The Reavers. George Fraser MacDonald

eyes betray no emotion save when fanaticism grips him – at autos da fe, Inquisitorial interrogations, and Real Madrid home games – and his mask-like face hardens into cruelly ascetic lines, his currants glitter with a baleful light, and his lips contract into steel-trap implacability. Yes, Mr Pickwick one minute, Peter Cushing the next, that’s Frey Bentos, and you won’t be surprised to learn that he isn’t really a cleric at all, but an operative of the Spanish secret service, former head of their New World bureau (hence his Deep South accent), and now the Escurial’s top banana in charge of Operation Heretic, as the new super-plot is officially called. For several years Frey Bentos has been a mole, under cover as chaplain to old Lord Waldo Dacre at Thrashbatter Tower, where he ministers to the peasants, organises garden fetes, emcees concerts, and trains the pensioners’ bowling club, while secretly furthering King Philip’s vile machinations and waiting for Der Tag, or rather, La Dia. Lord Waldo had no idea what a tarantula was running his Sunday School; nor will Lady Godiva when she moves in. A worrying thought, but that’s the devildom of Spain for you.

      Fifth – well, fourth-and-a-half really, since he’s an Amazon pygmy – is Clnzh, a squat, misshapen mannikin complete with blowpipe, poisoned darts, and designer loincloth. Frey Bentos found him on top of a motel wardrobe while on leave in Acapulco, and if a South American savage seems a bit over the top for the border country, well, Clnzh adds a bit of colour, and you’d have been pretty let down if we’d made him an Etterick and Lauderdale district councillor. But isn’t he a bit conspicuous, you ask, tooling about Tudor Britain in war-paint and feathers? Not at all; being small, hairy, and ugly enough to break mirrors, he is perfect casting as a local brownie or goblin, with which the frontier was infested in those days (see W. Scott, The Black Dwarf). Clnzh sticks to Frey Bentos like plaster, but seldom speaks, letting his blowpipe do his talking for him; he is barely house-trained, and has just had to be restrained from drinking the cauldron.

      So there they are, and before anyone notes that two of them are Hispanic and a third ethnic minority, we must point out that this is the sixteenth century, when the heavies were invariably Spaniards devoted to the overthrow of Anglo-Saxon culture, religion, institutions, and everything True Blue, so we simply cannot give our villains a balanced racial mix. Anyway, come on, one of them’s Scotch. God knows what the wizard is, but he’s a British resident, and you can bet that’ll be enough for the Inland Revenue.

      And now things are happening: the steamy surface of the cauldron is clearing, developing snowy lines, crackling with static (some damned goblin using a hairdryer close by), and finally settling in a sharply defined picture of two people crouched over a roulette wheel, their eyes intent on the spinning goolie. One is a nondescript male in a feather bonnet, doublet and trunk hose, with a straggling beard, goggle eyes, and slobbery lips; as the ball rattles into its slot he gives a cackling cry of “Bingo, new shoes for the bairn!” But none of the five viewers minds him; their eyes are focused on his companion, a voluptuous brunette of sultry mien whose gold lamé halter and jeans are visibly creaking under the strain of her steatopygous charms. Her crimson lips twist in a contemptuous smile as her grotesque companion rakes in the chips. The Wizard adjusts the fine-tune on the cauldron and speaks.

      “The Isle of Man casino. Note the three-legged croupier in the background, and, if I turn up the volume, the roar of 750 cc Hondas and Yamahas.” He fiddles the controls and the picture freezes on a close-up of the gloating punter in the feather bonnet. “How say you, senors – is’t a true likeness?”

      Don Collapso pursed doubtful lips. “He dozzn’t look mooch like the Kinga Scotland to me.”

      “No?” purred the Wizard. “And what says our Scots friend?”

      Lord Anguish belched, stirred, and peered blearily at the cauldron. “Nivver saw the man before in ma life!” he declared.

      “You are certain?” said the Wizard dangerously. “Look again, drunkard! Look well.”

      Lord Anguish paled beneath his ginger whiskers, blinked, took a quick shlurp of Chivas Regal, and changed his mind.

      “It’s him!” he cried. “Hullaw rerr, Jimmy, hoo’s it gaun, son? I mean, God bless Your Majesty! Hey, but, whit’s he daein’ in the Isle o’ Man? It’s no’ Gleska Fair Week yet, surely?”

      The wizard smiled cynically and turned to the monk. “Frey Bentos?”

      “Ah seen worse lookalikes,” conceded the master spy, shrugging beady eyes. “Sho’nuff, he might impersonate His Scottish Majesty indifferent well, if he kin do th’accent an’ slobber convincin’ly. The way Ah heerd it, no one’s bustin’ a gut to git close to King James anyhow, so Ah guess this impostuh could git by.”

      “Eez he revolting enough?” wondered Don Collapso. “I mean, onteel you’ve eaten weeth the Scotteesh monarch, you ain’t seen-a nothin’! I sat nex’ heem at a Holyrood banquet … boy, talk about Friday night at the abattoir! Deez-gusteeng!”

      The Wizard stabbed a talon-like finger at the cauldron image. “He has been trained for years, coached to perfection in Parliamo Glasgow and all aspects of Scottish culture. Our leading experts in drooling, stammering, and eye-rolling have tutored him to a point where I am sure he will nauseate even such an outstanding slob as yourself, Don Collapso.” He glanced at the ambassador, who was cramming a fistful of sweetmeats between liver lips, and shuddered. “And his Latin pronunciation is perfect – wayni, weedy, weeky, and so forth.”

      Lord Anguish surfaced, waving a doubtful haggis sandwich. “Aye, but is he bent? Gay, ye ken – ambisextrous. A’body kens Jamie the Saxt is the original chocolate moose. Whit aboot that?”

      The Wizard frowned. “In that respect, I admit, our impostor has proved a disappointment. He showed not the slightest interest in a screaming pansy introduced to him during training – an agent known, incidentally, as the King’s Quair.”

      “You mean King’s Queer, surely?” objected Frey Bentos.

      “No, Quair,” said the Wizard. “He was an Irish pansy. However,” he continued, “it boots not, since the real king is not averse to female company also. Mind you,” he added, glancing at the cauldron-screen, which now showed the plume-hatted impostor slavering lustfully as he poured roulette chips down the cleavage of his statuesque companion, “’twere well if we fed that little blighter bromide before he reaches Scotland, or people may start wondering.”

      “Who’s thee beembo?” asked Don Collapso, smacking eager lips.

      “That, senors,” said the Wizard significantly, “is none other than the Castilian hidalga whose skill and daring as a secret agent are known and feared from the Indies to Cathay, the Mata Hari of Manzanilla, mistress of disguise and intrigue, she who set up the fatal hit on Henri Quatre of France, filched the industrial secret of caviar from Ivan the Terrible, and brought the Paris ambulance service to a standstill on St Bartholomew’s Eve! Yes, senors,” and his eyes shone with admiring glitter, “’tis she, none other, La Infamosa!”

      There were startled gasps around the table, and even Clnzh stopped toying with his girdle of shrunken heads. “La Infamosa!” they whispered. “Wow! Por los Entranos de Dios! So that’s what she looks like! How d’you disguise those, for Goad’s sake? La Infamosa! An’ I colled her a beembo! Well, if that doan’t beat fried chicken!” etc. The Wizard switched off the cauldron and rapped sharply on the table.

      “Enough, senors! It sufficeth that La Infamosa is bringing this impostor to our border country where,” he leaned forward, glinting evilly, “the real King James is about to begin one of his periodic hunting and reiver-hanging trips. Thus the scene will be set for the first stage of our master-plan, Operation Heretic, which will consist of the secret substitution of our impostor for the Scottish monarch. Full details of how this switch, codenamed Jimsnatch, is to be accomplished, are contained in dossiers which you will collect at the door on your way out; nothing has been overlooked. Aye, senors – only a few days hence, we shall have the authentic James the Sixth under wraps, while our impostor will be lording it in Edinburgh and occupying the royal box at Murrayfield, unsuspected by any!”

      “And