Kings Pinnacle
Authors: Robert Gourley
Tags: #fiction, #adventure, #action, #american revolution, #american frontier
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Kings Pinnacle
A March Hare Novel: Book 1
By Robert Gourley
Copyright 2013 by Robert
Gourley
Smashwords Edition
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Kings Pinnacle is a work of
fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the
product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Certain real life characters and real life events are described in
the book, but they are also used fictitiously. Any other
resemblances to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales
are entirely coincidental.
Cover photograph by Robyn Michelle
Photography.
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Table of Contents
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Acknowledgements
I would like to thank
editors Nancy Gourley and Deloris Glenn, and I would like to
dedicate this book to my wife Nancy.
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Kings Pinnacle Part 1
Alex
“
In times of eld, it was
believed that the human spirit shared a bond with all things
divine. This sacred hand-fasting ceremony between this lassie,
Elizabeth Murray and yon lad, Alexander Mackenzie is a tradition
that dates back o’er the ages to symbolize that they will nae
longer be twa, but will be ane, ye ken,” said the old Scottish
Presbyterian minister with a wink at the bride.
Alex smiled at the wink even
though he had an uneasy feeling in the pit of his stomach as he
glanced over at his bride-to-be standing beside him. Pushing down
the worry and chalking it up to butterflies, he returned his gaze
to the minister who had just begun the hand-fasting
ceremony.
The old minister was
reciting the ceremony from memory, while he leaned heavily on his
dusty, decrepit lectern. As the rite dictated, the reverend stopped
and picked up a ceremonial rope, which he wrapped around the joined
hands of the young couple standing in front of him. Just as he
began tying a knot in the rope to signify the bond, the front door
of the toll house crashed against the front wall. A highly polished
black boot had kicked it all the way open, interrupting the
ceremony.
A few people who lived
nearby and some other folks that had happened to be in the vicinity
had been rounded up to witness the ceremony. This small group of
people was standing just behind the couple, partially blocking the
reverend’s view of the door. The old minister paused in tying the
knot, stepped out from behind his lectern to stand beside it, and
rose up on his tip-toes, trying to look over the tops of the heads
of the congregation. The happy couple and all the witnesses also
turned toward the door to see what all the commotion was
about.
The year was 1770, and the
ceremony was being conducted in the toll house on the Scottish side
of the Coldstream Bridge, which spanned the River Tweed between the
Village of Coldstream, Scotland and the English village of
Cornhill-on-Tweed. Coldstream was one of those small, sleepy
communities on the southeastern border of Scotland that was
convenient for elopers from England who wanted to marry under
Scottish laws and without publicity. The reverend was also the toll
collector for people and freight passing over the bridge, but most
of his income came from performing marriage ceremonies and
hand-fastings rather than from collecting tolls.
The locals who lived on both
sides of the boundary between England and Scotland still referred
to it as “The Border” even though that term had been forbidden by
King James I in the early 1600s. The toll house at the Coldstream
end of the bridge was famous throughout England and Scotland for
hosting weddings and hand-fastings for couples that came across
from England, because the Lord Hardwicke’s Marriage Act did not
have jurisdiction in Scotland. In Scotland, it was legal for males
to marry at age fourteen and females at age twelve. Gretna Green,
in the southwest of Scotland, was a much more popular marriage
destination just over the border, because it was the first village
in Scotland on the main carriage route from London to
Edinburgh.
The border between Scotland
and England had been created by the Treaty of Union in 1707, which
united England and Scotland to form the Kingdom of Great Britain.
The official border ran along the River Tweed in the east to the
Solway Firth in the west. This border formed a boundary of two
distinct legal jurisdictions, since the Treaty of Union guaranteed
the continued separation of English law and Scottish
law.
“What in the name of all
that’s holy is going on here?” asked the reverend in a raised
voice.
“Now that’s exactly what I
want to know,” replied the intruder who had just kicked open the
toll house front door.
“And just who are you, sir
and what do you want?” asked the minister.
“Patrick!” shouted Elizabeth
Murray, interrupting the reverend, as she recognized her cousin
Patrick, who was leading the band of young men that had just
entered the toll house.
“What is the meaning of
this?” asked Elizabeth.
The group of young men had
walked through the toll house door and continued to the far end of
the room where the ceremony was taking place. Elizabeth’s cousin
Patrick was leading the way.
“Ye can’t marry him, Betsy,”
said Patrick, pointing a finger at the bridegroom, Alexander
Mackenzie.
“And just why can’t I?”
replied Elizabeth with a pout.
“For one thing, you’re too
young.”
“I’m sixteen and so is
Alex.”
“Yes, you are, but the age
of legal capacity is twenty-one, Cousin,” said Patrick with a
smirk.
“It is in England, but we
happen to be standing in Scotland, where the age of legal capacity
is fourteen, Cousin,” Elizabeth replied sarcastically.
“That may be true, but you
still can’t marry without your father’s consent until you are
twenty-one, Cousin,” Patrick replied with equal sarcasm.
“
I can if I am in
Scotland.”
In 1753, the English
Parliament had passed the Lord Hardwicke’s Marriage Act, which
codified that if either party to a marriage was not at least
twenty-one years old, then both sets of parents had to consent to
the marriage.
“
We’ll see about that,
lassie. Besides you’re English and he’s a Scot. There are laws
against international marriages, and you’re not going to marry a
Reiver anyway,” said Patrick with an evil smile.
Patrick was correct; there
were laws against international marriages, but these laws were
widely ignored by the church and the authorities. The bridegroom,
Alex Mackenzie, was in fact one of the last Reivers in existence.
By the middle of the 1600s, the authorities had largely wiped out
the border outlaws, called Reivers. But even in the late 1700s, the
border was still thinly populated, and there were often conflicts
that sprang up. The lives of the people who lived along the border
were frequently disrupted by these clashes and altercations. The
border was often a lawless place where tensions ran high and feuds
erupted between rival clans over the slightest incident or insult.
At one time, it had been generally sanctioned by the authorities
for the so-called Reivers to conduct raids on both sides of the
border, as long as the people who were being raided did not have
powerful allies or kin among the raiders, but that was no longer
the case. All of the Reivers had been hunted down long ago, or so
everyone thought.
“Who says I’m a weaver?”
interjected Alexander Mackenzie, smiling his disarming smile and
stepping up beside Elizabeth.
Alex had quietly untied and
removed the ceremonial rope from his and Elizabeth’s hands in case
he needed to move quickly.
“I don’t even own a loom,”
he said with a grin.
“I said you’re a Reiver,
laddie,” said Patrick, “I didn’t say you were a weaver, and
furthermore, I’m here to arrest you. You’re not going to marry
Elizabeth, of that ye can be sure.”
“Everyone knows that there
haven’t been any Reivers in Scotland or in England for over a
hundred years.”
“Well, I guess I will just
have to call you an outlaw instead of a Reiver then.”
Alex had noticed that the
young man named Patrick was dressed the latest British fashions
made popular in London; he was obviously a wealthy young dandy. The
men standing behind Patrick had spread out in a line all the way
across the little toll house, ready to cut off any attempt to bolt
past them toward the main door.
Alex knew he was in trouble;
he was unarmed except for a knife in his boot, and his brothers
were nowhere in sight. They didn’t even know where he was or that
he was formally hand-fasting Elizabeth Murray. When cornered,
Alex’s usual initial instinct was always to fight, but his
intellect often overrode his instinct and determined that he should
flee. In this case the odds were ten to one against him. Fighting
didn’t seem to be much of an option.
“Do you want to come
peacefully, or do you want to do it the hard way, laddie?” asked
Patrick.
“There’s no need for
violence, sir; you’ve got my hand on it,” said the smiling Alex as
he stuck out his hand as if to shake hands with Patrick and give
him assurance that he would not try to escape. At the same time, he
raked his long blond hair back out of his eyes with his left
hand.
At first, Patrick was
puzzled by the offer to shake hands. But after he considered it for
a few moments, he finally decided to accept the offer. When he
reached out to clasp hands, Alex reached past Patrick’s hand,
grabbing his wrist instead. He then took a small side-step and
pulled Patrick’s arm as hard as he could, spinning him around in a
half circle right into the old reverend, who was still standing
beside his lectern. The minister was completely caught off guard by
the unexpected collision, as was Patrick. So the reverend
instinctively wrapped both of his arms around Patrick just as the
young man barreled into him. Their feet tangled together as they
stumbled backward. Both men lost their footing and went down to the
floor in a tangled heap. Patrick quickly tried to get from on top
of the old reverend and regain his feet.