A Wild Secluded Scene

Tintern Abbey occupies the peculiar position of being almost better known for its history as a ruin than as a medieval monastic building. During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries it became a tourist attraction, with Turner capturing the ruins in paint and Wordsworth writing his lines a few miles above the Abbey. Yet Tintern was only the second Cistercian foundation in Britain, the first in Wales, and several years earlier than the foundations of what would become the powerful Yorkshire Cistercian houses.

Relaid medieval tiles in the Chapter House.

 

East end of the Church.

 

Tintern Abbey from the east.

 

It is perhaps not quite as impressive to look upon as some ruined abbeys, but for myself its connections to my beloved William Marshal (through patronage and the burial of his wife) and the sighting of some tiles were enough to make my trip to Tintern particularly worthwhile.

Morning Shadows...

With the medieval seeming a whole lot like work at the moment, here’s an opening chapter in the style of a standard Americanised crime/thriller, written with very little actual knowledge of modern day law and order.

Autumn had got a jump on them this year. A few weeks before and the morning light would have already heralded the start of a new day, but now the street lamps had only just begun to wink out and all that was promised were the long and dark nights ahead. She shoved her chilled fingers into the meagre protection of her jacket pockets as her impatient stride ate up the pavement coloured copper by fallen leaves. The brisk walk and cool slap of air were a deliberate choice to cleanse the remnants of the nightmare from which she had been woken. Once the instinctive jolt of fear had ebbed she would be ready to confront death again.

For Detective Isobel Martin violent death was an everyday reality. She had thought after all her years on the job she had seen the worst that human beings could do to one another. Yet there were still depths of evil to be plumbed, as her last case had so savagely reminded her. Her pace hitched slightly as she took a deep breath and forced herself to focus on the new crime scene that lay ahead. Nothing about her appearance betrayed any of the loss in confidence she may have felt. The grey of her eyes remained as impenetrable as the fog that dampened the air. An untidy halo of pale waves framed a strongly angular and determined face. Her slim, athletic form was straight and dignified beneath the plain outfit of cotton and denim. Nodding efficiently she held up her identification and passed beneath the tape.

It was a busy crime scene, despite the early hour. Half the city’s press were already braying on their doorstop intermingled with the crowds of curious and gawping. Death always liked to have an audience. Isobel frowned at the proximity of the crowd, but she could see that the uniforms had done their best to push them back. The out of hours phone call from her captain had been enough to alert her that this case was going to be both sensitive and played out in public. Screens had been erected to preserve the area and she could see the flash of the photographers cataloguing the scene beyond and the crouching shadow of the medical examiner. There were a lot of personnel on site, indicating that she hadn’t been the only one to receive a call. One nameless figure stood frozen and she felt an answering tug of pity and understanding.

“If you’re going spew the contents of your gut Officer, would you kindly do it away from my crime scene and those damned cameras.” She addressed the young man sharply, his uniform she noted still bore the shine of the Academy. He coloured violently, but her words had at least shaken the glazed horror from his youthful eyes.

“Tactful as ever I see.” The familiar amused voice had her fighting to keep the scowl from her face. She turned on an abrupt heel to confront Detective Frederick Thorne. Elegantly masculine in a three-piece suit he was the poster boy for the police department. His dark hair was swept artfully back from a face that smiled all too easily. Suave charm, however, disguised the perceptive intelligence of a good detective.

“What the hell are you doing here?” She didn’t pretend to be anything but annoyed. She’d managed to avoid him for several months. The last time they’d closed a case together there had been far too much alcohol, far fewer clothes and what could only be described as a bolt on her part. It only annoyed her further that the thought now occurred that she wouldn’t mind seeing him naked again.

“I got a call the same as you I imagine. Our murder is politically...delicate, shall we say.” Her eyes narrowed at the implication of his words. Though her tough bluntness was well respected, he had clearly been assigned as her partner for this case because diplomacy was required. “Darling Isobel –”

“Call me that again Thorne and I can promise you that your face won’t end up looking quite as pretty as it does now.” She struggled to contain the instinctive flare of aggression at his soft endearment. Even she was aware that the media would have a field day with a public disagreement between the primary investigators.

“You know there is something undeniably attractive about hot-headed females.” His arrogant smile definitely became more of a smirk and she rolled her eyes.

“Bite me.”

“There is nothing that would give me greater pleasure. Where would you like me to start?” He was left with the last word for her attempt at a fierce retort was cut off by the medical examiner’s efforts to gain their attention.

“Detectives! You’re going to want to see this.”

Smug was the only word to describe Thorne’s expression as he turned away and ambled toward the smartly polished doctor. Isobel did not immediately follow him, taking instead a moment to settle the nerves that had jerked to attention with the medical examiner’s ambiguous statement. The protective gloves remained clenched in her fist, her fingers playing restlessly with the rubber until it split. Murder was never clean, but there were some scenes that were worse than others. The mutilations from her previous case were still fresh enough in her mind to disrupt her sleep and trigger waves of clammy nausea. A shrink would undoubtedly tell her to take some time out, but work helped to push the lingering fear aside. Reaching for control now she allowed herself a pause to finish observing her surroundings.

Extra attentive in order to justify her lapse she saw something that had originally been overlooked. The face towards the back of the crowd was neither shocked nor curious. It was pale and anxious with a sheen of sweat and a knowing look in the eye. Instinct told her that he wasn’t the perpetrator of the crime, but he was probably a witness. Edging away, she made her approach stealthy and casual in order not to spook him. The sudden loud hail from a uniform made her wince. Her gaze met and held the panicked wide eyes of the suspect. He ran as if someone had sounded a starting gun.

“Shit.” She muttered with frustration before breaking off in swift pursuit.

The man was nimble, she gave him that. He weaved a route through the crowd and then amongst stationary cars before nipping down a back alley and shoving over a garbage bin to disrupt her path. Essentially she was fitter and faster than him, but the obstacles presented by city streets and deserted buildings only increased the likelihood of his escape.

A door was slammed shut in her face and the impact of her booted foot on the lock made little impression. Racing for the stairs she hurdled two or three at a time until she reached an exit. Bursting out onto a fire escape her eyes tracked the man’s course calculating that the delay had almost definitely cost her a witness. Undeterred she continued to charge full pelt down the rickety metal structure. Surprised she watched as her quarry halted mid flight and began to move back toward her. Confusion turned to irritation as she realised that Thorne had also pursued and now blocked the man’s exit. Seizing the opportunity, however, she leapt from the final platform and tackled the suspect to the ground. They both bounced and tumbled on the hard concrete and she grimaced as her knee took the brunt of the fall. The man struggled beneath her, lashing out with hands like claws. Exasperated she clipped him in the jaw with a solid fist.

“You crazy cop bitch.” He spat around a fat lip, his earlier anxiety melting beneath anger and the heat of pain. Isobel examined the rip in her jeans and the drops of his blood that now patterned her shirt. For the first time that morning she felt her spirits rise.

“That’s Detective Bitch to you, asshole.”

The Challenge...

In a quiet lull at work, on the back of a discarded till receipt, I set myself a challenge – to write a little scene before the next customer appeared . Making allowances for finishing abruptly mid-sentence and a little polishing after the fact, here is the result...

The first strokes of night-time brushed lazily across the wide canvas of sky. The palest hue of clear blue, only to be seen at the very extremities of a day, darkened progressively to indigo.  The trees and hedgerows marking the boundary between her and the horizon appeared like shadow puppets, merely childish imitations of the true grandeur of nature. Punctuating the peacefulness of the slumbering countryside were whispered reminders of civilisation. Power cables stood tall like artificial trees interwoven across the landscape with their leafy counterparts. Lights waved and beckoned from far off places, tiny pinpricks like luminescent insects scurrying amongst dense foliage. Fences and walls criss-crossed one another until the land became a patchwork, earth broken into territories and generating neighbours. Resting her forehead against the coolness of the window, she allowed the murmuring vibrations of the moving train to rock her gently. She watched attentively as the images slipped by, as they merged and changed, and until the window framed an entirely new scene.

One Question...

An attempt at futuristic fantasy, perhaps unfitting for the nature of this blog, but simply because I hadn’t tried it before.
 
There was a small moth branded on the long curve of her neck. Even in the cavernous half-light its shimmering colour snared his attention. Its wings appeared to beat against her neck, fluttering lightly against her skin, just where a man’s mouth might like to caress. His opponent’s fist cracking against the right side of his face brought his focus back to the makeshift arena. Captain Alec Fisher coughed roughly, blood splattering with saliva across the beaten earth floor. He swept his tongue across his teeth to check for damage, whilst smearing the blood dribbling from his nose with the back of a hand. He smirked arrogantly at his opponent as if he had allowed the man a free punch, even though his cracked lip smarted at the movement and internally his irritation simmered.
 
She had, he was certain, used her augmented pheromones deliberately to divert his attention from the fight, though her ultimate objective remained unclear. There was amusement and challenge in her disconcerting bicoloured eyes as she circled the outside of the crowd like a predator. A stunner was strapped to her hip, which marked her out from the rest of the spectators who had been disarmed at the door. The moth-woman must work for the Spymaster. Resolutely he turned his mind and concentration back to defeating his opponent. He had a lot riding on the outcome of this fight.
 
The Spymaster held several fights like these every day in deserted warehouses and unused basements across the city. They were a means of whittling down the amount of supplicants brought to his door. The winner gained an audience and the opportunity to ask a single question. It was a rich prize. The Spymaster had in the past decade accrued an encyclopaedic knowledge of all that went on in the city and its environs. He was, undoubtedly, a criminal but there was nobody with enough power or influence to take him down. Alec, as an enforcer of the law, knew this firsthand. He had no ambition of entrapping the Spymaster; instead he was, like his opponent, simply fighting for the right to ask one question. He wanted the name of his suspect and he wanted it desperately enough to work outside the law to get it. Sometimes, he reasoned, you were forced to sup with the devil.
 
Military enhanced and trained before becoming an enforcer, Alec had immediately sized up his opponent and catalogued his weaknesses. They had been wrestling for some minutes, each getting in a few shots and keeping the burgeoning crowd entertained. Now, however, pissed off with the moth-woman’s tricks he stopped feigning difficulty. Knocking aside his opponent’s hand, Alec held onto his wrist and pivoted sharply, dislocating a weakened shoulder. Seizing advantage of the shriek of pain and instinctual grab for the injury he wrapped his arm about the man’s windpipe. It would have been easy enough to snap his neck, but he felt no real desire to kill his opponent. Alec had not anticipated that the man would knock them both backwards. As they tripped, legs entangling, he rolled with the momentum of the fall until he landed on top. Beneath him the man’s legs jerked and kicked as Alec reapplied the suffocating pressure to his throat. His eyes rolled back and he flopped into unconsciousness.
 
His body slick with sweat and muscles shaking from the adrenalin, Alec eased carefully back. He had barely regained his equanimity before a pair of shapely ankles appeared in his line of sight.

“Congratulations. The Spymaster will see you now.” It was the moth-woman, her speech direct and uncluttered. “Follow me.”

“I want my stuff back first.”

“After. The Spymaster does not like to be kept waiting.” The hint of annoyance underlying her command felt like a victory. Alec got to his feet lazily, using his size to unconsciously intimidate as he did during interrogations. He felt sure that he could have spanned her waist with the mere circle made by his two hands. She did not, however, appear fazed. Sexual awareness sparked as she slowly traced her gaze from the brazen masculinity of his bare chest to the trousers that rode low on his hips. His belt, amongst other items of clothing and possessions, had been confiscated. He had assumed it was to prevent the use of these objects as weapons during the fight, but now he wondered if there were ulterior motives.

The moth-woman had already turned away, weaving through the crowd, obviously expecting him to follow her with no further debate. Scowling he pursued, stupidly and painfully conscious of his bare, defenceless feet. The ebony of her hair took on a sheen of electric blue as the light around them began to subtly change. He had not had the opportunity to study her fully in the shadows of the basement, and as they reached ground level the strength of the daylight caused his eyes to crease, keeping her features indistinct. He would not be able to scan for her identity in the future. They left the building promptly and she strode business-like toward an unmarked transport shuttle with specially darkened windows.

“I hope you have your question ready, Captain.” His shoulders tensed at the use of his title, but he was not overly surprised that the Spymaster should know who he was. “Remember this is your only chance. One question, one answer.” She stopped before the passenger door, indicating that he was to go in alone. “Don’t waste it.”

Monks & Vampires

Triforium level at the east end of Whitby Abbey.

 

View of Whitby Abbey.

 

Detail from the north transept of Whitby Abbey.