53 Results in the "The Lion & The Owl" category
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Chapter
The Month of Honey IV
Malaca shows her Phoenician roots with an overabundance of stone and the absence of timber. Roman horses trot over her rocky jetty, each eager for a roomy stable with ample feed and fresher water. Scipio comes ashore with Planus and Titus to heave their ship into dry-dock. Much lighter without her cargo of men, horses, and grain, the Portuna Harena floats along a man-made canal. Her destination is a massive shed with concrete colonnades capped by a double-thatched roof. Two hundred Romans strip down and…-
120.4 K • Ongoing
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Chapter
The Month of Honey III
Twenty-two days find them at Gades, where the narrowest waterway divides the northern isle of Eritheia from its southern sister, Kothinusa. A patchwork of linen canopies spread with barely a sliver between them while trade and circumstance carry on loud enough to rouse the dead. The air carries a disgusting mix of shit and saltwater, but Aedan inhales deeply with his face in the sun. His captor tugs at the sinew cord, irritating his neck; it’s a shameful use of his mother’s blessing but a suitable…-
120.4 K • Ongoing
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Chapter
The Month of Honey II
Strong fingers tighten around his spindly arm, dragging him until his feet remember their function. Such rough handling sweetens the pot, as does every grope, grasp, and growl. A new timber jetty stretches to the Krokodilo, who wears a reptilian eye on each side of her keel. Weather-worn triangular teeth line her narrow battering ram, and two banks of oars dangle from her sides, the long overhanging the short. Aedan counts twenty-five, meaning a total rowing complement of fifty. All make way for the…-
120.4 K • Ongoing
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Chapter
The Month of Honey – I
The Bucarati kips upon glossy mudflats. The vessel resembles a timber beetle with its tightly bound sales and dangling oars. It slumbers as men till the wet sands beneath its rudder, digging that will ensure the incoming tide washes her away. Alps-born Romans crowd her surface planks. They wear fur over their shoulders and wool on their extremities. None are clean-shaven, not even their newly minted leader, Lucius Scipio Servius, whose beard shines golden like the short coils on his head. His noble…-
120.4 K • Ongoing
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Chapter
The Meat’s Bath
Under the half-moon’s gentle glow, Niko had tossed a lean muscle cut from the hog’s backbone onto one of his leather mats, this one layered with a heavy dusting of sea salt, crushed peppercorns, and bits of ground cumin. He turned the meat over this spice blanket as if it were one of his marble rolling pins, then swaddled it tight like a gifted wine. At midmorning, the spice-crusted tenderloin lay on the preparation table. The chubby cook sliced three strips up its girth, leaving a healthy thumb-length…-
120.4 K • Ongoing
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Chapter
The Major Domo
The tarn beside Villa Servi is a typical alpine splash, its airless depths never mingling with the surface water, yet Lady Vita insists it shimmers like the Adriatic when the sun is just right. Welletrix the Veragros knows nothing of the sea, let alone one named Adriatic, but he’s seen his share of lifeless lakes. Caeso and Optio laze on the front porch until he disrupts their tranquility with an authoritative bark. The house cats laying with them are immune, their laziness forgiven after nightly…-
120.4 K • Ongoing
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Chapter
The Lion Roars
The villa and its neighboring urbana sit upon a plateau in the heart of an ancient caldera, its half-moon crown veiled by a lush blanket of oak forests. Minor crops and grazing meadows share this upland, surrounded by a majestic valley of orchards, vineyards, and groves. Three high walls adorned with vibrant murals enclose the village, with a long two-story housing unit making up the fourth. Skipio lived in those dorms for a time after Father blamed their comfortable villa for his lack of work…-
120.4 K • Ongoing
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- Story
The Lion & The Owl
Roman and Druid lock eyes in battle, setting off a turbulent flirtation involving revenge, death, and the theft of a beloved horse. -
Chapter
The Last Leaf Falls
A line of gray rises from the woods, but smokeless chimneys draw him to the village. No guard walks the wall. The smithy forge has gone cold, and courtyard braziers full of wood stand without flame. Pigs slumber in their pen, tightly packed mounds unmoved by his investigation. Knocking on doors yields no one, so he sets off for home under the fading day. Along the main road, he spots the villagers filing down the ridge. Two-wheel carts break up their procession, pulled by young men and full of…-
120.4 K • Ongoing
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Chapter
The Lady of the House
In the populous list of ills women must endure, shame comes written in the darkest ink. Lucia Vita Servia is a petite sort with wide hips and an ample bosom. Her large eyes, far too blue for Roman tastes, stem from ages-old Gallic blood, the kind tainting many a provincial household in the Alps. Welletrix, a reedy Gaul sent home by her brother some years past, stands at the threshold of her room holding a steaming mug. “May I come in?” he asks, and when she nods, he enters and places the…-
120.4 K • Ongoing
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