Tribune Today Dec 30th 2038

My first two days in Loxley have gone well, I am feeling a little more relaxed now that I am assembling lots of notes that are helping me paint a picture of what life is like here. So far the people have been very polite and friendly towards me, although there is a part of me that feels a little bit like an outsider. My efforts to paint a true and accurate picture of Lord Loxley are difficult, there is a very strong loyalty towards him, and my natural instinct to push for the revealing questions have slightly wrong footed me.

Day Three. December 18^th 2038.

It has been snowing all night, and this morning when I woke, Loxley has been transformed into a landscape of bliss and wonder. Within minutes of waking I am given some news that I have been waiting for, my guide has received word from the Stockade leader Robert Lox that he has accepted my request for an interview, and he is more than happy to meet with me and talk at the farm.
I am worried and happy at the same time, because Robert Lox is one of the most respected people in the area, and he has shown me that Loxley is run with great pride and expertise. I honestly did not expect a meeting with him, and so in the couple of hours I have to wait, I try very hard to put together a plan of questions to put to him.
I arrive having ridden up in a cart, as the snow is very deep and there are already teams on most of the roads shovelling the snow to clear all the paths. I am shown in through the old oak panelled door at the front of the house by a young woman, she smiles politely introducing herself as Judith, and I follow her a few paces to a door on the left, where she taps gently and then opens the door. Her blue eyes twinkle with kindness as she shows me in, her long curly hair hanging round her shoulders. I take a step into the room and come face to face with the tall stocky figure of Robert Jake Loxley, land owner and head of the Lox household. I must admit that I feel a little more than nervous as I take his hand in a firm hand shake, and Judith closes the door leaving us alone in the room.
This is obviously Robert’s study, and he leads me to a chair in front of a large ornate and heavily carved mahogany desk. I sit allowing him to do all the talking as he comments on the weather, and moves to his own seat behind the desk. Around me the walls are filled with cabinets and bookcases, there is a large a varied amount of old silver items, one of which is a silver stag, and there is a wide array of cars and shields from bygone days. The rest of the room is filled with an extensive library, and I must admit I feel very envious of him for owning such a wonderful collection of factual and classic fiction. It takes a few minutes of small talk about his books and how I have enjoyed my trip, before I take my pencil and paper to make notes, Robert sits back in his chair framed in the large bay window, where the snow still falls outside, and so begin my questions, of which I drop all my chosen lists and decide to play it by ear.
You have a very lovely home, and I believe it has been in the hands of the Lox family for many generations. He gives a nod, his deep voice almost casual.
“Aye, we go back some, we have a family tree dating back into the late ninth century, guess we were here long before a great many others, although back then we were foresters not farmers. We have had a few moments in the past where we came close to losing the place, but somehow the family always found a way of hanging on to it.”
So you own all of the land within the wall?
He eyes me with his dark brown eyes, I feel he is taking the measure of me, as he sits looking very relaxed in his chair, his long brown pony tail just hanging off the top of his right shoulder and leaning on the back of his chair.
“We own more than what is within the walls, a lot of what is on the outside has been in the family for a few hundred years now, my dad farmed most of it, but when the Red Death came he knew it would get tough, and so marked out what you see today behind the wood.”
You have opened all of it up to any who wanted to come, there are some who think it is a strange thing to do, and far more who have praised you for it, what was it that made you take in so many under your protection? Robert rubs his chin for a second and his dark eyes fix on me, and he smiles.
“Well that is something I do not really deserve, it was my dad who thought this place should shelter others, he started to build the wall and when he died I just carried on his wishes. I suppose in his mind it was the Lox way, and it just seemed a natural thing to do.”
So the Loxley family have sheltered others before your father? He shrugs looking a little unsure.
“I think so, my father often said it was what we have always done, and so I just naturally did the same.”
I find it surprising considering the size and scale of Loxley today. So you never expected to be the centre of the Woodland Realm and the biggest defender of its people? He shakes his head,
“To be honest my dad was just trying to help people who had lost their homes and needed a refuge, the years after the Red Death were hard on a lot of folk and we had ample because we farmed, I don’t think anyone really thought we would come to this, as for defending the realm, I am wolfs head of the Fellowship, that is and has always been my duty.”
I note the slight change in his tone and I am not sure if he appreciates my question, but he is a hard man to read and so I continue as tactfully as possible. Are you aware that there are those who think by building a wooden township like this, that you attracted the attention of Mason Knox, and some even think that had you not built it, then the people in these parts would not have faced the perils they have?
Robert slumps back a bit in his chair and rubs his hands together as he thinks for a minute; his response is slow and thoughtful. “If you are asking me have I brought all of this on myself and have I endangered the lives of others I would have say no I have not. I would say that if my dad had not begun the wall, then yes there would be little here to interfere with the Knox family, as they move north raping and killing everything in their bid to attack York.” He sits up and leans on the desk, his broad shoulders fill up most of the view out of the window. “I reckon Mason has targeted everywhere that has a tight knit community, Loxley is just another on his list, and to be really honest, I think Mason thought he could just walk up and burn this place down, but I have no doubt whatsoever that he intended to attack and destroy everything that stood in his way. He has attacked London, Dover, Bristol, Gloucester, Newcastle, Edinburgh, Hull, Scarborough, and Aberdeen. In some of those places he has faced resistance, in others they fell the moment he arrived with his army Most of the east coast is his, and I think it is his plan to sweep across the country until it is all his, there is no coincidence in the pattern he has followed, he just did not expect the Fellowship to face him.”
Do you think he really wants to rule the country so badly? Robert nods his head.
“Oh aye, he wants a little bit more than that, I think he wants to own it. If you ask me I would say he got wind of things a long time before they happened, and I think he planned a lot of it in secret ready for the day the country fell.”
I really am not sure how to take that, it shocks me, and I cannot see how anyone could have predicted the Read Death and the fall of the country, but there is a certain confidence and sincerity to Robert, and I cannot help but smirk a little at the thought of Mason Knox planning such an elaborate scheme. I am sorry Robert, I really do mean no offence, but how could anyone possibly think that? Robert again lifts himself back in his chair with a slight twinkle to his eye.
“What you think that others didn’t know what was coming?” I am momentarily lost for words as I stumble a little trying to think on my feet, Robert cuts me off before I can speak. “The signs have always been there. If you look in the right places there has always been a record of the past and hints to the future. The problem was mankind got too big for his boots and thought he knew better. In the later days of the old modern ways, most of us were too busy filling our pockets and trusting to science and the corrupt who told us how to live, a lot of people forgot their roots and where they had descended from, and in doing so they signed their own death warrants. The signs were there and getting stronger, but mankind chose to ignore all of them, it was the few who were paying attention that read it right and made preparations, and thank Hearne for folks like my old dad, because it was his breed that saved a hell of a lot who would have died had he not been ready for it.”
As much as I would like to disagree, Robert makes some sense, and there are tales of men all over the country, especially in the rural areas who just stepped up to the mark when the end came, and they are all now local heroes in the regions that they live in. As for the prophecies of old, I am still not sure that they were meant for this time, although in the case of the return of the Hooded Man, I can see how they would be perceived as being right by many. Its a point I take up with Robert. You say it was predicted and seen, and it is your son that has come forward as the Hooded Man returned, but do you really believe it is because of a prediction from hundreds of years ago, or just that it fitted in very nicely with the mantra of the Fellowship of the Bowman?
I am a little worried, after all Robert is a very high standing member of what has been a very secret society for hundreds of years, I have to admit having attended for many years, I stopped going ten years ago as a great deal of it did not follow a logical order for me. Robert’s response surprises me as he bursts into laughter and slaps the desk hard; I feel the vibration through the floor.
“I will give one thing lad, you have some nerve coming in here the house of a fellowship Wolf head, and telling me we were lucky buggers who got our timing right. You mark my words, laugh and doubt me as much as you want, I am telling you as the leader of this community, it aint no bloody coincidence that all the towns and villages with Fellowships that were strong survived, and looking at my past, I am telling you straight, the blood of a Lox runs with wolves heads. When that bloody silver lion on a chain came to my son, I knew dam well he would make a stand against my better judgement, and he would do things none of us would dare to do, you tell me honestly he is not the Hooded Man returned when he took a couple a boats and blew the hell out of Mason’s home in Tintagel, because I tell you what, there is no bloody way I would ever have tried it.”
I was a little shocked at his reaction, but also grateful, Robert continued to chuckle as he watched me, and I think he understood that I wanted the truth, and as a reporter I was digging deep to find it, he sat back and gave me a shrewd sort of look and spoke. “Listen to me… when my old dad, who I have to admit I didn’t believe everything he told me as a boy, was close to death, I sat with him for days and talked. He told me all sorts of things about the olden days and past events in the family, and he told me he had written a journal everyday of his life, he insisted I read it after he was gone. When he died I was devastated, because he was always one of the good guys in my eyes, and I was terrified about taking on all he started. I went looking for his journal, but it was a trick see, because when I found it, I saw that he had written his instructions of how to do everything down for me, I loved him more for that, but in between the lines he added little pearls of wisdom that made more sense as I got older, and so I will tell you some of them I think it might do whoever reads this some good, and so on his behalf I will share a few.”
Jake Loxley has a great reputation, even my father had heard of him, and so I was very interested in hearing some of the things he had to share. Robert stared at the desk for a moment and then looked me right in the eyes.
“If my old dad was here now, he would say to you, if we could explain everything, then we would no longer have a purpose, and if everything made sense, we would all die of boredom. Man is inherently arrogant, which is why everything he builds eventually decays. If we have nothing to believe in as spiritual beings, then man will fail and the earth will look to some other form of life. I must admit not everything made sense to me at first, but over time and with age, I have begun to understand more and more. I remember he once said to me that to forget the past was the greatest injustice we could pay to our ancestors, and the biggest mistake we could make for our future. It makes a lot of sense to me today, but today I have lived through a disaster that almost wiped all of us out. Think about this, he once said to me that the last time we really connected as a race, was when we were true to ourselves and true to the land we live on. I was just a young lad at the time and it made no sense at all, he laughed at me and told me to look at the trees and I would understand. The daft thing is my boy understands that already, and yet it is something I have never shared with him.”
I thought about it for a few minutes as Robert watched me, and then I shook my head. I think I will need to really sit and think about that, its not that clear. He gave a chuckle.
“Aye it took me almost a lifetime to work it out… I think what he meant was that trees grow and survive everything because they live in a perfect balance with their natural surroundings, and once we lived in a similar way. There was a time when all over the world, and I am going back thousands of years, that just about everyone followed the principles of nature based ways of life and worship. I find it no coincidence that in those times men with their bare hands built things that still stand on the landscape today. Be it a pyramid, temple or circle of stones, it does not really matter, for the times they were feats of engineering that even in the era of modern man we did not truly understand how or why they did it. But what is important is that like the tree they have survived everything, and are still around today, tell me honestly what is still standing from the last days of Modern Man?”
I thought for a second… Well what about the cathedrals, they are pretty much still intact. He gave a nod.
“Yeah, but they were not built in the last days were they? They were all a few hundred years old before the red death came, just consider what my old dad meant, nothing that was built using all the very latest technology and engineering methods remains today from 1900 right through 2012, nothing at all has lasted, it all fell into the earth and was erased forever. That was his point, man had evolved to a point where he thought he knew everything and he believed in nothing, and to get back to where I began, that is the type of man I face today as an enemy. All the Knox and their Empire represent everything that was wrong about the direction mankind had chosen, and as soon as I understood that, then I knew my son was right to lift up his hood and take the fight to the doorstep of Knox, I respect your opinion, but no one will ever convince me that my son is not the Hooded Man returned.”
It left me speechless, I had tried to undermine Robert Lox, and I did insult his beliefs, and I freely admit I was wrong to do so. Robert made me think really deeply and since leaving Loxley, I have thought more and more of my conversation with him. It lasted for most of the day, and I will continue tomorrow with more about Robert and his family, but until that time I will simply leave you with the words of Robert above and let you decide what old Jake Loxley meant.