Colban says goodbye

Published February 6, 2010 06:27 PM

The sun had risen on Colban’s last morning in Dunfermline. Colban had seen it come up. He had hardly slept in days.

Read more...

Harald's blood is put to the test

Published February 1, 2010 10:08 PM

“Oh, lovely,” Kormak grumbled. “Leki’s here. At last we can get started.”

Lagman leaned forward in his chair and smirked up at him. “Now, now, I’m certain he came as soon as he could put his pants back on.”

Read more...

Colban makes a harmless-crazy friend

Published January 26, 2010 06:40 PM

The King of Scotland proved to be a very big man. A Highland bull brought to graze on lush pastures, his whopping frame was packed with muscle and sleeked over with fat. He looked the part of a legend — of a man whose name, like the secret names of fairies, was rarely pronounced above a whisper in Colban’s clan.

This was the man who had whacked off King Macbeth’s head with a single stroke of his sword and strangled King Lulach in the crook of his beefy arm. And worse: this was the man who had ordered Old Aed’s father beheaded before the eyes of his son, the lords of Scotland, and the clergy; and walked out spinning the bloody crown of Strathclyde around his hand like a toy.

Read more...

Ogive meets the man of the midnight hour

Published January 19, 2010 09:24 PM

“Yes?”

Ogive gasped and drew back her hand. She had scarcely finished rapping.

Read more...

Alred does no dignity to the word

Published January 13, 2010 08:44 PM

“It’s from Eirik, isn’t it?”

Sigefrith stopped, open-​mouthed, in the middle of his word. He had not even said the letter had come from overseas. He had scarcely had the time to say “letter.”

Read more...

Yusuf trusts his doubts

Published January 9, 2010 07:09 PM

Leila was surprised, but after her first sharp gasp she managed not to show it. Yusuf was too flustered to notice even that.

“Sister!” He sat up on the bed. “Is it time?”

Read more...

Malcolm keeps to himself

Published January 5, 2010 04:43 PM

Colban called out, and the dog wheeled and dashed back to him in a spray of sand. The mutt had been tagging along with them since Hexham, and Malcolm had let him, because the dog was someone Colban could play with and talk to. That meant Malcolm could keep to himself.

Read more...

Flann looks into the mirror

Published January 2, 2010 06:51 PM

Flann tossed back the blanket and sat up. She was not the sort of woman who used sex to bend her husband to her will, but if the Good Lord had made the female body so attractive to the male eye, it was surely no sin to use it to attract male attention.

Read more...

Cearball learns the conditions

Published December 30, 2009 06:26 AM

Don’t wake him when he’s sleeping. Don’t bother him when he’s drinking or eating. Stay back when he growls. Cearball wondered whether Malcolm had realized how much his warnings made his father sound like a vicious dog.

Read more...

Lasrua awaits her time to dance

Published December 11, 2009 07:34 PM

“Rua? Are you feeling ill?”

Lasrua was not listening. She paid no attention to any of the voices in the room until she noticed they had all fallen silent, and then — what had Edris said? Was she ill? She shoved her tingling arm off her lap and looked up.

Read more...