Though I have not been active on the blog I have been busy with writing The Wrathful Traveller - the Merlin Cronicles Volume 2'. The first draft is done . Just more revision, layout decisions, proofreading etc etc left. I'm hoping it will be published this autumn.
Until then, here's a sample from Part One The Cathedral Chapter One 'The Thief'.
All the best
Rhuddem
He
wondered how long he had been gone. Overnight? A week? A year? Last time he had
been in this cave, seventeen years had slipped by and he hadn’t even been
asleep, or whatever it was called that Pacifa had done to him.
He
sat until he felt steady and the ache subsided a bit then he rose stiffly,
pulling his cloak round him.
The
opening of the cave was blocked of course but he waved his hand in front of it
and with a soft rumble a kind of gap appeared.
The
light was blinding and he stood motionless until it had faded. It was actually
quite dim and his eyes adjusted. It was, it seemed, late afternoon. He still
didn’t step forward though, but listened. He heard the rustling of leaves, a
trickle of water. Birds. The baaing of sheep. Human voices, very faint, far
away. And the distant ringing of tools.
He
stepped cautiously into the opening, steadying himself with a hand on the rock
wall of the cave, and looked out.
After
a moment of mental disorientation, he saw that the surrounding area was much
like he remembered it. Trees, a brook, the hill sloping downward, grazing
sheep. No shepherd in sight but probably one nearby.
Looking
about outside the entrance he spotted a kind of shrine tucked in behind a rock,
hidden by a thick juniper bush.
A
Druid shrine. But very hidden. He saw another one, more visible. With a
cross. So, they’re still at it, he
thought.
He
heard an angry shout from down the hill to his right and he stepped away from
the cave to look.
He
grabbed at a tree for support as a wave of dizziness came over him.
His
gaze locked on an enormous building across the valley. He had never seen such a
huge building and it wasn’t finished. Throngs of workers laboured on the site.
Carpenters. Stonemasons. Blacksmiths. Men and women and children pounding,
climbing, sawing, carrying. It was an awesome sight.
Then
he saw a cross at the top of the towering steeple.
It
was a Christian church. A massive Christian church. A Christian church this big. How long had he been gone? He, who was never afraid, felt fear at the
sight.
The
shout came again, the shout that had brought him from the cave. He saw two
figures, both running, one small chased by one larger. The larger one was
clearly very angry, and a priest. The smaller one seemed to be a girl of about ten
or eleven. She was fast, but the priest was faster, and gaining on her.
The
two runners were heading in his direction. He didn’t like seeing a child being
pursued by an angry man twice her size, especially a priest. He lifted his hand
and caused the priest’s feet to stumble over themselves. With a curse the
priest fell, giving the girl the chance to increase her distance.
The
girl ran up the hill towards him and stopped, panting beside him. She slipped
something into his hand and without hesitating he put it inside his cloak.
They
both watched the priest scramble to his feet and run, puffing, up the hill, the
scattered sheep ignoring him and starting to graze again.
As
he approached them the priest shouted, ‘She’s a thief! Don’t protect her!’
‘I
didn’t steal anything,’ the girl said calmly and he admired her cheekiness.
He
could hardly understand what they were saying. They were speaking the Saxon
language, he thought, but not the one he recognised. He thought a moment then spoke to the priest
in Latin. ‘Soror mea est cognate. Egredimini de medio eius in pace.’ She
is my kinswoman. Leave her in peace.
Both
the priest and the girl stared up at him, the girl in incomprehension, the priest
in shock.
The
priest answered in bad Latin, ‘Are you a man of God?’
‘Why
do you ask?’
‘You
speak Latin, the language of the church.’ The priest’s Latin was so bad that Merlin
could hardly understand that either so he switched to the Anglo Saxon he could
manage. ‘I am a traveller,’ he said.
‘And
this girl is your kinswoman?’
‘She
is.’ He could feel the girl’s eyes looking at him sharply but he kept his own
on the priest’s. ‘She is not a thief.’
He lied easily, partly because he disliked priests on principle and
partly because he was curious about what would happen. And he had always been a
good liar.
The
priest regarded them both suspiciously. ‘I don’t recognise you. I’ve never seen
you.’
‘His
name is Creighton,’ the girl said as though she had never told a lie in her
life. ‘He’s father’s cousin from the north.’
The
priest looked startled, then sceptical. ‘So if she’s your young kinswoman,
Creighton - ’ he spat the name out as though it was a curse ‘ – what’s her name?’
‘I’ve
always called her Sparrow.’ The lie came as quickly as the others and he felt a
sting of loss over the person who had always called him Sparrow.
‘And
that’s because he thinks I’m more
like a Sparrow than a Wilda. And I agree. Wilda is a stupid name.’
‘It
suits you, girl,’ the priest muttered angrily, threw them both a sour look then
stomped back down the hill. They both watched him retreat.
‘Creighton,
eh? What made you give me that name?’
‘Oh
I don’t know. I saw you come out of the woods over there by those rocks. Don’t
you like it?’
‘It’ll
do.’ Creighton. Anglo Saxon for ‘dweller by the rocks’. Yes. He could see
himself as a Creighton.
‘So
what is your name?’ She looked up at him.
‘I think I’ll stay with
Creighton. I like it.’ 