Publisher: The Book Guild
Page Length: 288
Series: The Island of Angels (This is book 2 of 2. The first book is called The Mark of the Salamander. Book 2 is written as a stand-alone, or can be read after reading book 1.)
Genre: Historical Fiction Book Description 1580. Nelan Michaels docks at Plymouth after sailing around the world aboard the Golden Hind. He seeks only to master his mystical powers – the mark of the salamander, that mysterious spirit of fire – and reunite with his beloved Eleanor. After delivering a message to Francis Walsingham, he’s recruited into the service of the Queen’s spymaster, where his astral abilities help him to predict and thwart future plots against the realm. But in 1588, the Spanish Armada threatens England’s shores. So how could the fledgling navy of a small, misty isle on the edge of mainland Europe repulse the greatest fleet in the world? Was the Queen right when she claimed it was divine intervention, saying, ‘He blew with His winds, and they were scattered!’? Or was it an entirely different intervention – the extraordinary conjunction of coincidences that Nelan’s astral powers brought to bear on that fateful Midnight of Eights? Excerpt Chapter 1: The Plough Head
The village of Mortlake, near London, England
14th October 1580 … Turning his back on the derelict site, he headed upriver towards a large ramshackle mansion, the house of Dr John Dee, the renowned astrologer to the court of Queen Elizabeth. Nelan desperately wanted to renew his acquaintance with the man, but he had a message from Admiral Drake to deliver, so a reunion would have to wait. He headed east. The smells and sight of the fields and meadows were pleasantly familiar. A fox darted across the stubbled field, stared at him, and sniffed the dank air as if to ask, ‘Who is this who disturbs the peace of the hedgerow?’ Another fox stalked the roof of his destination, Barn Elms - a black metal weather vane, a clue to the nature of its distinguished owner. It rained and he sought shelter beneath a plane tree. As he dismounted, he nearly tripped on a piece of wood jutting out of the ground. He reached down to grab it. His gloved hands slipped off the muddy surface of the wood. He tried pulling it out of the sodden earth, but it held fast. It was a piece of rotting oak. Something nudged him. Take a second glance. Lo-and-behold, it was the curved handle of a plough. He dug around it until his blade struck metal. Now he had to uncover all of it. With the evening shadows closing in, he knelt down, removed his gloves and felt the surface with his palms. A piece of iron was attached to the wooden handle. Ah! A plough head. Pulling it free, it fractured in two. As he wrenched the other half from the soil, it released an odour as foul as the devil’s breath. Ignoring the odious smell, he felt around the moist earth and found a bone. His heart missed a beat. What was this - a day of graves? If so, whose? Too small to be human. He unearthed the skeleton of a bird. It had a hooked beak, so a bird of prey. With a bell and leather thongs attached to each leg, it was a falcon, belled and jessed. A falcon and a plough head made strange bedfellows. The jessed young bird must have got loose from its straps and died. Was he, Nelan, jessed to the straps of his past, forever strangled by his unfortunate history? Would he ever cut them loose? It surprised him that the plough head had been left to rot, because carpenters would normally resharpen and repair the wood. When he worked as an apprentice blacksmith, he’d often reforge old plough head irons. Holding the bones in his hand, he turned it over in his mind; the straps and the share, the bird and the bell, the plough head and the falcon, belled and jessed. These were clues, but to what? In the distance, he heard the rumble of cart wheels. Looking through the hazy light drizzle, he saw only the meadow and the manor house. Yet he could hear them trundling over cobblestones as clear as if he stood in the middle of a bustling city street. Then he heard the snort of an ox. He was hearing and seeing things that weren’t there. What was happening? Then he realised. The cart and the ox were not of this world. No, they belonged to the other world. During his voyage around the globe, Nelan had learned how to look through the veil and peer into that mysterious, astral realm. Beneath the middle finger on his right hand were three wavy lines, like three letter S’s - the mark of the salamander. Sometimes, when he rubbed the lines, a vision unfolded before his astonished eyes. This time, the vision pressed itself upon him of its own accord. In it, a man dressed in white robes stood in the ox cart. He was surrounded by pikemen and pipes, louts and lutes. There was festivity, and there was terror. As the great bell tolled, the crowd chanted, You’re gonna be seen,
On the tree that’s ne’er green! Nelan’s horse neighed and tossed its head, jolting him out of the vision. He felt chills down his spine. What’s a tree that’s never green? Where to Purchase Universal Buy Link
Author Website (where buyer can enter a dedication)
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Yvonne, thanks for posting this excerpt from my novel. Great to stop by on your blog.
ReplyDeleteThank you so much for hosting Justin Newland today, with an intriguing excerpt from The Midnight of Eights.
ReplyDeleteTake care,
Cathie xx
The Coffee Pot Book Club