Eleanor's Progress , livre ebook

Troubador Publishing Ltd - Elizabeth Kirkwood

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340 pages

English

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Eleanor's Progress is a fantasy novel set in the future, against a backdrop of World revolution. This New Revolution has been caused by the expiry and the inability to extract any further fossil fuels from the modern world which has led to a complete overthrow of accepted world order and a regression into a mix of Medieval and Victorian times. Imagine a world where no technology exists. The knowledge of what has been lost has remained. Government has broken down, power has reverted to a feudal system with kings and high kings governing. We first meet Eleanor as a young ingenue girl of 17, who through various trials and tribulations, initially over which she has no control, develops into a strong resilient woman determined to fight perceived injustice.

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Science fiction

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Publié par	Troubador Publishing Ltd
Date de parution	19 juillet 2017
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781788030120
Langue	English
Poids de l'ouvrage	1 Mo

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0200€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

Eleanor’s Progress
Elizabeth Kirkwood
Copyright © 2017 Elizabeth Kirkwood

The moral right of the author has been asserted.

Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside those terms should be sent to the publishers.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

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ISBN 9781788030120

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data.
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Matador® is an imprint of Troubador Publishing Ltd
To my family: Andrew and Charlotte.

And to Jo, Catherine, Kirstie, Jean, David, Lyndsay and Emily for reading, commenting, making improvements and putting up with my nonsense. Thanks also to Ceri for providing legal support.
Contents
Prologue

Part One
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine

Part Two
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen

Part Three
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six

Epilogue
Prologue
The weather was far too warm for this sort of strenuous exercise, but the slimly built woman in her mid-thirties drove herself on, fighting her opponent, jaw jutting forward in concentration. Even though the man and woman were in the shadow of the velvety, dark trees on the escarpment above the river, sweat marks were beginning to make themselves shown on her clothing. She suddenly lunged and caught the man who was on the receiving end of all these sword strokes, unawares. She stopped, lowered her guard and glanced back at me, standing quietly to one side, wiping her brow clear of her short brown hair, now sticking to her forehead. Her eyebrows were raised enquiringly, green eyes focussing on the clock I was wielding and the notes I was awkwardly taking.
I shook my head. “Slower that time.”
The woman tutted, turned and raised her rapier. “Again!” She wiped her face against her sleeve, even though she had cleaned it moments before.
The slightly older, brown-haired, speckled with a little grey, svelte man, against whom all this activity was taking place, visibly sighed but nevertheless did as he was commanded, raising his guard and remarking as he did so, “It’s too hot for this sort of thing.”
The retort was robust and instantly dismissive. “We’ve experienced hotter: both of us; now again!”
The man put more effort in this time. He was clearly tired of the whole thing and wanted nothing better than to just sit down and read. He tried hard to contain the flurry of sword strokes before him, but she was just too fast; she was far too clever at keeping her target area small, and she was always moving. He stopped suddenly, as once again he faced a sword pointing with unerring accuracy at his throat.
“That was faster,” I announced. I too was getting weary of this exercise. I had been timing the woman now for some forty minutes or so. The weather was glorious and I wanted to enjoy it, not be standing under the trees recording how quickly it took for her to force her opponent into submission.
The woman was equally hot and bothered. “Just once more to make certain?” she pleaded, looking from me to the other.
I caught the eye of the man. He shook his head, and then looked at the ground and the leaf mould which both of them had scuffed up.
“No!” he answered decisively, leaning forward and taking the weapon away from her grasp. “No more. Not for today. You are getting there, but it will not come back all at once. It will take a little more practice.” He changed the subject, “And we all need a drink.”
The woman slowly but surely acquiesced, albeit reluctantly, lightly saluted the man, took the paper notes from me and stood to one side waiting patiently. The man took his time, gathering strewn clothing up before straightening himself, pushing his hair back from his hot face, and rolling his sleeves back down. He looked at me. “Thanks, Simon, for keeping notes. You’ll join us for a drink?”
I nodded. I had time; my book was taking shape nicely, and I was almost at the point of revealing my first draft.
The man clapped me on the back and steadily, with his hand in the small of her back, pushed the woman up the hill in search of refreshment. He easily held the swords just below the hilts in his hand, as we, as a group, passed into open sunlight and the now lengthening shadows.
Part One
Chapter One
To begin with, I suppose I must explain that when I first met her I was at the impressionable age of twelve and did not understand all that went on surrounding her. But later, when I began to write up her history, I began to have a far better inkling of her thoughts and motivations. To tell the story as it was told to me would be best, I think. It happened like this …

The New Revolution, which had happened worldwide forty years ago, still led to chaos within families and had put power in the hands of the few once again. Eleanor was one of those few; she got married in the September at the tender age of seventeen to Colin, who was one of the new Petty Kings of Brittany in France. The New Revolution, as it came to be called, thoroughly upset the old order. Out went the existing monarchies of the world. Back came a feudal system based around an Overlord or King who was supposed to protect the community in times of need, and who had in turn a ready fighting force the Overlord or King could call upon.
The lower orders of High Kings and Queens could be made or increased by those above them in terms of divisions. However, once a certain level was reached the titles were hereditary. Those at the bottom of the pecking order had one division to look after; an area of population decided the size. For two divisions or more, the individual became a High King or Queen. After that, there were High Kings/Queens of five, ten twenty and thirty divisions, all of the kings reporting into one another; that was until the first of the hereditary titles were reached, which in the case of England, was the Ruler, and then above that the Supreme Ruler.
This state of affairs was no doubt dictated by the New Revolution’s attitude to technology. Gone largely were the aircraft and cars; back were the old ways of travel: horse and cart, and steam railways. Resources were so scarce that the whole emphasis had to be on public transport, and that if anything was left over it had to be completely sustainable. It was as if the whole of the world had reverted to the beginning of the 19 th century. Where technology such as the telephone did have a foreseeable benefit, it was allowed to be retained - but largely only by people of certain rank. Knowledge of all former technology was still held, it was just that it was no longer commonly available and it couldn’t be manufactured. An important exception applied to such matters as electricity and medicine. There was no one national power generator; if a castle or stately home did retain the means of electricity to heat or light the building, then it had to have its own way of generating that power. Similarly, medicine: all hospitals were run on generators and the advances in technology were retained where mankind directly benefited. There was an almost universal feeling that man had got too clever for his own good - a concept which had led directly to the New Revolution in the first place - with energy fast running out or indeed in some circumstances, that had run out; sustainable forms simply did not provide enough for everyone concerned. So, dwindling fossil fuels were used for forms of transport all could enjoy, and for the privileged few who had generators in their homes, power had to be found through the use of wood gas burning and hydroelectric power. For the direst of emergencies, items containing the internal combustion engine could be ordered if, for instance, an ambulance was required hastily. But it really was only in the direst of emergencies. The paperwork was long and extreme, which prevented most of those in authority wastefully ordering these items unless the facilities were desperately required. And it was paper-based. Not one computer, network or mobile phone was left.

Where was I? Ah, yes, Eleanor. She was married at the tender age of seventeen to Colin. She was a lady in her own right, a privileged step-daughter of one of the Kings of France who had up to now led rather a sheltered life. Colin’s lands in Brittany weren’t up to much; the land was barely good for anything. Added to this was the fact that once again, France and England were having another one of their periodic wars which sporadically flared up, mainly over land.
Colin was called up to fight, as so