EXCERPT
Innocence Lost
(For Queen and Country Book 1)
(For Queen and Country Book 1)
by Patty
Jansen
Innocence Lost is the first book in the For Queen
and Country historical fantasy series. Also available: Whispering Willows, a prequel short story, and Willow Witch.
You can also read my previous blog post on Patty's FREE YA book, Watcher's
Web.
Description
Johanna is the daughter of a rich merchant in Saardam. As only child and
without a mother, she has grown up with notions, such as that she wants to take
over her father's river trade business in her own name. Courtesy of her eastern
mother, she has an unusual ability. She sees things in willow wood: whenever
she touches wood, it shows her what has happened around the tree or wooden
object. Any kind of magic is not common in Saardam, and the Church of the
Triune, which rapidly gains influence in the city, forbids it.
While she goes to church, Johanna also maintains a loose network of
magic-enabled people. One of those people is Loesie, a farmer's daughter from
out of town.
One day, Loesie comes to town after having been struck mute by magic. She
carries a basket made from willow twigs that tells Johanna that a group of
bandits with demons is about to attack the city.
But there is no non-magical proof, so she can't tell anyone or she'd be
branded a witch. The time of witch-burnings was not that long ago.
Never mind that the army is still approaching, and there are increasing
signs that Saardam's embattled royal family might have done something that has
angered magical forces in the east. Add to this that the royal family seems to
have fallen out with the city's nobility, and that the recent death of the
crown princess has left the family with only one heir: the mysterious prince
whom no one has seen for years and who has suddenly returned home.
At the annual ball, Johanna's father has brokered a dance for her with
the prince. Johanna just wants to warn people of the impending attack.
Excerpt
Johanna sashayed down
the church aisle towards the open doors that beckoned her to freedom. Her clogs
clonked on the wooden floor, clop-clop-clop. With each sway of her hips, her
skirts swished around her ankles, and her plait swung over her back, free of
the bonnet.
Outrageous.
Improper.
Poor girl, needs a
mother. Look at her clothes. As if her father can’t afford anything better.
He’s giving her far too much freedom.
She knew the
whispers of the merchants’ wives, the not-quite-nobles and other hangers-on of
the Saardam gentry, and all the others in the pews. She knew the rules of the
church about women, that they should dress modestly and not show any
exuberance or draw attention to themselves.
There would be hell
to pay for this later, but today, she didn’t care.
On second thoughts,
coming to church wearing her clogs instead of her proper shoes was probably not
her smartest idea ever. But she didn’t want to get her best shoes dirty. Of
course she had a second-best pair of shoes, but even her second best pair of
shoes was too good for the markets, where farmers cast their scraps on the
ground and their pigs and cows and chickens left their business, and where the
cobbles were always covered in slimy mud.
Indeed, the daughter
of a merchant who hoped to attain noble status wasn’t supposed to go to the
markets. One had servants for the purpose.
Not that she cared
about that either. Because, for once, the weather gods smiled on Saardam,
bringing out the colours, the paint on the merchants’ houses, the red of the
roofs, the blue water in the canals, the brilliant green of the leaves on the
trees, the yellow of the cheeses on the market stalls, the blue and white
shirts of the cheese sellers. Had she ever noticed how many weeds grew between
the pavers in the street and how brightly yellow the dandelions bloomed? Did
she remember how blue the sky was and how white the clouds?
She stopped at the
church door, drinking it in.
She called it freedom,
now that the boring part of the day was done.
The sunlight was
kind even to Nellie, with wisps of flaxen hair peeking out from under her
oh-so-proper bonnet. Her eyes were clear and blue and her skin was like the
velvet bottom of the neighbour’s baby, so much prettier than Johanna’s. Those
cheeks now flushed with red as she caught up with Johanna at the church doors,
bowing and apologising to all those who had nothing better to do than complain.
She whispered,
“Mistress Johanna, you aren’t wearing your proper shoes.”
“Aren’t I?” Johanna
lifted up the hem of her skirt, letting the sunlight fall on her clogs. Pretty
ones, these were, too, with painted patterns and made from willow wood that
sang its stories to her whenever she wore them. Happy stories, of fat cows,
green pastures, and peace.
“Your shoes were in
your room. I put them there this morning.”
“Oh. I must have
missed them.”
She clonked down the
church steps, clop-clop-clop on the wood. Clop-clop-clop down the new stairs of
the new entrance porch with its Lurezian woodwork and stained glass windows.
Clop-clop-clop onto the cobbled street.
See me? I’m wearing
my clogs to church. If there is any such thing as the Triune - which I doubt - He
will love me or hate me with my clogs just as much as with my shoes.
“Come, let’s go!”
Nellie sighed and
rolled her eyes. She did that a lot lately.
Frivolous, they called Johanna, and said she needed a man.
But have you ever noticed how marriage takes the life out of a woman’s eyes?
She slid into the
crowds of the markets, the servants, shopkeepers and common people buying their
daily needs: bread, butter and cheese; potatoes, fish and - shudder - cabbage.
“Good day Mistress
Johanna, good day, Nellie,” said Leo Mustermans, standing behind his stall. He
wore his Market Day best, a hose that was grey and less patched than what he
usually wore when lugging cheeses from the sloops in the harbour. He did well
enough; under his golden hair he had a round face, now sweaty and squinting
into the sunlight.
“Beautiful day
today,” Johanna said. “The cheese will be good this summer.”
“That, it will be,
Mistress Johanna. Though the cheese will get sweaty if the breeze doesn’t pick
up.”
She laughed. She
wanted to say, Just like you but Leo would laugh, because he was that
kind of man, and others would know what she’d said and next thing that
would be added to her list of recent sins.
“It’s good quality
cheese, the kind the Estlanders like.” He looked like he wanted to add
something about Johanna’s father buying his cheese and selling it to Estland,
but he didn’t. She was a frivolous girl after all and one couldn’t
possibly discuss business with a girl. Fancy that.
Then he asked,
“You’re all excited for the king’s ball?”
Johanna laughed but
her good mood fled the instant he mentioned the word “ball”. Why did they
always have to ask about that? As if it were the only thing that mattered for a
young woman in Saardam: to be invited to the royal ball. She said through
clenched teeth, “Our family is not important enough to go to the ball.”
“I’m sorry to hear
that.”
“Don’t be, because I
don’t want to go.”
“But you should be
invited, Mistress Johanna. You’d be pretty enough to turn all the noble boys’
heads, and brainy enough to outsmart them all.”
She laughed, the
sound again hollow. “Thanks for the flattery, Leo, but no thanks. I’m glad I
don’t have to go.” It was not like the noble boys wanted brainy girls.
“It’s a pity. The
rumour goes that the king will announce a surprise for the citizens of
Saardam.”
Johanna had heard
that, too, whispered to her by the wood of the pews in the church. She stifled
a wave of suspicion and dread. Last year, the king’s surprise had been his
donation of the statue of the Triune to the Church. The thing was so big that
it had come on a river sloop pulled by two full teams of sea cows all the way
from Lurezia. The blocks of the statue had to be dismantled even further before
they fitted through the church door.
She hoped the
surprise would be nowhere as extravagant as that. And that it would be
something that people could use. She heard the Burovian king had paid for a new
concert hall, and that Lurezia now had a building dedicated to the study of the
skies. Why couldn’t King Nicholaos give something like that? “I’m sure we’ll
hear about it soon enough.”
Featured Review
By Amanda Peake
Another wonderful book written by Patty Jansen. Her books never cease to
bring me right into the world of characters and time period. I love reading
this book. I haven't always been a fan of Historical Fiction however if all
books were written this well I wouldn't be able to put them down.
I think she hit on religious points without shoving them down your
throat. I wouldn't call this book YA though, the sex scene is a little much for
most YA novels.
About the Author
Patty Jansen lives in Sydney, Australia, where she spends most of her
time writing Science Fiction and Fantasy. Her story "This Peaceful State
of War" placed first in the second quarter of the Writers of the Future contest and was
published in their 27th anthology. She has also sold
fiction to genre magazines such as Analog Science Fiction and Fact, Redstone Science Fiction, and Aurealis.
Her novels include Watcher's Web (soft SF), The Far Horizon (middle grade SF), Charlotte's Army (military SF), and Fire & Ice, Dust & Rain, and Blood & Tears (Icefire Trilogy) (dark
fantasy). Her novel Ambassador was published by Ticonderoga Publications in 2013.
Patty is a member of SFWA and the cooperative that makes up Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine, and she has also
written nonfiction.
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