The Grip

Apologies for the long delay in posting!

Here’s another extract from my work-in-progress…

A warm ripple of a thrill went through him, as it always did when he caught sight of her home. It sat on the very edge of town, at the end of a short, narrow road where the most destitute and despised residents of Vidar’s Fast dwelt. Here, nothing was changed on the eve of war. Desperate children shuffled about, stooping to fish a misplaced trinket from the brown mire underfoot. Haggard women hopped over rivers of urine, balancing teetering piles of laundry in their lithe, dirt-streaked arms.

The smells were overwhelming, but sweet enough with rot and dung to be almost pleasant. Eldris dragged the seething miasma into his nose with great gulps, savouring the soothing sensation of being home. Vandar, deep in his cups, would often proclaim to anyone in earshot that he loved every woman in the Middle Isles, and had bedded half of them, but wouldn’t touch the cleanest maid in the Grip, named for the way it clung unwanted to the town. So Rothir griped, the Grip was a foetid pit of debauchery, vileness and heresy.

He knew they were both wrong. For as long as Eldris could remember, he was drawn to the stinking slum like a moth to a stuttering candle flame. It sprung up from lower ground than the rest of Vidar’s Fast, sewage and other detritus flowing down its cramped streets, but it contrived to match the rest of the town’s height. He blinked up in wonder at the soaring old tenements, gasping at how the leaning, ramshackle timber structures could bear their own weight when they came so close to touching overhead that only a sliver of sunlight could slice through the gap.

His pace slowed as he tracked through the winding streams of piss and mud, knowing better than to waste effort attempting to avoid them. There was no time to watch his footfalls anyway. Eldris was utterly absorbed by his surroundings, drowning in the familiar strangeness of this unknowable side of his hometown.

Women, covered from head to toe by tattered shawls and threadbare dresses even in their own houses, knelt on the rough boards of their hearths and gave whispered pleas to the gods. He hesitated each time he passed an open door or window, listening in rapt discomfort to their hushed prayers. When he first came to the Grip, he imagined a hundred causes for their devotion. Begging for food to fill their children’s bellies. Asking for their husbands to find a job which wouldn’t sully their hands with the stench of the cesspit or carthorse.

But it was always one thing they begged the gods to give them, rocking on their knees under the force of their own desperate earnestness. ‘Forgive me. Forgive me.’ For what? Eldris asked himself. He never saw them take a strange man to their bed, stumble drunk in the gutter or raise a word in reproach of the gods. The same gods who robbed them of dignity, cut their lives short before their bloom and gave them nothing but scraps for their children to fight over.

Eldris quickened his pace, forcing himself to be deaf and blind to their suffering. In his mind’s eye, he couldn’t help seeing the comfortable cottages  and blazing halls of his kinsmen, boisterous children laughing as they ran along clean streets and hearing the drunken curses of their fathers.  When Rothir returns, I’ll make him do something. I’ll tell him the gods spoke to me of that’s what it takes. There must be something…

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Follow the links to find my books on Kindle: Vikingr – Servants of Infamy – Firequeen

Mist and Cloud

He waited for Vandar’s tall frame to fade into the shadows of the forest then turned and made his way towards the stone stairs. It was easy going at first, tripping down the gently sloping steps as they stole down the side of the chasm. Ferns and lichen grew from fissures in the rock, brushing against his arms as he passed and sprinkling dew on the worn surface beneath his feet.

After descending only a dozen yards he was forced to check his pace. The stairs grew steadily steeper and slick with rain which hung in the air as a fine drizzle. Clouds of silver mist materialised in the canyon, lingering above the green canopy until Eldris couldn’t see a single tree. He was caught in a place between worlds. Above was a mass of grey cloud, hard walls of granite between and a floor of white haze below.

A Short History of Agriculture

How important is agriculture from a historical perspective? There is more to this topic than growing food. Farming is a science, a practical activity and a cultural phenomenon. The science and practices of agriculture can be fascinating, particularly when you look at how humans of the past made great scientific advances before science was even invented, but this is history; our focus is on the culture of farming. Without doubt, it is one of the most important developments in human history.

Briefly, we should look at what came before farming. This is commonly called the hunter-gatherer lifestyle in which people relied on wild plants and animals for food by, predictably, hunting and gathering them (and fishing). The important part of this equation is not the hunting or gathering (or fishing), it is the fact that these food species were wild. Humans did not control food production; it was entirely subject to natural forces governing abundance.

Zero One Zero

Okay, where should I start? I have an idea, something which might grab your attention. No doubt it’s something you’ve wondered about. The Day The Internet Broke. Let’s start with that day, that one event which shattered the crystal cage we built around ourselves and revealed just how decrepit our sense of security was in relation to the enormity of the risk we faced.

In my office, waiting for a PhD student who, in stark contrast to her usual precise punctuality, was more than half an hour late. God forbid I would be forced to eat lunch in the campus cafeteria, rather than strolling into town and visiting my favourite deli. But if she didn’t arrive soon, it seemed more and more certain that I would be forced to compromise in saving what little was left of my afternoon break.

“Professor!” Her voice shredded the calm aura of my office. You have to understand, I am a man of no small pretensions. It has always been my aim to affect an air of studious impenetrability, my corner of the crowded campus being an oasis of serenity where minds could come together in restrained discourse. All of my students understood this unspoken rule and she was no exception. In spite of this sacred trust, she burst in like the furies were at her back and shouted. “You won’t believe what happened!”

Harry Potter and the Pensioner of Azkaban

The black void of the dementor’s face opened, spreading a wave of horror and sorrow through the room. Its rotten hand reached across the table, drawing a red X over a number on a small square of crisp parchment.

A word issued from its mouth in a thin, sinister hiss.

“Bingo.”