another excerpt from GHOST IN THE RAZOR

In today’s excerpt from GHOST IN THE RAZOR, Caina reminisces:

“Aye,” said Caina, waving a hand at the buildings. “This used to be part of the Alqaarin Quarter, but the Padishah’s father expanded the Alqaarin Harbor, and the traffic moved to other parts of the city. Most of these buildings were abandoned, and in recent years the Saddai began settling here.”

“What drove them to Istarinmul?” he said.

Caina’s mouth twisted. “Anatsius Nicephorus, the Lord Governor of Rasadda. He abused his office and started forcing the Saddai off their lands, creating estates for his friends and selling the dispossessed farmers into slavery. His misrule almost drove Rasadda to revolt from the Empire.”

“I heard of Nicephorus,” he said. “What happened to him?”

“I did.”

“Ah.”

Fun fact: I named Lord Governor Nicephorus for the Byzantine Emperor Nicephorus I, who was killed in battle against the Bulgarians in 811 AD. After the battle, the Bulgarian khan Krum had Nicephorus’s skull turned into a silver drinking goblet.

2nd fun fact: Nicephorus spurned Charlemagne as a pretender to the imperial title of the Roman Empire. However, Charlemagne died of old age and his bones are in interred in a golden coffin in a cathedral in Germany to this day, while Nicephorus was killed in battle and had his head turned into a Bulgarian khan’s trophy tumbler. So Charlemagne seems to have had the last laugh.

-JM