Orb & Ward Asper

The Orb & Ward Asper (1st book of series) combines realty, delightful fantasy, and childhood mayhem. It is the compelling story of Asper, a boy made parentless by the cruel action of a prison wagon's guard, annoyed by the child's crying. An unjust ruling has condemned his family (known as the Falconers) to a penal colony in a far-away valley. Through the bars of the wagon, they watch the guard fling their swaddled infant across the roadside, toward the torrents of a raging river. With no apparent chance of rescue, they leave him for dead with no chance of rescue for their king has forever relegated them to the prison colony as Indentured Slaves. Unknown to them, a huge Saker falcon, grasping mightily with her aquiline talons, plucks the swaddling bundle from the river's rocky shore flies away. After struggling for many anxious miles, she fondly lays the infant in her empty nest. High in a gigantic tree's upper branches pixie women attend the sleeping baby until the free-spirited Lady Gadabout directed to the nest by her articulate parrot, and The Orb of Rondure, a spherical spirit with a surly canine riding atop its dome, retrieves the child. Dutifully she delivers him to the less-than-pious nuns of The Abbey Tinsel, which is ruled by the self-coronated Priest King Trapunto and his wife, Queen Nunsin, who until recently was the village's teenage tramp. Though the people of the Abbey are unaware of the Falconers' life in the penal colony, the reader learns of their surprising turn of fate. Except for the lingering grief, they adjust to a unique society of indentured slaves, indentured servants, freemen, priests, and vigilantes. The infant lives, and grows up as ward of King Trapunto and Queen Nunsin. Early on, Asper becomes aware of his unusual ability to alter his face at will to look like someone else. Time passes, and them with great fanfare, the seven-year boy one bright morning astonishes the women of the royal household by contorting his face to appear identical to their precious Princess Giddy, who is five and devoutly in puppy love with the ward Asper. Grasping the potential of Asper's unique talent, Queen Nunsin formally adopts him, so that at critical events she can order him to alter his face and stand in for her two-years-older son Prince Dullard, whom all judge to be stupid, rash, and cruel, thereby advancing her precious Dullard as the ideal heir to the throne. The years roll by. Spiritual wisdom from The Orb, genuine nurturing from Lady Gadabout, and sound guidance from the Blind Organ Grinder help protect young Asper from the dysfunctional Abbey life. Interactions with the numerous pixies that live all about give Asper a kinship with these tiny creatures, endearing them to him. However, lucid dreams plague him; some tell of his 'real parents' and of their lives in the penal colony. Sensing duty's call, he resolves to seek them when maturity and freedom allow. Bullied by the King's older son Dullard, Asper grows up, torn between his duty to Queen Nunsin and his inborn instinct to explore the wilderness within sight of his Abbey home. The venturing urge lures him to camp alone in the foothills; to travel with a Gypsy caravan and become one of them by Blood Ceremony; to live among the feared swamp people; to learn sailing and navigating; and to endure an imposed internship for the priesthood. The mayhem at his homecoming welcome, following his year-long journey and just prior to his thirteenth birthday, inspires him to seek his 'teen venture,' an event compulsory for all adolescent boys. Meanwhile, overjoyed by Asper's return, the eleven-year old Princess Giddy shouts her welcome for all to hear, having disclosed to Lady Gadabout that one day she shall snare the Abbey's ward as 'her man.'