Wherein the author explains her silence.

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Part of: Administrivia

Hey everyone. Thanks for your patience over this long hiatus. I was planning an early January return date, but life got in the way (and I devoutly hope bad things come in threes and this is the end of it…), so that objective wasn’t realised. However, the good news is, A Frequent Traveller’s Guide to Jovan will return in late January – next Sunday, 29 January.

It will return with a little story called “Dusk”, and here is a preview:

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Valentin shook his head. Damn Isobel. Damn Luvina, damn Magnus, damn Dolmus, damn Jovan. Damn it all. He should have provoked that cove into a fight instead of scaring him off. He was spoiling for a turn-up now.

He was drawing close to the string of cheap bordellos unequal to the exorbitant rents in the Dusk, but considering themselves above the whores who worked the sea wall. Here, the streets were lit by cheap tallow candles in bright paper lanterns, casting colours and shapes across the streets. Each colour meant something, a secret language Valentin considered it a point of pride to learn, even though he would never consider patronising an establishment which advertised itself so blatantly.

Unless, of course, he tired of living and began to fancy a long, slow death of venereal disease.

The streets were lined with whores, breasts spilling from their dresses, white thighs rising from deep slits in their skirts. He looked with appreciation but no desire. Some small consolation to know he hadn’t yet lost his will to live.

Beyond the street of lanterns was a long street of public houses and shops. Even at this late hour, the public houses were open and patrons were spilling out onto the street, faces shining and red with drink. Valentin picked a fight with a burly workman and came off the worse for it: in the end he surrendered his purse and tunic as forfeit in order to keep his sword.

Now feeling more like a vagabond than ever, but not dissatisfied with his bruised ribs and split lip, Valentin sauntered away down an alley. Only a couple more blocks to the edge of the Dusk. He heard a shout, then someone spun him around and punched him in the jaw. His teeth clacked together and his vision went briefly dark.

He stumbled and sprawled on the cobblestones, and had a sense of something damp and pungent seeping into the back of his shirt before his skull hit the curb and with a flash of blinding light he passed out. He revived a moment later to feel someone worrying at the ties binding his scabbard to his belt. The man looked up, met Valentin’s eyes, then reached out one hand, grabbed a handful of Valentin’s hair with one hand, and slammed his skull backwards against the stone.

When he woke this time, he was being dragged up a flight of stairs. “Oh, I’m being abducted, am I?” he mumbled.

“No, sir,” said a young female voice. “Be quiet. Though I’m glad to see you awake; you’ve had a nasty knock on the head.”

Valentin’s gorge rose, and he swallowed bile. His head was pounding. He considered putting a hand up to feel the damage, but one hand was slung over the bony shoulders of his rescuer, and the other didn’t seem to want to cooperate.

“My sword?”

“Gone,” said the girl. Reaching the landing, she propped him against the wall and went to open a door. Valentin looked around him. He was on the first floor of an insula. Filthy stone walls and unpolished wooden floors greeted him. The remnants of what had once been a wool rug half-heartedly protected the floor.

His rescuer was a slender girl neatly dressed in a homespun dress and apron. Domestic of some sort, he thought to himself. New to Monsilys, most likely. He surmised he must be in a boarding house. It wasn’t a brothel, at any rate; far too quiet for this time of night.

“Can you stand on your own?” asked the girl.

“What’s your name?” said Valentin.

“Elodia,” she replied, ducking a curtsey. Definitely a domestic.

“Thank you for saving me, Elodia,” he said. “Is this your room?”

“No, I share a bed with two other maids in the attic. I convinced the landlady to let you have a vacant room. I told her you seemed like you would be able to pay for it.” She paused. “The rooms here aren’t very expensive, you know.”

“You are kindness personified. Now tell me, is the muck I can feel sinking into the back of my shirt excrement?”

“Yes, sir. And some blood, I think. I fear the shirt may have to be given up for lost.”