The Golden Slave

Cordelia was stretched out on the couch. Light rippled along her gown. It was of the sheerest silk; her flesh seemed to glow through. She sat up, smiling, so that her copious br...

He felt the cold and the wet gloom before dawn close in on him. What had he done, indeed? he thought. It was not well to make such enormous promises without thinking carefully....

For a while there was silence. The ship rolled easily, waves clapped the strakes, wind hummed in the rigging. The hurt men moaned, the dead men and the wreckage rolled about. Bu...

Eodan felt the old captain was right. The ship he neared had half again the length of his, and its freeboard towered over his deck. Nonetheless, it had no ram, no war engines at...

The darkness thickened, until at last he heard his footfalls hollow on unseen stones, until the houses on either side were little more than black blocks. His heart beat so loudl...

He saw, of a sudden, that his crew was gathering under the poop. Some had been on deck already, now others emerged in answer to low-voiced hails. Only Flavius and the helmsman r...

Eodan led a wing of these. He was not on one of the shaggy, short-legged, long-headed Northern ponies that had trotted across Europe--the tall black stallion he had found in Spa...

A king, he thought, was rightfully more than power. He should be law. Yes, and a bringer of all goodly arts; a just man, who tamed wild folk more with his law than his spear--th...

He thought, stiffening: It was so little to her liking, to enter a harem, that she rode forth alone. Out there is a land of wolf, bear, lynx and herdsmen wilder than they; south...

A gust of rain went over the tiled roof. The hearthfire leaped and sputtered; smoke caught Phryne's eyes, and she coughed and threw back her cloak. Eodan's gaze fixed on her.

She put her fists on her hips, glared up at him and said: "But you make it the world's concern! I understood you had suffered loss when Hwicca fell. Do you think I cannot imagin...

It was, indeed, neither large nor beautiful. It was battered, in need of paint, reeking of tar and slavery. The small bronze figurehead was so corroded you could not tell what i...

Phryne joined him as he left. As they went mutely from the castle, Tjorr rushed up to them. "There are Romans come!" he bawled. "A dozen Roman soldiers in camp.... I'd swear I s...

He wrapped his cloak more tightly about him and thought of autumn gold and scarlet in Jutland, where forests roared on long ridges. Why had three Gallic tribes left such a count...

Suddenly her arms went around him and her mouth was hot on his. "I meant this to be leisurely with much fine play," she whispered. "But that would be wrong with you. I see it now."

She walked forward. A locked hatch cover muffled some weird noises--what was that? Oh, to be sure, the free crew and the more timid slaves of this galley had been chained to the...

It was told from olden days, and written in the books of Snorri Sturlason, that the Asa or Ansa folk came from the land of Tanais to the North. They soon became overlords; from...