Light Casts No Shadows, part 7

       The next morning was terrable.
   I still remember lying in that dark, dank cellar. All sence of time and place were lost. It was as if I had woken in some one else's tomb. My head ached, to the pint where i could not think with a single degree of clarity. My throat and mouth were so dry it was asthough I had been salting buckets of sand.
   It reminded me of when I had marched all day though the barren country side of southern Spain under a relentless summer sun. But it was worse.
   Because I had drank too much wine.
   When one drinks more than one should, one often wakes with a sence of dread and guilt. Happy is the man who searches his cloudy, drunken memories and finds that, in fact, he has done nothing to be ashamed off. I, however, was aware that my crushing dread was (in so many, but not all, ways) justified
   Desperately thirstly, I found the nearest source of liquid. Half of a smashed bottle of wine which still held a mouthful of wine. i drank it, and regained some capacity for thought.
   My first ration thought was of the girl in the cell next to me. she would require water and food.
   It was not my intention to starve her to death.
   I set off in search of the kitchen.
   Jacques sat on the steps leading up from the cellars. He had a bottle of wine, two full glasses and a wolfish smile.
   "Good afternoon Captain!' he called out. "More wine?!"
   Silently, I brushed past him.
   Searching the ground floor of the manor, I found that all of the servents had deserted their posts. Quite reasonable of them.
   Soon I located the kitchen and parlour. First I found a tray, a glass and a jug.  I filled the jug with water, and the tray with bread, cheese and fruit. As an after thought, I drank a little water myself and stuffed some bread and cheese in my pocket. Then I put the jug and glass on the tray and took it down to the cellar. I put it down on the floor before I opened her door, incase she rushed me.
   She did not. she lay huddled in one corned of the room. I decided to give her a blanket later, she seemed so cold.
   She seemed to ignore me as I placed the tray on the floor, but as I left she glanced up at me.
   "Madman,' she hissed.
   I locked her door behind me.
   She was always pretty when she was angry.
   I retired to my gold hoard and ate my bread and cheese. this cleared my mind further. I realised then that I would need to improve the conditions of her confinement before they became unsanitary.
   It was my intention to keep her, not destroy her.
  

Light Casts No Shadows, part 6.

   Now, I recall little of that first night in Thornton Manor, for the first thing I looted was Thornton's wine cellar. 
   In my rsge, I smashed open bottles with my sword and quathed from the shattered glass.
   Then I went from room to room, gathering all of value. Gold, silver, gems, diomonds. plates, clocks, cutlery, chests of coin, bags of money, weapons, jewelry. There was plenty.
   Half blind with wine and rage I roamed about the manor, hunting like a demented beast. I smashed open anything that was locked, defaced every painting of Thornton or his kin. Some things I destroyed simply for the joy of seeing them break. The greatest, wildest joy came from knowing that I took from Thornton.
   I carried arm-fulls of it down to the cellars, and piled it in an empty vault between the wine cellar and the cell where I had placed the lady.
   I thought little of her that night, nor do I believe I heard her weeping.
   After gathering my hoarde I selected the finest bottle of red, opened it in the conventional manner, and took it to the cell that held my collection.
   There, I sat upon my treasure, like a dragon on its hoarde, and drank. Suddenly time and labour caught up with me, my boiling blood became ice, and I was exhausted. Empty and exhausted. I drank from his wine. 
   At the darkest and coldest time of night, just before sunrise, Jacques joined me.
   "How does it feel, now that you have all that you wanted?" he asked.
   "I feel nothing,' it was true, my heart was but a lump of slag in my chest.
   "Come now, tell me. How does it feel? I have lead you here, guilded you in your hours of weakness. Where is my reward?"
   "I feel nothing.
   He cursed in French. How I hate that language.
   "Thornton took all I had from me. He stabbed me in the back as I served my country. Now I have taken all that he had from him. That is all, it is over."
   I finished the last drop of wine and lay down on my gold.
   "What of the girl?" he asked with a smile.
   "What of her?"
   "What will you do with her now that you have her?"
   "Nothing."
   "Nothing," he snarled. "What sort of a man are you? I know exactly what I would you with her..."
   "You are foul," I growled. "Why couldn't you have stayed in France?"
   "I often ask myself the same question."
   Then, I believe, I passed out.
 

Light Casts No shadows, part 5

   The staff seemed strangly unmoved by the sudden and brutal death of their lord. Later, I learnt that he had not been a kind master.
   His lady, however, was rather more emotional. She rushed from the door and knelt beside his bleeding corpse. Weeping. Quite uncontrolably.
   Jacques was by then at my side.
   "You know what to do," he said in his silky smouth, almost sickly, French accent.
   I swept her up and my arms and carried her inside. She was too shocked to resist. Hastily, I located a secure room in the cellar and placed her on the stone flagged floor.
   Only then did I really look at her. She had grey-blue eyes, as bright and hard as ice. I still recal how they wept. Her hair was long, now wild, and jet black.
   The resemblance between her and my lost Annabel was striking, but it only moved me for a moment. I turned my back on her and locked her in that cell.
   'Now do you have what you have been hunting?" Jacques asked.
   I tried to ignore him.
   As the servents set about burying their master, I set about looting his home.

LIGHT CASTS NO SHADOWS, part 4

Thornton Manor could be seen from afar.
The vast manor house sat within a vaster park of ancient oak and yew trees, surrounded by a stout grey wall. The manor itself was a grotesque collection of towers, spires, halls, columns and arches. Every generation had attempted to mark their passage by constructing a new wing to their ansestoral hall in their own style and the style of their time. They had each built with total disregard for the over all appearence of the building; each new addition conpeted and clashed with the last.
The driver rode on, apparently indifferent to my company.
We passed, without resistance, though the impossing, medieval gate house.
A monsterous rage had begun to stir in my chest.
The horses slowed to a trot as we passed through the dense shade of the park, then halted outside the grand enterance to the manor. The entrance, unlike the hall joining it, was built in the classical style. A flight of marble steps lead to a huge rectangular door which was flanked by epic columns.
'Thornton! I roared, as I lept from the carriage. 'Thorton! show your self!'
I continued shouting until the doors flew open and a stout man in an overly elaberate wig emerged. I recall, even now, how his round face was red with indigration.
'Thornton...' I growled, for it was he.
He ignored me, and focused on his driver.
'You oaf!' Thornton yelled that the man.'Why have you brought this madman to my house? How could you be so...'
'He had no choice,' I told Thornton as I strode toward him.
'Who the hel are you?' Thorton snapped.
'You do not know me?' asked I.
'Indeed I do not.'
'I am not suprised,'I said, then drew my sword and ran him through.
He died quickly.
In the distance, I heard I heard Jacques laugh.

Light Casts No Shadows, part 3

As the last glow of twilight fadded, I prepared to retire to my cave, for it was inconvienient to hunt in darkness. Then I was the twin lanterns of a coache approaching. I mounted hastily and rode towards it. I took my reins in my left hand and drew my sword with my right, then charged at the coache. Teeth barred, I roared at the driver to stop.

With a great snorting and stomping of horses, he complied. The four gret mares who led the coache were clearly flustered at the sudden halt. The driver, however, was not.

‘And what can I be doing for you?’ he asked.

I ignored the fellow for a moment, and rode around the coache, and checked for a gunman hidden on the roof and passengers within. There were none.

‘Whose coache is this?’ I demanded.

The driver was a stout fellow in a weather beaten Great Coat. His face was expressionless, resigned.

‘’Tis Mr Thorton’s,’ said he.

The name rang a bell, and woke a rage in me that I did not full understand.

‘Take me to your Lord!’ I demanded, sword to the fellows throat.

‘That I cannot do, for my only Lord is in ‘Eaven,’ he said with a dry smile, ‘but if you want, I could take you to Thornton Manor to meet ‘is Lordship.’

‘Aye, do it.’

I was impressed. I put my sword to its scabard, and swung myself from my horse to the driver’s bench.

We set of at a reasonable speed. My loyal horse trotted along side.

Light Casts No Shadows, Part 2

'How goes the hunt?'
'Not unprofitably,' I repied. 'Aquired some coin and a reasonable time piece last week.
'A lttle coin and a pocket watch?' he scoffed. 'Oh Captain! How the mighty are fallen!'
''Twas enough to pay for a few nights in an inn,' I replied.
I looked away from his horrid form. Concentrating on the beauty around me. It was a fine spring evening, the setting sun cast golden light through hedgerows where birds sang. yet my horse, normally so docile, stapmed its feet and snorted- mirroring my displeasure at the current company.
'You scrape existance from hand to mouth,' he continued.
'At least I have my health,' I said, with a guesture towards the sword at my belt. 'Which is more than can be said for you.'
With that he disappeared, as was his way. 
How I hated him.
I returned to my vigal on the highway. He was correct. I had fallen, from an Officer in The Iron Duke's army to a Highwayman. A robber. I preyed on the rich and weak, living- enduring- by my sword and wit alone.
What else was a man to do when all be possesed had been taken from him?  

From the Temple of Literature

Drew this a few days ago, think in represents the dramatic changes in Vietnamese culture and the decline of their traditional society.

Light Casts No Shadow

LIGHT CASTS NO SHADOWS.

No man can walk in the light without casting shadows, and one's shadows follow one everywhere.
No man can live all of his life in darkness, nor in light, therefore all men must cast shadows... but some cast longer and darker shadows than others.
Perhaps this is why I feel little regret for the terrible things that I have done. Perhaps it is because all of my actions seemed necessary at the time.
Now it is of little consequence how I feel.

I recall when I was waiting on the Highway (long ago- or so it seems) and Jacques came to me. I was, alas, by then used to his company.
"How goes the hunt?" asked he.

To be continued. 

Shameless Self Promotion.

My novel Vampyre: Hunting the Moon and a collection of Gothic poetry entitled Alone in a Crowded Tomb are now available in kindle format on Amazon.
That is all. 

Flying in Darkened Vales.

When I look in her eyes,
I see no lies, no cruel  surprise,
Just a soul that flies,
In darkened vales of sadness,
Searching for some well earned goodness,
Soaring towards destined  happiness.

Once.

Once, long ago, in our own land, we were kings.

King of Mardale

There was a King Across the Water,
And a King down by the sea,
And a King upon an island,
Who King shall always be,
But the King of the fells
Lives only in memory,

Now Mardale valley is a lake
An Avalon with no Hand Above the Water,
No sword, no Lady Fairies Daughter,

Reaching from the reservoir
Just a lonely old church tower,
Monument  to the last King's power

The rugged mountains of the Lake District were, until the 18th Century, neglected by the British government to such an extent that the mighty people living there  functioned as  independent  Kingdoms.
The last King of Mardale died in 1885.
Mardale valley was destroyed to build a reservoir in 1935.
On a clear day, one can still see the church tower above the water. The bell still rings sometimes.

End of Days

At the end of days,
Will you still recall
The wind in the trees,
That silent breeze,
Or the ghostly light,
On the lake that night?
Will you still recall
That I loved you at all?

For Kitten.

Sun Sets on Ho Tay

Tried to write a Haiku a few weeks ago.
Ho Tay (West Lake) is a vast Lake in Hanoi, Vietnam, it has awesome sunsets. Am currently missing a Muse, need a new one.

'Sun sets on Ho Tay,
Flowers fly in the warm wind,
Where are you now?'

Dream

Shining silver wine,
The Fairy sips,
Smoke swirls from fine,
Divine, Sublime lips,

Black- amber eyes
Stare past the deep,
Dark, night skies
Where tiger growls in sleep,

Eyes burning fire,
lips speak desire...

Beauty.

T'is as staring at
The Sun, as it
Burns the eyes,
T'is as Icarus,
Who must fall so
Far, because he flies
Where Man should not 
Fly, to Beauty that,
Never, never dies.

"Sometimes she sank, sometimes she swam." The Bonny Swans.

This Seems True

"The mind is it's own place, and it itself, Can make a heav'n of hell, or a hell of heav'm" Milton.

Always

It is always Hallow'en- the viel between the living and the dead is perminently transparent.

Song to Baldar

Baldar- for whom all things wept,
Is not lost, but is kept,
Under, in a harsh, froozen land,
On iron throne, sword in hand,
Baldar- whom all men love,
One day shall rise above.

Photos from The Nam