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Twenty-Five
Rievaulx
The abbey provided me with an essential break, as if I was a weary traveller in need of sustenance. It possessed everything I required to combat my throbbing headache and calm the rapid pulse of my heartbeats. Yesterday had been a tedious blur and even though I had lingered at Bolton Castle, Joseph hadn’t caught up with me, assuming he had tried.
That niggling little doubt clung on to me through a restless night, the last one at Richmond, and during the hour-long drive to Rievaulx I nursed it until it triggered the tension headache. Regardless of our timely encounters, there was no reason why we might see each other again and for all I knew, he could be going out of his way to avoid me; he hadn’t seemed keen on the idea until I had pushed back at him. We hadn’t exactly made any firm plans for meeting on Monday and twenty-four hours later, having reassessed his reticence, I decided he was going to slip away.
Described as the perfect example of a preserved medieval castle, the privately owned Bolton Castle had failed to both inspire and distract me. For the first time my photography permit had been scrutinised at length. The experience unsettled me further, and I had struggled to fulfil Medici’s precise criteria due to the exuberant antics of children. They had swarmed like newly hatched flies. I eventually found my quarry – the spiral staircase that twisted anti-clockwise, supposedly unusual, but I had seen plenty of examples in other castles, and wasn’t sure it warranted special mention or the price of the ticket and permit. The trip steps – steps of uneven height designed to send an attacker head long down the stairs – were also one of his little foibles, but weren’t one of mine. But Medici decided… I had sighed and huffed a great deal while I waited for people to move out of shot.
By the time I had finished there was no hope of a quiet spell; even the pleasant gardens laid out below the walls were teeming. I ticked off Bolton, irritated at its failings, which were really entirely my fault. I was in a bad mood.
Rievaulx Abbey, thankfully, came to my rescue the next day. Although busy, the dense ruins had plenty of space to explore and also offered me sanctuary in the form of nooks and crannies amongst the broken stonework. There, safely out of sight in a roofless chamber, I embraced a pleasant level of calmness. The baking sun couldn’t reach my shelter, and the shadows cooled my sticky forehead. I clutched my camera to my chest and heaved a sigh of relief. Looking up, the cloudless sky, still so unexpected two weeks into my journey, was aquamarine, as if the sea and sky had swapped places. A bird spiralled upwards on a current, dipping then diving before climbing again. Its long wingspan, black against the sky, was that of a hawk or buzzard, and it attracted the crows, who in turn mobbed it. I watched, mesmerised by their persistence. Eventually, they moved out of my limited view, and I was alone again.
I listened, but heard nothing out of the ordinary. No chants or murmurs of prayer, nor the bells calling the monks to their choir stalls. Given the purpose of the abbey, silence was appropriate, and I abandoned that sense and sought another route. I inhaled through my nose and held my breath.
What scents would have greeted me if I had been here, centuries ago? The herb garden, surely? Or maybe the hops in the brewery? My nostrils wrinkled with displeasure. Urine. Hot reeking piss. I gathered my things and hurried away. I had been sitting in the tannery.
But I was relieved. I still had it, whatever it was and, just as I preferred, my daydreams were rooted in historical facts, and not myths or unknown events. It wasn’t long before my senses snared me again. In the refectory, I was engulfed by the aroma of burnt wood, perhaps carried in from the warming room, the one place the monks were allowed to light a fire. But as I backed against the cold wall, the smell intensified until I sneezed. I crouched, and hugged my legs. The burning was like that of a bonfire. Was the abbey being attacked? I knew marauding Scots had stormed it and stolen from the sacristy. Or maybe it was an echo of the destructive Reformation, when everything was stripped out and sold, including the land.
I closed my eyes, and there was nothing but blackness, heaps of it, piled up and around me, smouldering and filthy. I watched as a solitary man piled more and more of it into the space in front of me.
He coughs and staggers under his load. The stench of burnt wood follows him into the undercroft.
White eyes, bloodshot, filthy snot streams out of his nostrils. Dust. Spittle. Heavy breathing, as if death is close by and waiting. His lungs are bursting, and the daggers of pain sharpen with each sucking inhale. He carries a burden on his shoulders. It presses him down until his knees are close to buckling. With a sob, he stumbles and lands on his hands and knees, and crawls on the hard flagstones, still carrying the load on his back.
A light glimmers, dangerously close; the naked flame dances.
A voice calls out, demanding and authoritarian. The weary man ditches his load on top of the still smouldering pile and with bowed shoulders lurches toward the light. His face is illuminated. A young man, his lips are cracked and the whites of his eyes are glazed with tears.
‘Robyn!’
The fading figure turns to look back; his expression of despair magnifies.
‘Robyn?’
He staggers beyond the candlelight and the darkness swallows him, burying him in the shadows.
Somebody touched my shoulder.
The involuntary jerk started a wave of shivers and I struggled to tolerate the daylight. The man crouched until his face was level with mine. The stubble was evident again, the squareness of the jaw familiar. His eyes were unhooded and wide as full moons.
‘Are you okay?’ he asked.
‘Yes, of course,’ I said, quickly.
‘You were staring into space, like a zombie.’ Joseph stood and held out his hand. ‘Can you stand?’
My legs were jelly. I heaved myself up using the wall for support. If he touched my hand, he would know how fast my pulse was racing and feel the cold clammy palm.
‘What are you doing here?’ I asked, dusting grass cuttings off my skirt.
‘Having finished off at Bolton, I took a chance you might be here, and hot-footed it over.’ He pursed his lips. ‘What were you doing just then? You were so lost in thought, staring into space. Did you not see me wave? I called your name.’
My name. I had heard another calling a name. And why were my eyes open? I was convinced they had been shut.
‘Did I look kind of… catatonic?’ I kept my back lodged in the protective stone blocks.
He shrugged. ‘I suppose. Do you have seizures?’
