The puzzle
The puzzle
Dave Sinclair
29 Apr 2025
It was one of those long, still summer days, we all think we remember from our youth, but perhaps intead have been in fabricated in our minds as hoped for memories of our past. So hot, it seemed as if the air itself was softly smouldering, hinting at some imminent calamity. That afternoon, we walked beside the river, from Richmond to Hampton court, seeking a blessing from its coolness as the water made its calm but purposeful way towards the sea. We held hands, my lover and I, as we wandered through the rooms of what had been once been Cardinal Wolseley’s Palace, before King Henry took the house for a favourite wife. Inside, in the semi-darkness (for the curators had drawn the drapes) the air was tepid and stale, and we felt the need to escape. Once outside, we wandered through the brilliance of the gardens, our thoughts quiet, languorous, happy just to be together. Our aimlessness brought us to the maze, where the tall laurel hedges were the walls of some green cathedral, calling us to communion in the coolness of the shaded passages.
From our first meeting in the spring, we had gradually found an understanding grow between us, a new language, that neither of us had spoken before. Burnished by the heat of that summer, we had no real need to speak at all, at least in words. Each time the path forked, we chose together, silently, as though moving in a trance. Arms linked, steps synchronized, we wandered with no care to arrive, only to continue our journey.
Eventually, we came to a small clearing, at the centre of the green labyrinth. A bench had been placed there and welcomed our arrival. As we sat, I laid my head against my partner’s shoulder, and together we slipped into a half-dream, lulled by the heat and the heavy scent of sun-bruised laurel leaves.
Soft voices, fluttered like a passing butterfly, but suddenly ardent, even feverish in the hot and heavy air. A man and a woman stood near us, although we had not seen or heard them approach. The woman wore pearls that caught the sun like drops of water, her gown a delicate brocade of gold. The man, tall and severe in a dark doublet, rested one hand on the hilt of a sword that glinted in the sun light.
“My sweetest Anne, you must no longer delay.”
Her cheeks were pale as ivory, but she nodded and her surrender was as graceful as it was absolute.
The rustle of the laurel leaves signalled a sudden breeze—cold and unexpected—and it chilled me to the bone. The couple turned and went their way, their forms dissolving as if they were secrets to be hidden within the green corridors of the maze.
I tried to speak but I found I could only breath dry, whispered words . When I asked my love if he had seen the couple to, or if the hollowness in my chest was mine alone, he didn’t answer but embraced me and softly pressed his lips against nape of my neck. The gesture was so gentle, so intimate, it reminded me first of love itself, but then of the loving caress of an executioner’s blade.
Although years have now passed, my thoughts often linger on what happened that day. I have gone back, many times, to that maze and walked those same twisted paths, retraced those steps and hoped to hear some new echoes of that past. Despite my search, the bench, the voices, the lovers seem lost to time—only memories of them remain. And in the hot summers yet to come, I know that I will continue to return and look again for that clearing. But I also know I will be glad should I never come to find it.
(635 words)