I was trying to build up the nerve to blow off Glade, my lover, but you ruined it for me! Okay, that’s only half true. I was bolstering my resolve to distance myself from my very beneficial friend and I ruined it for myself by blabbering on and on to my f...
Shadows danced and morphed on the grey brick walls, a variety of mosses, mold, and mildew growing in between some of the bricks, dank water leaking and dripping, following the patterns of the brickwork from the top of the wall, all the way to the bottom....
I remember that the sky was grey and leaden. The clouds were almost impenetrable, and they cast everything into an early, foreboding twilight. It was a heavy feeling, an oppressive weight settled about your shoulders. The sky pressing down, the walls clos...
Chapter 1It was midday. The sun stood high above the village of Miklavik. The village was known across the land for its proud female warriors and skillful hunters. The great Matriarch, Queen Nejfa, ruler of the known world, even sent for them whenever the...
And so it was that Mathias the hand-healer found himself in the shackles of a cage being wheeled out of town. Four hideous men walked in formation around the caravan as the driver led his horses through town to parade their new slave. "Look upon him!" th...
Astari– Part One Everything hurt as Matthew de Lacey was making his way back to his tent. His arms and legs were aching, his head hurt even more where the mace had struck his helm and his pride hurt most of all. Defeat was a difficult drink to swallow, ha...
Three months had passed since the incident at the Great River and Alya had seen very little of Talan in that time. The heat of summer was starting to fade and the cool nights of autumn were just over the horizon and Talrinen, the great capital of the king...
May 1391, Guildford Hamon de Grey, the bastard half-brother of Sir Giles re-adjusted himself and tried to act as if nothing had happened, yet inside he was on fire, his heart and mind racing. He tucked his shirt back into his breeches, re-adjusted his tun...
February 1391, Guildford ‘Have you met her? This Hobbes girl?’ Isabel asked. She and Hamon were sitting in the great hall in front of the fire breaking their fast together. Sir Giles was still abed, after the previous night’s excesses. Normally Isabel or...
February 1391, Guildford Isabel was sitting in front of the fire of the great hall, sewing and listening to the musician play a tune from the West Country on his lute. There was a hustle outside the hall and the servant girl Ida came dashing into the hall...
November 1390, Herefordshire Isabel la Badeau sat in the window embrasure of the de Grey estate in Herefordshire. She was watching the winter wind pelting the windows angrily. It was the sort of rain that came in on a diagonal and stung when it hit you. I...
August 1389, Aquitaine It was a hot, arid summer’s evening as Sir Giles de Grey sat in front of the open window, the hot and stuffy southern French heat drifting in. My God, does it ever rain here ? He thought. He slicked his shoulder-length dark blond ha...
Walden and Bayard crouched low in the grasses beyond the crumbling stone wall outside Carmarthen Abbey. The young squire's leather skull-cap kept slipping down over his eyes each time his jaw turned and stretched wide to gnaw off another bite from the mut...
Hanging on the walls in my home are two prints of paintings by Edmund Blair Leighton. 'The Accolade', and 'God Speed'. The Accolade depicts a man in chain mail being given ‘The Accolade’ of knighthood by a beautiful queen, with flowing red hair, in front...
Annie was ready to scream with frustration. All day long she had been serving drinks and food to groups of knights, travelers, and merchants. Customers at the inn often leered at her or made comments about her body, but some days were worse than others. T...
