Anezka stamped the floor and crossed her arms in displeasure. “This won’t do. This just won’t do.” Servants paused in their work, eyes focused on the elderly slave glaring from beneath thick, gray eyebrows. She flicked a wrist. “Move the chairs near the window, but stay out of the sunlight. The King and his guest must be refreshed by the breeze, not suffer undue discomfort. And the table, shade it, the fruit must remain cool. King Prusias likes his fruit cool. Better yet, you there, take that gauze and hang it across the window. Now, those braziers; move those two near the columns. There, and there. And a carpet, we must have a carpet between the chairs. Quick now.” She clapped her arthritic hands, the skin of her thin arms quivering with the sharp motion.

Chair legs scraped the stone floor. A curtain was draped over the window, its sheer weave softening the late-morning sunlight. A small stone table was placed between the chairs and the braziers repositioned. Two slaves appeared from a side entrance, manhandling a brightly woven rug.

Anezka watched; nodding judiciously as the room was arranged to her liking. She turned when one half of the large cedar double-doors swung open. A young male slave entered and rushed up.

“Mother, the King arrives with his guest.”

By Gary Girod
Read by Shawn Robertson

Period: Ancient Rome

Atticus ‘Atti’ Tarsus had spent the entire morning trying to stack grains of rice on top of each other. Unlike the rocks he would stack as a child or the coins that the children of Roman patricians would stack, the grains of rice held no wobbling illusion of stack-ability before falling down. His disappoint was always instant. Occasionally he would pause as he caressed his arthritic fingers against the pain and would look over at the bowl filled with thousands of grains of rice. He realized with some sadness that he would never even pick out a third grain of rice, though that was just as well. If he did somehow miraculously manage to stack a hundred grains of rice it would be so tall he would not know how to add another one.

Period: 1800′s England
Genre: Horror

LETTER FROM MRS. HARKER TO VAN HELSING

“7 October, 1 p.m.

“My dear Dr. Van Helsing, –

“How can I tell you of an event that we all so deeply regret? I cannot express how sorry I am to bear such news, for I know that the grief that prostrates us will wound you even more. Your good friend Dr. John Seward was found dead this morning in his office. The police thought at first that he died by his own hand, but the strenuous objections of all who knew him, and the escape of one of the more violent inmates, have called this verdict into question.

“I thought that you might wish to conduct your own investigation before the case is closed. We have managed to postpone the funeral until Friday. You are most welcome in our home in any event, but especially in this crisis. Good friends must comfort one another at such a time. I trust that your intelligent inquiry may soon put these troubles to rest.

“Yours most faithfully,

“MINA HARKER.”

Setting: New York City
Period: 1937

The entrance outside of the Combination Club was in an alley that looked like a movie set, complete with an always-wet street (courtesy of the leaking hydrant down the block), steam from the cleaners next door, and a neon sign that proclaimed the club’s name. It was located in the Chinatown section of the city on the border of Little Italy so it got what the sports columnists called a ‘colorful’ clientele.

The co-owner, Slugger Harris, a little badger of a man and his silent partner, had just helped some of that ‘colorful’ clientele to leave abruptly; and were standing in that same alley.

“They won’t be thinking of anyone but you any time they look in the mirror for weeks, Slugger,” the partner said in a rich base voice.

The ‘partner’ was a giant of a man, dressed to the nines in a slate gray suit of summer-weight cloth that did little to hide his sculpted muscular physique. In fact, he resembled nothing so much as a sculpture of granite—with skin a pallid gray and prematurely silvered hair brushed back from a high intelligent forehead. All that animated him was a warm smile that went all the way to his eyes.

That old iron horse blew its whistle. Smoke belched out of the diamond stack of the Jupiter Steam locomotive. Steam blew out at me as it backed up to hook up another baggage car.
The Transcontinental Railroad had just been completed a couple of years earlier, and they were getting ready to build a new line. I had just turned eighteen then and was in the U.S. Army Cavalry. I was on guard duty that day, somewhere in the Wyoming Territory or maybe it was the Utah Territory. I was at some railroad station in a town in the middle of nowhere. They pulled a few of us up from Fort Laramie to relieve the soldiers riding on the train. I had my Springfield rifle as I walked alongside the train, moving slowly along at the station. I was on one side of the train, and another soldier was walking along the other side.
It was hotter than tarnation on that day. The local town folk really needed some rain; none had fallen since the previous year. I could hear the bang, clank, and rumble behind me as they hooked up the other baggage car. Then the train came to a stop. A few minutes later a two-horse wagon pulled up next to that new baggage car.

The man in the wagon had his face covered with his hat. “Whoa now,” he said as he stood up and opened the door to the other baggage car.

It all started out with a puzzle, which is how things often begin when Baytim is involved. But it ended in several violent deaths, which, sadly, was how things often ended when Sunny was involved.

I think that I am the most long-suffering Philistine in Timnath or the Five Cities. My career in the army was cut short when I took an arrow through both my arm and leg before I qualified for a land grant to retire on, and I had no friends on the staff who could wrangle anything for me. Since I had picked up skills in dosing and bone-setting, I was entitled to a small pension, too small to provide me with a place to stay and to let me eat. One of my army buddies put me in touch with another Lost Soul in similar straits, and together we found a couple of rooms in the house of the widow of an officer, the son of the legendary Black Hood himself. She needed the extra income as well, and so we three Army castoffs lived together on the street of Bread-Makers and looked every day for better things.

England Turn of the Century
Detective Story

Christmas wreaths, tinsel, and stars lined the smoky walls of the White Hart Pub. Memories of holidays, softened by distance, battled the harder edges of my current situation: a widow unsure of whom to give a present. The lack of possibilities in my dark flat once again sent me here, where I’d at least find a cast of characters. I pulled apart a wishbone from the remains of my chicken and chips dinner, the larger piece remaining in my left hand. 1902 had been disappointing. I wished to be a part of something positive in 1903. In hindsight, I advise not to bet the house on wishbones.

“Did you make a wish?”

I looked up and saw standing before me a young, dark-haired woman with a pleasing face and an expensive fur coat draped over her shoulders.

“Yes, I wished there was more meat on this chicken.

Without, the night was cold and wet, but in the small parlour of Laburnam Villa the blinds were drawn and the fire burned brightly. Father and son were at chess, the former, who possessed ideas about the game involving radical changes, putting his king into such sharp and unnecessary perils that it even provoked comment from the white-haired old lady knitting placidly by the fire.

“Hark at the wind,” said Mr. White, who, having seen a fatal mistake after it was too late, was amiably desirous of preventing his son from seeing it.

“I’m listening,” said the latter, grimly surveying the board as he stretched out his hand. “Check.”

“I should hardly think that he’d come to-night,” said his father, with his hand poised over the board.

“Mate,” replied the son.

“That’s the worst of living so far out,” bawled Mr. White, with sudden and unlooked-for violence; “of all the beastly, slushy, out-of-the-way places to live in, this is the worst. Pathway’s a bog, and the road’s a torrent. I don’t know what people are thinking about. I suppose because only two houses on the road are let, they think it doesn’t matter.”

Setting: California
Period: 1862

It had been raining in the valley of the Sacramento. The North Fork had overflowed its banks and Rattlesnake Creek was impassable. The few boulders that had marked the summer ford at Simpson’s Crossing were obliterated by a vast sheet of water stretching to the foothills. The up stage was stopped at Grangers; the last mail had been abandoned in the tules, the rider swimming for his life. “An area,” remarked the “Sierra Avalanche,” with pensive local pride, “as large as the State of Massachusetts is now under water.”

Nor was the weather any better in the foothills. The mud lay deep on the mountain road; wagons that neither physical force nor moral objurgation could move from the evil ways into which they had fallen, encumbered the track, and the way to Simpson’s Bar was indicated by broken-down teams and hard swearing. And farther on, cut off and inaccessible, rained upon and bedraggled, smitten by high winds and threatened by high water, Simpson’s Bar, on the eve of Christmas day, 1862, clung like a swallow’s nest to the rocky entablature and splintered capitals of Table Mountain, and shook in the blast.

Setting: Ancient Greece
Period: Around the Peloponnesian War

Nicias’s legs quivered as he confronted his family clad in his panoply as a hoplite. He had no idea what their reaction would be. Shock, he suspected, especially with his cheeks and nose concealed by the mask-like Corinthian helmet topped with a giant horsehair crest. They might not even recognize him.

His family had assembled to await him in the tiny courtyard of their meagre residence in Athens, a baked-mud hovel on a dreary street not far from the Temple of Zeus. They squatted on small, backless wooden stools. He would so much have preferred to meet them in the great courtyard of their real home in the Attica countryside. There they could sit on comfortable wicker chairs with a clear view of their lush wheat fields and numerous olive trees. But that was not possible at present. Their popular assembly had decided to abandon the countryside to the invading Spartans rather than risk Athenian hoplites in unequal battle. They might not even have a farm left.

…I took a long swig from my stein and began. “Boys, let me tell you about a championship game we had against the Tombstone Miners in the late summer of ’80, as I remember it. The Miners were almost pros compared to us. They had swanky uniforms and good equipment. We donned sweat shirts with numbers sewed on ‘em. Most of our boys wore their Confederate uniform pants that they had from the war. What’s why they called us the Rebels. Later the team became the Benson Bees. I was thirty-six years old at the time, and managed our team.

Autumn, 1528, Hertfordshire, Hinxworth

All of London, all of England, and even onto the Continent, people were talking about the king’s mistress, the lady Anne Boleyn. Henry VIII was known for his love of women, much like his grandfather, Edward IV, so for him to take a new mistress was hardly news, even with the salacious twist that the lady was sister to one of his former mistresses. But, and here people would gasp with astonishment, it was said the lady had not yet let the besotted king into her bed!

Lying in her own bed, the straw stuffed pallet both better and worse than other beds she had lain in over her long life, the little old women cackled at the gossip and said with wry knowledge,

“That’s no way to serve a king.”

A claw-hammer crushed a bum’s skull. A four-foot crowbar slammed against a hobo’s face, breaking jaw and cheekbone. Fortunately, the screaming helped to muffle the nauseating sound of the cracking bones.

Benny ran as fast as he could from the bonfire, making a line for the bush. Just as he did that, however, two black-hooded men stepped out from the edge of the brush, cutting off his retreat. He spun around. He stared stupidly at the horrific scene at the fire. Outlined against the sky-bound orange flames was an orgy of destruction. Twenty large and angry men wearing black hoods were doing their level best to kill the thirty-odd hobos and bums who had camped for the night at the Kansas City jungle.

Ex-Con Man
by Laird Long
read by Shawn Robertson

Jay carefully set down his cup of coffee and looked up at the sweater-girl hanging from the faded wallpaper – Saturday, July 10, 1946. He pulled out his gold pocket-watch and read the dial – 4:00 p.m. The First National Bank of Kansas was doing a heavy business across the street. Cash-heavy. The hicks were in from the sticks surrounding Lawrence to get some dough and do some shopping. It was a once-a-week migration as old as the ruts in the road.

Jay delicately plucked a monogrammed handkerchief out of his breast pocket and lightly tapped his forehead with it. The mug behind the counter caught a whiff of eau-de- toilet and arched his unkempt eyebrows, impressed. It was a hot day in Kansas. For Jay, it was hot every day and everywhere.

Period: American West

In the last days of the Republic of Texas a man rode up out of the mesquite bluffs south of the Guadalupe River and stopped on a rise where nothing grew but maguey and ocotillo. He swung down off his horse and studied the trampled maguey and plucked a curved yellow flower. He held it to his nose. The bitter reek of sulfur and cinnabar cut the sweet fragrance of the maguey flower. The man smiled and climbed back on his horse and rode on.

His name was Javier Thompson, a mongrel name for a man of mongrel birth who’d spent all his life traversing those dubious borders north of the Rio Grande. He looked out on the red country as he rode and in the hard pinkish light of sunset he thought he saw a silhouette out in the horizon. Javier spat and rode down the wash after it. Red dust covered his clothes and anyone moving out in that waste might have mistaken him for some spirit conjured up by the sand and wind.

Period: World War I

Sandy drove the hired wagon from Glen Ellen down to Valhalla with his mare and Billy Crowder’s roan, Apache, trailing. There he buried his friend under a live oak in the $25 casket he’d bought in San Francisco. The only personal effects that Billy had were his saddle, bedroll, three books, and some papers, including some letters from a sister in Nevada. He reckoned the saddle and Apache rightly belonged to this sister and at any rate she needed to be notified that Billy was gone. So after he’d filled in the grave he decided to put a low cairn over Billy and while he did this, in his mind, composed the letter to this sister. He wrote the letter as soon as he washed up, as he knew his thinking would become thick with the drink which that hard day demanded.

This one was fun to read and since I live in North Carolina where the story plays out, I didn’t feel like I needed to put on much of an accent. When I listened to the recording there were times when it may have been confusing which voice I was doing, Tommy’s or the narrator’s but I find that whenever I redo a story, it is never as good the second time and I end up going with the first reading anyway. The Tempting of Tommy

I liked this story because it did seem real to me. They problem was that since Warne is Australian, I felt really self concious about trying to narrate the story, either with my southernish American accent or some horrible fake Australian accent. So I put the call out to my friend Kevin Harty, who lives in New Zealand. For some reason I had forgotten that he is actually from England. He was a little leary about doing an Australian accent, but I impressed upon him that it would be better than anything I could come up with, and he did it in his usual great style.

Poor Kevin, the first story I gave him was the Friendship of Monsieur Jeynois, which was terribly long, lots of voices, and difficult vocabulary. We were still working out the kinks then. I hate to think what he went through doing that one. Harry

“It’s not Rome, but at least I get to wear a nice hat,” Monica laughed. She held its floofy rim down as a gust of fall wind threatened to pull it off her bobbed hair. “You know, baby, when I said I wanted to visit Manhattan someday, this isn’t quite what I meant.”

Anthony adjusted his own bowler, shielding his dark eyes from a warm stray beam of evening sunlight. “It’s an important time period,” he said. “The Roaring Twenties for twenty four hours. Flappers, speakeasies, all that jazz. Besides, the Statue of Liberty isn’t wading in seawater like it would be if we came here in our time.”

Anthony picked up the leather handle of the suitcase the Timeshares agent had provided for them. They had managed to buy one of the first unaccompanied tours. They wore period clothes for the trip back and an automatic recall trigger, but Timeshares had arranged for a native to provide a packed suitcase, an itinerary, and lodgings. The reduced traveling mass and short time length reduced the price enough to let regular people like them afford the trip.

“The hotel is only right across the street.” The traffic only justified checking once, but the back part of Anthony’s brain twitched until he checked for cars again. It just didn’t seem safe otherwise.

The hotel’s foyer spread out before them as Monica handed her fur coat to a doorman. Anthony pointed to the marble pillars along the walls of the room. “See? Who said I can’t get you Roman columns?” She giggled, and Anthony wrapped his arms around her, the soft cotton of her dress thin under his arms.

…The great hall’s massive oak doors stood open, allowing the sunlight to stream in and make a broad golden carpet on the flagstones. Gatito, the Cook’s tabby cat, lay sprawled on the doorstep, sunning his white belly while he licked his paws. Don Augustín strode through the doorway, making Gatito scurry off toward the kitchen. At fifty Don Augustín was still a handsome man, his black hair and beard scarcely touched by gray. He’d thrown one arm around the shoulders of Sieur Phillipe who now carried the title of le Compte de la Croix as a reward for his part in the recent Crusade. A genuine Crusader! Anna studied him, burning into her memory every detail of his appearance.

Sieur Phillipe was a tall, stocky man with hair like thinning cornsilk. Over his chainmail byrnie Sieur Phillipe wore a velvet surcoat, the left side scarlet and the right bright yellow. He made Don Augustín’s brown houppelande with its voluminous sleeves and embroidered panels seem quite drab. Despite the grandeur of his attire, Sieur Phillipe looked worn and haggard, his gray eyes reddened from lack of sleep.

ALIA, the Archipelago of the Fantasic

Get it from Barnes and Noble or Amazon

Russell R. James has written a several stories for Tales of Old. He was raised on Long Island, New York and spent too much time watching Chiller, Kolchak: The Night Stalker, and Dark Shadows, despite his parents’ warnings. Bookshelves full of Stephen King and Edgar Allan Poe didn’t make things better. He graduated from Cornell University and the University of Central Florida.

After a tour flying helicopters with the U.S. Army’s 101st Airborne Division, he became a technical writer by day and spins twisted tales by night.

His wife reads what he writes, rolls her eyes, and says “There is something seriously wrong with you.”

He has published the paranormal thriller Dark Inspiration in 2011 and Sacrifice in 2012 with Samhain. His third novel Black Magic will be published in 2013. His short stories appeared at Tales of Old, Encounters and Dark Gothic Resurrected magazines. He is a founding member of the Minnows Literary Group.

He and his wife share their home in sunny Florida with two cats.

“You have to have the right pilot, in the right plane, in the right position.”

Lieutenant Terry Greene’s flight instructor had used that phrase ten times a day as he taught Terry to dogfight in a SPAD VII biplane. In the early months of 1916, in the air and on a chalkboard, the instructor had detailed the ins and outs of aerial combat. Yet it always boiled down to having those three magic “P’s.”

This afternoon, Terry flew the #4 slot in an echelon left formation. From this far left position, he had the best view of the other three SPADs of the Lafayette Escadrille. Against the December cold, the pilots were layered in heavy coats and their faces were wrapped in silk scarves below their flying goggles and leather helmets. But Terry could still recognize Jimmy, Chet and Rock, and not just by their tail numbers. After all these months, he could recognize them by how they flew.

Get “Touch and Go” for your Kindle, Nook, or on Smashwords!

Rain was dead. She lay sprawled across the tiny kitchen floor, blood had
pooled beneath her. Several stab wounds peppered her torso; her face was
twisted in fear and agony in a death mask of horror. Sirens wailed in the
misty rain on this dark, cold night. A chill ran through me as I left the
kitchen and walked over by the radio in the small parlor. It crackled with
Toots Malloy; his latest jazzy sax tune melodic and sweet.

Murphy and Callahan burst through the door and walked right past me
and into the terrible scene by the icebox. Both were in long, dark coats,
mismatched hats, black shoes, and wore scowls on their ugly faces. Callahan
glared at me, “You call it in?”

“Yeah,” I responded, not caring about what the city dicks thought.

He said, “You don’t believe Blackbeard buried any treasure? Well, he did. Yes sir, he truly did. And I’m the only one knows where it is.”

Ignoring Tommy, I gazed off at the blue-gray horizon watching the wheeling, screaming gulls, listening to the waves lap against the jetty, a contrapuntal echo of Tommy’s lazy drawl. I should have known better. Blackbeard and his treasure are subjects to avoid with old-timers here on the Banks; they all have their stories, each an imaginative embroidery on a subject of which no man can know the truth and each insists he does—appropriate magical mysteries with which to while away the hours on cold, wet winter days before a fireplace, fortified with whiskey, lethargy and time. But not on hot summer afternoons devoted to fishing.

“It’s true,” Tommy insisted, and I felt his gaze stabbing at my back, demanding attention.

I did my best to ignore him, lighting my pipe and keeping my eyes fixed on the horizon. It didn’t work.

“Everybody has his story. Some says he buried it over on Ocracoke, others that he hid it down on Sapelo, or up at Elizabeth City. Some even say he carried it way up the coast to New Hampshire. Fools! None of ‘em knows.”

Irritated, I faced him. The fish weren’t biting anyway. “And you do?”

“Eh-yeh.” He gave a dry little laugh, heh-heh. “I knows.”

When Laird Long sent this story in to me, I confess I did not even finish reading it before I had accepted it. Only later did I go back and read the whole thing, which is pretty irresponsible for an editor. Often a story starts well, but it is the ending that kills it. That is for stories that are pretty good. Some stories start bad and they pretty much remain consistent. But I think my gut feeling did me right this time. I liked the whole story. There have been a few stories in the past where the guilty party was allowed to go free because the detective agreed with his motives. I know there was at least one Sherlock Holmes story like this. But I can’t remember another story where the assumed murderer is cleared, but then you wish that he had been convicted because he was guilty of something worse. Wait, “Witness for the Prosecution” was pretty close to that. In case you haven’t seen it, I’ll say nothing more.

I had hell narrating this story. Not sure what was wrong but I was having fits getting the episode together. Sometimes you just can’t read a sentence right. But I think the finished product was pretty good. My biggest fear is that an author will be enraged by how I treated the story. That’s why you should listen to the podcast before submitting. So you know what you’ll be getting into. Most authors are quite pleased I am happy to say. It makes the late nights worth it.

Setting: Skies of World War 2

At nearby High Wycombe Air Base, in the blacked out mess hall, Air Commodore Waldron cast a weary eye over his assembled aircrews. He recognised the signs of fatigue in them. Heightened laughter. The fidgeting with cigarettes. White faces. Introspective, dark circled eyes.

He hated having to send them out again, under strength after the heavy losses of the last few nights. He needed crews and machines. Lancaster replacements were arriving; planes were not the problem, it was the aircrews. Even with fast tracked training in England it was taking too long. Canada, Australia, South Africa and other countries were training aircrews too, but the losses were greater. His men badly needed a break, but they were inflicting massive damage on Germany; and he had his orders. Just ten aircraft would fly from High Wycombe tonight – each with its crew of seven.

When Henry Hudson was told that John Williams had been found in the bush, dead, he finally began to give some thought to just how bad things really were, and how bad they could yet get.

His ship, the Discovery, was aground on the southeastern tip of a frozen bay at the mouth of a frozen river, his crew of twenty-two and he seven months out of London, the Strait of Anian, the Northwest Passage to the exotic spices, perfumes, silks, and precious gems ofCathay and Java, still somewhere beyond the horizon. Instead of sailing the warm, open waters of the Western Sea, they were locked in ice at fifty-one degrees north latitude in the New World, winter’s full fury fast-approaching. And now the ship’s gunner was dead.

I asked Ed to narrate the story because he is English. He declined at first, then got Rob to do it, and in the end wanted to do it himself. So that is what we got, although I would love to hear Rob’s version too. Check out their podcast. Rob has a great voice.

I feel like I know Rowan (aka P.D.R.) Lindsay as well as I know any of the authors on the show. I’ve accepted three of her stories for the show. She only sent in one that I didn’t take and that was only because it was too realistic and grim. My friend Jack wrote to me and said don’t do any more stories like “Coming Home.” He was driving while listening and it made him cry so much he had to pull over. Wow, I call that a good story! But I do love a happy story. Strawberry Fool is just perfect, a simple little story that is real, poignant and uplifting. I fear that Rowan will not like my rendition of it though, with my American narration and sad attempt at British accent when the characters speak. Of course she knew the risk when she submitted it. I hope she sends more my way. In the mean time I need to go back to England and learn how to talk that way again. I was only a kid when I lived there.

For some reason it usually takes me about a month to get back to people, unless you are lucky and you sent your submission in just as I’m doing a big push. I think my main procrastination is the pain of rejecting people. I know how much work goes into writing a story and the cruddy feeling of having it rejected. Even though it may make it worse, I try to give me rationale for why I didn’t take it. I am no literary genius, but I generally know when I like something or when I don’t.

But I will probably take your story so send it in!

Strawberry Fool
By P.D.R. Lindsay
Read by Shawn Robertson
Writer’s Choice

The Arizona & California Stage Company headquartered in Wickenburg, Arizona Territory. It provided passenger, mail, and freight service from the Territorial Capital of Prescott to Phoenix, Maricopa and Tucson.

During A & C’s formative years, sporadic Indian attacks were a problem. In 1871 Yavapai Indians waylaid a stage coach six miles west of Wickenburg and killed six people in what became known as the “Wickenburg Massacre”. By the late 1870’s, however, Indian raids on the route were rare.

But then a new nemesis erupted. Highwaymen, called “Knights of the Road” by local newspapers, began causing continual havoc. In fact, stage robberies on the route in the 1880’s occurred at the alarming rate of nearly one per month. The following story is a fictional account of a holdup attempt on the A & C during that time.

“Hear ye, hear ye,” he bellowed. “My lord and master, the honorable Earl of Northumberland, has need of entertainment. Be there a jongleur or troubadour among ye? If there be, my lord is prepared to offer him a handsome, nay spectacular payment in exchange for his services, should he render them to my esteemed lord’s satisfaction.” He paused for a moment, scanning his eyes across the room, and finishing in a moderately quieter and more informal tone. “Are there any takers?”

No one moved or said anything right away. I could see the innkeeper coldly staring at me from behind the bar, silently imploring me to keep my mouth shut. Unfortunately, I’ve never quite mastered that trick. After a moment, I cleared my throat and got to my feet. “Henry Larksong, troubadour extraordinaire,” I announced with a slightly theatrical bow. “At your service.”

There’s one — possibly only one — benefit to giving up ale. When everyone else passes out on the floor, you get the fire to yourself.

I rolled Vetr out of the way and pulled the bench closer to the hearth, stretching my legs towards the flames. Heat crept through my boots. Gods. My feet hadn’t been warm since fall.

Vetr snorted, turning over and throwing an elbow into Buldi’s gut. Buldi’s snores stuttered as he in turn rolled over, smacking Karli across the face. Karli didn’t move. I’d seen Karli empty a dozen tankards. He’d wake with a bruise but sure as hell won’t know where it came from.

Thomas Mahoney walked beside the O’Rourke wagon as it
clattered along the forest road but he kept stumbling because he never
looked down at the trail. His eyes were on Mary O’Rourke who sat beside
her gruff servant Shamus O’Toole and shyly pretended to ignore the
gangly Tommy.

She could not help herself from acknowledging him each time he
stumbled headlong on his face with a chuckle that was half-snort and half
burp.

Fickle Finger of Fate
by Donna Marie Nowak

There was nothing deadlier than a co-star with bad breath.

Bebe Vance figured she had reached the nadir of her career in Filmont Studios with this screwball “love scene” that would make her the laughing stock of Hollywood. So Harrison said it was going to be duck soup from now on, a five picture contract, her name back in lights on moving picture marquees? He didn’t mention Liver Breath. Even if Harrison Filmont was top producer on the lot, “Emperor of the Throne Room,” and her bread and butter, it wasn’t worth it. This shameless ham Pierre was coddled like a Lilliputian among Gullivers, despite having been fired from several sets on account of his unpredictable temperament. To add to her humiliation, the public now pressed against the gates to glimpse him, not her!

I awoke to a woman screaming. This was, however, not unusual. Since I came to live in Pi-Ramesses, I’d shared a room with my cousin Ahmose over his widowed mother’s linen shop. Aunt Tiaa was my mother’s sister and that side of the family was never noted for placidity. She was in rare form and the apprentices were taking the brunt of it.

At a fresh volley, Mose and I exchanged glances. We dressed fast and ran for it. I was luckier than Mose. He worked in the shop. I’d recently landed a job in the House of Life archives at the temple of Bastet.

The temple precincts were busier than usual with everyone preparing for the big festival that was coming up. Few pharaohs had seen the thirty-year reign required to hold their first Heb-Sed. The divine Ramesses II was celebrating his second. Ten days of feasting and fun. I was looking forward to it.

I was peacefully quaffing a jorum of scotch broth when Cleve Sistern elbowed his way onto the bar next to me, yammered, “Hey, how’s my favorite redheaded accounting dick?”

I hung the frosty focus on his porcine features. Added, “Go climb your thumb.”

He persisted. “Got a job for you, Acton. Need you to check up on things at the grain elevator. Somethin’ fishy’s goin’ on out there.”

The barkeep drifted down, looked at Sistern. Sistern looked at me; the gink’s cheap that way, and all others. The barkeep gave it up, drifted away.

“One day’s work,” Sistern started in again. “I’ll pay ya.” He dug a paw into his flannel legwraps and pulled out a terminally shy wallet, opened it up with a rusty groan. Then he placed a crisp, never-been-used twenty dollar bill down on the bar with all the solemnity of a soldier being laid to rest.

Read by Shawn Robertson

Lars, Eric, Juanita, and Sandy and Peter Vestergard sat in the shady section of the Rodeo Pavilion at the fairgrounds listening to the school choir sing “Colombia the Gem of the Ocean.” The pavilion, draped in bunting, was new and still smelled of the rough oak timbers. The track below had been strewn with a dozen wagonloads of sawdust for the dedication of the new pavilion and the Fourth of July Parade. The year was 1928, Sonoma County was booming. The Vestergard family sat among the honored wealthy who’d donated the funds for the fine new pavilion. Lars’ Stetson, Eric’s hamburg, Jaunita’s ostrich and egret plumed hat, and Sandy’s new boater– in their royal crowns the Vestergards did indeed appear regal, American Royal. Lars thought of Sandy, Eric pondered the placement of the new pavilion’s exits, Juanita prayed that this event would end soon, and Sandy wondered how Lars would react to the idea of planting vines at the ranch. He was certain that repeal would come and perhaps sooner rather than later. Most vineyards had been plowed under the year after Prohibition. Now his 50 acres of established vines were a gold mine, a positive gold mine. Wealth, he thought, is truly understood only by the wealthy themselves.

Some other works by Sondra Kelly-Green: Burning Mary, Crashing, Now Showing

Shawn’s Standup routine

It was bewitched, he swore, and said he would vow the same under oath. This the officers thought an even finer joke. Evil and bewitched and under oath! Your father stood a bit straighter and held his palm up in a mock vow, a trembling yet determined smile on his lips. My heart clenched at this, and those who knew and loved him best, looked firmly away as others laughed.

I wonder, Nephew, if he would share our fireside this night had he not touched the cursed thing. Some things are only for the Almighty to know, and this is one of them.

But touched it he did and many others too. We watched it pass from man to man, each eager to be the one who gave voice to the alpenhorn.

We were on the march through the Black Forest, or as the Germans call it, the Schwarzwald. In my thinking, it’s a name of darkness and the Devil’s-own evil. Yet it sets a theme as apt as any for our tale.

Your father and I were among Marshal Tallard’s forces for the French Empire. Our detachment, as you know, was the last returning from the Danube, which flows to the east of the Black Forest. Before us was the River Rhein, just to the west of it.

The Schwarzwald. That wretched divide of rocky cliffs and deep forested valleys neatly cut our army in two. At the Danube we had just reinforced the French commander Marsin with men and munitions. And so, traveling light, we were soon to embrace our beloved France beyond the Rhein.

Our troop was under the command of Count Mérode-Westerloo, a jaunty, prideful man. He was held in high regard at Versailles. Still, his own soldiers had few reasons to admire him. Our pay and food, you see, never arrived when promised. To tell it true, hunger was as much our enemy as the English. Yet stranded in a dense, unknown forest we thought it best to stay on the march, where at least some food made its way down the ranks.

One morning in the late Roman spring Solius the slave, returning from an errand for his master, Titius Sabinus, the senator, heard hurrying footsteps behind him. Continuing on his way, the slave detective, for so ran his fame in Rome, slightly slackened his pace to let the other overtake him.

As Mr. John Oakhurst, Gambler, stepped into the main street of Poker Flat on the morning of the twentythird of November, 1850, he was conscious of a change in its moral atmosphere since the preceding night. Two or three men, conversing earnestly together, ceased as he approached, and exchanged significant glances. There was. a Sabbath lull in the air, which, in a settlement unused to Sabbath influences, looked ominous.

Mr Oakhurst’s calm, handsome face betrayed small concern in these indications. Whether he was conscious of any predisposing cause was another question. “I reckon they’re after somebody,” he reflected; “likely it’s me.” He returned to his pocket the handkerchief with which he had been whipping away the red dust of Poker Flat from his neat boots, and quietly discharged his mind of any further conjecture.

“This is it, Big Louie’s private speakeasy. One of those illegal gin joints back in the 1920’s and 30’s. In its day, this place was the cat’s meow. The police padlocked the steel door and bricked up the back door within days after the murder. There are no other entrances. They never came back to investigate. They concluded that it was Big Louie’s gun, and Big Louie committed the murder as a show, and that was that.“

Sir Francis Drake sat in the moonlight, watching as the movement of the Defiance made his claret swish back and forth in the exquisitely chased silver goblet he’d stolen years ago from the Spaniards. He’d tried to get more treasure this trip, tried to take it from the Dons at San Juan harbor. What a fiasco that had proved.

A cannonball had nearly ended him. But his infamous luck had held out. he hadn’t been in bed when the great ball of iron tore through the hull and landed where he should have been lying.

The Good of Sparta

There are some tasks that a man must do alone.
These are the moments that define whether one understands the truth or lives a lie. Whether one is able to bow to the will of the Gods or is unable to understand that the will of the gods will come to pass regardless of the resistance of any mortal. That Sparta shall be protected, now and forever. The way of Sparta is as it must be: absolute, unwavering. This is reflected in the glory of the city. A monolith, forever mighty.

Spiking the Guns
by C.J. Cutcliffe Hyne
read by Shawn Robertson

“The regiment will be annihilated,” observed the Adjutant, coolly. And then, in the same immovable tones, he asked someone to pass him a biscuit.

In my experience, those who beg for mercy seldom deserve it.

They’d told Wayland these were the last words Rebecca heard, before she died and night after night those words and her desperate gasps hunted him through his nightmares. That year, though, fate was to offer him up a full revenge. Revenge is, as they say, is a dish best served cold.

Summer of 1647 it was, a period of some small respite from the English civil war, at least in the county of Essex. Wayland, the village blacksmith, had returned from his service with the Parliamentary forces. His young son, a crouched, smoky shape in a corner of the smithy, was watching the sharp white sparks fly into the soft fleshy-red of the furnace. Neither spoke – the boy sensing perhaps that his father was somehow trying to hammer out more than the molten iron. Thirty roughly-formed pike points lay waiting because Wayland still couldn’t bring himself to work the finer stuff. Instead, he pounded on, absorbed. Only when he rested the hammer did he hear the disturbance outside. The smithy door burst open and the sudden light threw a shaft of fizzing dust across the coke-dark smithy. Instantly, the boy drew back into a corner. Three men crashed in, only to stop short, squinting through the light. These men were not built strong like Wayland; they’d grown up pale and spindly, like rye sprouts under a bucket.

‘The Bull McGee is back in town!’

I was sat in a coffee shop in the High Street, near the docks, when young Billy Smith came bursting in with that news. Every head in that crowded place turned to look at him when he shouted thus and about half of them, those in the know, turned to look at me straight after. I paused with a mug halfway to my mouth as a terrible premonition came to me of my own headstone. It read: ‘John Jackson. Born 15th June 1730, Gloucester; Died 2nd September 1752, Bristol.’

It was not a pleasant vision.

After the Emperor learned of my refuge at the Diamond Silence Cloister, he dispatched a different son each year to seek my hand in marriage.

Three Manchurian princes and their cavalry had come and gone. They would arrive not long after the full moon on the tenth month, bearing lavish provisions to bribe the Abbess into giving me up, but they would be gone before the first flurries of snow settled on our cloister’s rooftop.

For generations my people lived in Mesa Verde inside the deep caves beneath sedimentary rock overhangs, thousands of feet above the canyon floor, where we farmed the land, hunted only what we needed to eat, and survived the others. Down the red stone canyon, in more caves another flute softly echoes. A medley gently floats between our villages as we sit huddled together, the women, so close, I can feel their skin next to mine, and their warm breath upon my shoulders. Behind us, the men stand bare-chested with their long, black hair pulled away from their flat, chiseled faces, and together we watch as one of the elders points to stars in the sky. He tells us our people arrived from the heavens, many light years ago, then outlines the image of Kokopelli, the humpbacked flute player, our god of fertility and life-giving water, and we listen as he tells us the story of our exodus. Of how we followed the sounds of Kokopelli’s harmonic flute, escaping the marauding, bloodthirsty assassins, the others, who we fear have followed us from Chaco Canyon to our home here beneath the mesa. Tonight we pray that Kokopelli will come again and guide us to safety.

Setting: Vietnam War

The essence of combat was for Robert nearly impossible to convey.  He’d tried to keep a journal from his first patrol but after his second fire fight had abandoned trying to clarify. He could write the necessary military logs and action reports required, that was simple enough.  “At 0130, 12 June — at the mouth of the Ba Sac River (coordinates) encountered and sunk two sampans attempting to place submerged mines.  Four enemy dead. Mines detonated by 50 cal. fire.” Or “18 June — came under RPG fire from high rock formation on beach, four meters, Tinh Vah Village. Returned fire with twin .50’s and two HE 40mm grenades. 2 dead VC . Russian 7.39 mm. rifle destroyed.”  No, he had not the will nor the ability to clearly capture those impingements on human limits.

read by Christian James

Setting: 650 A.D. Central Britain.

After years of victory, King Cenwalh now knew defeat. Two dozen of his personal guards, the finest warriors the kingdom of Wessex had to offer, lay scattered and exhausted in the woods around him, survivors of the Mercian onslaught. Several wounded stifled stoic moans as they tightened bandages to staunch the bleeding. The occasional clink of armor sounded as the soldiers shifted to find comfort among the tree roots. The king’s horse, weak from the day’s combat, sipped water from a shallow pond. The men stank of the copper of blood and the panicked sweat of defeat.

Pictures of the found treasure

“If” by Rudyard Kipling read by Martin Clifton, courtesy of Librivox.org

Inspiration comes in many forms and great authors take it whenever they can get it.

It was the spring of 1903, at the dawn of the brief Edwardian Era, and eleven-year-old Oliver Finch was in dire need of an adjective. He had been laboring over his latest short story for three days and was about to complete it, but he lacked a modifier for “populace” in a stirring tale of the Boer War which he called “The Relief of Mafeking.” He was thinking of something along the lines of “courageous,” only more so.

The Cold War produced bitter enemies, but also friends. But who can a spy ever really trust?

This would be the last time Harald met with Walter Peake , a cover name backstopped by a passport, driver’s license, business cards, family pictures, credit cards, a couple of memberships and a social security card. The identity would hold up under thirty minutes of casual questioning, but probably less than two hours of interrogation and back checking.

by C.J. Lines
read by Kevin Harty
In the foggy streets of Victorian London, Patrick O’Hare has set up his latest Freak Show , a veritable promenade of wonders and horrors. Are they real, and where does he aquire them?

Closing music by Panda Transport, courtesy of Music Alley

Period: American Civil War (and others)
What could be worse than a gruesome death by Minie ball in a bloody civil war? Maybe having to do it more than once.

“Your name is Private Absalom T. Zirkle,” the nurse told him. “My name is Charlotte. You’re in a field hospital just south of—”
“What day is this?”
“Saturday.”
“No, what day?”
“July the Fourth,” she finally told him. “The saddest we have ever seen.”
“Pickett,” he whispered. “1863. Little Round Top…Absalom T. Zirkle.” He looked into the nurse’s—Charlotte’s—eyes, and the fog in his mind cleared a little. He tried looking around but couldn’t move his head from the folded towel where it lay.

Main fiction: The Crusader from Cross Plains
by Teel. James Glenn
Setting: Egypt, 1938

Main fiction: Period: 1938s, Setting: Egypt

By Teel. James Glenn
Read by Shawn Robertson

In some of the infinite worlds of the multiverse some men live that might die in others.
This story takes place in one of those parallel worlds where a bullet was not fired in Texas in 1936, an Englishman survives a motorcycle accident and a jail term was served in full in Germany.
And so the world was changed.

I saw the cowboy start to rise but three other armed and burnoosed figures poured through the door. Bob’s body was tense, his great muscles coiled like springs like a panther waiting patiently to for the right moment to pounce.
A thug with a wild red beard stepped into the doorway. “You will listen and hear me, infidel dogs,” he proclaimed. “You are in the presence of Abdul Azim who serves the great and magnificent Abu al Kayar. You will give no resistance or you will die.”

Period: World War II
Setting: London

The city of London was bombed for 76 consecutive nights in 1940 and 1941 in a strategy called “The Blitz” from the German word for lightning. More than 40,000 English civilians died during this time.

She stood by the canteen, waiting as we reported for duty, a grim hard duty, but the only one open to us. The sun was setting and in a few hours German planes with German bombs would find the city and blow streets, houses, homes and people into small pieces. During those hours Will Tanner’s volunteers drove the ambulances.

It’s not a crime to search for the truth. Wait a minute, to the Inquisition it most certainly is.

“Giulio Vanini,” said the Archbishop, “do you know why you are here?”
The prisoner barked a laugh that abruptly ended as though it had been strangled.
“The reason I am here,” he said as he fixed the Archbishop with a hard stare, “is the reason I’m here.”

In 1590, the daimyo Toyotomi Hideyoshi completed the dream of his dead liege lord, Oda Nobunaga, and unified Japan by conquest. As kampaku to the figurehead Japanese Emperor Go-Yozei, Toyotomi was ruler of all Japan. Seeking to engrave his name eternally in history, he turned his eyes west to the glory of Joseon Korea and the beauty of Ming China.

In 1591, Toyotomi demanded Korea’s surrender and aid in the conquest of China. King Seonjo refused, as Korea was a close ally of China. Toyotomi raised an army of 160,000 veterans hardened by decades of battle in Oda’s and Toyotomi’s domestic campaigns, and invaded Korea in 1592. It was the largest army ever deployed until then in Northeast Asia.

Excerpt from Instructions for American Servicemen in Britain 1942:

“You will be Britain’s guest…. Don’t refer to the First World War by saying America came over and won it…. Don’t play into Hitler’s hands by mentioning war debts. You will naturally be interested in getting to know your opposite number, the British soldier, the ‘Tommy’ you have heard and read about. You can understand that two actions on your part will slow up this friendship – swiping his girl and not appreciating what his army has been up against.”

Source used for the introduction

My parents’ house is full of amazing books about history and everything else. They are generous lenders so I had to pull myself together not to take away more than I could possibly read in a year. I had borrowed Will Durant’s The Life of Greece so many times that I finally broke down and bought it for $1 on Amazon.

By Christian Carter-Stephenson
Read by Shawn Robertson

As the city loomed in the distance, Perth considered what he knew about the place, hoping to guard against the horrors within.  Its real name was Londinium, but this had passed out of usage with the departure of the Romans.  In the years since its abandonment, it had been the subject of many unnerving tales.  Some spoke of the ghosts of former inhabitants, others of a mischievous family of fairies.

Since I started the podcast in June 2011 I’ve had to learn a lot, but I’ve also gotten a lot of encouragement. It is hard to believe that we already have 28 episodes out. The written stories are a new thing I’m playing with. A few people have said they would like to have the option of reading the stories. That’s kind of counter-intuitive to me, but the stories are good, so if you are not an audio person it is another option. I’ve tried to make the latest stories available for Kindle, Nook, and just online reading. I have no way to check if the Nook option works. I’ve checked the Kindle with my son’s Ipod Kindle app. No, I still don’t have one, but I haven’t opened my Christmas presents yet! You may have also noticed that I am trying to add a little more historical background before the stories. If anybody would like to contribute any historical bits, either audio or written (which I would then read) please let me know.

We have gotten a some donations, for which I am exceedingly grateful. Thank you very much. The way the podcast works, most of the stories are new. Authors submit stories to me via email and I buy the stories that appeal to me. Early on I got advice from other magazine editors to use a form letter when I rejected a story. I did that, but I started to feel really bad about not making some personal contact with the people that were slaving away to create something for all of us. So now I respond to each entry personally, whether I accept it or not. If you are interested in submitting a story, the guidelines are on our website www.talesofold.org. I have solicited a few stories and I’ve also used some good out of print stories.

Thank you to all of you who have commented on Facebook or on the website. So far we have not gotten enough to put up a forum, but I would be happy to do that if there is interest in the future.

I will sign off now with a final big thank you to everyone who has submitted a story and for all of you who listen! I hope you all have a wonderful holiday season and a happy New Year.

We don’t have an enormous listenership, but it is becoming a little bit of a community.   there will be no story for December 25th. I just got too far behind and pulled into Christmas activities to pull the show together.

by Teel. James Glenn
read by Shawn Robertson

Read Online E-Reader Kindle
“Come in, sit down, smile and talk of pleasant things,” The Chinese Bandit Ping said, a wide grin on his pock marked face, “Or I will shoot you through the head.”

by P.D.R. Lindsay
read by P.D.R. Lindsay

Read Online E-Reader Kindle

Cultures clash in the Land of the Rising Sun. England is leading Japan into the 20th Century, opening the country to new ideas and ways of thinking. Captain Langley thinks he understands the Japanese, and his lady of the moment, but he has no idea.

by Leslie Lupien
read by Shawn Robertson

Read Online E-Reader Kindle

What can a Templar knight, a widowed baroness and a tattered army do against the relentless onslaught of the Mongol hordes?

The fearsome reputation of the creatures had preceded them from Poland, where they had swept all before them. The Poles called them Tatars. Some said they were Satan’s minions that Alexander the Great had driven beyond the Eastern mountains. Others said that they won by Satanic enchantments. That must be right, Jocelyn thought, because they were scrawny, wore what looked like fish scales instead of armor, and rode short-legged horses.

Mongol Conquest

By Russell James
Read by Shawn Robertson
Text version

Twenty hours.  Less than one full day.  Less than an hour for every year of his life.  That was how long Terry Greenwood had spent behind the controls of a Nieuport 28, the 94th Aero Squadron’s pursuit fighter.  It was all the preparation he would get before challenging the Kaiser’s biplanes in the skies of France.  Not that he thought he needed more.

There was no time to waste in the summer of 1918.  The ground war had settled into a horrible stalemate on the Western Front.  Masses of infantry charged across blasted moonscapes to obliteration by cannon and machine gun fire.  Each acre of land cost thousands of lives.  The hopes of the High Command lay in two new technologies, tanks and aircraft.  Terry chose the latter.

By Townsend Walker
Read by Shawn Robertson

Colonel Janós Hajdú strode out of Cavalry Headquarters cursing. General Bauer had been brief.

“Hajdú, there are rebel bands in Borshod County. They’ve stepped up their activity in the last three weeks. They attack then disappear into the countryside. The local garrison can’t stop them. You know the land better than anyone. I’m giving you five hundred men. End this.”

The General was asking Janós to suppress a rebellion fomented by people he had grown up with.

Bauer stepped closer. “Hajdú. Do it quickly. Vienna is watching.”

Little Brother of War

By Harper Hull
Read by Shawn Robertson

The fate of the Choctaw nation and the future United States may depend on a single ball game.

Hands and Knees

By Erik Svehaug
Read by Shawn Robertson

Father Corazo has a vision for the Mission of San Francisco in California. All he has to do is convince the natives, the priests, the soldiers, and God that he is right.

He was in his own league, without equal, incomparable, so what if his so-called peers never once voted him “Magician of the Year.” As much as he has personally liked Harry Houdini and as greatly as he had admired his magic and escape artistry, being referred to as “The Second Houdini” or worse yet, “One of the greatest magicians of all time,” never ceased to upset Elias Crosskeep. He was the greatest magician, the only real magician.

Art by Gabriel Hardman
Closing music: Married a Magician by Dust Poets
J.J. Steinfeld’s book A Glass Shard and Memory

Period: 1750′s
Setting: Malta

The once gallant Knights of Malta, the Order of St. John, have grown wealthy and degenerate, but swords are still drawn when honor is at stake. But what good is cold steel against a ghost?

Interlude music: Church Yard by David Beard
Closing music: Halloween by Fishing for Comets

Ghosts of the Golden House

By Andrew MacRae
Read by Shawn Robertson
Period: Roman times

The Golden House of Nero. Mere words coined by mortals cannot possibly begin to describe that monument to one man’s ego.

Nightingales

By David Pilling (David’s blog)
Read by Jane Osborn
Period: World War I

Now his eyes filled with horror, and he looked around him in confusion.
“No!” he shouted, “I am dead already! Why am I here? I cannot die twice!”

Closing music: Ghost by Robyn Dell’Unto

Period: Mid Roman Empire
Music after the story by Marc Gunn

The tune is an old one, a soldiers’ song springing into my head to match the pace of my steps. I’m not far from home and my feet know it. I’ve heard soldiers sing this song often enough yet the words come slowly. I sing them under my breath. It’s a love song, but my voice is thin, rattles like a reed on high notes, not shaped to sing of love. Still, the ponies don’t startle, although Brannan, in the lead, flicks his ears, as if to a fly.

“When I come again, I’ll bring you gifts my sweet.
Gold for your neck and silver for your feet,
Oils for your soft skin, perfume for your hair.
Watch for me, my darling. I will soon be there.”

By the time the falling sun stops lighting the western skies with flames and the air turns goose grey I will be there, crossing the causeway to the village where I was born. Laila will be down by the water, watching the geese fly over, pulling my message-feather through her fingers over and over again. She knows I’m near.

The countryside is changing. The forest trees have gone, oak and beech gave way to slim birch and straggles of aspen some miles back. Scrubby hazel and alder line the track in sparse groups. There’s a sheen in the air, light from the sky shining on patches of water. But it’s the smell of water that tells me I’m home. Nowhere else does water have that sharp, heart catching tang, a smell as brown and peaty as the water’s colour.

I’ve seen the green-grey water of the Baltic, bone chilling and thick with salt even on a summer’s day. I’ve smelt the sun-warmed, herb scented blue waters of the warm Roman sea, the one their home-sick soldiers talk of as sweet as honey and warming as wine. Cold Germanicus those soldiers call my home, but I love it and nothing is like seeing and scenting the waters of home. I know I’m back in my land of small dark lakes, peat swamps, low horizons and rolling hills.

Period: Elizabethan England

Some of the best theater takes place after the curtains have fallen and the last patron leaves. This weeks historical fiction dares to peak behind the curtain at Blackfriars where young William Shakespeare and company are about to be tossed out on their ears.

Closing music: Shakespeare Pie, by Robert Lund of The FuMP

In the icy cold of January of 1597, the acting company of Lord Chamberlain’s Men accompanied the grieving widow and her sons to bury James Burbage. My tears were genuine. Many a time he and his wife had invited all the lads to their home for a feeding, and filled us with meat pies until we nearly burst. In a hard world, I had found few kinder people than the Burbage family.

I was only a lad, one of the boys that played women’s parts for four pence a day, but I was there. My parents had paid eight pounds to apprentice me to the company, for I wanted nothing more than to be an actor.

As I placed my clod of dirt upon the coffin, I remembered my father, still healthy, and wondered how I would feel if it were him in the grave. Then I looked at his sons, Cuthbert and Richard. Where did they find the strength to stand? Tomorrow night, Richard would strut upon the stage, spouting fine words and mimicking all the emotions a man can show, while inside, he must feel as empty as a discarded bottle.

Period: 1930′s
Setting: Soviet Union

What if the great Igor Sikorsky, inventor of the American helicopter, had not left Russia when the great civil war began? In the dark, suspicious days after the revolution, no one is safe, not even the great ones.

The awareness that he was being followed grew in Nikolai Bukharin’s mind over a period of weeks, through the accretion of small details, incidents, and suspicions, until he awoke one bright summer morning with the knowledge firmly rooted in his mind.

Cheka, the secret police, was having him followed, which, given Bukharin’s stature, meant Trotsky wanted him followed.

His driver’s customary “Good morning, comrade Bukharin!” seemed blackly ironic and only agitated him further. It occurred to him that his driver was the logical man to use to keep an eye on him, and even reminding himself that he had known and trusted the man for years did not put Bukharin at ease.

Period: 1800′s
Setting: South America

By Roselyn Silverman – her latest story is in Midwest Literary Magazine
Read by Kevin Harty

Check out the History Chicks podcast

Closing music: Evolution Rocks by Overman, courtesy of Music Alley from Mevio.

Origin of the Orign

Unpublished manuscript found among the papers of Charles Darwin after his death in 1882. Also found, two pieces of pottery of uncertain origin, craftsmanship, and provenance.

The Beagle anchored at Bahia Blanca during the early part of September 1832. In order to survey the southern and eastern coasts of South America during the succeeding year, the Beagle was to leave and return to this port periodically. This left me with the freedom to roam and collect at will while the Beagle was not in port. After being incarcerated for several months in a ship, I felt buoyed by the freedom of walking over unfenced grasslands, unrestricted by the narrow confines of the ship.

I intended to stay some weeks in the area, during which time I would collect and preserve some of the local animals, birds, and reptiles. I would also chip out fossils if any were found in the geological strata on the beach. When I returned to port, I would eventually send back my cleaned and preserved findings on returning ships to family, friends and mentors in England. This was accomplished during the first few weeks of my stay in a manner that bettered my expectations. My description of this collection and the local fauna and flora was carefully made, to the best of my ability, in my original notes concerning this trip.

This week’s historical fiction is a story about espionage and the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee by Steve Sagarra. To put us in the moment, I’ve included a poem by Jack Spicer called “Response to the Loyalty Oath.” Those were dark times. There was both the real fear of communism and fear of the committees themselves.

Affairs of the Union

The year is 1952. Katarina Madin and her lawyer, Bill Ward, hurriedly walk into the United States Senate building. Entering a chamber through a set of wooden doors at the end of the hallway, the two take seats at the center table. Siting across from a governmental committee investigating domestic communism, the admousphere inside the room matches the winter chill of the Washington morning beyond the frosted windows. As the two confer over a few points, Senator Patrick McCarrran calls the proceedings to order.

“Please take your seats. This committee will now come to order.”

After some shuffling of papers, calm spreads over the room.

“Would you please state your name for the record,” Senator McCarrran requests in a haggard, bureaucratic monotone.

“My name is Katarina Madin.”

“And where were you born, Mrs. Madin?”

“The Soviet Union, Moscow.”

Download this Episode to your computer! Right click (ctrl click for Mac) the link above the story title and select “save link as.”

Fools
By Jon Chan
Read by Shawn Robertson

The emperor had shut himself away almost two weeks. All around him were his drawings, piling up on every available surface. His only company during that time was David Falcon, his fool. David walked into the room carrying a tray with a jug of wine. He picked up one of Emperor Constantine’s drawings.

“What do you think?” asked Constantine.

“Think? I do not think,” said Falcon. “Thinking is what gets you killed.”

Once Upon a Dwarf
By Todd McKie artwork
Read by Shawn Robertson

Hampton Court, 17 August, 1337

Herald: Your Highness, the Dwarf would approach the throne.

King: Have the little fellow step forward. Where is the rascal?

Herald: He stands behind me, My Lord. Dwarf, approach His Highness.

King: Get up here, you little scamp.

Dwarf: I hurry forth as quickly as my poorly fashioned legs can spin me, Sire.

King: Our Dwarf is in a merry mood today! Will you entertain us?

Download this Episode to your computer! Right click (ctrl click for Mac) the link above the story title and select “save link as.”

Period: 1940′s
Setting: World War II

Our first outing into alternate history. The German paratroopers have taken the north of England. When Amy Miller recognizes her former German professor as their commander, she is torn between patriotism and old friendship.

Lake District December 1940

Amy stood on the hillside, overlooking the POW camp in the valley below. The Germans in their grey uniforms mingled with the familiar khakis of the British and she found it hard to believe this could be happening in England.  She also had to remind herself that for now, at least, the Germans were the guards.

So much had occurred in Grizedale in the last few days, she scarcely had time to consider what might be happening elsewhere.  She only knew that the Battle for Britain had finally been lost and the German army had begun the long-feared invasion.  She thought about her friends and neighbours and wondered what would become of them all.

To Amy, that’s all these frightening strangers were; grey uniforms without personalities.  But these men were human too.  This wild country seemed alien to many of the young German paratroopers, still traumatized by the battle for Grizedale.  Most weren’t even sure why they were here. Oberst Karl Schiller, commander of the Wehrmacht forces, knew the reason.

He looked up at the snow-covered hills he knew so well and wondered how his presence would affect the people who lived here.  He felt no hostility towards them but he was under no illusions.

To these people he was the enemy

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By: Pat Tompkins
Read by: Shawn Robertson

Period: American Civil War
Setting: New York City

Not all of the action in the Civil War happened on the battlefield. Today’s historical fiction brings us back to that time in New York of spies, saboteurs, and assassins.

Hearts of Ash

The men in the park huddled, their breath mingling in a smoky haze around their heads. In the chilly November twilight, they appeared to be gathered around a fire for warmth. Had a passerby gotten a close look, he would have seen them peering at a heap of rags. But the men were in a shallow vale, surrounded by boulders and trees, not on a stretch of lawn. They did not want to be seen.

“We’ve been humbugged by that chemist,” said Ezra. He turned his head away from the circle and spat.

Rob held up his hand, as though to signal stop while keeping his eyes on the watch in his other hand. Another thirty seconds passed before the rags burst into flame. “Ha,” Rob shouted. “Just short of six minutes,” he said as they backed away from the blaze.

“Six? Seemed like twice that,” said Ezra. He tugged a handkerchief out of his jacket pocket and blew his nose.

“That’s no humbug,” said James, punching Ezra’s shoulder. “Gives us time to get away.”

“Exactly,” Rob said.

Ezra held his hands over the fire while another of the group said, “That’s enough of that,” and poured a scoop of dirt over the rags. James added double handfuls of dirt and the two men stamped out the fire. Seven minutes had passed since they wet the rags with “Greek fire,” a mixture similar to the explosives used in hand grenades. Then the rags seemed to combust spontaneously. The test had worked. The stuff was good.

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