Book of Hours

Chapter One ; Brian Blackstone gripped the banister and eased him self down the left-hand set of stairs. The steps' creaking bounced back and forth through the vast formal hall. This one room, the entrance hall to what had once been a splendid English manor, was half the size of his former house. The railing shook and rattled beneath his hands like ill-fitting dentures. But his weakened state forced him to lean heavily on the banister. Each step groaned as if it was ready to break and pitch him headlong. When he reached the stone landing, he heaved a sigh of relief. He heard sounds emanating from the downstairs apartment and hurried for the front door. He needed to meet whoever shared this house, but not now. One thing at a time. It was a creed that had served him well for the past two years. ; Outside the solid-oak door, Brian almost stumbled over his valises. The leather suitcases were battered and grimy from two hard years of third-class travel. He had left them there the previous night because he had not felt able to carry them up the winding stairs. And the taxi driver who had brought him in from London's Heathrow Airport had certainly not been willing to take them anywhere, not after he had seen the paltry tip Brian had offered. Brian really was in no shape financially to take a taxi at all. But so late at night there had been no other way to journey from the airport to the village of Knightsbridge. ; Brian heaved one case and then the other into the foyer. He unlatched the clasps and dragged out two cotton sweaters and his only jacket. They were the warmest things he owned. The clothes felt distinctly odd, particularly when layered one on top of the other. It was the first time in eleven months he had worn more than sandals, shorts, and a thin cotton shirt. ; The December wind made up in wet chill for what it lacked in strength. Brian walked down the graveled drive, sheltered beneath the tallest elms and chestnut trees he had ever seen. Leaves rushed about his feet as the empty branches hummed and rattled overhead. To his right stood a converted stable, red-brick and crumbling. The gatehouse and the manor's main entrance rose just beyond. The entry's tall stone pillars supported a pair of rampant lions clasping some long-forgotten family shield. The iron gates were a full fifty feet wide and thirty high, now rusted permanently open and sagging with age. ; The gatehouse was as derelict as the stables. The entire facade was covered in vines, their bases as thick as his thighs where they emerged from the earth. They framed the big lead-paned windows and the doorway. The metal plate set above the mail slot announced that the house was called Rose Cottage. ; As he passed through the main gates, he could not help but glance back. His first genuine view of the manor rising above the chestnuts was astonishing. No photograph could possibly do the estate justice, and upon his arrival the house had been reduced by the night and his fatigue to a hulking shadow. Now not even the gray wintry day could erase its decaying grandeur. The house only had three stories, but the ground and second floors were both more than twenty feet high. The Cotswold-stone manor was nine windows broad, and each window measured five feet across. ; As he walked the narrow village lane, Brian found himself thinking back to what the taxi driver had said about Knightsbridge. Strange that the man's words seemed clearer now than they had the night before, when the world had drifted vaguely through the mist of Brian's exhaustion. Now, as he walked past brick-and-flint walls bowed with the pressure of uncounted centuries, he heard the man's voice anew. The taxi driver had related how the village was the oldest borough in England. Knightsbridge had been the first capitaBunn, T. Davis is the author of 'Book of Hours ', published 2006 under ISBN 9781595542366 and ISBN 1595542361.