Ross Trevelyan 🗻🌲🦪🦀🚵‍♂️

@jumpintraxjack

Freelance Editor. Author. Realpolitiker. 2026 WIPs: ◆ Black as the Sea at Night, 1816 Irish picaresque ◆ Lakeshore Heights, psych noir thriller Excerpts on #WIPSnips. Слава Украïнi! 🚫AI, DM #editors

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Ross Trevelyan 🗻🌲🦪🦀🚵‍♂️@jumpintraxjack· 1d

#WIPSnips: admit Tarlach has found Conall in the ruined ráth in the mountains after he stole a dragoon horse, which they ran off. He also gained a Pattern-1800 rifle (Baker) & flintlock pistol. vocab: a bhoc /a wuk/ = akin to "buck-o" or "boyo;" throgs = euphemism; horse's work = good job.

HEAVEN SHEWED me a chance, so off I flew.” Conall’s voice faltered, then surged back. “Moved fast as shite through a goat.”
“And right ye were to claim His offer, a bhoc,” Tarlach said.
“How far now?”
“A league down to the road. Bad scran, runnin off the charger.”
“Not with the Crown’s broad arrow on the hoof. Sure, I spied ye schemin a worrisome caper there.”
“Never will I admit to much ken o’ horseflesh, but throgs! What a baist—hale in wind and limb. And us with our poor spavined, malandered oul’ nags—bad legs and ribs all shewin out.” Tarlach hacked in his throat and spat. “Hurdies thin as blades. I envy ye the ride. But with the king’s brands and numbers: every farrier in Tyrconnell’d know it on sighth.”
Conall let out a curt laugh.
“Blieve me, the chance come at me fast. ’Twas ride or die. Swear the captain’s steed bent the Earth to save me arse. Ne’er touched the ground. And ye seen what I got for me trouble.”
“Aye, I dare say ye done the horse’s work there.”

Ross Trevelyan 🗻🌲🦪🦀🚵‍♂️@jumpintraxjack· 2d

#WIPSnips: Stretched a bit. capacity > stowage. Derry, 1816. Maguire has met Tim Foley, a steward's mate, and is pumping him for intel about Lord Musgrave's shipping after rescuing the man from a confrontation with Khubulov, one of Warwick's knucklemen. #WriteSky #WritingCommunity #WritingPrompts

Tim Foley conducted Maguire to the Strand Road Public House, a smoky waterfront shithole beside a butcher shop and abattoir leaking the sick smell of decaying carcasses and the grassy excrement of ungulates.
They sat at a trestle table with tin cups of soapy two-penny ale. Conall grimaced when the tart, waxy film coated his tongue.
Foley chuckled. “The firsth is always thus. Let me tell yez about a Protestant laddie whilst we grease our throats for the second—’twill go down aisier. Wee Willy Wilkie, his name, was goin on with the Roman priest, chaffin him for blievin in merricles.”
“Protestants don’t blieve in merricles?”
“Must not.” Foley shrugged. “So Wee Willy, says he to Father Michael, ‘I’ll be mortally thankful to hear what a merricle is, Your Reverence, for I can’t never understand it.’ Says Father, ‘Look ahint yourself now, Willy. How many cows have ye in thon field?’ The lad torns. The priest deals him a hearty kick up the arse. Afther Willy gathers himself up, Father says, ‘Han’t ye felt that now, Willy?’ ‘B’God,’ says Willy, ‘I had. Why the divil wouldn’t I?’ ‘Well, ye’ve got your answer now, laddie-o. Were ye not to feel that, sure ’twould be a merricle indeed.’”
Maguire swigged his ale and laughed as he looked around the crowded pothouse.
“Plenty stowage in them ships, I imagine,” he said casually.
“Aye, and we’ve a fine trick for figurin how many tons burthen a ship can carry.”
“That so?”
“Ship’s length minus three-fifths the beam, times the beam itself, times again by half. Then ye divide by ninety-four, the shipbuilder’s number.”
Conall didn’t understand.

Foley gulped his beer.
“Heavier lading’s more of a divil, of course. Ships’ guns and the like. We’re always strikin down loads o’ that—goin here, goin there. Shipwrecks bring us carriage guns, powder kegs, crates o’ rifles, shot—all movin down our pier.”
“From wreckers?”
“Aye, wreckers jibberin the kibber as they do, buildin their fires to draw ships into the headlands. Lord Musgrave helps the insurers win back their lading.”
“Heard of a fella Henry Warwick?”
“Aye, he’s a man hard as flint. Ye keep from Cap’n Warwick’s path, else he’s through ye for a near-cut. But he knows his ships and his numbers. Ye know him?”
Cap’n Warwick.
“Not well. Chanced to meet him onced. Mhuise, he told me of a mighty great African whaleman here in Derry, a slave escaped from the Hercules.”
Maguire feigned a laugh.
“I seen that ship a few times,” Foley said.
“Now tell me, where in the green hills o’ Tyrconnell would yez hide a dark man? With folks round here all white as the belly of a fish—ye’d spot a fella.”
Foley wrinkled his forehead.
“There be places. We had one onced—big man, and och, no taildraft was he, I tell ye. Ye might find one on ships come up from Spain or Portugal, had yez a mind for ’t.”

Ross Trevelyan 🗻🌲🦪🦀🚵‍♂️@jumpintraxjack· 3d

#WIPSnips: melody > melodic Conall Maguire is adjusting to shipboard life among the foreign crew and their food. The captain brought the African blacksmith aboard In Saint-Nazaire. Conall has many questions about the murders and what he knows about the killer, but has no idea where to begin.

TIDE AND A GENTLE BREEZE eased the Razorfish from the mouth of the Loire just before the First Dog Watch. They’d at last returned to their quest. The ship ran south along the French coast, consuming the rest of the season’s fifteen-hour daylight.
The next morning saw them past the low shores of Noirmoutier, the knob-like formation of Rocher de Pilours, and the pale limestone cliffs of la ville blanche, La Rochelle. They continued on a southerly heading.
At sunset, Cédric lit the stern riding lantern, and Pascal Saunier took over Jack’s helm to sail through the night. Men soon gathered in the cuddy. Yves poured carmine wine into pewter tumblers. Bernez and Yannick brought up baguettes and a pot of bright red salt beef ragout.
A day of sea air had made Conall ravenous.
He nudged Burke, whispering, “An bhfuil de dhánacht orainn úlla na caillí a ithe?”
The priest rolled his eyes. “Ye’re out o’ Tyrconnell now, a bhoc—the witch’s apples won’t kill ye.”
The African and the crew acted as if they were old friends, reliving tales of heavy winter gales coming out of Ireland the previous November. His peculiar manner of speaking used the full depth of his lungs, and his melodic accent was just as enchanting as Aibreán had said.

Ross Trevelyan 🗻🌲🦪🦀🚵‍♂️@jumpintraxjack· 4d

#WIPSnips: handle Conall Maguire has been accosted by outlaws after coming upon a hidden souterrain in the Blue Stacks. They don't mean him or Aibreán well. In the scene, he overhears one's name, but names the others based on their garb. #WriteSky #WritingCommunity #WritingPrompts

“What do we have here, Mr. Gilley?” Redcoat boomed. “Where’s his fine cailín rua? I do prefare the red-hair ones.”
Conall’s heart skipped a beat.
Redcoat had seen them.
Gilley frowned. “I fear he’s not paid the toll, Pather.”
Scarecrow chortled at Maguire’s plight.
“Have ye no English? Nach bhfuil an Béarla?”
He slapped his thigh. “King charges extra for that—and we collect.” Grinning with bare gums, he twirled his baton.
Conall’s gaze flicked between the highwaymen. “Don’t want trouble.”
Scarecrow’s face twisted into a cruel grimace.
“Ye found trouble despite, a chara. Black Jemmy won’t thank ye for sniffin out our hidey-hole.”
He raised a bony forefinger with the look of a priest pronouncing a blessing. “We’ll have them sheep for starters—and your cloak, coat, and that brave pair o’ boots ye wear.”
“And whatever contraband’s in the trunk,” Gilley said.
Redcoat snapped up his chin. “The lass is mine—and the ass.”
Steel sang from Gilley’s scabbard, the single-edged cavalry blade flashing.
Fear shot through Maguire’s veins.
Scarecrow pointed to the sheep in the bulrushes. “Them hornies could be fatther, but they’ll do.”
Gilley turned. “On a spit, they will. Now don’t ye go befoulin ’em, Mick.”
Redcoat wheezed out a laugh. “Lad’ll push his rud into whatsomever gives him a bleat.”
Gilley eyed him. “I get a slice of the lass.”
Redcoat guffawed. “Ye’ll fight me firsth.”

Scarecrow lunged, gripping the gimmer’s stubby horns. She jerked and bleated, snapping the dogs to attention.
Maguire ordered them back down.
Scarecrow staggered as the nimble hogget broke free, her rear hooves clouting his groin with biblical precision.
He yelped and collapsed, clutching himself.
Redcoat and Gilley brayed.
“That how I larnt ye to handle a ewe?” Redcoat said.
The sheep gathered behind George.
“Cá bhfuil sí?” Gilley asked. Where is she?
“Cé?” Who?
“A’ ghirseach deas rua.” The lovely redhead.
“The beggar? Run off when I wouldn’t feed her.”
Gilley clucked his tongue in reproof.
“Ye din’t feed the hungry? Priest or no, ye’ll get your trial for redemption—by combat.”
He booted Scarecrow’s thigh where the youth lay.
“Och, ye bosthoon!”
Scarecrow cried out, clutching his leg.
Gilley forded the shallows.
He stepped from the water, recomposing his grip under the sword’s knuckle-bow. The brigand swished the blade.
“We’ve a wee problem, ye see? Ye found our keepin place.”
(from the novel Black as the Sea at Night)

Ross Trevelyan 🗻🌲🦪🦀🚵‍♂️@jumpintraxjack· 5d

Donegal, Ireland.
The year is 1816. Napoleon has fallen.
And summer never came.

Volcanic ash from a distant eruption hangs over Europe, choking out sunlight and rotting the crops. Young women are vanishing—their fates whispered in frightened voices, their disappearances blamed on old superstitions. Something is abroad in the darkness. And it isn’t the wraith they know as the Taibhse.

Conall Maguire loses everything when redcoats drive him from Ravenscliff, the only home he has ever known. The bitter weather is nothing compared to what comes next: the three women he loves most disappear without a trace—taken into a world he can neither see nor reach.

What begins as an eviction becomes a chase across the known world—from the wind-bitten wilds of Donegal to the fog-shrouded French coast, the sun-bleached islands of the Aegean, and the labyrinthine ports of the Ottoman Empire.

His unlikely ally: Father Liam Burke, one-eyed Vatican spy, swashbuckler, and keeper of dangerous secrets. Together they must expose a British lord’s hidden mission for the Crown and dismantle a machine of kidnapping, murder, and human trafficking before the slave markets of Constantinople consume the women forever.

Steeped in the language of 1816 Ireland, Black as the Sea at Night is a novel of betrayal, survival, and vengeance—historical fiction at its most human. And its most savage.

Ross Trevelyan 🗻🌲🦪🦀🚵‍♂️@jumpintraxjack· 7d

#WIPSnips: box Darby and the two Maguire brothers are on the verge of learning something momentous about the mysterious priest, Father Liam Burke, who's cagey about the British Pattern-1800 rifle until he learns they have one. #WriteSky #WritingCommunity #WritingPrompts

Tarlach turned to the priest. “Any word on Rome, Father?”
Burke shrugged. “They’ll send a man ashore to bring me off the strand.”
“Not the harbor? What kinda ship—‍”
“The kind slips past watchful eyes—long and slender and light as a cockleshell. The king’s revenue cutthers are one thing, but dragoons worry me more. They’ll make it a divil to get acrost the sand. Had Cap’n Hamilton said how many Fothergill commands?”
“Fifty,” Tarlach said. “Minus a couple now.”
The priest twisted his lips. “Still a troublous number. Their rifles are deadly accurate to three hundred yard.”
Burke drained his cup.
“So I’m told.”
Tarlach shifted his weight. “We have one. And a cúpla French Charlevilles as well.”
“Ye’ve an 1800? Carry me out. How’d ye get that?”
“Brang it off Fothergill’s charger,” Conall said. “With a Newland pistol and a powder horn.”
Tarlach leaned in. “Still need help with the paper cartridges.”
“Have ye the box?”
“We do.”
The priest’s lone eye twinkled with intrigue.
“And goose-grease?”
Tarlach nodded.
“Drag it out, will ye?” Burke said. “Give us a look.”
Darby lifted his glass, eyes locked on Burke.
“Vow ye’ll keep a grave secret, Father?”
Burke cocked his head back, arching an eyebrow.
“Yourself as well, Darby O’Gallagher?”

Ross Trevelyan 🗻🌲🦪🦀🚵‍♂️@jumpintraxjack· 8d

#WIPSnips: thrill Chapter 4 opener. Conall Maguire has fled from Ravenscliff into the rugged, glaciated highlands, where memories haunt him. #WriteSky #WritingCommunity #WritingPrompts

MAGUIRE DESCENDED into the expansive bowl of the corrie, icy droplets stinging his exposed flesh. A torrent of rainwater soon cascaded off his garments, spattering to the ground, where it laced between myriad stones and transformed the downhill trail into a slippery, racing runnel.
By the time he’d made his way back down to the animals, his face was astream with moisture. The sodden shepherds leapt at him as if he’d been gone a hundred years. But for them and life’s rare flickers of lightness, his losses weighed heavy as a wet cloak.
He squatted to wait out the rain.
When the downpour eased, an unseen curlew’s weird and lovely cry mocked him.
Would spring never come? Not one trill of the greening—yet shorebirds in the uplands.
They’d driven livestock to these meadows in summers past, constructing bóthans, willow-framed shelters of rush and heather, where they swapped ghost stories under the stars and laughed by the crackle of bonfires.
Here—high above Ravenscliff—where Conall Maguire had succumbed to the febrility of first love.
Thirteen years had now passed since the Saint John’s Eve fires had worked their sorcery, their flickering glow chasing away Lifford’s torturous specters, clearing Maguire’s mind of all but the scent of clean wool and a young woman. Crushed white woodbine thrilled his nostrils as the moon rode high over the hills, casting a silvery glow on the highlands. While other young shepherds passed liquor in the firelight, Caitlín Gilmartin joined Conall in his makeshift shelter, where inexperience proved his sole constraint.
Conall had craved the distraction—the intoxication, the obsession, the ecstasy—and he surrendered to it, a fledgling eagle primed for flight. Caitlín’s long, dark hair spilled free. The fire of nature summoned him to imperatives of the flesh as her scent drew him to her lips, her neck, the warmth of her breasts. As if fever-crazed, he capitulated to the temptations of her geometry.

A soft breeze soughed over the ridge that night, caressing the highland grasses as pagan flames danced shadows over Caitlín’s contours.
An unreckoned child came next.
Conall pushed his sins from his mind, tightened the donkey’s cinch, and ignored the hollow ache that time refused to heal. He’d overcome nothing but a few steep hills.
On he trudged.

Ross Trevelyan 🗻🌲🦪🦀🚵‍♂️@jumpintraxjack· 9d

#WIPSnips: thorn Noreen and Bella trading village gossip, with Noreen warning her sister that she'd been spotted at market with the dashing British captain, Robert Hamilton. The word play is on the Irish name Róisín, meaning Little Rose.🌹🩸 #WriteSky #WritingCommunity #WritingPrompts

Bella gathered more wool from her lap.
“The hens are ever scratchin for a nugget o’ corn. Heaven forbid a body blieve their prattle and tattle. And that goes for yourself as well.”
Noreen held her words, waiting for her sister’s curiosity to win out.
“Have yez a fresh scandal?”
There.
“Do I. Róisín MacCready spotted yourself with Robb Hamilton, and she’s tellin the mice in every field.”
Bella pished.
“Who named her? The woman’s all thorns. Right—tell us the gosther, then.”
“Guess for yourself: a married woman meetin another man. Irish with foreign. Ye know where that goes.”
Bella twisted her lips.
“Robb’s not foreign to us, for one. And Róisín MacCready’s got tongue enough to clip a hedge. More betoken, happenstance ain’t the same as meetin a body. Ye know that.”
“How’d it come about?”
“Standin with me spangles at market, just. Up strolls Robb in his battledress and cracked-lookin hat, and och, himself lookin the king’s own standard-bearer. And wasn’t I glad to see him—han’t a single offer within a beagle’s gowl o’ me axin. Soon as Mrs. Whittaker spied the king’s scarlet, she bought a cúpla spangles straight off.”
“’Twas her nose done the buyin, sure, and she puttin it where ’t doesna blong.”
Bella rolled her eyes. “Robb fetched up to say hullo, is all. And his lieutenant. The hens never seen the king’s engineers, I s’pose.”
“Best keep it from the Maguires, Bel. Sure, they’ll spy the cloven foot in it.”

Ross Trevelyan 🗻🌲🦪🦀🚵‍♂️@jumpintraxjack· 10d

#WIPSnips: coherent > incoherent > various ways to express the condition.😅 After discovering the booley house in the rain, Conall and the dogs run down to the glacial erratics at the bog's edge for chert, leaving Aibreán. Nightfall is coming. In their absence, Aibreán makes her own discovery.

Maguire came upon Aibreán on the flat rock in her wet, threadbare spencer. The dogs mobbed her. He pulled off his stovepipe, shaking off rainwater, and looked her over with puzzled concern.
“Ye’ll see for yourself anon,” she said. “Gimme the word from the bog.”
“Still as death down thonder. Plenty murther in the moss, me grandda always said. Diggin for rafthers onced, we come upon a quare fella down below the gor, bound hand and foot, his face bashed in. Hide tight as leather, and his back carryin wee black marks like rows o’ ticks. Not our folk by his dress, but we buried him Christian all the same.”
“Got ye firestone?”
Conall slapped his coat pocket. “Go leor.”
Aibreán’s face darkened.
“We’re not alone, Condy.”
She tipped her head toward the booley house.
“A shiverin crone lives in there, with the skin all hangin from her bones. She flits in and out o’ her registry, hearin voices, seein craythurs . . . she’s ayther mad or moonsthruck, I tell ye.”
“Mad?” Conall crimped his brow. “We need the shelther. A mortal chill’s upon us this night.”
“She has straw and dry turf.”
“Has she grub?”
“Thinkin to bargain with yours?”
“Do what we must.”
“I’ll wake her. Told her ye’re me cousin.”
Aibreán went to the hut.
Moments later, she led a skinny carline out by the arm and introduced her.
“Been no heat in these oul’ bones this hundhred year,” Rebecca said.
“Take your aise,” Conall said. “Have ye dry turf, I can promise a warm night ahead.”
“The house is uncouth, aye, but the thatch holds, whilk is grace enough.”

Ross Trevelyan 🗻🌲🦪🦀🚵‍♂️@jumpintraxjack· 12d

#WIPSnips: relax Tarlach has driven the horsecart back to Ardnawark from the mountains with Conall and dangerous contraband. Tarlach is days overdue; Conall, months. Conall senses tension in the air. "Relax" > "take your aise" (ease). #WriteSky #WritingCommunity #WritingPrompts

“We’ve hazels in the wood,” Peter said.
“A grand harvest for Samhain, then?”
The boy nodded. “Got an elfstone as well, down by the creek.” Peter handed Conall a flint arrowhead.
“Look at that. ’Tis an elfstone, sure.” Conall gave it back, sensing a certain melancholy. “Knew ye were a hawkeye.”
“All right,” Bella said. “Back to the evenin chores,” She shook her head as the children scampered off.
Macha jumped from the horsecar and tore after them.
“We’ve a power o’ talkin ahead, Maguire.”
Something seemed off.
“Aye, do we—we’ll talk round the hearth.”
“I’ve more for ye.”
Bella cast a nervous glance at Tarlach.
“Your wee man’s cute as a pet fox,” Conall said.
She tossed her head. “Ah, he is, that. They fell heartsick when ye din’t follow. I’ve a fire to mind now.”
Bella returned to the house.
The brothers unloaded Darby’s trap and hefted the travel trunk inside. Conall removed the jug of poitín, the redcoat’s powder horn and cartridge box, and an eleven-inch Newland dragoon pistol.
Tarlach’s low whistle signaled approval.
“Off the charger.”
“Brilliant. Go on, take your aise, Condy. I’ll stable the baists.”
“Find a place to coach them guns.”
Tarlach winked a dark eye. “I will. Back in a trice.” He collected the pistol and accessories and lumbered out the door to unpack the tight, wool-lined compartment beneath the trap’s bed.

Ross Trevelyan 🗻🌲🦪🦀🚵‍♂️@jumpintraxjack· 13d

#WIPSnips: century End of Chapter One. Conall Maguire flees from his home in the rural townland of Ravenscliff, in the Poisoned Glen. #WriteSky #WritingCommunity #WritingPrompts

Che-PAH!
The musket shot shattered the silence, a lead ball splattering against the granite slab. A sentry’s arm raised, and Maguire drew back from the cliff, his heart fluttering like a bird in a trammel.
Another gun belched a white cloud, its bullet falling short—a Brown Bess, hampered by its range.
A gauger slid a shorter firearm from his saddle scabbard. The brass patch box on the stock identified it as a Pattern-1800 rifle, more accurate than a smoothbore and with greater reach.
A crack split the air. The slug shrieked past Conall’s ear and screamed across stone.
Below, gaugers dashed for their mounts. Several yeomen followed for theirs.
Och, a Mhuire!
Frantic, Maguire scrambled off the cold megalith. They’d hunt him, a starving wolf pack salivating for the bounty.
His two-hour advantage would mean nothing if he couldn’t shake them on the labyrinth of highland goat paths, terrain too rugged for horses.
Tarlach and Donagh would curse him for losing the whiskey, but survival meant no second guesses. He tore downhill, legs twitchy from the morning flight, lungs straining with each ragged breath.
The trail meandered down across the meadow and climbed through a gap in the corrie’s opposite edge. Beyond lay many unknowns.
’Twas said a man can live more than once—that great swoops of fate divide a life into separate existences, each as distinct as birth and death. Conall Maguire was fleeing toward a third life now. The first had ended with his father’s death—his resurrection coming on May 8, 1800, the century’s first market day. The second ended on the morning they came for Ravenscliff.

Ross Trevelyan 🗻🌲🦪🦀🚵‍♂️@jumpintraxjack· 22d

#WIPSnips: unfazed One of the "confessions" scenes. (Bean sí = banshee) #WriteSky #WritingCommunity #WritingPrompts

CONALL RETURNED from Derry to find Darby and Séamus at the chapel. The clerk spoke first. “Any luck?”
“Quiet as a boneyard. Foley says they’re still waiting for Musgrave and Warwick.”
“Ye give him the news?”
Conall pished. “He’ll learn it from the king’s revenue agents.”
Séamus cleared his throat.
“Seen Sherkey on me way up from the bay. I’d forgotten the basthard’s look—the Divil himself havin walked o’er his mug with hobnails.”
“Seen the forehead scar?”
“Din’t recall it.”
“Donie done it.”
“And lived?”
“’Twas a merricle, sure. The blaggard insulted Ellen’s memory. Donie lost the run of himself right then and there. Had he his bow, I swear Sherkey woulda been sportin feathers.”
“Bless him.” Séamus inhaled. “Cap’n Hamilton seems a fair player. Downfaced Sherkey like a masther.”
Séamus steepled his fingers and leaned forward as if to reveal a secret.
“I owe yez a confession about His Lordship.”
He made eye contact first with Conall, then Darby.
“The oul’ cuff took a shot at me in the Octavia’s wardroom. Pistol misfired. Mayhap I got his intentions wrong, but then he began abusin meself and the land of our birth. Torch into the flax from there.”
He tilted his head.
“All ends up, I helped Musgrave off the stern walk tethered to his kedge, which they had hangin from a davit. One slice o’ me blade, ’twas straight down till Judgment Day. I beg pardon for keeping it to meself till now.”

His brother’s words stunned Conall. He glanced at Darby, who shrugged, unfazed.
“Folks get paid back in their own coin betimes.”
He glanced into the flames.
“Back in ninety-eight, them lobstherbacks who killt the Gallinaghs filled their buckets from an eddy in the Lowerymore—the same eddy where we Defenders dumped a cúpla firkins o’ white arsenic the eve o’ Samhain. None of the murtherin basthards saw the dawn. Same with their horses. And wouldn’t ye know—an itinerant tinker told the village hens he’d heard the bean sí wailin away the entire night up thonder.”

Ross Trevelyan 🗻🌲🦪🦀🚵‍♂️@jumpintraxjack· 26d

#WIPSnips: rush Conall Maguire returns from Derry defeated. He holds no evidence--only suspicions. The "rush" expression refers to how a weak, pliable individual rush becomes strong and useful when bundled with others. Meaning he should return to Derry. #WriteSky #WritingCommunity #WritingPrompts

MAGUIRE ARRIVED from Derry at an empty chapel. He drove to the mortuary, where Bess and the other dead wagon stood beside Father Burke’s horse.
Grim-faced Darby and the one-eyed priest spoke in hushed tones at the fireplace.
The clerk jumped to his feet. “What learnt ye?”
Maguire made a face of annoyance. “A steward’s mate told of women on Musgrave’s ships—convicts transported under contract.”
“Where to?”
“Van Diemen’s Land. But we’re at a standstill.”
Darby focused on Burke, his expression puzzled. “How do we follow a ship?”
“We’ve no sartinties at all,” Conall said. “But all three are gone without a trace, just like Ellen and Maggie.”
Darby clucked. “Don’t bate yourself down. What’s your instinct?”
“That it’s true—they’re smugglin women as convicts. Dunno the intent, but the man said some go out on the next ship.”
“When?”
“No way to know.”
“Sakes, ride back up—a rush always gathers to a bundle.”
Burke gestured to a lump under a linen sheet. “We’ve suffered a loss here.”
Conall’s pulse quickened.
The priest squinted. “Canna fathom what done that to her.”
Conall filled his lungs. “Don’t tell me.”
The priest snapped a nod.
An inner voice urged Conall to search for telltales. The unique horse tracks were the first clue in years, but he still didn’t understand how they differed.
“Who is she?”

“Dunno,” Darby said. “Found her an ass’s gallop north o’ the village. She has a birthmark, so I spread the word.”
“Her state shocks me senseless,” Burke said.
Darby pointed with his chin. “Go on, look, Condy. Got to her afore the rain. This one kept her face.”
“Seen tracks?”
“Din’t think to look. Washed away by now.”
Jarring images of Ellen flooded Conall’s mind, a malevolent freshet that would never retreat.
He hesitated.
“Go on,” Darby prodded.
Maguire approached the bier and lifted the shroud’s corner.
Blonde hair, freckled shoulder.
He exposed her head and collarbones.
And gagged.

Ross Trevelyan 🗻🌲🦪🦀🚵‍♂️@jumpintraxjack· 27d

#WIPSnips: coach Aibreán O'Byrne has left Tarlach Maguire and the mare at the ruined ringfort in the mountains, and has set out down toward the Gap of Barnesmore on foot. Here, she has finally reached the coach road. #WriteSky #WritingCommunity #WritingPrompts

THE FETOR OF ROTTING FLESH clawed into Aibreán’s nostrils and mouth, searing her tongue, raking down her throat with the violence of rape. She choked and fought to hold her breath as the noisome stench suffocated her. Desperate to escape the invisible cloud, she hared across the coach road, gagging, swiveling her head.
The obscenity propelled her stumbling over muddy carriage ruts. Aibreán spat the taste from her mouth, trying to stub out an urge to retch.
No use.
Gut spasms doubled her over, forcing out burning vomit.
Rebecca’s haversack slipped from her shoulder, jingling onto the highway as she spewed smoky, tooth-ground gobbets of herring.
The putrefying corpse surpassed even the bawling reek of the tanner’s vats, where a shit-and-lime slurry stripped flesh and fat from hides.
Curiosity pulled Aibreán’s eyes to the gutter when her nose pinpointed the source.
The bloated, mottled legs of a woman’s prone body protruded from a crowd of reeds and grasses in the drainage channel. Bare feet stuck out of a filthy dress.
Aibreán looked away. Guttered corpses—abandoned husks, her father called them—always wore a violent grimace, a sight worth forgetting.
A wild wind rose south of the gap, howling through it with a ferocity demanding attention. She reversed course, escaping the stench, but guilt still overtook her. Her thoughts wandered to her mother and sisters.
“Och, a lump of a sinner am I,” she muttered, “luckless creathur pikin off from troubles o’ me own makin.”
The haversack weighed on her shoulder and her conscience.
Voices flocked through Aibreán’s mind—venomous and stinging, the verbal stroke of a whip, echoing her mother’s worst scolds, plunging her into dejection and self-loathing.
“A dacent man’ll never plight his troth to a cutpurse, sure. Doomed am I to take me life by thievery till I dance me last at the rope’s end.”
Aibreán pulled the cloak tighter and quickened her pace.

Ross Trevelyan 🗻🌲🦪🦀🚵‍♂️@jumpintraxjack· Jun 20

#WIPSnips: lounge 25 June 1816. The HMS Severn has spotted 4 Russian men-of-war pursuing Lord Musgrave's vessel Octavia northeast of Mykonos, in the Aegean Sea. The Severn hails and boards the Octavia. #WriteSky #WritingCommunity #WritingPrompts

“We sighted four Russian warships on a bearing that suggested pursuit,” Bransfield said. “May I have a word with His Lordship?”
Warwick frowned. “We’ve seen no Russians. And ’is Lordship is presently engaged.”
“Just a moment.” Bransfield raised a finger. “Our charge is observing foreign naval movements. A ship of the line with a Baltic Fleet jack is a matter worth reporting to His Majesty’s Admiralty.”
Warwick harrumphed. “Very well.”
Bransfield followed Warwick to the Octavia’s great cabin.
Viscount Musgrave lounged opposite a man in his seventies—swarthy, clean-shaven, high-collared—a red sash across his chest and an eight-rayed breast star that Bransfield's eye went to immediately. Silver and gold, a crimson enamel medallion ringed in gilt, a golden cross pattée at its center.
Warwick bobbed his head. “Forgive me, milord—Edward Bransfield, Master of the Severn.”
Bransfield bowed. “Forgive the intrusion, Your Lordship. We sighted Russian warships on a bearing suggesting pursuit—standard procedure to ensure all aboard is shipshape and Bristol fashion.”
His gaze briefly moved back to the guest’s decoration.
Musgrave’s brows knitted. “Whilst we appreciate your concern, Mr. . . . Bransfield, did you say? The war with Russia has been over for these four years, and we are on urgent Crown business, sir. Now, please—let us proceed unmolested.”
“My apologies, milord.” Bransfield bowed again and followed Warwick out.
But Bransfield carried something off with him: a name. Ioánnis Varvákis. And he was almost certain.

Ross Trevelyan 🗻🌲🦪🦀🚵‍♂️@jumpintraxjack· Jun 19

#WIPSnips: group Henry Warwick holds a "managerial" meeting with Lord Musgrave over a wayward employee. #WriteSky #WritingCommunity #WritingPrompts

Warwick’s bushy, yellow-tinged brows lifted. “Lord Musgrave will join us.”
In time, the door admitted a slight, long-lobed gentleman in a burgundy clawhammer coat with black silk lapels.
Curly, grey-flecked hair circled his crown like a laurel, and he wore a high-collared bleached shirt with smart buckskin breeches tucked into riding boots. Years had stooped him, hunching his shoulders, thrusting his head forward—a bird of prey, an impression underscored by a narrow, accipitral nose. Thin eyebrows peaked on a weathered, sloping forehead.
Hostile gimlet eyes darted from man to man as they pushed to their feet.
Warwick was profuse in his bows and welcomes. “Your Grace.”
“Afternoon, Henry.”
Simon Woolf, Viscount Musgrave, eased himself into the second armchair, motioning for all to sit. Musgrave’s lips pressed taut.
“Now then, Henry. How many are we taking on?”
“Thirty, milord. My group, and more from Bristol. Ought to net a tidy sum. I should say—‍”
“Will we have accommodation enough?”
“Yes, milord.”
Musgrave opened his mouth to speak again, but the door interrupted him. A thin, sharp-nosed servant in black rattled a service cart with a small-footed silver-and-brass kettle into the room.
Cuthbert studied the enormous samovar as it passed, its intricate, embossed double-headed eagle and elegant foreign letters engraved above and below.
Торговая Ко «Прибалтика».
Санктъ-Петербургъ.
1812 г.

Musgrave’s face expressed impatience. “Seems Providence meant for tea before business.”
The servant glanced at him. “Everyone, milord?”
“Yes, Spencer.”
Spencer scurried about with smug humility, moving a lacquered tea table within Allen’s reach, placing another between Warwick’s knucklemen.
Musgrave eyed Cuthbert as the servant dropped a cut crystal tea glass into a half-height, filigreed silver holder with a handle reminiscent of a linden leaf. A teaspoon of honey next, then he half-filled the glass with dark, concentrated tea from a gilded porcelain teapot, diluting it with steaming water from the samovar.
He served Musgrave first. Tea glasses came in pairs for Warwick and Cuthbert, Lapsley and Sykes, then Allen, as if the complaisant Spencer followed a pre-ordained pecking order.
He bowed. “Will that be all, milord?”
“Thank you, Spencer.”
Musgrave waited for the door to close.
“Now, then, Henry—what’s this about?”
“The wreck of the Tiberius, milord. In a round-about way.”
Musgrave scowled. “Costly loss.”
“Indeed. I regret that a body overheard Mr. Allen discussing her.”
“That so?”
“In a crowded pothouse, with a common toper—fate of her crew, her passengers, her lading.”
The peaks in Lord Musgrave’s eyebrows sharpened, and an irascible glare speared through Allen as if through a soft codfish. Musgrave twisted his mouth into a tight-lipped snarl of contempt.
“We’ve seen this before—a careless tosspot gets corned and discloses privy knowledge.”
“And Mr. Allen knows company affairs are not for disclosure,” Warwick said, as if reminding him.

Ross Trevelyan 🗻🌲🦪🦀🚵‍♂️@jumpintraxjack· May 29

#WIPSnips: silent A portion of the novel's opening scene, set in Lifford, Co. Donegal, 1799.

Misty rain swept across The Diamond in thin, wind-torn veils as jostling bands of pink-cheeked lads under caps and woolen cloaks slogged to the gallows with sticks and batons, some shod, most barefoot, eager to trade taunts with counterparts from across the river. Hectoring men in their twenties came next, then their elders, silent and contemplative folk under draggled stovepipes and broad brimmers. Long-skirted women, cowled in bonnets and shawls, shuffled among them.
An icy wind gusted from the west, curling and lifting sodden leaves, corpses of midsummer joy, sweeping them along the courthouse pediment toward a twisted, muscular whitethorn in front of the jail.
One powerful blast shook the tree’s branches. A murder of hooded crows burst from their feast on the blood-red haws, and with them a wheeling mass of rooks. They swept low across The Diamond, a dark, jeering shadow skimming the solemn crowd. The birds broke apart, then drew back together, the rooks curling up to the bell tower like a great black sickle, where they folded into the crenellations and corbiesteps in morbid procession. The tower lorded over The Diamond, its corner pyramidions giving the impression of a brooding, four-horned gargoyle, a sentinel in stone, condemned to witness the turning of some dread wheel.

Ross Trevelyan 🗻🌲🦪🦀🚵‍♂️@jumpintraxjack· May 19

Oh, and I got a new cover look I'm playing with--the gaff-rigged Breton smuggler vessel Ar C'hontelleg (Razorfish) flying the Black Cross of Bretagne off the coast of Donegal.

Ross Trevelyan 🗻🌲🦪🦀🚵‍♂️@jumpintraxjack· May 18

#WIPSnips: forest Conall Maguire flees Ravenscliff after eviction. #WriteSky #WritingCommunity #WritingPrompts

Maguire sucked in the mountain air and whistled.
The shepherds flanked the sheep as he led the donkey across the bowl of the meadow. The eldest ewe trailed her equine protector, the others followed the soft tink-tink of her tin bell, their stumpy tails whisking back and forth.
He ascended to the opposite rim, thoughts meandering to Tarlach’s sister-in-law, Isabella, a young widow. After gaugers killed her husband, Bella took refuge with Tarlach and Noreen at Ravenscliff, where she lost a pregnancy.
Conall’s artist’s eye had registered what others missed—an unspoken melancholy behind Bella’s bright blue eyes. Grief and something dark. It dimmed her, shrinking her world to the care of her two young children.
The trail soon descended into a breathtaking landscape where the umber-grey cloak of haze had lifted. White, yellow, and amethyst wildflowers struggled in the emerald heath, in a silence that belonged to an ancient age. Foaming white rills tumbled into mirror lakes, forested hollows plunged deep under the rifle-green shadows of distant mountains. Not a single field or farmhouse marred the uncultivated beauty. Saffron gorse burst forth here and there, the enigmatic haze spreading a splendid pall of mystery over the most distant acres.
Maguire guided the donkey down a path of no return toward an uncertain future, with fear of the gauger posse and the devastation of eviction baying at his heels.

Ross Trevelyan 🗻🌲🦪🦀🚵‍♂️@jumpintraxjack· Apr 25

#WIPSnips: tack Our Story: 1816. Algerine pirates are pursuing the smuggler's vessel Razorfish. The mysterious one-eyed priest, Fr. Burke, offers to "take the helm," which puzzles Conall. Then the guns come out. And Conall soon learns Burke meant KILL. #WriteSky #WritingCommunity #WritingSprints

After midday, the convoy gathered way from Ibiza. Once they cleared Formentera, the wind picked up force, running them true on a southeasterly heading.
The Razorfish crew shared a mid-afternoon meal of bread, saucisson sec, and aged white cheese. The Nossa Senhora interrupted the light repast by lowering her colors to half-mast.
Davies sent up the alarm, and diminutive Yannick scrambled to the masthead with a telescope.
“Corsaires en vue . . . huit corsaires droit sur nous!” he shouted down.
Maguire soon saw through another glass: clusters of brown lateen sails hull-up from the south. “Eight in all.”
Galloù passed his spyglass around with a jutting jaw.
“We are in their sights.”
The menacing flotilla was on an intercept.
“We will not survive this. Rémy—signal Pereira. We must break off.”
The boatswain hoisted flags as Davies brought the Razorfish about to a new heading away from the Portuguese.
Maguire kept his glass glued to the two corsairs who’d broken from the others.
“With their seventy-two guns,” Galloù said, “the Portuguese will give ces salauds a fight. We would be at their mercy. But keep watch on the two, Monsieur Maguire.”
Still a mile ahead of their pursuers, Davies swung the bow to a northeasterly tack as the crew hauled the sheets to a close reach. The Razorfish heeled over, her stern dug in.
Maguire clenched his jaw as the two xebecs also altered course, their sails tightening, prows cutting the water with predatory precision.
Bearing straight for the bisquine.

“Équipage! Galloù summoned the crew in a booming voice. “We will outrun them.” He pivoted to the helm. “Steer to three-three-zero, Jacques—Mallorca.”

An hour later, the wind dropped, slowing the Razorfish. Galloù snarled a French oath. “Nom de Dieu” cracked across the deck like a gunshot.
“All ’ands—ready weapons.”
He tapped the telescope and paused, wistful.
“Alors . . . c’est une drôle de danse: We watch them, they watch us. And we wait.”
He glanced up at the sails’ fluttering telltales. And slammed his hand against the binnacle.
“Merde!”
Their plight was clear: the Razorfish couldn’t outrun the xebecs.
Maguire tensed.
They’d have to fight.
Galloù motioned to fishing nets piled at the starboard bulwark.
“Aux pièces, Aubrey—vite!”
Galloù turned to Burke and Maguire.
“I’ll take the helm,” the priest offered.
Galloù snapped a nod.
“Ya, it will help, mon Père.”
Conall puzzled—he’d never seen Burke man the helm.
Two crewmen fastened a small fishnet to tackle between the masts, and Conall ran to help hoist the camouflage.
Task complete, Galloù beckoned. “Now, load les fusils—and take up a sword—they will board.”
“I brang a patty-vash an’ bayonet, and Father has an English rifle.”
“Formidable—put them to good use.”

Burke brought their guns, powder, and shot from below, handing Conall the dragoon pistol and Charleville.
“Greased an’ ready,” he said, pulling out one of the 1800’s paper cartridges.
At the bulwark, Aubrey and Rémy hoisted nets off a long brass cannon with a Marseille-blue tompion and carriage to match.
Maguire gasped, never expecting the Razorfish to have teeth.
Another net went up, revealing a wide-mouthed black iron carronade on red.

from Black as the Sea at Night

Ross Trevelyan 🗻🌲🦪🦀🚵‍♂️@jumpintraxjack· Apr 24

#WIPSnips: hungry Our story: Graham "Gray" Kerrigan has discovered more evidence of his wife Celeste's infidelity and finally realizes it's with more than one partner... which frees him, in a way.🤔 #WriteSky #WritingCommunity #WritingPrompts

Viber? WhatsApp?
Didn’t matter. I choked the router’s relevant TCP and UDP ports till nothing could get out.
Sorry, Moonbeam. No perfidy riding my wires. Call it a boundary.
I hatched Celeste’s suitcase and split the clothes into two baskets.
Outer pocket held a Four Seasons receipt: king room, two guests. Charged to our Citibank.
Two.
I glared at it. The messages said the second body wasn’t Eric. Wasn’t Johnny-come-lately or Gaylord either.
The email field was clipped at twelve characters. Still enough to stop me cold:
lmanderley@e
I took it to the laptop. Didn’t take long.
Leland Manderley. Principal, Elias Manderley, Inc. San Francisco. Commercial real estate with an insurance tail. I caught the scent of old money.
Citibank had more to say. Sunday night at Sel Gris, Dogpatch, Cali-French fusion. Two guests again. Long wine list curated by a sommelier trained in Rome and Paris. Ooh-fucking-la-la.
Celeste had killed my card. Didn’t realize she couldn’t cut my access.
Mistake Number One.
Manderley was another. Was he, too, sleeping with my wife?
Ugh. Still, knowledge was more soothing than its lack.
The most aggravating question wasn’t about Manderley. Who the hell was Celeste?
My eyes flicked to the laundry basket. Black lace on top, crusted with some sort of residue.
I huffed. She’d wanted me to find them.

I’d married one version of her. The other one was off living a life I knew nothing about. Were there more? What were they doing?
My phone buzzed.
Celeste: working late.
Sure you are.
My head dragged me back to January. Rain on the windows. A Portland number lighting up her phone before dawn.
Unwelcome images spun through my brain for the epsteinth time, preventing distraction. Chi-Town Joanie evolving into Johnny—just a kiss, she said. Then more. And Eric from the iPad. With all roads leading back to Gaylord Z. Lewis, attorney-at-law. I glanced at the lace again.
And now Manderley.
Welcome to the carousel, boys.
Each of you thinks you’re the chosen one, but you’re riding in your own terrarium. Round and round, with Celeste misting each of her specimens just enough to keep you alive and hungry.
I finally saw it.
Which meant I was done being part of the exhibit.
Time to step up my game, change the terms.
A man needs a cheating spouse like a dog needs a back pocket.

Ross Trevelyan 🗻🌲🦪🦀🚵‍♂️@jumpintraxjack· Apr 7

#WIPSnips: shortcut > near-cut, in Ulster since ~1614. Conall Maguire has turned up an important clue by plying a Derry ship's steward with drink. Mhuise [wisha] is a light curse (Ir.). CW for insensitive speech.

Foley gulped his beer.
“Heavier lading’s a divil—ships’ guns an’ the like. An’ o’ that we carry plenty. A shipwreck on the coast brings carriage guns, powder kegs, rifles, an’ shot all movin’ down our pier.”
“From wreckers?”
“Aye—wreckers jibberin’ the kibber, as they will. But His Lordship helps the insurers win back their ladin’.”
“Know the man Warwick?”
“Aye, an’ hard as flint is he. Ye keep out o’ Cap’n Warwick’s path, else he’s through ye for a near-cut. But the man knows his ships—does higher tasks for His Lordship. How ye know him?”
Captain Warwick?
“Chanced to meet him onced, aye. Mhuise, told me of an African fella in Derry—a man come off a whaler. Will ye blieve that now?”
Maguire feigned a laugh.
“Now where in the green hills o’ Donegal would ye hide a dark fella?”
Foley wrinkled his forehead.
“We had one onced—a great dark man an’ och, strong in labor was he. No taildraft, I tell ye. Ye might see such a man on ships up from Spain or Portugal, had yez a mind for it.”
“When did he work?”
“Couple year back.”
“Yez ever carry travelers?”
Foley tipped his head.
“Well, ye might call ’em that—His Lordship transports convicts for the king.”
Maguire’s heart leapt. “Convicts?”

“Aye, we bring ’em partway to Van Diemen’s Land. Quare thing, though—ourselves vittlin’ of a night, the masther, he warns us, ‘ye can go down the hold, but nary a foot to the orlop,’ which made us all the more curious of course. The lockups weren’t finished, see, an’ wouldn’t ye know—by an’ by a drunken wench comes up topside. Couldna tell was she laughin’ or cryin’.
Foley tossed his head.
“Swear she’d supped a whole puncheon. An’ a couple dozen more held below, said she.”
“Ah, but she looked no convict, sure—all eyesweet an’ bejeweled an’ in finery like ne’er afore did I see. We figured the masther fetched her aboard as his laced mutton.”

Ross Trevelyan 🗻🌲🦪🦀🚵‍♂️@jumpintraxjack· Apr 6

Who remembers what happened in 1956? Do any Westerners still know what this means?

Ross Trevelyan 🗻🌲🦪🦀🚵‍♂️@jumpintraxjack· Apr 5

Two paths diverged in a wood...

Ross Trevelyan 🗻🌲🦪🦀🚵‍♂️@jumpintraxjack· Apr 3

#WIPSnips: convert In 1816 Ireland, the Protestant churches lured converts with blankets and 2nd-hand clothes; thus Catholics called converts "swaddlers." Our Story: A gathering at Ardnawark after Easter Mass. Bella and Hannah have gone missing, but no one knows it yet. #WriteSky #WritingPrompts

Noreen opened the door before sunset, beckoning Alice from the lookout stone.
“Bring yourself outta the damps and dews now, a thaisce.”
“But Ma an’ Hannah han’t come yet,” Alice said, pulling her hood down. “Nor Uncle Condy.”
“They’ll be along. Come in an’ warm yourself, so’s they don’t have to hug a cold stone.”
Alice gave a small whinge, climbed down, and hurried for the house.
“Peel off an’ set in by the fire now,” Noreen said, shutting the door.
Tarlach stood by the bedchamber door, well pleased. The guests shrank the room—Donagh, Darby, one-eyed Father Burke on the bench, and the table crowded with bread, bloaters, whiskey, brandy, tea, a sugar loaf, cups and tumblers. A sight to give Tarlach a glint of his dream. Behind him, the three boys played at the cards, loud as crows.
Noreen came close to her husband. “Sun’s goin’ down,” she whispered.
“Och, sure, they called in on Condy. The three’ll come up onced the light’s awaa. Told him come earlier, but heth, himself bein’ a creathur o’ darkness now . . . an’ right enough.”
“Canna help the troublous thoughts on me.”
Noreen wanted Bella and Condy to draw closer like nothing else, but the worry clung to her.
“Han’t seen the both at Mass.”
“Couldna swing a cat in there,” Tarlach said. “So up they fetched to the loft. An’ did ye not see the humble faces? Swaddlers the lot, home again, ev’ry sowl.” Tarlach gestured to the priest. “Thanks to Father Liam. Mass every Sunday now, Father—isn that it?”
“Aye. I’m sailin’ till Rome for a spell, but I’ll bring down a young cully from Derry—David Whalen—fresh out o’ Saint-Yves.”
“Will he favor distillation?” Donagh muttered.

Tarlach shot him a look. “Will ye pass the salt, Donie?”
Darby leaned in. “Ne’er axed where they ordained ye, Liam.”
“Saint-Yves as well.”
“Ye might’ve told me afore. Blot o’ blots, there’s me mind slippin’ into th’ eventide o’ life.” Darby tossed back a cup of brandy.
“Best not be slippin’ off,” Tarlach said. “Need your head for the business.”
“Och.” Darby waved him off. “Now, tell us, Liam, where’s this Saint-Yves at all?”
“Brittany.”
“Och, ye must’ve seen a firestorm there,” Tarlach said.
“Napoleon an’ all.”
“Aye.” Burke picked up a cup of brandy and stared into the fire. “An’ in the years afore the Ruction, France was home to a power of Irish.”
“An’ sure if we don’t ’member it as the Year o’ the French,” Darby said. “An Bliain na bhFrancach, we called it. What would this God-forsaken land be now, had we tried democracy? Their republic fell to bits, so it did.”
“Aye,” said Burke. “But Americay—she’s standin’ yet afther five-an’-twenty year. An’ will ye have us ruled by an Irish king, Darby?”
Darby pressed a knuckle to his mouth. “Would it matther, so long as no child wept for bread, no mother for peace?” He took another sip.
“’Twas said the Irish took up posts in Napoleon’s army. Is that so?”
“Many.”
“What age had ye then, Liam? Summer o’ ninety-eight.”
“Five an’ twenty.”
Darby clicked his tongue.
“Sakes, but Wexford was a hotbed then, so it was.”
“I wasn’t in Wexford.”
Burke said no more, nor did he lift his mournful eye from the fire.

Ross Trevelyan 🗻🌲🦪🦀🚵‍♂️@jumpintraxjack· Apr 2

#WIPSnips: beach Our story: June 1816. After pursuing the Octavia through the Greek Isles, the Razorfish finally catches up. But now what? She's moored in Tenedos harbor under in the shadow of an Ottoman fortress, the disposition of the captives unknown. #WriteSky #WritingCommunity #WritingPrompts

THE CRUSH OF MERCHANT VESSELS bound for Istanbul forced the Razorfish close to the mainland, clipping north through the shallows to make time.
After three hours, the forbidding island of Ténedos rose from the blue Aegean on the northern horizon. Frothy lapis waters kissed imposing, jagged golden-brown cliffs, softening them into long tawny beaches along the islet’s southern rim.
The bisquine held her course. Many of the hidden coves scalloping the coastline soon revealed themselves one by one, promising tranquil anchorages. Conall glassed each with care; these were the same havens where Agamemnon secreted his fleet after building the wooden horse.
Far above the weathered shoreline, scrub trees peppered the inland rises, and in places human hands had shaped the natural maquis, quilting some of the hills with grapevines and olive groves whose silver-green leaves shimmered in the sun. Citrus orchards burst with orange and yellow as snowy sheep browsed green upland meadows among ancient ruins. A solitary goatherd drove a fold of shaggy, long-horned goats across the heights and into the distance.
The tiny islet formed a three-mile channel with the mainland province of Çanakkale. Helmsman Jack Davies steered into the narrow strait with Jean Galloù beside him. Above, grey gulls, glossy black cormorants, and yellow-beaked shearwaters dipped and wheeled around the shuddering sails, their cries tearing at the island’s serenity.
At the channel’s northern extremity, a whitewashed Greek town lay under the looming menace of Turkish walls; vivacity and joy gasping beneath the weight of foreign stone, not unlike Conall’s beloved green Éire.
Brightly painted caïques rocked in the harbor, their swaying masts a mesmerizing chaos in the breeze, exuberant blues, greens, yellows, and reds dancing on the tide. White houses with wide balconies trimmed in loulaki blue cowered beneath the Ottoman fortress, humbled but not defeated.

Conall surveyed the clear depths from the larboard gunwale. Chunks of limestone dotted the Aegean floor like teeth spat from a giant’s mouth. He dragged his tongue across his own jagged molar as he appraised the fortress.
Five broad-based towers lorded over the town and harbor, the largest an octagon bristling with black guns between its merlons. The fort’s elevation split it in two: the upper works grim and impregnable, the lower sloping to the strand and the quays. Flat-roofed white buildings gaitered the formidable citadel’s base like a fold of sheep. From the mast atop the blocklike barbican, a giant Turkish crescent snapped in the wind.
Conall’s breath caught when he saw the fat-bottomed green-and-yellow Indiaman at a pier—Lord Musgrave’s Octavia, her sails furled, gangway in place.
His heart raced.
Jean Galloù spoke first.
“Grâce de Dieu—we finally see ’er.”
Luluwa nudged Maguire’s shoulder but said nothing. He didn’t need to. Conall knew: there was no plan.
Finding the Octavia was only the beginning.
The bisquine held course beyond the fortress and harbor, where a steep, barren mount rose from a narrow strand of white sand. On its heights, squat cylindrical windmills turned lazy triangular sails on spidery arms.
Galloù ordered the helmsman to steer around the point and bring the Razorfish about.

Ross Trevelyan 🗻🌲🦪🦀🚵‍♂️@jumpintraxjack· Apr 1

#WIPSnips: fool I have "fool" in both current WIPs. So here's a snip from the second: Gray Kerrigan suspects his wife Celeste of infidelity. The lesson? Never cheat on a (former) spy.🕵️

It weighed more than I remembered.
I unlocked the case in the office. The latches flipped open, scattering dust like ghosts from the past. Inside lay the SIG Sauer P232, its Wundhammer grip still snug in my palm. A clear bag of flash drives with rainbow-table dumps and various utilities for packet capture, hash cracking, cryptanalysis, and ARP poisoning lay among connectors and tap adapters for older Eastern European handsets we used to see; spare network modules; a battered laptop; two unmounted hard drives. And, in a royal blue velvet pouch, the HDM .22 with its screw-on suppressor.
Implements for surveillance, control, and violence—artifacts from a then that stood at a considerable distance from now. I was supposed to be an anonymous soccer dad who’d crossed gorge and burned the bridge. Yet here I was, once more staring across the gap.
What was I up against?
I took the flash drives, relocked the case, and set it on the floor. I wanted answers, not revenge. Not yet. For now, the kit would give me the unfiltered truth about the person I’d married—the cold, clinical satisfaction of learning things Celeste thought I’d never find.
I still knew how to go black—travel under the radar, dropping no crumbs in the forest, moving inkógnita, as the Russians liked to say.
My mind drifted back to Volkov.
Gennady Andreyevich fancied himself clever. Most of the opposing players did. But Volkov never imagined a midnight mechanic hardwiring a Lithuanian Teltonika FM3000-series tracker into the bumper cavity of his semyórka in under ten minutes. He watched for tails obsessively, but never swept his own car.
Durák takói.
Such a fool.

Ross Trevelyan 🗻🌲🦪🦀🚵‍♂️@jumpintraxjack· Apr 1

#WIPSnips: fool Bella & Noreen are at their tasks in the old waystation in the Gap of Barnesmore. Noreen's husband is Tarlach Maguire. His brother Donagh is unmarried. Gaugers have killed Bella's husband. Darby has arranged for Bella a paper marriage to Conall, who's missing in the Poisoned Glen.

Sibéal Uí Dhomhnaill—Isabella O’Donnell to the English—sat on the bench knitting a child’s mitten from a bowl of woad-blue yarn.
Her sister Noreen worked furthest from the fire, her auburn hair twisted up into an intricate chignon, a single rebellious comma curling at her nape.
Noreen held up a snagged stocking. “Look, will ye? Louse-ladders go leor. Dunno to mend it or make a fresh start.” She set her work aside.
“Last of the peas, is it?”
“We’ve enough for another pot, but the yellow meal’s runnin’ scarce.”
Noreen smoothed the front of her blue flannel gown.
“Off to market on th’morrow. Tarlach says gird for leaner times.”
Bella dropped the mitten and the bone knitting wires into the wooden yarn bowl. She rose and stretched, glancing at the steaming pot of brochán, pea-oatmeal stirabout—hanging on the cleek. “Tarlach’s no fool.”
“Och, an’ such a dreamer is he—capers fill his noggin snug as mait fills an egg.”
“Ye’re forever saltin’ him, Nora. He brang us here in good stead. I worry more ’bout the other two.”
Noreen inclined her head.
“Thanks be to God, we’re safe now. Truth—I worry ’bout Donie whene’er I see the man upright.”
“Aye, an’ drownin’ the spark punches him up, sure.”
Noreen clicked her tongue.
“He’s grieved himself into another man entirely. But Tarlach has his demons as well, so let him not play ye for the tomfool. Sure, Tarlach’d cut a throat the minute he thought it had a need. I feared he’d give over to the Defenders, ye know.”
“I never seen him nettled. But Donie’s another kettle o’ fish—he takes more’n his share o’ the drink, an’ off he’ll go, bullin’ for blood. Och, the man’s poison in the flesh for whosoe’er crosses his path.”

“Ye han’t seen it in Tarlach, just. An’ the peace o’ the glen keepin’ him so . . .”
Bella stepped across the chilly flags, her bare feet seeking the hearth’s comfort. Her gown’s milky linen, stitched with blue embroidery, flourished with grace as she crossed the room. At the hearth, the dry, untanned sheepskin crackled, its warm fleece embracing her toes.
She was tall, lithe as a yew, and younger than Noreen by five years. Long, slender fingers added to her elegance, and a black velvet ribbon bound her long ash-blonde braid.
She reached for the spurtle on the mantel, her gown silking over lissome contours as she stirred the porridge with gentle motions. She set the wooden spoon back and fingered the short, madder-red flannel gown hanging from the mantel hook.
She turned, flipping her braid over her shoulder.
“Will ye help me crop me hair?”
“Shall we not wait—‍”
“Och, I know what ye’re afther, Nora, but he’s not me husband in truth.”
“May God rest Malachy.”
“Aye, God be merciful.” Bella bowed her head and crossed herself.
“Ye don’t know it all, Nora. I married too young—married for the cows an’ the kelthers, blind to the drink’s curse. An’ poor Malachy fell slave to it. I know what ye wish, but mendin’ a heart’s a long road, not a single stride.”
“Ne’er a word did I say.”

Ross Trevelyan 🗻🌲🦪🦀🚵‍♂️@jumpintraxjack· Mar 27

#WIPSnips: royal Our Story: Aibreán has gone into the brush, "problem up th' frock," she says. The outlaws who've accosted Maguire in the meantime flee at the sound of approaching horsemen. First encounter with dragoons (authentic uniforms). They, too, pose a threat. #WriteSky #WritingPrompts

REDCOAT AND SCARECROW slipped into the hedges at the first rumble of an approaching force.
Conall Maguire cast his gaze toward the stand of oaks as heavy warhorses thundered up the trail on the creek’s far bank.
He drew off his hemp belt and threaded it through the bewildered dogs’ collars, bracing for whatever might come.
The hoofbeats slackened, and soon he glimpsed brass helmets and blue cloaks over scarlet frocks.
A redcoat rode into view on a dark bay charger, climbing the trail toward the cliff. Three more followed in single file.
Maguire stole a glance at Gilley’s body, unsettled by the darkened blood crusted in the outlaw’s ear. Fearing he’d taken the man’s life, he crossed himself.
The point man reined in, his rippled, sweat-lathered mount snorting and sidling beneath him.
The musky reek of overheated horseflesh reached Maguire’s nose.
A tall, hammered-brass comb crowned the soldier’s black leather helm, centurion-like. George III’s Royal Cipher gleamed beneath a brass Medusa head, with an inky hackle rising above it. Brass rosettes at the temples fastened scalloped brass chin scales over a textile strap, and a long black horsetail flowed down the crest to well below the man’s nape.
He wheeled the majestic beast about as five more broad-shouldered soldiers clattered into view.
Maguire’s breath thinned.
These were no gaugers nor yeomen. Beneath their deep blue capes showed lobster-red dragoon coats with white baldrics, stiff yellow collars, cuffs, and facings. Snowy brocade trimmed their sleeves below a brass arm badge, disappearing into wide-mouthed white leather gauntlets. Grey wool overalls with red stripes and brown leather inseams and cuffs hid the tops of spurred riding boots.

A polished gilt brass gorget and a right-shoulder gold bullion epaulet marked the capeless third rider as their commander.
He drew up at the ford.
His sword shinged from its sheath as a man with a thick brown mustache alighted to level his 1800 carbine at Maguire.
The officer studied the oncoming horsemen.
“Where’s Willoughby?” he asked in a high, reedy voice, lacking the gravel one might expect of a seasoned campaigner.
“Saw a body moving in the brush, sah.”
Aibreán had been right; the ford was the meeting-place of several trails.
The soldiers had broken in upon Conall’s doom. Yet they, too, were a mortal peril. These were men who saw Maguire as the dregs of a conquered land—a wolf, which, if not tamed for exploitation, was best exterminated.
Balor gruffed and growled, agitated by the stamping hooves.
Maguire jerked the makeshift leash.
“Chegh!”

His Majesty's 6th Inniskilling Dragoon helmet, circa 1815, minus the brass cheek scales and chinstrap.

Ross Trevelyan 🗻🌲🦪🦀🚵‍♂️@jumpintraxjack· Mar 25

#WIPSnips: gentle Phaedra meets Rachel, Beaumont CEO, in her Seattle hotel to help polish a crucial acquisition proposal. She's early; Rachel is barefoot in the hotel’s plush white robe. Phae offers to wait, but Rachel wants to work. 3 hrs later, Phae takes a risk: hands RL her proposed intro. [CW]