Winter's Edge: An Anthology of Historical Fiction

By TC Hester, Paul Murphy, Prue Batten and 4 more

Three daggers with wolf-head pommels, forged in the Roman Era.

Initially awarded to three women for heroic service to the Empire, the daggers are separated for over two thousand years.

They cross intriguing paths with Richard the Lionheart in Medieval France, Leonardo DaVinci leaving Renaissance Italy, spies in Rococo Austria, Misters Darcy & Bingley in Georgian England, and courageous farmers in Dust Bowl Kansas, until the daggers are serendipitously reunited in an antiques store in New York City.

Seven heart-warming tales of the daggers' two-millennia journey and participation in the winter celebrations of friends and family through the ages.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Della Robbia
• Release date: Nov 17, 2017
• ISBN: 9781386285120

Book preview

Introduction

Long before recorded history, life and love were celebrated. Weather kept us indoors after harvest, and feasting and singing sealed our bonds with family and friends.

Our conviviality, security, and care for each other today stem from these ancient traditions: traditions spanning distance and time, their passage marked by artifacts.

One such artifact—a wolf’s-head dagger—features in each of the tales in this book. One or other of the three daggers forged in our first story makes its way to different lands and different times, its role central to the festivities in each tale.

Our Where’s Waldo approach, we hope, will help you enjoy our heartwarming accounts of human life and love through centuries of winter cheer.

Wolf of Saturnalia by Paul Murphy begins the action-packed journey in the heyday of the Roman Empire as two old friends, experienced war veterans, forge three daggers to give to family members at the feast of Saturnalia.

Nearly twelve centuries later, a troubadour, master of an instrument we might recognize today as a cross between a lute and a violin, reminds us that undercurrents of intrigue and violence can be present at even the most enjoyable celebrations. This rich story, Vielle, comes from award-winning author Prue Batten.

Through the mists of medieval France, TC Hester takes us to Renaissance Sicily in the early 1500s, where Barbary pirates threaten the young di Paolos, who are expecting their first child. On their way to a new home, they befriend an elderly gentleman of renown who uses an ancient knife to the finest of purposes.

David Neilson weaves a dense tapestry with Sweet Nightingale, where the intrepid Sophie Rathenau encounters a wolf’s-head dagger while solving a lush Viennese mystery.

Leaving the splendor of the Rococo, Martin Rinehart invites us to imagine the course of events between Mr. Bingley and Jane Bennett in an expanded Pride and Prejudice—with an eye to Jane Austen’s Georgian era and the narrative style of her day. Again, a wolf’s-head dagger helps make possibilities happy reality.

Migrating with Europeans to the New World, one dagger ends up in Dust Bowl Kansas in the 1930s. Once Was Lost, a poignant story of friendship, love, and survival, is written by Lena Maye.

In Warm Me Softly by D.M. Davis, the daggers reunite in an antique store in modern-day New York City, where they play a pivotal role in helping a couple find and embrace life and a love as timeless as the ages.

Wolf of Saturnalia

By Paul Murphy

© 2017

Wolf of Saturnalia

Paul Murphy

Rome, 6 AD

A full moon drifted across the cloudless night sky, bathing Rome and its one million sleeping inhabitants in a silver hue. Moon-shadows lengthened as it crept toward the unseen horizon far to the west. Across the city, occasional shouts rang out into the still air as the last few drunken revellers emerged from taverns, setting out to stagger home. A high-pitched shriek cut through the night, followed by laughter, a prostitute vying for a final customer. A dog barked, the sound echoing around the villas, tenement blocks and giant monuments that littered the Seven Hills, and then all was quiet.

On the main streets, the City Cohorts patrolled in pairs, flaming torches guiding their way. In the back streets, gangs of youths prowled their local areas, moving silently like a swarm of rats looking for open shutters of homes to rob, drunks or unsuspecting foreigners to mug.

In the southeast of the city, on the Caelian Hill, one such street gang eyed a stranger walking up the hill towards them, an older man, grey-haired and well dressed.

They darted through side alleys on either side of the street, readying a trap for the stranger, knives and staves clutched.

As the man drew closer, his size became apparent, tall and broad with a confident swagger.

A few nervous whispers exchanged between the youths.

He ain’t drunk, and he ain’t lost...

Shush, he’s alone and on our patch, so he’s ours. Now get ready.

I don’t like it...

The man walked past the first two hidden youths. He heard a scrape, smelt body odour, but continued on regardless, a smile creeping across his haggard jaw, onwards up the hill nearing the crest and towards the centre of the trap.

Now!

Eight youths jumped out from their alleyways to his front and four behind him, weapons waving menacingly in the eerie light.

The man stopped and glanced around, still smiling.

You boys are up early, still an hour before dawn. I like to see that. What is it, an early start down at the port?

Shut it, old man, and hand over your purse.

The man laughed, hands on hips. Then his face hardened, and his eyes cut into each face. Enough now. Stand aside, lads. I’ve not got time for this.

A youth stepped forward, the knife in his hand pointed at the man’s face. You deaf, old man? Your purse... now, or I’ll slice you up!

You couldn’t slice cheese holding the blade like that. Your grip’s all wrong. Here, let me show you.

The man’s arm shot out, grabbing the youth’s wrist and twisting it away from his body. Arm locked, the youth let out a screech, and the man took the blade from his paralyzed fingers and pushed him away. The youth fell back, clutching his wrist, and landed in a heap on the street.

You see, if you hold the blade down your forearm like this, I wouldn’t be able to do that, and when you punch, the edge sticks out and cuts.

Boys! A new, deep voice rang out from behind the youths on the brow of the hill. A huge scarred man stepped towards them, wearing an old, thick leather apron and carrying a large forge hammer. I hope you’ve not been bothering the general?

Gods... It’s the smith! The youths scattered, eyes wide, back into the night.

Just teaching them some knife work, Cellius, but they didn’t seem too interested, for some reason.

The blacksmith chuckled. Come, General. I believe we have work to do.

***

The two men crested the Caelian hill and strolled down to the foot of the south-eastern city wall. Far to the east, the first stirrings of dawn laced the horizon in deep purple. They turned right by the Querquetulana Gate, named for a grove of oak trees that once stood just inside the gates, and headed towards a faint orange light escaping around the door of the blacksmith’s forge.

They stepped inside the confines of the old forge, and the smith started to work a huge bellows. Compressed air was forced hissing through burning coals, sending red and orange embers spiraling upwards in the super-heated air towards the gaping chimney and vanishing into the night. The heat expanded like a wave of airless thunder, sucking every ounce of moisture from the two men. They stood side by side, staring at the flames in quiet contemplation.

General Titus Vellius, once proclaimed by the ranks of the mighty Eastern Legions as The Lion of Syria, held up a bulging forearm to the heat and drew back, while the smith barely flinched.

The smith chuckled. Too intense for you, Lanista?

The first barbed comment forced a grin from Vellius. After decades of exemplary and loyal service to the Emperor Augustus, he felt his former title of general sat far more dignified on his mighty, though aging, shoulders. However, the people of Rome knew him only as the Primus Lanista, first of Rome’s five gladiatorial schools.

He raised an eyebrow, glancing at his former junior officer. You want to work with these coals or wear them, Centurion Cellius?

The smith smirked and then grunted as he hefted the orange glowing rod of melded wrought iron and cast iron out of the inferno. Gets you every time, General, doesn’t it?

Titus Vellius nodded. More than you know, Cellius, so let’s get on with it. What are you doing now?

The old centurion smiled, his yellowing teeth reflecting amber in the light, and placed the luminous metal on his anvil. You can’t rush or bully a craftsman, General. You wanted the best, and I’m making Noric steel blades for you. Kindly show the respect my skills deserve.

Still full of waffle, then, Centurion? I seem to remember saving your worthless hide more than once on the battlefield, or have the years robbed you of your memory as well as your humility?

Cellius chuckled, his vast frame leaning forward, firelight picking out his contoured muscles in shades of orange and yellow against the black of the forge. He picked up his hammer, flicked it twice in Vellius’ general direction, shaking his head, then left it mid-air, suspended over the semi-molten metal. I seem to recall standing over your prostrate hide, swatting Parthians by the dozen, until you decided to wake?

Ha! That’s how you would remember it, shirking your responsibilities! It’s tiring work killing Easterners. I was merely taking a rest, letting you increase your measly tally. You should be thanking me for taking time out!

Cellius drew the hammer back over his shoulder. He eyed his striking spot and then brought it down with all his strength. The first immense blow sent fragments of white-hot metal shards flying into the darkness of the forge, the impact flattening the tip of the rod. Satisfied, Cellius lifted the hammer and thundered it down again and again, alternating blows down each side of the rod, the clang of each blow ringing in both men’s ears. By Jupiter, General, your memory is as depleted as your hairline! If either of your new chins had been there, I’d ask for their view...

Vellius smiled, he couldn’t help it, and shook his head. You certainly don’t change, Cellius, eh? No respect back then, and certainly none now...

Cellius shook his greying head slowly, his eyes misting as his huge shoulders tensed, and he hammered down another pulverising blow on the cooling metal rods. If I could change anything, General, it would be to bring home all my lads who fell.

Titus Vellius nodded as Cellius forced the bar deep into the heart of the forge to re-heat. Both men fell silent for a time, losing themselves to the flames and memories of past battles, to lost friends and lost lives, far to the East. After a time, Cellius drew out the bar, eyed down its length and then sat it back on the anvil. He resumed pounding, his hammer striking the heated metal rod in a staccato beat. Beyond the forge, the sun crested the horizon and rose high in the sky as Rome bustled back to life.

She’s been heated to over 1,800 degrees, General, she’s been folded and beaten into shape and now she’s ready to plunge into the River Styx, stated Cellius, hours later. You should offer some blood to the Goddess Pomona.

Pomona? Titus Vellius, eyebrows lowered, cast a glance at Cellius. But she’s the goddess of fruitful abundance?

This is a woman’s blade, General, more like a pruning knife than a man’s weapon, so I would say it is she who would most deserve the sacrifice...

You might be right, there, Cellius. Where will you quench it?

Here. Cellius tapped a wooden bucket with his left foot.

Titus Vellius took out his own knife and drew it across his palm. Squeezing his fist, blood dripped into the water. He sent a silent prayer to the Goddess Pomona that the bearer of the knife be always protected and guided.

Cellius plunged the white-hot blade into the bucket. The water hissed and bubbled for several heartbeats, steam filling the dark forge.

There, it’s done. I’ll attach the silver wolf’s head in the morning.

And the other two? asked Vellius.

All three will be ready for you, General, in a week’s time.

Titus Vellius slapped his old comrade on the back, a broad smile across his lips. You’ve done me proud yet again, Centurion Cellius. An exquisite piece of workmanship.

Ha! Save your sentimental nonsense for someone who actually believes you, General. Just make sure you bring the right coinage when you come to collect!

Both men chuckled, and Vellius put an arm over his old comrade’s shoulder, slapping his back. Good men are hard to find, Cellius... Pain-in-the-backside friends are even harder!

***

Three weeks later, under the direct instructions of General Titus Vellius, four riders followed the Via Appia, down the knee of Italy. They had left Rome early that morning for Puteoli, a town at the northern end of the Bay of Naples, with Vellius’s orders to ready the holiday villa for the Saturnalia celebrations.

How much farther? asked Timus, a street urchin who had been taken under the wing of Vellius’s ludus, for the umpteenth time. This is killing my backside.

Drakon, former prima gladiator and now head trainer for Vellius as well as being the most feared man in Rome, glanced over his huge shoulder at the twelve-year-old. How many times is that?

I’ve lost count, but we’re way past twenty, replied Septimus, riding alongside his massive scarred friend. Vellius had adopted Septimus and his sister, Serena, when their mother had died six years previously. A promise fulfilled from years before that, to the boy’s father, the legendary gladiator Dannus, before a rigged bout in the arena had cost his dear friend his life. Vellius had brought the boy up in and around the ludus, the gladiator school, and the lad had developed every bit of skill his father had and then some.

Leave him alone, you two. He’s never ridden before, said Fulvia, a young Syrian woman who completed the group and rode next to Timus, behind the two huge men. She was a slave owned by Vellius, but one the general much adored, treated as a daughter and trusted with his life. And anyway, this tavern can’t be far now, the sun’s starting to dip.

Over the next hill, down into a valley and we’re there, my beautiful sheet-creaser, replied Drakon.

Septimus laughed, and kept looking along the paved road.

Fulvia’s head shot up. Drakon!

What’s a sheet-creaser? asked Timus.

She reached across and rested a hand on the boy’s arm. Ignore them, Timus. They think they’re funny, but they’re not. I’ll crease Drakon’s ear if he’s not careful.

Tall grass rippled in the breeze on either side of the road. As they crested the hill, they pulled up to take in the view. To their left, wooded hills rolled away towards a ridge of mountains far in the distance, running parallel, and to their right the sun hung low, sinking towards the glittering Middle Sea which sparkled endlessly to the horizon. A lush green valley swept through the land before them, dotted with olive groves and small homes, and crept down to the shoreline. The paved, cambered road cut straight across, with a large pair of timber buildings standing on either side of the road at the bottom.

Thank the gods! mumbled Timus. I was beginning to think we’d never get there.

Septimus cast a glance at Drakon, smirking, and then stared back ahead. Oh no, Timus, it’s not this one. It’s the one farther on.

Timus slumped on the back of his horse, his head down, sitting on one of his hands to ease the pressure on his backside. Nooo...

Enough, Septimus. Come on, Timus, of course this is it. Drakon jabbed his heels into his mount and moved off, Timus and Fulvia following. Septimus took in the beauty of the views for a moment longer, then urged his mount forward, a broad smile lighting his face at the joy of being alive.

As they reached the buildings, they dismounted and stood stretching as a young boy walked briskly over. Laughter came from the larger building, the inn, whilst the nickering of horses came from the other.

"Do you require rooms for the night, domine?" the boy asked Drakon.

Two, lad. Have you any left? It looks busy.

"I think there might be, domine, but you’ll have to be quick, some gentlemen have also just arrived seeking board."

Fulvia, take Timus inside with this lad and get us two rooms. Septimus, give me a hand with the horses, and hurry, I’m busting for a pee. Where’s all the grooms, lad?

"Busy stabling the last party to arrive, domine. Take your mounts through there, and they’ll take over. If you’ll come with me, domina, I’ll show you to the inn."

Drakon and Septimus led the horses around the side of the stable as Fulvia and a limping Timus followed the boy across the road.

Raucous laughter engulfed them as they entered. The large room, crammed with wooden tables and benches, had a bar at the far end. A large fire on the brick-built south wall sizzled as fat dripped from a spit hog turning slowly over it. Travellers filled the room, while serving girls carrying pitchers of wine threaded their way around.

The boy urged them towards the bar and the innkeeper, and the three weaved through the crowd.

Who’ve we got here, young Julius? asked a portly man behind the bar.

"Just arrived, domine, a party of four needing two rooms."

We’ve two left so you’re in luck, my dear. Show them up to nine and ten, Julius.

Wait, innkeeper, we require a room, demanded a large, well-dressed man standing at the bar. We were here first, so one of the rooms is ours.

"Indeed you were, domine, but you’ve yet to ask for one. Now I’ve none left, but there’s the stable or a shack out the back."

How ridiculous! No, we were here first, and I demand one of the rooms. He slapped his hand down on the oak bar, causing drinkers to turn. This slave girl and her urchin can sleep in the stable.

The innkeeper wiped his hands on his apron and then lent on the bar. "I’m sorry, domine, I’ve no rooms left. They’ve asked for the rooms, and I’ve agreed to let them out."

That’s not good enough! Do you not know who I am?

"I’m afraid I don’t, domine, and it does not change the fact that now I have no rooms left."

I am Ostorius Lucius Faustina, son of Senator Julius Faustina, and I demand a room! His voice had risen an octave, and he slammed his hand on the counter again. I will not be treated like some plebian.

Men nearby fell silent, and others farther away turned to see the standoff.

Timus stepped in front of Fulvia, his hands shaking. We... we asked first, the... the rooms are ours.

Fulvia placed her hands on his shoulders, pulled him back to her and squeezed. Shh... Timus, it’s not our place to argue.

No, it’s not, said the senator’s son, and I won’t be spoken to like that by a slave. He turned to a large man behind him. Tullius, take this impudent whelp outside and give him a thrashing.

I’m not a slave! cried Timus as the large man stepped forward and grabbed his arm. He yanked Timus from Fulvia’s grasp and dragged the kicking and screaming boy towards the rear door.

The bar fell completely silent, except for the crackling of the fire.

Ostorius stepped up to Fulvia and grabbed her chin, forcing her to look up at him. Quite a beauty, aren’t you? Very exotic. He eyed her up and down, drinking in her narrow curves. I wonder if you’re for sale? I could do with a new bed slave. Tell me, who is your owner?

Fulvia felt her temper flare. She stared into his eyes, her brows furrowed and lips taut, remaining silent.

Impudent cow! Answer me or you’ll feel the back of my hand. Ostorius raised his arm, his hand open.

Her owner would be rather displeased... if you were foolish enough to strike her.

The loud but calm voice cut through the room. Every head turned to the doorway to see Septimus step in and stand, hands on hips, filling it.

Ostorius, still gripping Fulvia’s chin, turned. His raised hand moved down and pointed at Septimus. And just who might you be, boy?

Septimus walked forward and then sat on the corner of a table. He glanced down at a seated customer and pointed at his beaker of red wine. Do you mind?

The old man took in the size of Septimus and quickly shook his head.

May the gods bless you, my friend, I’m parched. Septimus took a long pull. Now, where were we? Ah yes, who am I? Well, it matters not. Your next actions, on the other hand, matter a great deal. Unhand her and we shall leave it there, as though none of this happened.

Blood rushed to Ostorius’s face. You damned impudent dog! He turned towards the rear door and yelled. Tullius! What in the gods’ name is keeping you! Get back in here!

Let the girl go. Her master is very fond of her, even sends ex-gladiators to guard her, because she is a beauty, isn’t she, and, well, men get ideas... Septimus took another sip of wine and then stood. Well? What’s it to be?

Ostorius snatched up a knife from the bar. Stay back, I warn you. Tullius! Get back in here now!

In a blur, Septimus reached over his shoulder and pulled one of the two swords strapped to his back. I always find a fine piece of Noric steel is extremely helpful in negotiations like this. He flicked his wrist, and the blade spun in a constant arc at his side, the handle rolling inside his fist, the blade whirling and humming. He