Excerpt

Excerpt: “The Tudors” by Peter Ackroyd (Macmillan)

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TheTudors

Something a little different, today. As I’m sure I’ve mentioned elsewhere on the blog, I’m a huge fan of history (if you also happen to follow Politics Reader, you will have seen that there, too). I studied medieval history at school, and have maintained a life-long interest in this period. So, I am very happy to share with you a short extract from the second volume of Peter Ackroyd’s exceptional History Of England, The Tudors (Macmillan).

Chapter I

HALLELUJAH

Ackroyd-HoE2-TheTudorsPBThe land was flowing with milk and honey. On 21 April 1509 the old king, having grown ever more harsh and rapacious, died in his palace at Richmond on the south bank of the Thames. The fact was kept secret for two days, so that the realm would not tremble. Yet the new Henry had already been proclaimed king. On 9 May the body of Henry VII was taken in a black chariot from Richmond Palace to St Paul’s Cathedral; the funeral car was attended by 1,400 formal mourners and 700 torch-bearers. But few, if any, grieved; the courtiers and household servants were already awaiting the son and heir. When the body, having been taken to the abbey of Westminster, after the funeral service was over, was lowered into its vault the heralds announced ‘le noble roy, Henri le Septie’me, est mort’. Then at once they cried out with one voice, ‘Vive le noble roy, Henri le Huitie’me ’. His title was undisputed, the first such easy succession in a century. The new king was in his seventeenth year.

Midsummer Day, 24 June, was chosen as the day of coronation. The sun in its splendour would herald the rising of another sun. It was just four days before his eighteenth birthday. The ceremony of the coronation was considered to be the eighth sacrament of the Church, in which Henry was anointed with chrism or holy oil as a token of sacred kingship. His robes were stiff with jewels, diamonds and rubies and emeralds and pearls, so that a glow or light hovered about him. He now radiated the power and the glory. He may have acted and dressed under advice, but he soon came to understand the theatre of magnificence.

Henry had taken the precaution, thirteen days before the coronation, of marrying his intended bride so that a king would be accompanied by a queen; it was thereby to be understood that he was an adult rather than a minor. Katherine of Aragon was the child of Isabella of Castile and Ferdinand of Aragon, in whose reign Spain was united. She had come from that country in order to marry Prince Arthur, Henry’s older brother, but events conspired against her. Arthur died less than six months after their wedding, of consumption or the sweating sickness, and Katherine was left at the English court in the unenviable position of a widow whose usefulness had gone. It was said that the king himself, Henry VII, might wish to marry her. But this was unthinkable. Instead she was betrothed to Prince Henry, and was consigned to some years of relative penury and privation at the hands of a difficult father-in-law who was in any case pursuing a better match for his son and heir. Yet, after seven years of waiting, her moment of apotheosis had come. On the day before the coronation she was taken in a litter from the Tower of London to Westminster, passing through streets draped in rich tapestry and cloth of gold. A contemporary woodcut depicts Henry and Katherine being crowned at the same time, surrounded by rank upon rank of bishops and senior clergy.

Henry’s early years had been spent in the shadow of an anxious and over-protective father, intent before anything else on securing the dynasty. The young prince never spoke in public, except in reply to questions from the king. He could leave the palace at Greenwich or at Eltham only under careful supervision, and then venture into the palace’s park through a private door. Much care was bestowed on his early education, so that he acquired the reputation of being the most learned of princes. Throughout his life he considered himself to be a great debater in matters of theology, fully steeped in the scholarship of Thomas Aquinas. He took an early delight in music, and composed Masses as well as songs and motets; he sang, and played both lute and keyboard. He had his own company of musicians who followed him wherever he walked, and by the time of his death he owned seventy-two flutes. He was the harmonious prince. Thomas More, in a poem celebrating the coronation, described him as the glory of the era. Surely he would inaugurate a new golden age in which all men of goodwill would flourish?

Henry was himself a golden youth, robust and good-looking. He was a little over 6 feet in height and, literally, towered over most of his subjects. It was written that ‘when he moves the ground shakes under him’. He excelled in wrestling and archery, hawking and jousting. Nine months after the coronation, he organized a tournament in which the feats of chivalry could be celebrated. He rode out in disguise, but his identity was soon discovered. He had read Malory as well as Aquinas, and knew well enough that a good king was a brave and aggressive king. You had to strike down your opponent with a lance or sword. You must not hesitate or draw back. It was a question of honour. The joust offered a taste of warfare, also, and the new king surrounded himself with young lords who enjoyed a good fight The noblemen of England were eager to stiffen the sinews and summon up the blood.

When he was not master of the joust, he was leader of the hunt. He spoke of his hunting expeditions for days afterwards, and he would eventually own a stable of 200 horses. Hunting was, and still is, the sport of kings. It was a form of war against an enemy, a battleground upon which speed and accuracy were essential. Henry would call out ‘Holla! Holla! So boy! There boy!’ When the stag was down, he would slit its throat and cut open its belly before thrusting his hands into its entrails; he would then daub his companions with its blood.

Older and more sedate men were also by his side. These were the royal councillors, the majority of whom had served under the previous king. The archbishop of Canterbury, William Warham, remained as chancellor. The bishop of Winchester, Richard Foxe, continued to serve as lord privy seal. The other senior bishops – of Durham, of Rochester and of Norwich – were also in place. The young king had to be advised and guided if the kingdom were to continue on its settled course. Whether he would accept that advice, and follow that guidance, was another matter.

The surviving members of the House of York were restored to favour, after they had endured the indifference and even hostility of the previous king. Henry VII had identified himself as the Lancastrian claimant to the throne. Even though he had married Elizabeth of York after his coronation, he was suspicious and resentful of the rival royal family. The essential unity of the realm was now being proclaimed after the dynastic struggles of the previous century.

The older councillors now took the opportunity of destroying some of the ‘new men’ whom Henry VII had promoted. His two most trusted advisers, or confidential clerks, were arrested and imprisoned. Sir Richard Empson and Sir Edmund Dudley had been associated with the previous king’s financial exactions, but they were in general resented and distrusted by the bishops and older nobility. They were charged with the unlikely crime of ‘constructive treason’ against the young king, and were duly executed. It is not at all clear that Henry played any part in what was essentially judicial murder, but his formal approval was still necessary. He would employ the same methods, for removing his enemies, in another period of his reign.

Henry was in any case of uncertain temper. He had the disposition of a king. He could be generous and magnanimous, but he was also self-willed and capricious. The Spanish ambassador had intimated to his master that ‘speaking frankly, the prince is not considered to be a genial person’. The French ambassador, at a later date, revealed that he could not enter the king’s presence without fear of personal violence.

An early outbreak of royal temper is suggestive. In the summer of 1509 a letter arrived from the French king, Louis XII, in reply to one purportedly sent by Henry in which the new king had requested peace and friendship. But Henry had not written it. It had been sent by the king’s council in his name. The youthful monarch then grew furious. ‘Who wrote this letter?’ he demanded. ‘I ask peace of the king of France, who dare not look me in the face, still less make war on me!’ His pride had been touched. He looked upon France as an ancient enemy. Only Calais remained of the dominion that the English kings had once enjoyed across the Channel. Henry was eager to claim back his ancient rights and, from the time of his coronation, he looked upon France as a prize to be taken. War was not only a pleasure; it was a dynastic duty.

Yet the pleasures of peace were still to be tasted. He had inherited a tranquil kingdom, as well as the store of treasure that his father had amassed. Henry VII bequeathed to him something in excess of £1,250,000, which may plausibly be translated to a contemporary fortune of approximately £380,000,000. It would soon all be dissipated, if not exactly squandered. It was rumoured that the young king was spending too much time on sports and entertainments, and was as a result neglecting the business of the realm. This need not be taken at face value. As the letter to the French king demonstrated, the learned bishops preferred their master to stay away from their serious deliberations.

There were in any case more immediate concerns. Katherine of Aragon had at the end of January 1510 gone into painful labour. The result was a girl, stillborn. Yet Katherine remained evidently pregnant with another child, and the preparations for a royal birth were continued. They were unnecessary. The swelling of her belly subsided, caused by infection rather than fruitfulness. It was announced that the queen had suffered a miscarriage, but it was rumoured that she was perhaps infertile. No greater doom could be delivered upon an English queen. She disproved the rumours when she gave birth to a son on the first day of 1511, but the infant died two months later. Katherine may have been deemed to be unlucky, but the king would eventually suspect something much worse than misfortune.

Henry had already strayed from the marriage bed. While Katherine was enduring the strains of her phantom pregnancy in the early months of 1510, he took comfort from the attentions of Anne Stafford. She was one of the queen’s ladies-in-waiting, and was already married. She was also a sister of the duke of Buckingham, and this great lord was sensitive of his family’s honour. Anne Stafford was sent to a nunnery, and Buckingham removed himself from court after an angry confrontation with the king. Katherine of Aragon was apprised of the affair and, naturally enough, took Buckingham’s part. She had been shamed by her husband’s infidelity with one of her own servants. The household was already full of deception and division. Other royal liaisons may have gone unrecorded. Mistress Amadas, the wife of the court goldsmith, later announced the fact that the king had come secretly to her in a Thames Street house owned by one of his principal courtiers.

***

Peter Ackroyd’s The Tudors is out now.

Excerpt: THE BEST OF ALL POSSIBLE WORLDS by Karen Lord (Jo Fletcher Books)

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Karen Lord is also the author of Redemption in Indigo, which I first heard of at the Kitschies Award ceremony back in February 2013. It immediately went on to my to-be-purchased list (I’m still getting around to it!). Luckily, I do have a copy of The Best of All Possible Worlds, the author’s second and already-critically-acclaimed novel, which I hope to read as soon as possible. In the meantime, I offer you this taste of the novel, courtesy of Lord’s UK publisher, Jo Fletcher Books…

*

THE BEST OF

ALL POSSIBLE WORLDS

by Karen Lord

BEFORE…

He always set aside twelve days of his annual retreat to finish up reports and studies, and that left twelve more for everything else. In earlier times, he had foolishly tried retreats within commreach of his workplace, and that was not at all helpful. There would always be some crisis, something for which his help would be required. As his salary and sense increased, he took his retreats further and further away, until at last he found himself going off-planet to distant temples where the rule of silence and solitude could not be broken by convenient technologies.

This season, he had chosen Gharvi, a place with small wooden buildings scattered about a huge temple of stone, all set within the rain shadow of a mountain range. An endless ocean, both vista and inspiration, ran parallel to the mountains, and a beach between the two offered long walks to nowhere on either side. A place of two deserts, some said, for sea and land were bleak together – one boundless, one narrow, and both thirsty.

There was a place at home very like it, which had probably influenced his choice, but the sky was unique. The atmosphere was the cloudy blueish-lavender of a recently bioformed planet and the sun was scorching bright. It was so unlike the cool, strong blues and gentle sunlight of his home world that for the first few days he kept his head down and his door closed till nightfall.

On the twelfth day, he took his handheld, replete with work well completed, and put it in the box outside his hermitage door. He cooked and ate his evening lentils, slept soundly through the night and rose to prepare his morning porridge. There was a little water left over from the day before (he was ever frugal), but to have enough for washing he had to fetch the new day’s supply from the box. The young acolytes of the temple always put sufficient water and food into each hermit’s box before dawn. It was enough to stay clean, to fill the solar pot with porridge or pottage and to sip and slake the constant thirst that was the natural consequence of dry air and silence. The acolytes would also take away his handheld and safely transmit its contents to his workplace.

But his handheld was still there.

He paused, confused by this disconnect in the seamless order of the temple’s routine. He stared at the untouched box. He looked up and frowned in puzzlement at the squat shape of the temple, vaguely visible through a haze of heat, blown sand and sea spray.

Then he shrugged and went on with his day, a little dustier, a little thirstier but convinced that an explanation would eventually be made manifest.

The following morning, well before dawn, the sound of the box lid closing woke him from a sleep made restless by dreams of dryness. He waited a bit, then went to bring in the supplies and drink deeply of the water. His handheld was gone and a double ration of food sat in its place. He did not even peer into the darkness to catch sight of the tardy acolyte. Order had been restored.

‘Dllenahkh, with your level of sensitivity and strength, you must go on retreat regularly.’ So he had been told, long ago, by the guestmaster of his monastery. ‘You are constantly looking to set things to rights, even within yourself. A retreat will teach you again and again that you are neither indispensable nor self-sufficient.’

Put bluntly, learn to stop meddling. Commitment is important, detachment equally so. He congratulated himself on his developing ability to keep curiosity in check and spent the next few days in undisturbed meditation and reflection.

One day, after a long morning meditation, he felt thirsty and decided to fetch more water from his supply box. He stepped out with his glass drinking bowl in hand and set it on the edge of the box while he tilted the half-lid and reached inside. His hands were steady as he poured water smoothly from the heavy narrownecked jug. Moving slowly, he straightened and took a moment of blissful idleness, the jug left uncovered near his feet, to squint at the sun glare on the desert beach and the desert ocean, and to feel the coolness of the water creeping into his palms as he held the bowl and waited to drink. It was a child’s game, to hold a bowl of water and mark the increase of thirst with masochistic pleasure, but he did it sometimes.

He brought the bowl to his mouth and had a perfect instant of pale-blue ocean, bright blue glass and clear water in his vision before he blinked, sipped and swallowed.

Many times after, when he tried to recall, his mind would stop at that vivid memory – the neatly nested colours, the soothing coolness of the glass – and not wish to go any further. It was not long after that, not very long at all, that the day became horribly disordered.

A man walked out of the ocean, his head darkly bright with seawater and sunlight. He wore a pilot’s suit – iridescent, sleek and permeable – which would dry as swiftly as bare skin in the hot breeze, but his hair he gathered up in his hands as he approached, wringing water from the great length of it and wrapping it high on the crown of his head with a band from his wrist.

Recognition came to Dllenahkh gradually. At first, when the figure appeared, it was a pilot; then, as it began to walk, it was a familiar pilot; and finally, with that added movement of hands in hair, it was Naraldi – a man well known to him, but not so well known as to excuse the early breaking of a retreat. He opened his mouth to chide him. Six more days, Naraldi! Could anything be so important that you could not wait six more days? That was what he intended to say, but another thought came to him. Even for a small planet with no docking station in orbit, it was highly uncommon for a mindship to splash down so close to land that a pilot could swim to shore. Although he knew Naraldi, they were not so close as to warrant a visit at this time and in this place.

The pilot slowed his step and looked uncertainly at him with eyes that streamed from the irritation of salt water.

‘Something terrible has happened,’ Dllenahkh said simply.

Naraldi wiped at his wet face and gave no reply.

‘My mother?’ Dllenahkh prompted to break the silence, dread growing cold and heavy in his stomach.

‘Yes, your mother,’ Naraldi confirmed abruptly. ‘Your mother, and my mother, and . . . everyone. Our home is no more. Our world is—’

‘No.’ Dllenahkh shook his head, incredulous rather than upset at the bitterness and haste of Naraldi’s words. ‘What are you saying?’

He remembered that he was still thirsty and tried to raise the bowl again, but in the meantime his hands had grown chilled and numb. The bowl slipped. He snatched at it, but only deflected it so that it struck hard on the side of the water jug and broke just in time to entangle his chasing fingers.

‘Oh,’ was all he said. The cut was so clean, he felt nothing. ‘I’m sorry. Let me . . .’ He crouched and tried to collect the larger fragments but found himself toppling sideways to rest on one knee.

Naraldi rushed forward. He grasped Dllenahkh’s bleeding right hand, yanked the band from his hair and folded Dllenahkh’s fist around the wad of fabric. ‘Hold tight,’ he ordered, guiding Dllenahkh’s left hand to clamp on to his wrist. ‘Don’t let go. I’ll get help.’

He ran off down the beach towards the temple. Dllenahkh sat down carefully, away from the broken bits of glass, and obediently held tight. His head was spinning, but there was one small consolation. For at least the length of time it took Naraldi to return, he would remember the words of the guestmaster: he would not be curious, he would not seek to know, and he would not worry about how to right the tumbled world.

***

Karen Lord’s The Best of All Possible Worlds is published by Jo Fletcher Books in the UK, and Del Rey in the US (both covers, below the synopsis).

The Sadiri were once the galaxy’s ruling élite, but now their home planet has been rendered unlivable and most of the population destroyed. The few groups living on other worlds are desperately short of Sadiri women, and their extinction is all but certain.

Civil servant Grace Delarua is assigned to work with Councillor Dllenahkh, a Sadiri, on his mission to visit distant communities, looking for possible mates. Delarua is impulsive, garrulous and fully immersed in the single life; Dllenahkh is controlled, taciturn and responsible for keeping his community together. They both have a lot to learn.

LordK-BestOfAllPossibleWorlds

Excerpt: IRENICON by Aidan Harte (Jo Fletcher Books)

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Harte-01-Irenicon

Here’s an excerpt from Aidan Harte’s debut historical fantasy novel, Irenicon, the first in the author’s The Wave Trilogy. For more on Aidan’s work and more, be sure to check out the interview he did for Civilian Reader. Irenicon is the first in a series. The sequel, The Warring States, was published earlier this year.

Read on for the first chapter of Irenicon…

 

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PART I:

ANNUNCIATION

And when the wise men returned with report of a new-born King of the Jews, Herod was exceeding wroth, and sent forth, and slew all the children in Bethlehem from two years old and under.

Amongst the lamentation of the mothers, the voice of Mary was heard in mourning. Her child, with the rest, was slain.

And behold, the angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream, saying, Arise, and flee into Egypt: for Herod will seek the Mother, to destroy her also.

Barabbas 2:1–13

CHAPTER 1

‘Valerius?’

Madonna! Where was he?

If the boy got hurt, the Doc would mount her head on a stick next to the Bardini banner. Valerius might be a handful but the little stronzo was their only Contract this year. Besides, a dead Concordian would imperil all Rasenna. Sofia’s dark eyes flashed with anger and she swore again: in her haste she had forgotten her banner. Being unarmed in Rasenna used to be merely careless. These days, it was suicidal.

*

Valerius ran down the sloping streets with his head in the air, pursued by his shadow made strangely large by the blood-washed light. Smashed roof-slates crunched underfoot like leaves in an autumn forest. He followed the trail of the topside battle as it moved downhill towards the river, focused on the jagged red slash of evening where the towers leaned towards each other across the emptiness. The Concordian had the pale blond curls, soft skin and, when he tried, the disarming innocence of a cherub. Now, scowling, he resembled something fallen and impious. Sofia, only five years older than Valerius, watched him like his mother. He had endured this ordeal since his arrival last Assumption, but to return to Concord unblooded? Ridiculous.

The hunt was practically the whole point of a year in Rasenna – that was what his father had paid for, not endless drills and lectures on banner technique. So when this chance came to sneak out, Valerius took it, vowing to get the General’s money’s worth. Two households in combat: what a story! This was Rasenna’s real meat: raids and rogue bandieratori. He wasn’t in real danger; this was still Bardini territory. Sofia wouldn’t be far away.

He couldn’t see the individuals leaping between rooftops, just the banners they wielded. Bardini black outnumbered Morello gold four to six, and the Morello were retreating – noisily. These boys weren’t bandieratori, they were like him, just bored students looking for fun. So it was an unofficial raid, then; the gonfaloniere would never sanction such a pointless attack.

Valerius followed through one backstreet after another, concerned only with keeping up. A black flag vanished behind a corner. He turned it himself and saw nothing but swallows listlessly drifting on air rising from the empty streets.

No Morello, thankfully. No Bardini either. Valerius stopped to listen. The wall he leaned against was built around the ghost of an Etruscan arch, the gaps between its massive blocks stuffed with crude clay bricks, bulging like an old man’s teeth.

He could hear the river now, but not the battle. He had been in Rasenna long enough to know that most raids ended ‘wet’. How could so many raiders disperse so swiftly? It began to dawn on him that Bardini flags need not be wielded by Bardini.

How could Sofia be so irresponsible? He was the Bardini Contract, the Bardini’s only Concordian student, and that made him an obvious target for the Morellos; he should be protected at all times. The General would hear of this.

‘Keep calm, Concordian,’ he rebuked himself, just as the General would have. He knew northern streets pretty well after a year, didn’t he? Not like a Rasenneisi, not as lice know the cracks, but well enough. He looked for clues to his location. That ceramic Madonna, perched in a streetcorner niche and drenched in blue-white glaze, that would orientate a Rasenneisi. The ghastly things all looked the same. The superstitions of Rasenna were not the answer; he would rely on Concordian logic. The raiders had led him down and south. If he followed the slope up he would eventually reach the shadow of Tower Bardini and safety.

He turned around. Now he had a plan it was easier to fight the urge to run for it. Yes: he was impressed with his courage, even if he did keep glancing overhead. If only his footsteps wouldn’t echo so.

At last, something familiar: the unmistakable drunken tilt of Tower Ghiberti – the Bardini workshop was close after all. Valerius’ relieved laughter trailed off when a rooftop shadow moved. Another silhouette emerged on the neighbouring row. And another. Lining the tower tops, above and ahead of him. He counted seven, eight, nine – a decina – but forced himself to keeping walking. Whoever they were, they were interested in him alone. It was not a flattering sort of attention.

Behind him someone landed on the ground and he was torn between two bad choices, to turn defiantly, or to run.

‘Walk.’

‘Sofia! What are you doing?’

‘Exceeding my brief. Doc said babysit. He didn’t mention

stopping you getting yourself killed.’

‘I wouldn’t be in danger if—’

‘I said keep walking!’

He whipped his head round to continue the argument, but went suddenly mute. Anger enhanced the Contessa’s beauty. Her dark eyes were wide and bright, her olive skin glowed like fire about to burn. She looked fabulous just before a fight.

‘What do we do?’ Valerius asked, his confidence returning.

Her wide-shouldered jacket was a bold red, in contrast with the earthy colours favoured by most bandieratori. She was not tall, but she held her head proudly. Below her large brow and sharp Scaligeri nose were the smiling lips that graced statues of cruel old Etruscans.

But she was not smiling now and her pointed chin jutted forward. ‘You’ll do as I say. I’m going to help these gentlemen get home. Give me your banner.’

‘I don’t have it,’ Valerius whispered, losing hope again.

‘Madonna. This is going to be embarrassing. I’m not exactly in peak condition.’

Valerius looked down at the sling on her arm. Without a single banner, against a decina, even Sofia…

‘What do we do?’

‘When I say run, run – Run!’

*

Sofia led the way through the maze of narrow alleys, not looking back or up. She knew by fleeting shadows overhead and loosened slates smashing around them how closely they were pursued. She skidded to a stop when they reached Piazzetta Fontana. The alley leading north was blocked by five young men. And now Valerius saw what Sofia already knew: they were not students. They were bandieratori. Their ruckus had been part of the deception.

Sofia pushed Valerius into an alley on the right – it was barely a crack between two towers, but it led north.

‘Run. Don’t look back.’

He didn’t argue.

She boldly stepped forward. ‘You bambini must be lost in the woods. You’re on the wrong side of the river.’

There was consternation as the southsiders saw who they had been chasing. ‘What do we do?’ asked one.

‘Her flag’s black. That makes her Bardini,’ said the tallest boy with assurance.

‘I don’t know – if Gaetano—’

‘Show some salt! There’s one of her and lots of us. Haven’t you heard who broke her arm?’ The tall boy continued talking even as he approached her. ‘She’s hasn’t even got a flag—’

Way too casual. Sofia was ready. She dodged his lunging banner and snatched it away in one movement and his jaw had no time to drop before she floored him with a neat parietal-tap. By the time she looked up the others had vanished, gone to get Valerius before she got them. Sofia returned to the narrow alley and vaulted left-right-left up between the walls.

Etrurians said that Rasenna’s towers were different heights because not even the local masons could agree. But they made good climbing, and bandieratori jumped between towers as easily as civilians climbed stairways. The upper storeys were peppered with shallow brick-holes, invisible from the ground, which had originally supported scaffolding but which now allowed the fighters to scale what they couldn’t jump.

With only one working arm, Sofia knew her climbing was awkward and inefficient. Even so, when she made topside she took a moment to catch her breath and scan the endless red roofs, feeling no need to hurry despite their head-start. This was her territory, and she knew every roof, every crumbling wall. They did not, and in the wan light of dusk they’d have to be cautious.

In the heat of the chase the boys let one of their number fall behind, and it wasn’t long before Sofia caught up. His falling scream was cut off by the crash of broken slates.

Two down, out-classed on strange rooftops. Normally in this situation it would be each raider for themselves, but these three knew that their only hope of ever getting home was to regroup and turn and fight together. They were waiting on the next tower Sofia leapt for, and gave her no time to recover her balance. Two of them launched a noisy attack to make her retreat, while the third slipped behind. As Sofia dodged flags she was struck in the back of her knee.

‘Ahh!’ she cried as she landed on her back, sliding a little before halting herself. She had no time to rise before she felt a flag-stick prodding against her neck. She lay still before the pressure crushed her larynx.

‘Beg your pardon, Contessa.’

Sofia ignored their giggling. She still had the advantage. She knew every tower bottom to top, their flags, the fastest routes, how old they were. She kicked her heel and a slate came loose, then several fell in its wake and the tower shed its skin with a shudder that drowned out the boys’ shouts as they all slid and tumbled together. Sofia went over the side with the rest of them, but she reached out and grabbed the unseen flagpole. She didn’t look down. No need.

She heard them land with the slates, breaking all together.

Sofia hauled herself onto the flayed rooftop, then climbed back down. She found Valerius waiting streetside with an amused expression on his face which, like his clothes, was splashed with blood. The boys’ bodies lay where they’d fallen, perfectly arranged in a semi-circle around him as if hunting him even in death.

‘Where’s the rest?’ she asked, more to herself than Valerius. She had been occupied, yet the others hadn’t gone for the Concordian. Wasn’t he the prize?

Valerius ignored her, more interested in rolling the corpses to see their last expressions.

‘Show some respect!’ she snapped. ‘The dead are forgiven.’

‘Sorry!’

‘Come here,’ she said, pulling Valerius towards her.

‘Oh Sofia, I was frightened too!’

She pushed his embrace aside roughly. ‘I’m checking for wounds, cretino!’

But no, none of the blood was his. Doc’s charge was intact, the Contract secure. ‘You got blooded, Valerius. Satisfied?’

*

It was a blade-sharp February, but this winter’s night the alleys around the workshop were ablaze with torches. Groups of Bardini bandieratori gathered on the corners, banners up, tense and jumpy. Sofia nodded to a tall young man slouching against a wall, his hood pulled low. The other boys intended to keep darkness at bay with a constant uproar, but Mule contented himself with silence. A flatfaced boy, he had a drooping eyelid that suited his sleepy air. Nobody had ever called him stubborn, and that was enough in Rasenna to earn him his nickname.

‘What’s got so many flags out?’

‘Burn-out,’ he said. ‘Ghiberti’s.’

Sofia saw the ruse now and swore. ‘We going over tonight?’

Mule shrugged. ‘Check in with the Doc. He was worried about you.’

‘He was worried about Payday here,’ said Sofia, angrily pushing Valerius forward. ‘Move it, will you?’

She led him to Tower Bardini. Black flags bobbed aimlessly around the base of its ladder. The single calm face in the crowd looked up. With no neck to speak of, the Doctor’s bald head hardly broke the hill of his shoulders. He made no large gesture when he saw her, just raised his eyebrows. Sofia nodded back and pulled Valerius out from behind her. When he saw the Concordian, the Doctor paled.

Sofia patted Valerius’ cheek and held up a blood-smeared hand. ‘Don’t worry, Doc. It’s not his.’

‘Are we safe now?’ Valerius asked.

She nodded briefly, keeping her eye on the Doctor’s reaction as he approached.

Valerius stepped forward and slapped her. ‘Show me some respect!’

The Doctor leaned forward and grabbed Sofia’s arm before she could strike back.

Valerius stuck a finger in her face. ‘Noble or not, you’re still just a Rasenneisi!’

The Doctor put his sturdy frame in between them. ‘We apologise, my Lord. My ward forgot her place through her zeal to protect you.’ His fingers tightened around her arm. ‘Right, Sofia?’

‘Right,’ Sofia managed through clenched teeth.

Valerius looked sour for a moment, then nodded. ‘Fine. I’m hungry after all that. Doctor?’

The Doctor released Sofia and bowed to Valerius. ‘I shall await you.’

Valerius watched him leave, then turned, smiling, to Sofia, the guiltless cherub once more. ‘I thank you for saving me, Contessa,’ he said stiffly and then, lowering his voice, ‘Look, sorry I had to do that. Concord’s dignity—’

‘Demands no less,’ Sofia said. ‘No apologies but mine are necessary, my Lord.’

‘Oh, Sofia! Don’t be so formal. Let’s be friends again,’ he said, and leaned forward to kiss her cheek.

She watched him scurry up the tower’s ladder. Had he stayed, he would have recognised the glow surrounding her. It was not her throbbing arm that had made her angry – and not even Valerius; the Concordian was acting properly, in his own way. It was the Doc, and that she was party to his appeasement. Distrusting herself around either of them, she decided to retire to the Lion’s Fountain. Mule and his brother were probably at the tavern already. The smoke of another burn-out tasted bad in every mouth. First, though, she grabbed a workshop flag. It wouldn’t do for the Contessa to be caught unarmed twice in one day.

***

Harte-WaveTrilogy-1&2

Excerpt from “The Inner City” Karen Heuler (ChiZine)

Civilian Reader Excerpt, Guest Post , , , ,

Heuler-InnerCityKaren Heuler’s stories have appeared in over sixty literary and speculative journals and anthologies, including several “Best of” collections.

She has published a short story collection and three novels, and also won an O. Henry award in 1998. She lives in New York with her dog, Philip K. Dick, and her cats, Jane Austen and Charlotte Bronte.

Karen’s latest anthology, The Inner City, will be published on February 26 2013 (ChiZine). To celebrate the new book, here is one of the stories it contains:

“The Hair”

Truly the most astonishing thing happened when that new employee Mindy walked into the meeting wearing Paulina’s hair.

Paulina’s hands immediately went up to her head. Bald. Maybe a little patch of stubble.

Paulina gasped, but her coworkers at the meeting smiled a bland welcome to Mindy. Couldn’t they see what had happened?

Paulina’s hands began to shake in anger. Her pencils had been disappearing, even her scotch tape. And now this!

She knew perfectly well that women without hair didn’t last long, speaking corporately. Management was hair-ist. Paulina had always maintained a middle-of-the-road hairdo: pretty much all one length to her earlobes, parted on the right side, with the back sort of wedge-cut. Mindy hadn’t even bothered to change the part, and the color and length of the bangs were exactly the same. “Good haircut, Mindy,” Ron Unterling said in his loud I’m-top-dog tone. Mindy beamed, but the edge of her eyes wickedly slid Paulina’s way.

“Well, well, well,” Ron said. “Enough about hair.”

So the meeting on the Reports went on as if nothing unusual had happened. Reports celebrated the status quo, and Paulina was a big proponent of the status quo, since it paid her a pretty good salary for very little effort. Her job consisted of making up questions and answers used to evaluate various corporate projects. She looked at what the company was doing and found a way of discussing it so that it seemed innovative and generous. She liked to look on the positive side of life, generally, and that had seemed to work so far.

But she was beginning to think things had changed. Ron beamed upon the company. “The gala Report on Reports is coming up, and I thought this year we’d push our presentations to the limit. You know, put some zip in their zippers. We’re going to make this the best review ever!” He looked around at the fawning faces. “See what you can do. Put extreme into the routines! How’s the Facilitation Report, Paulina?”

“As you can see by looking at—let me see—page 2,” she began, “the main delays in project completion or status achievement break down into personnel indecision, end-usage misidentification…”

“It’s a beautiful Report,” Ron interrupted. He had never interrupted her before. “And so long.” His smile paused for a second, just enough for Paulina’s heart to throw out a mismanaged beat.

“I try to be thorough,” she said defensively (always a mistake: the zebra about to be corrected by the lion surely has just that tone).

Ron nodded and Paulina slumped slightly in relief. “It just needs a little jazzing up. I think Mindy could help you there. A little of her style added to your expertise would really sell it.”

Mindy smiled gaily; Paulina tried to keep her eyes from darting around the room. “I didn’t realize you wanted style,” she said plaintively.

Ron looked over to Mindy and then back to her. “I do,” he said.

Paulina had never asked a hard question because she had never wanted a hard answer, but that was not the way Mindy worked at all. “Way too obvious,” Mindy said, crossing out things on the printout Paulina handed her. “You’re letting everyone off easy. Let’s have some fun with this.” She gave a little shake to her head; her hair shook with it.

“That’s a beautiful hairstyle,” Paulina said as nicely as she could. She wanted to see if Mindy would show any guilt at all.

“Why, uh, thank you.” Mindy seemed to be searching for something to say in return. “I like yours, too. It must be so easy to take care of.”

“I used to have hair like that,” Paulina continued.

“I don’t recall.”

“Exactly like that.”

“Well, I’m sure it will grow back.” Mindy smiled and turned away.

But it didn’t grow back. By the next week there was no more fuzz than there had been. She began to wear a hat. One day Mindy tapped her on the shoulder.

“Excuse me,” Mindy said, “I don’t mean to be rude or anything, but your hat is bothering people.”

“Bothering people? How?”

“Well, they stare at it,” Mindy said. “They’re trying to figure it out. You know: why is she wearing a hat? Is she covering something up? Didn’t you notice how many times Jim said ‘cap’ at this morning’s meeting? It’s very distracting.”

“There was a meeting this morning? I wasn’t even there.”

“See? That’s how bad it is.” Mindy was quietly triumphant in a sympathetic kind of way. She had one of those deliberately soft voices that are supposed to be nonthreatening.

And Mindy handed her a memo Ron had signed that specifically requested no hats unless for religious or medical reasons. “Well, I suppose that’s not a medicinal hat?” she asked with raised eyebrows. “Although it looks like it might be…”

One fundamental problem was that Mindy’s mind was sharper than Paulina’s. Sharp, Paulina thought, as in sees things clearly, as in cuts without conscience.

Mindy removed most of Paulina’s questions and added this: Do you blame your boss for the delay or incompletion?

It was a jarring yes-no question and it was bound to get someone in trouble. Mindy was revising the Report in such a way that it would be necessary to actually recommend some action. Paulina had expected to retire in thirty years or so, and she could only last thirty more years by keeping herself neutral and pleasant, but she was beginning to find her nerves snapping, her teeth grating, her head filling with explosive scenarios.

And there was something in the alert way everyone was looking lately that manifestly signaled the scent of blood. Change was coming, and change was not good.

Without hair, Paulina felt conspicuous. If people stared, she believed she looked monstrous. And if they didn’t look, she was left in doubt: Was she now somehow unnoticeable? She was thrown off track; she was losing her way.

The next week Paulina appeared in a wig that matched the hair she used to have. A few heads looked at her with interest. She saw Mindy glaring: her eyelids lowered, her upper lip raised. “What a nice haircut,” Mindy said in her oh-so-nice voice. “It looks somehow familiar.”

Paulina smiled at her vaguely. “Does it?” Someone down the table snickered.

Ron settled forward in his chair, his hands almost gripping the table. “We’ve got a new twist on the Reports this year; we’ve hired a talent consultant for the presentations leading up to the Report on the Reports,” he said. “I’ve got an emcee to introduce each presentation of each Report, and to break it up, a magician in the middle, with a disappearing tiger. This year we’ll also have a choice of four entrees, all of them quite tasty. No mistakes like last year’s incident of the live goat.” He looked around benevolently. “We just need good Reports and a relaxed presentation. You can’t have a top-tier company without creativity, and that’s where we’re going—creative! Top tier!”

He started around the table, reviewing the area of each Report and discussing who would present it. Paulina had represented her section the year before and expected to do it again. Ron got all the way around the table before reaching Mindy and Paulina. He beamed fondly at Mindy, who put her hand up to stroke her hair modestly. Paulina lifted her own hand automatically.

“Now, Mindy,” Ron said, “tell us what you have in mind. You’ll be in charge of the section on company questionnaires.”

At that, Paulina’s hand dropped slowly, chastened. Mindy was now above her! When had the re-org happened, or was it still happening?

Paulina felt that she was all alone on the savannah, with something hungry moving towards her.

Ron had said to rev it up, and she would do that. And she would take him by surprise to boot. She went to everyone she’d interviewed before, going backwards through the questionnaires. She’d always filed the responses anonymously, of course, except for the letter coding in the top right hand of the first page, which indicated the department and the initials of the employee.

“Have I ever stolen anything is one of the questions now,” Mort on the third floor said, holding the latest version of the questionnaire in his hand. “Have they? Don’t they steal my spirit in return for a paycheck? What kind of questions are these? Number 91 asked if I’ve ever had sex in the office. That’s the only interesting question, and even that’s none of their business. But I’d like to know about the ones without offices. Are they using mine? Sometimes my chairs have been moved.”

“It’s a trick question. If you’re thinking about that, it shows you’re not working,” Paulina said. “It’s diabolical, actually, since once we ask the question we force you to think about it. I know what questions can do to people. They’re metaphysical, aren’t they? I never realized it before, how much I like questions. They’re the building blocks of reason!” She grinned somewhat foolishly, but she felt strangely moved. “I love my job,” she said. “I never knew it before. I love making questions.”

Mort looked at her sympathetically. “Just when they’ve started taking your questions away, too. That’s what they call irony, isn’t it?”

Paulina offered to present a small Report on the residue of Reports; i.e., does anyone remember last year’s Reports? It tickled Ron, since she could go through his predecessors’ Reports and mock them.

“You can have ten minutes tops,” he said, “or the sherbet will melt.”

Paulina was guaranteed a position, which was now what mattered. She lied about how she was going to do the Report; she had something else up her sleeve. Always before, she had made up questions that everyone knew how to answer. But what were the questions everyone knew how to ask?

In the meantime, she wore her wig slightly askew. It made Mindy self-conscious. Paulina began to dress better, too. She wouldn’t go so far as to say she was mimicking Mindy; she was buying clothes that were like Mindy’s however, and she wore garments similar to Mindy’s the day after her rival did. She was working up to wearing them the day before.

She asked Mort: “What are the questions that really matter to you?”

“My top ten are: Is there a terrible disease beginning in me? How long will I live? Is my wife faithful? Are my kids good? Do people respect me? Why am I not happier? Where is the money I deserve? If that’s not ten, it doesn’t matter,” he said.

Paulina wrote them down and went to the departments and people she had interviewed before. “When will I be happy?” they asked. “And am I dying?”

They did their projects even in the middle of these questions. “Can my father hear me in his coma?” one asked. “How much pain can my daughter stand? Why am I afraid? Is there God, is there God, is there God?”

Paulina wrote the questions down frantically and began to organize them in an artistic way. Through it all, of course, she wore her wig, unable to regain her hair by any natural means. Mindy certainly wouldn’t be shamed into giving the hair back, so what was Paulina to do?

The Report on Reports loomed large, as did all the questions associated with it, which Paulina now considered in all their serious political consequences. Historically the janitorial and support staff were consistently ignored, and no questionnaire was ever directed their way, so she approached the building super and the janitors and cleaning women. She spoke to the secretaries and the temps and the phone-system administrators. Their questions were the same as Mort’s, only with a few more about money.

Paulina knew what she wanted to do. “We’re going to sing our Report,” she told Mort and Joe, a super, and Yvonne, a cleaning woman. “We’re going to change their hearts with the power of our questions.”

“There are some Voices on the staff,” Yvonne agreed. “I hear them late at night, emptying the pails.”

“Henry has a voice like a boom box,” Joe added, “and the moves. He moves like a wave. He should be out in front.”

“We will all be in front,” Paulina declared, “in our own individual ways. We need to show how strong we are.” Her wig felt like it was slipping; she righted it. Yvonne and Mort modestly averted their eyes, and it made Paulina waver. She might be endangering them. “On the other hand, it might be risky. Maybe we shouldn’t do it,” she said softly.

“I’ve never been in a Report,” Yvonne said. “And I’ve been cleaning these offices for twenty years.”

Joe nodded “We want to do it. This is our one chance.”

The Reports took all afternoon. The minor Reports came first, like warm-up bands; they weren’t expected to grab attention. Ron glowed with achievement; he was obviously being groomed for promotion and it looked like Mindy would replace Ron when he left. All Paulina’s hopes of anonymous longevity were squashed.

Mindy wore an iridescent pearl-colored body stocking with a long pearl-colored skirt with tremendous slits. She threw out numbers as if she’d made them up. “Fine fractals advanced to seventy-eight by knocking out the middle,” she said and did a split, her arms thrown upwards. “Move the work downwards and pack them in together.”

The crowd roared at Mindy’s dance; the bosses nudged each other. Mindy humbly bowed with arms crossed over her breasts. Her eyes held grateful tears.

“She’s wowing them,” Mort muttered.

As host of the Report on Reports, Ron introduced each participant by doing somersaults to and from the podium on the stage.

There was a mime who did a Report on Physical Inventory, then a clown who did the Financial Report, a juggler who did the Service Sector, and finally it was Paulina’s turn, the Report on Previous Reports.

She wore a long black gown with long black sleeves. She walked silently midstage and turned her back to the audience, which caused an uncertain snicker.

The stage had been prepped by the janitorial staff, which had set up pneumatic risers and small beams of light shooting up and out.

Janitors, secretaries, cleaning women, mail clerks, and cafeteria workers stepped forward as the rear black curtain rose. They moved in straight lines and broke apart to form a large slow V on stage. Then the risers rose, and they were a chorus.

They sang:

My dreams have changed; why do they haunt me?

Who are these men who never seem to see me?

What happened to the joy I thought was due me?

How did I come here?

The pneumatic risers thrust different questions into the air. Each question or row of singers was answered by another row of singers with another question.

Where is the wonder, the hope?

Why is my heart drawn down at the start of each day?

And my spirit wasted?

They had wonderful voices, both magical and mundane. It was their one chance to ask the questions that bothered them; no one would listen to them again.

They ended:

When I was young, I never thought to come here.

How did I come here?

At the last word the risers in their various positions descended, and the spotlights went off scattershot, like ducks being hit at a midway.

“Lights up! Lights up!” Ron shouted, rushing out with his arms raised. He beamed broadly, as if he knew quite well what everyone was thinking. “Weren’t they terrific?” he cried insincerely. “But my, my, my, weren’t they a downer?” He winked broadly. “And wouldn’t you know it—it couldn’t come at a better time—the next one up is Manny Gomerson with his Judgment on the Reports. How we doin’, Manny?”

And to Paulina’s dismay (she hadn’t known their performances would be rated), Manny came out in a full-fledged tuxedo with a bunch of large interoffice envelopes in his hand. “Oh that one wasn’t good for morale,” Manny stated, shaking his head and rolling his eyes. “I mean, this is a job, right, not a psychiatrist’s couch. But enough philosophizing—let’s get down to work. We have seven prizes and eight Reports. How should we do this, Ron? Everyone made a great effort, and they all deserve prizes, but we don’t have enough to go around. We have to do some eliminating, okay? Can I have everyone up front?”

Mort patted Paulina on the shoulder—a loser’s pat, Paulina thought glumly.

As the last one off the stage, she was the first to go back on, and lined up with Mindy, the mime, the juggler, two clowns, a baton twirler, and a man who did a swing dance with a manikin. “They’re all going to win and I’m going to lose,” Paulina thought. She told herself that winning didn’t matter, that she had wanted to show off the truth and beauty of the chorus—but the chorus was huddled in the wings with disappointed faces.

“Only the first two rows vote,” Manny warned (those rows were reserved for bosses). “You just send in a number on your cell phones (everyone’s got a line to the Tally Committee now, right?). One to ten, ten the best. Here we go!”

The audience cheered and booed with absolute abandon. Ron encouraged it, striding across the stage like Groucho Marx and stopping to hold his hand over someone’s head for the vote. “Mimes are in a revival,” he shouted. “They’re kitschy, they’re quaint. But we still hate them, don’t we?” And the audience roared. They roared for Mindy (“Who knows what she said? Look at that dress!”) and it was obvious that the crowd was roaring at Ron, not the performers. When he got to Paulina, he said, “We all appreciate the effort involved for everyone concerned, let’s give them a hand,” and the crowd clapped politely but unenthusiastically until Ron added, “For the anti-Hallelujah Chorus.” Cheers and catcalls rang out.

A phone rang onstage and Ron picked it up. “We have our winners!” he shouted, holding up the envelopes, and he named everyone but Paulina. “Congratulations all!” he crowed. “Your contract is renewed for another year.”

Paulina stood empty-handed. “Contract? I never had a contract.”

Ron rushed forward. “Which brings me to our latest announcement. As of today, all Report positions will be contracted out on a competitive basis. Sorry, Paulina, your bid lost.”

Paulina’s heart was sinking in full view. “Bid? Bid? I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You didn’t think you had your job forever, did you?” Ron asked with theatrical sympathy and turned to the crowd. “Who thinks they have their jobs forever?” The crowd booed. “See?” he said, turning back to her. “It’s just the times we live in. The times require sacrifice.”

The crowd cheered. Ron raised his hands and shook them together. “The party’s over!” he said. “Your jobs are all secure.” The audience applauded and laughed and began to leave their seats. He turned to Paulina as Mindy came over to join them.

“Well, that was utterly fantastic,” Mindy said, linking her arm with Ron’s (was Mindy now on Ron’s level?). “We’re both very impressed.” She raised her eyebrows to show how impressed she was.

There was something familiar about those eyebrows, Paulina thought. “Those are my eyebrows!” she cried. She rubbed her hand above her eyes: nothing!

“Did you hear her?” Mindy asked, laughing. “Did you hear how odd she is? I think she’d make a good comic, much better as a comic than as a whatever she is. What is she? I forget. Oh that’s right!” she smacked her head lightly. “You lost.”

“She worked in the blah-blah department,” Ron said. “Which is due for restructuring.”

“Well, she does have a creative approach,” Mindy said, cocking her head at Ron.

“A good sense of humor, too. Or is it drama?” His face got furrowed.

“No one cared,” Mindy said. “Why should they? But no hair, no eyebrows—will it upset the employees?” She took a quick glance over her shoulder to look sympathetically at Paulina.

“Everything upsets the employees,” Ron said resignedly.

“So they need cheering up. They need to laugh. I can see her as someone who would give us all a laugh.”

“That’s true. We could maybe do something with her.”

“Wait!” Paulina cried. It was painful, standing there as she was discussed. She had thought her chorus was terrific; she had dreamed of praise about it. How had she been so out of touch? There was a nakedness she felt now, her scalp bald under the wig, her face bald out in the world.

“But she won’t need a desk, will she?” Mindy said, ignoring her. “Comics don’t sit at desks, that would be silly.”

Ron frowned. “But wouldn’t silly actually be the idea?”

“No,” Mindy said. She shook her hair, Paulina’s hair. She raised her eyebrows, Paulina’s eyebrows. “Desks make things look important. That kills the laugh.”

“You always get straight to the crux,” Ron said.

“So here’s the story,” Mindy said, turning to Paulina. “You’ve been fired from your position—or, to avoid lawsuits, actually, your position’s been fired in response to the economic slowdown. You’re just collateral. But because we care—”

“We always care—”

“We’re going to make you a mopper. You mop things up. You keep your salary, you keep your hours, but you have to mop floors.”

“In a clown suit?” Ron asked eagerly.

“Just a clown nose, don’t you think? We don’t want to overdo it.”

“In a clown nose, then.”

“But wait,” Paulina said, clenching her hands. “You can’t do this. I don’t want to mop floors. I was a supervisor.” She heard herself and marveled at how quickly she had been transformed. “I am a supervisor.”

“Mopping floors is an important position. Essential, even. Just think of all the used gum there. Someone could get hurt.”

“You’ll be doing a service to humanity,” Ron added. “You’ll bring joy and relief to life. That’s the company motto, isn’t it?” Ron turned to Mindy.

“We have a company motto?”

“This isn’t what I want!” Paulina cried. “My message was to elevate the masses! I never meant to be one!”

“Oh message,” Mindy said dismissively. “Look around you—everyone has left you here alone. They just wanted a little time to vent. You just took yourself a little too seriously. Too personally; you took yourself too personally.”

“It’s because you stole my hair,” Paulina said, pointing her finger at Mindy. “You provoked it.”

“Nonsense. People lose their hair all the time. Strand by strand. You really can’t claim those hairs as yours once they leave your head, can you? Besides, once you start mopping, you can keep all the hairs you want.”

“That’s obvious,” Ron said agreeably.

“Anyone’s hair,” Mindy added. “Mine if you want. Just gather it up.”

“That, plus you get to keep your paycheck.”

“That’s what’s important in the long term, isn’t it? Much more important than hair or where you sit or if you’ve got great eyebrows? A paycheck.”

They began to walk away and Paulina was motionless, considering what had happened. She had gone too far. Asked questions of the wrong people and pushed where a push would be noticed. Such consequences were predictable, to everyone but her. She had expected too much; she thought she could stay hidden in the herd even as she ran along outside it. She was amazed at her own stupidity, grateful that she had been spared the final blow. She would take what they gave her, gratefully.

She did still have a future, after all, she told herself. She had bills to pay, many bills to pay, and no savings worth noting. She should accept the position and begin to save money so she could protect herself. Why had she cared about protecting others when they could either save themselves or perish? It would be humiliating at first, mopping around her former coworkers, who would, no doubt, shift their eyes away when they saw her. But soon enough it would be normal, even if a new kind of normal.

She had been misled by details, but she could paint on eyebrows, she supposed. She could even paint on hair. Maybe she would get a pair of eyeglasses, just to give her a sense of her new self. She would absolutely refuse the clown’s nose. She even suspected they were joking about it, proposing it just so they could show how easy it was for them to compromise by removing the request just to please her.

And it would please her!

The mops, she supposed were in the basement.

She turned around and headed there, quickly.

HeulerKaren-AuthorPic***

I will be posting an interview with Karen Heuler on February 27th.

You can find out more on Karen’s website, on her Goodreads profile,  via the publisher’s page, or by following Karen on Twitter.