Roland Yeomans's Blog, page 131

THE STARS LIKE SKULLS

For Denise Covey's Halloween WEP Blogfest, here is my tale of horror:


{A Tale of the Mysterious Father  of Samuel McCord}


Stars like stabbing points of daggers jutted out from the dark velvet of the night.  
Huge and blood-red, the bloated sun but an hour ago had burned its fiery way into the black corpse of the horizon.

It was the year of Our Lord 1627, and the Anglo-French War was a madness just beginning.   
Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham, leeched our country’s villages of its strongest men to man his fleet of 80 ships. 
 Damn Richelieu for triggering this insanity with his trickery and ambition.  I was done with wars of dueling royalty.

Bands of brigands roamed the countryside at will, pillaging and raping where they would.  
 I was but one man and could not fight them all.   
There was a ship soon to leave for the New World to a place called the Salem Colony.   
I would leave this land whose very soil churned with the blood of countless innocents and endless hate.

But I would sleep under a roof once more before then.  The tavern of Simeon the Necromancer was near.  
 I headed towards it.

As I walked, great shadows came rushing down upon me as if from unknown voids to shroud the world from the eyes of God.  
 I did not blame Him for not wanting to see the petty cruelty and wanton violence we men did to one another.

The dark red moon slowly rose from the skeleton of the horizon.  I paused, winter visiting my blood.  
 For a flickering moment, a twisted silhouette flashed across its scarred surface. 
 It swooped down towards me.  I ripped out my sword, a cold smile twisting my lips.   
Mayhap tonight I would find out if I could truly die.

But it swept past me, a gibbering laughter tittering from it.  I sighed.  This was a dark and troubled land.   
Too much unanswered death roamed the nights, birthing strange creatures out to drink from the living.

I started my way down the tangled path again to the tavern with its glazed eyed windows seeming like the vacant orbs of a dead demon.   
Far across the wild fen shrieked a faint mocking laughter.  I fought a shiver and entered the tavern.

“Come, wench, sit on my lap.  I killed your grandfather.  There is none to keep you safe tonight!”

“There is me,” I said softly.

The unkempt Reaver twisted about in his chair.  His two companions spun to face me.   
My double-barreled pistols were in both hands.  
 Crafted by a genius of a Spanish gunsmith, they could fire six rounds each. 

After each barrel was fired, all that was needed was to point the barrels down and new bullets would slip into place.

Many a brigand had appeared before the Gates of Hell stunned that a gun which should have been empty had killed them.

The Reaver slowly rose, murder in his beady eyes.  “She is a witch!  She deserves all I will do to her.”

“Yes,” I said, “she is a witch.  Her mother was more Worm of the Earth than human, and Simeon, her grandfather, was a Necromancer.  Still, they were my friends.”

His friends started to flank me.   
I whipped my head to the side sharply, slinging off my slouch hat and letting my skull-white hair fall to my shoulders.

The shorter of his two companions husked, 
“I know him!  Hold, Redly!  By all that is unholy, that is Robert McCord, the Deathless One.”

The young dark haired witch laughed like the snapping of dry bones.   
“Yes, it is McCord, who is afraid of neither demon, devil, nor man.”

She turned slanted, heavy-lidded eyes to me.  “Avenge my Grandfather!”

I shook my head.  “Like me, he deserved death ten times over … as did your mother, as do you.”

She frowned, “Then, why protect me now?”

I shrugged.  “You are my friend … and the damned should stick together.”

Redly barked a laugh.  “Then, you will let me get away with the murder of your so-called friend.”

Remembering the twisted silhouette flashing across the death-head moon, I said, 
“You talk from ignorance, and you will die from the same.  Methinks you will shortly meet Simeon in Hell.”

I put down one gold coin on the counter.  “Hecate, stay the night in my room.”

Her eyes became slits.  “You would have your way with me, too?”

I shook my head.  “I would have you safe from these dogs who think themselves wolves.”

Hecate snorted, “Oh, I shalt be safe enough.  But they will not if they spend the night in this Inn.”

Redly barked an ugly laugh.  “Oh, we will spend the night, wench.”

He turned to me, “But we will not pay.”

Hecate murmured, “Oh, but you shall.”

Redly tried to laugh but it came out hollow.  His two friends did not even try.  
 I turned to Hecate, but she had disappeared.  I shrugged.  Such was the way with witches.

I went to my usual room and went to sleep still in my clothes.  Some nights one kept his sword close to hand.  
 I awoke suddenly.  I was a light sleeper as befitting one whose life dangled always from a slender thread.

A scratching sound had awakened me, followed by a strangling gurgle.  
 I rose from my bed, not bothering to put on my boots.  I stood gravestone still, listening.  There! 
The scratching again, followed by a mewing groan.  I went to the door, sword in hand.

I went down the dark hall three doors and stopped.  
 That damn scratching again.  I tried to open the door.  Locked.  I hit it hard with my shoulder.  It flung open.  I froze in horror.

A bloody severed hand was finishing strangling Redly.   
As the Reaver gurgled his last, the hand flopped to the floor, and skuttled like a leper spider across the floor, up the wall, and onto the open window sill.  

In a quick lunge, I speared the thing with my rapier.  I swung up the blade, inspecting the slender hand still wiggling in a vain attempt to tear itself free.

Hecate murmured behind me, “I would have my hand back if you please … and even if you do not.”

I turned.  She stood in the doorway, weaving slightly on her feet.   
Her left arm ended in a stump crudely wrapped in bloody bandages.

She smiled a thing of madness.  
 “I knew they would bar their doors.  But it is a hot night, and their windows would be temptingly open.”

She turned to the shambling figure in the hallway, extending her hand to it.  
 “Here, Grandfather, keep it safe for me until I meet thee in Hell.”

The Thing that had been Simeon silently took it and trudged back down the dark hallway, 
down the stairs, and out to the fens with its passage to Hell waiting for him.

Her smile grew colder as she turned back to me. “I can spend the night with you now, Robert.”

I bowed slightly.  “In even the greatest of horrors, irony is seldom absent.”

With those words I left her frowning and walked back to my bed.

Find out more about Robert McCord in THE NOT-SO-INNOCENTS AT LARGE
 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01LY15Y0W/

WHAT YOUR WORDS SAY ABOUT YOU

“When people talk, listen completely. Most people never listen.” 
 - Ernest Hemingway

“Most people do not listen with the aim to understand; they listen with the aim to reply.”
 - Mark Twain





 The words we use say a great deal about who we are, where we come from, and how we think.

The same should be true of the characters in our novels.

Take for example, depression ...

One set of studies has linked depression to an elevated use of first person singular pronouns ( I, me, my)

 and a lack of first person plural ( we, our), second, and third person pronouns,

suggesting that these serve as linguistic markers of self-focused rumination

 (narcissists show similar language patterns) and social isolation.

You might want to watch what you say… 

you never know what secrets you just might be giving away.

Which leads me to Kathleen Valentine's Blog which is my next stop on my DON'T BUY MY BOOK! Blog Tour




Where I speak about the importance of internal versus external dialogue in our novels, 

and how I used that duel in my latest novel.


http://www.kathleenvalentineblog.com/

  HILARY MELTON-BUTCHER
Won my Mystery Prizefor commenting onD.G. HUDSON'S Blog!





VIDYA SURY
won a mystery gift for the additional drawingfor commenters on Lee McKenzie's Blog



Congratulations, Hilary and Vidya!

DO YOU TRUST YOUR DOCTOR?

Follow me to D.G. Hudson's lovely blog where I speak of the Louvre and the cruel Parisian streets:

http://dghudson-rainwriting.blogspot.com/


"The medical system has played a large role in undermining the health of Americans. 

According to several research studies in the last decade, a total of 225,000 Americans per year have died as a result of their medical treatments:
12,000 deaths per year due to unnecessary surgery 7000 deaths per year due to medication errors in hospitals 20,000 deaths per year due to other errors in hospitals 80,000 deaths per year due to infections in hospitals 106,000 deaths per year due to negative effects of drugs Thus, America's healthcare-system-induced deaths are the third leading cause of the death in the U.S., after heart disease and cancer."

 Doctors are making money – LOTS of money for prescribing certain drugs to you and your family. 

 These kickbacks sway their prescribing decisions, and the result is increased drug costs for you and me. 


 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01LY15Y0W/
But physicians have been mistreating their patients for centuries as this excerpt from THE NOT-SO-INNOCENTS AT LARGE reveals:



Elu and I eased our way through the bristling crowd of medical students.  We slowly approached the doctor who had so angered both Lucanus and Meilori.  The students milled about the man so thickly that they piled up on the back of the doctor.  He casually shook them off from his broad shoulders like so many rats and mice. The sister hushed, “You cannot mean to confront Baron Guillaume Dupuytren?” I made a face.  He was one of the medical giants of France.  He was cruelly handsome, thick of chest, and intimidating in manner. A former battlefield surgeon, he had been made a baron by Napoleon.  He held himself as if the M.D. after his name meant Me Deity. Dupuytren felt himself an artist not just a surgeon.  Dupuytren left no doubt in his words or deeds that he was the reigning presence in the Hôtel-Dieu. He operated upon his patients according to the ancient motto: cito, tuto, and jucunde – quickly, surely, and agreeably.  Agreeably that is if you were not the poor patient whose penis he had just severed in one swift stroke of a giant knife … without anything for pain, not even a swallow of whisky. He had the flush, calculating face of a rake and gambler … both pastimes of which he was guilty.  He spent most nights at the better gambling houses at the Palais Royal. His normal temper was vile.  Sadly, he lost often, his infamous temper becoming even worse, and he took it out on the students … as well as his patients.  As he was doing at the moment. For outright brutality, Lucanus told me, the “great Guillaume Dupuytren had no equal … as he was proving with the poor woman in front of him.                        He spoke harshly, quickly to the wheezing woman in obvious pain. Caught in a spasm of rapid breathing, she did not immediately respond.   Dupuytren struck her a backhanded blow so hard that she rocked to the bed on her back.  She struggled to rise.  He reached out and made a handle of her nose and held her so firmly that though she struggled, she could not free herself. I felt King Solomon’s Ring burn cold on the third finger of my left hand even through the dragon-hide of my glove, (my right was too foul for such a rare artifact to be dirtied by touching it.) “Turn around, Baron!” The sister looked horrified at me, and I whispered, “He would not have obeyed unless his heart were evil.” He jerked about like a puppet on a wire string.  “How?  You dare?” “No, you dare!” I said.  “The woman is in pain, alone, desperate, and pleading with you for help.  And you dare strike her?  Strike her?!” One of the Prefecture of Police had obviously been stationed with the Baron in case Lucanus returned.  He rushed at me, truncheon held high.  Elu laughed, actually laughed at the clumsy man.   As easy as snatching a stick from a baby, Elu plucked the baton from the policeman.  Twirling it around deftly in his corded fingers, he popped the man on the forehead with it with a snapping motion.  The policeman reeled like a felled tree to the polished oak floor. The sister cried out, but Elu snorted, “Be at peace, Sister.  I refrained from killing him out of respect for you.  He will only have a lump the size of a goose’s egg, a creature whose brains equal this clumsy white joke of a protector.” I reached around with my left hand, drawing the back of my long coat enough so that the butt of my Colt was exposed.  “Pity you’re not wearing a Colt, Baron.” “I am not a barbarian!” I flicked eyes to the poor ill woman, then to the Sister, and back to the Baron.  “You couldn’t prove it by me.” “M-My students will protect me!” “Coward!” I snapped, moving between the moments. I held up my forefinger and thumb to the Sister. “I’m just using these, Ma’am, and I will still kill this surgeon.” “No!” she cried. “Yes!” I said, grinding the nerve and acupressure points on the back of the Baron’s right hand with my thumb and forefinger. Dupuytren squealed, pulling away from me.  He clutched his right forearm at whose end flopped his now-useless right hand.  He stared at it in horror. I said, “You can still teach, but never again will you perform surgery or manhandle a patient.” Dupuytren tried for outrage but his pain and fear neutered his attempt.  “Undo this!” I said, “You still have a working left hand.” I met his eyes.  “That could change.  Don’t push it, Baron.”

 Now, for the first two winners taken from those who commented on my guest post on Lee McKenzie's Blog:

 http://writegame.blogspot.com/



JOYLENE NOWELL BUTLER wins Lee's SIGN OF THE GREEN DRAGON!




 H.R. SINCLAIR wins THE STARS BLEED AT MIDNIGHT Audio Book!



Take a chance on my new 99 book will you?

I AM EVERYWHERE

"We seek him here, we seek him there,
Those Frenchies seek him everywhere.
Is he in heaven?—Is he in hell?
That demmed, elusive Pimpernel." - The Scarlet Pimpernel

Yes!  I am the move again with my 
DON'T BUY MY BOOK! Blog Tour.

This time, I am terrorizing, ah, I mean visiting the lovely Lee McKenzie! 

 http://writegame.blogspot.com/

Where I speak of Mistakes, Heroes, and Dragons.


Come on!  
Don't let Lee's Visitor Talley 
slump because of me.

Be a hero; Visit me over at Lee's!!

BLITZKREIG!

Blitzkreig!  Lightning War!
This is what I am waging this week.
Shock and Awe the Key Phrase.

MONDAY the 17th:
http://writegame.blogspot.com/
On Lee McKenzie's sparkling Blog, 
I talk of mistakes and how we make our heroes real when they screw up and deal worthily with the aftermath --
“When you have made a mistake, think not: ‘This is misfortune’ think rather: 
‘To bear this worthily is good fortune.’” 
- Marcus Aurelius



TUESDAY the 18th:
http://dghudson-rainwriting.blogspot.com/
On D. G. Hudson's lovely Blog, I speak of Paris -- City of Lights, Gardens of Beauty ... 
Streets of Cruelty
“Paris was an old city, the very moonbeams seeming but ghosts of sad lovers wandering the night in search of their lost soulmate.”
– Mark Twain




WEDNESDAY the 19th:
http://www.kathleenvalentineblog.com/
On Kathleen Valentine's always intriguing Blog, I write of internal dialogue and external dialogue.  
 A good novel juxtapositions the two to provide tension and mood.
How does my new novel do that?  How can yours?
“Conversation is the duel of insecurity, curiosity, and the yearning to belong.”  – Samuel McCord



THURSDAY the 20th:
https://rolandyeomans.blogspot.com/
For Denise Covey's WEP bloghop, I write a tale of the mysterious father of Samuel McCord from the Year of Our Lord, 1627!


More of Robert McCord can be discovered in my latest, THE NOT-SO-INNOCENTS AT LARGE, for whom my Blitzkreig is for!


FRIDAY the 21st:
http://writewithfey.blogspot.com/
For Chrys Fey's always fun blog, I take part in her FIRST bloghop:

 An excerpt from  THE NOT-SO-INNOCENTS AT LARGE:
Samuel McCord, Cursed Texas Ranger and ...Pimp!

Please take a 99 cent chance of a great tale with
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01LY15Y0W/

THE APPEAL OF HALLOWEEN

The symbols and agents of darkness dominate Halloween decorations everywhere, 

and Halloween is growing in popularity across Europe and in the US. 

According to the National Retail Federation, US Halloween spending now exceeds $7 Billion!

 Horror films, horror monsters, and the iconography of Halloween 

are culturally successful because they are well-adapted to engage evolved danger-management adaptations.

Of course the scary costumes and props of Halloween are symbolic 

and don’t pose any real threat; they provide safe thrills, 

our love for which has roots deep in our mammalian heritage.

Infants even love to be scared in a safe context.

Do children love Halloween because it allows them to become that which scares them 

or to become the heroes whom they picture as fearless?

Why do you think Halloween  is still so popular?

TWO MORE WINNERS FROM THE COMMENTERS ON MY GUEST POST ON CRYSTAL COLLIER'S BLOG
Crystal Collier  http://crystalcollier.blogspot.com/    V R BARKOWSKI WINS THE HALLOWEEN AUDIO BOOK






DENISE COVEY WINSMY OTHER HALLOWEEN AUDIO BOOK



I AM SO HAPPY YOU GUYS' NAMESWERE DRAWN!!

DO WE EVER REALLY KNOW PEOPLE?

William Moulton Marston, 

the only scion of a once-grand Boston family, was equal parts genius, charlatan, and kinkster. 

As an undergraduate at Harvard just before World War I, 

he was thrilled by militant suffragists like the ones who chained themselves to the fence outside 10 Downing Street.

 Maybe that’s where his fusion of feminism and bondage started:

imagery of slavery and shackles abounded in the movement’s demonstrations and propaganda.



Benjamin Franklin practiced what we now call “sock puppetry”,

 using multiple aliases in his pamphleteering 

to give the appearance that many people had similar views, sometimes arguing with himself through different names.  

His most famous alter ego was Silence Dogood.




Did Thomas Jefferson have a relationship with a woman who was his slave? 

Did that relationship produce children? 

In 1998 DNA tests were conducted upon his remains and those of men who were thought to be his sons by the slave, Sally Hemings.  

The results came in that  

Thomas Jefferson fathered at least one of Sally Hemings's children, and quite probably all six. 

He freed those male slaves only in his will, while keeping Sally a slave.  Jefferson's daughter freed the woman.

Apparently, all men were created equal ... unless you were his black sons.



BUT ENOUGH DOUR TALK!
LET'S TALK WINNERS!! 
On each guest post I pick two commenters and give them a Mystery Prize!
Crystal Collier  http://crystalcollier.blogspot.com/     DMS  HAS WON CRYSTAL COLLIER'S BOOK



MERADETH HOUSTON HAS WON THE AUDIO BOOK

HOW COOL IS THAT?

NOW FOR SOMETHING STRANGE

You may think the honor of being on the first cover of Ms. Magazine went to Wonder Woman.

Like many treasured beliefs, this one is wrong.

That honor went to the many-armed Hindu goddess Kali,

 holding a frying pan, a typewriter, a mirror, and other tools of the hyper-multitasking modern woman. 

Wonder Woman graced the SECOND issue's cover.

William Moulton Marston, 

the inventor of Wonder Woman, believed women were superior to men and should run the world—

and would do so in, oh, about a thousand years.

Hey, his heart was in the right place.  Ah, or was it?


{William Moulton Marston testing his lie detector in a 1922 photo}

He was an American psychologist, lawyer, inventor, and comic book writer who created the character Wonder Woman.  Marston had a great deal of help from his wife, Elizabeth Holloway  (we have her to thank for “Suffering Sappho,” “Great Hera,” and other Amazonian expostulations),  as well as from his former student Olive Byrne,  with whom he and Holloway lived in a permanent ménage à trois that produced four children, two from each woman.  Olive Byrne was the niece of Margaret Sanger,  whose youthful brand of romantic, socialist-pacifist feminism was formative for Marston.  Strange, huh?  Talking about things becoming strange ... My DON'T BUY MY BOOK! Blog Tour is taking a strange turn ... on October 12thto the blog of    Crystal Collier  http://crystalcollier.blogspot.com/
 It is a strange sort of guest post.Don't believe me?Check it out for yourself!   

HOW DO YOU DEFINE SUCCESS IN YOUR WRITING?

Was Emily Dickinson a success?
  Success is counted sweetest By those who ne'er succeed. To comprehend a nectar Requires sorest need.
Not one of all the purple Host Who took the Flag today Can tell the definition So clear of victory
As he defeated – dying – On whose forbidden ear The distant strains of triumph Burst agonized and clear!


When Emily Dickinson died in 1884, she was unknown as a poet outside of a small circle of family and friends. 

Dickinson’s poetic legacy consisted of almost 1800 poems, and no instructions about what to do with them.

The story of how those close to her battled obscurity and each other to publish her poems 

could be a riveting novel all by itself!

If you died without knowing whether your novels meant anything to anyone, 

would it matter if in the future they did?


Success
Is success in your writing always upping the game to your tales, always improving in your craft, 

or is it merely revealed in your sales figures?

Writers struggle to define success, 

for it is like the horizon, forever out of reach no matter how far you travel in your writing journey.

Tell me what you think, will you?


THE TWO WINNERS OF THE MYSTERY PRIZES FOR COMMENTS ON MY GUEST POST ON ALEX'S BLOG


 THE CYNICAL SAILORwho wins the audio book


and 

ROBYN ALANA ENGEL
who wins the audio book




Thank You To All Who Commented
I will draw two more prizesfrom those who comment tomorrow!

HELP ALEX CAVANAUGH!

http://www.alexjcavanaugh.com/
Alex Cavanaugh needs your help!
To survive me and the ghost of Mark Twain again.
 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01LY15Y0W/
Go to his blog and comment about my terrible guest postto boost Alex's morale.
Oh, and while you are at it,buy my 99 cent book.
I mean, it was my birthday yesterday!