Excerpt– England, summer, 1326 IT WAS A golden summer. Everywhere they travelled in England, people remarked on it. At every village and town, people paused from their work to stand and bask in the sun, as if they were afraid that it would wink out in the next moment. “Forty years of wet misery had…
Chartres, winter, 1325–1326 The forest had given way to rolling fields of stubbled grain. At noon Shasha said, “What’s that?” and they followed her pointing finger to the massive stone spires rising up from the horizon, as if to knock at the very doors of heaven itself. “That would be the cathedral,” Alaric said. Chartres…
Excerpt… “Look up,” Hari said. “Look up, now.” Obediently they opened their eyes and looked up, and were assaulted by a blaze of colored light shining through windows that on every side reached for the sky, for the heavens, for the stars themselves. Crowned figures royal and religious, common folk wielding axe and saw and…
Excerpt… Lyons and environs, late fall, 1325 North Wind had had a trying few months. He had been force marched over the Alps from Milano to Lyon with no chance to stretch his legs in a race. In Lyon he had been imprisoned on a farm, where, to add insult to injury, when a mare…
Read more His human had gone away and left him for an unconscionable amount of time.
Excerpt… Provins, October, 1325 “How high is the rock, do you think?” Shasha said. “Five times the height of the towers of St. Mark’s, and that’s just the rock,” Firas said. Everyone’s eyes raised to what grew from the top of the rock. On a ledge close to the summit many tiny houses had been…
Read more L’Arête wasn’t just impregnable. It was unassailable.
Excerpt… Provins, October, 1325 “I’ve been thinking about how we get into L’Arête,” Johanna said. Most of them had made comfortable nests against and among the bales and bundles on deck, but this statement brought everyone into an upright, attentive position. She smiled a little. “It’s not that startling,” she said. “Alaric has told us…
Excerpt… Milano, fall, 1324 “She lied to us!” Alaric said. “We owe her nothing!” “Alaric!” Jaufre’s voice cracked like a whip. “She bargained herself for us, traded herself for our freedom. There was nothing to stop him from killing us and burying us there. No one would ever have known.” Alaric’s gaze dropped and a…
Read more “She’s his wife. She has no choice in the matter.”
Excerpt… Between the Hindu Kush and Baghdad, summer, 1323 Johanna was no match for Firas in upper body strength, but he made her practice with a heavy wooden practice sword for a month before he found a small sword in another market which weighed half of what the practice sword did. She discarded the first…
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,…
Read more “I beg you, please rid yourself of the habit of calling me Alaric the Templar.”
Talikan, spring, 1323 JOHANNA HAD NEVER been so bored. There was no lack of comfort in the harem, that was true enough. The blue-tiled floors had been built over a hypocaust, and were warm both winter and summer. So was the water in the rectangular bath that stretched the length of the main room. The…