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Outside, I nearly collided with an easel. I dodged around it, muttering an apology, before turning to see who I’d disturbed. It was a man. An artist.
I wasn’t intending to be nosey. I couldn’t help it. I might have stared too much at first, mesmerised in part by his stillness, which only served to amplify my opposing state of mind. With a few metres between us now, I allowed myself that privilege of curiosity, something that was probably inconsiderate, but I couldn’t resist peeping.
The long fingers of his left hand thrummed on his coarse denim jeans. His face was obscured. I imagined pursed lips or eyebrows furrowed in concentration. There wasn’t a hint of grey in his hair or any thinning around the crown, but that didn’t mean anything. Men’s ages were hard to determine. Very tall, or so it seemed – he might be the same height as my brother but, unlike meticulous Richard, this guy was scruffy, and perspiring. I sympathised: the heat was relentless. In his right hand, he twirled a pencil, moving it independently of the drumming hand. I was slightly jealous; I wasn’t ambidextrous.
On the flat top easel was a sheet of paper attached with strips of tape. What kind of artist was he? A hobby type, or a keen amateur with grand ambitions, or the professional with well-received exhibits on display in an art gallery; maybe famous in some part of the art world? Intrigued, I inched along the wall until the drawing came into view. He wasn’t working on anything grand; he had outlined a plinth, carefully recreating the arrangement of supporting stones. Definitely an eye for detail, like me in some respects. I deduced the subject of the picture: the oriel window.
As I moved a fraction closer, he turned, and spotted me. To my surprise, he was young with darkly clouded eyes that matched his short umber hair. Unshaven stubble, too. When he returned to tinkering with his sketch, I nearly said something, but words failed. The interruption was registered by him in a fleeting expression of distaste, the kind that I might wear when disturbed. He returned to his painting, and the frown lines dropped from his face.
I swung the bag, for once oblivious to its weight, and retreated along the wall of the gatehouse with toe to heel steps and, just in case he was looking, I pretended to be fascinated with some distant feature, then hurried away. The encounter lasted seconds, no more than half a minute. It was sufficient; I knew when I had overstayed my welcome.
?
The drive into Newcastle was fraught. The road atlas lacked the details of one-way streets and lane changes. I circled the centre twice before spotting the hotel’s sign. I had no time to think through the day’s events. I checked in, unpacked, and laid the camera equipment on a table for a dusting down. Sandy particles impregnated everything, including my skin. Only when I sank into a bath of aromatic bubbles and tipped back my head was I able to process things, starting with my night with Dyllis, then the ominous bouncing ball. The latter I decided to dismiss as a frivolous adventure. The interior of the tower was dark, and I had been stupidly emotional and hot, so that was a good enough excuse.
As for the oriel window, it seemed a messy construct, which was probably why Medici had included it. Odd that the window had caught the attention of the painter, too. Surely the Gothic mansion in the middle of the ruins was a more romantic vista for watercolours. I wished I had plucked up the courage to ask him what he saw in the oriel.
After the obligatory text message to my mother had been sent, I finally allowed myself the pleasure of closing my eyes.
Fourteen
The efficient city hotel had two computers in the foyer with internet access. Smelling slightly of roses, I reconnected with the outside world to catch up on news – I wasn’t a newspaper reader – and checked my emails.
I tapped my fingers impatiently on the keyboard. The webmail was slow, the volume of emails far greater than I anticipated. There were three from David, one notifying me the next week of expenses was due to arrive in my account, another that he was going on holiday soon, and would be hard to contact, which seemed somewhat inconsiderate. The third was to remind me to send the first week’s memory stick to him as soon as possible. Officious in nature, his emails troubled my already worried state of mind. He wouldn’t take kindly to my request for an extension; I was supposed to be competent, a semi-professional. I closed the messages; I wasn’t sure how to reply without revealing my weaknesses.
My phone chirped. My text allocation was nearly depleted; I would have to top up somewhere. The reply from Yvette suggested looking up the story of Sir Guy the Seeker. I suspected a joke again; however I had asked for some ideas and Yvette had taken the time to do the research for me. I sent a brisk thank you.
The internet crawled through pages of junk, words that had no context to castles or myths. I was being asked to view plenty of dating websites: Guy and Seeker weren’t useful terms. I added Dunstanburgh, and one potential link popped up. Unfortunately, it led to a dead end. On the verge of giving up, I tried one final click on a website listing poetry, and there it was, the missing connection, and as I expected it was steeped in Arthurian mimicry.
The legend of Sir Guy the Seeker had grown out of a poem written two hundred years ago. The lengthy poem wasn’t provided, only a synopsis of the story. I read it through, twice. A cold wave of tingles travelled along my spine, circling my neck, and ending its journey in a flurry across my scalp. Each sentence sent out another set of shivers. I was sure the tale was new to me, yet I had witnessed in my mind each layer of it while at Dunstanburgh. What I had missed was the ending.
Sir Guy had chosen to blow a horn, bringing a horde of knights down upon him. He survived their slashing swords but woke up back in the cave under the castle by the shoreline. The wizened creature who had guided him was a wizard, according to the narrator, and he accused Sir Guy of cowardice for not drawing his sword and choosing the horn instead. Cursed forever, Sir Guy hunted for the alluring, beautiful woman he had seen, but never found her, nor could he leave Dunstanburgh. Like the lady in pink at Bamburgh, Guy was the resident ghost but this time in the form of poetry.
The story itself wasn’t insipid, if anything it was a glorious epic waiting to be filmed by a Hollywood producer, but it had been forgotten and faded into obscurity. Which led me to the heart of my worries: I had always assumed that my imagination, the vivid daydreams and visions, were facsimiles of things I already knew about and carried with me to a location. Sir Guy wasn’t part of that mental repository of myths and anecdotes, and thinking back, neither was the lady in pink at Bamburgh. Re-evaluating my daydreaming, which wasn’t the slightest bit prosaic, it didn’t feel like a gift of any sorts. The knot in my stomach tightened.
I logged out, closed the browser and switched on my phone. What could I say to Yvette? What would she do anyway? She would pragmatically remind me to focus on the photographs. But I wasn’t in Northumberland purely to work on a commission. If there were reasons for my strange affliction, the answers weren’t going to be at the end of a lens. Medici, my patron, had put his faith in me, and in return I was committed to the contract.
The next day, after sleeping fitfully, dreaming of bouncing balls and horns in equal measure, I posted the first memory stick. The small thing – something of a miracle in my understanding of technology – was packed in a jiffy bag, which I addressed to David Carmichael at Charnwood University. I paid extra for recorded delivery, as he’d requested. With the stick I had added a sheet of paper with numbered lines and details of each photograph. That had taken me quite a chunk of the morning to do, as I had to review each and every one, and check them against Medici’s list.
The rest of the day was mine.
I relied on the wide-angle lens and my faithful older camera, nothing else, and walked the streets and quayside, snapping the Millennium Bridge and other heritage sites. The bustle of people and the fog of cars added to the heat. A sheen of pollution loomed above the city; the dusty sky was neither blue nor grey. I drank coffee, ate a veggie burger somewhere, elbow to elbow with shoppers, and bought a few necessities.
Back in the hotel, I regretted not asking Dyllis for use of her washing machine. The grime had filtered through the fabric of my clothes onto my skin. I wasn’t accustomed to cities; at home, I rarely visited the nearest city, and relied on out of town shopping centres. I managed to resurrect a few items of clothing by washing them in the bath with shower gel; Mum would be both proud and embarrassed by my initiative.
One of the computers in the lobby was free. I logged back onto the webmail, and before I could type a message to David, informing him of the incoming jiffy bag, I spotted the unopened email in the inbox.
David informs me I should expect your first batch of photographs soon. Very excited. I know they will be perfect.
I gulped. His optimism buoyed me. I needed it. The email had been sent ten minutes ago. I risked a reply.
Thank you, I hope you find them useful.
I paused, tempted to ask the question that kept my palms clammy – why do you want them? But David had been specific from the outset; it was none of my business.
I thought of Guy and the phantom dream at Dunstanburgh. Would Medici have a theory? I was sure he had used the term “seeking” when he had first contacted me.
Do you mind me asking? Do you think myths and legends have any basis in history? Yours, Robyn the photographer.
