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    King Takes Bishop, Queen Takes King - A Pagan Novella
    King Takes Bishop, Queen Takes King - A Pagan Novella
    King Takes Bishop, Queen Takes King - A Pagan Novella
    Ebook58 pages42 minutes

    King Takes Bishop, Queen Takes King - A Pagan Novella

    By Duke Pierce Reade

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    About this ebook

    "Reade fills in the spaces Shakespeare left blank in the History Plays."    – Hamish McCready, Dramatist

    "Duke Pierce Reade has a fresh, international style of writing." – Olivia Lyons, Style Influencer


    "I like the writing style.  It encourages you to dig deeper, find the meaning with a simple search."   – Vinny B, Gaming Storyliner

    During the earliest years of Christianity in Britain, when Rome retreated and left a void for pagans, priests and petty warlords, negotiations become a game, power a blood sport, and cross cultural love conquered evil.  The Dark Ages were never so exciting!

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherDuke Pierce Reade
    Release dateMay 3, 2019
    ISBN9781096767466
    King Takes Bishop, Queen Takes King - A Pagan Novella
    Author

    Duke Pierce Reade

    Duke Reade Pierce is an historian, futurist, researcher and writer living and working in a small office high above the street in Chicago where the clamor within those canyons of steel and glass are both an irritant and inspiration, and the sunsets are spectacular.

    Read more from Duke Pierce Reade

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      Book preview

      King Takes Bishop, Queen Takes King - A Pagan Novella - Duke Pierce Reade

      This is not enough, he thought, adjusting the crude semi-circle of flagstones.  At the center was a splayed raven, wings pinned with stag, beak toward the northeast.  He looked over the pebbles piled at each side of the wings, his heart heavy and distant, four years away to when he was only ten, when his village was swept away by the marauding slave traders. 

      It had been an eternity of four years since his mother had pushed him into those ovens of his ancestors, long dormant, the ones used for curing clay or glass or metalwork, he could not remember which.  When he thought too much about that day tears would come and he would run away.  Run away from his adopted family.  Run away from everyone.  Run away to his shrine, where he could be Cerdic of the Catu again, not the foundling son of some stranded Roman magistrate.

      He recalled the day he had escaped the nets of those unfamiliar horsemen and the horror of his parents’ dead eyes.  He wiped his face and tried to remember his mother’s voice, his father’s laughter.  He’d heard the echo of that happy laughter while he passed the place where giants once stood, that place of wondrous standing stones.  His small shrine was a window to the afterworld, a window through which he spoke to his parents.  He bent to pull some weeds from their rude encroachment and heard laughter, but it was not that of his father.  It was sinister and vile and corrupt.  And it was right behind him.

      What have we here? the voice said with a laugh as the boy spun to his feet.  The man behind the voice sat atop a dirty gray horse, the same dirt as his stringy hair which was adorned with beads and the feathers of a crow, black at his back, white to the sides.  This was Vortigern, the young man thought.  He knew because he had heard of the scar that sliced the warlord-king’s face from crown to jaw and right through the left eye, now just a milky-white orb.  The orb could see beyond the hills, it was said.

      Looks like a gardener, said a Captain who rode up from the ranks of the hundreds in procession, bringing even more laughter from the great Vortigern.

      Do we need a gardener, Captain Itermon? Vortigern yelled over his shoulder at nobody and everybody at once as he added, Perhaps this boy can tend your violets, Itermon. 

      Itermon started, Well, Your Excellency, Your Lordship, if it please you, or, in other words as I was meant to be saying, and without – The band of three subordinates under Itermon, this Captain who Vortigern enjoyed mocking at every turn, stifled their own laughter when Itermon turned on them.

      What do you think, Merllyn? asked Vortigern to his high priest who had been cautiously inspecting the young man from a distance.  Merllyn had his own triad of apprentices, dutifully scampering on foot behind his white mare.

      This may solve your dilemma, my liege, said Merllyn, pulling a twig from his white beard and examining it briefly.  Tossing the stick to the ground, Merllyn nicked his horse closer and continued, The fortress you strive to build needs endorsement from the gods of wind and rain.  See how your offering stands before you.  Merllyn was prone to human sacrifice when potential challengers to his deceptions emerged.

      You think we should go back? asked Vortigern, not really wanting an answer.  Retracing their steps to Powys and

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