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‘There’s a contract. I’m being paid expenses. In any case, I never said it was a job; it’s not a holiday either. When are you coming home on leave?’ The conversation limped on after that into safer territory.
Regretting how easily Richard had kicked my confidence, I strode up to the ticket kiosk and flashed the English Heritage membership card.
My preferred company came in the form of sturdy bedrock, colourful stone, swaying grass, open azure skies, the cresting waves and squawking seagulls - and what I conjured to accompany it. What would it be this time? An archery competition, a mock sword fight, the beating of weapons into shape or the smell of hot metal from the blacksmith’s forge? A burst of energy propelled me onwards, as did the wind, which harried me from all directions.
I wasn’t the only creature in need of shelter. Perched on the cliffs below the castle was a flock of pigeons. I focused the zoom lens on one and spotted the leg ring. Racing pigeons. Poor things. Where were they bound? Was this a regular stopover point? Somewhere, somebody was waiting for them to come home. I tried not think of my parents, my bedroom, the comfort of familiarity.
A gust grabbed my camera strap and whipped it across my face. I decided it was an appropriate time to have lunch and ducked behind a wall. I hunkered down on my bottom, my knees tucked up to my chin. A shadow crossed the grassy expanse and reached my toes. The sun was fighting a losing battle.
The half-eaten sandwich was returned to its wrapper, my appetite gone in an instant. I slowly unwound a tangle of messy thoughts, allowing them to coalesce into a single stream of conscious self-awareness. I stilled every inch of my body, ignored the calls of the seagulls and the rustling of long grass. With nobody nearby, I was in an ideal situation to drift into a dreamscape and let it develop. I closed my eyes.
There was no “sight” of anything. Not even a smell. I heard a blast, a noisy wail that wasn’t human, or animal.
A horn. Then it came, an instant dull ache behind the eyes. A buzz of tingles shot across my scalp from nape to temples, while another flurry of electricity spiralled around my ankles. Something bright startled me. A bolt of lightning flashed and yet the sky was clear of thunder clouds. The static prickled more harshly and I nearly opened my eyes. What came to me wasn’t a crowd of people, the familiar scene of castle life lifted from an illustration. Instead, the grass parted, shifting open like a gaping mouth, and from out it, something emerged.
He rose above me, out of the ground, and seemed to be part of the silvery sky. The figure of a man, vast and ancient in his armour. I went with him.
He sees something amongst the flashes of lightning, and thunderous rainfall. A high cliff. But he isn’t up at the top where the gatehouse is barred to him, but below, by a pitch-black cave entrance. The wind howls painfully in his ear, yet, inside the cavern it is quiet, and brighter. A swirl of light on the tip of a staff draws him in, along slippery staircases and dank corridors, until he rises up into the castle itself. There in the murky darkness, a wizened faced man, his guide, points beyond the sleeping army of knights and horses to the centre of the scene.
On a crystal plinth of carved snakes and skeletons lies a beautiful woman, and a horn. He must awaken her. But with a steely sword or the horn? He chooses the horn, lifting it to his lips, he blows.
The knights wake, roaring and angry, charging toward him with brandished weapons and…
A seagull squawked right by my ear. The dream crashed out of my mind leaving a vacant hole. The last image I saw was the man’s gauntlet clutching the curved horn.
I groaned with disappointment. It had the makings of a good tale, one that I thought would lead me to this very spot where I sat. An armoured knight seeking shelter in a storm, a secret cave, some kind of Merlin-like creature, a dazzling woman, and that horn blasting. Adding to my frustration, the gull had stolen my sandwich.
There was no mention of this particular legend in Braithwaite’s archaic guide, and if anyone liked an eccentric tale, it was him. I had no clue as to what I had witnessed in my mind, and why the imagery was filled with fantastical symbols and devices when usually I stuck fast to historical depictions. Apparently the ghostly Pink Lady at Bamburgh wasn’t a unique experience; myths were occupying my subconscious. However, for now, the spellbinding moment of escapism had ended and pondering over its meaning wasn’t productive.
With my pulse calmed, I gathered up my things and continued to circle the outer walls. The wind, which had seemed unbearably harsh, had dropped, and the sun hopped out from behind the clouds to warm my brow. I fished out a hat and covered my head.
Medici had wanted shots of the gatehouse from both sides, within and outside. From inside the walls, the arched doorway was in a gully and only just visible, and the grounds of the castle rose higher than the door. I set up the tripod, aligned the viewfinder with the apex of the archway, and widened the shot to include the sea in the background. Medici had described the gatehouse in an earlier email; his exact wording was, “seek out the underbelly of the gatehouse’s D shape”. What a strange guy he was.
Job done, I folded the tripod legs and packed the camera away. Whatever Medici was searching for in these photographs, it wasn’t anything related to the waking dream I’d experienced. He maintained a forthright interest in architecture, and nothing else. While I yearned to understand the meaning behind my slippages into the past, he was happily critiquing the builders’ designs. Perhaps that was why I had never studied history formally. Factual analysis wasn’t my thing. Given today’s experience, paranormal would have been a better choice.
Avoiding a repeat of my overnight stay with Meg, I took a room at a hastily booked roadside hotel, which was on route to Warkworth Castle. I slept fine, except for the blasted phantom horn, which woke me up a few times, and, although I couldn’t recall the night-time dreams, I felt sure I was reliving that vision in the cave.
In the morning, I sent a text to Yvette and asked her to research Dunstanburgh’s legends.
Eleven
The artist was relieved to be almost back on schedule. He had returned having avoided the rainy days. As before he had packed light, not bothering with the unnecessary things like razors and shower gel, just a bar of soap and a tin opener. He missed his studio. He wasn’t missing juvenile students with their limited attention spans.
He easily persuaded the lady in the ticket office to let him back into Warkworth Castle without paying; he adopted a well-practised charm when needed. She was a different person to the previous day, but fortunately, he still had the ticket receipt in his jacket, and having produced it, he explained why he needed access to the grounds.
He walked straight to a spot a little distance from the angular keep, circled the area, kicking up the tufts of grass with the point of his shoe. It had probably slipped out of his pocket when he had bent to dip his brush in the water pot. He hadn’t expected to care that much; it wasn’t as if somebody important had given it to him. But it mattered; he had kept it in his possession for a long time.
The sun glinted on something. Crouching, he hunted with his fingers. The object was wet with early morning dew. He wiped it on his jeans, ran his fingernail along the ridge and teased the blade out. He flashed it briefly, admiring the shimmer of cold metal. Snapping the blade back into the handle, he stuffed the penknife deep in his pocket.
Carrying a knife was purely habit, a hangover of his youth. His father had probably suspected he carried, but had said nothing. Better knives than drugs, he would have thought; one might protect you, the other never could. Fortunately, the penknife had only ever been a status symbol, occasionally revealed to warn off a bully.
Now, years later, it was a multi-purpose object. The knife was useful for sharping pencils and the tiny screwdriver came in handy for adjusting the easel when the hinges played up. He patted his back pocket, reassured the penknife was snug, and strode through the long grass toward the gatehouse and the exit.
He waved goodbye to the woman in the ticket office; proof he was telling the truth, that his visit was cursory. He done all he needed to do the previous day.
In the car park, a young man was unloading a buggy from the boot of his hatchback. His companion, a yawning woman, hugged a sleepy baby to her hip. The man appeared keen; the woman exhausted. There was another car reversing into a space, a red Corsa, the features of its sole occupant were indeterminate under the shadow of the trees. He decided it was a woman, which was more than he needed to know; he shouldn’t be nosey as it wasn’t polite to intrude; he knew what unwanted attention felt like.
And that was it for Warkworth Castle; little to report, not that Camilla wanted details. He grimaced, dwelling on things that had not been said. He had misconstrued his agent’s motivations. She hadn’t the wherewithal to understand what it meant to paint under such difficult circumstances. He and Camilla had speculated about the reasons for the commission during phone calls and a rare meeting in the pub. When he grew weary of her vague answers and threatened to withdraw his services, she had sworn him to secrecy, as if he was painting the crown jewels for the queen. ‘It’s for a gift,’ she had said during their last tense encounter.
