A Mummers' Play

by Jo Beverley

  If you want to explore my other fiction, you can visit me online at www.jobev.com. Nearly everything is now available for eReaders.

  If you want to keep up to date with my new and reissued work, you can sign up there for my occasional newsletter and/or click on the link to “like” my Facebook author page.

  Here’s some information about the other two novellas that are coming out this winter:

  The Dragon and the Princess was titled The Dragon and the Virgin Princess in the anthology Dragon Lovers in 2007. This is set in a fantasy middle ages with, of course, dragons.

  Rozlinda of Saragon is the official SVP—the Sacrificial Virgin Princess—and she can’t wait for a dragon to arrive so she can do her duty. After all, she’ll only have to sacrifice a cup of blood and then at last, at long last, she’ll no longer need to be V. But when a dragon flies in from the enemy nation of Dorn, the fearsome dragon rider carries her away. Rozlinda is not amused!

  The Raven and the Rose was published in the Holy Grail anthology Chalice of Roses in 2010, and is set in the twelfth century, close to Glastonbury, the heart of Grail mythology.

  Sister Gledys of Rosewell is visited by sinful dreams featuring a handsome knight, and is powerless over the feelings they stir. When an old woman and a raven summon her to leave her convent to find her knight, she’s challenged to sin in an even greater way. But if she’s to believe the message, only she and her knight together can summon the Holy Grail and bring peace to a country devastated by civil war.

  Keep reading for excerpts from these novellas following this letter.

  You can also find more information about all my digital novellas, including excerpts and buy/pre-order links on my web site here: http://www.jobev.com/epubnov.html

  If you’re in the mood for something more substantial, I’ve written thirty-six romance novels, and nearly all are now available as eBooks.

  The next new book will be A Shocking Delight in April 2014.

  This new novel is the story of Lucy Potter, whose dowry makes her a wealthy young woman. She sees no reason to give her wealth to a husband, especially as she dreams of following her father into trade. Then she meets an unusual man in a book shop. That scene is included in this eBook following the excerpts from the novellas. I hope you enjoy it. And remember, you can pre-order that book now.

  All best wishes,

  Jo

  Keep reading for a preview of

  THE DRAGON AND THE PRINCESS

  Available February 2014 from InterMix

  “Being the Sacrificial Virgin Princess of Saragond stinks.”

  “I’m sure it does, highness.”

  “Seven years. Seven interminable years!” Princess Rozlinda leaned forward on the Royal Mage’s table. “Not only have I been SVP longer than anyone before, today I doubled the previous record. And,” she swept on before the mage could speak, “Princess Rosabella’s term ended when she was sixteen. How old am I?”

  “Nineteen, highness.” But Mistress Arcelsia’s aged eyes seemed to say, Magic cannot solve this.

  Rozlinda whirled away, her skirts brushing knick-knacks, her veil snagging on something. She yanked it free, not caring if the silk ripped. Stupid, stupid thing!

  Nineteen, and she’d never flirted with a man, never danced with a man, never kissed a man. She hardly ever spoke to a man outside her family. She had eight elderly lady attendants whose sole purpose was to make sure the SVP stayed V.

  The mage’s sanctum lay at the top of the highest tower of the White Castle of Saragond and through the window, Rozlinda could see all the way to the Shield Mountains. “I feel like a bird in a cage. Look, but don’t touch. See but never go.”

  “Now that’s not true, Princess. You can ride out any time you wish.”

  A moving cage is still a cage. But Rozlinda turned back, attempting a smile. None of this was Mistress Arcelsia’s fault, and a princess should make all around her comfortable. “Perhaps I will later.”

  When she went riding, her knights escorted her. She’d still have her ladies to protect her from her knights, but they’d be there. Young, virile men in their silver armor and bright, heraldic tunics, so masterful on their prancing white horses.

  Much good would it do her. Could anything be more cruel? The SVP Guard should be as wizened as her tutors and her ladies.

  “Sit down, Princess. We’ll try scrying again. Perhaps you’ll see your future.”

  “As I never see anything,” Rozlinda muttered under her breath, “that’s not encouraging.”

  But she gathered her skirts and sat on the stool before the deep golden bowl. In her disgruntled mood, she sat on her trailing veil, dragging her conical headdress to one side. With a hiss, she rearranged herself and pushed the hennin straight so the silken bands beneath her chin weren’t choking her.

  “I don’t see why being SVP means a person has to dress this way.”

  “Tradition, Princess.”

  Rozlinda looked at Mistress Arcelsia’s white robe and scarlet velvet cloak. “No one wears clothes like yours, either. Doesn’t it bother you?”

  “Not at all, Princess. They are the outward sign of my position and skill, and very comfortable.”

  “Mine are merely the outward sign of being the youngest fertile female of the blood, and they’re awful.”

  “Princess, do try to put your mind into a state receptive of magic.”

  “Fat lot of good it’s done so far,” Rozlinda mumbled, but only because the mage was drawing water for the scrying bowl and wouldn’t hear. They both knew Rozlinda didn’t have a scrap of magical ability, but they pretended.

  Mages could do magic, or so they said. Rozlinda rubbed a finger on the rounded edge of the bowl. “Is there some magical way to bring on Izzy’s flowers?”

  Mistress Arcelsia turned so sharply water sloshed. “No there isn’t, and it wouldn’t be right. You know better than to tamper with fate.”

  “I’d suspect she was concealing the bleeding if she wasn’t so desperate to be SVP.”

  “Princess Izzagonda would never do such a wicked thing. After last time.”

  Last time, when the ceremony had gone awry.

  Mistress Arcelsia poured the water into the bowl. “I’m sure she’ll flower before the dragon comes. She’s thirteen, after all.”

  “I’m not afraid of the sacrifice. I’m just tired of the Princess Way. Another year seems unbearable.”

  “The fates have their reasons.”

  “The reason,” Rozlinda said forcefully, “is that the royal family is having fewer and fewer girls, and no one seems to be doing anything about it.”

  “There is nothing to be done-”

  “Then hasn’t it occurred to anyone that we’re doomed?”

  The royal family of Saragond existed solely because their female blood had a mystical power to appease a dragon—the blood of a princess who had flowered but remained a virgin, that was. They married only within their line so that the blood would remain strong.

  “Well?” Rozlinda demanded.

  Mistress Arcelsia walked behind her. “Clear your mind for magic, Princess. Perhaps you’ll receive wisdom.” She put her hand on Rozlinda’s neck and pushed, so she had to look into the depths of the golden bowl. “What do you see?”

  Rozlinda sighed and concentrated. She had no magic, but she’d been trained all her life to respect ritual and tradition, and daily magical exercises were part of that. Part of the Princess Way, which was all to do with saving the world when the dragon came. If only it would come today.

  “Clear the mind, Princess!”

  Rozlinda squinted, trying to see images in the scant play of light on still water. She puffed a breath to stir the surface.

  Snakes? Ribbons? A jelly pudding?

  “Nothing, Princess?”

  Mistress Arcelsia’s assumption that as usual there would be nothing snapped Rozlinda’s patience. “I see water. A river, I mean, not the bowl. A deep one.” Might as well be dramatic. “There’s a storm coming.
Lightning. A golden fish leaps out.”

  “A golden fish! An excellent omen.”

  She suspected that Mistress Arcelsia knew she was lying, but carried on anyway. “A man catches the fish. In a big, black net.”

  “Alarming, Princess. What sort of man?”

  “A . . .” Rozlinda’s imagination faltered. A knight, a prince, a brute? But then she gasped.

  She saw a man!

  She blinked, but this was no ripple-image. It was as if the round bowl had become a window through which she saw a strangely-dressed, pale-haired man. He was standing by a river or lake, but in sunlight.

  “Describe the man, Princess.” Mistress Arcelsia’s bored voice seemed from another world, and perhaps she was. Rozlinda was finally having a vision!

  “The picture’s changed. Now I see a sunlit scene. Countryside. Water. And a different man.”

  “Tell me more.” A sharp tone showed that the mage knew the difference.

  Rozlinda strained to catch every detail.

  “He’s not from around here. Long pale hair but dark skin. Not like the dark of Cradel. A sort of bronzish gold. His clothes are strange, too. A sleeveless leather jerkin such as a farm worker might wear, but cut tight. And no shirt underneath.”

  Rozlinda had to swallow. That leather was almost like a second skin and left his brown, muscular arms open to her inspection.

  “And?” the mage prompted.

  Rozlinda dragged her eyes away from more manly perfection than she’d seen as an adult. She grew hotter. The jerkin went down to his thighs, but his legs were covered by garments as form-fitting as her own silk stocking.

  “Princess?”

  “Green hose, brown boots.”

  How inadequate. How deceptive. But she felt that if she truly described this man he might be snatched away as a forbidden treat.

  It was as if he were drifting toward her, or she toward him. Details became clearer. His arms weren’t totally bare. “Metal bands around his arms, upper and lower. They look like gold. Can’t be. He’s no prince. You can’t see this, Mistress?”

  “No, it’s your vision. Blond hair, you said?”

  Rozlinda concentrated again. “Not really blond. More white.”

  “Old?”

  “No, not at all. It’s . . . this is a strange word for hair, but it’s bone colored.”

  “I see.”

  “You do?” Rozlinda tried to sit up, but Mistress Arcelsia pushed her down.

  “Tell me more. Tell me everything.”

  Something urgent in the mage’s tone both excited and scared Rozlinda. It had been so long since anything different had happened to her that she didn’t know how to react.

  “Pale hair. Loose down the back but in thin plaits at the front. Glinting, as if woven with shiny wire.”

  “Is he alone?”

  “Yes. No! He just looked to his side and spoke to someone, but I can’t see who. And it would have to be someone in the water. Or in a boat. The water rippled. Perhaps someone’s swimming. He’s picking up a bag and hanging it from his shoulder. A scruffy bag. Definitely not a wealthy man. A thief, do you think? Is this some warning about thievery? He’s walking toward me.”

  Rozlinda tried to shrink back, but the mage’s hand was firm on her neck. This was a vision, she reminded herself. A prognostication or an omen. Important.

  “Is there anything else about him that you haven’t told me, Princess?

  “He walks well.” Rozlinda became lost in the easy grace of that walk. Not a trudge at all, but a smooth swing, as if the whole world was his to walk over and he intended to do it.

  As he drew closer, she noted more about his face. It was as handsome as the rest of him, with a square chin, high cheekbones, and chiseled symmetry, but the set of his mouth was grim and his startling pale amber eyes were cold.

  And looking straight at her.

  “Let me up!”

  Mistress Arcelsia’s hand clamped her down. “More, Princess. Tell me everything!”

  Panting with fright, Rozlinda looked anywhere by at those eyes. “Leather belt. Pouch. Knife. A buckle. It looks to be . . .”

  “Be what?”

  “Set with dragon eye stones. It can’t be. Only princesses of the blood wear dragon eyes!”

  Who was this man? What did this vision mean?

  Deep inside, instinct answered: Nothing good.

  Keep reading for a preview of

  THE RAVEN AND THE ROSE

  Available March 2014 from InterMix

  England, 1153

  Sister Gledys of Rosewell was sinning again.

  She was dreaming of her knight and knew she should wake herself up, but she didn’t. Alas for her immortal soul, she didn’t want to lose a precious moment of these visions, and her heart already raced with wicked excitement.

  As always, he was fighting, clad in a long chain-mail robe and conical helmet. He wielded a sword and protected himself with a long shield on his left arm. Sometimes she saw him afoot, but he was generally on a great fighting horse in battle or skirmish.

  That didn’t surprise Gledys. Strife, punctuated by outright war, had ruled England for all the eighteen years of her life, but that life had been spent in Rosewell Nunnery, so how could she create such scenes? By day she prayed earnestly for peace, so how could she dream of war so vividly by night?

  Every clash of weapons rang in her ears, every squeal of angry horses, every thud of blows. Leather squeaked, metal jangled and the stink of men and horses buffeted her. Hooves cut clods from the ground, and horses breathed like bellows. When these dreams had begun the horses had spewed steam into frosty air and the men had also clouded the air as they howled with pain or roared in triumph. It was summer now, however, and the air swirled with dust and fury.

  Then a chunk of earth whipped past her face and she realized she was much closer to the fighting than ever before.

  Too close!

  She tried to raise her arms to shield her face, tried to stumble back out of danger. It didn’t work. It never did. In these dreams, she was as powerless to move as if paralyzed.

  A horse’s massive backside swung in her direction. She flinched from its flailing tail and the shod hooves that could kill if it chose to kick. She heard screams nearby. She’d scream, too, but she could no more make a sound than she could move.

  Now she was willing to escape.

  Wake up! Wake up!

  She remained frozen in place, her eyes unalterably fixed on one warrior, and could only pray.

  Lord have mercy.

  Christ have mercy. . . .

  It was a dream. It had to be. No one could be killed in a dream.

  Holy Mary, pray for me.

  Saint Michael the archangel, pray for me.

  But then she wondered if this was punishment. Punishment for her sinful attraction to her knight, and for her secret longing to escape, to explore the world beyond Rosewell.

  Saint Gabriel, pray for me.

  Saint—

  A great rattling thump jolted the litany out of her mind.

  A man bellowed.

  Someone had come off his horse. Had that been a death cry?

  Not her knight, at least. Not her knight. He fought on, but now against a huge, grunting man.

  All angels and archangels, pray for him!

  Saint Joseph, pray for him. . . .

  He was being driven closer to where she stood. Despite the danger Gledys’s frightened breathing changed to a pant of excitement. Would she finally see something of his face? Closer, closer, come closer. . . .

  This longing was surely the worst sin of all, but she surrendered to it now, murmuring unholy prayers.

  But even when he was almost on top of her she could tell little. Beneath his helmet, a hood came down on his forehead, a front part rising up on his chin, and the helmet had a piece that extended down over his nose. She could see only lean cheeks and bared teeth. Was she imagining a pleasing countenance? He wheeled his horse so that his back was to her,
and she glimpsed missing teeth in the snarling red mouth of his opponent. The bigger man landed a hard blow on her knight’s arm, causing him to stagger to one side.

  Gledys screamed and tried to run to him, but she was still frozen. Her knight fought on, turning his shield into a weapon, slamming his opponent’s sword hand with it and kicking him with a mailed boot. His horse joined in with hooves and teeth, and the din made Gledys want to cover her ears.

  How had that blow to his arm not maimed him?

  How is it that he can fight on so fiercely?

  She realized that she’d closed her eyes, and forced them open, dreading what she’d see. Somehow, her knight’s opponent had been unhorsed, but the big man scrambled to his feet and unhooked a mighty ax from his saddle. An ax! Her knight leapt off his horse to face him, laughing.

  Laughing?

  Yes, laughing!

  Was he mad?

  Mad or not, he was beautiful, even sheathed in gray metal. So tall and broad shouldered, and moving as if burdened by nothing but a shirt, leaping away from another attack on strong, agile legs. It must be a mortal sin to think of a man’s legs, but she’d pay the price in hell.

  Be Saint Michael, she prayed. Or Saint George.

  It wouldn’t be so terrible a sin to be fascinated by the warrior angel who defeated Lucifer, or the saintly dragon slayer. She might even be receiving blessed visions symbolizing the defeat of heathens in the Holy Land by Christian crusaders.

  But in her heart she knew better, and now, watching her knight breathing hard but still smiling with a burning delight in violence, she knew it yet again. These dreams came from Satan, and the swirling chaos of men and horses was a vision of hell. . . .