Au Revoir

When you visit a place, for however brief a moment, you take stock of your surroundings. Whether it be admiring the architecture, soaking in the atmosphere, or enjoying the scenery. But when you live in a place these things become merely the backdrop to mundane day-to-day goings on.

For the last four years I’ve been lucky enough to have Canterbury as the setting to my insignificant life dramas. As I pack up my belongings ready to leave I wonder what has changed. When did I stop gazing at the Cathedral in awe every time I walked by, when did my feet begin to navigate between the irritating blockade of tourists. I realise that though the buildings might have stayed the same, my affection and appreciation remaining constant, ultimately it is I who has been changed by my time here.

View of the Cathedral

Westgate

Castle

Canterbury Cathedral

St Augustine's Abbey

Fragments And Broken Dreams...

This past week I have been sorting through the scraps of paper that seem to perpetually appear out of nowhere and congregate on my desk. Buried amongst the long forgotten library lists and discarded train tickets are tiny pieces of past ideas. Even though they didn’t come up to scratch first time around it still seemed a nice idea to gather them together, for posterity’s sake if nothing else.

She held her father’s surcoat close, her fingers playing absentmindedly with the burnt and frayed ends of the fine material.  His image was faded around the edges now, his features a little more blurred, his figure slightly further away in the distance. Broken memories left her with only an old, empty surcoat to hold.

*

So he calls me cold. Well he certainly wasn’t saying that back then when my hand ran up his thigh and he murmured incoherently into my neck. Looking back I suppose there was always a bitterness to our relationship. But then things always have that funny way of seeming so different now, don’t they? It’s not like we didn’t know what to expect. Even I couldn’t have imagined though how he would have turned against me at the end.

*

“Excuse me, I’m looking for Freddie.” The question was addressed to somewhere between her knee and ankle. With a barely concealed sigh of annoyance she looked down from her lofty height upon the ladder. An impatient movement caused a branch to sway dramatically and shed water-heavy blossom onto the ground, and onto the elegant suit of the waiting man. The casual flick of a hand sent the petals careening to the grass to finish their journey. She bridled inwardly at the carless gesture and turned resolutely back to the tree with the loppers.

“Well you found her.” She muttered to the thick trunk.

“I beg your pardon?” He asked, wondering if the woman had misunderstood his question. If he had not still been feeling the effects of jetlag he would perhaps have made a better attempt at politeness. Instead he merely reiterated tiredly.

“I’m looking for Freddie. He’s the head gardener apparently.” The woman turned gesturing towards herself with the loppers.

“As I said. I’m Freddie. And yes I’m the head gardener. What do you want?” She demanded with a frown.

*

The summer storm which brewed that humid night was of little consequence to the man who lay still, his eyes fixed sightlessly on the lightening filled sky.

*

The tear rolled down her cheek, but she didn’t move to catch it. She let it dry on her skin in the warmth of the night air, her body stiff and tense as she watched her slumbering husband. His features were lax in sleep, his mouth slightly open as he blew gurgling bubbles, hardly the image of a rich and dangerous mercenary feared for miles around. Lying sprawled on his front with not even a stitch to cover his modesty she realised that he would never be as vulnerable as he was now. Her hand itched for the thin blade concealed amongst her carefully folded gowns. Imagining him gutted, his blood running between her fingers, caused her tears to cease. Of course she knew she couldn’t do it. She had sacrificed too much already to give up now, but the thrill of the power she momentarily held over him was a sharp bite of pleasure.

*

The tear started small. A quiet huff of breath, a shudder and a splash. But its ripples expanded until the entire bowl of water trembled with her emotion, the waves threatening to submerge her under the swell of sensation.

*

It matched! Flushed with success she slumped back into the unyielding leather chair and attempted to control the spark of excitement which caused her hand to shake. Her loud exclamatory breath had caused several stern pairs of eyes to turn her way. She sent nervous fingers brushing through her fringe before locking her gaze once more on the manuscript before her. It was true. And she had found it. Not even a hundred glaring librarians could contain the little rock of joy that creaked the chair beneath her.

*

“Girls can’t be knights stupid.” This was announced with all the disdain an eleven year old boy, weeks away from becoming a squire, could muster.

*

Sir Godfrey Pulford was dead. Isabel Woodville regarded the body slumped over her table with dismay. Death had not come easily to Sir Godfrey. The abject fear felt at the moment of death was captured in his unblinking pale blue stare. His coarse hands were stretched out across the table, and his fingernails had scored panicked marks in the wooden surface. Isabel stumbled across the threshold of the room towards the body. Sir Godfrey had been in his fifties, and the battle hardened body of his youth had run to fat. His once handsome features had bloated with the effect of regular over indulgence in good wine. It was this weakness that had eventually killed him.

Isabel’s sharp green eyes had taken in the goblet that had been knocked to the floor and spilt its contents over the rushes. She knelt carefully, picked up the goblet and sniffed. She then knew with certainty that it was not a brew that she had served at her table the previous evening. She rose and hesitatingly moved towards the body. Isabel swallowed her disgust and examined Sir Godfrey’s mouth. It, like his eyes, was wide open and she could clearly see tiny red blisters around his lips and inside his mouth. There could be no doubt that Sir Godfrey had been poisoned.

Chapter And Verse

The Chapter House is inexplicably my favourite room within the medieval abbey. Its name derived from its use – the room in which a chapter from the Rule of St Benedict was read each day to the whole monastic community. It was also the room in which daily business was completed, whether it be disciplinary or involving the monastic estates.

The Chapter House is always an intriguing mixture of functionality and superfluous decoration. It was a room that played an important role in the day-to-day running of an abbey, and so was required to have a practical arrangement of seating around the perimeter. Yet it was also, after the church, the most important symbol of the monastic life and thus was often expensively and lavishly decorated with architectural features.

York Minster Chapter House exterior

The octagonal-shaped Chapter House at York Minster was completed by 1286. It is lit by huge stained glass windows and the tiled floor is a mid nineteenth-century installation. There is unusually no central column for the vaulted ceiling; instead the weight is suspended from the exterior dome.

York Minster Chapter House interior

There are forty-four seats surrounding the room where elected canons sat. It was also used by Edward I and Edward II as their parliament during the campaigns against Scotland in the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries.

Tiled Pavement

For me, however, it is the extensive carvings amongst the canopies of these seats which give this room its character. From wild pigs seated on the heads of kings, to green men, and eagles gouging out the eyes of a gossiping woman, there is something wonderful to be found in every corner of this very special Chapter House.

Wild Pig

Eye-gouging

Face-puller

Fifty Shades Of Darkness IV...

She did not back down or look as frightened as Harker felt she ought. But then, he had to remind himself, she was not like the average females of his acquaintance.

“What is it that makes me think that you speak from experience?” The intensity of her stare made him feel like he was being pried apart by one of his sharply honed instruments. “You crossed that line once, didn’t you? And you’re regretting it now. That’s why you’re here. That’s why you do all this.” She flapped her free hand vaguely to encompass the street behind them.

Harker met the shocked and probing gaze of the sheriff over Kathryn’s shoulder. Sharply he let go of her wrist. It was the wrong thing to do. Triumph flashed across her face, curving her lips dangerously. Uneasily he could not suppress the feeling that she now possessed information about him that she would exploit to her own advantage in the future.

“We will not be able to investigate Emma’s murder if you interfere.” Rowntree said, saving his friend from further uncomfortable revelations. There was a gradual softening of her features as her eyes flicked to where two soldiers were covering the sad remains of the girl she had cherished as a younger sister.

“Very well. I will not try to involve myself in your investigation.” Her easy capitulation caused Harker to question suspiciously the careful phrasing of her reply. Rowntree was also frowning, but suddenly he was hailed by one of his sergeants who was hurriedly crossing the street towards them.

“Sheriff Rowntree, sir. It’s Master Goldsmith, he -” The sheriff broke him off with the wave of his hand. Harker realised that his friend’s natural mistrust of Kathryn had simply been heightened by her personal interest in the case.

The sheriff stepped out of earshot, though Kathryn’s gaze continued to track his movements as the solider relayed the message. She seemed entirely absorbed in the scene and so her seemingly idle words startled Harker.

“I would watch my back if I were you.”

“Are you threatening me?” As he stepped forward aggressively she leant back, their movements a well timed dance.

“Tut tut.” She mocked, a few wisps of hair escaping as she tossed her head. “It is not me that you need to be concerned with, but the man who is making enquiries about you. I’m merely suggesting that you take a few extra precautions.”

“Who is he? What does he want?” Harker demanded roughly, fighting the urge to physically wring the information out of Kathryn.

“He has only the one agenda.” She answered cryptically. “When you are in need of help, come to me.”

“And why should I trust you?”

“You shouldn’t.” She acknowledged. “But my house is a place of refuge for those who are seeking to escape their past.”

Despite his advantage in height and strength she made him feel strangely impotent. He found his rigidly disciplined self-control tested by her presence. Her enigmatic words and smiles challenged him, whilst he felt constantly wrong-footed by her detailed knowledge of him.

“I don’t like games Mistress Lacy.”

It was only as the sheriff nodded a last instruction to the sergeant that Kathryn finally turned her full attention to the surgeon.

“That is only because you’ve never played mine before.” There was something almost licentious in the way she had twisted his words. Those peculiar pale eyes and changeling face made her decidedly unattractive and yet curiously compelling. Disturbed by his response to her, he made only a non-committal reply, uncertain once more of her exact meaning.

He was struggling to retain his typical cool demeanour when, without even a word of farewell, she simply strolled away. There was a coquettish sway to her hips that he found himself unintentionally watching for half a moment. Eventually he caught himself and turned to face the exasperated disapproval of his friend.

“Did she tell you anything useful?”

“No.” He said shortly, unwilling to divulge just how thoroughly the exchange had shaken him and how close he was to losing everything he had worked for.