Post of the Month

~ May 2009 ~

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Robert/David/Adela ~ Written by Siiri & Nikke.  Posted on the HoS Yahoo group September 2007.

In his bedchamber, Robert stirred when the first crash of thunder sounded above.

Turning over, he briefly forced open sleepy eyes and from where he lay, he listened to the great patter of heavy rain rush down outside.

The noise soothed him, took him back to his childhood, cool air from the storm drifted in and eased the stifling warmth of the bedchamber. Robert felt at peace, his aching head had subsided. He turned over again, flinging out one arm across the dishevelled bed and fell back to sound sleep, oblivious to the noise of the storm as it raged on.

The rain was coming down in sheets as David and his squire Chartain rode in to Huntingdon's stableyard.

A sudden summer storm, that had erupted from banked grey clouds which had moved swiftly in from the west had ended their hawking. David's new bird was perched on his gauntlet, stolidly ignoring the rain. David watched the raindrops roll down the bird's sleek tightly feathered back and envied it. He and Chartain were drenched.

It had not been only the rain which had ended his morning spent hawking. Not long since a stableboy had run out to the common to find David with a scrap of parchment in his hand which had borne the simple message from Adela that Robert had come round.

David reined back his horse in the stable yard. He gave his hawk over to the falconer who had come and then dismounted and nodded to his squire who had come to take the reins.

"All right, Chartain. See to her and soap down the saddlery well, and then wait on me in the Great Hall."

Chartain, a square blunt youth of sixteen with a snub nose and a tangled fringe of dark red hair, led the horses away, and David, removing his gauntlets, strode across the courtyard.

He was aware of eyes upon him from those around the courtyard. From the boys sweeping out the stables, the door-ward at the main entrance, the man who trundled a cart piled with wood across the cobbles in the direction of the kitchens; they all watched him apprehensively, and David knew they whispered.

Word had no doubt gone round Huntingdon like wildfire that the young lord Robert was back. Brought back wounded last night in a cart. They would not know the details - David had paid Ingram, Hugh and the others well to keep their mouths shut, and they knew that to not keep their mouths shut would result in instant dismissal. David had instructed Hugh to casually put about the information that the young lord Robert was wounded and now blind, and had been brought back to Huntingdon to be cared for, since he could no longer look after himself.

_Gisbourne will see to the outlaws and put paid to them coming after the boy, even if they were to find out I had him here - which I doubt,_ David thought, _but even so, I can't keep him here indefinitely. A wider gap needs to be permanently placed between Robert and all that he thinks calls him in that damn forest. For his own good._

He walked across the stable yard, past the kitchens, the dairy and the granary, and entered Huntingdon through a side door.

His riding boots echoed down the stone passage as he moved past the pantry, buttery and the chapel. The Great Hall was quiet; his dog chewed on a bone under the dais table. Servants there were sweeping the wooden floor and replenishing the rushes; all smelled sweet. David nodded in approval to Godwin the steward as he passed.

"My lord?" the steward began, seeing David's sodden state from the rain.

"I can see to myself well enough, Godwin." He frowned slightly at two giggling, chattering women who were a little too loud for his like as they between them carried a large rush basket full of soiled linen down from the newel staircase behind the dais and down the dais steps to bear it away across the Great Hall; their chatter quietened immediately until they were well across the Hall. David raised an eyebrow at Godwin. "I presume there is now a fresh shirt in my chamber?"

"Aye, my lord."

David nodded and ascended the newel staircase at the back of the dais to the chambers above.

He passed a quick glance around the solar as he passed through it; it was empty. The shutters were open, the rain beat against the precious glazed windows; an acquisition in his father's time and his father's pride and joy. A fire had been neatly laid, the cushions on the stone window seat and on the settle by the fire had been straightened, and the orderliness of the chambersoothed his eye and mind.

Leaving the solar, he walked down the passage and entered his bedchamber; a square, plain chamber with the luxury of a glazed window. Its shutters were closed against the storm.

He was soaked to the skin. His hair was plastered to his forehead and hung in rats tails around his neck, dripping water from its ends. His riding boots were saturated with water and encrusted with mud. Rain dribbled down from his clothes to form small pools upon the wooden floor. David shivered where he stood, and for a moment he looked around him in the gloom and peace of the chamber, whilst all around outside the storm still raged.

Standing upon first one leg and then the other, he pulled off his boots and left them where they lay. Lightning flickered briefly through the cracks in the shutter as he quietly moved across the gloomy bedchamber.

Untying the cords of his riding cloak, he slid the sodden garment from his shoulders and let it drop onto the floor. Jerkin, hose and shirt followed in a crumpled, rain-soaked heap until he stood naked and shivering in the middle of the chamber.

His fresh shirt was lain upon the bed. He reached for it and pulled it on, then reached for his mantle at the end of the bed and rubbed his hair dry with it.

The door creaked open; he looked around, and saw Adela stood in the doorway.

"So you're back, then," she said simply. "I heard the horses in the stable yard."

David looked at Adela appreciatively. She had clearly taken time to wash and neaten herself from the raggle-taggleness of a sleepless night watching over Robert. She had donned a simple woollen cloth gown of blue, one that he had always liked her in, and her keys and small leather purse hung from an equally simple silver-gilt girdle. Her long dark hair had been neatly re-braided and now lay over her right shoulder in a long thick plait, banded at its end by ribbon.

The small ruby that flashed at the base of her throat in the form of the necklet he'd given her was her only adornment; her long fingers with their clean trimmed nails were bare. She had never been one for rings. He appreciated Adela, not least of all for her lack of demands on him for trinkets. His mistress in Navarre had plagued him every other day for a ring, or some pearl-headed pins, or a clasp for her cloak or some gee-gaw or other.

"Got caught in the storm," he said, pulling on dry hose and jerkin.

"I sent a boy out to the common with a message for you," said Adela.

"He found us. We were returning anyway, because of the storm." David sat on the edge of the bed and looked around him. "Where in Gods teeth are my dry boots?"

"What am I; your servant?" Adela spoke with dry humour and moving over to the window seat, hunted under it and finding his spare pair of boots, carried them across to him where he sat on the edge of the bed and dropped them at his feet.

David gave her behind an appreciative slap as she passed by him to stand at the foot of the bed. "We can always play out that role later, if you would like. It's been a while."

Adela raised a humorous eyebrow, glad he was in a lighter frame of mind than earlier this morning.

"So," said David, pulling on his boots, "the boy's come round from that wretched blow to his head, praise the Lord."

"Aye." Adela stood with folded hands at the foot of the bed and watched him. "I've just left his side - Blitha's watching over him at the moment. He's sleeping. I came to see you. Fetch you, as he shows signs of stirring from sleep."

David stood up and buckled on his sword belt once more. "I'll come. How is he?"

Adela led the way out of the bedchamber and down the passage. "He came round, recognised me even without sight, knew who he was. He was groggy and vague, could not seem to remember much, and I believe his head aches mightily, but he was capable of holding a reasonable conversation."

David fell into step beside her along the passage. "And? What did he say upon knowing where he was?"

"He asked a few vague questions," said Adela.

David felt a twinge of uncertainty. "What did you answer him?"

"I did not. I only reassured him, and sent him back to sleep with a dose of valerian."

"You drugged him!" David's voice was horrified.

Adela halted, whirled round on him and looking him in the eye, she spoke quietly and calmly but with firmness. "It is not my place to give him the answers to the questions he would have started to ask within minutes of coming round. That is your place, my lord, your place, and I do not think so highly of myself to even consider I have the right to answer those questions."

She turned and headed on along the passage.

David followed her. "You still drugged him. He won't thank you for it when he learns about it."

Adela floated on along the passage and had a ready answer. "He will be not thanking YOU more, when he learns it was you who took him from Sherwood and those men were your men."

She glanced sideways at him, slowed her pace, and laid a hand on her arm, adopting a more sympathetic tone, intended to reassure. "He went into a natural sleep, aided by the valerian. It has done no harm, David, I can assure you. His sleep will have rested his body and his aching head. He will be more able to cope with what you tell him. The valerian will have left him with some residual calmness."

She paused in thought near the end of the passage and by the light of the high narrow window there, turned to face David. "When he came round, he said some...strange things."

David felt unease. "Such as?"

"That he has always been blind."

David ran a hand through his hair. "It's what he believes. I told you."

"I know," Adela heaved a sigh, "but it was none the less unsettling to hear it for myself, from his own lips. WHY, David? WHY does he believe that?"

David shook his head in thought. "Shock of going blind, perhaps. Injury to the head maybe.....I haven't been able to find out whether his blindness was caused by injury, a blow to the head perhaps, or illness." He looked at her and lowered his voice. "I believe that some villages near Sherwood thought it witchcraft."

Adela sometimes did not know what to believe what she heard about Sherwood. "But it's not...?"

"Of course it's not," David snapped.

Adela was curious. "When you saw his men....Tuck....did they not tell you what happened to Robert to cause his blindness?"

"This is the total lunacy of it all," David spread his hands in disbelieving despair, "they all believed the same as Robert. Told me the same thing as Robert told me; that Robert was born blind. You've seen his eyes?"

"Aye. The pupils are solid white, as you said."

"What do you think?"

Adela shook her head to herself. "I have never seen anything like it before. I've seen elderly blind people with a white mist over their pupils, but this....this is different." She looked at David. "Gossip is already rife amongst the household servants about Robert's arrival. I would imagine the news has already spread to Fearnley village."

David adjusted the sleeves of his jerkin. "I expected as much. Hugh was instructed as to what to tell them. That Robert was wounded and because he is now blind I have had him brought back to Huntingdon to be looked to. Which is the truth." He moved on down the passage towards Robert's chamber.

"You cannot hope to keep his existence at Huntingdon a secret," Adela said, picking up her skirts and catching up with him.

"He won't be here long enough for word to spread too far. The people on the estate will know to hold their tongues - Hugh had my instructions to let it be known that if anyone tattle-tales too much to an outsider they can expect to face my severe displeasure." David rubbed his chin in thought. "Besides, the people on this estate are loyal. They're far removed from Sherwood, Nottinghamshire and all that goes on there - it may as well be on the moon to them."

"Yet they have heard the tales of Robert and his men," Adela said. "Whatever is true of those."

"Yes, they've heard the tales of Robert and his men - but it really does not strike that much of an impact with them," David replied. "Besides, any Fearnley villager needs my permission to leave the estate - and I can count on one hand the number of them who have ever travelled more than ten miles from the village in all my thirty years here as Earl. I scarce think any of them will be travelling outside the manorial estate in the next three or four months to spread the news that Robert is here."

They reached the closed door of Robert's chamber, and Adela paused her hand on it and faced David. "What about his men in Sherwood?" she asked quietly. "If they know you have him here....then they will come here."

David shook his head. "Oh, I doubt it. Gisbourne will soon finish them off in Sherwood now Robert is no longer there." He looked at Adela's face and smiled wryly. "Why do you think Gisbourne has held off thus far planning another concerted foray into Sherwood to finish these outlaws once and for all? He has certainly not wanted to displease me and jeopardise all he thinks he might gain from me in the way of social advancement by killing my son and heir. Now I have removed Robert from Sherwood - I have also removed Gisbourne's reason to stay his hand from Sherwood."

"And what of Robert's so-called wife and daughter?" Adela said low. "There is a woman and a baby in Sherwood with all the men."

David did not answer, instead moved past her without a word and entered Robert's chamber.

The window was shuttered against the easing storm, and the chamber was gloomy. Dust specks danced in the thin beam of grey light that filtered through the crack in the shutter.

Blitha, Adela's maid was perched on a stool by the window of the chamber, her neatly braided red-gold head bent over her sewing, trying to look industriously occupied, but her eyes swivelled round to David and Adela as they entered the chamber.

"Leave us," David said quietly. Blitha rose, bobbed her head, her worried eyes going to Adela, and took her leave.

Adela closed the door to behind the maid, then leant against it and watched in silence as David stepped forwards to the bed where his son lay.

David gingerly leaned over his son and looked down at him. Robert lay on his right side in the bed, facing the door and David, covers thrown off him in the heat of the summer day, just a single sheet tangled up amongst his limbs. One arm was flung out across the wide bed, his cheek was against the pillows, his eyes were closed and he breathed softly, asleep. He was no longer muddied, and was garbed in a clean nightshirt - there were still traces of blood in his hair and though his face was a better colour, David could not help but draw in his breath slightly at the sight of the hectic bruising colouring his left temple and cheek and the gash full of dark congealed blood at his hairline.

Adela opened the shutters to brighten the chamber, then moved forwards to stand beside David at the bedside and she too looked down at where Robert lay sleeping. She knew well enough where David's thoughts lay.

"Foolish, foolish, to have expected they would be anything but heavy-handed with him," David muttered. "I should have gone with them. He would not have turned and fought them then, not knowing who pursued him."

"I doubt he would have come willingly, even with your presence," Adela replied wryly.

David ran his hand through his hair. "I know....but I could have overseen....matters somehow."

Adela seated herself on the high stool by Robert's bedside and looked down at the young man. "It is done, my lord. It has not ended happily for either Walter's family or for Potkin who stands to lose an eye, but it is done and at least Robert is back where he belongs and where we can look to him."

Robert stirred, moved a hand up to his face and sighed slightly, as though responding to the sound of their low voices.

Adela looked up at David; he nodded slightly, and Adela leaned over Robert and covered his hand with hers. She spoke softly to him.

"Robert?"

Someone was saying his name. Robert stirred, unwilling to wake, but then the voice prodded at him again - and then another voice spoke his name - a lower voice, a male voice, a voice he recognised, even through the fug of ascending awareness.

"Robert?"

His fathers voice.

He dimly remembered. Yes, he was here, in Huntingdon. In his own chamber, in his own bed....why? He wasn't sure, he couldn't remember, save his head still vaguely ached....he had been wounded... That he remembered. How had he got here? He did not know.

Where he lay, he opened his eyes, moved his hand wonderingly across the folds of the rumpled sheet, finding it was sprinkled with sprigs of thyme and lemon balm, and the sweet fresh smell of the herbs rose under the sweep of his hand, to hit his nose and revive his tired and fogged mind. Suddenly the scent of the herbs reminded him of Sherwood, of Tuck, who carried a mix of herbs around with him in a small bag tied to his belt.

"Tuck?" he whispered out to the still chamber around him, frowning in concentration, wondering if the friar was in the chamber also.

David fought hard to keep the irritation from his voice. The boy was here safe in his own home, his own father was before him, and all he wanted was that damn excommunicated friar who resided in Sherwood and who seemed as insane as the rest of them by insisting to him that Robert had always been blind? "No, Tuck isn't here, Robert." He leaned closer. "It's me, Robert." He did not know what else to say.

Robert blinked, finding it difficult to attach himself to the patchwork of what surrounded him in the chamber. He tried to sift through a jumble of memories that kept coursing through his mind but found they evaded his attempt to examine them more closely. "Father."

David's relief knew no bounds at Robert's recognition of his voice. "Aye." He moved to sit on the edge of the bed; it creaked under him. "Feeling better?" He rested a hand on Robert's shoulder for a moment, then gently lifted his hand and smoothed the fair hair back from where it stuck against the wound on the side of Robert's forehead. He curiously surveyed Robert's face for reaction, hardly liking to look in those strange eyes that roved back and forth past him as though he was invisible. Those eyes told him nothing.

Robert tensed as he felt his father's hand smooth his hair back from his throbbing forehead, not sure about the touch. Part of it reminded him of the way his father used to stroke his hair back from his forehead when he had been a small boy - but there was something else about the touch, some other emotion connected with the delivering of it that made him wary and....what was the word?- suspicious.

What was he supposed to do in response to this touch - smile? For some reason, a smile wouldn't come when usually smiles came unbidden if his face was touched with fondness, with communication. He tried to force a smile, but his face did not seem able to respond, and he struggled with it for a moment, not sure what expression to make in order to communicate.

Suddenly, Robert knew why he could not smile - a flash of memory seared back into his mind of his last encounter with his father at the lake, his father pushing away his hands when he had tried to feel David's face and connect with him.

He lifted his hand and rubbed it confusedly across his face, in the process dazedly pushing David's hand away from his forehead.

"You took quite a blow to the head," David's voice said before him. "You need to rest awhile abed, but you'll be well enough in a day or so."

Robert licked his lips, becoming aware of his dry mouth. "I'm thirsty." He propped himself up on one elbow, found his head suddenly reeled at the movement. He paused on one elbow for a moment whilst the feeling of spinning subsided, and then dragged himself up to half-sit propped up against the pillows which he felt Adela's hands fly to in order to rearrange them.

"A good sign. Adela, give the boy some ale," and David caught her eye and nodded silently to the linen bag laying on the little covered table by the bed. She widened her eyes in protest at him and shook her head slightly but his look at her became a commanding glare, and eventually she turned away from the pressure of it, still shaking her head, this time to herself, and poured ale into the beaker, adding a pinch of dried herbs from the linen bag.

David took the goblet from her as she made to convey it to Robert's mouth and touched it to Robert's mouth himself instead. "Here, Robert. Here's some ale. Drink."

Robert found the rim of a goblet pressed lightly to his lips and his hand went up to the goblet bowl to hold it. He took a sip and spluttered, for the valerian in the ale was bitter but David's square calloused hand covered his cupped around the bowl of the goblet and tipped the rim back to his lips. "Drink it all." David's voice was encouraging and kind, and Robert obediently swallowed, for suddenly the childhood memories inside him wanted to please the father he had so little pleased in the last few years.

He was thirsty, he drained the goblet, even the gritty sediment where the valerian had settled. David took back the goblet and his hand briefly ruffled Robert's hair back from his forehead in approval; Robert did not complain, instead turned his face into the touch of the hand smoothing his hair back from his forehead.

He subsided back against the pillows with a sigh. "I'm at Huntingdon, aren't I," he remembered.

"Aye," David replied, darting an uneasy glance at Adela; she shook her head to herself at what was sure to come, and wrapping her shawl around her shoulders, sat back on the stool, wishing in some small way to distance herself from what was to come. She knew why David had demanded another dose of valerian for Robert; to keep him calm as he learned the truth of what had happened

Robert considered his father's answer. "Aye....Adela told me. When was that? Adela?" He reached out his hand in Adela's direction, she leaned forwards and squeezed it.

"It was this morn, Robert." she said kindly.

"What time of day is it?" Robert asked dazedly. "I can't tell....I can tell in Sherwood....not here, inside," he bewilderedly turned his head from side to side, trying to scan over the chamber. "Is it dark? Is it night?"

David watched the strange eyes with their white pupils move constantly around, oblivious to the bright patch of light from the window set in the wall directly opposite him and felt a fresh pang of regret. Regret seemed to be his main emotion concerning Robert nowadays. "No, it's day."

"It's afternoon, Robert," Adela told him, moving quietly to the foot of the bed to straighten the coverlet. "Listen. Can you hear the rain falling past the window?"

Robert focused on the soothing stream of sound briefly, then passed a confused hand across his face, still struggling with his memory. Some deep undefined worry was nagging away inside him, and yet....and yet growing drowsiness was making it impossible to think. "How long have I been here at Huntingdon?" he asked sleepily at last.

David exchanged glances with Adela. "A night and a day. Do you remember anything of coming here?"

Robert frowned, trying to recall. Various sounds and sensations flitted in and out of his memory; the squeak of a cart wheel and the bump of a cart travelling rutted roads, rough sacks under his back and the scent of blood. Men's concerned voices looming over him; a rough hand patting his shoulder where he lay on those rough sacks.

"A cart...." he murmured.

David regarded him warily, surprised that a blind man could be aware of so much. "Aye, that's right. A cart brought you here."

"What happened?" Robert frowned in thought, trying to cast his mind back, then gave a gasp and sat up in the bed, his arms braced behind him as vivid memory came back of bodies charging him; running footsteps through the forest and bodies cannoning into him. "The men! I was walking back to....back to..." he had been about to say camp but even drowsy had the instinct not to give away anything about the outlaws present location in Sherwood; instead he drew in another sharp breath of panic as more jagged surges of memory flooded back.

"Robert-" Adela hastened back round the foot of the bed to his side and took his hand in hers in comfort, seeing David did not move to reassure his son. "Robert, it's all right-"

Robert swung his head in distress. "I was walking along the stream from Maybury, and I heard men following me. They came after me - I was attacked-" He fought against the drowsiness that was beginning to wash over him. "Who were they? - where are the others?" He swept his hands restlessly out across the coverlet across his knees. "Where are the others - Rhiannon - Tuck - John-"

"They're not here," David cut in across the rising panic of Robert's voice and actions, seeing all too clearly that memory was flooding back.

"Robert, try and rest-" Adela leant over him and made to ease him back down against the pillows, but he resisted her attempts.

"They know I'm here?" he demanded, and swung his head in irritation at the silence. "Well?" he pressed angrily.

"No," David said finally. "They do not know you are here."

Robert sat stubbornly in bed, arms braced behind him, head bowed, fighting off the valerian-induced sleep, and had to stop to think.

"The men who followed me and attacked me," he said finally. "Who were they."

"They were some of my men," David replied quietly.

Robert's eyes which had been sleepily closing now jerked wide open. "Your men!" He groped around for reasons and could not find a clear one amongst the descending fog of drowsiness.

David floundered. "They didn't mean to hurt you....I certainly did not tell them to hit you over the head....."

"You TOLD them?!" Robert was aghast. "You PLANNED this?"

There came no answer but the silence from David before him was as good as an affirmative to Robert - in sudden frustrated fury he struck out his fist in David's direction and it missed David's chin by inches. Adela gasped and quickly drew back from the bedside.

David quickly caught his son's wrist and stayed his hand - and then swiftly secured the other wrist as Robert raised that hand to hit out with. He gripped his sons forearms and restrained Robert's angry struggle to hit out at his father. "Robert, I needed to get you out of Sherwood - it's for your own good-" he insisted into Robert's face.

"No-!" Robert, furious, struggled against him.

David gave him a short sharp shake; shocked, Robert ceased struggling.

"Look at you, a stone-blind man who taps his way along with a stick!" David shouted into Robert's face. "Are you a dolt? Gisbourne will sooner or later come into Sherwood to finish you and your men, and he will find it easy to finish you because you are now so at a lack! He will not hold off forever from trying to kill you just because you are my son and he does not to wish to harm his chances of advancement by me!"

Robert turned his face away from the force of the shout, screwing shut his eyes, and David, feeling contrition, immediately lowered the level of his voice but kept it firm and levelled straight at Robert.

"You are my son," David said with intent through gritted teeth, "my only son who is legitimate, my only son who means anything to me, my only son who can inherit from me and continue our legitimate bloodline, and what I have done, I have done for your own good, whether you like it or not. I have made a great deal many sacrifices for you in this matter, and you would do well to remember it and be grateful."

"David...." Adela appealed in the heavy silence as she looked from father to son.

David released Robert's arms. Robert did not retaliate, but sat still and stubborn in the bed, head bowed, a continual series of frowns crossing his face.

David drew a roll of parchment out from inside his jerkin. "Do you remember this?" He touched the roll of parchment against the back of Robert's hand.

Robert's fingers briefly explored the roll of parchment, explored the plethora of ribbons with the wax seals stamped on them - then angrily dashed the roll of parchment aside onto the bed.

He found he had lost all words in the turmoil burning within him, swirling around inside and making his stomach heave. He could scarce comprehend that his father had done this to him.

"Like it or not, that is your pardon from King John." David rose from where he sat on the edge of the bed. "I will not - I will NOT - have it wasted simply because you have a harebrained whim to remain in Sherwood as a blind man and thus be open to attack from people who would do you harm. Do you hear me, Robert?"

Robert kept his head lowered and clenched his jaw.

David picked up the roll of parchment from where it had fallen on the bed and tucked it back inside his jerkin. "It was bad enough when you were sighted and abandoned your position in life to run wild in Sherwood. At least then, much as you embarrassed me, I knew you could look after yourself. But your blindness now changes all of that. As a blind man, you do not now have the same rights as any normal man your age has, and you clearly cannot fend for yourself. And as your father, I have a duty to care for you and protect you - and if that means protecting you from yourself and your addled beliefs that you can take care of yourself in Sherwood, then so be it. You had best start adjusting yourself to your new situation."

Robert found he could not answer. He could not fight, he knew that already. Not at the moment. He doubted he could even get out of bed. His head swum, his limbs felt slow and sluggish; he felt as though he was drowning in a vat of honey - sweet, sticky, smothering. He felt his eyes kept closing and he knew it was the effects of the valerian he had been given to drink.

He tried to remain sitting by bracing his arms against him on the bed once more, but his hands slipped away from him over the slippery undersheet, and he found his back met the pillows that Adela's hands had been quick to pull there.

"Robert, you look so tired....lay down and sleep," her voice cajoled.

David's authoritative voice hovered far above him. "You need to sleep and calm yourself and think upon the sense in this, Robert. We will talk again when you are ready to listen....later."

Later... Later..... Later..... The voice was now disembodied and seemed to come from a long distance away.

Robert had no choice but to close his eyes and fall into nothingness.