Blood and Gold Read online

PRAISE FOR BEN BLAKE

  Immediately I was taken with the beauty of this author’s writing… what a great ability to define such nature and character with mere words. (Jennifer Elizabeth Hyndman)

  A beautifully crafted tale, full of action well told by a great storyteller. Can’t wait for the next offering! (Avid reader)

  A wonderfully engaging story. (JohnnyB)

  Blood and Gold

  Songs of Sorrow Volume One

  Copyright © Ben Blake 2013

  The author has asserted their moral rights under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.

  This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to any real persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.

  Cover art by Mark Watts

  Also by Ben Blake

  The Risen King

  For my mother

  When trials heavy and sudden fall upon us; when adversity takes the place of prosperity; when friends desert us, still will she cling to us.

  (Washington Irving)

  Ben Blake is on Facebook, at https://www.facebook.com/benblakeauthor.

  Follow Ben's blog at https://benblake.blogspot.co.uk/

  Or email him at [email protected]

  Also by Ben Blake

  The Risen King

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Blood and Gold

  Songs of Sorrow Volume One

  This is the book of thy descent:

  Here begin the terrors;

  Here begin the marvels.

  The Lancelot Grail (author unknown)

  Book One

  The Little Foxes

  Catch the foxes, the little foxes, that ruin our vineyard in bloom.

  Solomon 2: 15

  One

  Safe Harbour

  He would remember, much later, thinking that so many new things were about to begin. A lifetime’s worth of them.

  He’d been restless for days. The ship made its slow way through a sea barely stirred by wind, the red-striped sails hanging limp from their masts, and home never seemed any closer. Calesh would rest in his cabin for an hour, chat to one of the soldiers or a bare-footed sailor, but always he would be drawn back to the rail at the ship’s prow to search the skyline for a glimpse of land. In the end he smelled it first, a faint aroma of vineyards and rich earth that brought memories tumbling into his mind all at once.

  Playing among the orange trees behind the house with his little brother. Burying that brother not long after when the plague came. A remembered scent of freshly-turned soil then, black and moist in the rain. His father handing him a wooden sword, showing him how to hold it, with dirt ingrained in the lines of his hands, when Calesh was eleven. The first woman he’d known, older than he was, as they pulled at each other’s clothes in old man Charn’s olive grove. She’d taught him to be patient; it was a strange thing for him to recall now, he reflected wryly. And on top of that came a new thought, the one he would remember: so many new things are about to begin.

  Luthien would tell him he was wrong, no doubt. Nothing was ever so simple that a man could point and say, “It began there”; God’s creation was too complex, too layered, for that to be true. Origins always lay far back in time. The beginning of Calesh’s homecoming might have been his departure, eleven years before, when he was a half-trained young fighting man being rushed into battle before he was truly ready. Perhaps it was when his grandfather had made the same voyage in answer to the All-Church’s first call for warriors to fight against the infidel. Or it could be further back, so far distant that the skein of events tangled and faded into a half-forgotten past, more myth than history. Before anyone had even heard of Tura d’Madai, or argued over the indivisibility of God, and the Hidden House was only stones in a quarry.

  Luthien might be right. He usually was.

  But new beginnings could happen, or could be made to happen. It had to be so, if men were not condemned to spend their days in grief for the sorrows of the past. There were places in a life when one could choose, as Calesh had chosen, which was why he was on a ship nearing home, with his years in foreign fields behind him and an uncertain future ahead, which might – who knew? – include his children playing carelessly among the orange trees.

  He liked that future, and a man was permitted to dream. Even if it was unlikely the dream would ever come true. He smiled a little, and that was when he heard a footfall on the deck behind him, as soft as the breath of sleep.