Excerpt… Woman should gather roses ere Time’s ceaseless foot o’ertaketh her, For if too long she make delay, Her chance of love may pass away. A FEW LADIES looked askance but Johanna proved she knew her audience well when the opening verse was greeted with a roar of male approval. Well, and wasn’t it a…
Excerpt… England, winter, 1326-1327 Jaufre, Johanna, and Shasha settled in to plan an English extension of the Road, and Jaufre began his study of how to be a lord under the tutelage of Tregloyne. “Not a lord,” Tregloyne told him. “God’s teeth, save me from that, I’d be taxed to death and have to take…
Excerpt… England, autumn, 1326 Close up, the king was seen to be tall and spare, with blue eyes and thinning fair hair, and looked oddly familiar to Jaufre, although he couldn’t think why. His gaze was a little vague, and Jaufre wondered if he were shortsighted. He had deep pouches beneath those eyes, due to…
Read more Well, he was about to lose his throne, or so it seemed. Reason enough to drink.
Excerpt… England, summer, 1326 THE DAWN BROKE on clouds gathering over a steep coast, colored sullen orange to deep red. They were reflected against the oily, steadily increasing swell beneath the Faucon’s hull. “Yes,” the captain said, “let’s get docked now.” She brought the ship in close enough to what looked like an uninterrupted shoal…
Read more The oily, steadily increasing swell beneath the Faucon’s hull.
Excerpt… England, summer, 1326 They crossed the river Seine at Tancarville and followed it down to its mouth, where the town of Harfleur presented a bustling picture of energy and industry. “They’re starting a merchants’ association here,” Tiphaine said, returning to the inn where they had procured rooms for the night. “Perhaps Wu Company should…
Read more A heavenly bean stew flavored with bits of chicken and sausage and a lot of garlic.
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…