Betrayed: (A Financial and Conspiracies Thriller – Book 1 in the Legacy Thriller Series) by William Wield
Authors: William Wield
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warm and comfortable. This was largely due to the eight-foot square fireplace and massive mantelpiece dominating the end of the room which, on Florence’s insistence, was almost always alight with a blazing wood fire most months of the year.
The Great Hall itself must have been part of the original castle and, in mediaeval times would have been very cold. The walls were now covered a fine, beige coloured harling giving it a strange giant’s sandpaper effect. These were hung about with an assortment of ancient weaponry, stags’ heads, and hanging tapestries with, at regular intervals, poking their heads through all of these, portraits of long departed Macraes. Beneath one of the larger portraits, the label proclaimed that it was of Charles James Stuart, Bonnie Prince Charlie, and the Young Pretender to the Stuart Throne. It was only the sheer size of the hall that allowed for this disparate mass of wall ornament to blend into a pleasing kind of giant montage, so that the overall impression was that it was not even cluttered. Anastasia and Kim continued to walk slowly round peering occasionally at the names below the portraits and Kim wondered what these ancestors would have been like to meet and to talk to.
Angus saw the two of them wandering around together and went over to them.
‘All these weapons and the pictures of all this fighting,’ said Anastasia in Russian.
‘Yes, but it’s always been that way most places in the world hasn’t it?’ he replied, also in Russian. ‘It’s always been easier to take one’s neighbour’s hard earned treasure than go out and earn it oneself – easier to steal from his grain store than grow one’s own.’ She laughed as this brought to mind the Russian tribal wars of over the centuries.
‘And these wars and skirmishes had been happening between the Clans since Viking times’, continued Angus – and he led them both over to a table behind one of the sofas on which sat a large, ancient looking leather-bound book. It was entitled “The Macraes of Craithe, a Family History” – a book of the type many old Scottish families had compiled for themselves. The page size was nearly twice that of a standard glossy magazine and overall was a good nine inches thick, its buff coloured leather smooth and shiny with much handling and beautifully engraved in gold lettering with its title and description.
Angus opened it and went straight to the back of it where there were a number of appendices. He quickly found what he was looking for – a much abbreviated history of Craithe – so abbreviated that it fitted onto one page.
‘You can read English, can you?’ he asked Anastasia, still in Russian, as Kim looked on beside her.
‘Oh yes, top grades at Uni’, she replied in English, ‘why you show me this?’ she added as he pointed to the short history.
‘Because after all these centuries, my father and I have just changed it - we’ve given it a new ending.’
‘Is that the joining of Craithe to the Isle of Man Crown Dependency, the negotiations you were busy completing last year?’ asked Kim, also speaking in Russian,
‘It is indeed, re-joining Craithe to the Isle of Man to bring it back to the old Viking Empire; so, it’s now part of that Crown Dependency.”
‘And that’s good?’ asked Anastasia.
‘It is indeed,’ he said, ‘like the castle, it gives us extra protection.’
He then let them read down the page through the history: -
Craithe - Chronology & notes:
- 795 to 1266 Viking / Norse West Coast ‘Kingdom of Man & the Isles’. Stretching from the Island of Lewis in the north, included all the Hebridean Islands along with strips of the Mainland south, it ran down as far as and including the Isle of Man. Many years of debilitating fighting and the strain on resources eventually led the Vikings to sell the Kingdom.
- 1266, Treaty of Perth, ‘The Kingdom’ sold by King Magnus V of Norway to King Edward I of England. This kingdom then used by
The Great Hall itself must have been part of the original castle and, in mediaeval times would have been very cold. The walls were now covered a fine, beige coloured harling giving it a strange giant’s sandpaper effect. These were hung about with an assortment of ancient weaponry, stags’ heads, and hanging tapestries with, at regular intervals, poking their heads through all of these, portraits of long departed Macraes. Beneath one of the larger portraits, the label proclaimed that it was of Charles James Stuart, Bonnie Prince Charlie, and the Young Pretender to the Stuart Throne. It was only the sheer size of the hall that allowed for this disparate mass of wall ornament to blend into a pleasing kind of giant montage, so that the overall impression was that it was not even cluttered. Anastasia and Kim continued to walk slowly round peering occasionally at the names below the portraits and Kim wondered what these ancestors would have been like to meet and to talk to.
Angus saw the two of them wandering around together and went over to them.
‘All these weapons and the pictures of all this fighting,’ said Anastasia in Russian.
‘Yes, but it’s always been that way most places in the world hasn’t it?’ he replied, also in Russian. ‘It’s always been easier to take one’s neighbour’s hard earned treasure than go out and earn it oneself – easier to steal from his grain store than grow one’s own.’ She laughed as this brought to mind the Russian tribal wars of over the centuries.
‘And these wars and skirmishes had been happening between the Clans since Viking times’, continued Angus – and he led them both over to a table behind one of the sofas on which sat a large, ancient looking leather-bound book. It was entitled “The Macraes of Craithe, a Family History” – a book of the type many old Scottish families had compiled for themselves. The page size was nearly twice that of a standard glossy magazine and overall was a good nine inches thick, its buff coloured leather smooth and shiny with much handling and beautifully engraved in gold lettering with its title and description.
Angus opened it and went straight to the back of it where there were a number of appendices. He quickly found what he was looking for – a much abbreviated history of Craithe – so abbreviated that it fitted onto one page.
‘You can read English, can you?’ he asked Anastasia, still in Russian, as Kim looked on beside her.
‘Oh yes, top grades at Uni’, she replied in English, ‘why you show me this?’ she added as he pointed to the short history.
‘Because after all these centuries, my father and I have just changed it - we’ve given it a new ending.’
‘Is that the joining of Craithe to the Isle of Man Crown Dependency, the negotiations you were busy completing last year?’ asked Kim, also speaking in Russian,
‘It is indeed, re-joining Craithe to the Isle of Man to bring it back to the old Viking Empire; so, it’s now part of that Crown Dependency.”
‘And that’s good?’ asked Anastasia.
‘It is indeed,’ he said, ‘like the castle, it gives us extra protection.’
He then let them read down the page through the history: -
Craithe - Chronology & notes:
- 795 to 1266 Viking / Norse West Coast ‘Kingdom of Man & the Isles’. Stretching from the Island of Lewis in the north, included all the Hebridean Islands along with strips of the Mainland south, it ran down as far as and including the Isle of Man. Many years of debilitating fighting and the strain on resources eventually led the Vikings to sell the Kingdom.
- 1266, Treaty of Perth, ‘The Kingdom’ sold by King Magnus V of Norway to King Edward I of England. This kingdom then used by
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