Wednesday 19th August 1024


It was one year to the day since Robert Graye had been imprisoned. For nearly nine months he had woken to the sight of the same stone wall, cold and unrelenting in the darkness. He had been forced to eat the paltriest of meals, drink the most dirtied water. The memories were cruel and chilling. Yet here he now was, on the journey home. The French countryside was cool and free, and the sky blue and unending. It felt like a dream come true.

In the darkest of his days Robert had imagined such a scene as the one now before him. It seemed as though the world was endless, open; anything was possible. He had endured, and survived. Now he would reap the rewards. Now he would be free.

That was how he had once seen it.

Now, just as that place of hope and happiness had appeared to him in the cold, murky confines of his cell, his prison and the memories reappeared to him then. The scars they had left remained. The wounds they had inflicted still throbbed. Robert looked about him at his companions. Their faces were pale and gaunt against the sky; their bodies still thin and worn with malnutrition. Some had fared worse than others: some had simply not been able to cope, and had perished.

Then Robert saw himself and felt guilty. He had fared well: his body had not been changed much by the malnutrition; his wounds had healed quickly and well. Even his mind was not too impaired, or so he deemed. His sanity remained almost completely intact. It seemed to him that God had punished him, but only by forcing him to watch destruction, not suffer it. It was as though the world had been falling around him, consumed in pain and fire, and he had merely been made to watch. He felt cheated and humbled.

And he felt so very alone.

Again Robert looked round at his companions. They too had been humbled, and it was clear on their faces. But they had suffered for their sins, and had the marks to bear it. Robert himself had only memories. He had no proof of his suffering. Sometimes even he doubted whether he had ever suffered at all. And that, he thought, was his ultimate punishment.

Who knew, maybe he was mad.

Robert fixed his eyes on the first man he came across, a Polish serf by the name Mikolaj. Mikolaj walked by himself near the back of the group, his eyes downcast and dark-rimmed and his face deathly pale. He looked to be in fairly good shape; no doubt years spent ploughing fields had strengthened him against the lack of food. Robert recalled the day when the man had been thrown into the cell with the rest of them. He had not been alone then.

His wife had accompanied him. Their pagan captors had seemingly shown little extra respect for their female prisoners, as she had been manhandled roughly into the cell after her husband. Robert remembered all too distinctly the pang of deep sympathy as he first laid his eyes upon her; and upon her swollen stomach. She had been with child.

The pregnancy had ended no more than two weeks later. Both mother and child perished.

Robert could not begin to imagine what it was the man was going through. He thought of his own family back home, and of how, if anything were to befall a single one of them, he knew he would not be able to live. Mikolaj was just a little older than Robert. In many ways the two were similar.

Except they weren't, thought Robert miserably; he still had everything the poor man had lost.

The hurt became difficult to bear then, and Robert forced his gaze to another of his companions, this time a family. It was not a large family: simply a mother, a father and two children; although Robert struggled to recall a fifth member, possibly an aged grandparent, who had passed away not long after Robert himself had been introduced to the prison. The Englishman looked at them with a sad smile on his face. They were managing well, much better than many of the others in the group. They laughed and smiled at each other, reminiscing some time or another before their recent ordeal. Their faces were full of colour and life, their gaits relaxed and joyous. They seemed happy.

They had survived because they had each other. They eased each other's burden; each other's pain. They reminded each other of the good in the world and staved off the darkness with the strength of their faith. Robert was sure of it.

That was the difference between them and the rest of them. And there were so many of them, all pale and haunted. Everyone else had had to survive alone, cold and frightened in the dark.

There were of course those like Robert, those in between the haunted and the unscathed. He had survived on memories, images and recollections of his family and the times he had spent with them. There was his wife, Maria, whom he had met on a trip to London when he was just fifteen. She had been serving as a handmaiden to an important noblewoman in the royal court, a life her parents had chosen for her when she was just a small girl. Robert had spied her from across the palace dining hall one day when he and his father, a wealthy baron, had been visiting. He had instantly fallen for her. In the darkest hours of his life he had recalled the first time he had talked to her, her voice gentle and soothing; he recalled the time he first kissed her, her lips warm and soft on his. She had unknowingly given him hope; had restored in him his passion and his fury. He had found the strength to want to survive, when he had thought of her.

There were also his children. His three beautiful children. There was Emily, the oldest, who was wise beyond her years. He remembered the time when she had made for him a chain of daisies, and had come running into his solar to place it around his neck. She had kissed him on the forehead and run, giggling, back off to play. She gave him courage.

Then there was Connor, his only son, with whom his unfulfilled ambitions resided. Robert recalled when they had their first play-fight, and Connor had bruised his shin so badly he was limping for a week. He remembered how amusing his son had found it; remembered his laugh full of joy and frivolity. Connor gave him hope.

Lastly there was Grace, his youngest. The sound of her very first word still resonated in his mind, a word she had uttered so softly, so lovingly, just a few days before Robert had left on his ridiculous venture. Every time he recalled her shining face he felt a fresh wave of regret, for leaving her and for risking never hearing her speak again. She reminded him of love.

As Robert once again recalled those he loved more than the very earth itself he realised the irony of everything that had happened. It was a bitter irony.

He left his family because of his faith. He left because he believed that his love of God was far greater, far more important than his love for anything worldly, and that he should go on a pilgrimage to prove it. But it was God Himself who had punished him for his love. A day from Jerusalem he had been taken by raiders, plucked off the road like a stone. He had never even glimpsed the holy place. He did not know exactly where he had been taken; for the most part, when he and the others escaped, he had merely stumbled along behind, unseeing and uncaring of where he was and what was happening. All he had known was death and guilt; and he felt so cheated. What sin had he committed? What pain had he inflicted? He felt as if God had betrayed him. And yet he had been so loyal.

As the daylight had returned his senses to him in the months that had followed Robert had time to contemplate and consider. Part of him felt rage: an unquenchable fury aimed at the world around him and at God, for doing this to him. He wanted to tear the trees from the earth, to rip down the sky as if it were canvas on an easel. And still there was another side, a side that grew gradually more and more prominent. That side was motivated by the memories of his family, by his courage and his hope and his love. That side calmly told him that without God he was nothing, and that he should either take this as a sign or as a punishment - or simply just let it fade.

That side told him that somewhere his family was waiting for him.

And he refused to keep them waiting any longer.

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Later that day Robert stood among his companions on the cliffs overlooking the town of Honfleur. The town stretched out below him until the port, where it fell away. The sea then stretched on until the horizon.

Beyond that was home.

As Robert stood there thinking longingly of his family, a lump in his throat, he swore something to himself. He swore he would not forget what had passed. What had happened was God's will; he would learn from whatever mistakes he had made. He would remember his lesson, and try to become a better man for it. He owed that much to his family.

His family.

How he missed them. They were everything to him, his world and his faith. Never again would he put God before those who mattered most. Never, he swore, would he ever leave his the side of his beloved wife and children. Never, until the day God chose to end his life.

Whenever that day would come.

But now the sea was calling to him. And beyond, his family waited.

He wiped away the tears, and started onwards.