Chasing Shadows

1642: In a country that stands divided, a young Royalist Soldier named Edward Snowden leaves his childhood home in Raglan to join the King’s army in Nottingham.  Before even a musket has been fired, Edward begins to question his role in the civil conflict that has pitted brother against brother and King against Parliament. Driven only by his loyalty to the Great Uncle who raised him, he travels the country with a small band of trusted scouts, one step behind a marauding group of mercenaries. His duty and honour are tested as the bloodiest of wars rages. 

2006: Seeking comfort after the disappearance of her mother 3 years prior, Kate Somerset returns to her childhood home in Raglan, Wales.  She’d spent years avoiding the town and its foreboding castle because the memories that lingered there were too painful for her face. Determined to confront her ghosts, Kate embarks on a journey to find out the truth about what happened to her mother, only to discover that the truth lay mysteriously intertwined with the past.

Chasing Shadows

Prologue

She found herself standing still, swaying slightly, her eyes wide and terrified. Her breath hitched. She turned sharply heading deeper into the trees. A rhythmic booming thumped loudly in her head. She clasped her hands over her ears and she could feel her pulse, coursing through her skull. The blackness of the forest closed in around her. Vegetation pulled at her clothes as she frantically trudged on, running, stumbling. It was still barely light outside if she dared to look up as the sun lit the tops of the trees, while the ground beneath her feet remained dark and cold. For a perilous moment she stopped, her hands clutching at her knees, trying to draw in as much breath as she could. The air was heavy with the smell of decaying leaves and smoke. She coughed and then held her breath. No noise, she scolded, willing herself not to cough again. She froze at the sound of voices approaching. Her heart lurched. She hugged her arms about her and fled, dodging branches and undergrowth with twigs snapping beneath her shoes, traitorously announcing her presence.

The blackness of the forest soon dissolved at a small clearing. She stopped cold. Which way? Her eyes darted back and forth.  Panic swept over her so violently that she shuddered.  She stepped backwards into something solid.  A hand clasped over her mouth.

Raglan Castle, 28th October 2006

“Do you believe in Ghosts?” a voice called from way in the back.

Kate smiled. “That’s a good question.  I guess you could say in my occupation, I live with ghosts every day.  Ghosts linked to a piece of pottery or a button from a soldier's coat. No matter how small the object, my mind never fails to summon up images of the people who used these things, people that I will never know, whose memories are… sadly forgotten.”

Kate was quite pleased with her improvised answer, one that would keep the believers and sceptics equally satisfied, because she truly never believed in ghosts herself.  After only returning to Raglan a few weeks prior, she’d already felt the familiar tug at her heart, the very same tug she felt as a child playing amongst the castle ruins.  Coming back to Raglan was something she’d avoided for years and it was now time; time to concentrate on living in the present for there was nothing she could do to change the past. Being asked to lead a ghost walk was just what she needed to feel a part of things again.

The group of visitors who stood before her hung on her every word.  They had come for a night of ghostly tales and she was determined that they would get what they paid for. It was time to begin.

“We all know the feeling, that cold prickly sensation that starts on the back of your neck. The moment when your heart begins to beat a bit faster and you feel a breath of cold air that makes you erupt in gooseflesh, but it isn’t the weather. That sense of knowing that someone is there, but you’re alone.  You feel movement behind you and you turn, only to catch a glimpse of a passing shadow.”

“Or maybe it’s something familiar about a place you’ve never been before. A sense of knowing but you can’t quite put your finger on it and it hovers just out of reach in your conscious mind. We’ve all experienced these feelings at some point in our lives, but what are they?  Could they be restless spirits who are tied to this earth because of mistakes they’ve made? Or maybe they have left something undone?  Are spirits drawn to certain people or places, destined to exist only in the shadows because the heavens have refused them entry?”

“Tonight I want to take you back, back to a time hundreds of years ago when our country stood divided. When towns stood against the King, the King against Parliament and brothers fought brothers…” 

Chapter One

Nottingham, England, 1642

The King and his army rode into Nottingham on the morning of 22nd of August, 1642 through driving rain and a fierce wind, making it a miserable affair. Turned away from the gates of Coventry by the city’s Trained Bands, and a less than enthusiastic response in Newark, the King had hoped that this profitable market town, could offer him more men, and more financial support for his cause. Unfortunately, the mood of the few townsfolk, who ventured to the common to have a look, was more of displeasure for the possibility of having to bear the cost of food and billets for his Army. Besides, August was harvest time, and the one thought that was foremost on everyone’s mind was not a desire to preserve the King’s “Divine right to rule” but to bring in the harvest, put it to market and keep their families warm and fed for another winter.

Not far from the common, and halfway down Merchant’s Row, a teenage boy burst through the door of his father’s shop, soaked to the skin shouting, “The King is here. Here in Nottingham!”

The boy’s mother exclaimed, “God save us.”  Tutting, she grabbed her shawl from the hook and threw it around her son.  “Just look at you Will, dripping wet, and Saints Bless me if you don’t get taller every day. Come to the back and get yourself out of those wet clothes. You are not to go anywhere near the common till the King is gone from here. John!  Have you heard what Will is saying?”

Her husband came running from around the corner and stood panting as Will repeated his news. “Right, no time to lose. Thomas get in here!” he shouted for his elder son to come through from the back, then turned to Will, still dripping and shivering in the middle of the floor. “Help you brother.  No time to dry off, get those crates and bring them down into the cellar.  Remove everything you can before those thieving soldiers start helping themselves to our wares.” His voice was urgent.

Thomas came running at his father’s summons, and started shifting crates.  Will stood in a puddle of water as his parents and brother bustled around him, feeling completely ignored.  Let them get on with it, he thought. If he was to be left there dripping wet, well, then they could just do it themselves.

His mother trotted after her laden husband and son, calling, “Come on Will, get a move on.” Will pulled a face as the three of them disappeared into the back of the shop with their armloads of goods.  He then ran for the shop door and did a disappearing act of his own.

By the time the King’s men marched the Royal Standard up a hill near the Castle and raised it high, the rain had slowed to fine drizzle but the wind remained, leaving the flag to flap about uncontrollably. Captain Snowden, a tall, sandy haired twenty year old from Monmouthshire, waited impatiently on top of his mount, a chestnut gelding, given to him by his Uncle.  “A strong and able horse is essential for a soldier,” his Uncle had told him before he left. Snowden had become partial to the animal over the last few months and renamed him Xanthos, after one of a pair of immortal horses given to Peleus. But unlike Peleus, Snowden knew he was no hero, he had caused his Uncle so much worry over the years, even though the old man had been so kind to him.

As the rain eventually stopped, more townspeople ventured out to the common to watch the spectacle.  Three troops of horse and 600 foot soldiers stood by as the King, who cut a small pitiful figure against the steel grey sky, waited for the Herald at Arms to read the Proclamation.

“Get on with it,” Snowden muttered, as he watched drops of water falling off the wide brim of his hat and onto his hands. Even from this vantage point, he could see that Prince Rupert, the King’s nephew, was showing his impatience by gesturing and shouting orders to those stood nearby. Snowden could only guess what was being said and that it was most likely spoken with a heavy German accent. He chuckled to himself.

“What’s so funny?” the man beside him whispered.

Snowden leaned in to answer. “Twas nothing, I was just imagining what was being said up there.”

“I’ve heard that when he’s in bad temper, you can barely understand him at all,” the man replied, just as the trumpets exploded in fanfare, snapping them both back to attention.  

The Proclamation was made declaring just cause for the King to set up his standard in order to suppress the Parliamentarian rebellion in the south, led by the Earl of Essex, and that he also required the aid and assistance of all his loyal subjects.  Once read, drums rattled and trumpets sounded and the multitude that had gathered there threw their hats in the air shouting, "God save the King!", but in spite of all this pomp and circumstance the wet throng dispersed and very few offered their assistance to the King's cause. The Royal standard was then carried back into the castle and was then hoisted up onto the battlements. 

Captain Snowden handed Xanthos off to a stable hand and trudged his way in soggy boots to the company’s office to inquire as to where he should sleep for the night. He couldn’t wait to shed his wet clothes and find something to eat. As he made his way across the inner bailey the clatter of the Royal Standard made him look up to the tower where it was fixed and at that very moment it broke its bonds and blew down.  Not being a very superstitious man, even Snowden had to admit that the fall of the standard from the tower was a cruel omen and should not go unheeded. 

copyright Luanne Uttley