Just an ordinary bucolic English scene – green fields and woodlands stretching into the distance. “This green and pleasant land,” of Blake’s poem.
There’s little here to mark the spot where William of Normandy overthrew the English King Harold, thereby changing the course of Western Civilization from that time to this.
In my novel, Ghosts of the Heart, my heroine Sophie has gone from seeing the ghost of her mother and that of Max, a 16th century soldier, to something resembling full-blown hysteria. Or is this a vision from the past?
No sooner had she thought of running for the trees when a huge man on horseback, rusty chainmail hanging to his knees, came out of the wood riding straight for her. As he raised his sword over his head, an errant shaft of light played on the weapon like a beacon. The destrier pounded at her, foam spraying from its lips, the battle fury upon it as well as upon its rider. Sophie stood transfixed, her eyes riveted on the gleaming blade. She could no more think of running than of flying, the thought of dying here on the field of Battle a passing wonder that brooked no argument. Then a deep chill penetrated to her very bones as the horse and its master passed through her and were gone.