Spotlight On:
Author: Rob Shackleford
Blurb: If you were sent a thousand years into the past, would you survive?
With the accidental development of the Transporter, university researchers determine that the device sends any subject one thousand years into the past.
Or is it to a possible past?
The enigmatic Transporter soon becomes known as a Time Machine, but with limitations.
An audacious research project is devised to use the Transporter to investigate Medieval Saxon England, when a crack international team of Special Services soldiers undergo intensive training for their role as historical researchers.
The special researchers, called Travellers, are to be sent into what is a very dangerous period in England's turbulent past. From the beaches of Australia to the forests of Saxon England, Traveller - Inceptio reveals how Travellers soon learn that they need more than combat skills and modern technology to survive the trails of early 11th Century life.
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Amazon / Book Baby Bookshop / Kobo / Ciano
Author Bio: I'm
an English-born Australian, having emigrated with my parents as 10
pound poms when I was only 3. While I have lived most of my life in
Australia, I have also lived
in New Zealand and Papua New Guinea. I have had a varied career that has
included Customs Officer, Scuba Instructor, College Teacher and
management roles in far too many places, mainly in IT and the Media. I
have a couple of boring old degrees in the Arts and Business. The
not-so-boring parts might be that I am mad keen on travel, Scuba diving,
Family History, martial arts,
astronomy, and playing drums - Djembe and Congas. I am father of two as well as my partner's two - all are great early 20's guys and girls. I currently live on the Gold Coast
in Queensland, Australia
+Excerpt+
The monk stood before Michael
and wept in an open-mouthed cry that looked unlike grief or fear but
looked more like … joy? He didn’t appear to be as afraid for his life as
one would have thought when confronted by an
armed man in the depths of the forest.
To make matters even more
disconcerting, he moved forward until his face was but a hand’s breadth
away from Michael. There was an impression of rotten teeth and bad
breath, an almost a physical assault from which he immediately
recoiled. Many of the monk’s teeth were missing. Obviously he rarely
shaved as his face was covered with stubble that could have been blonde
or grey, so his age was almost impossible to determine. Thick, grey
hairs and pocked blackheads decorated the end of
his bulbous nose as pale grey eyes gazed adoringly up at the newcomer.
As the monk wept, Michael froze uncomfortably.
Without warning, the monk moved
as if to give Michael a hug and it was all he could do to fend the
smaller man off with raised hands. Thankfully he stopped at the last
moment. There was no desire for any close contact
with the damp wool that stank heavily. Quickly Michael scanned his
surrounds as he realised this monk would be a perfect distraction for
brigands, for he was completely immobilised by the man’s emotional
reaction. As he watched aghast, the sobbing monk sank
slowly to his knees while his eyes never left Michael’s face. Tears
poured down his weathered, whiskered cheeks and soon the childlike
weeping began to distress. Michael had seen weeping in many places;
weeping of mothers for sons, of fathers for children,
but nothing quite as mysterious as this. He crouched in front of the
monk and reached to touch the man’s grubby hands, his other hand still
on his short-sword, just in case.
He reached out a comforting hand to have it grasped and held by the monk’s hard, heavily veined hands , hands with swollen arthritic knuckles aggravated
by a life of hard physical labour. Before he could react, the monk
kissed his hand passionately. He felt the bristly face and a damp
slobber of snot and his initial reaction to pull away. He uncomfortably
patted the monk’s shoulder and made soothing noises
before he retrieved his hand and stood as he encouraged the other to
rise. More kisses were threatened, so he hurriedly addressed the monk in
Latin, supposing he could speak the lingua franca of clergy throughout
Christendom. “Peace be unto you brother,” he
said as he gave his slobbered hand a tactful wipe on the seat of his
breaches.
“And to you” was the automatic
sobbed response. There was an accent and the words were understood
though, at first, difficult to decipher.
“What is your name?” asked Michael.
“My name?” the monk asked in a
daze as if stunned at such a question. “Oeric, Lord, Brother Oeric,” he
replied quietly as he briefly averted his eyes.
“Oeric. Greetings Brother Oeric
my name is ..” and he paused. He knew it was best to provide his name in
a format best suited to the local language. “My name is Michael.” He
pronounced it ‘Meekal’ to give the pronunciation
that he assumed would suit.
At the name, Brother Oeric
wailed loudly and again placed his trembling, worn hands over his face.
Before Michael could react, the man again fell to his knees and bent to
place his face onto the leaf litter. Michael again
scanned the surrounding forest uncomfortably.
Indeed, they were alone.
He knelt and awkwardly patted
the prostrate Brother Oeric on the shoulder. “Oeric, Brother Oeric, is
something wrong? Why do you weep? Come now, stand and tell me, what is
the matter?”
After a titanic struggle,
Brother Oeric managed to retain some control. Rising to his knees he
wiped his freely running nose and eyes on the cloth that hung over his
chest, a simple square of wool with a head hole that
was his scapula, designed to protect his long brown tunic. Michael noted
the silver line of snot and decided that if another hug was attempted,
that was good enough reason to keep the monk at arm’s-length. Brother
Oeric wore a simple, one-piece robe of rough,
raw, dark-brown wool that enabled him to blend effectively with the
forest. Attached to his scapula was a cowl or large hood to offer
protection from snow or rain in a fashion similar to the hood Michael
wore on his own cloak. Michael watched the small man
clutch his shaking hands together in a moment of muttered prayer before
he looked up again. “Lord I give thanks that you are here”, he said with
eyes that were again downcast. He paused and gazed adoringly at
Michael, a look that was supposed to be a quick
glance but which ended in a stare akin to wonder.
