Excerpt… “Your eyes,” Jean de Valmy said hesitantly to Shasha. “These are how eyes are made where I come from,” she said. “And where would that be?” “Cathay.” “Cathay!” Jean de Valmy’s eyes lit up. “Is it true that jewels rain from the skies in Cathay?” “Only when the moon is full for the second…
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Excerpt… Venice, December 1323 “THE YOUNGEST DAUGHTER, who is still at home,” Peter had said. “You may find you have something in common.” Like a face, Johanna thought. They met at the taverna where she had met with Peter the first time. It was convenient for both their lodgings and the alewife remained as professionally…
Read more “Of all my father’s fabulous fables, of course this was the one he chose to leave out.”
Excerpt… Venice, December 1323 The goliard had taken himself and his lute to the largest of the local inns and was there to be heard singing songs of the Princess Padmini and the night it rained emeralds, and telling floridly embellished tales of the hedonistic life lived in Cambaluc and Kinsai. Very little exaggeration was…
Excerpt… Venice, December THE BEST THAT could be said about winter in Venice was that the colder temperatures suppressed the smell of the canals. There was, however, no known advantage to the constant fogs that lay heavily on the Laguna Veneta, ghostly tentacles of which slithered up the canals to enfold the city in a…
Excerpt… Gaza, November, 1323 The good captain had his mast re-stepped and re-rigged four days following the arrival of Johanna and company, after which they were forced to wait two interminable weeks for a favorable wind. His pilgrims, thoroughly bored with the delights of Gaza’s bazaars and women, were impatient to depart. They said so,…
Excerpt… On the Road, summer, 1323 “TELL ME ABOUT the Templars,” Jaufre said. Alaric sighed. To Jaufre’s ears it sounded a little theatrical. “First, I beg you, please rid yourself of the habit of calling me Alaric the Templar,” the older man said. “Ram will have his little joke, but the farther west we travel,…
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somewhere in the Hindu Kush, summer 1323 They had had considerable difficulty in finding exactly the right village to help them. Many were too small, without enough men. Others weren’t poor enough, having staked out the only arable land in a day’s walk and therefore capable of feeding themselves and their families without resorting to…
Balkh, summer 1323 A scream from the hollow below spun her around. She leapt down the loose scree of the knoll and slid into camp in a scatter of loose gravel, barely managing to stay upright. There she found Hayat and Alma clinging to each other as they watched two young men, ragged and dirty,…
Kabul, spring 1323 “LAPIS LAZULI,” JAUFRE said. “Emeralds,” Shasha said. She hesitated. “Copper? I’ve never seen so much copper for sale in one place as I have here in Kabul.” “Heavy,” Jaufre said. “Depends on how much copper and how far we have to carry it. We should take counsel of Grigori the Tatar.” “One…
Read more “Even the priest has succumbed to our wicked influence.”
Talikan, spring 1323 “How soon will they get here?” the sheik said. The first scout exchanged a glance with his peers. “An hour, my lord,” he said. “Perhaps two. No more.” They stood on the wall next to the great eastern gate, watching Ogodei’s army spill from the hills onto the verdant plain between the…