Surprisingly, by the end of August, a sturdy hall had been built with an attached living quarters for the headman’s family, an improvement from the more hastily built community hall that would be at the centre of the village. The quarters for the headman’s family were left unoccupied. Though the assumption was that Rollo and Derelie would eventually take up residence in these lodgings, Derelie and her children were to remain in Long, to live a less conspicuous life with…
The next morning, Rollo didn’t have to worry about finding Aethelred and returning the challenge. Aethelred stormed into the main room while Rollo was breaking his fast with Derelie seated next to him. Gurim still hadn’t recovered from his excesses of the night before. He was still snoring on the bench. Brest was also at the table with his wife and two of her sisters. “Rollo,” Aethelred spoke with fierce determination. “I demand satisfaction for your unprovoked physical assault against…
Three years later, Rollo sat beside his older brother Gurim, pulling on the same oar, while their father Kettil manned the rudder. Both brothers had crossed over to their father’s longboat for the last day of travel to the Western Isles. The long ship had entered the mouth of the river at the end of a long narrow bay. A small fishing village along the north shore of the river was ignored as they moved further west to reach a…
The next year, Rollo, along with his brother Gurim and their father, Kettil, like other years, had embarked on another season of viking. Once again, they stopped at the village of Long. The village had prospered under the Danes working with the Ambiani. And, to Rollo’s surprise, his teen-aged wife, Derelie had given birth to a girl child named Apadeva. Their stop in Long had been brief. Kettil had brought thirty-five longboats down river after having met little resistance at…
Kettil led a contingent of six longboats past a place called Abbéville. The river further upstream continued to be slow moving allowing the longboats easier passage down the River Samara. Kettil knew that this river, despite its calm waters had a turbulent history, a place where cultures clashed and many died in ferocious combat. The old tales told of the Ambiani as warriors just as fierce as the Picti across the sea he had just traversed. The river valley was rich…
In the two hundred years since Alba and Gyr journeyed to the sacred stone, fewer and fewer young couples made the journey from scattered villages. The Church wisely folded local folklore into their attempts to convert the pagans who held fast to the old ways. In Inverugie, the village where Alba and Gyr returned and raised a family, had become prosperous enough that it allowed the Church to accumulate a small fortune in treasures. The priest had been joined by a…
Alba walked beside Gyr as they crossed the field headed towards the sacred stone. Her grandmother talked about a goddess and a god who appeared at the stone thirty springs ago. Alba wondered if she would get to see a god and goddess like her grandmother. She wanted to have blessings for fertility and have many children with Gyr. They had walked for two days from their tiny village to the east along the River Ugie, not far from the…
I am finally getting serious about a historical fiction that looks at how my family came to be in this modern world. The earliest known Longpré was mentioned in an obscure work where a Guillaume Longpré was supposedly in a minor supporting role at the Battle of Hastings in 1066. Of course, the family didn’t begin then. He had parents, grandparents and the roots go far, far back in time. For this story, I am starting in the middle of…
A moment along the Mekong River in Laos They say the Mekong is a river only in the way a body is a body. Those who live along its banks step toward the water with a quietness that borders on reverence, as though approaching an elder who has seen too much to be impressed by human urgency. The young man who came each morning did not bow, but he paused. That small hesitation was his offering. His name was Somchai,…
This story must be told, not because it is ancient, though it is, and not because it is sacred, though it might be, but because it speaks to something that has always lived quietly inside the human heart. Long before the first cities rose, before the first names were spoken, before the first grief carved its hollow into the chest of the world, there was a tree that grew in the space between what is seen and what is felt….