THE ORPHAN SCRIVENER ISSUE # THIRTEEN l5 FEBRUARY 2002

One of life's greatest mysteries is how quickly time rolls by, for it hardly seems five minutes since the last Orphan Scrivener was sent out into the aether. And here we are again already, turning up like the proverbial bad penny to darken your in-box.

Mind you, some mysteries eventually do get solved and one particularly vexed question has at last been clarified.

Some time ago we mentioned that we'd long been searching for the meaning of obelist as in Obelists Fly High, C. Daly King's l935 "locked room" mystery set aboard a lengthy flight. Since we wrote about the book, by the way, we've found references to a couple other obelist titles by Daly King -- Obelists at Sea (l932) and Obelists En Route (l934). Anyhow, our quest ended recently when a correspondent kindly provided the answer and we're happy to be able to pass along this fascinating piece of information. Obelists are people who mark passages they think significant in mystery novels (with an obelus, n.b) and Daly King's novel makes such people "fly high" both in a figurative and in a literal sense. As our correspondent points out, his readers should remember the appendix of clues at the end, which mark corresponding passages as an obelist would.

And now that one mystery's been cleared up, we'll proceed to jot a few lines explaining a couple of others.

MARY'S BIT or LIKE DAVE BARRY, I WAS NOT MAKING IT UP

As we've mentioned elsewhere, the title of John's new adventure is the third line from the fortune telling rhyme with which I grew up in north-east England. Three for a letter is its only deviation from the more traditional listing, where one is for sorrow, two foretells joy, three is a girl, four means a boy, five promises silver, six predicts gold and seven whispers of a secret never to be told -- the last line being rather sinister, I've always thought.

However, when folk started asking me whether three was really for a letter I began wondering if I had unconsciously made it up or possibly had somehow managed to misremember that particular line. Could it have been three for a setter or a debtor or possibly even a fetter? The last would certainly be appropriate for John, born a free man and then due to a whim of Fortuna's forced to spend several years in slavery -- a period that will be addressed in Fourfer, which will also reveal how (among other things) John won back his freedom and first met Felix and Isis.

But returning to Threefer, after a little research I was relieved to find that three for a letter is indeed known by others, including a writer for the Boston Globe. So apparently I'd recalled it correctly and hadn't made it up.

There were a few surprises along the way. For example. there's a ten-line version in which a hug (eight) and a kiss (nine) strongly suggest the romantic mystery sub genre as does its line for ten, which is for somebody you miss. Along similar lines, another rhyme disagrees about three meaning a letter, boldly asserting that in fact it represents a wedding.

Although the rhyme is traditionally counted out after spying crows, ravens or birds of similar dark plumage (commonly magpies) a rhyme exactly matching the one I know was mentioned in connection with counting sneezes -- perhaps a custom that originated with someone allergic to feathers?

Another variant states that a single bird foretells something bad while two promise luck -- although not what sort. It goes on to firmly declare a trio means health and four promises wealth. Seeing as it then concludes by revealing that five predicts sickness and six death, it's practically the plot for a mini mystery all by itself.

Finally, there's a version confirming three is for a letter but linking four with a beau. Perhaps they were love letters? While the source couldn't recall what five and six represented, seven was said to be for a stranger in the lane so I think we can probably agree that the suggestive juxtaposition of letters and a beau with an unknown person advancing down a lane hints at all sorts of interesting goings-on.

NECESSARY EVIL or THE BSP TICKER

And speaking of interesting goings-on -- or at least we hope so -- we were recently grilled by Suite l0l's Lorie Ham. If you're interested in a few thoughts on such diverse topics as why for us writing is never just business and which are our best scrivening hours, point your clickers at http://209.52.189.2/article.cfm/8017/86453 and All Will Be Revealed.

ERIC'S BIT or WHO WAS THAT CAT?

I don't think of myself as a "cat person" but cats have always contrived to be part of my life and even as I type, Sabrina, our current resident feline, is balanced on my knee, competing for the keyboard. There's nothing quite like the unexpected caress of a cold, wet cat nose against the back of the hand to inspire one to write -- about cats at any rate.

Sometimes I think Sabrina wants to paw out a message but when I've allowed her to tap on the keys she generally just writes: "hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh." Maybe that means something in feline speak.

At other times I've wondered if Sabrina's encouraging us to create a wily cat detective. If so, I regret to say she isn't much of a model. Late one evening, a couple of months ago, a visiting field mouse decided to venture out into the middle of our office. Calling up all of her street smarts, Sabrina pounced directly in front of the venturesome rodent. Separated by no more than a whisker -- or less, Sabrina having unusually long whiskers -- they proceeded to stare at each other until the mouse turned its back and strolled off insolently to escape down the hole by the radiator. This routine was repeated a few more times before the mouse decided to call it a day.

While I'm not in favor of violence, I can't say that a cat who doesn't know what to do with a mouse inspires much confidence in the ability of such animals to solve murders. But then, perhaps the mouse was innocent.

Even though we haven't yet written about detecting cats, we have given Sabrina, and her erstwhile friend Rachel, cameos in our mystery novels. The mangy black cemetery cat in One For Sorrow was "played" by Rachel, who also appeared in Two For Joy and Three For A Letter as Tripod, the beggar Pulcheria's three-legged companion. Sabrina, disguised with stripes, was the small and suitably timid cat at the Inn of the Centaurs in the first book, and subsequently frequented the Great Palace grounds as well as the estate of Anatolius' eccentric Uncle Zeno in books two and three. So if you were wondering "who were those masked cats?" now you know.

If you'd like to read more about the cats in our lives, try these essays at our web site:

Jean Paul Cat -- http://home.epix.net/~maywrite/groggy40.htm#jean
Rachel -- http://home.epix.net/~maywrite/groggy40.htm#rachel
It Wasn't the Cat -- http://home.epix.net/~maywrite/cat.htm

AND FINALLY

A Scrivener subscriber wrote last month to tell us she had seen a set of curse tablets at the unfortunately now closed Antioch Revealed exhibition put on by the Baltimore Museum of Art. This was particularly interesting to us because one such tablet brings John to investigate odd events at a country estate in his most recently published short story adventure (And All That He Calls Family in Mike Ashley's anthology The Mammoth Book of More Historical Whodunnits). If you're curious about what these malevolent creations look like, there's a photo of one linked from Harvard Magazine's fascinating article about the exhibition (which includes a description of how curse tablets were intended to work) at

http://www.harvardmagazine.com/archive/00nd/nd00_feat_antioch_1.html

And speaking of curse tablets, the next Orphan Scrivener will wing into your in-box on April l5th -- the very day on which many US residents will be hunched over their yellow tablets trying to finish doing the calculations for their tax returns. We'll take it as read that even the most genteel will feel compelled to utter a curse or two during that ghastly process.

See you then!

Best wishes
Mary and Eric
whose home page hangs out at http://home.epix.net/~maywrite/

Therein you'll find the usual suspects plus an interactive game as well as an on-line jigsaw puzzle (at least for those who have java-enabled browsers) featuring One For Sorrow's boldly scarlet cover. For those new to the subscription list there's also the Orphan Scrivener archive, so don't say you weren't warned!

---

THE ORPHAN SCRIVENER -- ISSUE # TWELVE -- l5 DECEMBER 200l

December is almost half over and soon Janus will be at the gate of the year as it opens into 2002. The last few stubborn leaves still cling to bare black branches, trembling in the slightest breeze but not quite ready to join the soggy carpet of their ochre fellows. Squirrels have begun feverishly digging holes for their winter stores. Except for a small flock that has taken up year-round residence on a local pond, the geese have long since flown south, their night passage marked by bursts of eerie, yelping cries fading quickly into the distance. Occasional ducks can still be spotted here and there but even their merry quacking seems muted. Perhaps it's just as well, given that some gourmets favour duck a l'orange for festive meals although we hasten to add that we are not among the ranks of such diners.

Speaking of festivities, this time around we recall holidays past, so put on your party hat, pull your chair closer and read on.

---

ERIC'S BIT or SANTA'S LONGEST NIGHT

Writing Christmas reminiscences seems to be a tradition at this time of year. I'm not so sure the practice isn't akin to those holiday fruit cakes no one likes but which are still thick on the ground every December, presumably for no other reason than that they are traditional. Personally, I like fruit cake, but I'm not so certain about Christmas reminiscences. I guess I can at least claim to recall the best kind of Christmases -- the old fashioned ones. After all, I predate malls. I can even remember the first "shopping center" going up in my home town. It replaced the buggywhip factory.

My childhood recollections of the holiday are, like all my memories, hazy. That's probably a good thing for a writer as it keeps me from trying to endlessly rehash my past rather than making up more interesting stories. I do however recall conducting the milk and cookies experiment which proved beyond doubt that Santa existed because, after all, when I awoke on Christmas morning, he'd eaten the snacks set out the night before. This was right after the launching of Sputnik, when, like every halfway intelligent American child, I was going to become a scientist but that was before I tried to cope with long division.

It's certainly not traditional but for me Christmas also involved cats and alligators -- specifically the instrument-playing feline figurines and the alligator leaning against a lamp post which highlighted the Christmas yard under the tree at my grandparents' house. Speaking of trees, they were real in those days though not necessarily purchased at one of those stands that pop up in December. Some years my grandfather simply cut the crown off one of the big firs lining the edge of his garden.

Model train layouts around Christmas trees were more natural in those days too. My brother and I covered our train tunnel with moss and ferns gathered in the woods behind our house. We had a couple of plastic railroad adventurers a cat and a penguin. Sometimes they even got on the train (despite not having a ticket) but more often they rode the rails, directly in the path of the train, creating spectacular crashes. Despite any amount of nagging, they had a terrible tendency to cross the tracks in front of the tunnel and bore the scars of their foolishness to prove it.

Even more exciting was opening a new window in the Advent calendar every day to reveal another picture advancing the Nativity tale. In retrospect, I wonder if using the unfolding story of Christ's birth as a countdown to the coming of Santa was somehow sacrilegious.

As a kid I was enthralled by all the fantastical lies about Santa and flying reindeer and rightly or wrongly I carried on the tradition by telling my children the same tall tales. By then of course I knew better. It still makes me feel tired to recall the year Santa assembled the kids' new bicycles after their bedtime on Christmas Eve. A very long night that turned out to be, too, but luckily the pedals, wheels and handlebars somehow stayed attached while in use. Now the kids are grown, those bicycles are long gone and the danger of injury has passed and so I'm much relieved. But I still enjoyed their wonderment vicariously. For me, Christmas really slipped away when my kids grew up, when I no longer sat at their bedsides and read The Night Before Christmas to them before tucking them in.

Now there was a tradition.

---

NECESSARY EVIL or THE BSP TICKER

Rather like Ogden Nash's ketchup bottle which when shaken first produced none at all and then a lottle (but see footnote at the end of this newsletter) and unlike our last BSP Ticker, this time Necessary Evil has a fair bit of news to impart. So put pets and people of nervous dispositions out of the room and then stand back as we shake the BSP Bottle and Reveal All,

JOHN RETURNS HOME or SPEAKING IN HIS NATIVE TONGUE

We are thrilled to report that One For Sorrow will have a Greek edition, to be issued by Govostis Publisher S.A. of Athens (Greece, not Georgia). Since John was born in Greece and Greek was the everyday language of his time and place, this wonderful news appeals greatly to our sense of the fitness of things. Now John will be speaking in his native tongue or at least its modern version and so while it is proverbially the Greeks who have a word for it, so also in this instance will an assembly of characters whose nationalities include Cretan, Egyptian, Persian and Briton.

PASSING THE WORD or YET MORE NEWSLETTERS

Our website's Mystery Newsletters page (listing genre-related newsletters issued by authors, bookstores and so on) is being featured as January's Link of the Month in Gayle Trent's Writing Up A Storm newsletter. Our thanks to Gayle, who tells us she believes her readers will find that page "a treasure trove of links to explore!"

In passing, let us mention that our newsletter list is a work in progress so if you'd like yours (email or print) added, do jot a line and let us know.

ANOTHER GRILLING or LURKING ON THE SHELF

We recently had the honour of being interviewed by Rachel Hyde, who lives in England but was writing for Myshelf.com, based in the US. Our thanks to all concerned for the opportunity to reveal such things as how John came into being plus a comment or two on interesting questions such as whether the books can be interpreted as being anti-religious. These and other grisly details can be perused at http://www.myshelf.com/haveyouheard/interviews/reed_mayer.html

THREE FOR A LETTER or THREE OTHER LETTERS

The calligraphic trio being BSP and this paragraph being the last bit this time around. The first reviews for Threefer have appeared and if you wish to peruse them, pop over to http://home.epix.net/~maywrite/threerev.htm Hopefully you'll return and finish reading this edition of Orphan Scrivener.

---

MARY'S BIT or FRUIT GUMS VS WRAPPING PAPER

There were no Christmas railways for us, I fear, although we sometimes saw engines chugging along the lining running behind the Vickers-Armstrong works across the Scotswood Road during the holidays, just as they did year round.

But as with most families, our Christmas Day had its own order, a traditional progression of events unwinding from our first forays into lumpy Christmas stockings at the foot of our bunk bed in the grey light before dawn to getting up to the steamy, fruity smell of the Christmas pudding boiling merrily in the kitchen to the last goodnight before the light was put out and Boxing Day crept towards us on the twirling sails of the windmill clock hanging on our attic bedroom wall.

As a child, early Christmas evening was my favourite time of the day. By then we had presented our gifts -- usually home-made calendars liberally sprinkled with glitter after secret assembly up in the attic or perhaps boxes of matching handkerchiefs, or a diary, or a huge bottle of lavender perfume from the local Woolworths, things small in themselves but for which we had saved our pocket money for some time, sacrificing even that extra tube of fruit gums in order to get a few pennies more towards the cost of the fancier wrapping paper. And of course we had ourselves long since unwrapped our own new treasures -- always a book, usually a selection box containing six or eight different sorts of chocolate bars, and two or three other small parcels that had been stuffed into our Christmas stockings (being a pair of my father's much darned wool socks) along with the customary silver foil wrapped tangerine plus a handful of walnuts in the shell and a few toffees tucked into their toes.

After the Queen's speech broadcast at 3 pm and having toasted her health with a glass of sherry or a cup of tea as appropriate to age, about an hour later it was time to sit down for our tea. We kids would gleefully pull red and green Christmas crackers, reading their mottoes and silly jokes aloud for everyone's delight. We'd put on the silly hats and divvy up the geegaw trinkets from the crackers and then pass around slices of the rich, solid dark cake my mother had made weeks before. The British Christmas cake is basically all sorts of dried fruit held together with spices, eggs, flour, butter and a dash of something that in our day might have been rum though we never dared ask, the whole being covered in marzipan and tooth-cracking Royal icing on which, at our house at least, was displayed a small, much battered miniature sled that so far as we could tell was made of painted chalk.

There would be hot mince pies (muffin sized in England) and perhaps a sandwich, all downed with big china cups of strong, black, heavily sugared tea. Afterwards we'd linger at the kitchen table to demolish some of the aforementioned nuts and citrus fruit as well as passing around a once a year purchase -- a frilly-edged box of sticky, dark dates that came with a little plastic fork for fishing out its contents and brough forth stern maternal warnings to mind out for the stones or we would break our teeth. The l944 film This Happy Breed, which tells the story of a set of working class neighbours over a span of twenty years, has an essentially similar scene (much to my delight the first time I saw it) although under blackout wartime conditions and presumably without dates or tangerines, which would have cost a fortune even if any could have been found on sale.

But when the washing-up was done, the tea towel hung up to dry in the scullery and a fresh scuttle of coal brought up from the back yard, then came the best part of all. As darkness pressed against steamed-up windows behind cosily drawn curtains and adults listened to the radio while consuming yet more cups of tea, we kids lay on the hearth rug in front of the popping, glowing fire, eating chocolate and reading our new books. Could childhood memories be any better?

It all sounds very simple and ordinary and somewhat quaint, I suppose, but it was our Christmas and so remains close to our hearts -- and especially now that we are all scattered to the winds. So wherever you are and however you celebrate the many festivals falling at this time, may they give you an equal stock of happy memories -- and may the new year bring you all you wish yourselves.

---

AND FINALLY

Speaking of traditions, for centuries it's been said that as long as there are ravens living at the Tower of London, the monarchy will not fall -- plus of course there'll be ample opportunity for visitors to practice fortune telling by counting them, or at least according to the rhyme from which the books about John take their titles.

Being nothing of not cautious, therefore, the powers-that-be ensure that the throne remains safe by clipping the Tower ravens' wings so that while they can hop a fair step, they cannot fly away. Being intelligent birds, however, we suspect that they realize which side their bird seed is buttered on and are happy to stay on the Tower grounds, unlike some of its past residents.

However, not all of them are as grateful as they should be. When Major General Sir Digby Raeburn, Governor of the Tower, died a few days ago, his obituary noted in passing that he was once chased and bitten by Hector, one of the Tower ravens. The irony of this episode did not escape us in that (a) according to the rhyme one bird of black plumage is for sorrow (as indeed those seeking to steal the Maltese Falcon found out to their cost) and (b) a minor (in both senses of the word) character in the novels is an unpleasant young man called Hektor. Regrettably, while the avian Hector was promptly sent to live at the London Zoo (where we trust he became better behaved) his fictional namesake has yet to be reformed.

Better behaved or reformed we may never be but there are two things you may expect to come to pass (well, three if you count relying on lots of ketchup when you shake the bottle too vigorously). The first is that we don't bite and the second is that the next Orphan Scrivener will wing over to your in-box on February l5th. See you then!

Best wishes
Mary and Eric
whose home page hangs out at http://home.epix.net/~maywrite/

Therein you'll find the usual suspects plus an interactive game as well as an on-line jigsaw puzzle (at least for those who have java-enabled browsers) featuring ONE FOR SORROW's boldly scarlet cover. For those new to the subscription list there's also the Orphan Scrivener archive, so don't say you weren't warned!

BUT HOLD! WE HADN'T FORGOTTEN THE FOOTNOTE!

One thing we've learned from researching historical mysteries is that the facts we know are not always so, which is why we never rely on a single source to verify anything important needed for our writing. Our natural caution therefore led us to delve a bit more deeply into the ketchup poem commonly attributed to Ogden Nash and we discovered that his granddaughter has stated that it did not appear in any of Nash's collections. However, she also revealed another version of the poem which according to her mother is closer to the uncollected original. See the New Scientist article at http://www.newscientist.com/lastword/answers/608energy.jsp?tp=energy1

---

THE ORPHAN SCRIVENER -- ISSUE # ELEVEN -- l5 OCTOBER 200l

When our last newsletter winged on Mercury's sandals to your in-box, we were routinely consulting the other sort of mercury, being in the crab-like pincers of what turned into a lengthy heat wave for a fair bit of the nation. Now, however, not only has the temperature dropped but soon the foliage will follow suit. How the ancients must have dreaded these beautiful autumn days when the all-important harvest was brought in. Would there be enough food to last until spring? Would the spirit of vegetation, dying so colourfully all around them, return at the appointed time in the new year? There's something sad about these misty mornings with their thin, golden rays of sunshine slanting through flaring patchworks of orange, red and lemon-lime tinted trees strung across the landscape. Perhaps it's because this season reminds us not only that Time, as Isaac Watts so eloquently put it, bears all its sons away but also that winter is just over the horizon.

And the passage of Time, of course, also inexorably brings with it another issue of Orphan Scrivener, so here it is. Enjoy!

---

MARY'S BIT or THE GOTH A-LIST

Research often entices the seeker down some very strange and dark byways, twisty deserted streets or dusty, oddly quiet lanes -- yet often even the most seemingly ordinary path winds at last to literary countryside so fascinating that it takes a really stern effort of will to turn back and retrace one's wandering footsteps. Many's the time when looking up odds and ends I've wanted to keep reading to see what lay around the heavily wooded bend curving so enticingly out of sight, or if you prefer plainer talk, to go on to the next chapter even though I've located the needed information.

Thus it was during the writing of Three For A Letter when the time arrived for the ever-difficult task of the Naming of Names. While it's always a good plan to avoid writing about characters with similar sounding monikers or names beginning with the same initial, this time around there we encountered an added difficulty when naming a pair of royal Goth twins.

Apart from the initial and inevitable thought of Goths as being connected with dark clothing, demon-white faces and An Attitude -- in some ways not a bad description of the twins' forebears -- it turned out that the Goths seemed overly fond of names beginning with A, such as Amalfrida, Agiwulf, Anagastes, Aligern and Aithanarid. Indeed, historical characters needing at least a nod in Threefer included Athalaric and Amalasuntha.

Added to that, many Goth names sound rather odd to present day ears and so, bearing in mind that first impressions are important when meeting new characters, the likes of Giso, Mundo, Gundobad, Patza and Hunila were quickly cast aside. Originally the siblings were to be Amalaric (male) and Amalathea (female) but finally, after much muttering and consulting of lists, they were renamed Gadaric and Sunilda respectively.

However, it's just as well that the twins appear in Three For A Letter. Had they been involved in Two For Joy, since we're reliably informed that Byzantines loved puns we might not have been able to resist the right royal temptation of giving the unfortunate lad the genuine Goth name of Tufa and then slyly dubbing his sister Joy.

---

NECESSARY EVIL or THE BSP TICKER

SPEAKING OF JOY

Those who enjoy discussion/reading guides can leap therewith as we've have just completed one for the novels thus far issued. Since it necessarily contains a certain amount of spoilerage -- particularly for the first two books -- at this point we're not posting it to our website. However, if you'd like to glance over it, do jot a line and we'll gladly email a copy.

JOHN VISITS THE COUNTRY PART I

The sixth John story, And All That He Calls Family, is now lurking on those bookstore shelves carrying The Mammoth Book of More Historical Whodunnits, Mike Ashley's latest historical mystery anthology. (UK title: The Mammoth Book of Historical Whodunnits: A New Collection). In this particular outing, John is called upon to solve a strange affair precipitated when a curse tablet is dredged up from a well on a country estate. Did the ill-wisher involved have any connection with the recent death of Damian, co-owner of the estate, whose shade has been seen flitting about the gardens -- and could Damian's posthumous son Solon now also be in danger?

JOHN VISITS THE COUNTRY PART II

The press is now thundering to print Three For A Letter, to be published in December. In Threefer, John finds himself embroiled in murderous goings-on at the seaside estate of Anatolius' Uncle Zeno, that scholarly old gent of eclectic credulity mentioned in Two For Joy (the pb edition of which appeared this month) and in the short story Leap of Faith (EQMM, November 1998). Among other things, John's adventures involve amazing automatons, ladies-in-waiting with agendas, a magical whale and Empress Theodora's favourite mime. Familiar characters such as the excubitor captain Felix, that hasty young man-about-Constantinople Anatolius and Senator Balbinus, last seen in Two For Joy, return. There's also a cast of assorted Goths, none of whom have names beginning with A.

---

ERIC'S BIT or AT MY SIGNAL, UNLEASH CONFUSION

Near the beginning of the movie Gladiator, General Maximus, about to lead his legions into battle deep in the forests of Germany, gives the command "At my signal, unleash hell," and before you can shake a pila it's hasta la vista barbarians.

When I first saw the movie that line didn't bother me. Ever since Dirty Harry wanted his day made, quick thinking action heroes have had to come up with memorable phrases prior to inflicting mayhem. It isn't a bad convention, for those of us who take some vicarious pleasure in imagining ourselves as the hero. Even if I were able to engineer the bloody dispatch of an army of ruthless Germans I would probably have emerged from my tent one morning, weeks later, thinking, "The Furies take me. I should've said, 'At my signal, unleash hell,' instead of 'At the count of three, go.'"

However, slow-witted as I am, I have recently wondered about the use of the word "hell." Why would a Roman general exhort his troops to bring down upon the enemy a banned religious cult's idea of what the afterlife holds for those who fail to adhere to their religion's decidedly non-Roman precepts? Certainly the typical Roman did not believe in the Christian idea of hell and if Maximus' men did hold beliefs differing from those of the average pagan of the era, they were likely Mithrans since that was a soldier's religion.

To be fair, historical fiction always presents translation problems so it may be that the word "hell" was meant to be an understandable reference to the Roman's own conception of the eternal wrong side of the tracks reserved for transgressors. After all, "At my signal, release Tartarus," just doesn't have much of a ring to modern ears.

Tartarus, where the judges of the dead sent wrongdoers after the latter had been ferried across the Styx to the underworld, wasn't much like Hell. In fact, most souls sent there wandered as pale shades in meadows of asphodel. It is hard to imagine why Maximus would urge his army to unleash fields of asphodel on the Germans, or what military objective such a tactic might achieve, except perhaps to sow confusion, presuming the Germans were as uncertain as I am about what an asphodel actually is.

I have read that some Roman dead were punished by the Furies, so maybe that was what Maximus had in mind, but if so, why didn't he just order the unleashing of the Furies?

Even if one argues that the reference to hell is anachronistic does it matter? It's a good line. It certainly conjures up the proper images, and probably does so better for a modern movie-goer than some more realistically Roman reference could. I suppose it is a question of the writer's taste in translation.

When Mary and I write our Byzantine mysteries I always feel as if I'm translating our characters' words from the ancient Greek or Latin. We tend to be conservative, literal, translators. So while the adolescent court page, Hektor, might show his contempt and disrespect for John by barging into the Lord Chamberlain's home and issuing impertinent orders, he won't soon be addressing him with "Hey, old Chamberlain dude," although that is probably what he'd be saying if he were living today.

The use of modern, idiomatic expressions might make it a little easier for the present day reader to relate to characters, or at least makes it easier for the writer to present those characters. But I believe that in any historical novel, one of the main characters, perhaps as important as the protagonist, is the setting, and anachronisms in the mouths of other characters makes the setting less believable. It is hard enough to convince readers to imagine they are walking down the Mese in ancient Constantinople without constantly reminding them that this is a book written in the twenty-first century.

We try hard to make sure no anachronisms slip into the John the Eunuch series, but it's hard to avoid and sometimes occasionally tempting. While writing Three For A Letter, we were sorely tempted to play a bit fast and loose with the language. The Byzantines, as Mary mentions above, were very fond of puns. Unfortunately Byzantine puns only make sense in Latin or ancient Greek. I'm not sure how, or if it is possible, to translate a pun. Nevertheless, Anatolius, considering himself a wit, would likely have been prone to puns and in one scene as originally written he got carried away and made one involving goats and Christianity.

On reflection and after a bit more research the chroniclers of the adventures of John and his friends decided that particular bit of word play only worked in English and would've made no sense in ancient Greek, so it was removed. Besides, it was dreadful, not to mention possibly upsetting to people of nervous disposition. Anyway, if you want to hear that pun I guess you'll have to wait for the out-takes on the DVD.

---

AND FINALLY

Since we're approaching 2,000 words and try to stay around that figure so as not to overload your e-mail, we'll now scurry about and close down this issue. As usual, we'll be back in two months so look out for the next Orphan Scrivener in mid-December, that time of jolly jamborees across both the ancient and modern worlds.

Best wishes to all.

Mary and Eric

whose home page lurks about at

http://home.epix.net/~maywrite/

Therein you'll find the usual suspects plus more personal essays, an interactive game and an on-line jigsaw puzzle (at least for those who have java-enabled browsers) featuring One For Sorrow's eye-catching scarlet cover. We also now have a work-in-progress, to wit, a page listing mystery- related newsletters (print and email). If you have such a newsletter and would like to be listed, let us know. And finally, for those new to the subscription list there's also the Orphan Scrivener archive, so don't say you weren't warned!

---