A Plea

On By chrisnickson2In Uncategorized5 Comments

Imagine queueing for enough food to feed your family for three days. It’s humiliating, an admission of defeat, of needing help, of needing charity.

It’s certainly not something that should be happening to thousands of people in what’s supposed to be one of the richest countries in the world. But it is.

All across the UK there and hundreds of food banks, and each week they see the numbers of people needing aid rising. There are causes worthy of your money all across the globe, but there’s also one at home.

I’m not going to use this as a soapbox for the politics involved. Instead it’s a simple request: for the rest of this month, every time you shop for food, buy something extra – a can of something, a packet of a non-perishable – and pop it in the box in the supermarket; they all have them.

Christmas is very close, less than three weeks away. We can all make a tiny difference to people’s lives. People who are our neighbours, maybe folk we’ve known all our lives.

In an ideal world, we wouldn’t need foo banks, or the volunteers who staff them. But this isn’t an ideal world, Britain isn’t a place where people should be starving. I’d love to sell more books, but I’d rather you spent your money on donating a little more food to those who really need it.

Perhaps some day we won’t need words like this any more.

A Christmas Story

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For the last several years, each Christmas I’ve written a story for the incredibly supportive Leeds Book Club. 2014 is no exception. This time it features Annabelle Harper, who some of you might already know from Gods of Gold. This is set between that book and the sequel, Two Bronze Pennies, which will be published in the UK in April 2015. Want to read it? Go here.

Five Stone Crosses – 946 AD

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I’d expected a mean little place, like the other Saxon villages in the kingdom. But as we approached, with the horses whinnying at some smell or other, it took me by surprise.
It was neat, cleaner than I’d imagined. The people looked well-fed, eyeing us with quiet suspicion as we arrived. Five of us, myself and four warriors. They were frightening, intelligent men with piercing eyes and dark glances. They’d proved themselves in battle often enough. A good escort for a holy man.
Loidis had a church, that was something I hadn’t seen too often. It was wood, rough-hewn but carefully built. Their God might not be ours, but they worshipped him well. And outside stood five tall stone crosses, heavily carved and decorated with ornaments, scrolls and figures. I could pick out Weyland the Smith in one, from the story they love to tell at night. On others, there were angels, men, who knew what.
I dismounted, looking around. A man approached me hesitantly, bowing his head a little.
‘You’re welcome here, my Lord,’ he said. ‘I’m Hereward. The thane here.’
‘Gunderic.’ I nodded at him. ‘Where are they?’
‘Not here yet. One of my men spotted them a few minutes ago, still two miles away. Would you like something to drink after your ride?’
A girl came with a jug of ale and mugs. Out here we were on the edge of the kingdom. Our land, the Norse land, ended at the river a few yards away and on the hills to the west. It was autumn weather, most of the leaves already fallen, the branches as barren as crows. A grey sky and always the promise of rain on this damned island.
‘King Erik, is he well?’ Hereward asked. Inside, I smiled. Erik’s name was one to make any Saxon nervous. The Bloodaxe, they called him. It was true that he’d used the weapon often enough, but not for a few years now. These were the days of ruling, of words and diplomacy. Instead of the longships, we made marriage with the locals. I had, and Erik, too. His wife was the daughter of a nobleman from Strathclyde.
‘He’s in good health. Still strong as an ox.’ Keep them wary of the man I’d served for twenty years, in Denmark and now here. We’d started as raiders and now people fawned in front of us. We were starting out own dynasties in Jorvik, a kingdom that might include all of England one day.
But not yet. That was why I was in this village of Loidis, standing close to the river, waiting to conduct a favoured guest back to meet my master.
‘This church of yours,’ I said, walking towards it. ‘What are these crosses for?’ I’d been all over the area in the last few years, but I’d never seen anything quite like this.’
‘To commemorate men who’ve died, Lord,’ Hereward answered. ‘Their sons have them carved as memorials.’
‘Why here?’ I wondered.
‘There’s a ford at the river.’ He pointed to a shallow area of the water. ‘Plenty of people cross here. Some stay.’
Not many, from the look of the place. Houses spread in a line away from the church. Clean enough, yes, but hardly busy. I doubted there could be more than two hundred people in the whole of Loidis. But it had the church, more than most of these places. And it had these strange crosses.
A man ran up and spoke to Hereward.
‘Cadroe will be here in a minute. King Domnall’s come with him.’
I straightened my back. Royalty to escort the holy man? This journey was taking strange turns. They obviously treated this Cadroe with honour, so we had to do the same. But I was an important man in this kingdom. Not a king, perhaps, but certainly a lord, with lands of my own. Fit to meet him and take him to Erik.
Ten of them. Domnall, his housecarls, heavily armed and glanced around constantly. They eyed my warriors with suspicion. And on a small mare, a thin man, simply dressed, his wild hair going grey. Cadroe. The holy man.
At first he didn’t seem so remarkable. Then he turned to gaze at me and I saw his eyes. There was something in them, some fire, some certainty and passion. I’d never seen a look like it before.
But I knew my graces. First a bow to greet the king.
‘Your Majesty.’ My voice was loud enough for everyone to hear. ‘I’m Gunderic, sent by King Erik to make sure his guest reaches Jorvik safely. He welcomes you all to his kingdom.’
No answer, other than a short nod of acknowledgment. I turned to Cadroe.
‘My master looks forward to meeting and talking with you, sir.’
‘And I look forward to seeing my dear Æthelberta again.’ His eyes twinkled.
‘My Lord?’
‘Not Lord, not Sir. I don’t have a title and don’t want one,’ he said.
‘You’re related to the king’s wife?’ I’d never heard this.
‘Distantly, but yes. I’m related to Domnall, too.’ He tilted his head towards the king who was talking to the thane. ‘And we’re all God’s children, too.’ For a moment I thought he was teasing. But the smile on his lips wasn’t mocking me.
‘King Erik is expecting us in Jorvik,’ I told him, looking up at the sky. We’d spent the night in Sherburn and set out early to meet Cadroe; we’d be expected before nightfall.
‘Of course,’ he agreed. ‘But first, please, I’d like to preach for the people here. They rarely see a priest.’ He looked at me. ‘For their souls.’
Who was I to disagree? Treat him with respect; those had been my orders. As long as he didn’t take too long, we’d have time.
A work with Hereward, the sharp ringing of the bell that seemed to fill the sky. Another few minutes and the villagers came. A rag-tag bunch, the children as filthy as boys and girls anywhere. The women scared, full of tales about the Northmen. The men all farmers, with rough hands and weatherbeaten skin.
Once they’d gathered, Cadroe stood in front of the crosses and began to speak swiftly in his Saxon tongue. I spoke it passingly well – I had a Saxon wife myself, and my children switched between Norse and Saxon as if they were one language – but it always seemed ugly and guttural to my ears.
But a strange thing happened. As Cadroe spoke, it seemed to make on a musicality, a beauty I’d never noticed before. His words came quickly, too fast for me to follow them all. I glanced at the man quickly, then again. Before, he’d seemed small, someone not to be noticed in a crowd. Now he seemed taller, broader, and it seemed there was a light around him. I closed my eyes then looked again. But it was still there.
He spoke for five minutes, standing in front of those carved memories to man. I could understand how people thought him holy. There was some quality about him, something larger than any of us there, bigger than flesh, deeper than blood.
Cadroe finished with the sign of the cross and the words, ‘May God go with you and protect you.’
And then, as his mouth closed and he began to walk towards me, he became an ordinary man again, with his grey hair, the lines on his face and thin body.
I didn’t understand it. I couldn’t explain it. But I’d ask him on the journey. We had ample time in the saddle ahead of us.
In less than five minutes we were ready to leave. Before I could mount my horse, though, Domnall beckoned me over.
‘My Lord?’ I asked.
‘You saw, didn’t you?’ I opened my mouth to lie, but he continued, ‘I watched your face. He has the message of God on his tongue for all who’ll listen. Please, make sure your king listens to him.’
‘That’s my Lord’s choice,’ I reminded him.
‘Of course.’ Domnall smiled easily. ‘But give your Lord one message from me, please. Tell him that men prosper more in peace than in war.’
‘I will, your Majesty.’
I climbed into my horse and we began to ride away.

Historical note: In the Life of St. Cadroe, he’s remembered as crossing between the kingdom of Strathclyde (ruled by Domnall) and the Norse kingdom (ruled by Eric Bloodaxe) at Loidis – the Saxon name for Leeds. It was a village on the border, used for crossings, and that gave it stature, even if it was still very small. When Leeds Parish Church was being rebuilt in 1838 workmen discovered pieces from five stone crosses that were dated back to the ninth and 10th centuries. The fragments have been put together to make the Leeds Cross, which now stands in Leeds Minster.
These could have been preaching crosses, which predated churches. But those would generally have come from an earlier period. It’s far more likely that they were memorials erected to commemorate important people. Why would that be in Leeds? We’ll never really know, but it’s an indication that the village had real value importance, certainly to the wealthy individuals who commissioned the crosses.

Home – An Older Richard Nottingham Story

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Home was one of the first Richard Nottingham stories I wrote, not long after I’d completed The Broken Token, and it was the first piece with him to see print, in the anthology Criminal Tendencies. It’s also been in another collection to raise funds for the charity Shelter. But it’s Friday, it’s been a while since I dusted this off, so sit back and enjoy. Even though Richard’s hardly in it, another old favourite is featured…

Revenge.
He savoured the word on his tongue, letting it run like an infection through his veins, thinking it remarkable what a fire burning in a man could do. It could keep him alive all these lonmg years away and then bring him back home.
“Nicholas Andrews, I sentence you to seven years’ transportation,” the judge had intoned, allowing himself a merciful smile at keeping another felon from the gallows dance, and all for the crime of cutting a few purses. He could still hear the words with their sumg inflection and feel his hands gripping the polished wood of the dock.
He’d expect things to be bad, but the truth proved far more cruel than anything he could have imagined. Puking his empty guts out in the hold of the ship, fettered hard and helpless as the guards and sailors taunted him. Then, in Jamaica, a heat so harsh and hellish he thought it might burn the skin from his back, so intense the thought the devil was pricking his lungs. They’d set him to work cutting the sugar cane, day after day out in the steaming, stinking fields, wounds from the machete festering on his hands and arms, healing slowly and painfully as he prayed with quiet fury for his preservation. For the chance of revenge.
He survived two bouts of fever, raving off his head and swearing murder, so they told him later as he lay in bed, thin as a pauper’s dog and so weak he couldn’t even raise his hand to take they drink they offered.
It was education that saved him, those brief years he’d hated of sums and making his letters. After the clerk died, the plantation owner had needed someone who could read and write and Nick had pushed himself forward, grovelling and despising himself for his arse-licking words, but knowing it was better – that anything was better – then serving the rest of his sentence in the cane.
The job became his life, and he was good at it, quickly trusted for his accurate accounting and good hand. The master never suspected the occasional coins he filched and buried in the dirt beneath a tree.
Every single morning he formed his lips to spit the name of the man he hated – Richard Nottingham, Constable of Leeds, the man who’d caught him, put him in gaol and landed him here. He’d have his blood for that. Seven deep cuts from the knife, one for each year he’d been gone, the last gentle and loving across the throat so he could watch the man’s life bubble away in hopeless breaths. And tell him just why before he died.
When his freedom finally came, the days ticking slow like a clock running down, the ticket of leave in the pocket of his threadbare coat, the owner asked him to stay. Nick looked at him as if the words made no sense. All he knew now was home and the flame buring strong and hot in his heart.

The ship landed in Liverpool in January 1732. The money he’d stolen at the plantation had paid for his passage and food, hard tack riddled with weevils and small beer turned sour before the gale-ridden crossing was halfway complete.
He arrived penniless to an England that seemed like a foreign land, in the grip of a bitter, bruising winter which had no mercy. It was no work at all for him to cut the purses of a pair of drunken sailors, the skills of his old life still sharp. He ignored the port whores, all pox-ridden, rowdy and consumptive, and bought a hot meal and a bed from the night instead. In the mirror he caught a glimpse of himself, his shoulders stooped, face burned dark and lined, hair matted and hanging to his shoulders, thin and grey though he wasn’t yet thirty. He pulled the worn blanket over his body. There were fleas in the sheets, but at least the bed didn’t rock and shiver in the waves. The next morning, without a second thought, he turned his back on the coast and began walking east.
By the time he reached Winnat’s Pass the pain from the cold weather had seared to his bones and his old boots were ribbons of leather, feet flayed and bloody from the stones and ice on the roadway. But he was lucky, finding a stranger for company whose corpse at least provided new shoes, even if it added nothing to his small supply of coins; when the snow melted in the spring they’d find the body and never know what happened.
From Sheffield he made his way north, face set tight against the snow and the chill, the ragged coat held tight around his body as the gusts tore at his cheeks more brutally than any overseer’s whip.
He passed Wakefield in the early dusk. His money was running precious thin and he was looking at a hungry, freezing night burrowed in a copse when he saw the farmer, a florid man with ugly, fat thighs jiggling in his breeches as he walked briskly home through the fields.
It took little to slice him, pull the body into the trees and take the rich, warm coat. There were coins in the waistcoat, enough to see him to Leeds.
Back to his home.
Back to Richard Nottingham.
Back to kill.

He crossed Leeds Bridge in the late morning, blending with the market crowds, and heard the traders shilling their wares up on Briggate. The snow piled against the houses and walls and soot-blackened, the slush icy and treacherous in the streets. He could smell the tannery on Swine Gate and the rich earthiness and piss of the dye works down by the river. For a small moment he stopped to stare up at the bulk of the new, graceful Holy Trinity Church. Soon he was at the top of Kirkgate, watching silently as people lurched and slid around him.
He’d been standing there for nigh on two hours, his feet feeling as though he was still shackled and his hands numb from the wind’s frigid tongue, when the Constable emerged. Slowly he followed, unnoticed and invisible in the throng, beyond the Moot Hall with it’s bloody, etallic tang of butchers on the ground floor, up to the Head Row. He watched through the window as Nottingham entered Garroway’s Coffee house, hailed some men and sat with them. Steam blurred his view through the glass and he walked on.
He’d seen what he needed, and closed his eyes as a smile creased his lips. The man was still alive, still here.
He could do it tonight, he could watch in the darkness as the blood stained the snow, then he could breathe out and live again.
His fingers twitched.
No, not tonight.
He wanted the act to last, for each moment to fill him so the memories could tumble over him in all the evenings to come.
Slowly, almost carelessly, he strolled back down Briggate. He passed the Ship, once his haunt, and walked on to the Talbot.
Inside the door the noise overwhelmed him like a wave and he stood still, eyes flickering with suspicion across a press of faces. Fire leapt in the large hearth, the heat inviting and irresistible. He pushed his way onto the corner of a bench near the blaze. As one of the serving girls swept by he ordered ale and stew, the cracked, awkward sound of his own voice surprising him.
Tomorrow he’d done it. The debt would be paid, he could leave Leeds and reallt feel like a free man.
The warmth of the food and the sharp crackle of the logs left him weary. He needed as bed, he needed sleep; in this city that would pose no problem. First, though, he needed a woman.
The last time had been two years before. As a present to celebrate Christmas the master had presented him with a slave for one night. She lay, brown eyes wide and empty, silent as he forced himself on her. When he woke the next morning he was alone, and only the heady smell of her in the thick dawn assured him that it hadn’t been a dream.
Outside, the air was cold and the sky had stilled with early darkness. His breath clouded the air and his soles crunched over ice as a few flakes of snow fluttered half-heartedly.
She stood half on Briggate, at the corner of a yard whose name he didn’t recall. Her face was in shadow, a pathetic, patched shawl drawn across her shoulders, moonlight picking out the pale skin of her bony arms. He moved closer, astonished to find his heart pumping fast.
“Looking to warm yoursen up a bit, are you?” She tried to sound cheery but her voice quavered with the chill.
He nodded.
“Down here then love.”
He followed her into the tight entrance to the yard, still in sight of the street. As she turned towards him, a sense of relief in her smile, her hands already hoisting her skirts, he rested his blade lightly against her throat so that a paint line of red drops bloomed on her skin.
He didn’t need words; she understood. He pushed her back against the wall, tore at her clothes and entered her. Her eyes opened wider, the blank, hopeless stare an echo of the girl in Jamaica. It was only seconds later that his backhanded blow sent her to the floor, still mute, and he dashed back into Briggate, tying his breeches.

It was God’s joke, he decided, that he’d end up in a rooming house in the same yard where he’d been a boy, before his parents had died of the vomiting sickness and he’d made his way on the streets. He glanced at the old door as he passed, but any memories were held like secrets behind the wood. It was just one night then he’d be finished here, on his way to York or London, to anywhere a man could disappear and start life anew. There was only one tie here and he’d loosen it soon enough.
The dank room already held two men with ale heavy on their breath, their sleeping farts sweetening the air. He lay on the straw pallet fully clothed, the wretched rag of a blanket over him, and drifted away.

Something cold and metallic was pushing against his mouth. Confused, still sleep-drunk, he thought it was a dream and struggled to open his eyes, pawing at his face with one hand.
“Sit up.”
The words came as a command, colder than the bitter air in the room. Without even thinking, he sat up. Thin, early light came through a window covered by years of grime.
The man towered over him, seeming to fill the space, his presence full of menace. He was tall, with unkempt grey hair, his face lined, but his back was straight and his chest wide under dirty clothes. One large fist held a silver-topped walking stick lightly.
He knew who this was; it was impossible to have lived on the edge of the law in Leeds and not know. Amos Worthy.
“I hear you were with one of my girls last night.” The man’s eyes were dark, his voice slow, as deep and resonant as any preacher. “You didn’t pay here. I can’t allow that.” He paused, letting the words hang ominously in the air. “But then you had to cut her, didn’t you? So now I have to make an example of you.”
Nick started to reach for the knife in his pocket. The man simply shook his head once and gestured over his shoulder. A pair of thickset youths, their faces hard and scarred, arms folded, stood inside the door. The two other beds were empty.
“I know who you are, the man said, speaking softly and conversationally. “Oh aye, you’ve got the Indies burned on your face, Nick Andrews. Seven years is a long time away from home.”
All he could do was nod. Whatever words he’d once possessed had deserted him. Worthy was offhand, easy in his certainty and Nick felt the piss burn hot down his leg as his bladder emptied. He was going to die here, in this room, in this bed, before he could finish his work. And all for a few short seconds with a whore.
“All that time doesn’t seem to have made you any wiser, laddie. Just back, are you?”
Nick nodded again.
“A short homecoming, then.” He raised his thick eyebrows. “You crossed me. You can’t do that here.”
He brought his stick down hard. Nick saw it fall, quick, effortless, but it burst his nose, the shock of pain hard and sudden, blood gushing chokingly into his mouth.
“You can kill him now, boys. You know what to do with the body.”

The Murderer of Calverley Old Hall

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‘He won’t plead, my Lord.’
‘Have you pressed him?’ Baron Cobham asked the gaoler.
‘We have, my Lord. See for yourself.’ He opened the door to the room. Walter Calverley lay there on the stone floor, wrists and ankles chained so his body made an X. A door had been placed on top of him, piled with rocks.
‘You know the law,’ Cobham said as he studied Calverley’s face. There must have been a hundredweight on top of him, but he didn’t show any pain. Just the fire of fury in his eyes. ‘He’s a lunatic. Press him until he says he’s guilty or not. He’s killed two of his children and came damn close to murdering his wife, too. He’d have had the last boy if the villagers hadn’t caught him. Press him.’
‘Yes, my Lord,’ the gaoler said as the Baron walked away along the corridor of York Castle.

It hadn’t always been this way, Walter Calverley thought. He hadn’t always been a madman, had he? He could remember times when he’d been happy. Back when he’d been young, and the grounds of the Old Hall in Calverley seemed to stretch forever. But then, back in ’72, his father had died and the world seemed to slow as it span around the sun.
Walter had titles now: the squire of six manors, in Fagley, Farsley, Bolton, Burley-in Wharfedale, Eccleshill, and Seacroft. He’d learned them like a rhyme. They were his, but he was too young to understand what that meant. He had money, his mother said. But he’d always had money, never wanted for anything. He had responsibilities, but what were they? He didn’t know, and when they tried to tell him, he no longer cared. A cup or two of wine, maybe more, a good game of cards, that was the life.
It stayed that way when he went to Cambridge in May of ’79. He met good fellows there, carousers all of them. The days for sleeping, the nights for pleasure. Exactly how it should be for a young man.
But it palled quickly enough, and by October he was back in Calverley, much to the displeasure of his guardian, Baron Cobham.
And it was there he met Catherine. The same name as his mother. A sweet, pretty girl. How had he never seen her before? Her father’s farm back on to the grounds of the hall. She was a girl with a winsome face and a gentle manner, the kind for love, not sport. And in her, he believed he saw someone who could change him for the better. He asked her to marry him and she agreed.
It all changed with Cobham’s summons to London. The note was curt, but Walter knew he had to obey. Cobham held the purse strings and decided how much money he could receive until he came of age.
Nigh on a week’s journey until he was in the house on Thames Street, the capital a bustle of noise and sounds and smells around him. The garden ran down to the river, masts ranged like a forest on the water.
‘Write to her,’ Cobham ordered him. ‘She does read, doesn’t she?’
‘Of course.’
‘Tell her it’s over, that on reflection she’s not suitable.’
‘I love her.’
Cobham’s stare was cold.
‘What does that matter? If you love her, take her on the side once you’re properly wed. Marriage is for gain and bringing heirs into the world. If you want passion, find it in the arms of a whore. You’re here because you have a duty to do. Or would you rather starve until you’re twenty-one?’
He had him by the ballocks, and Walter knew it. He was weak. He sent the letter that night.
‘Here’s the girl you’re going to marry.’ He nodded and the servant opened the door and ushered in a girl with an eager, curdled gaze.
‘Philippa.’ Cobham smiled. ‘Meet the man who’ll be your husband.’ Walter stood and bowed. ‘Walter, this is my granddaughter, Philippa Brooke. I’ve considered it all, and this will be a good match for you both. And when you marry, boy, control of all the estates will become yours.’

All his. All gone now.
They’d read the banns that first Sunday in London, and the two that came after, and then the wedding. A dazzling affair. But the problems began as soon as they came north, to the Old Hall. It was uncivilised up here, she complained.
Her tongue was as sharp as any knife and it never ceased. Every little thing had to be picked apart, until he stormed out, down to the inn, to dice and drink. Sometimes into Leeds for company. Once, out hawking, he saw Catherine riding with a man. She had a new suitor, he’d heard. Rage rose in him like water in a vessel. He could have been happy with her. If he’d stood his ground, but he didn’t have any courage. He spurred the horse and galloped to the inn, drinking himself insensible.
He did his duty and produced heirs, bawling, puking boys to take his place in time: William, Walter, and Henry. The nursemaid cared for them. Dutifully she presented them for his inspection. Walter was four, polite and fearful to the point of annoyance. Walter not old enough to speak yet, just a year and a half, and Henry out with the wet nurse in the village.
And the money? That was all gone, not that there ever was as much as he’d imagined. Cobham had had his hands in the fortune, he was sure of that. It was the man’s way. But with a wife and three brats, as well as his own pleasure and the expenses of the estates, the coffers were bare.
He lived on credit, and soon enough there’d be no more of that.
There were days he’d walk out of the Old Hall, climb to the top of the moor, where none could see or hear him, and scream until his voice was hoarse. It was the only way to take the pressure from his mind, to stop feeling as if his head would explode as his problems crowded around him.
Then, once he was home, Philippa would ask where he’d been. Questions, accusations. She loved him no more than he loved her. But where he wanted none of her, she used every word as a dagger to slit his skin.

St George’s Day. The village taking the holiday and celebrating. Walter had been up an hour, his head pounding from the drink of the night before, when the servant showed in the messenger. Three letters, two of them from creditors to toss on the fire.
The last from his cousin, Mark. He’d been at Cambridge with Mark’s brother, Richard. As good a man as ever lived, a drinker, a man to wager and whore with at night.

News, cousin, and bad tidings at that: Richard has been taken by the law and put in prison for a debt at Cambridge. Six pounds. Our father won’t pay it, saying Richard can rot in gaol for a year. I have no money, save what my father gives me. So I have to look to his friends on his behalf…
Walter tore it up and threw it into the flames. He could no more help Richard than he could help himself. And he knew the debt. He knew it well. It was his. Signing for food and drink and new suits of clothes in Richard’s name. A joke. It had seemed a good one at the time, with no thought of consequence.
He couldn’t raise that amount, not now. His life was broken and others were paying the price.

He drank steadily, all through the day. The only person he’d allow in the room was his servant, bringing more wine, ale, brandy, whatever was in the house. When Philippa tried to enter he threw a piece of plate at her head, ranting and raging.
It was all her fault. If he could have married Catherine, she could have saved him. He’d have known the happiness he’d experienced when he was young and life was just innocence and simple fun.
By evening he had his plan. He’d sweep away this life, destroy it. Make himself clean again. He’d go to Catherine and beg her. Ask for his salvation.
With his dagger in his hand, Walter climbed the stair. He threw the door of the nursery open. Walter and William asleep in their beds, so easy to kill. Five thrusts each, his tears coming as he did it. Tears of joy. Tears of freedom.
He was striding back along the corridor when Philippa came out of her room, hair down, wearing her nightgown, a shawl gathered around her shoulders. He struck at her, seeing her blood run, hearing her cry out.
Outside, in the stable, he saddled his favourite mare. One more thing to do until he was clean again, until he could make his fresh start with Catherine. He rode out of the gate, spirits soaring for the first time since he’d put the ring on the woman’s finger.
The word passed faster than he could ride. In the darkness he lost his path twice, tracking back. The village with Henry and his wet nurse was no more than a mile, but he was damned if he could find it in the night. And when he did come to the right track, the village men were waiting, dragging him off the horse and taking him to the magistrate.
Murder, they called it, and carried him off to gaol. Not even to Leeds, but all the way to Wakefield.

And now it was August, hot even in the depths of York Castle. He lay, listening and the gaoler asked him one more how he wanted to plead, before he added another stone. But when the man didn’t understand was that every weight on his chest took the load from his heart. And once his chest was crushed and all the life was gone, well, then he’d find his freedom. At last.

Historical Note: The facts of this tale are true, and Walter Calverley was pressed to death on the orders of the Star Chamber after he refused to plead on the killings of two of his sons and the wounding of his wife. By then he was in debt, and the letter saying an old friend was in jail for a debt of Walter’s, dating back to his student days, seems to have finally turned his mind. He died in York on August 5, 1605. There are claims that his ghost can be seen at night, riding a black horse and waving a bloodstained dagger, on the lanes around St. Wilfrid’s Church in Calverley, where he’s buried.

The First Recorded Murder In Leeds – 1318

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Sunday, with only the prospect of piety until bed. Robert de Ledes was bored and it wasn’t yet eight in the morning. He’d washed and broken his fast, just waiting until it was time to leave for service. A purse dangled by its strings from his belt. He reached into it and toyed with the pair of dice.
What use was a bloody Sunday? He could have been hunting or gambling instead of listening to the priest and bowing his head with the others in Leeds. So many of them stank, their clothes as filthy as the hovels where they lived.
With a sigh Robert strapped on his sword. It was a good weapon, a gift from his father, with silver on the pommel and brass worked into the scabbard. A rich man’s weapon, and why not? The family was had money, more than most in the ville. North Hall stood near the top of Briggate, built just twenty years earlier, before the bad weather had started turning the crops foul, year after year.
Some starved, but his father made sure the family wasn’t among them. Money meant power, and his father used it well.
Down by Kirkgate he spotted William de Wayte. An idiot who believed himself a thinker. Ungainly, with no charm beyond his ability to lose at dice. More money than brains. He was with his page and John de Manston, a cousin visiting from somewhere – William had told him, but he’d forgotten.
‘Well met,’ Robert cried, and soon the pair of them were throwing the dice against the wall of a house while de Manston and the page strolled on to the church. The bell was just beginning to peal for service when Robert give a final flick of his wrist. A six and a one.
‘Seven,’ he told William. ‘I win.’ He began to rise, scooping up the dice and putting them into his purse. ‘You can settle with me later.’
‘I won’t pay a cheat. I didn’t see what came up on that last throw.’
‘Be careful with that tongue,’ Robert warned. ‘You saw it as well as I did: six and one. Or are you calling me a liar.’
‘I’m calling you a cheat.’
Without even thinking, Robert drew his dagger, blade glinting in the summer light, and advanced on William.
‘Do you think you’re man enough?’ he asked with relish. He knew William; they’d grown up together. Brave enough with some friends behind him, a coward on his enough.
‘Enough!’
Robert turned and saw the reeve coming towards him, a look like fury on his face. His assistant came behind, a burly mean with a rough face, the miller alongside, always ready for a scrap. Robert lowered the dagger.
‘No fighting on the Sabbath,’ the reeve said. Robert nodded. Eyes turned to William, who agreed reluctantly. ‘Now get to church and say your penance.’
He snored through the service, the Latin that no one but the priest understood. The summer’s day was warm, the smell from the bodies around him rank. Robert only stirred for the final blessing, staying to talk to the priest and explain why his father hadn’t attended. He’d needed to see to his manor out by Harrogate, staying there a few days.
Finished, he strolled out into the sun, blinking and squinting. The door banged shut behind him and he heard the sexton lower the bar. The man couldn’t wait to see him gone and be done with his duties.
He’d taken a step when he saw them. William, de Manston, and the page, the three of them coming closer with their weapons drawn. Robert rested his hand on the hilt of his sword.
‘Does it take three of you to argue with me?
‘I won’t be called a liar by you,’ William said.
Robert’s face curled into a smile.
‘What would you have me call you, then? Blind? A coward?’
The fight was quick. No more than a few seconds. Three on one was no battle. But Robert had trained with the sword. His fencing master had fought with the king and had taught him to spot an opening and strike at his enemy’s weakness.
It was over as soon as William fell to the ground, hands trying to staunch the blood spurting from his stomach.
He’d never killed a man before, but he knew, he knew, as he saw the life leave William’s eyes.
‘Christ’s blood,’ De Manston said slowly, raising his eyes to look into Robert’s face. ‘That’s murder.’ And with a yell he came on.

The air in the Marshalsea prison was foul. The vapours of the dying and the damned everywhere. At least his father’s money bought Robert a cell to himself and food from the cookshops outside the walls.
He’d wanted to see London, but not this way. On trial for his life, for the murder of William de Wayte. A matter too grave for the manor court, a capital crime that could only be judged in the capital.
And he’d been here for three months now. He lived from his father’s purse, money to pay the toothless jailer who kept him here. He are roast beef, roast chicken, the straw and the rushes in his cell changed each month.
He had visits from his lawyer, an oily, nervous man from the Inns of Court who assured him the case was progressing quickly. Another month, or two or three, and it would be heard. But no certainty about the verdict.
However he lived here, nothing could block out the screams and shouts from the prison. Those who had little, begging for something. Some relief, some end. He’d seen them taken out to be hanged, men and women with their heads bowed. Some walking, others dragged to the gallows as hundreds cheered at the spectacle.
He’d been brought here in chains that rubbed his flesh raw as he rode the King’s highway. Still had the scars on his legs and his face from when de Manston and the page fell on him. They’d beaten him bloody, the chaplain joining them. Beaten him until he passed out and then beaten him more before they rolled him into the ditch that separated the church from the graveyard. Then they’d walked away and left him for dead. If one of the North Hall servants hadn’t found him he’d have been a corpse.
As it was, he was eight weeks recovering. For three days his mother prayed over him. A physician came with his unguents and potions. And eventually he came back to life, with all the marks of what he’d endured. Then William’s father had him arrested for murder. A criminal. A killer.
Robert had given his testimony at the manor court, how he was attacked first. Now he’d have to give it again, and his life depended on that and the witnesses his father could gather.

The London jury had listened all day, first to Robert, how he’d just defended himself when he was attacked, then to the witnesses de Wayte produced. De Manston, the page, the chaplain, others who claimed to have seen things that Robert knew had never occurred. Then those for his defence. And over each testimony was the spectre of the hangman. And finally it was done, the last oath sworn, his life in the hands of the grim-faced men who shifted on their seats.
‘Robert de Ledes, the jury finds you innocent in the murder of William de Wayte. You can go from this court a free man.’
Cheers, shouts of outrage, but he barely noticed them. It was done.

Historical Note: The killing of William de Wayte by Robert de Ledes is the first recorded murder in Leeds, but in all likelihood there’d been a number that had happened in the years before. It did occur at the Parish Church, and de Ledes was beaten and left for dead after. On his recovery, charged with murder, he was taken to London to be tried. In an age where more depended on how believable and credible the witnesses seemed, he found some who carried more weight. He was found innocent of murder.

The Battle of Holbeck Moor (A Leeds Story, but a true one)

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We had the word well ahead of time. It was in the newspapers, gossip all through the pubs. On the walk to work in the morning, men would be talking about it. The Blackshirts are coming. Bloody well let them come, I said, and we’ll show them what Leeds is about.
I knew why Mosley wanted his fascist scum here. Jews. We have plenty of them, and good people they are, too. A lot of them have moved out to Chapeltown now, them as has some money, any road. But you’ll still find plenty down in the Leylands, the ones who haven’t made a bob or two. Take a walk out along North Street and look at the names over the shops. Do nobody any harm and they work hard, the way a man should.
The Watch Committee spent the week hemming and hawing. Mosley and his gang wanted to have their march right by the Leylands. That’d be a recipe for disaster. Bad enough as it was, with swastikas and slogans painted on the windows of Jewish shops during the night. The fascists said it wasn’t them as done it, but we all knew the truth. Too scared to show their faces and try it in the day. Nowt like that had happened since the riots back in ’17.
Now me, I was a Communist then. I’m not today, not since the war when I heard about what Stalin did to his people. But I hated fascists with a bloody passion. I knew what was coming with Hitler; anyone with half a brain did. And I didn’t want it in my country. Definitely not my bloody city.
Finally them as are supposed to lead us told Mosley and his lot that they couldn’t go near the Leylands. Not that they couldn’t march, mind you. They could still do that, just not there. Once that order was out, we started making our plans. They were planning a big rally on Holbeck Moor, a thousand or more of them. Probably some supporters, too. We knew what we had to do. We were going to make the bastards wish they’d never heard of Leeds.
Didn’t take much to put the word about. A nod here, a little natter in the pub of an evening and we knew we’d have a crowd. At first we thought we’d line the route out from town, but that was only going to be a waste of time. Better to meet them up on Holbeck Moor where they were going to have their rally.
Now, maybe that was the right decision and maybe it weren’t. I heard later that there were plenty of Blackshirts down Meanwood Road. Too bloody close to the Leylands for my liking. Happen we should have had a few of our lads there.
Of course, the party officials talked to the people from the Labour Party. The way I heard it is that the Labour bods spent most of the meeting sucking on their pipes and making sympathetic noises before saying they wouldn’t take part in the protests. Soft as bloody butter, the lot of them. Not that it would stop plenty of folk as voted that way. They’d be out there. You give in to fascists once and next time they want a mile more.
The weather was good that morning. Sunny, warm, not much of a hint of a breeze. The 27th of September, 1936. We were all in a good mood as we traipsed up to the Moor. I was going to be a good laugh, and if w few heads got broken, well, it was no more than they deserved, as it?
Half a dozen of us went from our street. I was with Stan. He was a pipe fitter, a strong lad. We’d been mates since we were boys. Went to school together, primary and on. He bought it during the war, out in Burma. All his wife got were a medal. I daresay his body’s out there still, somewhere in the jungle.
The closer we got to the Moor, the more noise we could hear. I’d expected plenty of people, but now like that. Thousands upon thousands, and not enough coppers in view to keep order. Which was exactly what we’d hoped.
Stan gave me a big grin and opened his hand to show some knuckle dusters.
‘You’d better watch out,’ I warned him. ‘The rozzers catch you with those and you’ll be up for having an offensive weapon.’
‘Nay,’ he laughed. ‘Come on, Roy, I’m not bloody daft. Any chance of that and I’ll drop them.’ He was a big lad. Topped six foot, shoulders on him like a bloody barn. He didn’t need anything. Just his fists would do enough damage. But he had his ire up, same as the rest of us.
There were runners out, bringing messages on the march.
‘They’re on Calverley Street,’ went around, then ‘they’ve crossed over the river.’
It was going to be a battle, but we were all in a good mood. Laughing, joking, some singing and chanting. It was like being at the football in some ways. But not others. Plenty of the lads had organised well. They must have spent every evening scouring the moor, because they had a big arsenal of stones for us to throw.
‘Stuff ‘em in your jacket, lads,’ one man cried. He had a battered bowler hat on his head and a muffler wrapped round his throat, never mind that it was a beautiful day. ‘Once they arrive you know what to do.’
There was a mood of anticipation. A celebration. We were going to enjoy ourselves and chase the bastards out of here. The Blackshirts had some supporters already up on the more, a couple of thousand and more, but we easily outnumbered them ten to one. They didn’t look too happy but they didn’t dare back down. Not now, before their precious leader even showed his face. But you could see it, they were scared. They knew they were going to get a pasting.
Some of them were hard lads. That was all right. We had ammunition. When someone’s chucking rocks at you there’s not much you can do but duck and hope for the best. And I reckoned that among the stones the boys must have taken up half the cobbles in Holbeck. Oh yes, we were going to make the buggers hurt.
‘They’re coming!’ The words ran around the crowd. We were all craning our necks to see. Then I spotted them, like a thin river of black, moving slowly. The noise grew as they grew closer. A few cheering, many more of us yelling out insults.
They’d built a podium, a stage of sorts, for him and a few of his cohorts. We waited until Mosley took his place, his little army in front of him, gathered loyally. As soon as he moved forward to open his mouth, we struck up The Red Flag, a huge chorus of voices to drown him out. It wasn’t planned, it felt natural, but we sang as long and loud as Welshmen at one of their Eisteddfods.
As soon as it died down, the stones started. They arced over our heads and we watched them come down. One of them hit Mosley and made him move back. That brought cheers and a few more rocks.
Some came back at us. It was bound to happen. A few or our lads were bleeding, but it was never an equal fight. It was a Sunday, and this was our church. The coppers couldn’t do much. They tried to keep some order, but they wanted to have their heads down, too, and I can’t blame them.
I’d lost sight of Stan in the crowds. He’d waded forward as soon as he could, yelling and screaming, his blood up. God only knew what he’d end up doing.
There were missiles flying backwards and forwards, people crying out. Whenever Mosley tried to speak, The Red Flag began again to drown out his words. It was a good way to feel strong, Communists, Jews, good people from all over Leeds gathering to tell the Blackshirts what we thought of fascism here. We didn’t want owt to do with it.
A stone hit me on the shoulders, hard enough but no damage done. I picked it up and tossed it back. When I looked around I could see everyone had the fire in their eyes. We were here to do a job and we weren’t going to leave until it was finished.
Another stone hit Mosley in the face and he fell. Good luck or good aim, I don’t know. But we cheered. It gave us heart and we began to push forward.
‘Get ‘em on the run, lads,’ someone shouted and we all laughed. But we all moved forward anyway.
I’ve no idea how long it lasted. It just seemed like moments but it must have been a lot longer. I was too young to have fought in the war but it must have felt like that. Time seemed to speed up and slow down at the same time. It was like electricity was going through me, I could have shocked anyone I touched.
A couple of times I caught the toff’s voice, but as soon as anyone heard it we began singing. Sir Oswald, that was his title. Should have been hung for treason. We weren’t about to give him much of a chance. Rubbish like his doesn’t deserve an airing.
Finally he gave up. This was a battle he didn’t have any chance of winning and he knew it. He lined up them as supported him and they began to march away as if they’d won something. But they’d got nowt.
We jeered and shouted until we were hoarse and they couldn’t hear us any more. We’d bloody won. Men were laughing their heads off, full of victory. We’d send them off with their tails between their legs. Someone passed a hip flask around and we all had a nip. It burned on the way down but by God, it felt good.
It was in the newspapers the next day. Well, a few of them. The local ones, which said there’d been thirty thousand on the moor. I don’t know if that’s true; when you’re part of it you can never tell. Certainly the biggest crowd I’ve ever seen. Biggest I’ll ever be part of, I’m sure of that. Most of the big dailies didn’t bother to cover it. After all, we’re the north, we don’t matter. Funny, though, they were quick enough to write up what happened down in London a week later. The battle of Cable Street, they called it, when all those Cockneys and Jews down there told the fascists what they thought of them.
Up here, the magistrates bleated in the press about public order and how terrible it had all been. Stood up on their hind legs and said their piece. But there were only three people arrested. It wasn’t as if there was a shortage of candidates to be nicked. Three. It was just a token.
When the three of them appeared in court, all they got was a slap on the wrist. Someone must have had a word – send them down and there’ll be riots. There would have been, too. It was the wisest thing they could have done. The only thing. We’d made the whole bloody city tremble. They might not have shown it, but the council was scared. The law was terrified.
But by God, we showed them. And good on them Londoners for what they did, too. It was a lovely feeling last year when we made our way back off the moor, comrades together. The Battle of Holbeck Moor, someone named it. And that’s not bad. But it’s not quite the truth. It wasn’t a battle, it was a rout. A complete bloody rout.
Historical Note: The Battle of Holbeck Moor did happen in 1936. The Watch Committee did refuse Mosley permission to march by the Leylands, but a thousand Blackshirts did go out to Holbeck Moor to hear him speak, where they were met with plenty of protesters. There was plenty of violence, and Mosley was hit by a stone. But it’s true that in the end only three people were arrested, out of an estimated crowd of 30,000, and the sentences given were very light.

The Factory Lad’s Testimony

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In 1833 the Factories Inquiry Commission investigated the employment of children and found some shocking things. But still years would pass before legislation would give kids a full childhood and the chance to learn and grow fully; their labour was too cheap for factory owners to give up easily.
One person who gave sworn testimony to the Commission was John Dawson from Leeds. This is a paraphrase of what he told them:
Yes sir, my name is John Dawson and I make my living as a tailor when I’m well enough to work. You can see, sir, that my eyesight is bad. That’s why I wear these glasses. If you ask me, it’s from the flax mills I worked in as a lad. There’s always a powerful lot of dust in the air and it does affect the eyes of some folk. I daresay as I’d be blind now if I still worked there.
I started in the mills when I was six, a doffer at Shaw and Tennant’s. The work wasn’t too hard, we had to take the full bobbins off the machines and put on empty ones. But the hours were long, six in the morning to seven at night, six days a week. I was lucky, my da was the overlooker in the room. He beat me, same way he beat the other doffers, but not too bad, not as hard as some. It was the standing all the time that was worst. Every day my knees ached.
I always wanted to learn to read and write. I went to Sunday school whenever I could, unless my ma wanted me at him with the younger bairns or I had no decent clothes or shoes. My da taught me to read, and I was middling good with the Testament.
My da left Tennant’s when I was ten, and I went with him to Garside’s Mill. They put me to work bobbin-hugging, and that was terrible hard work, sir. I had to carry around a basket full of bobbins, some of them still wet. The basket was on my bag, and big it was, held in place by a strap. I often had to carry full baskets up the stairs to the reelers. My knees were so bad that I had to stop after two or three years. You could see them, all bent, but we had no money for a doctor.
When my da and I left there we went to Clayton’s, and I was a doffer again. But the hours were bad. Sometimes five in the morning to half-past nine at night, with forty minutes for us dinner and nothing for breakfast or drinking. Wasn’t always six days, sometimes there was only enough for five or four, and we didn’t bring home enough money then. It was dangerous, too. I knew one lad whose clothes caught in an upright shaft and he closed, and there were other bad accidents I can recall, too. My da died after I’d been there a few years, and when my ma was taken ill we had to go into the workhouse. By then my knees were bent so bad I couldn’t walk more than thirty yards without a rest.
At the workhouse they taught me my trade, sir, made a tailor out of me. And I did see someone about my knees, Mr. Chorley at the infirmary. He gave me strengthening plasters and bandages and they did me some good. You can see it’s still difficult for me to walk, sir, and I need a stick to help me. But it’s better than it was, and for that I’m grateful.

Why I Write (It Ain’t Pretty)

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I write because I have no choice in the matter. The words are inside and they need to come out, sometimes in a rapid flow, sometimes like squeezing blood from a stone. I write every single day of the year. I don’t want a break from it; in fact, it feels wrong if I don’t write.
As I grow older, this compulsion, this obsession, grows stronger, and I come to define myself more and more as a writer. I’m one of the lucky ones, since a fair bit of what I finish these days gets published in one way or another, even if it’s no more than one of these blog pieces.
Writing is my gift and my curse. It’s also what I’ve dreamed of doing since I was 11 years old. At school we had to write an essay, to tell a story in three paragraphs. It was an exercise, of course, so show us how to use paragraphs for developing a thought. But after I’d finished my piece, it was as if a switch had clicked in me. That’s how it’s done!
Writing might be an art but it’s also a craft. I wrote plenty of unpublished novels, short stories that perhaps saw print somewhere or other but were mostly rejected. And rightly so, even if I was less certain at the time. The craft part has come from years of music journalism, where there isn’t the luxury of time to go through endless revisions, and you learn to pick the right word or phrase the first time. And good editors who pushed and prodded me.
But I’m not an artist. I’m an entertainer, someone who tries to take people out of their lives for a few hours and make them believe in somewhere else, some other time. There is no magic, perhaps, beyond sleight of hand. When a book is finished, people are back in themselves again. They might enjoy what they’ve read, but only a few books have the power to change people’s lives. I’m not sure I’d even want mine to be among them.
I’m just a person who sits down at the computer in the morning and writes down the movie playing in my head. If I’m lucky it’s because the film rarely breaks or fades to scratches and white noise. I’m still the 11-year-old understanding how this can work. And doing it because I have to.

November 1914

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This is the third part of Jimmy Morgan’s story, to be updated month by month, until 1918, if Jimmy survives that long.

While you’re here, I’d be very grateful if you’d glance through the site and take a look at my books, too – right now all the Richard Nottingham ebooks are on sale. After all, writing is what I do (that was the ad segment).

If you’ve just arrived at this serial, the last part is here. The first part is here.

It had been a sombre Bonfire Night. No one had been in the mood, not with so many lads already away. There’d always been a big fire at the end of Jimmy’s street, boys out chumping for weeks before, stuffing straw into old clothes and begging for a farthing for the guy.
Not this time. Not when the country was at war. His mam had made parkin, Mrs. Wilson at number 36 had her special cinder toffee, but it was only the kids who were eating as the stood around the small blaze.
‘You’re eighteen tomorrow,’ Teddy Wilson said. He’d joined the month before, now he was just waiting for his notice to report.
‘Aye,’ Jimmy said. ‘I’ll be down at the depot first thing.’
Teddy glanced over at Jimmy’s parents.
‘Do they know yet?’
He didn’t answer. They must have guessed. In the last two months they’d been over it a dozen times. And from tomorrow they couldn’t stop him.
‘What about that lass you’re walking out with?’
Mary. They’d met on the second Sunday in October. The weather had been balmy, even some sun, and Jimmy had taken the tram out to Roundhay Park. They’d met in the queue for an ice cream and he’d ended up buying her a cup of tea. The next Sunday he took her to the pictures at the Hyde Park. She was a maid in one of the big houses past Headingley, but no side on her for all that. A cheeky smile and dark hair. She made him laugh, then more when she gave him a kiss.
‘I talked to her,’ Jimmy told him. ‘She’s dead proud.’
She wouldn’t be a maid much longer, she’d told him that. Soon enough they’d want women for war work, that was what she believed, and she’d be off like a shot. No more yes sir, no sir and working all hours for next to nothing. She was ambitious, was Mary, and she didn’t mind anyone knowing.

There was drizzle in the air the next morning. Jimmy washed and dressed, ready to be out of the house early. Sod work, he had something better planned. Serve the King and see a little glory while he could. If they were right he’d be home in the New Year, anyway. He’d just made a pot of tea and was scraping dripping over a slice of bread when his father came into the scullery.
‘Eighteen, then?’
‘That’s right,’ Jimmy answered.
‘Are you going to do it?’ his father asked.
‘I am.’
Terry Morgan gave a small nod.
‘I think you’re daft. But if you’re sure, cut me a piece of that loaf and I’ll come down with you.’
‘You won’t change my mind.’
‘I know that, lad,’ Terry said quietly. ‘It’s your right. But I’ll testify that you’re old enough. If I were them I’d not believe you otherwise.’

It was easily done, quick enough. In as Jimmy Morgan, out as Private Jimmy Morgan. They measured his height and his chest and gave him the nod.
‘Go home and back to work,’ the NCO told him. ‘We’ll send you a letter saying when and where to report.’ The man sounded bored, the words spoken too many times.
‘Yes, Corporal.’ Jimmy stood at attention, back straight. ‘Thank you, Corporal.’
‘Next,’ the man called, already looking down the line.
The Scarborough Taps was close by.
‘Fancy a drink?’ Terry asked. ‘Celebrate your birthday.’
‘Aye, all right,’ Jimmy said. He’d never had a drink with his father before. If they called him to fight soon, who knew when he would again?