For some time I've talked about webbing The Novel That Almost Sold. There was a discussion on rasfc about versions and file types and so on and so forth, but I never came to any decision about the best way to do it.

Anyway, on her elizabethbear LJ has been webbing chapters. poliphilo has also been putting his novels on LJ, so I thought, "why not?"

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What you're getting, should you choose to read this, is the version that almost sold a few years ago. I had a very nice letter from my agent explaining a) why he had failed to sell it and b) why he was having to drop me as a client. Basically the publishers liked it to some extent, but felt that it was not different enough to sell enough copies to be worth their while. But the agent really liked it when he took it on and said nice things, so I know it's not utter crap and therefore may as well be made public here, where one or two souls may read it, as languish forever on my hard drive.

Please feel free to discuss the story in the comments, but I'm not asking for (and don't really want) a critique as such. I am very unlikely to revise this again as I'd rather work on new things.

Please enjoy or ignore, as you will. Chapter One is here...

Chapter One

Huw switched the saddle he was carrying from one aching arm to the other, hitched the saddlebags further up onto his shoulder and stopped at the edge of the pavement to look around. ( Read more... )

Continue to Chapter Two...

Chapter Two

In the distance, carrying thin and clear through the still summer night, Huw could hear the faint chimes of the Town Hall clock striking eleven. A good sprinkling of stars shone overhead and the full moon had risen high enough to silver the rooftops. The gas-lights didn't appear to have reached this area yet, but he could see his way without any difficulty because as well as the moonlight, there was also the light from the lamps that many of the householders in this wealthy area kept burning beside their front doors.

Now that his mind was no longer distracted by other things, his body -- and his empty stomach in particular -- was demanding attention. ( Read more... )

Continue to Chapter Three...

Chapter Three

Huw bit into a thick slice of bread and butter, spread with honey. The bread was white: soft and fresh. The crisp, golden crust flaked between his teeth; the butter and honey melted on his tongue. He ate slowly, thoughtfully, his elbows on the wooden table.( Read more... )

Continue to Chapter Four...

Chapter Four

Heat reflected off the dusty pavement. The air was humid and lifeless. Even though his thin linen shirt was open at the neck, Huw was soon sweating. Lady Brynglas seemed determined not to let the heat affect her and set a brisk pace. She remained silent and walked so quickly, so intensely locked in abstraction, that several people had to side-step in order to avoid colliding with her.

Huw, walking at Lady Brynglas's side, would have liked a little more time to look around as they passed along the main shopping street. The shop windows seemed to have less in them than he remembered from before the war, and certainly far less than similar shops in Dunraven. And, on the odd occasion when he could catch a glimpse of the prices, he was shocked. Even basic goods -- food and everyday clothes -- were twice what he was used to paying in the south. ( Read more... )

Continue to Chapter Five...

Chapter Five


Huw was humming cheerfully as he headed towards Lady Brynglas's house for dinner. He didn't enter by the front door, not now he was working there; he made his way around the back, along an alley not unlike the one where he'd found the saddler's body. A green gate in the wall led into Lady Brynglas's small stable yard and beyond that lay her long garden. The stable block itself was solidly built of stone with stabling for four horses and a hay loft above. Living accommodation --just a bedroom and small sitting room -- had been added on at the side for the coachman. There was no sign of the carriage and no room for it to manoeuvre through the narrow back entry, so Huw assumed that even when it was not damaged, it was kept elsewhere and collected when required.

He paused in the yard to wash his face and hands at the outside tap; then he went into the stable and scrambled up the steep ladder to his loft to scrub himself dry on his towel. He looked at himself in the small dusty mirror hanging on the wall. His bruises were darkening. The biggest one on his cheekbone was now blue-black, but his swollen lip was already doing down. He no longer noticed it when he tried to talk. ( Read more... )

Continue to Chapter Six...

Chapter Six

Huw knew he was making a mistake, even before he got Lady Glanaber's mare out of the stable yard gate, but he was damned if he was backing out now. The bay mare pranced, trying to snatch her head away from the groom who held her while Huw, already mounted, shortened the stirrup leathers and adjusted the girth.

Lady Glanaber, noticeably pregnant but still elegant in a loose-fitting pale blue frock, was saying, "Now don't try to keep her on a tight rein. She's used to having her head."

"Right, m'lady," Huw said. Feeling the tightly wound power in the horse's body beneath him, he threw a brief but deeply felt prayer in Ceinwen's direction. His fate lay in her hands now -- and in his own skill.

Lady Glanaber's house was a mere four hundred yards from Queen's Park and the relatively safe open spaces. But it was going to be a very hairy four hundred yards. ( Read more... )

Continue to Chapter Seven...

Chapter Seven

Huw wrinkled his nose in disgust, his lips compressed tightly against the appalling odour that drifted over this area of the city.

"M'lady, are you sure you want to go on?" He was breathing as shallowly as possible, in the vain hope that this would somehow reduce the amount of the stench he had to inhale. "What in heaven's name is that smell? It's like someone cooking putrefying meat and -- and worse." ( Read more... )

Continue to Chapter Eight...

Chapter Eight

Huw crouched in the straw of Fflam's box, applying a new poultice to the damaged knees. They'd swollen, but so far, there was little sign of infection and no sign of oozing joint fluid. The cuts were superficial and though the horse would be scarred for the rest of his life, with luck and continued care and vigilance, the knees would heal and he'd be sound within a few more weeks. Cai looked on, supervising, as he always did when Huw worked closely with his precious horses, though he was happy to leave him the routine chores of mucking out and cleaning tack.

Cai was a silent companion, not one given to chat, and so Huw was left with his own thoughts -- which returned to the problem which had niggled him since he'd searched the alley without finding any echo of Lady Trefnant's death. If he was right and she hadn't died there, how and why had her body been moved? And if she and the saddler had been moved after death, why had there been so much blood around the bodies? The dead don't bleed, not much. ( Read more... )

Continue to Chapter Nine...

Chapter Nine

The steady clop-clop-clop-clop of Seren's hoofbeats echoed back from the stone walls as Huw rode slowly through the narrow streets, heading for the West Gate.

He watched the neat pricked ears in front, and reached down and patted the glossy neck. The bay coat and black mane reminded him painfully of Medi, his farm cob turned war-horse. But only the colour was the same; Seren's long elegant neck was nothing like Medi's sturdy crest. They moved differently too. Medi's stride was shorter and not so smooth, but for all that, Huw would have swapped in a moment, if it had been possible. ( Read more... )

Continue to Chapter Ten...