Ruins...

Yorkshire, 1165

Horse and rider crested the hill, casting a stark silhouette against the pale haze of sky. The morning mist curled undecidedly in the valley below them. The lightest touch of breeze would scatter the damp wisps, but the dawn offered only chill stillness. Shrouded in this half-light the ruin would have remained hidden from a casual observer, but the rider’s appearance was far from mere chance. Every column and every corbel of that place was indelibly carved upon his memory.

The horse tossed its head with an abrupt whinny, stamping its feet restlessly as the rider’s agitation communicated itself to the beast. With great deliberation John Archer unfurled the fists which had tightened about the reins. Even now the ghosts of this place had the wherewithal to insidiously reach beneath the surface of his composure.  Impatiently he dashed the cool clamminess from his forehead with a soiled sleeve, refusing to show the wraiths of his past any further weakness.

He paused, admiring the once familiar landscape distrustfully and noting the changes wrought by the passing of seasons. He knew himself to be equally altered. Any youthful softness had been tempered and hardened like iron in the two decades since he had fled this land. He had travelled to the edges of the civilised world only to discover that it was not so easy to elude the questions which remained unanswered. It was for this reason that he had returned. He would seek the truth, no matter the cost, in order to finally extinguish the demons of that night.

A flutter of wind stirred against his cheek allowing him finally to perceive the catalyst for his pilgrimage with the clarity of fresh observance, rather than that of childish remembrances. The ruin had left its sprawling footprint embedded upon the land. The ground was uneven where nature had begun to consume the foundations of a once great architectural achievement. Here and there walls stretched upwards in past glory, only to be terminated by crumbling decay. Everything of value had been stripped by the monks for their new house, leaving the pathetic empty shell to the mercy of local scavengers.

John felt a stab of unexpected pity for the fate of the once proud building. He could remember his own awe at the first glimpse of his new home as an oblate of barely seven years old. He had been given to the Benedictines so that they could fashion him into an educated clerk, in order to be of future use to his wealthy half-brothers. The monks had been well recompensed for their schooling of a bastard child by the lands his father had granted them. When circumstances forced him to flee from the monastery he had not even considered returning to his family. United in blood he had always felt they shared few other bonds. Instead the bow slung with careless ease over one shoulder and the name by which he had chosen to identify himself were indications of the alternative life he had forged.

It was, however, time to leave this place. He sent one last lingering glance towards the ruins, recognising the sadness and emptiness which echoed in the deserted valley. He had needed to confront the monster that his memories had created from the ashes of that night, but he knew now that he would not find the answers he sought here. Wheeling his horse around he spurred them southwards, in pursuit of the one man who knew the truth.