Reiver

They say nowadays that the Reivers were the most evil men that ever drew a breath. They say that they were daemons of the deepest depths of hell, worshipers of Satan and defilers of all that was holy. But I lived with them, I fought with them, I rode with them and I loved them—aye, and perhaps I still do, a little, though I am far too old for my word to count for anything, the half-mad, half-wild uncle. Aye, my family knows me well, it seems.

That the Reivers were bloody murderers, there is no doubt; that they were godless pagans, I cannot argue against; that they were thieves and liars and ruffians, I know all too well. But to say that they had no honour—well, that would be a mistruth, in God’s name. It was a blackened, crippled code of honour, but it was there. They would kill and maim and steal without a care, but there were some things they wouldn’t stoop to—unless they had to, or wanted to. They’re all damned without a doubt, and though I have repented my sins and take the blood of the communion I fear for my own soul for the all too brief time I spent as one of them.

I am mindful of that old story of the Reiver’s journey to hell. Old Jamie said that it was one of his ancestors, but I have heard the Elliots and the Armstrongs and the Bells say the same thing, so surely my beloved father was mistaken or lying.

Anyways, there was this Reiver, a long time ago, before the light of God came to this blasted and wasted land. The bishop at the cathedral once assured me that this land has followed the true faith for time uncountable, so perhaps this was many centuries ago, or perhaps the story is just a legend.

There was this Reiver, a strong and feared man, the scourge of the borderlands, a hero amongst his kind, a man never to shirk a feud or leave unavenged a wrong against his family. But his glory days were behind him, aye, long behind him, and he was an old man. And all his old friends, his old gang, men he had fought besides and rode besides on raids innumerable, had gone to their graves, and he was the last one still clinging to life.

And one day—a blessed day, no doubt, a day to be joyous for—he came across priests of God, who assured him that all he had to do was to repent for his sins and accept the true God, and he would be saved the eternal torments of hell and would live forever. All he had to do was to be washed by their leader. And he was an old man, a man with little life left in him, and he knew that death was drawing ever closer like a black bird of prey that he could nary escape.

So he accepted their offer and repented his wicked ways and vowed that his sword would never again be drawn in anger, and accepted the holy baptism. But as he stood on the shores of the river—no two tales agree which river it was—he turned to the leader of these men of God and asked him, “If I am to be saved for this, then what will become of my friends, my old brothers in arms?”

And the priest shook his head mournfully and assured him that his old friends were bound straight for hell, as heathens and sinners and unrepentant murderers.

And so this Reiver, an old man with little life left in his withered body, turned away and mounted his horse. And he spake, “Then I’ll none of your baptism. Hell road or any other, I ride wi’ my gang.”

So, then. I am an old man, as old as this Reiver of myth and lore, no doubt, and I see my death fast approaching and I wonder if I am to be welcomed into Heaven, and never to see Old Jamie and Young Jamie and Helga and Cousin Will and all the others—aye, and Elizabeth as well, for which perhaps I will shed a tear as I enter through the heavenly gates—or am I damned as they are and bound to burn forever by their side.

They say, now, when the worst ravages of those fearful times are naught but a memory, that the Reivers were the most evil men that ever lived. But I rode through them in the dark heart of the night, as the rain poured down and the thunder crashed and the lightening split the coal-black sky, with fire in my belly and hatred in my heart and a good three feet of sharp steel at my side. I lived with them and laughed with them, and aye, I loved them.

I remember riding with Old Jamie over the hills and through the valleys, hunting or hawking or just galloping for the hell of it, and while I was just a youngster he treat me like a man—and aye, as his own son. I remember arguing and joking and fighting with Young Jamie, and I remember watching him die.

It is easy now to remember just the happy times of my life with them; the times I belonged, the times I knew that it was my fate to ride with them forever, aye, and to the fiery maw of hell of needs be. But as I write this, I know it is my duty to tell the whole story, not just the parts it is pleasurable to remember, and so I think back to the tear-drowned night when we waited for a man that would never come home, fearing torches and enemies on the horizon, praying to a god we didn’t believe in that Old Jamie would come home and everything would be all right. There was pain and sadness and more in those years, more than is easy to dwell on. Still, I must.

And perhaps the memory I remember best, after all these years, is of lying in the heather with Elizabeth while the family called us from the valley below and we knew we would be together forever—oh, we were young, too young to know how the world worked. And even if we had been older, would we of realised what awaited us?

An old man must have his memories, or else he has nothing. So I set them down, on this old and ragged paper in ink that splatters and spits and with my shaking hand and fading eyesight, and I remember times past when I feared no man and lived by my wits and my sword and my gang. Aye, I was a Reiver once, may God forgive me for it.