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Description: Title: The Flying Barons of Negriponte Author: James Calbraith Publisher: Flying Squid Publication Date: September 20, 2023 Pages: 134 Genre: Historical Fantasy/Candlepunk They killed her father. They took her ship. But nothing will stop Ikaria's vengeance. Forty years since Constantinople fell to the Venetian flying citadels, high-altitude Aether racing is the favoured pastime of bored,…

# 📖First Chapter: The Flying Barons of Negriponte #firstchapter

Title: The Flying Barons of Negriponte

Author: James Calbraith

Publisher: Flying Squid

Publication Date: September 20, 2023

Pages: 134

Genre: Historical Fantasy/Candlepunk

#### They killed her father. They took her ship. But nothing will stop Ikaria’s vengeance.

Forty years since Constantinople fell to the Venetian flying citadels, high-altitude Aether racing is the favoured pastime of bored, wealthy Latin nobles. Ikaria, proud daughter of a legendary Aether engineer and one of the best racing pilots in the Aegean, is determined to uncover the truth behind her father’s mysterious disappearance at the end of the last Grande Regatta of Negriponte.

Driven by the thirst of vengeance and pursuit of engineering excellence in equal measures, Ikaria vows to win the next Regatta herself – and to find out what really happened to her father. But there’s a catch: a new Imperial edict bars her, and anyone not of noble blood, from taking part in Aether races. To her rescue comes Sire Mikhael of Chiarenza – an enigmatic handsome young Greek turncoat in the service of new Latin masters. His motivations unclear, the source of his funds and supplies a secret, Ikaria nonetheless agrees to accept his help: together, they set out to challenge the supremacy of the six Hexarchs, the infamous Flying Barons of Negriponte.

Pick up your copy of The Flying Barons of Negriponte at https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CJKXXQB1 .

First Chapter:

A black-headed gull landed on the bowsprit. It glanced around, confused as to why a small, sleek sailboat suddenly appeared in its path in the middle of a billowing cloud hundreds of feet above the surface of the sea. Its eyes met Ikaria’s; the bird squawked in indignation and spread its wings as if to protest this sin against God and nature. A sudden, violent gust pushed it off the spar. Still squawking in disgust, the gull continued on its way while the boat pushed onwards, deeper into the cloud and out the other side.

A white-washed dot of Saint Elijah’s chapel appeared among the rocky outcrops, marking the eastern end of the Chalcis Pass. Ikaria reached under her tunic and took out a small brass key, inlaid with a piece of ruby glass, hung on a silver chain at her neck. Gingerly, she inserted it into a slot in the side of the Caput Chamber and turned it a quarter to the right. A conduit linking the Inhibitor Retort with the Tribikos Manifold hissed, indicating a forming air gap. She turned the spigot in the nozzle, releasing half a dram of the Inhibitor into the Sublimation Aludel. It took another few moments for the reaction to start. She turned to the Hygroscope and observed the four liquids behind the pane of rock crystal: a mixture of quicksilver, aqua fortis, brine and fish oil, each coloured with a different hue of vitriol, indicated the proportion of gaseous Quintessence – the Naviferous Aether – in the air under the hull. The liquids bubbled behind the crystal, reacting to a sudden change in pressure, then stabilised at the new levels, layer upon layer, at their respective measuring notches carved in the crystal pane. And then – a new layer emerged where there shouldn’t be one: a fifth, ruby-coloured liquid filled out the unmarked space between the quicksilver and aqua fortis.

Ikaria barely needed the confirmation of the Hygroscope. She could feel the hull tremble; she could see the triangular Pteron wing flutter as the buoyancy beneath it decreased; she could smell the subtle change in the density of the Aether leaking over the Pteron; with a sharp lurch, the entire boat dropped straight down several dozen feet until at last, the surrounding pressures equalised, and the Aether-filled air took the hull in a soft embrace.

It was reckless. It was counterintuitive. It was against any established pilota custom. The air was barely dense enough to support the tiny, fragile gondola; it wasn’t enough to keep it straight and balanced, so Ikaria was forced to constantly counter the sudden draughts and gusts with tugs on the yards and the pulls of the rudder, else the boat would capsize at any moment in the unpredictable breezes. Her rivals would have by now slowed down, struck their sails and increased the rate of Sublimation in preparation for the challenging final crossing. This was Ikaria’s chance to catch up. She knew she could still glide the currents where others no longer dared, that she didn’t yet need to turn on the aeolipile, or Hero’s Engine – a turbine wheel fitted with wooden paddles, turned by the power of the Quintessence Engine’s exhaust fumes, used to propel the boat when the wind could no longer be relied upon.

She cut off the last of the ballast sacks. The gondola rose again, though not by much. Ikaria stared at the two hilltops in front of her; beyond them, the mouth of the pass opened wide onto the green plain below, stretching for the last couple of miles before the finish line. Shimmering in the afternoon haze, the tall stone mooring towers of La Citta di Negriponte, the island’s capital city, rose high over the battlements. Where a bend of the Euripos Strait carved an arch deep into the land, the sea water was brown from the churning tides, pock-marked with white dashes of the billows rushing against the beach. Ikaria braced herself as the gondola passed between the final two hills, its keel almost touching the domed roof of Elijah’s chapel. A gust struck from the larboard first; the stern lurched to starboard, the entire boat heeled at a threatening angle. Ikaria countered with the rudder, but with the air so thin, she had little to push against. Wrong, she scolded herself. She acted on instinct, but this was no place for instinct; this was science. She slackened the mainsail until the turning boat picked up the new gust, then trimmed it swiftly. The hull turned upright again.

Ikaria wiped the sweat from her brow. She looked up to see the bottom of another boat, a heavy barchetta soaring majestically above her, sails and ropes neatly trimmed, the pilota having already turned on the aeolipile to reach the finish line; she couldn’t spot the crest on the sail from below, but she could imagine the surprise on the pilota’s face as he watched her pass swiftly beneath his keel.

All the racers in front of the pack were veterans of the sport, wealthy aristocrats who lavished their court alchemists and engineers with gold in exchange for the finest, fastest, most agile Aether boats current skill and knowledge could provide. They knew each other well, and they raced for the sheer glory and exhilaration of victory rather than pursuit of reward. Not that the reward was foremost in Ikaria’s mind, though the promised purse of golden ducats and a gem-studded goblet would undoubtedly come in handy to fund her further experiments. Ikaria was a newcomer; she had built her boat with her own hands, almost from scratch, with only her father’s blueprints for help. This Theban Regatta was the final race of the season, her first and last chance to thoroughly test her design before the winter winds. She hadn’t yet dared fly this ship in public before. Nobody had yet seen what her Quintessence Engine was capable of; nobody had yet witnessed the power of the ruby-studded key and her father’s Seraphim Lock. Until now.

The crosswinds eased as the gondola flew out onto the plain. Ikaria could now straighten the hull, trim the sail a little – and turn the ruby key a fraction to the left again. The layers in the Hygroscope wobbled imperceptibly. The Pteron grew taut. Ikaria glanced once more at the Hygroscope, then raised the forward exhaust valve, increasing the density in the front of the gondola. Holding the rudder tight, Ikaria glanced back – she could now see that rare, faint line tearing through the mystical elements swirling underneath the hull: the Aether wake, a gleaming, rainbow-coloured ripple of condensed steam and alchemical vapours which appeared only when the boat sailed at its highest speed. The gondola’s bow tilted upwards, out of the Aether, riding the pure air propelled by the mysterious interaction of forces that not even her father fully understood. If unchecked, the gondola could easily flip over and crash, just like the toy Aether boats in Ikaria’s experiments; all it took was one rogue gust or an unseen air hole to send the hull flying.

But the gain in speed was worth all the risk. Ikaria passed the next boat with ease; its sail painted azure with a golden band marked it as belonging to Sire Saint-Omer, Half-Lord of the Thebes. This surprised her; the master of the city of Thebes was the favourite to win this year – after all, the regatta started in his home town, and the route mainly ran through his domain. He must have made some mistake at the final approach – she glimpsed the hapless pilota struggling with the halyard, the mainsail fluttering in the side wind. This meant that there was only one boat left in front of Ikaria: a sleek, cerulean-blue barchetta flown by none other than Gilberto da Verona, the son of Guglielmo, the Baron-Overlord of Negriponte: the wealthiest and the most skilled pilota on the island – and perhaps, all of Latin Greece.

She tugged on the sheet, feeling the breeze, searching for a gust that would propel her forward even faster, but she couldn’t find it. The hull of her gondola was trembling and creaking dangerously on the swift currents, threatening to fall apart under the competing pressures. The gondola surged forward on its cushion of light Aether, still tilted upwards and still much faster than Verona’s, or any other boat taking part in the race – but Ikaria still couldn’t be sure if it’d be enough to overtake Gilberto before both of them reached the finish line.

As the twin, square ‘Frankish’ mooring towers at the eastern end of the Negriponte Bridge came into view, a mischievous thought occurred to Ikaria. She was now just a few hundred feet behind Gilberto’s boat. If she positioned herself just right, she could steal the wind out of her opponent’s sail. It was risky – do it wrong, and she could end up with her sails aflutter herself; but she didn’t get this far without taking risks. Carefully studying the billows below her for the right direction, she leant on the rudder. The boat swayed to starboard. A short while later, she felt the familiar sharp tug on the sail: she caught a new breeze. Verona’s sail, meanwhile, fluttered and flapped, then hung on the ropes, limp and futile. Quick-thinking, Gilberto promptly unlocked the aeolipile to help him onwards, but it was too late; Ikaria’s boat leapt ahead. The two boats passed within inches of each other, the tips of their Pterons almost touching; Ikaria’s vessel swayed in the Aether waves produced by Gilberto’s much larger barchetta. She clutched the ropes tightly in her hands; the mast creaked from the strain. Any greater tilt and the boat would capsize… But it held straight. The twin towers grew closer until, at last, the keel of Ikaria’s gondola cut through the thin silk rope stretched between them.

The crowd below fell quiet for a second, as if uncertain how to react to this unknown pilota defeating all the famous and wealthy Latin noblemen at the last moment – and then erupted in deafening cheers.

She moored the boat to the southern tower and turned the Caput key to ‘Land’. The complex system of pulleys, weights and gears regulating the flow of Aether inside the Caput lowered the pressure of the exhaust steadily until the gondola gently descended into the waters of La Citta’s harbour. A jubilant crowd gathered at the piazza adjacent to the pier. Ikaria searched for Marco: she knew he’d be here, cheering the loudest, but he was hard to spot in the packed crowd; at last, she saw him, bright-eyed and dark-haired, waving a green cloth cap in his hand – but just then, the broad smile on his face turned into a confused scowl; a troop of Imperial Guards shoved Marco and several other onlookers aside. The crowd hushed. The guards, resplendent in bright red tabards over gleaming mail, capes with the Imperial Eagle on their backs and curved falchions hanging threateningly at their belts, stomped towards Ikaria; following closely by were several burly dock workers, hammers and axes in their hands. She glanced around to see who else these men might be coming for, but all she saw was Gilberto da Verona, climbing out of his barchetta and looking at her with a mocking grin.

The commander of the guard loomed over Ikaria with a stern expression and unrolled a piece of parchment, freshly marked with the Imperial Seal; the red wax was still dripping. He showed it to the crowd first to prove his actions had all the correct credentials, before reading the order out loud.

“By the decree of His Illustrious Imperial Majesty, Baldwin of Courtenay,” he started, “and in accordance with the Assizes of Romania, in this year of our Lord twelve hundred and forty-three, in the month of September, we declare: that only those of noble blood are allowed to participate in the regattas organised anywhere within the Empire and its subject and allied territories. Anyone of common stock caught trying to take part in a race will receive a fine and have their vessel confiscated. Repeat offenders will be punished more severely.”

“What?” Ikaria cried out. “Since when? I know nothing about this!”

“The decree came into law this morning,” the guard said. “Just before the start of the race. Did nobody tell you? You had plenty of time to withdraw.”

The third boat finally arrived at the mooring tower. Ikaria caught a knowing glance exchanged between Saint-Omer and Verona; of course – the master of the Thebes would have had the means to delay the pronouncement of the Imperial decree in his city until all the regatta boats launched. This was all a plot against her. There have been a few other commoners in the competition, but none that could threaten the position of the nobles the way Ikaria could. They knew all along.

“I won fairly,” she said. “They can all confirm it.” She pointed to the crowd around her. “I deserve a reward, not punishment!”

The onlookers all murmured in angry agreement, but it only took the guards to reach for their swords to silence them all down. Like Ikaria herself, most of the townsfolk were local Greeks; they remembered well the massacres that the Latin invaders perpetrated when taking the city and knew how easily the soldiers could succumb to the blood lust at the slightest perceived offence. The crowd moved away from the commander’s glare as if the man could send death with only his gaze.

“Enough,” the commander declared. “Step aside, girl. You two,” he ordered the dockyard workers, “you know what to do.”

“No!” Ikaria shouted and launched herself at the workers. “You have no right – it’s my father’s work –!”

Two guards grabbed and shoved her at the piazza’s hard, hot pavement. The impact stunned her for a moment; when she came to, Marco was beside her, holding her back from launching at the guards again.

“You can’t help it,” he insisted. “They’ll kill you if you try.”

The dock workers stood on the deck, one of them dismantling the rudder and the aeolipile, the others hacking and smashing at the brass tubes and crystal orbs of the Quintessence Engine.

“Stop!” Ikaria let out a futile cry. “You have no idea what you’re doing! I haven’t even turned the Caput off! There’s still vitriol in those conduits – if you break them…”

She heard the hiss first, then saw the twin plumes of red and blue steam, and then, a blink of an eye later, a powerful blast shook the harbour, showering the piers and the piazza with splinters, debris and fragments of shattered wharf wall. One such piece flew straight towards Ikaria’s brow, the dull strike sending her into oblivion.

With a hand clad in a glove of salamander cloth, Ikaria took the annealed copper tube from the furnace. She put it in a clamp and, with a wooden mallet, started hammering at one end, slowly bending the tube until it achieved the desired shape. She lifted it to the light and nodded to herself in satisfaction.

“How’s it going?”

An old, bearded man entered her cave, dressed in simple clothes of a common man: a light-blue tunic, a fur-lined mantle of red oiled cloth – it was a cold January day, the northerly wind blew fierce over the Aegean – and plain stockings of russet wool; he was a Greek, like Ikaria, but the medallion of the Cicon family embroidered on his mantle – a black horizontal stripe on a brown background – showed he was a turncoat, working as a chamberlain for the Latin master of the nearby castle and all the surrounding land: Otto de Cicon, Baron of Anemopylae, one of the six Hexarchs of Negriponte.

Marco, sitting cross-legged on the floor and busy chiselling a guiding groove into a long piece of cedar wood, leapt up at the old man’s sight and bowed deeply as a mark of respect. Though Marco’s father was a minor Venetian noble, the boy himself always felt and behaved more like a commoner in the presence of those of higher stature, even if they were mere Greeks.

Ikaria only gave the chamberlain a slight polite nod and reached for another copper tube. “It is no more ready today than it was yesterday, Ignatios,” she said. “Tell your master if he wants to hurry the work, he needs to provide me with ingots of far greater quality than this dross. I’m wasting too much time cleansing the impurities.”

“He’s your master too, Ikaria,” Ignatios reminded her, pointing at the crest on Ikaria’s own cloak, thrown over the back of her chair.

She scowled. “I am a free Greek, like my mother. I only work for Otto because he pays me.”

Ignatios threw his hands in the air. “Show some gratitude, girl! If it wasn’t for the Baron, you’d have been whipped and pilloried. Two of the Emperor’s men lost their lives on that piazza!”

“I did warn them not to damage the engine. Besides, I’m sure I must have repaid my debt of gratitude with interest. I am the best engineer and alchemist in the entire Hexarchy, and for the last six months, I’ve been tinkering with the spare parts and impure preparations. I need work – real work!”

Ignatios smiled mysteriously. “About that – I may soon have some good news for you.”

She put away the tube and removed the salamander glove to brush the hair from her brow. She was once proud of her dark, raven-black curls, but years of working with alchemical fumes bleached them to an almost translucent white, with a few stripes gleaming rainbow like the shimmer of the Quintessence wake. “What are you talking about, old man?”

“Word is, the Baron will need someone to work on a ship for the Grande Regatta.”

“He’s going to run in the Regatta?” exclaims Marco.

“Not him, of course – he’s far too old. His son, Guy.”

“It’s only six months,” Ikaria said. “I can’t build a boat in six months.”

“The hull is ready,” said Ignatios. “The Donna Agnes, the same batella the Baron sailed the last two times. All it needs is a new Quintessence Engine.”

“A ten-year-old wreck, then. He’s not serious about his son’s chances, is he?” She scratched her head. “When can I have a look at it?”

“As soon as the Baron returns from La Citta. Shouldn’t be more than two, three days.”

“Fine. Send someone down when it’s all ready. Now let me get back to work – I still have four of these pipes to go through today.”

Ignatios nodded, took one last glance at the mess of metal, crystal and other scrap strewn about the workshop, crossed himself and retreated from the cave.

Marco ran up to Ikaria and hugged her.

“What are you so happy about?” she asked, pushing the boy gently away.

“An engine!” Marco cried. “You’ll get to work on a real engine again!”

“An engine for a Latin’s boat,” she spat. “I’m sorry,” she added quickly, remembering the boy, too, was a Latin: a scion of a family of sailors and carpenters from Venice. “You know I don’t think of you the same as those nobles. You’re my friend – my only friend… And yes” – she rustled his hair – “I suppose I am glad to be back at my proper job. But we’ll have to see that heap of scrap and splinter Otto de Cicon calls his batella before we can truly rejoice. There must be a reason why I’ve never heard of him or his son winning any trophies.”

The small, plain graveyard by the Panteleimon’s Chapel, on a hilltop overlooking the harbour town of Caristo, was empty and quiet in the morning. A robin trilled in the branches of a gnarled, bare pine tree, which grew over the two graves as Ikaria laid a bundle of wild winter flowers on each tombstone.

The stone on the left was marked with the slanted Byzantine cross and the name of her mother: Ariadne of Caristo. The date carved on the tomb showed her die only a couple years after Ikaria’s birth, in the great Cyprus earthquake of Twelve Twenty-Two; too early for the girl to remember anything about her other than a few glimpses of her soft, beautiful face, as if chiselled out of a piece of Naxos marble, and the scent of olive oil and rose water with which she washed her long, black hair. Ariadne of Caristo; the reason why her father had moved to this remote place at the far southern tip of the Negriponte Island from Vicenza, never to return to his Italian homeland.

Her father’s tomb, though newer, was overgrown with moss, lichen and thorns; Ikaria never cleaned it thoroughly, wary not to reveal the straight Latin cross carved into the soft stone. This was a Greek cemetery – the Latin invaders had their own lavish burial ground just outside the Red Castle, a mighty fortress built on a nearby hill to ‘guard’ the town – or rather, make sure its people remain faithful to their new masters; but her father had insisted on being buried beside his beloved Ariadne and the priest at Saint Panteleimon’s, knowing how strong their love was, graciously agreed; as long as the two graves were set aside from the rest, under the dark, twisted pine.

Ikaria removed only enough thorns and moss to unveil her father’s name: Roberto da Caldogno; the date of his death – almost exactly ten years ago – and a small, barely perceptible mark carved underneath of horned circle and cross: the sign of Mercury, the crest of the alchemists’ order. She put her hands together and whispered a prayer for her parents’ souls, then sat down on a patch of ice-parched grass in the pine’s shade, waiting for the robin to finish its song.

“I’m working for the Latins now, Father,” she started, tightening her cloak around her shoulders. “Baron Otto of Anemopylae. He was in the Grande Regatta with you – but you wouldn’t remember him, he was one of the last to finish. Of course, at least he did finish…”

It was nine years and four months ago, at the Grande Regatta of Negriponte, the greatest of Aether races in the whole of Empire, that her father had lost his life. In the final stage, as the boats rushed over the Volo Gulf towards Demetrias, Roberto’s gondola mysteriously vanished into the calm waters below, seemingly without a trace, until, a few days later, the waves started washing out the charred flotsam and, eventually, Roberto’s bloated remains. The cause of the accident seemed clear – judging by the scorch marks on the wood and the pieces of brass casing bent out of shape, the Quintessence Engine must have exploded as Roberto pushed it to its limits, pursuing the victory: an unfortunate but common enough occurrence.

“I never believed that it was a simple accident,” she whispered to the tombstone. “You’ve always been too careful, too precise. You never took any chances. You wouldn’t have risked it – not even for the ultimate victory… It was them. They hated you – for the love you’ve shown to the Greeks, for the secrets you threatened to reveal, for your blasphemous discoveries… And so they plotted against you – just like they now plot against me. They even convinced the Emperor to release his edict just in time to ban me from taking part in the next Grande Regatta.” She wiped a tear from her eye and touched the stone, cool in the shade despite the spring heat. “I’m sorry, father. I have failed. I will never win the Regatta now – never get the trofeo – they made sure of it. The Greeks of Negriponte will forever be slaves to their Latin masters. They are lording over us even in our own home town.”

She rubbed her sore wrists with a scowl. On the way to the chapel, as she passed through Caristo, she saw the Hexarch’s guards wrestling with a Greek family in front of their house; the father lay in the gutter, blood trickling from a cracked skull, and the soldiers were manhandling his wife, children and an elderly mother. Ikaria rushed to their aid without a second thought. Only Baron de Cicon’s crest on her cloak saved her from being put in the gaol with the others; instead, one of the guards simply grabbed her wrists and held her in place until the entire family was hauled away to the Red Castle.

“That will teach them to pay their due taxes,” the guard said as he let Ikaria go. “And you, girl, better watch yourself. This isn’t Sire Cicon’s land. Next time, we may not be so lenient.”

Forty years had passed since the Latin and Frankish knights and their Venetian paymasters treacherously captured Constantinople, the greatest city in the world, sacking and razing it into ruin, murdering and raping its inhabitants, sending the true Emperor and his court into exile and eventual death; they then proceeded to take the remaining lands of the Empire and parcel them among themselves. Mercenaries, adventurers, rogue noblemen wandered all over Morea, Macedonia, Thessalia and the islands of the Aegean Sea, taking over the castles and towns, inventing for themselves preposterous titles like ‘the Megadux of Lemnos’ or ‘Marquis of Bodonitsa’ – and subjugating the local population with a rule harsh and unjust, exploiting the serfs and the townsfolk alike for tax and plunder. The rich and fertile island of Chalcis, which the Latins renamed Negriponte, the Black Bridge – after the ancient, age-blackened crossing linking it with the mainland – had the misfortune to be seized by three such robber families all at once; the three Barons divided it among themselves and ruled in relative peace for a while at first – but their six sons did not share their fathers’ patience. The fratricidal war which erupted twelve years after the conquest was so long and bloody that, in an unusual turn of events, the Emperor and the Doge of Venice themselves felt compelled to intervene personally.

It was then that the Grande Regatta was established; with the island now split into six parts, the Emperor had decreed that once every five years, the Barons would solve their differences in a great Aether race around the island and decide who among them would take the overlordship of the Hexarchy.

The trofeo of Negriponte came later, long after the first Regatta – at the request of the Barons who wanted to draw more glory and more ducats to the spectacle. It was the greatest prize of all, its worth potentially limitless: the winner of the Grande Regatta could request from the Emperor anything they wished: any treasure, title, property, an Imperial pardon… But the lure of the trofeo was a false one. The six Barons prided themselves on the skill of their pilotas, engineers and alchemists; they spent fortunes making sure no other contestant could get even close to their gondolas, batellas and barchettas – and none ever did. The prize remained a meaningless curiosity until that fateful Regatta ten years ago, when a mere commoner, a merchant’s son from Vicenza, challenged the Barons on their home ground – and came closer to winning than anyone had ever come before.

“Your father was a great man.”

The unfamiliar voice startled her. Ikaria jumped to her feet, reaching to her waist for the dagger. The young man standing before her – not much older than herself – wore the rich clothes of a Latin nobleman, broad-sleeved and layered in crimsons, azures, yellows and purples, all trimmed with precious northern furs; a short sword in a jewel-studded sheath hung from a golden chain-girdle at his waist; but on his head, bound with long, black curls falling to his shoulders, rested the square red cap of a Greek commoner, rather than the dark velvet hat of a Latin – and his robe bore no crest.

“Who are you?” she asked, pointing at him with the dagger. “What do you know about my father?”

The young man raised his hands. “Only what everyone here knows. That he was a friend to the Greeks. That he was the finest Aether engineer in the Empire – and the only commoner to ever challenge the Hexarchs in the Grande Regatta.”

“You’re a Greek?” she asked, the dagger still firmly in her hand. She studied his face more closely. He was fairly handsome, with thick eyebrows arched over deeply set round eyes, a broad, slightly curved nose and full lips, pale from cold, curved in a seemingly perpetual light smile. “But you’re a noble.”

Forty years after the Latin Conquest, there shouldn’t have been any Greek noblemen left on the island, all their lands confiscated, their families dead or banished to the East, where the rump successor states of the old Empire still clung on to the wind-swept, rocky shores of Anatolé. She certainly hadn’t heard of any young nobles fitting the description of the man standing before her.

“Correct on both counts,” the man smiled. “I am Mikhael, son of Andronikos, knight of Chiarenza.” He bowed, deeply.

“And what is Chiarenza?”

“A town in Morea, on the Ionian coast.”

“A turncoat, then,” Ikaria said, scowling in disgust. Like Chamberlain Ignatios, this Mikhael was a traitor to his people, facilitating the Latin Conquest of his kin. “What did you do? Chased after some tax debtors? Threw out a poor family from their land to take it for yourself?” she scoffed. “And the reward for your betrayal – a chance to further serve your masters, to assist in the oppression instead of being oppressed yourself?”

Mikhael of Chiarenza shrugged one shoulder. “What I did to deserve my titles is neither here nor there. Thanks to my efforts, I am now in a position to ease the burden of my fellow Greeks. Help them – help you.”

“Me? How can you help me? And why would you? What are you even doing here on Negriponte – Morea is a long way away.”

“Please,” – he touched the tip of her dagger with his finger – “Why don’t you put that nasty thing away and let us retire to some more suitable place to discuss what I have to offer. I assure you it will be worth your while. Assuming, of course, you have finished paying respects to your parents.”

Ikaria sheathed the dagger, still eyeing the stranger suspiciously.

“There’s a shepherd’s shelter halfway down the hill,” she said. “No one will disturb us there – if you can stand the smell.”

“I have seen it on the way here.” He nodded. “It will do us just fine.”

About the Author:

James Calbraith is a Poland-born Scottish writer of history-adjacent novels, coffee drinker, Steely Dan fan and avid traveller.

Growing up in communist Poland on a diet of powdered milk, “Lord of the Rings” and soviet science-fiction, he had his first story published at the ripe age of eight. After years of bouncing around Polish universities, he moved to London in 2007 and started writing in English. Now lives in Edinburgh, hoping for an independent Scotland.

His debut historical fantasy novel, “The Shadow of Black Wings“, has reached Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award semi-finals in 2012. “The Year of the Dragon” saga sold over 30,000 copies worldwide.

His new historical fiction saga, “The Song of Ash” has been on top of Amazon’s Bestseller lists in UK for months.

Connect with James:

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❤️"Oh, awesome!! Thank you so much! You ran such a lovely tour. Those images are great, I look forward to using them and will miss seeing the regular postings on Twitter ;-).
I really appreciate your steadfast and ongoing support. It means a lot!!"Palmer Pickering, MOON DEEDS

❤️"Just wanted to send you a quick note to say thank you again for the amazing blog tour and to tell you that we will be adding the tour to Mark's author website in the next few days. We will of course be recommending your company to other authors we know. And when Mark's next book is out, we will use your services again." Kirsten Grenside on behalf of Mark Grenside, FALL OUT

❤️"Thank you for all the great, creative, work you have done on behalf of my book. You are
a special lady, as a kind hearted woman and a professional."
Maria Andrade, DEFIANCE AND REDEMPTION

❤️"Everyone did an excellent job. The blog pages were beautiful, and the trailer was so clever and funny. Thanks for sending these lovely "souvenirs" from my tour. I will be able to use all of these posts on Twitter. I enjoyed this so much and look forward to my next tour!"
Irene Woodbury, HONEYMOON ROULETTE

❤️"I am delighted with the results of my recent tour with Pump Up Your Book. Dorothy is meticulous and professional, presents beautifully laid out pages, maintains constant contact with the client, and gives more than expected value for money. In a nutshell: you get what you pay for and more on top! I will certainly be using Dorothy’s services for my other Regency romance books.”
Arabella Sheraton, THE LORD BLACKWOOD REGENCY ROMANCE SERIES

❤️"Thank you so much for The Shadow of Atlantis tour. I've really enjoyed all the posts and seeing my book being promoted. I will definitely come back to you with another of my titles!"
Wendy Leighton-Porter, THE SHADOW OF ATLANTIS

❤️"Thank you so much for the great job on the book tour! Pump Up Your Book was a driving force in the launch of THE PILATE SCROLL!"
M.B. Lewis, THE PILATE SCROLL

❤️"Thank you ever so much - it was a fun tour. I will continue singing your praises to my fellow authors. And grateful for the images, I will put them to continued use."
Kathleen Shaputis, HIS KILT DROPPED HERE

❤️"I appreciate you and your hard work. Thank you for creating these awesome images for my book and allowing me to use them. I am very thankful to have them!"
Joni Ankerson, TO KILL OR BE KILLED

❤️"Thank you for an Amazing Virtual Book Tour for Son of a Soldier! I really appreciate all the work you put into it!"
Aiken Brown, SON OF A SOLDIER

❤️"Thanks so much for getting ANNA INCOGNITO out there and reviewed and shared with so many people. It was great to see it on so many twitter feeds!"
Laura Preble, ANNA INCOGNITO

❤️"Thank you so much for such a fantastic tour! You did an amazing job getting it together so quickly, and I couldn’t have been happier!"
Lena Gregory, GRAVE CONSEQUENCES

❤️"Thank you so much Dorothy! I appreciate your hard work. Love the graphics!"
Jennifer Chase, FLOWERS ON HER GRAVE

❤️"This has been one of the best things I’ve done as an author. Not only am I getting the word out about my books but I’m learning about my own work and my readers along the way. I love it!"
Elysia Strife, A PROMISE IN ASH

❤️"Today my blog tour ended, with another great review which made me end the tour with a big smile! What a fun way to end this incredible 4-week tour. I will surely miss it. I want to thank you for arranging it so well and for being there for me whenever I needed. Thank you!!!"

Miri Leshem-Pelly, SCRIBBLE & AUTHOR

❤️"I think you did an excellent job, thank you!"
Shami Stovall, KNIGHTMARE ARCANIST

❤️"Just wanted to thank you for the book tour. :) You did a great job. :)"
Suzanne M. Hurley, THE TEDDY BEAR EYE CLUB

❤️"I just wanted to thank you for a wonderful virtual tour in August for Brimstone and Water. I was very happy with the amount of attention given to the book and to me. I am mentioning it to friends on line that haven't gone to the site yet to be sure and take a look. Thanks for all your work."
Sharon House, BRIMSTONE AND WATER

❤️"Thank you for running my book promotion for BlackJack. I am so pleased with the reviews that came in and appreciated all you did. My sales have improved from being around 800,000 down to the 200,000 on Amazon and hopefully dropping still. I will definitely be contacting you for a promotion again."
Christine Donovan, BLACKJACK

❤️"You’ve been a joy to work with, and I’d do another tour with you in a heartbeat. Overall, it was an excellent experience and a good value. I’ll be sure to look you up when it’s time to release my next book."
Michael Allan Scott, GREY DAZE

❤️"Just wanted to thank you for putting together a great tour for You Won't Remember This. I think the author was pleasantly surprised and overall very pleased."
Bacon Press Books

❤️"Dorothy, thanks so much for another great VBT!!! The Twitter-Party was a new feature this time that I particularly enjoyed. I will continue to recommend PUYB to my writer-friends, because you are simply the best!!!"
T.M. Wallace, WINTERGARDEN

❤️"Thank you for a great blog tour for my “Depression and Your Child.”
I’m in the middle of my third book and will definitely call on you again when it’s time to market it."
Deborah Serani, DEPRESSION AND YOUR CHILD

❤️"Your hard work and professionalism hasn't gone unnoticed. When I release my next novel(s), I will definitely use your service. I have already recommended you to several authors."
Ashley Fontainne, GROWL

❤️"Thanks for a very good experience with Pump Up Your Book. Fighter Pilot's Daughter has sold out of the first printing (still available as POD on Rowman & Littlefield's site, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, etc.). My editor at R & L says there's a very good chance the book will come out in paperback in the summer. He asked me "Did you hire a publicist or something?" I told him about you, and he was impressed."
Mary Lawlor, FIGHTER PILOT'S DAUGHTER

❤️"You are amazing Dorothy and I love what you do to get the spirit of our books out to the world. Thank you!"
Lee Papa, TEMPLE OF ALL KNOWING

❤️"I can't believe the response this book is getting! I am so very thrilled that she liked it!!! You are THE BEST, Dorothy, for hooking up this amazing tour with all these stunning reviews! This was the book I was going to keep under my bed forever and ever and now WOW. I can't believe this is happening. It's like a dream come true!"
Madeline Wynn, DAUGHTER OF THE FALLEN

❤️"Just wanted to say I'm appreciating your tweets so much. This is really helping my book sales, and I'm telling writer friends about you."
Mary Lawlor, FIGHTER PILOT'S DAUGHTER

❤️"Thank you SO much!!!! I had a blast on the tour and appreciate all the time the bloggers and reviewers spent promoting Ash to Steele:)"
Karen-Anne Stewart, ASH TO STEELE

❤️"When it comes to looking for a virtual book tour coordinator, Dorothy Thompson of Pump Up Your Book Tours is simply the best. I have tried several virtual book tour coordinators and have even set up a book tour on my own, but none of them were as successful as my tours with Pump Up Your Book Tour, which has the combination of expertise and experience needed to get the author the results they need. On this latest tour, TWELVE TO MURDER made it up to number three on Amazon! Thank you, Dorothy!"
Lauren Carr, Best-Selling Mystery Author of Mac Faraday, and Lovers in Crime, Mysteries

❤️"Thank you again for all of your help and support for my recent book tour. You were so supportive and responsive, and I enjoyed working with you. It was a great tour and I really enjoyed it, especially when my book hit the top 100 in the two subcategories! That was awesome! Thanks for "pumping up my book!""
Monique Roy, ACROSS GREAT DIVIDES

❤️"Thank you for another amazing tour, Dorothy!! I loved the sites I had an opportunity to visit and the people I met along the way. I even made a few new friends and found wonderful supporters that I'll never forget - I promise! The exposure you gave my book was absolutely unbelievable, and I can't think of a better way to welcome and expose an author's new creation to the literary world. Happy New Year to all your readers and may your success continue to grow. "
Kaylin McFarren, BURIED THREADS

❤️"Thank you for a great virtual book tour. I thought it went really well and it was great to have a wave of PR that flowed through the two month period of my book release. I'm working on my next book - and will definitely reach out to you when it comes time to market! You were a delight to work with and really made me feel looked after. As I've mentioned before, I just don't know how you do it all."
--Deborah Serani, DEPRESSION AND YOUR CHILD

❤️"I just wanted to let you know how wonderful I felt my book blast went for Be Careful What You Wish For in the month of August. So many emails and contacts that I would never have gotten. The publicity was just phenomenal!"
--R.K. Avery, BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR

❤️"Just wanted to touch base with you and extend a huge thank you for the wonderful and successful book blast you arranged for Love Vindicated for me. I was very happy with your services and will be passing your name and brand along to some writer friends with a stellar recommendation. Again thanks and I look forward to working with you again in the future."
--Lila Munro, LOVE VINDICATED

❤️"Thank you so much for all your hard work in putting together the virtual book tour for The Sixth Power. I appreciate it so much."
--Carol Nicolas, THE SIXTH POWER

❤️"Thank you SO MUCH for such a great blog tour!"
--Sandra D. Bricker, ALWAYS THE BAKER, FINALLY THE BRIDE

❤️"Wow - you are absolutely fantastic. Can't believe how lucky I was to find you :)"
--Jo Sparkes, THE BIRR ELIXIR

❤️"I just wanted to let you know that tonight Steven Manchester's Twelve Months became The Story Plant's first #1 Kindle bestseller. This couldn't have happened without you. Barb's cover is an absolute showstopper, Sue's copyediting boosted the overall work, Jackie's proofreading kept all of us honest, and Tracee Gleichner's blog tour started what has become an avalanche of great reviews."
-- Lou Aronica, STORY PLANT

❤️"Blog tours have been the most effective promotion I’ve done. Dorothy Thompson and her company Pump Up Your Book are the greatest. I’ve spent money with other promotion companies that advertised packages then didn’t deliver the service they advertised, inflated their audience and reach and point blank falsely represented themselves. Dorothy has been a Godsend, and by far, her services are the best promotional endeavors I’ve invested in thus far."
-- Alicia Singleton, DARK SIDE OF VALOR

❤️"I didn't realize that there is a place on amazon that you can see your stats for foreign sales; mine are really good and I believe it is your tweeting service. I think I might have found the key to successful self-publishing when I found Pump Up Your Books."
-- Suzanne Jenkins, PAM OF BABYLON SERIES

❤️"Dorothy Thompson helped promote my book, Gringos in Paradise: Our Honduras Odyssey. Taking part in it was so much easier (and less expensive) than the travel schedule I was hving to keep doing on my own. She set up everything, coached me through my part, and I found my book and I promoted it all over the Internet. It definitely increased my book sales."
-- Malana Ashlie, GRINGOS IN PARADISE

❤️"Dorothy was not only a lot of fun to work with but she helped me get the word out about my book. I would recommend her to both debut and experienced authors."
---Deborah Woehr, PROSPERITY: A GHOST STORY

❤️“Dorothy is a firecracker promoter. She is skilled at finding the most visible placements in promoting your book with unmatched enthusiasm.She is creatively talented and a wonderful person to have on your team.”
--Kathy Holmes Eckardt, REAL WOMEN WEAR RED

❤️“I invested in a three month virtual book tour with Pump Up Your Books promotions for my noir thriller, Moonlight Falls. Not only did the marketing campaign work wonders for spreading the word about the new novel, in the very last month, on the very last day of the tour, Moonlight Falls became an Amazon Kindle bestseller!”
–Vincent Zandri, MOONLIGHT FALLS and THE REMAINS

❤️“I’m so pleased every day when I look at Google Alerts and see our titles all around the blogosphere, so thanks for that!”
–-World Ahead Media

❤️“This has been a wonderful experience. Dorothy Thompson and her whole team are very committed to each author, take each author’s tour very seriously, and work towards maximum exposure in the right places. This is the best book promotion expenditure I’ve made in terms of return on investment. I highly recommend Pump Up Your Book Promotion.”
--Phyllis Zimbler Miller, MRS: LIEUTENANT

❤️"I used Pump Up Your Book promotions a few months ago for my novel, Nephilim. My publisher is a great person, but when it comes to promotions, she encourages authors to do that on their own. Enter Dorothy Thompson at Pump Up Your Book. I had 8 reviews of the book and was featured as a guest author every day of the week at various websites during the month that I used her company. Amazing! She secured everything for me which was really nice and I didn't have to do anything but write a few blogs or answer interview questions. I would use Pump Up Your Book again in a heart beat!"
--Mary Ann Loesch, NEPHILIM

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A lot of hard work! I sponsor a lot of on line parties, festivals and contests. Book sales don’t magically happen, believe me. An author has to work hard to earn her readers. And then she has to work hard to keep them by giving them something they’ll enjoy reading. I try hard to make my books worth a reader’s time.

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