My first novel (untitled) - chapter 1

I am an old man, a very old man really, although it doesn't always show. Of course there are the outward signs, grey and thinning hair, wrinkles, weird habits, but inside I feel as young as ever. The future, to me at least, looks bright, although it hasn't always looked that way. Let me tell you my story, of my journey and my adventures, and perhaps also I can tell some of the reasons that I have had, so far at least, such an interesting life.

Phillipa had more than one lover, and in many ways I was only an occasional bedfellow of hers, but there was something special between us. This could never show itself in any public way, as I was younger than her, and also far below her in rank. She was out of my star, but such were the times that I would often climb the back stairs to her rooms and spend the night in her large and queenly bed, sleeping little.

One morning, as we were both dressing, a sudden dread suddenly filled the room. We looked at each other, questioning, and both turned and looked out of a window, out over the rooftops of the small city. Riding at pace towards us on the roadway beyond the entrance to the city proper was a small group of riders. I can not be absolutely sure, as memories can wobble with time, but I think they were dressed in black.

"Go!" Phillipa was white, both with fear and anger. "Don't even think of going back for anything, just go." And she immediately started ushering me to the small doorway that led to the back stairway.

"Phillipa, you?"

"I can't, I can't travel." She was more than well known in the city and beyond. "I can at least hope that my husband's position will give him some authority over these people."

"Be safe. Stay alive."

"Go!"

And so without a kiss goodbye, without even a touching of hands or a backward glance, I hurried from the room and down the narrow stairs.

I left the city, not to the south, directly away from the approaching horsemen, but to the east, and then headed a little to the left, to the north east. I took care not to hurry, but I didn't hang about either. After a couple of hours I stopped and asked if this was the road to ___, a nearby town on the river, where boats could be found.

The afternoon was a difficult time. I knew that I would have to keep moving through most of the night, but I knew it was dangerous to stop to rest. I took a calculated risk, and slept for a few hours. hidden from the road at the top of a small bank. I then journeyed on and as the evening drew near, the road entered a valley, which narrowed, so that the road was on a shrinking width of flat ground between a river and the slopes to the hills. My timing was good.

As the light faded I found a place Phillipa had told me about a few months before. She lay next to me, her leg possessively over me, and had started giggling and playfully whispering in my ear.

"Touch me," she said, "put your attention in to touching me, but listen to my words."

She was serious, and I wondered why she was being so cautious.

"I do not trust even my bed." As a later writer said, it was time for Moscow Rules. And, still giggling and whispering, as I held her and stroked in all the right places, she told me of secret steps that rose up the side of a cliff, from a valley bottom, to the wild moorlands hundreds of feet above. Few now knew of them, she said, but those that did called them the King's Steps. Which king had been long forgotten.

"Now," she said, when she was sure I had understood, "Now, make love to me." And I pushed her onto her back, asserting a playful masculine dominance. In fact we both moved with a playfully, intensely, but in her eyes, where she could not completely hide it, was a sorry, and in mine a query and a doubt. We had heard the rumours, and there were signs in the way people talked, subtle linguistic shifts, that flashed subliminally. We had both noticed, and sometimes talked ... But everything seemed so normal, our lives were so comfortable, like the luxury of her bed, and we were all so happy.

I climbed the steps in darkness. Far away, from the mountains to the west, beyond my home, came the sound of thunder, and I saw the lights of the storm in the distant clouds. As I reached the top of the cliff I pressed myself into the rock. I heard horses passing on the road far below.

I walked over the moors and then into open woodland, until I came to a wide lake. I stripped off my clothes and rolled them into two bundles, one large, one small. I tied the small one around my waste, and pushing the other before me, stepped out into the cold water. In the middle of the lake, I allowed myself to sink into the water, then twisted and swam to the bottom. It was not deep, but of course very dark, and cold fear filled me. As my hands found a large stone, under which I placed the large bundle of my clothes, I thought about also securing myself there, breathing in and letting go: I was not brave enough. Phillipa!

I walked for another hour, and then exhausted slept as best I could, cold and afraid.

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Chapter 2 :: https://steemit.com/writing/@richardjuckes/my-first-novel-untitled-chapter-2