Daughters of the Dagger: Daughters of the Dagger, #1

By Elizabeth Rose

◆Will an old superstition bring joy or despair?◆

Lady Mirabelle de Burgh is desperate to give her husband an heir. She's heard of the superstition that to buy a jeweled dagger from a blind old hag ensures conception. It is said one child will be conceived for each dagger purchased.

The old hag on Grope Lane has five jeweled daggers and Mirabelle wants them all. However, she only has enough money for four. When her greed lands her in a bad situation, what started as a noble cause ends up in a way that no one could have ever suspected.

(Excerpts from each of the four following books is included at the end of this short story)

• Language: English
• Publisher: Oliver-Heber Books
• Release date: Mar 12, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215471555

Book preview

Daughters of the Dagger

DAUGHTERS OF THE DAGGER

DAUGHTERS OF THE DAGGER

BOOK ONE

ELIZABETH ROSE

Oliver Heber Books

All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be sold, copied, distributed, reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, mechanical or digital, including photocopying and recording or by any information storage and retrieval system without the prior written permission of both the publisher, Oliver Heber Books and the author, Elizabeth Rose, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

PUBLISHER'S NOTE: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2013 by Elizabeth Rose Krejcik

Published by Oliver-Heber Books

0 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Vellum flower icon Created with Vellum

CONTENTS

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

From the Author

Excerpt from Ruby

Excerpt from Sapphire

Excerpt from Amber

Excerpt from Amethyst

Excerpt from Onyx

About Elizabeth

Also by Elizabeth Rose

CHAPTER 1

ENGLAND, 1335

Mirabelle de Burgh slipped four gold coins from the pouch at her waist and slid them quickly across the table toward the old hag with the clouded eyes. She hoped this was the old blind woman she’d been searching for, and that the cordwainer’s wife in the high part of town had been telling the truth and it wasn’t just idle gossip. If this was only the product of wagging tongues and not superstition as she hoped, then she’d just seen the last of her coins. Being on Grope Lane, she was already surprised that she hadn’t been accosted.

She pulled the hood of her cloak higher and glanced nervously down the dark, narrow street that wasn’t really more than an alley. She shouldn’t be in this questionable part of town, and especially not unescorted. This is where the beggars, the thieves and the tarts all saw to make their livings.

Grope Lane was scattered with litter and rotten fruit as well as discarded bones from rancid meat and old fish. Pots filled with urine were being dumped out of overhead windows constantly, and she had to walk a crooked path on her way here just to keep from being splashed.

Pigs roamed freely amongst the crowd as well as stray, mangy dogs. Women in gowns that exposed most of their breasts as well as their legs, leaned lazily in front of the tavern as well as in every shadowed doorway. And though she was hidden beneath her cloak and covered from head to foot, Mirabelle knew every filthy, despicable man in that alleyway had his eyes fastened on her at that moment.

A shiver coursed through her. As she put the coins on the table, she couldn’t help but notice her own hand shaking. Mirabelle risked everything by sneaking away from her husband and coming here to begin with, but she did it out of naught more than desperation.

The odor clinging to the heavy air filled her nostrils and twisted her stomach, making her want to retch. She felt lightheaded and needed to get away from here quickly before she swooned. Her husband, Talbot, Earl of Blackpool, wouldn’t be happy that she’d stolen his coins to begin with, let alone spent them on something he would consider blasphemy – the work of the devil. But that’s not the way she saw it. This was merely acting on a superstition, nothing else.

She had to hurry. Talbot would be finished at the blacksmith’s soon and realize she was no longer waiting for her shoes to be repaired at the cordwainer’s. Looking back at the old blind woman sitting behind the table, Mirabelle only hoped she truly had the daggers even though her tabletop was empty.

Mirabelle believed the superstition that if a woman bought a dagger from a blind hag, she was sure to conceive a child anon. Ever since her marriage to the earl two years ago, she had not been able to bear him an heir. He wanted a son desperately and she was determined to give him one, no matter what she had to do to achieve it.

Hurry, she said the to the woman, glancing back toward the main street. I’ll take as many daggers as my money will buy.

The old woman reached out her bony fingers, patting the table, feeling around the surface. She picked up a coin in her hand and ran her thumb over it to test the weight in her palm to make sure ’twas gold. Bringing it to her face, she sniffed it. Then her tongue lashed out and she tasted it as well. When the woman was satisfied that it was, indeed, gold, she reached under the table and pulled out a tray with five of the most beautiful and expensive looking daggers Mirabelle had ever seen in her life.

Each was an