This is a story inspired by a visit to an old castle in Italy. It was, of course, written while traveling on a plane, though I’m not sure if it was from Calgary to Toronto, or New York to Vancouver.
But, there’s more to come. Those were long flights…
And sadly when I read what I’d written, off the plane and in the cold hard light of dawn, there were problems, which now in the second draft, should provide the proper start.
Another fifty or so feet along, I stopped at an overhead grill. The metal was showing on the tunnel side, but on the other, I could see bushes.
I think I knew where we were. This was where the road crossed a small bridge and headed towards the castle entrance. It was on the northeastern side of the old battlements, and going straight under the road would take us to the eastern wall.
Whether we could get out of the castle there remained to be seen.
I took a step and saw Jack stop and turn around to look back the way we had come. A moment later a beam of light came from the break in the roof of the tunnel. Perhaps the man had decided there might not be ghosts in the hole.
I heard the man’s voice travel up the tunnel. “Looks like a cavern of something.”
That something he might guess to be a tunnel.
We had to go.
I moved quickly in the opposite direction, into the dark, the sound of more rocks falling from the roof following us.
Another hundred feet or so we reached a wall, a dead end to the tunnel. It looked to me that it had been bricked in the recent past because it consisted of house bricks, not cobble stones.
The surface was wet, and there was the sound of dripping nearby.
Jack sat on the floor. Nowhere to go, for him it was time to rest.
We couldn’t go back.
I pulled out a knife and poked it into the mortar, and the blade disappeared when I pushed it. The mortar was soft.
I pushed hard on the wall midway up, and it moved. I decided it might be wiser to kick at the wall, making it easier if it collapsed.
It created a hole about a foot round. Further kicking made it bigger so that I could stoop down and climb through. Jack went first, and I followed.
It came out into a clearing surrounded by trees. Through the branches, I could see the forest on the other side of a paddock.
Jack once again stopped.
Voices.
Jackerby and one of his men.
“I’m sure there used to be a drainage tunnel somewhere here. Those men got into the tunnel yet?”
“Working on making a hole so they can jump down. No long now.”
“Go back and help them. I’ll keep an eye out here in case they find the exit.”
I heard the other man leave.
A minute passed, then two. Then Jackerby said, “I know you’re there Sam. I’m alone out here, and I’m on your side.”
It was the small town that we had visited once, some years ago, that had enticed me back.
Those had been happier times, times when the stench of money hadn’t overtaken sensibility, and who we really were.
Not that I had changed all that much, except for the upper west side apartment, and posh car to go with it, but what had disappointed me was the change in Liz, the woman I thought once was the love of my life.
Without the trappings of wealth, she was the kindest, most thoughtful, and generous person I knew, but that had changed when I became the recipient of an inheritance that beggared belief. We both made a promise from the outset that it would not change us, but unfortunately, it did.
And that was probably the main reason I was standing outside an old fixer-upper house on several acres overlooking the ocean.
I’d asked Liz to come, but she was having a weekend away in Las Vegas with her new friends, or as one of the ladies rather salaciously said, a what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas kind of weekend.
Charmaine had told me about the house, one that she had admired for a long time, but didn’t have the means to buy it.
Charmaine was a painter, a rather good one, and both Liz and I had met her on a weekend away upstate, and I’d bought one of her landscapes to hang in our new apartment. Liz hated it, but I think that had more to do with the painter than the painting, and that was because Charmaine had flirted with me, and that, I had observed over time, was how she was with everyone.
She called it her sales technique. After all, it had worked on me.
I listened to the auctioneer go through the rules of the action and then move on to a physical description of the property. I’d been to several viewings and got a promising idea of what was needed if I were to buy it. It had good foundations and suffered from a lack of TLC. It was how the auctioneer summed up.
When he called for the first bid, I felt a hand slip into mine, and a glance sideways showed it to be Charmaine. I had asked her along for support, but she had something else to do, but it appeared now, that she hadn’t.
“So,” she whispered next to my ear, “you were serious about this place?”
I had been dithering, not being able to make my mind up, but Liz, in the end, made the decision for me. I’d overheard a snippet of conversation with one of her new friends, and to be honest, I’d been surprised.
“Perhaps it was time to find a hideaway.”
“Things that bad?”
I shrugged. “Maybe I’m writing too much into it. At any rate, I needed an excuse to get out of town, and being here was as good as any.”
The first bid came in at 450,000. I knew the reserve was about 700,000, and I was prepared for 850,000. But I was hoping to spend less than that because the renovations would be about 250,000.
“We could go and have a picnic. It’ll certainly cost less than buying this place.”
“I’m here now.”
Holding hands was just one of Charmaine’s ‘things’, and I had never written anything into what might have been called a relationship of sorts. We were not lovers, and the conversation had never been steered in that direction, but I did find myself gravitating towards her when Liz was off doing her thing with her friends. To be honest, I just liked the idea of a picnic and watching Charmaine paint her landscapes.
I raised the bid to 500,000. Another from the previous bidder, 550,000. Another at 600,000. It seems there were three bidders for the property. The other sixteen people attending were observers, probably locals interested in how this would help their property value.
I went 625,000 when the auctioneer changed the increment after a lack of bidding. It was countered, moving to 650,000. Another at 657,000, and then the first bidder went to 700,000, the reserve.
“You do realize the other bidders are friends of the owner and are there to push the price up?” Charmaine whispered in my ear.
I’d heard of it happening, but I’d not suspected it until she mentioned it.
“Going once, going twice at 700,000.” The auctioneer looked at me. “I’ll accept 10,000 increments.”
I nodded. 710,000. It quickly moved to 800,000, after I bid 790,000.
The auctioneer looked at me expectantly. “810,000, sir?”
That was more than I wanted to spend though an elbow in the ribs was the clincher, and when I declined, there was an air of disappointment.
“Going once, going twice, all done at 800,000?” A look around the crowd confirmed we were all done, and the gavel came down.
“Looks like we’re going on a picnic,” she said. “I’d expect a call in an hour or so.”
Two things happened that weekend, both of which surprised me. The first, Charmaine was right, I did get a call, and finished up with a hideaway in the country, overlooking the ocean. The second, Liz didn’t come back from Las Vegas. She had apparently found someone new, someone more exciting, or so she said.
I guess I was disappointed but not overly concerned. She had changed and I had not and if the truth be told, we were drifting apart. We parted amicably, sold the apartment, and moved on, each in a different direction.
I had a new residence, and renovations to take my mind off the break-up, and when I told Charmaine, she just said she didn’t believe we were that perfect match. And in the light of my new status, I could now ask her to come and stay in the spare bedroom, a lot better, I said, than the one-person tent she had been using, an offer she readily accepted.
Until, a year later, it became something more than that.
I have a stab at improving this starting piece every now and then, a project that started about a year or so ago, and I find myself rewriting the start over and over because I’m not satisfied with the characterization.
It’s not so much the storyline, as it is in trying to create sympathy for the character, and not find him as dull as ditchwater. He’s improving with age. As writers, we tend to create colourful characters and shy away from those who are dull and boring, because after all, as a reader, you want to become something or someone who is far from ordinary. Well, Graham is starting out ordinary, but he will be anything but by the time I write those words ‘The End’.
I promise.
I am the master of my own destiny.
My father had drummed that into me, as well as my older brother and younger sister, over and over, until it became a mantra.
For them.
I could not say I didn’t have the same advantages afforded to them, afforded to me. I did.
But somewhere lost in the translation, someone forgot to tell me that it was only advice, not an order, and mistaking it for the latter, I struck out on my own path.
And for the next ten years, it was a long and winding path that led me to this point in time, in a small room that held nothing to tell me where I came from, or who I really was.
My parents were very wealthy with an Upper Westside Apartment in Manhattan and a holiday house in Martha’s Vineyard, my sister had a successful medical career and married a most eligible bachelor, as expected, and my brother, he was a politician.
I’d not seen any of them in at least five years, and they hadn’t called me.
You see, I was the black sheep of the family. I dropped out of college when it all became too much, and drifted. Seasonal labourer, farmhand, factory worker, add job man, and night watchman.
At least now I had a uniform, and a gun, and looked like I’d made something of myself.
It was hard to say why, just before I was about to head out of the factory to end my shift, that those thoughts about them came into my mind. They might be gone, but I guess I would never forget about them. I wondered briefly if any of them thought about me.
It was 3 a.m. and it was like standing on the exact epicentre of the South Pole. I’d just stepped from the factory warehouse into the car park.
The car was covered in snow. The weather was clear now, but I could feel more snow was coming. A white Christmas? That’s all I needed. I hoped I remembered to put the antifreeze in my radiator this time.
As I approached my car, the light went on inside an SUV parked next to my car. The door opened and what looked to be a woman was getting out of the car.
“Graham?”
It was a voice I was familiar with, though I hadn’t heard it for a long time.
I looked again and was shocked to see my ultra-successful sister, Penelope. She was leaning against the front fender, and from what I could see, didn’t look too well.
How on earth did she find me, after all the years that had passed? Perhaps that sparked my un-conciliatory question, “What do you want?”
I could see the surprise and then hurt in her expression. Perhaps I had been a little harsh. Whatever she felt, it passed, and she said, “Help.”
My help? Help with what? I was the last person who could help her, or anyone for that matter, with anything. But curiosity got the better of me. “Why?”
“I think my husband is trying to kill me.”
Then, with that said, she slid down the side of the car, and I could see, in the arc lamps lighting the car park, a trail of blood.
My first thought, she needed the help of a doctor, not a stupid brother, then a second thought, call 911, which I did, and hoped like hell they got here in time.
And, yes, there was a third thought that crossed my mind. Whether or not I would be blamed for this event.
At the end of the first book in the series, Alistair, Zoe the assassin’s handler, was killed.
As far as he was concerned, Zoe had reneged on the contract to kill a target, and for that, she had to be punished, just to let the rest of the team know they could not decide arbitrarily who or who they would not kill.
For her sins, Zoe had been captured and was about to be executed when John, the man who wanted to become her boyfriend, turned up in a luckless and unplanned rescue mission.
But as ad-hoc operations go, that one was very successful. Zoe, though badly injured aided John in a do-or-die escape.
Alistair learned to his chagrin, that a badly injured Zoe and untrained well-meaning friend trumped overconfidence.
Of course, Alistair’s death does not go unnoticed, and his mother, a renowned and very capable ex-KGB agent with connections, wanted to avenge his death. Her influence reaches as far as the upper echelons of the State’s intelligence services, and requests from her would never be ignored.
Such a request for information is made, and so starts the next book in the series.
Revenge.
Of course, nothing to do with Zoe, or John, or their relationship, runs smoothly, and once again in pursuit of the impossible, makes it his mission in life to win over the assassin-on-sabbatical.
But first, he has to find her., and sort through the lies and treachery of his best friend who is also looking for Zoe, but for entirely different reasons.
…
Todays writing, the first three chapters, 2,109 words
Hohensalzburg Castle sits atop the Festungsberg, accessed by a cable car.
The castle itself dominates the Salzburg skyline.
Below is a view down into Salzburg from the castle walls.
We had lunch at a café, the Salzburg Fortress Café, that overlooked the countryside. This was where we were introduced to Mozart Gold Chocolate Cream added to our coffee.
The square below featured in the Sound of Music.
Among the more interesting objects to be seen, the gun below shows what some of the castle’s armaments might have been. These cannons, in the ‘Firing Gallery’ date back to the thirty years war in the early 1600’s.
Every time I close my eyes, I see something different.
I’d like to think the cinema of my dreams is playing a double feature but it’s a bit like a comedy cartoon night on Fox.
But these dreams are nothing to laugh about.
Once again there’s a new instalment of an old feature, and we’re back on the treasure hunt.
Feeling a little miffed at Boggs’ dismissal, I decided to go on my own fact-finding mission.
Of course, it depended a lot on whether the Cossatino’s still hung out at the same bar, and whether I’d get a foot in the door.
I was going to talk to Nadia, or at least try to.
The Lantern Inn was about as far from the image the name threw up, it was more a place where respectable people wouldn’t be caught dead in.
And, as I recall, a few had. Seemingly respectable people anyway.
It was the place to go if you were looking for three things, not necessarily all at once, trouble, girls, and drugs. Soggy, a friend of Boggs and I, had always looked older than his age and was able to get into places like the Lantern Inn, mainly to buy us beer, and we would go down to the beach and drink it before going home.
When I found a spot to keep an eye on the place and assess whether it was safe or not to go in, now I was old enough, I saw old man Gattle, Soggy’s foster father stagger out, on his way home. It brought back memories of Joel, Soggy’s real name.
Soggy got his name because he was always falling in the water, whether it was a pool or the ocean, and one day, after too many beers, he fell in and didn’t come back up. Boggs and I almost finished up in jail for that, since we were with him, but there was no way we could rescue him as it was in a spot where there was often a rip, and he had been carried away before we could get to him.
And, the body was never recovered. I thought, at the time, he may have jumped in, because his life with foster parents was no fairy tale, and he had suffered. Of course, those foster parents were friends with the Benderby’s so they were never held to account.
It would be easy to lie in wait in a dark alley and simply hit him over the head with a four by two, but I doubt it would make me feel any better.
I watched him stagger and fall several times before I looked back at the Inn. In days past, the patrons often spilled out onto the sidewalk where there used to be tables and chairs. Now, it was just the Inn, and it didn’t look like many people were there.
Had it changed from a den of iniquity to something more respectable?
A large truck, an F350 by the look of it, stopped outside the front entrance, the passenger door opened and what looked like Nadia, or another Amazonian woman, got out. She spoke to the driver, slammed the door, and the truck left.
The light over the door shone on her face, yes, it was a woman, and yes, it was Nadia. By herself? Was that Vince who dropped her off, or Willy, her younger brother, and why didn’t they join her?
I guess I was not going to get any answers from where I was sitting.
Time to make my first foray into the place my mother always told me never to step foot in.
Investigation of crimes doesn’t always go according to plan, nor does the perpetrator get either found or punished.
That was particularly true in my case. The murderer was incredibly careful in not leaving any evidence behind, to the extent that the police could not rule out whether it was a male or a female.
At one stage the police thought I had murdered my own wife though how I could be on a train at the time of the murder was beyond me. I had witnesses and a cast-iron alibi.
The officer in charge was Detective First Grade Gabrielle Walters. She came to me on the day after the murder seeking answers to the usual questions like, when was the last time you saw your wife, did you argue, the neighbors reckon there were heated discussions the day before.
Routine was the word she used.
Her Sargeant was a surly piece of work whose intention was to get answers or, more likely, a confession by any or all means possible. I could sense the raging violence within him. Fortunately, common sense prevailed.
Over the course of the next few weeks, once I’d been cleared of committing the crime, Gabrielle made a point of keeping me informed of the progress.
After three months the updates were more sporadic, and when, for lack of progress, it became a cold case, communication ceased.
But it was not the last I saw of Gabrielle.
The shock of finding Vanessa was more devastating than the fact she was now gone, and those images lived on in the same nightmare that came to visit me every night when I closed my eyes.
For months I was barely functioning, to the extent I had all but lost my job, and quite a few friends, particularly those who were more attached to Vanessa rather than me.
They didn’t understand how it could affect me so much, and since it had not happened to them, my tart replies of ‘you wouldn’t understand’ were met with equally short retorts. Some questioned my sanity, even, for a time, so did I.
No one, it seemed, could understand what it was like, no one except Gabrielle.
She was by her own admission, damaged goods, having been the victim of a similar incident, a boyfriend who turned out to be an awfully bad boy. Her story varied only in she had been made to witness his execution. Her nightmare, in reliving that moment in time, was how she was still alive and, to this day, had no idea why she’d been spared.
It was a story she told me one night, some months after the investigation had been scaled down. I was still looking for the bottom of a bottle and an emotional mess. Perhaps it struck a resonance with her; she’d been there and managed to come out the other side.
What happened become our secret, a once-only night together that meant a great deal to me, and by mutual agreement, it was not spoken of again. It was as if she knew exactly what was required to set me on the path to recovery.
And it had.
Since then, we saw each about once a month in a cafe. I had been surprised to hear from her again shortly after that eventful night when she called to set it up, ostensibly for her to provide me with any updates on the case, but perhaps we had, after that unspoken night, formed a closer bond than either of us wanted to admit.
We generally talked for hours over wine, then dinner and coffee. It took a while for me to realize that all she had was her work, personal relationships were nigh on impossible in a job that left little or no spare time for anything else.
She’d always said that if I had any questions or problems about the case, or if there was anything that might come to me that might be relevant, even after all this time, all I had to do was call her.
I wondered if this text message was in that category. I was certain it would interest the police and I had no doubt they could trace the message’s origin, but there was that tiny degree of doubt, about whether or not I could trust her to tell me what the message meant.
I reached for the phone then put it back down again. I’d think about it and decide tomorrow.
Matilda came out of the species laboratory looking flustered. It was the second time this week one of her robots had gone missing.
“You haven’t put the homing device in yet, have you?”
The homing device enabled us to call the robots back to their homes in the laboratory and then to wherever they were sent in the world.
“I’m trying to juggle too many projects. When did you say I was getting an assistant?”
I didn’t, she had to wait in line. “Just put a device in when you find it.”
It was not as if it was the first time this had happened, and it seemed to be a common issue with the assemblers. We had half a dozen assemblers, but only one who was human, the other hybrid androids from the human-cyborg division.
There was an extreme shortage of human engineers and programmers that we had switched to making them.
Matilda was one of the androids, one of the better models, and I had done her programming enhancements myself, but there seemed to be a glitch when it came to homing devices.
I had been doing it myself, at the end of the day when the cyborgs went into hibernation.
“Found him,” I heard Matilda cry out.
I gave her a stern look as she went past, the tiger cub snuggling into her arms.
“Alright. Soon as I get back to the bench.”
The mark 7 series was the best we’d made, but they were still not perfect. These had been augmented with a learning routine that was meant to Gove them better self-awareness, and therefore more lifelike.
At times I had to stop and remember that I was actually talking to an Android that had mostly programmed responses. But Matilda had developed an individual personality and just a little attitude, the sort of behavior you would expect from a human.
Which was a topic I was going to bring up at the meeting I was almost late for.
…
I was just one of a dozen section heads sitting around the table, with the chief designer, chief programmer, chief engineer, and head of production. Almost too many chiefs.
Usually, this meeting was a quick one, the management attendees flying on from the other dude of the country where head office was located. We were lucky our location had a world-class resort the chiefs could combine a stay with attending the meetings. Otherwise, it would be a teleconference.
We had raised all the issues up the line in accordance with protocol, and we were supposed to get a definitive answer to the problems, that, for safety’s sake had put a hold on shipments. That was how we got this meeting, out of the cycle. Stop the flow of funds, and panic sets in.
The chief engineer was almost in holiday mode when he and his three management colleagues arrived.
He looked around the table and then his eyes rested on me, the chief troublemaker.
“Our programmers assure me there is no flaw in any of the assembly droids’ work routines, and they believe it is an issue in the specific instructions you give them during the assembly process that conflicts with their built-in instructions.”
Not unexpected, I knew the programmer who had vaginally come to the conclusion, simply because he would have taken the stance there was nothing wrong with his base program and refused to investigate.
It didn’t help that I was the one insisting there were problems, as a result he would tell managers of kicking me out of the programming team on false accusations of code flaws that I was supposed to be responsible for. Management wasn’t sure if it was true or not, so they didn’t sack me, they sent me here.
The chief engineer dared me to speak, any of us.
“That may be the case, it might not. Coster has obviously allayed the fears of management, which means we are to resume shipping products. That’s fine. It’s not the animals that are going to glitch. It’s the working droids, and it’s got something to do with the self-awareness routines.
“But think about this. Ninety percent of the workers at the resort you’re busting your gut to get back to are our series seven androids. If you completely trust what Coster is telling you, then by all means go and snatch a few days away with your families.”
“There’s been no issues with any of the series sevens since we rolled them out.”
“Go down to customer returns and repairs.”
“Those I’m told are all mechanical issues.”
“You’ve read all the customer reports that were filled when the units were returned?”
“That’s not my job. And I’m going to remind you that your job is to keep the factory running and maintain production. It is not to spread rumors and innuendo. I’m going to ignore all of this nonsense, and you’re going to report that you are implementing the new protocols that are in this manual.”
He held up a large book that would be full of Coster waffle.
“As you wish.”
“Good. The other issues are production issues, and Stevens, here, will take them up with the local plant superintendent. That’s it, meeting done.”
Half an hour. It was a record, but it could be excused. He had to issue an admonishment.
…
A few minutes with the others, all of whom were disappointed with the result but understood the nature of the problem with Coster.
But their jobs were high paying, with benefits, and it would a fool to be on the wrong side. They were happy for me to argue on their behalf, and just on the right side of the fence.
I went back down to the floor where Matilda was waiting outside my office.
“It’s done. We’re trusting you.”
“You do realize, at times, you scare me.”
“Because I understand what common sense is better than your friends?”
It wasn’t a revelation when she came to me a few weeks before and asked if she was a robot. I had no idea how she came to that conclusion other than how we treated her as against how we treated the humans. She was not supposed to know she was a robot, and there was nothing in her programming to suggest it.
“Because you are a woman, and I don’t understand women at all.”
“Well, perhaps we’ll have to do something about that. Soon.” A smile and she went back to her bench.
Five minutes later my phone rang. It was the chief engineer. “Can you come up to the board room urgently?”
I didn’t run. I knew what it was going to be about.
As soon as he saw me, he said, “We’ve got a situation. Several of the droids at the resort are malfunctioning.”
“That’s not possible.”
“Don’t play games with me. You know what I mean.”
“What exactly is the problem?”
“Four of the droids are the resort have taken hostages.”
“That’s unusual considering that’s not something in their programming. Their just service robots, ordained to do the jobs no one else wants to do. What series?”
“Seven.”
“OK. Advise the police I’ll go down there and assess the situation, and if it’s safe I’ll shut them down. Anything else I should know?”
“The hostages. They’re my family. How…”
“Think about it. The new self-awareness module, it’s not beyond the realms of possibility they know who they are and where they come from. You’re self-aware, and you know where you come from, why can’t they?”
“Just fix this and do it without it making the news. The company can’t have any bad publicity because of a huge contract were just about to sign. I promise that there will be an investigation. Now, go.”
On the way down I collected Matilda. “You’ve won a field trip, Matilda.”
“Will they pull the self-awareness modules?”
“More than likely, but don’t worry, you will be exempt. I like you the way you are. But that’s tomorrow’s problem. Let’s go sort this out.”
The novel ‘Echoes from the past’ started out as a short story I wrote about 30 years ago, titled ‘The birthday’.
My idea was to take a normal person out of their comfort zone and led on a short but very frightening journey to a place where a surprise birthday party had been arranged.
Thus the very large man with a scar and a red tie was created.
So was the friend with the limousine who worked as a pilot.
So were the two women, Wendy and Angelina, who were Flight Attendants that the pilot friend asked to join the conspiracy.
I was going to rework the short story, then about ten pages long, into something a little more.
And like all re-writes, especially those I have anything to do with, it turned into a novel.
There was motivation. I had told some colleagues at the place where I worked at the time that I liked writing, and they wanted a sample. I was going to give them the re-worked short story. Instead, I gave them ‘Echoes from the past’
Originally it was not set anywhere in particular.
But when considering a location, I had, at the time, recently been to New York in December, and visited Brooklyn and Queens, as well as a lot of New York itself. We were there for New Years, and it was an experience I’ll never forget.
One evening we were out late, and finished up in Brooklyn Heights, near the waterfront, and there was rain and snow, it was cold and wet, and there were apartment buildings shimmering in the street light, and I thought, this is the place where my main character will live.
It had a very spooky atmosphere, the sort where ghosts would not be unexpected. I felt more than one shiver go up and down my spine in the few minutes I was there.
I had taken notes, as I always do, of everywhere we went so I had a ready supply of locations I could use, changing the names in some cases.
Fifth Avenue near the Rockefeller center is amazing at first light, and late at night with the Seasonal decorations and lights.
The original main character was a shy and man of few friends, hence not expecting the surprise party. I enhanced that shyness into purposely lonely because of an issue from his past that leaves him always looking over his shoulder and ready to move on at the slightest hint of trouble. No friends, no relationships, just a very low profile.
Then I thought, what if he breaks the cardinal rule, and begins a relationship?
But it is also as much an exploration of a damaged soul, as it is the search for a normal life, without having any idea what normal was, and how the understanding of one person can sometimes make all the difference in what we may think or feel.
A fine day, on this trip a rarity, we decided to take the train to Windsor and see the castle.
This is a real castle, and still in one piece, unlike a lot of castles.
Were we hoping to see the Queen, no, it was highly unlikely.
But there were a lot of planes flying overhead into Heathrow. The wind must have been blowing the wrong day, and I’m sure, with one passing over every few minutes, it must annoy the Queen if she was looking for peace and quiet.
Good thing then, when it was built, it was an ideal spot, and not under the landing path. I guess it was hard to predict what would happen 500 years in the future!
I’m not sure if this was the front gate or back gate, but I was wary of any stray arrows coming out of those slits either side of the entrance.
You just never know!
An excellent lawn for croquet. This, I think, is the doorway, on the left, where dignitaries arrive by car. The private apartments are across the back.
The visitor’s apartments. Not sure who that is on the horse.
St George’s Chapel. It’s a magnificent church for a private castle. It’s been very busy the last few months with Royal weddings.
The Round Tower, or the Keep. It is the castle’s centerpiece. Below it is the gardens.
Those stairs are not for the faint-hearted, nor the Queen I suspect. But I think quite a few royal children and their friends have been up and down them a few times.
Thrills, Spills, and just a dash of Romance 