“Seriously?”

Franny’s voice sounded surprised and possibly irritated in response to the girl’s words. Then the girl said something else, and Franny shrugged and muttered something in French that Jason was pretty sure was obscene.

“His name is Jason, and he studies Mycenean stuff. Mostly those stupid tablets. You know those Linear B things.”

The girl smiled and her mouth moved some more.

“She says to tell you that her name is Katerina, and she hopes you will come on the dig with me. Sacrebleu! This isn’t a dating service. And besides, I think all the places are filled. So there. Now I am going to get something to eat.” She pulled one of her earplugs out. “Do you want to talk to her?”

She offered, waving it a Jason. Ooh. Sharing earplugs. Not very sanitary! Jason was unsure how to respond to the offer. The girl hadn’t seemed to mind him butting in. On the contrary, she had asked who he was, which was a distinct plus. Most girls just looked at him blankly and then went back to whatever they had been doing before he had impinged upon their consciousness. He decided he didn’t want to presume on Franny’s good nature, so he declined the offer, although he indicated that he was interested in getting to know the girl on the screen too. Before he could get all this across, she clearly said something else, to which Franny threw up her hands.

“Now she says she is running late but that it was nice to meet you. Bye, Kat.” And the girl’s image disappeared from the screen.

Franny packed up and they headed down to the Refectory near their building while she told him about Katerina Raeburn, who Franny had met through an online archaeology forum a couple of years before. She had Livonian and Scottish parents and was currently at the University of Newcastle in her second year of post-grad studies in Roman history.

Jason couldn’t decide if the girl had actually been that interested in him or had responded that way just to annoy Franny. He had never had a girl show an immediate desire to get to know him like that ever before, so he was pretty sure it had been a prank aimed at Franny. Being a nerd meant girls largely laughed rather than drooled, or mostly they simply ignored him. Occasionally they said something to the boyfriend Jason hadn’t realized they had, which often proved painful! Not that he was a complete nerd. He had done a bit of karate in High School and played football as a third-string linebacker in his senior year, although he hadn’t made the cut for the College football program. Still, he was in reasonable shape for a nerd, or so he felt. he immediately resolved to start a more regular exercise regime. It was the second time he had made that resolution just this year!

Lunch was spent talking about the adventures they each had enjoyed during the break, although Jason refrained from mentioning his strange visitor, so he told them about the Con mostly. Franny wasn’t really into Cons but liked hearing about some of the costumes people wore, although she couldn’t see the point in spending all that time and effort to make a good costume. She had spent a large part of her break with her boyfriend, who had taken a week’s leave from his work to spend time with her. Ah, the course of true love! Jason kept that thought to himself.

Next book out will be Ostraya – planning on 27th April
Currently finishing up The Princess & The Gangsters – aiming for late June or early July release
That will be followed by Taroniah at Bay (Sept-Oct) and then Kyron the Rescuer (Dec-Jan)
After that The Kelad Onslaught (New Fed – Aprilish)
Then Taroniah at Risk and Kyron the Savior
after that – hmm
Probably my new alternate history/time travel story set in Maine/New Hampshire area about the survivors of Prince Madoc ab Owain Gwynedd’s expedition to the west with his brother Prince Rhiryd – Madoc found a land – left the first party there and returned to Wales to collect more settlers and supplies, sailed west once more and was never seen again.
There are lots of fanciful tales many centered on Alabama but it would seem unlikely that people traveling west from Wales in medieval vessels of the late 11th century type would sail south to miss Florida then north to finish in Alabama without hitting the east coast first.
My story concerns a modern man sailing his boat off Portsmouth when he is sent back in time by some strange event and finds the first group of Welsh under Rhiryd barely hanging on in the face of hostile locals and still hoping the Madoc will return with reinforcements etc before they get overrun.
It gives the modern guy a challenge while leaving open the fate of Madoc and therefore possible settlers in Alabama.

Opinons?

“Hi, Sharyn. Have a good break?”

The other girl put down the tome she had continued reading the whole time since Jason arrived and smiled at the newcomer.

“Franny! Good to see you. I had a shit break. Family. You know. But I’m glad you’re here as I need help with this bloody text.” She indicated the book she had been studying.

“But of course, my friend,” Franny said, moving over to Sharyn’s desk.

The two girls were soon immersed in whatever Sharyn had been having a problem with, and Jason turned his attention back to his computer. By the time he was ready to break for lunch, he had finished the last of the thirty-one tablets from the supposed box and also translated four of the separate lower group of tablets. He was about to call up the only publicly released translation of the tablets when he decided food was more important, especially given that he had finished his self-imposed translation task in a few hours instead of the weeks he had anticipated it would take back before his strange weekend encounter.

John Henderson the Third, an African American from old money, something he always reminded those around him of if the opportunity presented itself, had entered the room at some point without Jason realizing. While Sharyn was in her second year and Franny her third, John was in his first year of post-grad studies. Along with Alicia Franklin, who had so far failed to put in an appearance. Henderson was a specialist in Ancient Greece, especially Athens, as was Sharyn. However, her interest was in a later period compared to John’s interests and extended more into the Hellenistic period after Alexander. Franny and Alicia were Roman specialists, and Franny was going on a dig in England during the summer break. Lucky shit!

“I’m taking a lunch break, people. Does anybody want to come?” He packed up his things, slipping his laptop into his backpack before standing up.

“Hang on a sec; I’ll come too,” Franny said and returned to the conversation she was having with someone on her computer.

She had been speaking so quietly that Jason hadn’t even noticed she was talking to someone. He moved over to where he could look over her shoulder and saw a rather attractive young lady on the screen comparing notes with Franny about something to do with Hadrian’s Wall. Seeing they were deep into talking Roman stuff, He couldn’t help himself.

“Bloody Romans. So, what did the Romans ever do for us, eh?”

It was old, it was lame, but you know, the opportunity had presented itself. The girl on the screen had seen him appear behind Franny but hadn’t said anything until he had failed to resist the urge to open his mouth.

Franny swung round.

“Hey, this is a private conversation! Do you mind!”

Jason winked at the girl on the computer, who didn’t appear to be that upset at him listening in from the crinkling of her eyes and grinned at Franny.

“Don’t mind at all, Franny. Who’s your friend?”

He wasn’t sure if Franny was about to hit him or merely verbally abuse him, but the girl said something which arrested whatever retribution she was about to undertake.

Sorry guys – a lot on this week

He sat back in his chair and just stared at his screen in shock. Then it dawned on him that it had to be something to do with Urasmian! The sorcerer had thrown a spell on him, which the sorcerer had said would enable Jason to understand the language Urasmian had spoken. It had allowed Jason to understand both languages, at least to an extent. The Greekish one and the other one that was used for spells. Urasmian had done it because the old man had claimed it made it easier for him to communicate since Jason’s language had far too many terms that Urasmian had no frame of reference for and was struggling to understand. Jason had taken that to mean that Urasmian could make out the words Jason was saying, but too many of them were so tech-heavy that Urasmian, or his translation spell, had not been able to determine their meaning from context. So Urasmian had put a spell on Jason that he claimed would enable Jason to understand Urasmian’s language and thus make communication easier for the old man. And indeed, it had enabled him to understand the transdimensional sorcerer after a period of adjustment.

The main language used by Urasmian was the Greekish-sounding language of the Hellandios, which Jason had decided were the ancient Greeks of Urasmian’s world. Cultural shifts had changed the language over the millennia, although not as much as he had assumed due to the sorcerers keeping written texts and basic literacy alive. Combined with the apparently global dominance of the Hellandios people on the back of their magical ability, it meant that while the language had spread pretty much everywhere, it had remained relatively pure due to the sorcerers. The Hellandios language was fundamentally the same as the Mycenean Greek of Jason’s Earth. That similarity had helped him learn it from Urasmian plus, of course, the magic spell. Not that Jason intended to dismiss magic anymore, not after Urasmian’s visit anyway! And now Jason was able to read Mycenean! Whoot! Franny L’Henney wandered in at that point and plopped her backpack onto the desk next to Jason’s. “Bonjour, monsieur.” She offered.

Jason had needed to read a good number of French academic articles over the years, although he had never developed any ability to speak French. Until now. “Bonjour, Demoiselle.”

Franny smiled before giving him a little clap and spoke some more in French. “So, my friend, you have decided to study a little French?”

Jason shook his head, more at himself than anything, but he understood her fine! He summoned up some courage and answered in French.

“A little, perhaps. I must have retained more from those horrible French articles I had to read for my Honours dissertation that I realized!”

With that, he smiled at her, and although she had frowned at the horrible allusion, in the end, she smiled back.

“It would appear so. Good.”

She turned to Sharyn and changed to English which she spoke with only a mild French accent. It was just enough to be attractive and exotic without making it hard to understand what she was saying. Jason always found it delightful listening to her talk in colloquial American but with the tinge of a French accent. Most non-English speaking foreign students and academics tended to speak a more formal style of English, at least until they’d been in the States for a few years.

He unloaded his laptop from his backpack and started it up. While waiting for the computer to start up, he pulled a couple of other bits and pieces out of his bag while mentally getting himself back into academic mode, which was surprisingly hard after the previousweek’s tumult. His laptop was neither the fastest nor most capable of machines, being several years old and relatively cheap at that, so it took a few moments to load up. After waiting, with growing impatience, he was finally able to connect to the University’s net and pull up the files he needed to be able to continue his doctorate thesis on aspects of the Mycenean conquest of Crete.

It took him longer than usual to get himself back up to date on where he had been before the break, and then he made an astonishing discovery. He had been working through a collection of Linear B tablets found recently in Crete at Chania or Kydonia, as the locals and ancient Greeks called it. The find had consisted of the very faint remains of a typical Mycenean storage box which had held approximately thirty Linear B tablets. The more interesting discovery had been that underneath this box, the archaeologists had found a small cache of twenty other tablets, ten Linear B and ten Linear A.

The entire collection of tablets had been found in a fire-affected layer and were virtually intact as the collapse of the building they were in had formed a rubble barrier that had then been built over very soon after the original destruction and fire. The rapid rebuilding resulted in minimal disturbance until a modern building was to be built on the site, and a team of archaeologists was employed to comb the site before site works commenced. It was possible the lower collection of tablets pre-dated the later one by a considerable margin, or maybe not. The two types of tablets being found together meant that the tablets were almost certainly from the period when the Myceneans swept in and took over Crete, which was the period he was studying. Almost certainly. Hopefully!

He called up the images of the tablets and determined where he had reached in his decipherment of them. Other, more experienced scholars had produced translations already, but he had chosen to do his own translation and only then check it against the ‘experts’ version. Translations were always subject to the translator’s biases. There were numerous examples in the world of classical studies where this occurred. The Roman words for spear were often translated just as the word spear, but they all described different weapons with different uses, and it meant that the different troop types were used differently despite them all being armed with ‘spears’. Such nuances were important and could lead to a faulty understanding or a misinterpretation of the facts. When dealing with a poorly understood period, nuances were even more important.

 He had managed four of the tablets before the term break, so he called up the enlarged, hi-res version of the fifth and started translating. And found it much easier than before when it had taken him most of the day to struggle through one tablet, constantly referring to reference books to check his interpretation of this word or that. Then he did the next tablet, and translating that got even easier! It was like the more he read and looked up translations of words, the more he understood. The next one was even easier to translate, and before he knew it, he found he had translated four in no time at all. By the time he finished the fourth, he was essentially just reading them like he would if they had been written in German, which was the only foreign language he knew well. Wait, what? He could read Mycenean? What the, huh!