Penny Higgins - Storyteller • Artist • Scientist
Combining Science and Joyful Creativity
Here is my response to yesterday’s challenge over at the RocNaNo blog. Do you have a pet peeve?
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Tap-tap-tap.
Glibert leaned closer to the book. It was hard to make out the text in the fire light. He brought a candle closer. “Those who bear the Mark, must ever give their life in service of their King,” he read aloud. He slid his finger down the text, looking for the line he needed.
Tappa-tap-tap.
Continue reading “Tap-tap-tap”
A short story, or I guess just a scene, from the early life of Jason. In the book Prince of Herongarde, Jason is on the verge of 16, the age at which young men may attain the Mark of Herongarde. This scene happens ten years earlier, when Jason first enters training.Continue reading “Short Story: Jason’s Invitation”
The flapping of the tent in the wind roused Trey. He peeped out from under his blankets. It was still dark. The chill of the air cut into his cheeks and he pulled the blankets back over his head. There was another gust of wind. The wind cut through the fabric of the tent and Trey felt the chill through his blankets. He began to draw his knees up for warmth, but stopped when they hit the recumbent body of Jason lying beside him.
“My Lord?” muttered Jason, half awake.
“Nothing Jason. Apologies.”
Jason’s breathing fell back into a slow regular pace. Trey rolled over and drew his knees up to his chest. He was cold this night. He was not used to being so chilled.
His leg felt wet, and he wondered how he had lain in a puddle. Then he remembered that his sword laid beside him. He now partially laid on top of it, and the frigidness held by the metal now cut through his clothes. He meant to sit up and adjust the sword, but instead drove his elbow into the hilt, striking that nerve that always causes agony when it’s hit. Trey bit his lip and breathed deeply while waiting for the pain to subside.
As he lay, he heard the chattering of teeth in front of him.
“Hanna?” he whispered.
She groaned in response.
“You are cold?” Trey said.
“Freezing.”
“Aye.”
It was quiet for a while, then Hanna’s teeth resumed their chattering.
Trey shuddered in the cold. He stretched his legs out, then drew them up once more. His thigh ached, as was now quite familiar. It reminded him of another cold night he had spent with Hanna.
It seemed as it was ages ago, yet it had only been a few short months. She was a curious soul, this woman. She made him nervous, yet he trusted her. He felt bad that she was so awfully cold. He rested his cheek on the hilt of his sword and revisited that night. That horrible, horrible night.
And he slept.
National Blog Posting Month – February 2013 – Love
Prompt – What is the most romantic book you’ve ever read?
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I’ve read a few books in my day. I can’t say I’ve ever gone for romance as a genre. Most of the stories I really like have action and adventure, and the occasional love interest. But ‘romantic’? Yeah, I don’t know.
Then again, if I’m allowed to do this, I must admit that the book that I’m writing, Prince of Herongarde, is action and adventure, with a love story built in. So maybe, the romantic story I want to read is the one I’m writing?
Gilbert of Herongarde is a scholar and a warrior. He has a deep and abiding interest in the sciences, especially physics. He is recognized as among the finest of Herongarde’s tacticians, whose opinion will immediately sway that of the King himself. Gilbert takes great pleasure in improving designs of war machines such as trebuchets, catapults, and ballistas. He is also a master swordsman charged with the training of all those who would one day bear the Mark of Herongarde, and for the continued training for those who already carry the Mark. His swords are among the most polished and sharp among warriors. Gilbert is perhaps the most fastidious of the Mark-Bearers, always of clean and tidy appearance.
So here’s the thing: I’m working on the Prince of Herongarde manuscript right now. It needs some TLC. Don’t really want to distract myself by writing a regular blog post. So, excerpt it is! Enjoy!
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Trey stepped under the awning and paused for a moment, waiting for his eyes to adjust to the shade. The keeper approached him quickly, bowing repeatedly. “My Lord! Your Highness!”
“Please,” said Trey, waving the man off. “Is her Majesty here?”
“Aye, my Lord. She dines with other Ladies within.”
“Good,” said Trey as he entered the small tavern. Patrons looked up, many standing and bowing as he entered. He ignored it, finding it annoying. He needed to speak to his mother. He spotted her sitting with Markus’s wife at a far table.
“Mother,” he said as he approached. “Might I have a word with you?”
Tessa stood. “Trey! So glad to see you! What need you?”
He motioned her toward a more private corner of the room. Tessa eyed him curiously. “What is it, Trey?”
Trey gathered his thoughts. “Mother, does Hanna receive a wage?”
Tessa was surprised by this question. It was not what she expected.
“A wage? I know not. I have not paid her. Have you?”
“No. I thought she would have some pay, I guess. It never occurred to me how that might happen.”
Tessa was silent, watching Trey.
“I told her to purchase fabric. For a gown. I thought not that she would have no money for it. Why would she not tell me?”
Tessa put her hands on her hips and gave him a motherly look. Trey knew that face. “I know, I know.” He looked at his mother. “What can we do?”
Tessa smiled. “You give her some money, obviously.”
“I?”
“Yes, you.”
“Oh. How much?”
Tessa leaned back thoughtfully. “Well, a gown, you say… And she’s served us for three months.” Tessa eyed her son. “And she had her face smashed.”
Trey smirked, and looked away uncomfortably.
“Six crown would buy sufficient fabric. Eight would be finer. For her service, you decide.”
“And I should do this? Are you sure?”
Tessa cocked her head knowingly at him. “T’would mean more from you, aye.”
Trey frowned and nodded. “Aye. Thank you, Mother.” He bowed and left. Tessa smiled. Something was stirring in him, she could tell. It made her happy.
Trey stood atop the wall of the gatehouse as the last of the King’s army passed out of sight. Tessa stood beside him, gripping his arm. She was deeply concerned about the safety of her husband, as well as Trey’s health. Trey was leaning heavily against the stone wall, unwilling to bear any weight on his injured leg. He was exhausted, and would need to rest.
Other members of the court stood nearby, peering at the departing army through the wall’s crenulations. Several of the Ladies of the court wept and consoled each other.
Jason stood close to Trey and Tessa, having taken it upon himself to be their vigilant protector. Despite all, Jason still adored Trey, and would gladly give his life for him. It bothered Jason that no other Mark-bearer remained behind to defend Trey. His Majesty had requested that Jason remain close to Trey and serve him well. Jason felt ill-prepared to defend Trey in the event of an attack, but he would do his best.
Apart from the crowd stood Hanna, observing Trey. The men of the army didn’t mean much to her, but she knew that her life depended upon the health and safety of Lord Trey. She hoped that he would take some desperately needed rest, now that the army was gone.
When the dust vanished from the horizon and it was clear that they were on their own, Trey turned to the courtiers that stood around. He stood tall, and for a moment looked as if he suffered no pain from his injury. “Then it is done,” he bellowed. “Return you to your work. We must ensure that there is a Herongarde for our King and men to return to when the battle is victorious, aye?”
The people slowly dispersed. Many approached Trey to pay their regards, which he returned courteously. Finally, all who remained were Trey, Tessa, Jason, and Hanna. Trey turned back to gaze down the road that the army had just passed. He leaned on the wall, hung his head and slumped. The pain in his leg had finally overwhelmed him.
Jason stepped forward quickly to help Trey. Trey straightened up again, with Jason’s help and the encouragement of Tessa. Hanna approached cautiously. Trey regarded her wearily.
“I shall take some rest,” he muttered.
Hanna nodded. Tessa smiled, glad that Trey was willing to rest.
Leaning heavily upon Jason, Trey walked slowly back to his chamber. Tessa stoked the fire as Hanna set about changing the bandages on Trey’s injuries. Jason assisted where he could, helping Trey out of his heavy formal clothes so that Trey could lie down and sleep.
As Hanna cleaned Trey’s wound, she realized he was already asleep. She paused for a moment and looked at him sadly. There was a lot of pressure on this man. She wondered what he would be like when there was not a war brewing. Tessa walked up beside Hanna and sighed. She, too, had noticed that Trey was asleep, despite the fact that his bandages were not yet changed. She worried for her son.
Jason looked around awkwardly. “If there is nothing further, your Highness,” he said to Tessa.
“Thank you, Jason,” replied Tessa. “I will call for you if you are needed.”
Jason bowed and left the room.
Hanna finished bandaging Trey’s leg while Tessa stood by. Carefully, Hanna laid the blankets over Trey’s leg, so as not to disturb his slumber. She was finished. He was asleep. Hanna looked to the Queen.
“Go to your bed, Hanna,” said Tessa. “I will watch him this night. Attend to him in the morning, aye?”
“Yes, your Majesty,” said Hanna with a bow. She walked from the room, still looking at the recumbent form of Trey. He looked so peaceful. It made her happy.
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If you like the bits and pieces of this story that I’ve posted on my blog, and want to read more (like, the whole book), would you please consider being a beta reader? The success of this book is ultimately dependent upon the opinions of others and feedback on drafts is one of the most powerful tools I have to making this book the best it could be! If you’d be willing to read a draft of the whole book and provide feedback (not editorial, but where things work and where things don’t work), please let me know in the comments. I can send you a complete draft in MSword or Kindle (.mobi) format.
Twitter is a wonderful thing. I use it to network with other scientists, other authors, and others who are affected in one way or another by autism. I use it to promote my own work, in research or fiction. I also use it in teaching, as a complement to traditional ‘office hours’ and ‘review sessions.’ I enjoy it as an opportunity to ‘hang out’ with the global community.
As an newbie in the world of fiction writing, I find Twitter to be an amazing resource. There are so many helpful and friendly people out there, authors, agents, and publishers. There’s just a wealth of knowledge out there, all in 140-character bursts!
Once in a while – and I’m not sure how these events get planned – there are ‘Pitch Madness’ events on Twitter. Authors can pitch their novels in single tweets with the hashtag #PitMad, and agents with peruse the pitches and request more information about the ones they like. One such event was yesterday. I spent the day pitching my books Prince of Herongarde and The Masters, neither of which are published.
Pitching a novel in one tweet is hard, but somehow I got two requests from agents, both for the book Prince of Herongarde. There were no takers for The Masters (though I wonder if that’s because I haven’t really identified what the main theme of the story is yet.)
For fun (and because it’s pretty-much all I’ve been thinking about for the last 24 hours), I thought I might list here the various pitches I used for each book.
I’ll point out that each pitch included three hashtags, one indicating it was for Pitch Madness (#PitMad), one for the genre of the book (#SF = science fiction, #SpecFic = speculative fiction), and one for the target age group (#A = adult). There are two reasons to do this. 1) It helps agents target stories that they really want to represent and 2) it give you a way to send the ‘same’ tweet more than once. It seems that Twitter won’t let you keep tweeting the same thing over and over again, but if you re-arrange the hashtags, it’s a new tweet. So I could tweet each pitch at least a dozen times. The downside to this, though, is that your pitches have to be that much shorter, maybe 120 characters.
Here are the pitches for Prince of Herongarde. Pitches one and two are the ones that earned requests. Some of the others got re-tweets and comments.
Here are the pitches for The Masters. There were no comments, favorites, or retweets here. This book needs some work, methinks.
So that’s the lot of them. Like I said, I got two requests for Prince of Herongarde, but nothing for The Masters. I don’t think I pitched the second book very well. I’ll work on that.
What do you think?
Day 24: Write, in second person, a dream your character is having. Whether it be a nightmare or something happier, describe the dream in it’s entirety.
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It’s dark. You’re soaked to the bone because it’s raining. And you’re lost.
Where were you? How did you get here? It wasn’t raining when last you remembered. It was still cold. It should be snowing. But you’re not shivering, yet. This is a late summer rain.
A familiar smell comes into your nose. You know it. That smell when the lightning lashes out.
Then a brilliant green flash blinds you, driving you to the ground. You flatten yourself, shrinking away from the flash, burying your face in the mud. The flash reminds you of something, but what that is you don’t know. You grip the ground, trying to hold fast, but the mud oozes between your fingers.
The only thing you feel is the rain pelting on your back. You peek over your arm into the darkness.
A fire burns some distance away, and a strange white light shines up into the sky. Something beyond the fire is glowing. Suddenly, a dazzling green fireball erupts, momentarily illuminating towers and wires before you are forced to shut your eyes again in its brilliance. You hide your face again.
You realize you’re crying. You expect to be torn away from the ground and hurtled elsewhere. You dig around with your hands, desperately trying to find something solid to hole onto. There is nothing there but mud.
The rain continues to beat down. You look up again. There is a human figure moving near the fire. A man.
He speaks: “Protect her.”
You get up and walk to him. The glow beyond the fires begins again. You point at it. “Look out!”
Another green fireball alights behind the man. By his silhouette you see he is malformed. You duck and cover your eyes. You examine the burned shadow of his silhouette behind your eyelids. He’s not malformed. He’s injured. Mangled.
You look up again. He still stands there, back-lit by the fires. “Protect her,” he says again.
You rise and stumble toward him. “Who are you?”
“I love her,” he said. “I will miss her.”
“I don’t understand,” you say.
“Love her, please.”
“Who?”
As you’ve gotten closer, you see that his arm is dangling at his side. Ribs jut out of his chest. His leg is bent and broken, yet somehow he still stands.
You can’t see his face. It’s obscured in the darkness. But you are certain he is hideously disfigured.
“I give her to you,” he says.
“Who?” you repeat.
“My Hanna,” he says. “Love her.”
“I do, but—.” Suddenly you understand, as a green fireball lights the sky once more. You fall backwards into the mud. You lay there for a long time, looking up into the rain. It hurts your eyes, so you shut them.
The rain is gone.
A hand strokes your cheek. It is warm. And you are dry.
You try to open your eyes, but the hand covers them. “Sh-sh,” a woman whispers in your ear. You know that shush. You smile.
“I love you, but you can’t see me yet,” she said.
“I want to,” you say.
“No. Not yet, love. Stay. Be at peace. I am at peace.”
“There is peace here,” you say.
“But one who needs you most is there.”
“No. Let me stay.”
“I love you. So does she. Your nation needs you. And her. Together.” The woman was suddenly stern, though she still strokes your hair.
“I have betrayed you.”
“No. You honor me.” She kisses you softly on the mouth. “Go home. I will see thee soon enough.”
You gasp. Coldness floods over your body. And you awake.
Because today I’m fresh out of blogging juice, I thought I’d post an excerpt from my novel in progress: Prince of Herongarde. This chapter, for the moment anyway, is called Immediate Care.
—–
Trey felt himself being lifted from Garnog. Familiar voices comforted him and he relaxed. He opened his eyes again and stared at the wood slatted ceiling over his head. They had carried him into the castle, but he didn’t remember the move. The bed was comfortable. He drifted off again.
“Trey?” A rough hand stroked his cheek. “Trey. Please wake.” Trey opened his eyes and met the gaze of his father, King Anthony. “Thank God you yet live,” breathed Anthony.
“Aye, Majesty,” mumbled Trey.
“Gilbert is here. He will care for you,” said Anthony. “And Arin.”
“Aye,” groaned Trey. “Aye!” he said louder. “Aye, your Majesty. Tis Falgarth. Falgarth did this.”
“I know.”
Trey shut his eyes to focus on speaking. “There is… I have in the saddlebags. Garnog.” The effort was exhausting.
“We know, Trey,” came Gilbert’s voice. “Rest yourself, aye?”
“How is it?” asked Anthony.
“It must be cleaned first, your Highness. Then I can tell you,” replied Gilbert.
Anthony patted Trey’s cheek. “Rest you, then.”
A shuffle at the door announced Markus’ entrance, followed closely by Kevin. In his hands were the saddlebags off of Garnog’s saddle. A table was quickly cleared and the contents of the bag were spread out.
Markus immediately picked up piece of fabric which bore the insignia of Falgarth. “There it is,” he muttered.
Anthony took it from Markus and frowned at it. “I have been blind.” His eyes fell upon Kevin, his closest friend since the day he entered training to earn the Mark at the age of six. “Aye, Kevin. I should have listened.”
“None would hear him, your Majesty. How could you know?”
Kevin had returned the previous day with the grim news. He had spent several days patrolling the border with Falgarth and had himself discovered evidence that Falgarth mean to invade Herongarde, validating the claims that Trey had been making for more than a year. Anthony, upon hearing this news, had sent pages to summon the Lords and Mark-bearers of Herongarde to the castle for council and, most likely, to discuss defense.
Anthony looked at Trey lying helpless on the bed. Tessa was bent over him, caressing his face. “I would that I could have known before this happened.” If Trey were to die, there would no longer be an heir from Anthony. The crown would pass to Markus, and then to Balayn, as Trey’s closest relative. Anthony had hoped that Trey would remarry and bear an heir himself. On this day, it did not seem likely.
“Do we know what happened?” asked Kevin.
“Attacked by men of Falgarth,” muttered Markus, “but we know nothing else. He traveled with a woman.”
“Where is she?” asked Anthony.
“I know not, but Balayn—,” started Markus. “Speak of the Devil.”
Balayn walked into the chamber and looked around. He caught Markus’ gaze and approached, wearing a smirk.
“We were just speaking of you, Balayn,” said Anthony. “Know you where the woman is now who traveled with Lord Trey?”
“I put her in the dungeon where she belongs,” Balayn boomed.
“What? This was not my instruction,” said Markus.
“She bore the weapon of a Mark-bearer. She should be put to death.”
“She what?” asked Kevin.
“She had Lord Trey’s sword on her hip,” growled Balayn.
“She also said Trey bid her bear it,” said Markus.
“I think she lies,” muttered Balayn.
Anthony looked back at Trey. Tessa was looking up, listening to the men’s conversation. Anthony walked to Trey’s bedside and leaned close to Trey. “Trey? Remember you a woman with whom you traveled?” Trey moaned in response. “Trey. Do you remember?”
“Aye,” breathed Trey.
“She had you sword, Trey.”
“Aye.”
“You bid her bear it?”
Trey was silent. He couldn’t remember. He didn’t remember much at all. The pain in his leg was a terrible distraction.
“Did you bid her to bear your sword?”
“Aye.” He honestly did not remember, but he did know she had helped him. And she could wield a sword. He might have told her to carry it. “Aye,” he repeated, not sure if he had said anything the first time.
Anthony straightened. “Fetch her to us. I would speak with her.”
“I will go,” volunteered Tessa.
“As will I,” grumbled Balayn, casting Tessa a stern look. They walked together out the door.
Anthony watched them leave. Markus came close and put his hand on Anthony’s shoulder. “Trey is strong, brother,” he said. “And Gilbert is an excellent care-giver. There is little doubt of Trey’s survival.”
A poker was jammed into the fireplace, below the coals. Anthony eyed it sadly. “Aye, he will survive, brother. But with what manner of lasting injury?”
Penny Higgins - Storyteller • Artist • Scientist