Courage comes in many forms — as you will see in these fifteen short stories, set across time and worlds — by a group of talented, award-winning writers. Courage in defence, courage in love, courage in the face of loss, from early-medieval times to the present.
Here’s the opening of my story, ‘The Phoenix’:
The envoys arrived late on a spring afternoon, asking to see me immediately. I gave them the courtesy of an audience, but only to greet them. Two men, one grey-haired, the other younger, both travel-stained and weary. Their message, I said firmly, could wait until tomorrow. In the meantime, there were baths and wine, comfortable beds, a quiet meal in their rooms.
I told them all this with my throat tight and a sense of cold creeping along my spine. Of all the places these men might have been from, Halachia was not one I might have expected.
“Not now,” the grey-haired man said. “The Principe has said she will hear us tomorrow. Nothing can happen tonight.” He bowed his head to me. “I apologize for my nephew, Principe. He is here as my secretary, but he is inexperienced in court protocols.”
That was no surprise. How could he be? Halachia had been under Kidari rule for nearly twenty years, and the Kidari, who had swept into the lands at the eastern end of the inland sea to conquer not just Casil, but almost all the small countries that had been provinces or client kingdoms of Casil’s empire, did not allow the subjugated people of those lands much participation in governance. But if these men were here, it meant something had changed. I needed time to consider what that might be, and the implications for three people here in my little country bordering the western sea.
I had an advisory council, men and women to whom I could take my concerns. But there was only one person whose advice I wanted now: my brother’s. For almost twenty years, I had turned to Colm first when problems went beyond the day-to-day governance of Ésparias. When Casil had fallen and Colm had returned home, I’d been clear with him. I needed him with me, for support and advice. He had his own responsibilities, and not small ones: the school of medicine and more he had founded took most of his time and energy. Men and women from around the known world came to study or teach here; lectures were given, treatises written and translated, students encouraged and disciplined. But if the reason these two men from Halachia were here was what I thought it might be, then I needed Colm’s thoughts more than ever before.
Courage: Tales of History, Mystery and Hope is available as both an ebook and paperback.
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