E.A. Monroe's Blog, page 4

“Mikuyi Moon” Excerpt

Mavis excused herself and retreated to the safety of the kitchen but no peacefulness waited for her there. Madra and Lotta Jo argued over the dinner menu, but the familiarity of their argument was preferable over the discord Rena Oldroyd had harbored against Inali since the evening of Fayerfield House’s reopening.

“Is Miss Rena still here, Momma?” Madra dropped her disagreeing opinion with Lotta Jo, and Lotta Jo, ladle in one pudgy hand, aimed her inquisitive gaze on the housekeeper.

Mavis nodded, closed the kitchen door. “She is and thank goodness Master Inali has returned home.”

Lotta Jo sniffed, waved her soup ladle. “If the man is too blind to see through that woman’s pretentious airs all I can say is, he surely deserves the trouble Rena will bring him. I should know. I can speak from first hand experience on that woman’s selfishness.”

“Yes,” Madra said, agreeing with Lotta Jo. “The day Rena Oldroyd becomes Mistress of Fayerfield House is the day I resign. I will not take orders from that spoiled brat and suffer the abuse of her disagreeable temper and criticism.”

“That goes the same for me, Mavis,” Lotta Jo agreed, brandishing her soup ladle as if about to marshal her forces in an assault.

“We all presume too much thinking Master Inali will tie himself in marriage to Rena Oldroyd.” Mavis’s head ached. She rubbed her temples.

“Oh, what I would not give right this minute to hear what he is saying to her.” Madra laughed and returned to rolling out of her pie crust. “I would think Chloe and Date Oldroyd have more control over their daughter’s outrageous behavior than to allow Rena to impose herself and then proceed to instruct us on what to prepare for Master Inali’s dinner.”

“Roast lamb, indeed!” Lotta Jo sniffed. She dipped her ladle into a pot on the stove and stirred her simmering beef soup. “That I should have to bargain with one of those San Bargellian thieves over sweet meats — dates, figs, and pomegranates, indeed! Fayerfields have always eaten plain, local fare for as long as I can recall and Miss Oldroyd expects — no, she demands — foreign dishes!”

Lotta Jo’s previous quarrel with Madra was forgotten in their mutual dislike of Rena Oldroyd. Mavis imagined herself the general, Madra her captain, and Lotta Jo the sergeant in arms of kitchen utensils.

Later in the chapter —

“Orrick!” Inali burst into the kitchen, fury contorting his face.

Orrick, leaning back in a kitchen chair, tipped too far back, lost his balance and crashed into the floor. Lotta Jo scalded her tongue attempting to taste her beef soup; Madra shrieked, dropped her perfectly crimped apple pie into the floor at her feet; the potatoes cradled in the folds of Mavis’s apron leapt to freedom and thumped and rolled across the floor toward Inali’s boots.

Inali ignored the ensuing chaos his intrusion into the kitchen had created. “Orrick, bring Miss Oldroyd’s carriage around to the front door. She is leaving,” he ordered.

Orrick scrambled to his feet and set the kitchen chair upright. He skidded across potatoes, sending the spuds rolling, and banged out the kitchen door. Swinging around, Inali left, the kitchen door swinging closed upon the three astonished women. They smiled at each other, conspirators, and returned to their kitchen duties without complaining how Inali’s interruption had disrupted their preparations for the evening meal, or that Lotta Jo had blistered her tongue and lip, and Madra’s beautiful apple pie lay in a crumbling mess at her feet.

Copyright 1989, 2021 by Elizabeth A. Monroe

Excerpt from Mikuyi Moon, Book 7 in the Voice of the Wind: Shadows of Time series

Excerpt: “Mikuyi Moon,” Book 7

~ Chapter 48 ~

As he rummaged through the wardrobe and bureau drawers for his discarded traveling clothes he had arrived in Fayerton wearing, Inali cast aside the restricting garb of clothes meticulously fitted to his frame.

Various articles of clothing flew piece by piece — jacket, vest, tunic, boots removed midstride, hopping on one foot to the next. Socks soared over his shoulders and trousers followed with the same one-footed balance and hop.

A furious search produced his heavily stitched leather trousers, tunic, vest, and belt folded in the bottom of a drawer scented with redwood chips.

Purpose and will directed and compelled his actions. He pulled on snug well-worn supple leather in exchange for his fancy garb with its careful tailoring and its clipped and sewn seams. The smooth fit of his leather garb was like a second layer of his skin.

With the same determination, he strapped on his black leather knee boots and reached for his hunting gear. In the deepest corner of the wardrobe his fingers closed over an embroidered bag. He yanked the bag out, along with his traveling packs, with such force that the bag opened and spilled its contents on the floor. The rain of small leather, bead embroidered pouches skidded across the parquet floor, some disappearing under the bed, others vanishing under a chair, another pouch landed beneath the bedside table.

Inali paused, his purpose shaken. He stared at the quill and beaded deer-hide bag he clutched — Oanada’s medicine bag. In the chaotic flurry since their arrival, he had forgotten flinging the medicine bag into the wardrobe. His hunting gear, traveling packs, his quiver of arrows, and his bow tucked into its bow case had followed — all after an argument with his father, an argument his father had won.

Shortly afterward, Inali had found himself standing rigid and straight, his arms outstretched while a potbellied, miniscule tailor and his two miniscule assistants scurried around him measuring and fitting, pinning and stitching, re-measuring and re-stitching. One misdirected pin stab and a volatile outburst of his temper had sent the flock of tailors scattering, tape measures flying.

How Althar had laughed! His brother had enjoyed every minute of his humiliation and the torment of their father’s ruthless determination to polish his two errant sons into gentlemen.

Under Orvis and Mavis Rosenthorn’s tutelage, Althar was quicker to learn the social graces Fayerton society expected. Althar had reason to learn, mimicking the polite bows, exchanging social pleasantries. They could not return to Wolfdale and resume their familiar way of life before the disruption of Monarka’s death — and Jalinkina.

He found his role in the aloofness of observant detachment. He knew the appropriate courtesies and gestures polite society demanded, but he was still Mikuyi — a Mikuyi reluctantly dressed in the style and fashion denoting a gentleman of Fayerton society.

Inali could not dam the memories Oanada’s medicine bag released. How she had clung to the security of her precious bag, even in sleep.

Oanada’s essence clung to the deer hide, like the aromas of whatever mysteries the leather pouches contained. He had not returned the bag to her, even after they had found her unexplainably entangled once again into the perplexing weave of his and Althar’s lives. Unlike Oanada, he still possessed the bag she had left behind in her haste to escape captivity for her freedom to return to her father and home.

He understood freedom. It was Oanada’s fear he found disturbing — as disconcerting as pulling her medicine bag from the back of his wardrobe. Why had he kept it?

Inali frowned, collected his rampaging thoughts that scattered like dry seeds in the wind to be planted elsewhere before he could tear them out by their roots from his mind.

“There is no freedom, Oanada,” Inali grumbled aloud in answer to the times she had asked him, no begged him for her freedom.

Inali tightened his grip on the supple deer hide, squeezed it, as he tried to squeeze Oanada from his thoughts.

“I am ready, Inali.” Althar appeared at the door, dressed in his Mikuyi traveling gear but not the same in looks as before. Althar wore his long Mikuyi hair shorn to shoulder length.

***

Althar’s gaze lighted on the familiar bag Inali clutched as if trying the choke the life from a living thing.

“I thought you returned Oanada’s medicine bag.”

“I found it in the wardrobe,” Inali muttered.

Althar retrieved several of the scattered leather pouches from the floor, from beneath the furniture. He grinned, held one pouch to his nostrils and inhaled the pleasant fragrances of earth and wood.

“Goldenrod — and yarrow,” he added, sniffing a second pouch. He grabbed the medicine bag from Inali and returned the missing pouches. “Are we still on for the hunt?”

“We are,” Inali muttered and frowned at some thought.

“Then let us get a move on.” Althar tossed the medicine bag into the middle of Inali’s bed and reached for the hunting gear Inali had dropped. He started for the door, paused. Inali continued scowling at the medicine bag as thought wrestling with some emotion he did not want.

“Inali, we are going hunting tonight — unless it is another sort of hunt that calls you?”

Inali stirred from his thoughts. “What?”

Althar shook his head. “I worry about you, brother. I have never known a woman to come before your pursuit of the hunting trail.”

Inali grabbed his quiver, bow, and roll of sleeping furs. “It has not.”

“I find that hard to believe. You better be careful.”

“I am always careful, Althar.” Inali shouldered his quiver of arrows and his bow case.

“Except for one time and only because I was not there to stop you. You were not careful then or half as careful as you have been since.”

“What day was that?” Inali said. His irritation showed. “The day I sent Jalinkina to his grave?”

“No, that was one of your careful days.”

“If you refer to Rena and my being with her, forget it, Althar. She is my personal business and not your concern.”

“I am sure you have been as careful about Rena as you have been with the other women whose company you have enjoyed.”

Althar studied the curious light glittering within Inali’s hooded eyes, continued. “I speak of a specific day — a day I hardly need remind you about, Inali.”

“Then do not. You are beginning to make me regret it, Althar. If not for that day you would not be here, alive and lecturing me with your profound insights.”

Althar chuckled. “Ah! You do have regrets now that Jantz Fayerfield is an obstacle you have yet to deal with, and until you get everything sorted out in your head — and here—” Althar thumped his fist on his chest. “In your heart where it counts, you waste your time amusing yourself with Miss Oldroyd, fucking her and whoever else you think will shove Oanada from your thoughts. Sorry, brother, but that is not how it works.” He nodded to the medicine bag. “Oanada’s medicine bag is more dangerous than you know.”

Inali’s expression remained unchanged. He headed to the door, saying nothing in response.

Althar frowned. “Are you not going to argue with me?”

“No, because you might be right, brother.” Inali strode from the room and left Althar with his mouth hanging open.

“What!” Althar exclaimed, overcoming his surprise and Inali’s unexpected answer. “Inali, wait!”

Shouldering the pack of hunting gear, Althar hurried after Inali. Why was he always running to catch up with Inali?

“Wait!” Althar shouted. He trotted past an astonished Mavis Rosenthorn garbed in her frilly nightcap and robe. “Excuse us, Mistress Rosenthorn. We did not mean to awaken you.”

“Master Althar—”

“Good night, Mistress Rosenthorn.”

Althar had no intention of stopping for anyone or anything. Inali’s long strides carried him swiftly down the stairs four at a time. Althar raced after him. In the foyer, Inali sent a yawning Orrick and two downstairs maids scurrying from his path.

“Tonight is a hunter’s night, Althar,” Inali called over his shoulder.

***

Within the stable, Inali’s silence continued as he saddled and bridled Centauri. Althar cut sideways glances at his brother but he said nothing.

Determination kindled in Inali’s eyes. Long brown fingers deftly fastened straps and harness. Even Centauri sensed Inali’s no nonsense mood and stood quietly without displaying his reluctance for saddle and bridle. Like Althar, Centauri also watched Inali: large dark eyes reading Inali’s body language, quivering nerve tips flinching, glossy coat rippling, responding to Inali’s hands and fingers moving across skin. Centauri tossed his head, anticipating a full speed gallop pursuing the game trail.

Althar kept pace with Inali, saddling, bridling Midnight. He strapped his hunting gear on his back, secured his fur sleeping roll behind the saddle. Leading Midnight from his stall, Althar followed Inali from the stable. In the yard, Inali paused before mounting and sniffed the wind. It blew from the west, from beyond the rising hills that sheltered Fayerton. The faint glow of twilight hung suspended on the western edge of nightfall.

Althar scanned the sky, marked the bright pole star. Only a few stars were visible in the settling gloom. The familiar northern constellations of their homeland were late rising in Fayerton’s latitude. Inali also marked the pole star and mounted Centauri.

Still, Althar kept his silence. Mounted astride Midnight he waited and watched. He trusted Inali’s skill, the inborn instinct that pointed the direction Inali would choose to follow. Tonight would be no different, except for the land through which they rode. Whatever guided Inali, he ignored the side roads and branching forks.

Inali chose a westward trail away from Fayerton, a curious choice and one they had not traveled since their arrival although they had ridden north and south and hunted the Sparrow Hills past Lilienfields.

West of Fayerton their trail wound through unexplored territory, its bald hills and stone outcroppings unlike the familiar terrain of the Unfaithful Mountains. In such terrain, a man’s instincts were all that stood between life and death. As they rode through the summer night, Althar regretted urging Inali to the hunt — still, he followed.

***

They rode for several miles at a rapid pace before Inali’s mood lifted. The rush of wind, the comfortable fit of familiar clothing, the surge of his steed’s powerful muscles and hooves pounding out the miles, assuaged the driving anger. Away from the reminders of Fayerton and Fayerfield House, Inali’s thoughts were once again his own to control as he willed, even if his future hinged on a reckless course that he had lost the power to direct without even knowing why.

The earth raced past, putting mile behind mile. Given the lead, Centauri raced against the wind for the sheer love of running. The confinement of the stable, the lack of hard exercise had built a reserve of unleashed energy that surged forth. Centauri would have run all the way back to the land of his birth had it not been for the firm restraint of Inali’s hand and voice.

He did not push Centauri past the steed’s physical limits. Centauri pranced to a trot, whinnied, chomping and snorting and jerked up his head, testing Inali’s resolve that controlled the tug of the bridle. Finding no slack, no wavering of Inali’s hand the steed slowed to a canter.

They rode in silence, following the narrowing track of the road until it forked into a grassy trail that meandered into a night-filled valley. Water caught the gleam of the moon chasing clouds — the River Sky flowing on its westward journey to the Forsaken Sea.

Inali reined to halt, cocked his head and listened. Fast flowing water came from his left. He glanced skyward, sited the pole star and its radial constellation inscribing its wheeling path from its central star like the hands on a celestial clock. The steady rotation of stars marked the passing hours. A third quarter moon hovered above the darker outliers of hills.

“Let’s camp,” Inali said, sparing few words.

Dismounting they led their steeds toward the babbling water. The bank of the stream offered a grassy shelter for the night and water and forage for their horses.

They made no campfire. The warm night held no sense of urgency. Inali and Althar unrolled their sleeping furs and lay down, but neither slept. Their gazes wandered among the brilliant pin points of starlight in the inky dome of the midnight sky. A shooting star flashed and arced to the northwest, burned through the upper atmosphere. Many a night they had spent watching the sky, pointing out the different constellations, counting falling stars.

***

“I wonder what Rhan and Bregan are doing tonight?” Althar said. “Do you think they are looking up at the same stars? Are they wondering where we are? What we are doing? By the Great Ones I miss Tirzah.”

Inali said nothing in response.

Althar cast his thoughts homeward. In his mind’s eye he visualized the beloved faces of the names he evoked. Inali lay silently gazing up at the stars, but Althar knew he listened and continued.

“Tirzah will go on his first hunt at the gathering. He will be ahead of the other boys his age, maybe even some of the men, having had you to teach him. He is good with the bow and he can read tracks almost as good as you, Inali.” Althar sighed. “I wish we were home, although I am sure this summer meeting will be different from those in the past — with the tribal elders assembling. Whether truth and justice is served will hardly matter to Jalinkina’s kinsmen. Blood for blood. My greatest regret is Touva. He has been our brother. I regret having left before explaining everything to him. He will ride with Jalinkina’s kinsmen. It might come down to the choice of Touva’s life, or our lives. How can either of us make such a choice?”

Althar paused, gazed at his brother lying on his back, his arms folded, propping up his head. He traced the strong outline of his brother’s features. Moonlight glittered in the shadows of Inali’s eye sockets.

“You have yet to speak about that night, Inali,” Althar said.

Inali’s silence continued. Althar frowned.

“How do you shut off your feelings? Or do you?”

“Stop thinking,” Inali grumbled.

“Stop thinking? How do you stop your thoughts, Inali?”

“By not feeling—”

“Is that how you do it? I wonder sometimes what sort of man you are, brother. Thinking, feeling is as essential as eating and breathing. What are you trying to achieve, Inali? What do you want?”

“I want what any man wants,” Inali grumbled.

Althar chuckled. “I never thought of you as just any man, Inali.”

“Why should I be any different?”

“Because you are different — I am different. You do not need me to tell you why or what those differences are that set you apart.”

“Why not?” Irritation grated in Inali’s voice. “You tell me everything else, Althar. You are forever telling me what to do or what I should do — especially if what I did was a mistake.”

“You never listened to me. You must admit there were times when I was right. But did you ever listen or heed my advice?”

“What is with you tonight, Althar? You sound like a complaining woman, giving me unwarranted hysterics. What is wrong?”

Althar sighed, said, “Everything — everything is wrong. Nothing is the same, Inali. Everything is different.”

“Do not make me ask what you mean, Althar. The night is late and I am tired—”

Althar hooted a sharp laugh. “You tired?”

“Yes, tired!” Inali snapped.

“You must be getting old. But then, you have been a busy man these past few days keeping up with Rena Oldroyd. I have never known a woman to exhaust you, brother.”

Inali grunted. “All right, Althar, tell me why everything is not the same for you any more. Did you ever think perhaps I too wish life was as before — before Monarka — or Jalinkina — before—”

When Inali paused, Althar added, “Before Oanada?”

“Leave Oanada out of this, Althar. How long will Monarka’s ghost stand between us?”

“Monarka is gone. I accept her loss but that does not change how I feel. I find myself thinking of what I could have done differently or said. Maybe if I had it would have changed the course of destiny. Now, it is too late and I wonder if each day is worth the effort of living it. Ever since Oanada came into our lives I have watched you make the same mistakes I made and I want to shout at you, ‘Do not do it, Inali!’ but you do it anyway. How can you claim to want what any man wants out of life when you drive all the possibilities away before you learn what they are? Until you have experienced true feelings for a woman, how can you decide if that feeling — that emotion — is either good or bad? Even at its worst, the love of one good woman is better than you thought possible. Until you have known a woman’s love and lost her, you know nothing. What more could a man want from life than to have someone to share his aloneness with—” Althar’s voice dropped in pitch and tone. “I had that love with Monarka.”

“Althar, I believe it would be better and wiser to forget how everything was. Our lives will never be as they were. Never, and it is time you accepted that hard lesson of reality, brother.”

“Have you?”

“I am trying—”

“I am not making it any easier, talking about Monarka, remembering the past, wishing things were different.”

“Someday we will return to Wolfdale. Perhaps soon we can go home.”

“I will never return to Wolfdale,” Althar murmured.

***

Inali frowned. He sat up, narrowed his eyes, trying penetrating the cover of night to see his brother’s face. Perhaps it was better not to see the anguish pinching his brother’s features or to feel the agony of heartbreak, death’s utter desolation on those left behind.

“Althar?” Inali ventured at Althar’s continuing silence, hearing only the steady rise and fall of his brother’s breathing and the occasional ragged sigh.

“I am fine, Inali. Sorry. Tonight I feel empty. I miss Oanada. She has a way of making me feel good about myself at a time when death was the more preferable choice, if not the more honorable.”

“Will it make you happy if I kidnapped Oanada for you? She could entertain you to your heart’s content.”

Althar chuckled. “Oanada makes everything easier. When was the last time you felt contentment, the last time you were truly happy?”

Inali lay down, settled into his sleeping fur, his arm propped behind his head. He gazed up at the diamond net of stars and nebulous patches of milky sky dust. No deeper, blackness existed than the dark space beyond a field of stars splattering the night. Althar’s question had set loose a constellation of memories — times of utter happiness and the peacefulness of contentment when desire was surpassed and not conquered by frustration and brooding anger.

Oanada’s laughter tickled his memory. A vision of watery light, sunshine and wind formed a vision from earlier that day when they had walked together along the esplanade. She had laughed and her starlit eyes had shone full of sun glitters. His cheek muscles tightened, the corner of his mouth lifted. He smiled.

“You have yet to explain to the Fayerfield why you abducted his daughter,” Althar ventured.

Inali’s jaw tightened, smile vanished. His vision of Oanada vanished into obscurity. Happiness was an illusion. No true happiness existed; contentment was self-deception.

“Inali?”

“Yes, brother, I have considered such an explanation but what purpose would it serve now? Whatever the reasons for Oanada’s silence, the man is her father and our father’s half-brother. Better to forget, let it go.”

“Fayerfield deserves an explanation from us. Are you not curious?”

“Curious about what?”

“Oanada’s silence? Or what her father’s reaction will be when he learns the truth? Fayerton might be large by Wolfdale standards but still a village where people have known each other for generations. Fayerfield is bound to hear or be told, especially after the way you embarrassed Oanada at the Oldroyds — or Rojah’s fight with Noah Winterringer today after Darcy Oldroyd publicly kissed Oanada. That Winterringer fellow is a dangerous man. He is like Jalinkina when it comes to protecting his own.”

Inali frowned. It was late, he was tired, his head ached, but again Althar hinted at something beyond his knowledge: Who was Noah Winterringer?

“Rojah was fighting? When was this?” Inali asked, despite his weariness of talking and needing sleep.

“It happened after the regatta while everyone was celebrating the victors. You were preoccupied with other interests,” Althar said. His brother implied more than he said. Rena Oldroyd was an interlude Inali wished his brother had remained ignorant.

“You happened to be available and came to Rojah’s aid?”

“If I had not returned looking for you, the two would have killed each other. Believe me, Rojah had every right for his anger. I also felt like hitting Winterringer. Drunk or not the man purposely provoked Rojah and insulted Oanada. Worthington and half a dozen other men had to pull Winterringer off Rojah. Had Rojah been Mikuyi, he would have challenged Winterringer to the Circle of Fire, as I should have challenged Jalinkina for Monarka’s death, the death of her child.”

Inali stared into the black expanse of the night sky. “Even when we speak about Oanada and her family, the conversation always comes back to Monarka. She is the past, Althar. Monarka’s death was beyond your control, or mine. You have paid the price. We both have. We were exiled from our home, our family—”

“A blood vendetta on our heads,” Althar added.

“The price of blood,” Inali muttered. “Change the subject. Go to sleep, Althar.” He rolled over onto his side away from Althar, his mood sinking. The day had been filled with emotional entanglements.

***

Althar shivered with cold dread — a feeling of death. He forced his thoughts to a less foreboding direction. “Where did you take Oanada today? You were gone for a long time.”

“I took her to Fayerfield House.”

“Is going off alone with Oanada wise, considering her father?”

“Slightly less dangerous than you forcing me to knock Darcy Oldroyd into Kilmere for kissing her,” Inali said.

“Do I detect irritation over that kiss?”

“Darcy Oldroyd is a fool.”

“He is not the only one. Tell me, brother, would you rather it had been Oanada with you at the Blue Swan this afternoon?”

“Go to sleep,” Inali snapped.

“Inali?” Althar ventured. His mind was too restless for sleep. Like his heart, despair lurked behind every nuance of thought. He glanced at the broad curve of his brother’s shoulder. Whether Inali slept or not, he could not tell. Inali remained silent.

***

But Inali did not sleep. He lay awake long after Althar’s snores blended into the chorusing of crickets, frogs, and other nocturnal beasts.

______________

Excerpt, © 2021

Voice of the Wind: Shadows of Time

Mikuyi Moon, Book 7

Six Book Series

 The Voice of the Wind: Shadows of Time dynastic family saga/series weaves a fascinating story of love, intrigue, ambition, murder, and a family curse set in an alternate reality.

Free on Kindle Unlimited.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08B86RQBJ

Season of Change ~ excerpt from Mikuyi Moon, Book 7 in the Voice of the Wind: Shadows of Time series

Zalan Fayerfield gazed into the campfire’s flames scrying for an illuminated vision. Dog’s low growl warned him of approaching danger lurking beyond the safe margins of firelight.

He peered into the surrounding blackness where the wind gusted through the stone hollows and crags of the hills. A wolf howled in the distance; closer by a horse snorted.

Dog rose on all fours, growled, his hackles rising.

“What is it, Dog?” Zalan spoke lowly, one hand securely clasping Dog’s collar, the other reaching for his stout oak staff.

With silent stealth the Mikuyi appeared out of the black night. Startled, Zalan lurched to his feet. Dog growled, bristling, yet obediently waited for Zalan’s command — a word or movement to attack or disregard the sensed danger from the stranger. None came. Zalan knew Inali although he doubted the Mikuyi knew or recognized him as the son of Jantz Fayerfield.

Zalan relaxed. Dog, sensing no threat lay down, his yellow eyes carefully watching the stranger.

***

“I was hunting and saw your fire. May I join you?” Inali curiously regarded the young shepherd and the dog’s yellow eyes reflecting the firelight. Within the shadowy folds of the shepherd’s gray hood, the fire-highlighted features of a youth about his brother Tirzah’s age were visibly distinguished.

The shepherd pushed back his hood and gestured to a second log seat beside the crackling fire. “You are welcome to share the fire.”

The youth wore a thoughtful expression, one of recognition. Inali had never seen the youth before.

“Do you know who I am?”

Inali noted the shepherd’s odd pair of bi-colored eyes — eyes that steadily regarded him from across the fire.

The shepherd nodded, said, “You are the Mikuyi.”

Although he was young, the shepherd possessed a presence of self and something familiar in the curve of the youth’s jaw, in how his black eyebrows winged. Blue-black shoulder-length curls shaggily framed the shepherd’s lean, beardless features — a sensitive face. Intelligent, alert eyes observed Inali through the leaping flames and red hot embers that popped and shot orange and yellow sparks into the night sky.

“I have heard of you and your brother. I know you although we have never met.” The shepherd set aside his staff and leaned forward to pour a steaming brown liquid into a wooden mug.

Inali watched, his interest aroused by the solitary youth who invited him to share the cup of tea he offered.

“I only have a loaf of bread and some cheese. You are welcome to share them,” the youth offered.

Inali nodded, continuing to observe as he in turn was watched by the alert dog lying beside the youth, ears pricked, swiveling to catch each sound and lifting his head at any movement Inali made.

A heightened sense of awareness held them. On a fire warmed wooden board the young shepherd tore the loaf of bread into thick chucks and deftly sliced the goat cheese. Inali kept his eye on the youth’s sharp knife.

The youth tossed a crust and rind of cheese to the dog. He sheathed his blade in a scabbard attached to his belt, and leaned back against a log to eat.

Savoring the late supper of bread and cheese, Inali return the shepherd’s curious gaze.

Closer now the wolf howled. The mournful song carried through the dark night; crimson sparks flew into the night sky caught on an updraft of wind. Inali stiffened. The hairs on the nape of his neck crawled. Something strange moved through the autumn night — something felt more than seen.

As he swallowed the last of the tea from the wooden mug, Inali studied the youth. He leaned back against the dried log.

Wrapped in his gray wool cloak, the youth stretched out his legs to the crackling campfire and scratched the dog behind its black ears. The youth was relaxed, undisturbed by the night — but not Inali.

A fire log cracked, burning through. Huge and white, the full Mikuyi moon shed its prismatic radiance over hills capped by granite monoliths; the upright, rough hewn stones gleamed, silent ghosts.

The wolf howled nearer. Inali stood and walked to the edge of the campfire’s protective circle of light. He focused his concentration on the deeper night shadows and cast his gaze along the hilltops, searching.

The dog lifted its head, growled but made no move.

Tension rippled through Inali as he stood staring across the night-draped valley. He lifted his nose, scented the night. The lamenting wolf’s song drifted closer. The primitive song set Inali’s hackles on edge. What was it? Something indefinable yet close, too close instinct warned him.

Inali glanced over his shoulder at the shepherd. Undisturbed the youth watched him from his bi-colored eyes — one blue, one gray. Their dilated pupils reflected the fire’s yellow flames. The dog, resting its head on front paws, seemed to doze lulled by the stroke of the youth’s hand.

***

“Early in the season for the wolf to hunt so far from its northern range,” Zalan said. He thought of the looming danger that threatened his flocks and returned the Mikuyi’s black regard.

“Winter comes early. Already cold brings the hunting pack down to the Sparrow Hills,” Zalan continued. He peered at the Mikuyi. He read the flexing of tense cheek muscles, the defiant set of the man’s shoulders, broad beneath his fur cloak. The Mikuyi presented an intriguing enigma, his honed instinct sharply focused on his environment; the Mikuyi who stalked his life, defying physical limitations, regardless of time barriers separating the past, the present, and the future. In Inali the archetypal ancestor emerged in living flesh and blood. Eridandi once again walked the earth as the old legends foretold.

Awed by his visitor’s physical presence, Zalan felt no fear. He felt, oddly enough, safe. After listening to the night’s voices, the Mikuyi returned to his log seat, swirled his fur cloak around himself. He stared at the wooden mug he held in his hand as if just noticing he still held it and the conscious touch of the physical object drew Inali back from whatever threat he had sensed hidden by the night, waiting for a future appointment in time.

“Not a pack,” Inali said. Slow minutes had ticked past since Zalan had spoken.

Through the leaping yellow and orange fire, Zalan met Inali’s black eyes shot with striated flakes of amber and gold.

“A lone wolf — one without a pack. Perhaps in search of a mate,” Inali said. He picked up a stick of kindling and tossed it into the flames.

“And the Mikuyi?” Zalan asked. “Is he a loner? Hunting the hills on wings of night in search of his mate?”

The firelight bronzed the Mikuyi’s grim, brooding features. Beneath the furrowed eyebrows, black eyes burned with a greater intensity than the flames of the small campfire. Zalan, perceiving his question agitated the Mikuyi, did not expect an answer.

In the deeps of midnight, firelight danced in Dog’s watchful eyes. Alert ears listened to the surrounding night and the sheep he was entrusted to guard, as well as his young master’s life.

***

Inali stared at the youth. The question was not a thought he actively pursued, but one that pursued him. He chased the hunt more for escape than pleasure and all because of a woman, because of an image ever ready to spring into his mind although his heart rebelled.

The question drifting to the back of his subconscious, Inali pulled the warmth of his fur cloak closer and settled back against the log and hoped to find a few hours of sleep uninterrupted by the disturbance of dreams. And Zalan, his flock safe for the night, added another log to the camp fire before he settled down to find his own rest.

***

Inali dreamed. The mist-veiled time and place were familiar yet not. The faces belonged to people he had known, as well as faces of strangers — of those yet to come or to be born. Such was the strangeness of surreal dreams unfettered by the leash of time, physical space, or the limitations of consciousness.

One of many, the others receded, vanished. In that place the wind blew wet against him. He turned, faced the northeast, the heart of the wind’s gusting force. The stray wind lifted the long strands of his unbound hair steaming over his black-furred shoulders. The moistness of drying pigment streaked his face: red of power, white of peace, and black of war— protecting him from harm with its ritualized symbolism of invisible forces.

The wind scurried around him, separating him, drawing him apart from the multitude of strangers. The wind beckoned him to ascend a narrow, guarded height. The throb of drums vibrated, evoking the power of its primordial voice in song.

All the sacred rituals began with the simplistic banging of the drum, of hollow bone on stretched, transparent skin. Each beat, reverberated to the tone of his deepest being. Of all the Mikuyi, he was the one chosen. The choice of his fate led him forward. He took the first step. He took the second step, a third, and on and on, step by step, as the single drum was joined by a second drum, a third drum, one after another until he became the throb of the drum’s song, leading him from lifetime to lifetime — from the darkness of night to the emergence of dawn and a new day.

Within the circle of power he stood, alone in his nakedness. Voices chanted on the wind, voices that spoke in the ancient language of the Objishanda.

Each spiraling step within the power circle led him higher and higher, revealed the presence of the others. He knew them by the traditional garb of their tribal clothing. He knew them by their speech, by their rituals, their customs. They were the seven tribes of the Objishanda: The Onega, dwellers beside the water, their headdresses and costumes of shore birds, turtles and fishes, their lives directed by the ebbing tides of the sea; The Ganunda, mountain dwellers; The Gahada, forest dwellers; The Meltari, star wanders, a tribe lost during the galactic migration; and those tribes now extinct known only in the mysteries of legend and song brought to life by storytellers and the old shamans; The Ahwao, people of the rose; The Majara, shape shifters and spinners of illusion; and the Watchers and the Keepers from each tribe.

All summoned by the Great Ones, they came — all but the Mikuyi, banished in the Before Days but whose shamans clung fiercely to the prophecies of fulfillment and the Mikuyi’s promised return.

Inali stood among the costumed representatives of the Seven Tribes. He was Mikuyi, the one called forth. One by one he witnessed as the seven tribes were scattered upon the twelve directions, swept away by the winds and the tides of time and the civilization of man encroaching from beyond the Mountains of the Sky.

He stood in command of his life, listening. A great voice spoke to the assembled tribes and put forth a long unanswered question: “Who among the Objishanda will chose the Mikuyi?”

A terrible rumble of dissension fell upon the gathered multitude. The drums throbbed, became the beat of his heart. He refused to accept their rejection; he defined the unseen Great Ones whose deep voices moved the winds and sent the Mikuyi scattering, scurrying across the ancient lands of El Nath, withered brown leaves, stripped from their ancestral tree of life.

And when it seemed none there would consent, so long and deep was their bitterness toward the Mikuyi, the lilting timbre of a single voice spoke from among the midst of the many.

“I choose the Mikuyi.”

Whispers of astonishment stirred and parted the mist-veiled void and Inali glimpsed the vague shape of a winged bird flying forth from among the assembled hosts of gathered tribes, shredding the obscuring mists.

“I choose the Mikuyi,” the white winged creature sang.

Inali peered through the shredded mists and beheld the mysterious figure wearing a fantastic headdress of pearls and white feathers and a cloak sewn of swan feathers. Feathered arms opened, embraced him within the folds of soft white wings meeting midnight.

The lilting voice was that of a woman he knew, as he knew the opalescent light of her silver eyes gazing at him through the slits of a white feathered mask.

“I choose the Mikuyi,” the swan sang. “A keeper of the Gahada may choose whoever she wills. There is no escape from that choice. Look upon me and know I speak the truth, Inali of the Mikuyi.”

Even as he reached out to remove the white feathered mask, the dream receded, spiraled into wisps of smoke. Inali awakened to the wild thumping of his heart and the distant roll of grumbling thunder. Jerked from the depths of the bizarre dream, Inali lurched to his feet. To the east, the orange rind of sunrise gilded the deeper purple of rising hills and the jagged edges of the Mountains of the Sky.

The muted gray dawn revealed the hillside where the shepherd and his dog herded a flock of bleating sheep down through the steep valley that skirted the hillside below him.

Black Fire’s snorted whicker greeted Inali and secured him, rooted him. With the rising of the sun, ethereal tangents of his dream vaporized and, plying a conscious effort, Inali shoved aside the dream and whatever it meant, along with the other unsorted feelings and emotions that simmered into his conscience wearing the guise of dreams.

The shepherd had left a portion of bread and cheese to whet Inali’s grumbling stomach. He washed down each swallow with a mouthful of tepid tea brewed to the same brownish hue that he had drunk the previous night. As he chewed, he scanned the craggy hills and their distinguishing landmarks — a rocky outcropping to his left, the gnarled stump of lightning charred oak to his right, and other landmarks by their jumbled, eroded shapes or the colorful patchwork of wild heather, broom and rhododendrons, and the dense stand of forests.

Inali committed the landmarks to memory as his gaze swung across the broad expanse of rolling hills humping skyward one above the other. Lowering his gaze, he searched for the young tender of sheep and the dog. They had vanished from sight but not out of hearing range. A gust of wind rose lifting the morning mist, and brought a snatch of a clanging bells and bleating sheep.

From a long tether looped around the slender bole of a birch sapling, Black Fire grazed. Ears pricked to Inali’s movements and the extinguishing hiss of the campfire. His heart eager for the morning’s ride, Black Fire reared, turned his head east toward the Unfaithful Mountains, but the firm command of Inali’s voice, the hard bite of bridle bit, and the Mikuyi’s heels headed Black Fire toward Fayerton instead.

Copyright 2020, Monroe Media, E.A. Monroe

A Dynastic Family Saga for your Holiday escape!

 The Voice of the Wind: Shadows of Time series weaves a fascinating story of love, intrigue, ambition, murder, and a family curse bound up in an alternate reality. Free on Kindle Unlimited.

Time for the Holidays

[image error]

Spend the holidays in El Nath enjoying the company of the Fayerfields, the Tourneys, and the Drakes.

The books in my Voice of the Wind: Shadows of Time series can be found in ebook format on Amazon at:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08B86RQBJ

Excerpt: Voice of the Wind, Book 8

[image error]

Flora Moss sneaked into the house through the kitchen’s back door and scurried into the pantry, hoping she had not been missed. She slipped off her wool cloak and returned to the kitchen to finish peeling potatoes.

Madra peered suspiciously at her. “About time you got on with those vegetables, Flora. Where have you been all this time?”

“Out, I had to see my sister,” Flora said. She sat down on a kitchen stool and faced a bowl full of potatoes and carrots. Frowning, she began stripping the vegetables of their skins with a vicious zeal. Each lump of potato, each stick of carrot, had a name — Rena Oldroyd, Darcy Oldroyd — every Oldroyd she could name — even her sister Tilly — and then she picked a few more choice names.

When she spied Orrick driving the sleigh past a kitchen window, she asked, “Where is Orrick going in Miss Oanada’s sleigh at this time of day? Is something going on? Is Miss Oanada leaving?”

“None of your business, Flora. Finish peeling the vegetables. Lotta Jo needs them for the stew.”

“Madra!” Flora hissed beneath her breath and sent a peel of potato skin flying across the kitchen table.

***

Painting: Albert Samuel Anker (Swiss, 1831-1910) ~ The Little Potato Peeler (Girl Peeling Potatoes), 1886, public domain.

Excerpt, copyright, 2020.

#Voice of the Wind: Shadows of Time series

 

Excerpt, VOW, Book 8

….

Althar frowned. His dream kept returning. He was part of it. Oanada was also part of his dream. Stirring, Althar grimaced. The ivory piece would please Inali. He set it on the shelf above Inali’s work space for his brother to find and put away his tools. He would clean up the crescent moons of ivory shavings and curls tomorrow.

Day grew lighter beyond the carriage house windows. He stretched, yawned, and as the kitchen stirred with the rumblings of another early morning, Althar slipped quietly and unseen through the house and to his room. The plans and preparations for Fayerton’s Winter Ball and the young woman he had been invited to escort were far from his thoughts as he drifted into a dreamless sleep.

***

Hours later, Madra, Mavis, and Oanada fussing about him, Althar was properly attired in his freshly pressed black velvet evening suit. Spills of white, homespun lace edged the cuffs of his sleeves and collared his throat. The chain of a gold pocket watch hung from the fob of his jacket lapel.

“Take care of that watch. It belonged to your grandfather James Breen,” Mavis said. “My, but how I do remember the way Master Kieron was always asking for the time.”

“Whatever do I need a watch for?” Althar protested. He had protested everything done to him since he had walked unaware down the stairs shortly after lunch. It was not long before he realized the reason behind Inali’s smile when his brother helped Natty Banary dunk him into a bath of hot water and, laughing, pushed him under. Then to add further insult to his Mikuyi pride, he was forced to sit still while Oanada clipped the shaggy length of his hair — not that he minded the radiant fragrance of Oanada’s closeness or the tickle of her slender fingers in his hair, tugging if he dared move. While Oanada threatened him with the shears, Madra trimmed, filed, and buffed his fingernails.

“Master Althar,” Orrick squeaked. He eyeballed the bandage wrapped around Althar’s right hand. “You hurt yourself.”

“I cut my hand,” Althar muttered, reminded of the dull pain. He picked up the cup of willow bark tea Oanada had prepared. The tea had grown tepid, but he took a swallow of the bitter liquid.

“How did you do hurt yourself?” Pearl asked.

“I broke the window in my room—”

Flora looked up, interested. She moved closer and sat down at the kitchen table. Althar smiled absently at the girl who rested her chin in her cupped palm. Flora sighed. As Oanada trimmed the uneven lengths of Althar’s hair, Flora watched every movement, her attention absorbed.

Finished with trimming Althar’s hair, Oanada let Pearl comb the glossy black locks. “At least you left some hair on my head unlike the last haircut Father and Mistress Rosenthorn gave me.” Althar laughed. He shook his head and stood, pulling the towel from his shoulders.

Flora blinked, sat up straight, her cheeks pinking at the sight of Althar without his shirt.

“I am not finished with you yet, Althar,” Oanada said, pouring steaming water into a basin. “Sit down and let me clean your hand. I have a healing salve that will help and you need a clean bandage.”

Althar reluctantly obeyed. Pearl and Flora looked on, grimacing in sympathy when Oanada removed the blood stained bandage and examined and cleaned several small but superficial lacerations without disturbing the tender, swollen flesh.

The green tinted salve felt pleasantly cooling. Althar recognized the fragrance of the Dreamweaver and remembered Oanada’s healing from before — a lifetime ago it seemed to him now. He had forgotten the puckered, crescent scar on his shoulder until Flora reminded him.

“How did you get the scar on your shoulder, Althar?” Flora asked before fully realizing the inappropriateness of her question or that she was staring at him, all eyes and sighs.

“Flora!” Madra scolded. “Perhaps it is none of our business and you have other things to do this morning than sitting there staring at Master Althar. You too, Pearl. Go check on Orrick and see if your father has finished repairing the broken square of glass in Master Althar’s window.”

“Yes, Momma,” Pearl sulked reluctant to leave the room.

***

Hours later, he stood transformed from Mikuyi to fashionable gentleman preparing to leave for the evening.

Pearl giggled. “The watch is to remind you to come home by midnight, Master Althar,” Pearl said. “Or you might turn into a pumpkin!”

Althar grinned, said, “A pumpkin, eh?”

Oanada straightened the lace cravat spilling down the front of his black velvet evening jacket. “Yes, a pumpkin!” She laughed, silver eyes dancing. She stepped back when Inali returned.

“Is that you, Althar?” Inali grinned, raised an eyebrow.

Althar frowned at the reflection of the stranger facing him in the foyer mirror. “I think so, although I doubt Rhan or Brego would recognize me. Well, I am ready. I hope Fayerton and Megan Wellborn’s family are ready for me. I am beginning to think this may not be a good idea, Oanada. Is it too late—”

“Yes,” Oanada said. “Megan is expecting you, Althar.

Althar glanced helplessly at Inali for support.

“Natty has already hired the cab and driver,” Inali replied.

“It is here! The cab and driver are here!” Pearl announced from her post at the drawing room window.

Althar shrugged on his greatcoat. Inali opened the front door. Oanada laughed and brushed a kiss upon Althar’s smoothly shaven cheek.

“Megan will be proud to be seen with you tonight — and my father will be there,” Oanada said.

Pearl yanked on his coat sleeve. “You have not forgotten how to dance have you, Althar? You remember the steps Flora and I taught you?”

“I hope I remember, Pearlie.” Althar chucked the girl beneath her chin.

“You look so handsome, Althar,” Flora said. “I wish I could go to the Winter Ball. You will remember everything to tell Pearl and me?”

“Yes, I will, Flora.”

Inali nudged him. “You are keeping the driver waiting, brother.”

“And do not forget to be home by midnight!” Pearl called as Inali walked out with Althar.

“I would not dare forget, Pearlie.”

“Enjoy the Winter Ball, Althar — for all of us,” Madra called as she, Pearl, Oanada, Mavis, and Flora all squeezed into the doorway to wave. Orrick wearing a wide, toothy grin stood at the cab door to open it for Althar.

***

The cabbie sat on top, snug in his fur rugs. He had a dozen other fares that night but none as interesting as the household of Fayerfield House crowding through the front door to see the Mikuyi off for the evening. His next stop at the Wellborn’s townhouse would be even more interesting — one of the reasons he had accepted Natty Banary’s hire for the evening.

 

Visit my Voice of the Wind: Shadows of Time series page on Amazon.

 

Shadows and Substance

Shadows and Substance, Book 6 in the Voice of the Wind: Shadows of Time series is now available in ebook format on Amazon!

https://www.amazon.com/Elizabeth-Monroe/e/B008KACMBC/ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_2?qid=1547666565&sr=1-2

[image error]

 

Shadows and Substance: A Description

[image error]

Drama and intrigue abound.

Passions ignite.

Threats whisper in the shadows.

Someone from Jonquil’s past arrives in Fayerton.

Skeins of dreams and unraveling schemes…

 

In a new country, surrounded by strangers and odd customs, Jonquil Deering desperately wants to belong as her mother, Bethana Tourney, once belonged. But, when Jonquil knows nothing about her mother’s home, the Cloisters, or her mother’s past and the people her mother knew and perhaps loved, the challenge becomes a difficult, if not impossible task.

Jonquil’s determination to reclaim her mother’s legacy meets immovable object in Chaeran Fayerfield-Drake, the current Master of the Cloisters and heir to the Cloisters. Chaeran remembers the night that changed the destiny of Jonquil’s mother and drove Bethana to flee, leaving behind loved ones who believed Bethana had perished in the fire that destroyed Rosenhall and ended Martin Fayerfield’s life. When Jonquil asks Chaeran about that night and her mother, he doesn’t answer and avoids her.

Jonquil reopens the Cloisters’ manor house to its former grandeur. She plans to avenge her mother and confront the man she believes is her father, Jantz Fayerfield. But, Jantz denies she is his daughter. If not Jantz, then who is her father?

Mysterious events being occurring, and when Jonquil begins losing pieces of time and she cannot remember, Noah Winterringer takes advantage to further his own ambitions for Jonquil, for the Cloisters’ future, and for the downfall of his life-long nemesis Jantz Fayerfield, Jantz’s son Rojah, and for Chaeran.

Among all the new people Jonquil meets, who can she trust? Who can she depend on?

The cast of characters is long: Chaeran Fayerfield-Drake, Jantz Fayerfield and his wife Zaire and their son, Rojah who is conducting his own investigation; Mead Worthington and Mead’s adopted daughter Belladonna; Noah Winterringer, his daughter Noelani and her husband, Darcy Oldroyd; and Maybelle Flower. An entourage of assorted servants, townspeople, winery workers, miscreants and villains, and a troupe of thespians make a riveting free-for-all in Shadows and Substance, Book 6 in the Voice of the Wind: Shadows of Time series.

The reader never knows what will happen next!

***

“When a shadow flits across the landscape of the soul where is the substance?” ~ Henry David Thoreau (1873). “A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers”, p.373