’s father, as
he and Alex huddled together at the edge of a stream in a secluded
area off the main road.

Alex had been talking to his
father about the incident at Coldstream as he watered Hack at one
of the outlaws’ meeting places. The band of Reivers to which the
Mackenzies belonged had a number of secret meeting places that were
hidden in the Scottish lowlands, away for the prying eyes of the
authorities. There were a few other raiders milling about in a
small group and some of them had ridden right out into the stream
to water their horses.

“He’s is a baud one, and
he’ll nae forget the fasherie,” continued John, referring to the
confrontation with Patrick and Alex’s escape.

“Weel now, if it isn’t Lord
March Hare mingling amongst the plain and common folk,” said a
young Scot who walked up to John and Alex.

The interruption had come
from one of Alex’s older brothers, Hugh, who had arrived unnoticed
while Alex and his father were engaged in the conversation. The
raiders were typically badly behaved in camp, and respect was
seldom given and hard to earn. Hugh liked to inject a lot of
“Weels” into his conversation with anyone, and especially with his
comrades, as if he were an elderly Scot, even though he was only
eighteen years old, two years older than Alex. Hugh was one of the
fiercest raiders, or riders, as they called themselves, and
commanded high respect among all the members of the outlaw band.
Physically, Hugh was a giant who stood about three inches less than
seven feet tall and was stronger than any man in the band or any
man in the lowlands as far as he knew. He and Alex had been close
as young lads and were still very close.

“What in the devil is a
March Hare and what are you talking about?” asked Alex with a
perplexed expression.

“It’s in every newspaper and
written on posted bills nailed to every tree in the
shire.”

Alex still had a puzzled
look as Hugh went on, “Every soldier, reef, and constable in the
territory is looking for ye Alex, lad.”

“What in blazes for? What
did I do?”

“Ye have a knack for finding
trouble, don’t ye ken, lad? You’re an outlaw, Alexander Mackenzie;
a wanted man, or boy in yer case. The posted bills say ye are a
horse thief and ye took a horse from Sir James Murray where ye
worked. He has sworn out a warrant for yer arrest after ye lit out
from his manor. The posted bills also say that yer a skinny wee
runt who rides through the Marches as fast as a bonny hare,” added
Hugh with a grin.

The arrest warrants didn’t
really say anything about a hare; Hugh was making it up as he went
along. And even the term “Marches” that Hugh was using to describe
the area in the lowlands where they lived had been largely
discouraged and replaced with “Shire”. The Marches and March
Wardens had been abolished by King James I of Scotland and England
in the 1600s, but Hugh liked to use the old terms for things. He
was a kind of throwback who should have been born a hundred years
earlier.

Hugh was just giving his
younger brother a hard time, as he usually did. Also it was high
time that Hugh pinned a nickname on Alex, and the “March Hare” was
fairly suited to him. They all knew that Alex wasn’t a horse thief,
but there was little they could do about it. The law was firmly on
the side of the nobility, and the common folk had little recourse,
and even less justice, in the lowlands, unless they took it into
their own hands.

The nickname that Hugh had
given Alex was a bit too appropriate and it had a double meaning.
The saying “as wild as a March Hare” was centuries old. It had
originated in Europe and described the behavior of male hares
during their courtship rituals that usually occurred during mating
season in the month of March each year. Male hares darted around,
leaped into the air and generally cavorted around in order to
attract the attention of female hares. The females attempted to
fight them off before actually mating with them. Hares are normally
shy and reclusive animals, so this unusual behavior led people to
believe that hares went mad or wild in the month of March; hence
the saying became “mad (or wild) as a March hare”. The other
meaning, of course, was that hares in the March or Shire of
Scotland were considered to be very fast and very wily creatures
that were hard to catch.