QSFer Eric Alan Westfall has a new MM historical fantasy romance coming out on September 7th – preorder now: The Cooking Mage & The Parchment Prankster Part One.
If the “foreseen four”—prince, mouse, saint, dancing—happen together it might wreck a twenty-year plot worth billions, and the future is so fogged-up the Seers can’t See a date and place. Just 1890.
But the conspirators have finally identified the young prince. Which makes their 1874 to-do list: (1) Kill the prince; (2) find the mouse, and figure out (3) which saint and (4) what dancing.
Only it’s now 1890.
Were they wrong about Georg, the scarred, six-nine (rounded up) Crown Prince of Prussia and Saxony, being the one? He ought to be a Viking warrior, but he’s only a cooking mage in the Great Palace. Did they waste all that money on the assassination attempts?
And how could “Lord Mouse,” the nickname of the short, insignificant third son of a British Duke, with dusky skin inherited from “the Jamaican Duchess,” possibly be part of the four? He’s just a parchment prankster whose latest one drew the ire of the Inquisition, resulting in him being sent on an out-of-sight-out-of-mind visit to Berlin to attend Georg’s birthday ball.
Still… A prince, a “mouse,” and definite dancing at the ball. Maybe the saint won’t matter if they can stop one of the other three. Or all.
Come visit a world of magick and technology, where the Gunpowder Treaty of 1750 prevents guns from being used in war, and its magick requires renewing in 1890. You’ll find anarchist plots, international intrigue, a midair mishap on Her Majesty’s Airship The Hindenburg, a Mouse who loves climbing a Mountain because of the fun things which happen when he does, a sovereign coming out, the addictiveness of Black Mountain coffee, plus the seductiveness of anything black raspberry. And yes, of course there’s sex on the Spanish Steps.
There’s a definite HEA, and although it doesn’t fully happen until Part Three, there’s lots of fun along the way for a Prince and his Mouse (although said Mouse thinks it’s the other way round).
Part One: September 7, 2022 (99,054 words of story)
Part Two: September 14, 2022 (117,343 words of story)
Part Three: September 21, 2022 (149,682 words of story)
Preorder Now:
Special Preorder Price.
Up a dollar after the last book releases
Get It At Amazon | Smashwords | Universal Buy Link
Book 2 Preorder Links (Sept 14th): Amazon | Smashwords | Draft2Digital
Book 3 Preorder Links (September 21st): Amazon | Smashwords | Draft2Digital
Excerpt
13 September 1870. Rome. Very Late At Night.
At The Bottom Of The Spanish Steps, In The Shadows, Off To One Side,
And Afterwards, An “Elsewhere” Or Three.
“A coin, please. No one who might notice us even a little is going to believe a handsome young whore like myself would suck you off without pay.”
He dug a coin out of his pocket, and handed it over.
“You are a bastard,” Wilfrid Belden-Smythe said in an accent suitable for the highest echelons of the Ton. It wasn’t his real name, nor was he British.
“I know,” Paolo Alighieri replied, with the fluency of the aristocracy in Rome. It wasn’t his real name, nor was he Italian. He stood up.
Five languages could have been used for their conversation. Two for the names and nationalities they were using. The third was Paolo’s native tongue. The fourth was the native language of both Wilfrid and their employer. They picked the fifth .
Wilfrid left, Paolo watching to be sure he was gone.
Paolo was confident no one could have recognized Wilfrid, or seen anything other than shapes moving in the ways expected on the Steps at night. Particularly on a night when there was no one there who wasn’t looking for sex with another man.
Or a spy looking for knowledge useful for blackmail.
Or one of the lower-ranking Carabinieri, seeking a modest bribe, sometimes a coin, sometimes a hole, for not arresting the Spanish Steps perverts. The upper ranks of the Corpo dei Carabinieri Reali of course received their bribes in private.
Those conclusions being reached, he made his decision. He liked cock, a great deal. He was already here, he was young, and hung. No reason for him not to enjoy the Spanish Steps.
Which he did. Three times. Without ever dispensing a coin.
A most satisfactory day and night in all respects. He would make a casual pass by the drop-spot, collect the package, and leave Rome in the morning.
The plan had begun.
The next twenty years would be difficult, but their goal could be accomplished. Only one reasonably foreseeable difficulty at the moment. The reliance of… No. He wouldn’t name the ruler or the country even in his head, lest he slip and reveal it aloud when he shouldn’t.
The difficulty was the more than problematic reliance of Wilfrid’s employer on Seers when making decisions. In Paolo’s never-humble opinion, with such opinions not always being spoken aloud.
Paolo recognized Seers had their value, but they weren’t accurate often enough to use what they Saw of the future as a foundation for current decision-making. Precise accuracy, not the all-too-frequent, after-the-event, “Oh, yes, that’s what I meant. Didn’t you understand?”
Definitely not the precision required for the kinds of decisions the plan would involve.
Still, the conspirators who were doing the actual work, the actual planning, would see what they would see—he smiled inside his head at his word choice—and deal with the employer, the Seers, and any Seeings as necessary.
He left the Spanish Steps, went down a street, around a corner, with a few more strides taking him into an alley. As a shadow-walker—a rare magickal talent he hadn’t shared with Wilfrid or their employer—he knew whether the alley darkness was occupied by anything more than rats, or other non-human vermin. It wasn’t. With a flick of magick he stepped into the shadows, becoming incorporeal and invisible.
He wasted no time on a circuitous route, even though it meant being occasionally visible when he walked through better-lit areas. Since the immediate vicinity of his destination—the Porta Sant’Anna, right next to the Swiss Army barracks—was bright with lighting both magickal and physical, he left the shadows well before he got there.
What any observer would have seen of the last part of his journey was a Roman citizen, staggering and swaying from imbibing too much. So much imbibing, a stagger led to a slip which led to bracing himself on the wall with the niche containing the package.
He mentally patted his own back, and complimented his brilliance, in selecting a transfer site at a location so holy (next to the church of Sant’Anna de’ Parafrenieri), and so military (the barracks), no one would expect anyone to have the audacity to use it.
His body blocked sight of his right hand, and in a moment the paper-wrapped package was tucked inside his shirt. Upright, his face was all befuddled amazement at not being where he was supposed to be. A squinting look around, a direction decided, he staggered away, eventually reaching darkness, and slid again into shadow.
The lobby of the expensive hotel was well-lit even so late at night or so early in the morning, staffed by observant, always alert men. Given how many international travelers stayed there, those men might, or might not, be in the pay of the Italian equivalent of secret police, or, La Polizia Segreta del Re, to give their department its proper title. As he walked in, Paolo was the somewhat stumbling, somewhat disarrayed, somewhat bleary-eyed image of a man who has enjoyed a multitude of the wonders Rome offered travelers at night.
So much enjoyment he was drunkenly singing, with only moderate loudness, a popular bawdy ballad not sung in the finer establishments providing musical entertainment well after dark. The lyrics were pronounced with the accent of a foreigner who did not know Italian well.
The singing might have been a precaution to conceal any noises the papers inside his shirt might make in the otherwise silent lobby as he crossed to the stairs.
Or not. The song was a favorite, and his voice was excellent.
But still, no secrets here. What you see is all there is.
In the morning, not too early, not too late, Paolo checked out, the perfect image of a tired business traveler who regretted, but not totally, the excesses of the night before.
As a professional traveler, he didn’t let the not-quite-hidden, knowing smirks of the concierge, the bellman, and several others who had gathered for the departure ceremony of the bestowing of la mancia, prevent his paying the right amount. Not so large as to be remembered for unusual generosity, but not so small as to be remembered as a miser. An unmemorable traveler, blending into the mass of all the rest of the non-memorables.
As Paolo’s observational skills were as fine as his cock sucking, he was sure no one followed him after leaving the hotel, but he still started his journey with a train going nowhere near his ultimate destination.
Alas, while Paolo’s cock sucking skills were truly fine, his observational skills vis-à-vis being followed, were less so.
Alas-the-second—for the conspiracy—he never knew that while his train-tactics succeeded in losing his followers, it wasn’t so with the man who followed when he left the Steps. Although it would be years before his opponents made use of the almost-forgotten report of what happened between the Steps and the hotel.
Author Bio
Eric is an American Midwesterner, and as Lady Glenhaven might say, “He’s old enough to have sailed with Noah.” In the real world he writes for a living, with those who would claim what he writes is fiction. His partner of thirty years—who died unexpectedly in 1995—enthusiastically encouraged him to try to get his writing published (mostly poetry back then, plus some short stories), but he didn’t have the guts to do so until 2013. At this point he’s not sure which was officially first, The Song, or Like a Mountain, Waiting.
Up to now, he’s published 17 novels and novellas, 1 poetry collection, 2 short story collections, and 3 short stories. God willin’ and the crick don’t rise, 2022 will also see The Tinderbox out and about. But since real life is, as we all know, a pain in the (anatomical site of your choice)…no guarantees.