In 203 AD, a young scribe in Carthage learns that fear can be collected like a tax. When arrests spread, his stylus becomes a danger to everyone he serves.
The Winter Road from York
In the bitter winter of 1470, a young courier flees a city that has changed its banners overnight. With war closing the roads, survival depends on quick judgment, scarce food, and the mercy of strangers.
Ashes Before the Altar
In 666 AD, a young scribe in Northumbria believes careful words can hold a kingdom together. War and pestilence soon teach him what ink cannot mend.
Ash and Oath at the Altar of Apollo
In 630 BC, a potter’s son in Corinth finds a detail in the ashes that does not belong. To speak is to risk his family, but to stay silent is to let an innocent man burn in his place.
The Wax Seal of Venice
Spring, 827 AD. Two ships ready for Alexandria, and a young scribe’s careful lines of ink begin to reveal a holy voyage with a second, darker cargo.
The Candle at Scone
In 943 AD, a young copyist follows his abbot into the heart of Alba, where a king is acknowledged under God and oath. One stolen page and one whispered lie threaten to turn a holy ceremony into blood.
Ash on the River: A Fear in 765
In the summer of 765, a young scribe travels the Rhine to gather a saint’s relics for a Frankish abbey. What he finds in the river villages is not a miracle, but a hunger that wears holy words like a mask.
The Ash Road of Cuthbert
Summer, 670. A novice scribe walks behind a holy coffin as fear of pestilence shuts doors across Northumbria. Along the old Roman stones, the living grow strange, and the dead refuse to stay neatly gone.
The River Winter of 406
In Mogontiacum, a potter’s son watches the Rhine freeze and the border falter. In the dark between years, he must decide what his hands are for.
Static on the Line
In Belfast, 1985, a young switchboard operator learns that even ordinary calls can carry danger. When the city tightens around the Anglo-Irish Agreement, she must decide what silence costs.