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    Wessex Tales: "Julia" (Story 11)
    Wessex Tales: "Julia" (Story 11)
    Wessex Tales: "Julia" (Story 11)
    Ebook46 pages32 minutes

    Wessex Tales: "Julia" (Story 11)

    By Robert Fripp

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    About this ebook

    This story in the "Wessex Tales" collection—"Julia" (Story 11)—is sequel to "The Face in the Floor" (Story 10). It was Julia’s parents who commissioned their villa's magnificent mosaic floor in the previous tale; as a child, she watched the master-mosaicist lay it. As "Julia" begins, Julia is a young woman angry at life, angrier at expectations, and resisting marriage. (circa 335 CE)

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRobert Fripp
    Release dateJan 18, 2013
    ISBN9780991857524
    Wessex Tales: "Julia" (Story 11)
    Author

    Robert Fripp

    Nature, wildlife and public affairs television, earth sciences, gothic vaults and liturgy: Robert Fripp’s fiction and non-fiction share many slices of life. § Here, Fripp introduces his 38 “Wessex Tales” stories. Thomas Hardy used that title over a century ago. Fripp moves it forward with a new collection of “Wessex Tales” covering “Eight thousand years in the life of an English village.” § First come Stone Age hunters. Then villagers discover a new “stone,” bronze. Locals build Stonehenge. A Roman mosaic depicts Jesus. We advance: from Viking raiders to potions for maidens, a medieval wedding, civil war, smugglers, and the second battle of the Somme. § Smashwords releases several stories, here. Read them—free, for a time—choosing a format for your Kindle, Nook, iPad, Mac, PC, iPhone (via Stanza), Sony, Kobo and Androids. All 38 “Wessex Tales” stories will come alive in paperback within two years.

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      Book preview

      Wessex Tales - Robert Fripp

      ~ WESSEX TALES ~

      Eight thousand years in the life of an English village

      ‘ Julia ’

      ‘Julia’ is Story 11 of 38

      in my Wessex Tales collection.

      ISBN 978-0-9918575-2-4

      Robert Fripp

      Copyright 2013 Robert Fripp

      Smashwords Edition

      Smashwords Edition, License Notes

      Thank you for reading Julia. She remains Copyright to her author, Robert Fripp, who reserves all rights. Julia may not be reproduced, copied or distributed for commercial or non-commercial purposes. If you enjoy the story, please encourage your friends to download their copy from Smashwords.com, where they will find many more.

      Search term ‘Wessex_Tales:Fripp’

      will help you find my stories on the web.

      This file ends with a full story list.

      Thank you for your support.

      Cover

      Posted by ‘timitalia’, June 3rd, 2006.

      http://www.flickr.com/photos/timitalia/244810822/

      Cover design by The Design Unit,

      www.thedesignunit.com

      Table of Contents

      Chapter 1

      Chapter 2

      Chapter 3

      Chapter 4

      Chapter 5

      The Author’s Note

      Books by Robert Fripp

      Reach me Online

      A List of my Stories

      ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

      WESSEX TALES

      ‘ Julia ’

      Chapter 1

      It is the last earthly summer of Rome’s first Christian emperor,

      Constantine. The year is 336 CE.

      Julia is tall for a woman, tall and beautiful in an ascetic sort of way, with the flowing blonde hair of another impetuous Briton from Roman times, Queen Boudica. A short summer tunic emphasises an athletic figure that she further reveals by wearing a wide leather belt studded with bronze ornaments cinched tightly at her waist.

      Julia does most of the talking. The young man listening has known her since they were toddlers together. Sitting on one of the dining couches he hears her out, biding his time. At issue is a topic of mutual concern.

      These two are the principal characters. Julia is pacing an erratic orbit around a face of Christ set into a fine mosaic floor.

      Julia’s mother, Helena, had commissioned the floor eleven years before. To put the event in a global framework, it was laid around the time Emperor Constantine summoned the first great gathering of Christians, to Nicæa. On a local level, the feeblest-minded peasant in the villa’s familia would never forget: the mistress commissioned the floor after the winter of floods, when the terror of death hung like a pall over the master’s family through the spring of that year.

      It happened like this. The villa and its home farm stood at the heart of the vale: ten to fifteen streams entered the Stour within a radius of a mile. During a dry stretch lasting several years, Julia’s father, Justin, had done nothing to control several beaver dams across the river and its streams. Beavers kept willows and elders down,

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