Hope Begins to Fade

Getting Medieval

As we drove through a tiny village the driver spoke up, "This is where Lord Byron's daughter Medora Leigh is buried."

Matt looked at me a question in his eyes. I was glad that I'd paid attention to some of my university courses and that along with art I occasionally taught English classes. "Lord Byron was an English poet and there was a rumour that he was the father of his sister's daughter. Elizabeth Medora Leigh." I looked out the window with interest at the village that glowed in the afternoon sunlight.

Matt looked horrified. "What the fuck? I can almost hear the fuckin banjos. Johnny's dead."

I couldn't help but laugh although my laughter was cut short as we turned onto a small stone bridge that crossed over the river. We then turned on to a gravel road that passed a couple of small farms before it sloped abruptly upward through deep, green woodland. I looked nervously at Matt, after all he did know Johnny better than me. Maybe this was some kind of elaborate practical joke. Halfway up the hill we passed through an elaborate set of iron gates. Matt gave a long, low whistle. Strangely that made me feel better.

Abruptly the track levelled out and in front of us was a genuine castle. It would have been a square block if not for the circular towers on each corner. A stone and iron fence surrounded a grassed in courtyard in front of the castle. Abutting the fence was a series of outbuildings that looked to be used as garages and to the left of those on the other side of the drive was a stone house that I already knew was referred to as the gite. A few members of the Avenged Sevenfold team were going to be staying in the gite to help drive us out if we were going out for the day but other than that they were also enjoying a holiday. I already knew that it had already been arranged for a cook to come up from the nearest town to prepare our evening meals.

When we finally stopped in the parking area Matt hopped out of the car. "Holy shit," he said staring up at the massive building.

The Stallyns climbed out after him and jumped up and down as they shouted "A castle! A castle!"

I just stood there and stared slack jawed.

When the entire group of us had passed through the gates to the grassy courtyard and stood on a stone battlement facing the castle Johnny spread his arms wide and asked, "Did I do good or what?"

Lacey cleared her throat and looked at Steph. Johnny had the grace to look a tiny bit abashed and said, "Okay so Steph has been here before and Lacey wanted to come this time but did I get the rest of you assholes to come here or not?"

Zacky nodded slowly at Johnny and said, "Yeah you did good." He then gave a sidelong look at Brian before taking off in a run toward the front door that the escort had thrown open. "Dibs on the best room!"

"No way!" Brian screamed and took off after him. Steph rolled her eyes and turned to Lacey, "Don't worry Lace. You and Johnny actually have the best room because it's the one with the sleeping space for the little one."

Johnny punched his fists out a couple of times and hissed an emphatic, "Yessss!" before he skipped off after the Brian and Zacky.

"Fuck," Steph complained, "they're worse than children. I'd better go make sure that they don't break their necks falling down one of the staircases." She headed off toward the huge red timber door which had been flung open. "I'll send the idiots back to help with the luggage."

"Shit. Those assholes did that on purpose!" Matt grouched when he realised that Brian, Zacky and Johnny had left him, Brooks, Jeff and the rest of us to deal with the luggage and the tired and cranky children.

In the end none of us had to deal with the luggage. The local escort had leaped into action and before we knew it the drivers had hustled all the luggage inside leaving us to usher the wide eyed children into the building. Directly inside the stone flagged entrance hall was a spiral staircase leading to the upper levels from where we could hear laughter and shouting. Down a couple of steps through a doorway on the right was a vast kitchen with a huge wooden table, the doorway on the left opened into a huge sitting room filled with comfortable chairs and sofas. By a stroke of good fortune this room not only held a large television there was also a child gate across the doorway. It was in this room that we put the children with a selection of snacks and a movie whilst we sorted out the sleeping arrangements.