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Category Archives: Historical fiction

SO BEWARE by James Hockenberry

02 Sunday Dec 2018

Posted by Book Lover in Action Adventure, Historical fiction, Suspense, Thriller, Uncategorized

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First Chapter, James Hockenberry, Military Fiction, World War I

SO BEWARE BOOK COVER_Final from TonyChapter 1   The Last Day

 The Western Front, Meuse-Argonne Sector, France: November 11, 1918

05:00: “Gil, wake up! Now!” Captain Gilbert Martin of Army Military Intelligence recognized the voice — Lieutenant Paul Keller, his longtime friend and assistant. Martin, alert and focused despite his all-night trek from Allied headquarters, lifted himself from his cot in the basement of an abandoned church. After eight months near the front, he was accustomed to crises, but he had not expected problems today.

“Paul, what’s wrong?” Martin grabbed his boots from under the bed. He trusted Keller with his life. “What in God’s name is it? The war’s almost over.” The armistice between Germany and the Allies was to take effect on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month. Six hours away.

“Not yet. The general’s sent the reserves up.” In General Donald Prescott’s part of the line, American troops had assembled in their forward positions. They were about to fight for ground the armistice would grant them for free a few hours later, a senseless waste of blood. “All hell’s about to break loose. We’re preparing to — ”

The deafening barrage of American artillery commenced. The explosions rattled Martin’s eardrums. “What did you say?” Martin hollered.

“Prescott has ordered an attack,” Keller yelled back.

“He’s not that stupid.”

“I was on forward watch. I saw the build-up.”

The artillery fire intensified. Martin cupped his hands around his mouth and yelled. “I have to stop him.” They rushed to their motorcycle outside the church. Keller, the fastest driver in the division, grabbed the handlebars and started it up. Martin hopped on the back, and Keller skidded away, kicking dirt behind him. They were at Prescott’s division headquarters in five minutes. General Pershing, the Commanding General of the American Expeditionary Forces (AEF), had assigned Martin and Keller to Prescott. Pershing said he trusted their judgment. Prescott called them Pershing’s spies.

Martin and Keller smoothed their uniforms. Prescott was adamant about neatness. Martin marched into the general’s tent with as much authority as he could muster. Keller followed. Prescott’s aides stood aside and let the intelligence officers through. Everyone liked and respected Martin, and they had witnessed Keller’s fearless aggression when provoked. The general, concentrating on his maps, did not look up.

Martin walked right up to the general and saluted. “Excuse me, General. May I have a word?”

Prescott glared at him. “How dare you barge in like this. Leave.”

Martin maintained his best parade-ground posture. “Permission to speak freely, General.” The request sounded like a demand.

“Denied.” Prescott looked back at his maps. He smelled like cigar smoke and expensive Parisian soap.

Keller stepped back and stood at attention with clenched teeth. Martin advanced one step and pointed to Prescott’s maps. “Listen, General.”

Prescott’s chief of staff backed away as if he expected an eruption.

The general’s bristly white hair stood at attention. His barrel chest puffed out. “Get out of my way.”

“General Prescott, this is slaughter,” Martin said grimly.

“Go to Hell. I don’t care who you report to. I’m going to give those Fritzes a final kick in the balls.”

Martin understood why Prescott’s staff called him Iron Head. “For Christ’s sake. Hasn’t there been enough killing? For what? A field we can walk across like it’s Central Park in a few hours.” Martin knew all too personally the value of human life. “Show some mercy.”

“You’re wrong, Captain. We’ve got these bastards on the ropes. I want to kill as many as I can. I’d march to Berlin if I could.”

“But we’ve won,” Keller said.

“Another word out of you, Lieutenant, and I’ll have you court-martialed.”

Prescott’s icy stare failed to intimidate Martin. “I’m calling AEF headquarters.” He turned and walked away.

“Stop,” Prescott yelled. “That’s an order. Sergeant, remove these officers. Keep them under guard until we finish the attack.” The sergeant and a burly corporal pulled their Colt .45 semi-automatic pistols and pointed them at Martin and Keller.

On their way out of the tent, Prescott’s chief of staff approached them. “Come with me.” As he escorted them away, he whispered to Martin, “Sorry.”

“Glory will be mine at last!” Prescott shouted behind them.

Once outside, Keller paced. Martin lit up a Camel and smoked it in seconds. His next one went just as fast. The chief of staff returned to the tent. The sergeant looked on apologetically. Minutes later, the barrage stopped and Martin heard distant whistles and yells from the front lines. The inevitable machine gun and rifle fire began to chatter.

“Shit.” Keller kicked the ground.

“I failed.” Martin shook with rage.

The wounded began to flow back from the front lines. Sick of the butchery, Martin prayed for these men with deep sorrow. The last American soldiers were dying in the war.

11:01: Shouts of joy erupted from both lines. Martin and Keller followed General Prescott and his senior officers and staff into no-man’s land. Half-way across, Prescott stepped into a mud hole. He ordered a staff officer to wipe off his boots while everyone waited.

This walk was unlike any other Martin had made across a battlefield. Except for the cries of the wounded, it was so quiet he could hear his timepiece tick. No machine guns, no shells bursting, no confused orders. But some things had not changed. A nine-inch rat ran across his feet with something in its mouth. Another chewed on the face of a soldier blown apart at the waist. Martin was not sure if the man was American or German. The smell of cordite, decaying flesh, and onions filled his nose. He wondered if this field would ever yield crops again.

Martin reached for another Camel. Smoking was his one solace. Since he had landed in France, he had smoked two packs a day. When the war had started, the army transferred Martin and Keller’s entire police unit, New York City’s elite Bomb Squad, into military intelligence. That was almost a year ago, an eternity. His lungs were still recovering from exposure to poison gas two summers ago, and his doctors had told him to stop smoking. Die now or die later — what difference would it make? Nothing at home to go back to. He had expected to be buried in France.

Martin surveyed the field. He estimated the attack had cost more than forty American casualties. Stretcher bearers continued to carry the wounded back to the field station. A soldier with a Red Cross band around his arm picked up human remains too small to be identifiable and dumped them into a sack. Martin had seen death up close as a New York policeman, but the killing in this war was beyond his comprehension. Industrial murder. He longed to go away. Someplace quiet. Someplace where he could forget.

They followed General Prescott to the German position. The Germans in their tattered gray uniforms stood weaponless. “Bavarians,” Keller said when he saw their uniform markings. Although defeated, they looked tough and proud. A one-armed German major stepped forward and saluted crisply. He offered Prescott his Luger. The general grabbed it and pushed him aside. “Where is your commanding officer?”

Keller translated. The German major replied. Keller turned to Prescott. “They’re all dead, General. Major von Ohlmann here was ordered here last week to take command of this sector.”

Prescott grumbled and shouted orders. Keller and von Ohlmann talked for a few minutes. Martin understood enough German to know that Keller had softened Prescott’s orders. Keller turned to Prescott. “These men are hungry, General. Can we bring some food over to their lines?”

“Don’t give these bastards a damned thing,” Prescott said.

“General, I apologize for saying this, but Major von Ohlmann is from a long line of Prussian officers,” Keller said. “He’s an honorable man and deserves respect.”

“He’s lucky I don’t shoot him.” Prescott looked around and seemed bored. “I’m done here. You so-called intelligence officers can do what you want. You will anyway, Lieutenant.” Prescott instructed his master sergeant to supervise the collection of German weapons. He told a corporal to remain with Martin and Keller and left with his staff.

After he was gone, von Ohlmann approached Keller. “Am I to understand you are intelligence officers?”

“Yes. We are part of General Pershing’s staff, not his.” Keller nodded his head toward Prescott.

“Gut. Then, may I speak to you and your captain in private?” the major asked, looking suspiciously at the American corporal standing nearby.

“Of course. Where?”

Von Ohlmann pointed to his command bunker behind a series of communications trenches. The three men walked there in silence followed by the corporal. Three times von Ohlmann looked behind him. Martin followed his eyes to a German sergeant with a red arm band and a curious stare who never took his eyes off them.

“Corporal Wasek, please stand guard outside,” Martin ordered. He, Keller, and the German major descended several steps into a 10 x 12 foot bunker. Three layers of stout timbers formed the roof, which was reinforced with layers of sandbags. Keller had to bend down to enter. It smelled of sweat, human waste, and turnips. Two sagging cots, a small table, and a chair were the only furniture. Rats moved unmolested. A dim light completed the bleakness. Von Ohlmann looked nervous but said in good English. “We can speak freely now.” His voice was dry. “You noticed that my men are Bavarian, did you not?” Von Ohlmann swallowed hard and stopped. He looked at the entrance to the bunker.

“Is something wrong?” Keller asked.

“Go on,” Martin said. “We’re alone.”

Obviously distraught, von Ohlmann looked toward the entrance again.

“We’re safe,” Martin said. “That corporal is a good soldier. I know him.”

Von Ohlmann breathed deeply and said in a low voice, “I love Germany, but these Bavarians, they are not German. They are traitors.” He squeezed his fist so hard his knuckles whitened. “You must tell General Pershing this. It is critical.”

“What?” Martin and Keller both said.

“The junior officers. They are planning a coup. They want to break Bavaria away from Germany and make it Communist. That would be a catastrophe. You must stop them!”

Martin heard a faint gasp outside, the sound of a man falling, and footsteps. A shot went off. Von Ohlmann grabbed his chest and slumped to the ground. Martin and Keller reached for their .45s and dived for cover. In the confined bunker, Martin looked up and saw the German sergeant with the red arm band in the entrance. He fired two more bullets from his Luger, but they missed. Martin’s return shot bored into his heart.

Keller examined the assassin, while Martin tended to von Ohlmann. His dying words were, “The German Revolution has begun.”

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DSC_4043James Hockenberry, a career financial executive, has redirected his life to suspense writing with his award winning “World War One Intrigue” trilogy. The change has allowed him to interweave three of his long-time passions: history, literature, and his German-American roots. Over Here, the first novel is set in 1915-1916 and dramatizes the little known but extensive German sabotage campaign in New York. The sequel, So Beware, is set in 1919, portrays the events and turmoil of the climatic Paris Peace talks and German revolutions. He is working on his third book, Send the Word (scheduled for publication in 2019), set in 1918 which will focus on the U.S. military experience in the Great War and the U.S. home front. His books are character-driven, page-turning thrillers, grounded in exacting research. Both Over Here and So Beware have won a silver award from the Florida Authors and Publishers Association (FAPA), and So Beware was a finalist in the Book Excellence Awards competition.

Connect with James at http://jameshockenberry.com/

As well as LinkedIn ( https://www.linkedin.com/in/jimhockenberry/ )
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THE SILVER GUN by L.A. Chandlar

08 Thursday Mar 2018

Posted by Book Lover in Action Adventure, Female protagonist, Fiction, Historical fiction, L.A. Chandlar, Mystery, Suspense, Thriller

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ChandlarLA-SilverGunINTRO 

The ashes of the cigarette struck the rocks with sparks and bloodred cinders. The wind beneath the bridge played with the wisps of smoke coming from the tip, making spidery webs in the air. The rising sun splashed a honey-colored glow on the buildings. From the shore, a trumpet, of all things, blew loud and clear like a call. The hooded head turned up abruptly, alert like a hunter on the prowl. Ready. At ease, knowing that it would come full circle. Destiny was working its odd magic. Like he said it would.

Something bright appeared at the edge of the bridge—halting, tipping, and then falling. The eyes beneath the dark hood followed it carefully, one corner of the mouth curving slightly into a gratified grin. The shining bit of destiny hit the shore just out of reach of the water on a small hill of gravel. The figure gracefully slunk across the shore, an arm slowly reaching out like a white snake about to grasp its prey. The coveted reward. The one he’d said was worth waiting for. The hand gripped the handle and tenderly pocketed the prize.

The cigarette was thrown to the ground, discarded. A lingering whistle echoed softly in the breeze as the hooded figure drifted up the shore into Manhattan.

CHAPTER 1  

My father was skating up ahead, faster, faster; my mother and I were laughing, joyously racing to catch up. Colors and sensations swirled like a dancer teasing the audience: the cold, gray day, the gentle snowflakes kissed my cheeks and coated my eyelashes, my mother’s blue scarf, my father’s scratchy red mittens. He was skating along the outside edges of the rink. We almost had him! A loud crack suddenly ripped through the air. A heart pang of panic, and my father’s fearful, wide eyes flashed back to us, arms reaching out. Then frigid, terrifying darkness. The intense cold made my bones and muscles ache to the point of cracking; then a slow, heavy, downward pull to blackness….

Three familiar images drifted into focus: the ugly grin of the lady in the green hat; the dark brown eyes intently staring, willing me to wake; and finally, the silver gun with the bloodred scroll on the handle.   

 I opened my eyes. A cool spring breeze ruffled the white drapes with the city’s fresh, energetic air. The familiar dark brown dresser with glass drawer knobs poking out and a charming porcelain pitcher and bowl on top looked steadfast and comfortable after the eerie dream. The cotton sheets in my smoky blue and white bed felt soft and reassuring as I rubbed them between my fingers. I stretched like a cat, and the only lingering remnant of the dream was those eyes. Those dark brown eyes.

I’m a big believer in dreams—well, at least some of them. A past I was still piecing together.

The piece I’d already figured out was the dark brown eyes. If this were a novel, those intense eyes might bring a sense of fear or unease. Perhaps they’d be a harbinger of my death and open up a vast mystery.

Surprisingly, those eyes were the only part of my dreams that absolutely brought me comfort. Were they the eyes of a long-lost love? No. Were they the sinister yet seductive eyes of a criminal? No. Tall, dark, and handsome stranger? Try squat, rather tubby Italian who never stopped moving and was, most of the time, bellowing. Which was actually occurring downstairs right this second.

I jumped out of bed, threw on my favorite black skirt and white blouse with the long, full sleeves, raced a washcloth around my face, brushed my dark brown hair, tossed on some mascara and bright red lipstick, slipped on my high-heeled red Mary Janes, and ran down the stairs to greet that bellower. Who just happened to my boss and a friend of the family.

He was also the ninety-ninth mayor of New York City: Fiorello LaGuardia.

“Good morning, Laney Lane, my girl!” boomed a voice loud enough to be worthy of a six-foot-eight giant versus this five-foot-two, rotund man.

“Grrrrr,” I replied. I only went by Lane. Lane Sanders. And I happened to take a perverse pleasure in never telling him, nor anyone, for that matter, whether Lane was my full name or a nickname. Plus, his voice was loud enough to be a giant’s but also very screechy, especially before breakfast.

“Good morning, Aunt Evelyn,” I said as I strode right past him, across the dining room, and gave my aunt a quick kiss on her soft cheek.

My Aunt Evelyn—Evelyn Thorne—was a marvelous mix of classy city lady and bohemian artist.

Her jet black hair was neatly pinned up, and she was sporting a crisp, navy blue pinstriped dress. I smiled to myself at the stark contrast of her attire this morning compared to her red skirt and her long hair trailing down her back while she was painting in her studio last night. Her childhood in France and Italy gave her a worldly and almost exotic air mixed with an earthy authenticity that loved to dare convention.

She smiled up at me from the breakfast table laden with scrumptious-smelling scones, eggs, and sausages. Her eyes crinkled with amusement at the exchange between Fiorello and me.

“I don’t have dark circles under my eyes, do I?” I asked as I contemplated running back upstairs for some face powder.

“Oh, no, not at all, Lane, not this morning. I can just tell,” she replied. I had no doubt about that. Aunt Evelyn’s intuition and attention to detail were uncanny at times.

I turned to the buzzing and humming human being I had swept past. Fiorello was in a consistent state of perpetual motion, but especially if he had not been greeted properly. Having had him suffer sufficiently, I rounded on him with a huge grin and cocked eyebrow. “And you, my cantankerous friend. How are you this morning?”

I heard his chuckle as I dove to the table, eating what I could as fast as human digestion and general dignity could handle, for I knew he would give me mere seconds to eat before we had to bolt out the door.

“All right,” he began, with eyes still smiling but with an air of getting down to business. “We have a lot to do today. I was just telling Evelyn that I have a meeting with my commissioners this morning.” He said this with a great roll of his eyes. Most of the time, his commissioners were the bane of his existence.

He continued, “…a meeting with Roger down at the docks to discuss the conditions at the dock houses and…” He went on and on about the day’s activities as I slurped down a cup of tea and loaded up a scone with homemade strawberry curd and butter.

Mr. Kirkland came in and scooped some scrambled eggs onto my plate. Even though I had lived with them for over thirteen years, John Kirkland was still a bit of a mystery to me. I would have thought that Aunt Evelyn would require a butler and cook who would be refined and stern in a European fashion. He was anything but that; Mr. Kirkland’s craggy face was weather-worn but appealing. I liked how his light gray hair was somewhat unfashionably long, touching his collar; how his eyes were tough, blue, and intelligent. He looked more suited to being captain of a sea vessel, barking orders to swarthy sea mates while battling hurricanes and pirates.

He had been with Aunt Evelyn since before I came to live with her when I was ten. He kept to himself and never really talked with me at great length, other than his usual muttering with the colorful language that also reminded one of seafaring life. And much to Aunt Evelyn’s chagrin, I couldn’t help but pick up a few of his more colorful words here and there.

As I ate my breakfast, last night’s dream kept tapping my shoulder like an insistent child trying to get my attention. So I began walking down the lane of the old memories it triggered.

It was the music I remembered most. The early Twenties was ripe with new sounds and new life. Our Victrola played them all: Paul Whiteman, Trixie Smith, Al Jolson. Songs like “” and “Three O’Clock in the Morning.” They were always the backdrop to every memory, every feeling. My parents owned a bookstore on Main Street in Rochester, Michigan, and our brown Tudor-style house had a lovely garden in the back.

My attention snapped back to the present as I heard Fiorello say, as he did every day, “We’ve got work to do!” He started to bolt out the door, which meant I’d better follow or be left behind.

“Bye, Aunt Evelyn! Bye, Mr. Kirkland!” I yelled as I grabbed my large purse with my two notebooks tucked inside.

One I always carried with me to take notes. The other was my prized possession: a deep red leather notebook with engraved curls and leaves around the edges. It was filled with notes and mementos from my parents and it never left my side. With my bag securely over my shoulder, I ran out the door after Fiorello.

His legs moved rapidly down 80th Street toward Lexington, where we’d pick up the subway at 77th. In my high heels, I was actually much taller than Fio, but his commanding presence more than made up for his height. I never felt taller than him. I had to fairly run (not an easy task, but damn, I loved those red shoes) to keep up with his pace. As he walked, he started to rapid-fire tasks for me to do for the day. I brought out my notepad and took down copious details.

We took a variety of routes to work every day, depending on Fio’s mood and whom he wanted to see on his way in. Sometimes we took one of the elevated trains down Second or Third Avenue, sometimes the subway down Lexington, or, once in a while, his car and driver would pick us up. When we came to Lexington and started south, we went past Butterfield Market with its heavenly aroma of baking bread wafting out. The many languages of the city rolled around us, making the energy and bustle of the thousands of people heading to work and school that day a physical force so palpable you could almost touch it. Packs of children were being walked to school while packs of dogs were being given their morning exercise. There was Murrey’s Jewelry store, which had just opened, with sparkling rings and bracelets in the window; the shoe store with its tantalizing new spring line; the dusty newspaper stands… I loved this city. It was challenging, stimulating, vibrant. A place of many layers and depth.

I was writing as fast as I could, fortunately using the shorthand I learned in high school. It looked like Sanskrit, but it was infinitely faster than longhand, especially when trying to keep up with the Little Flower—that’s what Fiorello means in Italian. He was only called that by people who loved him, but I never really could tell how he felt about that. His small stature seemed to haunt him. He acted like he was at least six-foot-four, but in actuality he was always looking up at people. He had a bust of Napoleon in his office.

Mr. LaGuardia was loud, abrasive, rude, purposeful, fast, incredibly intelligent, sometimes scary; did I mention loud? And yet he was also kind, generous, intuitive, and something I could never put my finger on…. Wary? Insecure? I don’t know. He was an enigma at the same time that his feelings were written all over his face.

I loved my job. I interviewed for the job right when Mr. LaGuardia took office two years ago, and after an hour of back-and-forth discussion (rather like a speed game of ping-pong), I was hired. I started in the secretary pool for over a year. Then, at the youthful age of twenty-three, I was recently promoted to Mayor Fiorello La Guardia’s personal aide.

We clanked down the two flights of steps at 77th, and Mr. LaGuardia said, “Good morning” and, “How are ya?” to many people, interspersed with things like, “Tell that Fletcher guy I’m watching him!” and, “Hey, Micky, how ya doin’? Tell your pop I hope he’s feeling better.”

We stopped, finally, at the end of the platform. I pointed and flexed my foot, working out the usual high-heel cramps. I felt someone brush up against me from behind; it was a mother with two young boys pulling on her arms, both prattling on to her at the same time. She looked tired, but she was smiling.

My eyes flicked behind her, and my stomach lurched with a sickening drop. Standing there was one of the scariest men I’d ever seen in my life, which is saying a lot, since I worked in the mayor’s office. He was a grungy white man with a grungier brown hat smashed on top of his head, a stained white shirt, a grotesque stomach jutting out over wherever his belt would have been, and a slimy black cigar poking out of his mouth. All that was enough, but it was his face that sent a ripple of fear into me. His eyes were mean and flat but hinted that something was lurking back there. His nose encased a dense collection of black, bristly nose hairs poking out. He locked eyes with me for one second. I blinked and looked down as he gurgled a satisfied grunt at my unease. Just then, the train roared into the station.

Fio glared at me. “Lane? You with me? You okay?”

I looked at him and said, “Do you see that guy watching us?” I turned, but he was gone.

“What guy? Watching us?” he asked.

“He’s gone.” Before I could say more, the train stopped, the doors swung open, and a mass of humanity crushed its way onto the train. The train lurched downtown with all of us packed into place with someone’s elbow in my back and a corner of a briefcase poking my thigh. I couldn’t get that guy out of my mind.

In an effort to think of something else, I tried humming the new song by Bing Crosby, but all I could remember was the part that had the title of the song in it: “Benny’s from heaven….” We finally pulled into our station, Brooklyn Bridge–City Hall. We smashed our way back out of the train and up several flights of stairs, and burst out into the refreshing open air at city hall. I straightened my red pillbox hat, which had gotten jostled a bit, and began copying down the onslaught of instructions once more.

Fio went right to his office after greeting everyone by name. I got to my desk and immediately started organizing my schedule. There was already a lineup of petitioners to see the mayor. From the young man whose wife had gone into labor unexpectedly early and the closest hospital was an expensive one that they couldn’t afford—Fio was sure to get the fees reduced—to the pushcart peddler who had come in to complain that he couldn’t get his license renewed. Fio always listened to each and every person and did something about their problem.

I helped Fio get through the line of people, listening, directing, and taking down information. Stifling a yawn, I felt the need for coffee and walked over to the coffee room. Fiorello didn’t believe in coffee breaks, so I had to make it quick.

“Hey, Lane! How ya doin’?” exclaimed Ralph, one of the other aides in the office. Ralph’s curly dark hair fell over his brow, and his smile was wide as he talked at breakneck speed. He was a nice guy; however, he never let me finish a sentence.

Ralph always knew what was hot to do in town. I could never fathom how much he crammed into a weekend. “Hey, Ralph, what’s up t—” I asked. Before I could finish my greeting, he started in at a pace worthy of a Gilmore Special.

“There’s a bunch of us going out to Club Monaco tonight, want to come along? I hear there’s a great band, play all the new songs, too, not just the oldies. Hey! Great shoes, Lane. You should wear that red dress you wore last time we went to Wit’s End. You looked amazing. Do you think you could bring Annie?”

He looked at me expectantly. Ralph had a hopeless crush on Annie, a secretary downstairs. But then again, he had a hopeless crush on a dozen women a month. He was lucky he was so good-natured.

“Sure, I’ll see if she wants to c—” I tried to reply.

“Great! Save me a dance, Lane! Gotta run, Mr. Fitzgerald’s extra grouchy today, better get back before he realizes I’ve been ‘Gone too long, Popeye!’” He mimicked his surly boss perfectly and flew out the door, managing to throw his empty coffee cup into the garbage can with a very nice backhand. He really did resemble Popeye from the radio show and on the Wheatena box.

I walked back to my office with my creamy, sugary coffee and looked forward to going to the new Club Monaco. I got to work typing up notes for some points of contention Mr. LaGuardia had on the conditions of the housing organizations, adding up some numbers of the budget for this month, and transcribing my notes from the morning train ride.

The first meeting of the morning was a big one. It was a Boner Award day. Today’s winner of the monthly award—a sheep bone decorated with ribbons like a Christmas present—was Fire Commissioner McElligott. He burned himself with a firecracker while giving a presentation about the dangers of Fourth of July fireworks.

The day went along its merry way until after lunch, when stern voices (aka yelling) floated out from Fio’s office. I had learned to diagnose how important the yelling was. There were three categories. Category one: normal yelling that occurred on a daily basis, when Fio was only nominally annoyed at something, like at the Boner Award earlier. Category two: louder yelling accompanied by some desk-thumping and perhaps a pen whipped at the door out of frustration. This often led to a swift departure by the one being yelled at, brisk action taken by the mayor (more rapid-fire notes on my part), and a lot of activity all day long as we metaphorically put out fires to undo the damage that caused the yelling.

And then there was category three. Ooh, category three. There was usually one big outburst that contained an ominous tone, only one single, loud thump of an agitated fist hitting his desk, and then an eerie quiet that was like the calm before the storm. I usually walked away from my desk at that point, went to the ladies’ room, and basically hid for a few minutes to prepare for battle.

This event turned out to be a category one. I wrote out a quick note on a minuscule piece of paper that said C1 and went out to the main office toward Val’s desk to give her the alert.

The entire office full of secretaries and aides was abundantly aware of the categories of our Little Flower. Valerie was my closest friend, and we navigated the office politics together. There had been a bit of a territory war ever since Fio decided to have me, a woman, be an aide versus a secretary. As I walked out to Valerie, I was already receiving dirty looks from my least favorite people: Lizzie and Roxy.

Val looked over at me with her green eyes flashing. With her light brown hair and thousands of tiny freckles, she looked fantastic as she sported a sage green suit with large buttons and three-quarter-length sleeves.

Lizzie and Roxy were eyeing me with constipated snarls on their faces. I waved in their direction and smiled, tossing the note to Val. She made some cryptic hand signals, like a catcher to the pitcher, to George across the room, and he ran off to another part of the office to inform them that the yelling was a mere category one.

“Hey, Short ‘n’ Shorter are particularly snarly today. What’s going on?” I asked Val as I leaned up against her desk. Lizzie and Roxy were very tiny and they had an adorable aura around them that made me feel like a Clydesdale. I looked over at them, noticing how Roxy’s curly white-blond hair hugged her perfectly round face in the latest style. She was very attractive except for the fact that she looked like she was perpetually displeased, or smelled something rotten. Today she had on a gorgeous yellow scarf and matching yellow, curve-hugging sweater that perfectly highlighted her best assets.

“Oh, they just figured out that since you were made an aide, you actually outrank them in the office.”

“Just now? But I got that promotion six months ago,” I said, with a quizzical, cocked eyebrow.

“Yeah, well, they might type like lightning, but the rest of them isn’t so quick,” said Val.

I looked over at them as Lizzie whispered something to Roxy like a gossipy schoolgirl. Lizzie’s long red hair more than made up for her sort of mousy looks. She had a terrible squint, like she might need glasses, and her shoulders were the tiniest bit hunched (which made me constantly want to scold, Stand up straight!), but with her luxurious hair and wonderful figure, I’m pretty sure no one else noticed.  Lizzie and Roxy were devious backstabbers. But they did type like lightning.

Since word traveled fast around there and I wanted to get back to my desk in case the C1 turned into something else, I said bye to Val and started to walk back. Just as I was getting to my desk, a lean, muscular man came barging out of Fio’s office, and we charged right into each other. He was obviously surprised and said with a soft and rather intoxicating British accent, “Sorry, love.” Before I could blink, he gently took my shoulders, set me aside, and in about three strides, was out the door of the office. The man was quick and efficient, yet I had time to glimpse dark eyes that sparked. And since I had literally run my face right into his collarbone, I also knew he smelled wonderful.

Just then Fio came out of his office with a crease furrowed between his brows, tapping his lips with his forefinger in thoughtful consideration.

“Who was that?” I asked.

“Hmm?”

“That man that you were yelling—I mean speaking—with just ran into me, and I didn’t get a chance to meet him,” I said, eyes squinting in assessment.

He hesitated, tapped his lips one final time, and replied, “Hmm.” Then Fio turned right around and went back into his office, closing the door behind him.

Click HERE to buy the book and keep reading!

Copyright 2017 by LA Chandlar

Kensington Publishing Corp. 119 West 40th Street, New York, NY 10018

LAChandlar Head ShotL.A. Chandlar is the author of the Art Deco Mystery Series with Kensington Publishing featuring Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia and a fresh take on the innovation and liveliness of 1930s New York City. Her debut novel, The Silver Gun released August 29, 2017 and the sequel, The Gold Pawn, will release September 2018. Laurie has been living and writing in New York City for 16 years and has been speaking for a wide variety of audiences for over 20 years including a women’s group with the United Nations. Her talks range from NYC history, the psychology of creativity, and the history of holiday traditions. Laurie has also worked in PR for General Motors, writes and fund-raises for a global nonprofit, is the mother of two boys, and has toured the nation managing a rock band.

Website: http://www.lachandlar.com

Book trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XCPXNEoE-5M

Social Media: http://www.lachandlar.com/social

ISAIAH’S DAUGHTER by Mesu Andrews

01 Thursday Feb 2018

Posted by Book Lover in Biblical Fiction, Fiction, Historical fiction, Mesu Andrews

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Isaiahs-Daughter Songs are written of sons, but daughters are left to whispers. So gather near, friend, to hear of a daughter beyond imagining. She had the heart of a lion. Braver than a soldier. Wiser than a king. She was queen in Judah long after King David’s bones had turned to dust. Long after the arrogance of Solomon’s son split Israel into two nations.

When the northern tribes seized the name Israel, the southern tribes called their new nation Judah and placed David’s descendants on their throne. Judah’s capital was the city of Jerusalem and its God was named Yahweh. But Israel bowed to pagan gods and even led some of Judah’s kings astray.

Yahweh’s prophets spewed warnings, and Judah’s brave daughter, the lion-hearted queen, dared ask the prophets why? When? And how will Yahweh’s judgment fall?
One incomparable prophet answered, foretelling Assyria’s cruelty as Yahweh’s weapon of wrath. Isaiah, a man born to royalty, shouted at kings and comforted beggars. The records proclaim him husband to a prophetess and father of two sons. This is recorded, detailed, written.

But what of his daughter?

Her story begins when the northern kingdom of Israel joins forces with Aram, a neighboring nation. They attack Judah in retribution for refusing to join their coalition against Assyria. Isaiah prophesies to Judah’s King Ahaz— a promise and a warning. Ahaz ignores both. His decision forever changes the life of Isaiah’s daughter.

Part I
Now [Ahaz, King of Judah] was told, “Aram has allied itself with [Israel]”;
so the hearts of Ahaz and his people were shaken . . .
Then the Lord said to Isaiah, “Go out, you and your son [Jashub],
to meet Ahaz at the end of the aqueduct of the Upper Pool. . . .
Say to
him, . . . ‘Don’t be afraid . . . because of the fierce anger of…Aram and[Israel]….
This is what the Sovereign Lord says:
“‘It will not take place . . .
[but] if you do not stand firm in your faith,
you will not stand at all.’”
Again the Lord spoke to Ahaz, “Ask the Lord your God for a sign,
whether in the deepest depths or in the highest heights.”
But Ahaz said, “I will not ask . . .”
Then Isaiah said, “. . . The Lord will bring on you and on your people
and on the house of your father a time unlike any since [Israel] broke away from Judah—
he will bring the king of Assyria.”
~ Isaiah 7:2–4, 7, 9–13, 17 ~

Chapter 1
The men of Israel took captive from their fellow Israelites who were from Judah
two hundred thousand wives, sons and daughters.
They also took a great deal of plunder, which they carried back to Samaria.
~ 2 Chronicles 28:8 ~
732 BCE (Spring)
Judean Wilderness

My friend Yaira said to be brave—but why? Brave or scared, we kept marching. She told me to be a big girl, not to cry, but I’m only five, and I’ve seen big men crying. The raw brand on my arm throbbed and smelled like burning meat. I lost count of the days we’d been marching in the desert. Long enough that the sun baked blisters all over me.

These Israel-soldiers called us “captives.” They whipped the ones who walked too slowly or cried too much. The woman in front of me kept crying for her dead children. I guess one of them looked like me because she grabbed me sometimes, as if I belonged to her. She didn’t seem to care if we were whipped for slowing the march to wherever we’re going—somewhere in Israel. Yaira would help me push her away, but it wasn’t always quick enough, and then we were all beaten. The woman was whipped until she couldn’t fight anymore. She screamed for her children until she had no voice.

I haven’t had a voice since the Israel-soldiers attacked us in Bethlehem. When soldiers came through the city gates, I screamed to my abba, but my words didn’t save him. I ran into the house, crying, but my words didn’t save Yaira from the soldiers who took her into the stable. They hurt her. More soldiers branded me even though I begged them to stop.

After all that, my words were gone.

“Ishma.” Yaira nudged me from behind. “Eat this.” My friend laid her hand on my shoulder, a small piece of bread hiding in her fist.

I shook my head. She needed it more than me.
“Take it,” she whispered louder. “Before they see.”
Yaira was twelve so I did what she said. I took the morsel and I ate it. The crumbs stuck in my mouth. We’d had no water since yesterday. Please, Yah- weh, give us water when we stop tonight.

Sometimes my prayers worked. Sometimes they didn’t. Mostly they didn’t.
As if she knew what I was thinking, Yaira whispered again. “Every day I pray for Micah to rescue us.” Her voice sounded dry like my throat. “He’ll come, Ishma. I promise. He’ll come. Yahweh will tell him and the other proph- ets where to find us.”

I kept walking, glad I had no words. Yaira wouldn’t like my questions. Why didn’t Yahweh stop the soldiers before they killed my family? Who could ever find us among so many captives? Still, Yaira had as much faith in her brother, Micah, as she did in Yahweh. Micah was her only family because their parents died a long time ago. When he couldn’t take care of her because he lived with the other prophets at their camp in Tekoa, Abba heard about Yaira and said she could live with us and serve as Ima’s maid. Yaira said Yahweh and Micah took care of her, but it seemed to me that my family did.

My face felt prickly when I thought too much about Ima and Abba. My tummy hurt too. I missed them. Who would make my favorite bread now that Ima was gone? Who would tickle me and make me giggle like Abba did?

Back in Bethlehem I held Ima’s head in my lap and watched the light leave her eyes after the soldiers speared her through. I didn’t see what they did to Abba. When the soldiers dragged me out of the house, Abba was lying by the stable with the same empty eyes as Ima. The soldiers wouldn’t let me say good-bye.

“Ishma, look!” Yaira pointed toward a gleaming white palace with black trimmings. It sat on a tall hill.

I’d never seen anything like it. Our house had been the nicest in Bethle- hem because Abba was the chief elder, but it seemed tiny compared to the palace on the hill.

“That must be Samaria, Israel’s capital,” Yaira whispered. “Micah told me that he prophesied here with Hosea.” Her breaths rumbled loud and fast as we climbed the steep hill. We kept walking, walking, walking toward the gates of the white city.

My legs ached and I stumbled, but Yaira tugged on my arms. “Don’t stop, Ishma. We’re almost there.”

I was too tired. My legs felt like water.

“Think of something else, little one,” she said. “What was Micah wearing the last time we saw him?”

That was a silly question. Micah always wore the same thing—a dirty brown robe. Abba said all prophets wore camel-hair robes, and I asked if all prophets were as serious as Micah. Abba laughed. Micah was kind but always frowning—especially on his last visit. He shouted at Abba that we must leave Bethlehem and go to Jerusalem where we would be safe behind its high walls. Ima took Yaira and me into the courtyard, but I could still hear them shouting. Abba was angry and told Micah to leave. Yaira started to cry. I hid against Ima’s legs and wrapped her cloak around me.

I wish Abba had taken us to Jerusalem.

Finally, the captive train slowed to a stop halfway up the hill, and I fell against Yaira. I covered my face with both arms, bracing for the soldier’s whip. But they didn’t beat me.

The crowd’s spreading whispers made me curious, so I lowered my arms to get a better look at Samaria’s palace on the hill. I couldn’t see over the cap- tives and soldiers, but they all asked the same question. “Why are they closing the city gates?” The sun hadn’t set, and we needed food, water, and clothes.
One of the captives pointed to a tall tower casting a long shadow over us. A gray-haired man dressed like Micah stood at the top and looked over the edge. He began shouting at the Israel-soldiers, and they shouted back. The captives huddled together while the soldiers’ faces got redder and they beat their fists against the air.

I curled into a ball, trying to make myself smaller. Yaira leaned over and covered me, like an ima bird covering her babies with its wings. Some of the soldiers began throwing stones at the watchtower. A sudden rumble of thunder boomed from a clear sky and shook the ground. Yaira and I trembled even after the rumbling stopped. I peeked up to the sky from beneath Yaira’s arms and wondered, Was that Yahweh’s voice?

Very slowly, she lowered her arms, knelt beside me, and grinned a little. “Yahweh fought for us, Ishma.”

All around us soldiers dropped their rocks. Some guards even fell to their knees. Others backed away from the captives as if touching us might hurt them.
I tapped Yaira’s arm and pointed at the man in the watchtower, shrugging my shoulders.

“His name is Oded,” she whispered. “He’s a prophet of Yahweh in Israel. He said the soldiers treated us shamefully and must free us or face Yahweh’s wrath. The city elders will lead us to Jericho where we’ll reunite with our fami- lies.” She kissed the top of my head. “We must pray the soldiers listen to Yah- weh and that Micah finds us in Jericho.”

Soldiers rose from their knees. Some still looked angry, but many stum- bled like newborn calves on unsteady legs. They slashed ropes from the cap- tives’ waists and unlocked shackles from their necks and feet. When the soldiers freed Yaira and me, she pulled me to my feet and hugged me gently, careful not to break open our wounds or sun blisters.

“We’re free,” she said, glancing around us. “I think we’re really going to be free.”

All the captives moved away from the guards—slowly, like they were drinking a bowl of hot soup, testing each sip. Could we really be released at the word of a single prophet and a rumble of thunder?

The soldiers unpacked clothing, food, and bandages they’d stolen from Judean towns, and they began passing it out to all us captives. Even the sad woman who had lost her children smiled. Celebration spread, and one word floated on the evening breeze. “Free . . . free . . . free.”

I’d heard that word many times before, but I understood it better now. A bird flew over, and I watched it circle and play in the sky. The bird was free— like us. No ropes or chains to bind it. No soldiers to burn or beat it. But when the bird settled into its peaceful nest at the fork of two branches, I knew we weren’t the same at all. My peace died in Bethlehem, and my home had been burned.

“Ishma, what is it?” Yaira tilted my chin and dried my tears. “There’s no need to cry, little one. I’m sure Micah will find us in Jericho.”
I stared into her sparkly dark eyes. She was so happy about being free, but didn’t she know? Freedom didn’t matter if we had no nest to call home. She pulled me back into a hug.

I closed my eyes and pretended to be a bird.

Bio:
Mesu Andrews and her husband, Roy, live in a log cain snuggled into the beautiful Appalachian Mountains with their dog, Zeke. The Andrews’ have two married daughters and a small tribe of grandkids. Mesu loves movies, football, waterfalls, and travel.

Biblical fiction is her favorite genre to read and write. Her first novel, Love Amid the Ashes (Revell, 2011), tells the story of Job and Dinah, winning the 2012 ECPA Book of the Year for a Debut Author. Miriam (Waterbrook/Multnomah, 2016), the second book in the Treasures of the Nile series, was a 2017 Christy finalist and tells the story of the Exodus through the eyes of Yahweh’s first prophetess. In January 2018, Isaiah’s Daughter: A Novel of Prophets and Kings (Waterbrook/Multnomah) reveals the little-known personal life of the prophet Isaiah and introduces readers to his captivating daughter.

Click HERE to buy the book and keep reading!

Excerpted from Isaiah’s Daughter by Mesu Andrews. Copyright © 2018 Mesu Andrews. Excerpted by permission of WaterBrook Press, a division of Penguin Random House. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

Mesu2Author Bio:

Mesu Andrews and her husband, Roy, live in a log cabin snuggled into the beautiful Appalachian Mountains with their dog, Zeke. The Andrews’ have two married daughters and a small tribe of grandkids. Mesu loves movies, football, waterfalls, and travel.

Biblical fiction is her favorite genre to read and write. Her first novel, Love Amid the Ashes (Revell, 2011), tells the story of Job and Dinah, winning the 2012 ECPA Book of the Year for a Debut Author. Miriam (Waterbrook/Multnomah, 2016), the second book in the Treasures of the Nile series, was a 2017 Christy finalist and tells the story of the Exodus through the eyes of Yahweh’s first prophetess. In January 2018, Isaiah’s Daughter: A Novel of Prophets and Kings (Waterbrook/Multnomah) reveals the little-known personal life of the prophet Isaiah and introduces readers to his captivating daughter.

Author website: http://www.mesuandrews.com/ to order free bookmarks, listen to audio Bible studies, or check out more fun stuff!
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THE PHARAOH’S DAUGHTER by Mesu Andrews

28 Saturday Mar 2015

Posted by Book Lover in Biblical Fiction, Historical fiction

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Tags

Biblical Fiction, Egypt, Mesu Andrews, Pharoah's Daughter

APharoah's Daughter coverPrologue

[The angel of the Lord] replied, “Why do you ask my name? It is beyond understanding.” — Judges 13:18

The royal linen closet is a dark hiding place, but I’m a big girl—almost five inundations old—so I’m trying not to be afraid.

I wonder . . . is it dark in the underworld? Was Ummi Kiya afraid when she and the baby inside her crossed over this morning?

The priest ordered me and my little sister to the birthing chamber. Ankhe is only three. She wouldn’t go.

The priest was angry, so he came to our chamber and grabbed Ankhe’s hand. “You must see the beauty of Tawaret—goddess of childbirth!”

Instead, we saw Ummi Kiya’s blood poured out on the straw under her birthing stool. Her light-brown skin was white as milk. The midwives pulled out a baby boy, but he was as gray as granite.

The angry priest wasn’t angry anymore. He knelt before Ankhe and me. “Anubis, god of the underworld, has stolen their breath. I’m sorry.”

I ran from the birthing chamber, screaming, before Anubis could steal my breath too. I’ve been hiding a long time because Anubis might still be hunting. He knows my name, Meryetaten-tasherit. It’s hard to understand, but I’m called a decoy—named after Queen Nefertiti’s daughter Meryetaten to confuse Anubis should he prowl the palace grounds. If I stay in this linen wardrobe all day and night, perhaps the dark god will take the Great Wife’s daughter instead.

Nefertiti, the Great Wife, hates me because Abbi Akhenaten loved my mother. Ummi Kiya was his Beloved Wife, and she gave him a son—my brother, Tutankhamun.

Pharaohs like sons, but Abbi Akhenaten doesn’t like daughters. He frowns when my sister Ankhe and I enter the throne room. Maybe it’s because of Ankhe’s tantrums.

Ummi Kiya said Ankhe’s ka is troubled like Abbi’s. He throws tantrums too, but because he’s pharaoh, he doesn’t get in trouble.

My legs hurt, and my tummy’s rumbling. I don’t want to stay in this dark closet anymore. But the linen robes hanging around me smell like Ummi Kiya—lotus blossoms and honey. Who will love me now that she’s gone?

My brother Tut will. He’s only six, but he protects me. He checks my bed for scorpions at night and makes his tutors teach me the same lessons he’s learning. We learn about Hittites and Nubia, and we try to write hieroglyphs.

Ankhe is too little for lessons, and she doesn’t know about love either. Will she ever love? Or will she be like Abbi Akhenaten and live forever with a broken ka?

I hear footsteps. Someone is coming. My heart feels like horses racing in my chest.

“Mery?”

Someone’s calling me. I think I know that voice.

“Mery, habiba, I know you’re in there.”

A little light shines in, and I peek through the robes at a kind woman’s face. Her cheeks are plump and round, her smile warm like the setting sun.

“You know my ummi,” I say.

“Yes, I was Kiya’s friend. Do you remember my name, Mery?”

She offers her hand, but I scoot behind the robes into the corner of my wooden shelter. Her smile dies, and I wonder if she’ll unleash Anubis now that I’ve been found. I hear a sound like a wounded dog—it’s me! I must stop crying!

“Mery, I’m sure your ummi Kiya’s heart measured lighter than a feather on Anubis’s scale of justice. She is waiting for us both in the afterlife, but she would want you to trust me now.”

I can’t stop shaking, can’t speak. I can only stare at this woman whose smile is gone and whose eyes are now filling with tears. Is she angry? I don’t remember her name, but I know she’s the big general’s wife. Will she call the army to kill me?

“Your abbi Akhenaten has given you to General Horemheb and me. You are our daughter now.”

She reaches for me again, but I slap her hand away. “No! I want Tut!” I bury my face in my hands and pray for Anubis to find me. Take me to Ummi Kiya!

“Mery. Mery!” The general’s wife is kneeling and bent into the closet, shaking my shoulders. “Tut will stay with you. We’re all staying here at the Memphis Palace together. Your brother, you, me, and General Horemheb. You will be with Tut as you’ve always been.” She strokes my hair and doesn’t seem angry that I yelled.

Slowly, I look at her. “Did Abbi give Tut away too?”

“No, little habiba. Tut is prince regent. He will always be Akhenaten’s son, but all Kiya’s children will remain under General Horemheb’s protection in Memphis. Because the general and I have no children, Pharaoh gave you as a precious gift. You are now our daughter. I hope this pleases you.”

She cups my cheek and looks at me the way Ummi did. Maybe she could love me a little. “What is your name, lady?” I ask.

“I am Amenia. Would you like to know the new name General Horemheb has chosen for you?”

I suck in a quick breath and scoot to the edge of the wardrobe, surprising my new ummi. “I get a new name? Anubis will never find me if I have a new name!”

Chuckling, Amenia stands and helps me to my feet. “You will be called Anippe, daughter of the Nile. Do you like it?” Without waiting for a reply, she pulls me into her squishy, round tummy for a hug.

I’m trying not to cry. Pharaoh’s daughters don’t cry, but her soft, warm arms make me feel so safe. Maybe Amenia could be my new hiding place instead of the dark linen closet.

My tummy is growling again. “You must be hungry after being in that wardrobe all day.” Amenia kisses the top of my head and gives me a little squeeze before letting go. “We must present you to your abbi Horemheb before our evening meal.”

“What about Ankhe? Will she come with us to meet our new abbi?”

Amenia loses her smile. She holds my shoulders hard. “Anippe, do you trust Abbi Horemheb and me to do what’s best?” Her voice makes me shiver.

“Where is Ankhe?”

“Ankhe is safe, and she will always be your little sister, but she will not meet General Horemheb.”

After another kiss on my forehead, Amenia smiles, and we start walking through the tiled hallway to meet my new abbi. I try to stop at Ummi Kiya’s chamber, but Amenia pushes me past. So I keep walking and don’t look back. Like the waters of the Nile, I will flow.
Chapter 1

These are the names of the sons of Israel who went to Egypt with Jacob, each with his family: Reuben, Simeon, Levi and Judah; Issachar, Zebulun and Benjamin; Dan and Naphtali; Gad and Asher. The descendants of Jacob numbered seventy in all; Joseph was already in Egypt. Now Joseph and all his brothers and all that generation died, but the Israelites were exceedingly fruitful; they multiplied greatly, increased in numbers and became so numerous that the land was filled with them. —Exodus 1:1– 7

Then a new king, to whom Joseph meant nothing, came to power in Egypt. —Exodus 1:8

Four years later

Anippe dipped her sharpened reed in the small water jar and swirled it in the palette of black powder. Her scroll had only one stray drop of ink— one less drop than Tut’s—and she was determined to best her big brother. She drew a second water symbol, adding it to bread, water, basin, box, and owl, to finish her brother’s name: T-t-n-k-h-m-n. Leaning to her left, she peeked at Tut’s progress. Her letters were much clearer, and he now had three stray ink drops.

“Very good, Anippe.” The tutor peered over her shoulder, his breath reeking of garlic and onions. “Your writing is almost as precise as the divine son’s.”

Tut smirked, and Anippe rolled her eyes. “Thank you, revered and wise teacher.” Maybe his vision was blurred by the cloud of his stinky breath.

“My letters are just as good!” Ankhe shouted from across the cramped classroom. She slammed her reed on the small, square table and began tearing her scroll into pieces. “You spend all your time with Tut and Anippe.”

The tutor grabbed his willow switch, and Ankhe turned her back in time to save her face from the lashing. “If I spend more time with you, Ankhe-Senpaatentasherit, you will likely be whipped more often. Is that what you wish? You will show me respect in this classroom, and you will act like the daughter of a god.”

Tears stung Anippe’s eyes, but she blinked them away. Daughters of gods didn’t cry. The tutor had never used his switch on her, but she didn’t wish to test him. She reached for Tut’s hand under the table, silently begging him to intervene. The divine son was never punished.

“Oh wise and knowing teacher, let us resume our lesson.” Tut raised one eyebrow, seeming much older than his ten years. “If I am to rule Egypt someday, I must understand why some vassal nations have betrayed Pharaoh Akhenaten and pledged allegiance to Hittite dogs. Our eastern border is at risk if I can’t control buffer nations between us and our greatest threat.”

Anippe gaped at her brother. He remembered nations and territories as if they were written inside his eyelids.

The tutor issued a final glare at Ankhe before returning to a stool beside his favored pupil. “Very astute questions, son of the good god Akhenaten, who is king of Two Lands and lord of all. The Hittites are indeed our greatest eastern threat, a military machine with iron weapons, but we must also beware the Nubians in the south. They pose as loyal servants to Egypt’s king, his officials, and our military, but you must never trust a people not your own.”

Anippe slipped away from the table, certain the tutor was lost in his topic, and slid onto the bench beside Ankhe. Her little sister was still whimpering, head down. When Anippe tried to smooth her braided wig, Ankhe shoved her hand away.

Like always.

Ankhe hated discipline, but she didn’t like to be loved either. Soon after Ummi Kiya’s death, Tut told the grownups that all Pharaoh Akhenaten’s children should be tutored, and he tried to have Ankhe at the same table—between her older brother and sister. But as she grew, her tantrums became worse. Sometimes even the switch wouldn’t stop her. So the tutor moved her to a separate table.

Separate. That was what Ankhe would always be, no matter what her siblings tried. Anippe saw welts rising on Ankhe’s back under her sheer linen sheath, marks from the tutor’s switch. “I’ll ask Ummi Amenia for some honey to put on your back.”

“She’s not my ummi.” Ankhe picked up her reed and dipped it in water and pigment. “They didn’t adopt me.”

“But Amenia still cares for you, Ankhe.” Anippe wanted to hug her, but she’d tried that before. Ankhe hated hugs. She hated to be touched at all.

The sound of soldiers came from the hallway, spears tapping the tiles as they marched. This sounded like more than the two guards who always stood at their doorway. This sounded like a full troop. Tut looked at Anippe, afraid, and Anippe grabbed Ankhe’s hand. Her little sister didn’t pull away this time.

General Horemheb appeared at the doorway, his big shoulders touching the sides and his head too tall to enter without ducking. He looked scary in his battle armor—until he saw Anippe and winked.

She wasn’t afraid anymore. Her abbi would protect her against anything. He’d loved her and spoiled her since the day Amenia introduced them.

But when he saw Ankhe, his face turned as red as a pomegranate. He scowled at the tutor. “Why is my daughter seated with the little baboon? You have been told to keep them apart.”

Before the tutor could answer, Abbi Horemheb grabbed Anippe’s arm, lifted her from the bench, and landed her back on the stool beside Tut. Anippe’s eyes filled with tears. Abbi was always rough with Ankhe but never Anippe— never his little habiba.

She sat straight and tall beside Tut, blinking her eyes dry, trying to be the princess Abbi wanted her to be.

When her abbi returned to the doorway, Anippe noticed two other people standing with the soldiers—a beautiful lady and Vizier Ay. Abbi Horem hated the vizier. Maybe that was why he’d lost his temper.

Who is that pretty woman with them? The woman wore a long, pleated robe, fastened at her shoulder with a jeweled clasp. Her braided wig fell in layers with pretty stones woven through it on gold thread. Anippe studied her face. She looked familiar, but she wasn’t one of Amenia’s friends who visited the Memphis Palace.

Vizier Ay took three steps and stopped in front of Tut and Anippe’s table. “Pharaoh Akhenaten has journeyed beyond the horizon. The priests have begun the customs of Osiris.”

Tut straightened and hid his shaking hands under the table. He was quiet for a while, breathing as if he’d run a long race. When his breath came smoothly again, he said, “The good god Akhenaten will cross the night sky and warm us with the sun each day.” His voice quaked. He was trying hard to be brave, but Anippe knew how much Tut loved Abbi Akhenaten. The weight of Egypt now rested on her brother’s slim shoulders. “When do we sail for the burial ceremony?”

Vizier Ay tilted his head and smiled, as if Tut had seen only five inundations. “We have much to discuss with you, divine son, but first I would have you meet your new wife.”

“Wife?” Tut squeaked and then peered around the vizier at the woman. Anippe’s big brother withered into a shy boy. He motioned for General Horemheb’s approach and then beckoned him close for a whisper. “I have no need of a wife, Horemheb—not yet.”

Abbi Horem leaned down, eye to eye. “Divine son and beloved prince, a young king needs three things to rule well: a teachable ka, wise advisors, and a good wife.” He tilted his head toward the pretty lady at the door. “Senpa is your good wife. Ay and I are your advisors. And you have demonstrated teachability. You are both humble and powerful. I am honored to bask in your presence, most favored son of Aten.”

Tut’s throat bobbed up and down, perhaps swallowing many words before the right ones came to mind. A bead of sweat appeared on his upper lip while everyone waited for him to speak.

“How old is she?” Ankhe blurted out the question Anippe wanted to ask but didn’t.

Tut’s eyebrows rose, clearly awaiting an answer.

Abbi Horem’s face turned red again, and he slammed his hand on Ankhe’s table. “You will be silent unless asked to speak.”

Ankhe raised her chin in defiance but didn’t say another word. Vizier Ay guided the pretty woman toward the table where Tut and Anippe sat. “Divine prince, meet your wife, Ankhe-Senpaaten. She is your half sister— daughter of Akhenaten and Nefertiti. You may call her Senpa.”

Anippe stared at Nefertiti’s daughter. All their lives, they’d been warned of Nefertiti’s evil. Now Tut must marry one of her daughters? How could they ask it of him? Senpa was beautiful, but she was ancient—at least twenty inundations, maybe twenty-five. How could a ten-year-old be a husband to a twenty-year-old queen?

Anippe shivered and earned a stern glance from Abbi Horem.

Vizier Ay cleared his throat and nudged Senpa aside. “Divine son and ruler of my heart, we have many details to discuss regarding the burial ceremony and your coronation. Perhaps you, in your great wisdom, could dismiss your sisters to Amenia’s chamber to plan the wedding festival?”

“Yes, you may go.” Tut’s voice sounded small.

Anippe wanted to stay, but Abbi Horem was already instructing a contingent of guards to escort them to Amenia’s chamber.

“Wait!” Anippe’s outburst quieted the room. “If it pleases my dear abbi, I would ask one question.” She stood and bowed to her abbi, using her best courtly manners to gain his pleasure before asking what burned in her belly.

“You may ask it, my daughter.”

Lifting her chin and squaring her shoulders, she tried to speak as a king’s sister—not as sister to a crown prince. “Will Ankhe and I remain here at Memphis Palace with Tut and Senpa after their marriage?”

Vizier Ay laughed, startling Anippe from her composure. Abbi Horem turned her chin gently, regaining her attention. “No, little habiba. Tut will remain here at the Memphis Palace with me and Vizier Ay. However, Senpa, Amenia, you, and Ankhe will relocate to the Gurob Harem Palace with the other noblemen’s wives and children. The king’s officials visit Gurob several times a year. You’ll enjoy helping in the linen shop and have many little girls to play with.”

Anippe worked hard to keep her smile in place, but her heart felt ripped in two parts. First Ummi Kiya and now Tut? Would the gods take away everyone she loved?
She bowed slightly to her abbi and then reached for the scroll on which she’d drawn Tut’s name—a memento of their last class together.

The tutor blocked her path, hand outstretched. “I’m sorry, Princess. I can’t let you keep that scroll.”

“But why? I—” Ankhe jumped to her side, grabbed the scroll, and hid it behind her back. Abbi Horem snatched it away, gave it to the tutor, and raised his hand to strike Ankhe. Anippe stepped between them, halting the general’s hand.

Grabbing Anippe’s shoulders, he shook his head. “You protect her too much, habiba. She must learn to behave as a princess.” He hugged her tight and kissed her cheek. When he stood, towering above Anippe and Ankhe, he addressed them both. “You can no longer write your brother’s name in hieroglyph. He is now divine, and his name is sacred. Only royal scribes may write the six-part name of a king within an oval cartouche. Now, my guards will escort you to Amenia’s chamber with Senpa.”

Anippe obeyed without argument. She looked over her shoulder as they left, wondering when Tut would become a god. This morning they’d laughed and teased and even raced from their chambers to the schoolroom. She’d almost beaten him. Surely a god could run faster than a girl.

Tut sat utterly still, expressionless, listening to his advisors. Perhaps that was what a god looked like—empty.

Anippe made sure Ankhe was behind her and then followed the beautiful daughter of Nefertiti down the open-air corridor to the women’s chambers. Losing herself in the sound of chirping birds and sandals on tile, she breathed in the smell of lotus blossoms as they passed a garden pond.

Like the waters of the Nile, I will flow. I am Anippe, daughter of . . . Horemheb and Amenia.

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Excerpted from The Pharaoh’s Daughter by Mesu Andrews. Copyright © 2015 Mesu Andrews. Excerpted by permission of WaterBrook Press, a division of Penguin Random House. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

Author Bio:

Mesu Andrews 2014--casualMesu Andrews’ deep understanding of and love for God’s Word brings the biblical world alive for her readers. Her first novel, Love Amid the Ashes won the 2012 ECPA Book of the Year for a Debut Author. Her three subsequent novels, Love’s Sacred Song, Love in a Broken Vessel, and In the Shadow of Jezebel all released to great reader enthusiasm. Mesu lives in the Pacific Northwest with her husband Roy.

Author Website:  http://www.mesuandrews.com/

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STRANGE GODS by Annamaria Alfieri

20 Friday Mar 2015

Posted by Book Lover in Action Adventure, Fiction, Historical fiction, Mystery, Suspense

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Africa, Annamaria Alfieri, Strange Gods

strange godsChapter One

They never went out in the dark because of the animals. But this night she must, despite her fear. If she was ever to escape the boredom of life confined to the mission compound, determination had to win out over terror.

So, well before first light, she left her bedroom. The things she would need were packed and waiting for her in the Kikuyu village.

She went barefoot through the back door of the house and into the kitchen yard. Once outside she slipped on her boots and tried to step lightly. She stole past the Mission office and the school. The moonlight was dim, but adequate. Her eyes were good.

All she wanted was a bit of adventure. To go on safari. She resented being kept at home while her brother Otis was allowed to go. She was nearly six years older, yet he had already gone more times than she. The Newlands had invited her as well as Otis, but her mother had refused to allow her leave. Her mother, who tried to control every minute of her time. Well, tomorrow morning she would tell Mr. and Mrs. Newland that Mother had changed her mind. By the time her parents discovered what she had done, they would have no way to bring her back.

It was juvenile of her to be doing this. She was a grown woman, nearly twenty. But she would never have the chance to be an actual grownup, to make her own decisions. British rules of maidenhood did not allow for that.

Otis was already at the Newland farm, set to go off into the wilderness in the morning. After much cajoling, he had agreed to help her slip away and join the safari party. “We will leave at dawn,” he had said before he went. “I will ask Mr. Newland to take us near the Kikuyu village, but you will have to be there and ready by six.”

“That’s easy enough.”

“What will you say if they catch you?”

“I will go beforehand and put my rucksack and my rifle in Wangari’s hut. That way, if they see me up in the night, they will not suspect the truth.”

“Okay,” he said, grave faced. “That’s a good plan.” She loved it that he pretended to be a man. He was such a serious boy.

The chill of the wee hours made her wish for the jacket that was already at the bottom of her pack. She scanned the shadows for the slightest movement as she crossed the bare packed earth of the Mission grounds, listening with her ears, with her skin, for any sound of danger. Hippos might have come up from the river to graze. They were deadly but not quiet. The cats were silent but unlikely to be hunting here now. They came often to look for water in the dry season, but not after the long rains, when the land was moist and the water holes all round about were full.

Stupidly she thought of Tolliver. Whenever she moved from one place to another her thoughts always went to him, as if her bones and her blood vessels wanted her to move only in his direction, wherever else she was going. Tolliver, though, would never approve of her defying her parents. He was a proper Englishman. Men like him never expected a good girl to do anything but what she was told, even when she was an adult in every other way.

The moonlight threw a weak shadow beneath the thorn tree growing in the sward that separated the stone hospital from the grass and wattle school. A rustling in the underbrush halted her steps and her breath. She was between the river and whatever that was in the shadows near the chapel. If it was a hippo, it might kill her with one snap of its powerful jaws just for blocking its way back to the water. Suddenly the night was full of sound. As many cicadas as there were stars, singing out near the hospital privies. The chilling cry of hyenas behind her, beyond the coffee groves. And then the long, deep, hollow vibration of a lion’s roar that sounded as if it came from the core of the earth. The cat’s night song did not frighten her. They made that noise when they mated. She thought of Justin Tolliver again but pushed her mind away from the mating call in her own blood.

She stole toward the stable, with her eyes to her right where the rustling in the undergrowth had come from. When she heard nothing, she ran flat out until she came to the veranda of the hospital. The windows of the building were dark. Not even a candle burned in the wards. She slipped into the gloom at the near side stone wall, panting a bit, more from fear, than from running. She breathed deeply to calm her nerves. The noise of something moving came again, nearer now. She was about to back away to try to get inside the building before the animal reached her when she saw a person carrying a lantern, approaching around the far corner. It could only be Otis, come back to help her. But why would he bring the lamp? She held her breath not to shout and scold him.

She crept in his direction.

The figure carry ing the lantern became clear.

Vera gasped. “Mother!”

“Vera?”

“I—I—”

“Go to your room and stop this nonsense.”

“But, Mother . . .”

“Immediately.”

There was no disobeying her mother when she used that tone.

 

While, in the dark of night, Vera McIntosh returned to her bed, where she consoled herself with fantasies that involved kissing Justin Tolliver, the young man who was the object of her infatuation stood in the half-wrecked bar of the Masonic Hotel in Nairobi, his hands in the air and two revolvers aimed at his heart. His own weapon was still in the holster at his side. This was a tight spot where an assistant superintendent of police should never find himself, not even a neophyte like him. How he got here was as easy to explain as it was humiliating and exasperating.

His superior officer— District Superintendent of Police Jodrell— was off on home leave in England, making Tolliver answerable directly to Britain’s top man in this sector—District Commissioner Cranford.

When Tolliver was called to the hotel to take control of two drunken Europeans who were tearing up the place, he brought with him a squad of his best askaris—African policemen who could be counted on to be brave and dutiful, including the best of the lot, Kwai Libazo.

But as they jogged at double-time through the unpaved streets of the ramshackle young town, carrying flaming torches to light their way, Tolliver knew he was in danger of incurring D. C. Cranford’s wrath. He was about to make the unforgivable mistake of using African policemen against Europeans. Cranford had the strongest opinions of such matters. So Tolliver had left his squad outside the corrugated iron and wood hotel and entered the bar alone. Unfortunately, he had failed to draw his pistol before he did so. Perhaps if he had not been exhausted from doing double work for days now, including fighting a fire last night in an Indian shop on Victoria Street, or if he had cared less about what Cranford thought and more about his own skin, he would not have let these louts get the advantage of him. As it was, he was completely at their mercy, unless the askaris outside came to his aid. But why would they if they had no idea how muddle-headed he had been?

“You are being damned fools,” he said with more bravado than his predicament warranted. “If you interfere with a police officer in the execution of his duty, you are risking many years of hard imprisonment. If you hurt me, you will be up before a firing squad.”

“Bloody hell, we will,” the bigger man said with a laugh.

“Listen, you puppy, on the count of three you are turning tail outta here or you’ll be picking lead outta your legs.”

Tolliver gave them what he hoped looked like a careless, indulgent smile. “I am not leaving without putting the two of you under arrest. If you come with me peacefully, I’ll not charge you with resisting.” He took a quick step forward thinking that it might intimidate them.

The smaller of the two, a red-haired bloke with a vicious sneer, jammed his pistol into Tolliver’s stomach and said, “Stop right there or it’s the graveyard for you.”

“If you shoot me, you will be joining me there,” Tolliver said. He thought to add that the sound of a shot from inside the bar would bring in the squadron of policemen he had left guarding the entrance. But it suddenly occurred to him that all he had to do was get one of these drunks to fire a shot—not at him— but at something. Help would storm into the room forthwith.

He raised his hands higher and pulled himself up to his full height, so that he towered over the sly, little man. “How do I know that gun is loaded?” he asked.

“Easy,” his assailant said. “See that whiskey bottle on the shelf?”

“Certainly,” Tolliver said, as nonchalantly as he could. It was impossible to miss since it was the only one still standing. All the others, along with just about anything breakable in the bar had been smashed to pieces before Tolliver arrived and lay littering the floor.

The man turned his pistol away from Tolliver and without taking aim, shot the top off the bottle. His big companion looked away to see the result, and in a flash Tolliver had his pistol out and leveled at them.

In two heartbeats, Kwai Libazo was smashing through the door, his rifle at the ready.

“That was some excellent shooting,” Tolliver said as he relieved the bigger man of his weapon.

The other askaris were piling into the room.

“Libazo, handcuff these men and march them to the station.” Tolliver knew when he gave that order that Cranford would disapprove. But he’d already almost gotten himself killed trying to appease Cranford, with his British ideas about keeping the natives in their place. Given the choice between death and the D.C.’s disfavor, he would take the latter, no matter how displeasing it would be.

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annamariaAnnamaria Alfieri set Strange Gods in Nairobi in 1911.  The Richmond Times Dispatch said, “With the flair of Isak Dinesen and Beryl Markham, the cunning of Agatha Christie and Elspeth Huxley and the moral sensibility of our times, Alfieri permeates this tragic novel with a condemnation of imperialism, a palpable love of Africa, a shocking conclusion and a reminder that good does not always triumph.” –Richmond.   Kirkus Reviews compared her Invisible Country to “the notable novels of Charles Todd.”  The Christian Science Monitor chose her Blood Tango as one of ten must-read thrillers. The Washington Post said of her debut novel, “As both history and mystery, City of Silver glitters.”  She lives in New York City.

Author website: http://www.AnnamariaAlfieri.com

 

THE LEGEND OF SHEBA: Rise of a Queen by Tosca Lee

05 Thursday Mar 2015

Posted by Book Lover in Biblical Fiction, Fiction, Historical fiction

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Tags

Biblical Fiction, Historical Fiction, Queen of Sheba, Tosca Lee

legend of ShebaPrologue

There is the tale that is told: A desert queen journeyed north with a caravan of riches to pay tribute to a king and his One God. The story of a queen conquered by a king before she returned to her own land laden with gifts.

That is the tale you are meant to believe.

Which means most of it is a lie.

The truth is far more than even the storytellers could conjure. The riches more priceless. The secrets more corrosive. The love and betrayal more passionate and devastating, both.

Across the narrow sea, the pillars of the great temple once bore my name: Bilqis, Daughter of the Moon. Here, to the west, the palace columns bear another: Makeda, Woman of Fire. To those I served as priestess and unifier, I wore the name of my kingdom: Saba. To the Israelites, I was Queen of the spice lands they called Sheba.
They also called me whore.

I have been all and none of these, depending who tells the tale.
Across the sea in Saba, the mountain rains have ceased by now, the waters of the mighty Dhana turned to steam on the fields at dawn. In a few months the first traders will sail in the quest for incense and gold . . . bringing with them news of the king who sends them.
I have not spoken his name in years.

Yes, there is indeed a tale. But if you would have the truth from me, it begins with this:

I never meant to become queen.

Chapter One

My mother, Ismeni, was born under the glimmer of the Dog Star, when men become disoriented by its light. They said she enchanted my father, that he made her his consort with a clouded mind.
But I saw the way their gazes followed her whenever she appeared in the palace porticoes, their conversations drifting to suspended silence until she passed from sight. On the rare occasion that she took her seat beside Father’s in the Hall of Judgment, the chamber swelled like a tide drawn by the darkened moon. Bronze-skinned with brows like dove’s wings and lips for whispering prayers, my mother was the most exquisite thing in all of Saba. The trickle of rain over the highland terraces couldn’t match the music of her beaded hems nor the best frankincense of Hadramawt compete with her perfume.

Drowsing on her sofa in the hot afternoon, I would twine my fingers with hers and admire the rubies of her rings. I hoped my hands and feet would be as slender as hers. It was all I hoped; it never occurred to me that any other aspect of her beauty might be granted a mortal twice on this earth.

Many days we received gifts from my father: rare citrus imported from the north, sweet within their bitter rinds. Songbirds and ivory combs from across the narrow sea. Bolts of fine Egyptian linen, which my mother had made into gowns for me to match her own.

But my greatest treasures were the songs she sang like lullabies murmured against my ear. The ritual prayers she taught me as we knelt before her idols, the sweet waft of incense clinging to her hair. Beyond the palace, Saba sprawled from the sheer edge of the coastal range to the feet of the desert wastes. But I was content that my world stretched no farther than my mother’s chamber.

In the evenings I sat before her jewelry chest and adorned my ears with lapis, my shoulders weighed down with necklaces as she reclined by her table. It was covered in gold, a glowing thing in the low light of the lamp that seemed to gild anything near it—the side of my mother’s face, the silver cup in her hand.

And then I would dance as she clapped her hands, bracelets chiming on my ankles—the dance of the monsoon rain running through the wadi ravines, and the gentle sprinkles of summer coaxing millet from the winter-brown earth. Of the highland ibex, my arms curved over my head like great crescent horns, and the lions that stalked them, which always made her laugh. And then she would leap to her feet and join me, the tiers of carnelian beads at her neck jingling with every stamp of her heels.

“You will be more beautiful than I,” she said one night after we had fallen onto the cushions. “But beware, little Bilqis. Beauty is a weapon you can wield only for a time.”

Before I could ask what she meant she slid a heavy bangle off her wrist. It was as wide as my hand and crusted with rubies. “Do you see these stones? They are harder than quartz or emeralds. They do not break under pressure, or soften with age. Let this be a reminder, my dove, that wisdom is more lasting and therefore more precious.” She slid the bracelet onto my arm.

“But—”

“Hush now. The Sister Stars are rising—a time for new things.” She touched the amulet at my throat, a bronze sun-face inscribed on the back for my protection. “How do you like the idea of a young prince brother?”

I nestled against her, toying with the bangle. My nurse made me burn incense before the alabaster idol of Shams, the sun goddess, every month since I could remember in prayer for this very thing.
“I would like that.”

I said it because I knew it would please her. What I did not say was that I would like it far better than a sister, who would vie with me for my mother’s attention. That I could share her with a boy knowing he would eventually leave us for my father’s side—and the throne.

I vowed to pray daily that my mother’s baby would indeed be a boy.
Ten days later my mother suffered a seizure and hit her head on a marble bench inside her bath. That day I was told she had abandoned me for the afterlife, taking my unborn brother with her.

I screamed until I collapsed against the edge of her table. I called them liars and begged to see her, flailing against anyone who tried to touch me. My mother would never leave me. When they took me to her at last, I threw myself over her, clutching her cold neck until they pried me away, strands of her long hair still tangled in my fingers.

After they closed up the royal mausoleum at the temple of the moon god, Almaqah, her face was before me constantly. Sometimes I could smell her, feel the softness of her cheek against mine as I slept. She had not deserted me. I stopped speaking for nearly a year after her death. Everyone thought I had gone mute with grief. But the truth is that I would speak only to her.

I whispered to her as I lay in bed every night until her voice faded the following summer, taking some vital part of me with it. I was six years old.

Hagarlat, my father’s second wife, was neither young nor beautiful. But her presence in the palace renewed ties with the tribes to the north, and control of the trade route through the immense northern valley. If the dams and canals that channeled the summer monsoons were the lifeblood of Saba, the incense route was her breath, every exhale of her roads profitably laden with frankincense, bdellium, and myrrh.

I was eight when my half-brother broke the peace of the women’s quarter with his angry wail just before the first rains of spring.

I distrusted Hagarlat. Not because she had the face of a mottled camel or even because she had brought the squalling thing that was my brother into the world, but because she had usurped my mother’s chamber along with her jewels and made the name Ismeni seem a distant thing in the minds of everyone but me.

The palace had become foreign to me with my stepmother’s servants and uncanny priests filling its halls with their rough tribal tongue. My new relatives and even their slaves looked through me when they weren’t ordering me about, and the children I had grown up with had long distanced themselves from me during my year of silence. “Stay away from me!” one of them, a boy named Luban, said when I tried to get him to sneak out to the stables. We had spent hours feeding the camels and hiding from my nurse the year before my mother’s death. He was by now several inches taller than I and the laughter in his eyes for me was gone. “Your mother is dead and Hagarlat is queen. You’re just a bastard now.”

I blinked in astonishment at the scorn on his round face.
And then I blackened his eye.

I went that evening without supper, but I had no appetite. I had seen young friends of dead unions become the servants of the offspring who replaced them before.

“You are a princess. Do not forget who you are,” my nurse said to me that night. But I did not know who I was. Only that she and her daughter, Shara, were all that remained to me now.

Though no one else called me “bastard”—at least to my face—I did not miss the eyes that turned away, the dwindling choice of fabric for my gowns, the gifts from my father that grew more intermittent before they ceased altogether.

One day I strode boldly into Hagarlat’s chamber, where she was dictating the celebration to take place for my brother’s first birthday. “Where are the things my father sends for me?” I demanded. I heard the intake of breath around me, saw from the corner of my eye the horrified expression of my nurse, the bolts of dyed cloth and rare silk laid out across the settee.

Hagarlat turned, astonishment scrawled as clearly across her face as the henna on her forehead. Green jasper dripped from her ears.

“Why, child, has he forgotten you? And he sends so many gifts here. Ah, what a mess your face is.” She reached toward my cheek. Just as my lower lip threatened to quiver, I saw it: the ruby bangle that once belonged to my mother—the same one given to me before her death.

“Where did you get that?” I said. My nurse pulled me away, hissing at me to shush, but I would not. “That is mine!”

“What, this?” Hagarlat said. “Why, if it means so much to you, have it.” She took it off and tossed it at me. It fell on the floor at my feet.

“Forgive me, my queen!” my nurse said. I ducked the circle of her arms and snatched the bracelet from the floor. One of the rubies was missing, and I frantically began to search for it until my nurse hauled me from the chamber.

I avoided the palace as much as I could after that. I escaped to the gardens and lost myself by the pools, where I hummed my mother’s songs. Lost myself, too, in study with the tutor my father assigned to me when no one else knew what to do with me.

Within three years I had devoured the poetry of Sumer, the wisdom writings of Egypt, and the creation stories of Babylonia. I called on the palace scribes and read court documents over their shoulders when they would humor me.

For the first time since my mother’s passing to the shadow world, I found joy. My toddling brother, Dhamar, would become king. And I would slip past the palace halls with their political squabbles and private intrigues to the stories of others come alive from far-flung places. To escape all . . .

But the gaze of Hagarlat’s brother.

Sadiq was a serpent—a fat man with a languid gaze that missed nothing and a knack for convincing my father’s advisors of his usefulness. The maidservants and slaves gossiped often about him, saying he had been born under a strong omen—which really meant he had come into considerable wealth with his sister’s marriage to my father. It seemed half the palace was taken with him, though I could not fathom why.

But Sadiq was taken with only one person: me.

His eyes followed me through the porticoes. I felt the slither of them on my back and shoulders, felt them bore into me anytime I appeared in the alabaster hall.

I wasn’t the only one to notice.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if Hagarlat asked your father to give you to Sadiq,” my nurse said one evening after tut-tutting over my unkempt hair. Shara, the closest thing I ever had to a sister, stared at her mother and then at me.

“He wouldn’t,” I said. “He already has Sadiq’s loyalty.”

Even then I held no illusions about my future. I would be married to some noble or another in a matter of years.

But not Sadiq.

“Hagarlat’s love of her brother is no secret,” she said, fiercely combing my hair. “And neither is her ability to secure favors from your father.”
“He’s not even a tribal chief!”

“He’s the queen’s brother. He’ll be master of waters by year’s end, mark me.”

I looked at her, incredulous. The master of waters oversaw the distribution of flow from the great wadi dam, the sluices of which irrigated the oases on either side of Marib. It was a position of power over the capital’s most influential tribes. Only a fair and respected man could arbitrate the inevitable conflicts over the allocation of waters.

Sadiq was neither.

“He’ll do nothing but collect bribes.”

“Bilqis!”

“It’s true. Sadiq is a worm sucking the tit of his sister!”

My nurse drew a sharp breath and was, I knew, on the verge of warning me to prudence. But before she got a word out, Shara dropped the bronze mirror that she had been polishing. It fell with a thud to the carpet.

“Clumsy girl!” her mother snapped. Shara didn’t seem to hear; her wide eyes were fastened on the floor.

My nurse hesitated and then gasped and dropped the handful of my hair she had begun to plait. She swept aside, her head bowed so low that I thought her neck would break.

I slowly turned on my stool.

There, in the arched doorway of our shared chamber, stood Hagarlat. The hem of her veil was pinned back from her face, a rainfall of gold fell from each ear. I rose to my feet.

For a moment, neither of us moved. Nor did I move even to bow when she walked quietly toward me. She stopped just before the mirror and bent to retrieve it as though it were a wayward toy. Appraising it once, she took the cloth from Shara’s startled hand, passed it over the surface, and then handed the mirror to me.

“So you may see more clearly,” she said. And then she walked out, dropping the cloth behind her.

The instant she was gone, my nurse and Shara turned toward me as one, their faces pale, nostrils flared with fear.

I was betrothed to Sadiq within a week.

I threw myself at my father’s feet in the audience room of his private chamber—the place where he might be not a king but a man.

“I beg you, do not give me to him,” I cried. I clasped the fine leather of his sandals, pushed up the hem of his robe to touch my forehead to the top of them.

“Bilqis,” he said with a sigh. I raised my head even as he looked away. The lines around his eyes seemed more pronounced in the low lamplight of the chamber, the characteristic kohl missing from the rim of his lower lashes.

“She did this because she heard me speak ill of Sadiq. I repent of it!” I dropped my head, clutched at his feet. “I will apologize. I will serve in her chamber. But do not do this!”

He reached for me, to draw me up. “Hagarlat would see our tribal bonds strengthened. And why not? Your brother will be king. Do you really think the queen so petty?”

I jerked away from him. “Do you not see that she hates me?” I stumbled back, away from the low dais and into the pool of lantern light before the throne, but stopped when I saw how he stared at me.
For a moment his mouth worked, though no words came out. There was a pallor to his skin that hadn’t been there before.

“Ismeni . . .” he said faintly. His hand lifted, fingers trembling in the air.

“Father?”

I went to him again but when I tried to clasp his knees he flinched away.

“Father, it is I, Bilqis!”

“It is late,” he said, eyes turned toward the latticed window.

Torchlight glowed up from the royal gardens below.

“Please, my king. I was your daughter once. If you have any love for me—”

“It is settled.” The lamp flickered and I saw it then on his face: the grimace of the years since my mother’s death. Love eclipsed by the dark moon of pain.

Sadiq seemed to be everywhere after that. He stood in the porticoes when I went out to the gardens. He loitered near the fountains as I went about my lessons. And though he did not approach me beneath the gaze of the ubiquitous guards, his eyes were as ever-present as the scorching sun.

I quit attending meals in the hall. I began to avoid my lessons. The sight of him, from the way he wore his ornamental dagger high up in his belt as though it were his very manhood to the number of rings on his fingers, repulsed me. I would feel different in time, my nurse assured me. But my only comfort was that I would never be alone with him until we married in three years. Sadiq, however, was not a man of honor.

I was twelve the first time he laid hands on me.

The soft scrape of the door woke me. I was alone and at first glance by light of the waning lamp, I thought it was Baram, the eunuch. He, too, was paunched around the middle and soft-chinned, and the only man allowed in the women’s quarter.

And then I saw the gleam of the dagger’s hilt.

He crossed the room in three strides and I bolted up, screaming for Baram. Sadiq struck me hard across the face.

I fought him as his weight fell on me, the scabbard of his dagger digging into my ribs, but he was twice my size. “Baram and the women are attending my sister, who is even now miscarrying your new brother,” he said, hotly against my ear. He was putrid with perfume and wine. “And none of them will stand against the new master of waters.”

His hand closed around my throat. His other tugged up my gown. I clawed at him until I nearly lost consciousness and then squeezed shut my eyes.

I lay in bed the next three days.

My nurse called for the physician, who could find no fever in me. Only the stupefied torpor of one who no longer wished to live in her own skin. Sadiq had managed to leave no mark on my neck or face—just the scrapes of his rings against my thighs.

I wanted to rise only to walk into the desert waste until the sands consumed me, but had no will even for that. As night came on the fourth evening, I called for my nurse. I would ask for the night shade that Hagarlat used to dilate her pupils. Or for the honey of rhododendron nectar.

But she just blinked at me and said, “Why, child? Why do you want these things? You are beautiful already and such honey will only make you ill.”

I couldn’t speak. Could not bring myself to give voice to the words.
She gave me qat to chew instead, but even the stimulant leaves would not rouse me from my bed.

The second time Sadiq forced himself on me I said, “My father will have you killed! I will accuse you before the entire council!”

“Will he? They will ask you, ‘Did you cry out? Who heard you? When I claim you tried to seduce me and voice concern about your honor, whom do you think they will believe?” And I knew he was right: he was brother to the queen and master of waters. I was the daughter of a woman born under a bad omen, too often alone.

I should have been filled with righteous fury. I should have accused him before my father if only to escape him—and any other man, as no man would marry me without a hefty bribe after that. Instead, I was overcome with shame like the rot of worms beneath the skin.
I begged Shara not to leave my bed at night. But she could not deny the queen if called for. Sadiq raped me twice more in the months that followed, even as clouds gathered over the highland terraces and the first gusts of the coming season shook the trees on the hills.

The rains came and I kept to my bed. The torrents swept down the hills through the afternoon, carrying trees and earth and any building in their way into the wadi ravines. For now, at least, I was safe; the master of waters was away from the palace, monitoring the floods and the condition of the canals with a labor force ready to repair any breach in the sluices.

Sometime before dawn, I rose and walked to the window. I was a wisp beneath my shift, having lost the young curves I had only begun to come into. Clasping the sill, I threw open the latticed shutter. As I had on so many nights since my mother’s passing, I sought out the Sister Stars. But that morning the moon obscured one of them. I stood at the window long after the sky had brightened and the stars began to fade, watching it pass before their company.

For the first time in years, I prayed. Not to Shams, the sun, who had failed to protect my mother . . . but to Almaqah, the moon god who had received her.

Save me or let me die.

That was all. I slid the ruby bracelet, the most precious thing I owned, from my arm and laid it on the sill before the fading crescent.

Later that day, men came rushing into the courtyard, their shouts rising to the open window of my chamber.

My nurse brought the news an hour later: one of the sluice gates had buckled. Sadiq had been carried away in the flood.

I raised my eyes heavenward.

I am yours.

Sadiq’s body was never found. A month after his death, Hagarlat accused me before my father. Her face was drawn, her clothing hanging on a frame grown gaunt. I had grown into my own gowns once more, as though I had acquired the lushness she had lost in her grief.

“That girl is a curse to this house.” Her voice broke. “She cursed my brother as she has cursed me! My brother her betrothed is dead and I have miscarried twice since coming into your household. Her own mother gave birth to only one child and died with a son in her belly. I tell you that girl brings death to everyone near her!”

When my father finally looked at me, I knew he saw the shadow of the woman he had married not for treaties but for love. And I understood at last why he had not sought me in my grief, or summoned me in the years of my withdrawal since her death.

“Wife,” he said, lowering his head.

“You will send her away or I will leave this court and take my son with me lest she kill him, too, as she did her own mother and unborn brother!”

I turned on her with a hiss. I was like the branch, no longer green, that splinters beneath the weight of a single bird. I was prepared to be reckless, to curse her, her son, and every hoped-for issue of her womb, and every tenant of her tribe with their camels and goats down to the last rabid dog.

But the breath I had drawn to curse her came out as a soft chuff of wonder instead. For one insane moment, I nearly laughed.
There was nothing she could do to me, nothing that could be taken from me that had not already been taken or that I had not been willing to shed—down to my very life—myself.

I, who had no power, did not need to utter a word. She had lost all supremacy over me. And in that moment, she knew it. I watched the color drain from her cheeks.

“Yes,” I said to my father. “Send me away. Let me go across the narrow sea to the land of your mother’s mother before you.”
Was that relief that flitted across his face?

I could not begrudge him his quick agreement. Almaqah had been his salvation, too.

That fall I boarded a ship with my tutor, a retinue of priests, new ministers for the growing colony, and a wealth of incense, offerings, and gifts for the temple in Punt. I was not allowed to bring my nurse or Shara with me—Hagarlat had seen to that—and so bid them both tearful goodbye, kissing their necks and commending them to the gods.

I was resolved that I would never return to the palace at Marib with its dark corridors and darker memories. That I would live my life in Punt—and in peace—all my days.

But Almaqah, once summoned, had other plans for me.

KEEP READING! Click here to purchase on Amazon. Special sale–$1.99 until March 15!

Tosca LeeTosca Lee is the critically acclaimed, New York Times bestselling author of Iscariot; The Legend of Sheba; Havah: The Story of Eve; Demon: A Memoir; and The Books of Mortals series with New York Times bestselling author Ted Dekker. She lives in Lincoln, NE. For more about Tosca, please visit www.toscalee.com.

E-mail: tosca@toscalee.com

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