scarlet

The roar of battle had died away; the shout of victory mingled with the cries of the dying. Like gay-hued leaves after an autumn storm, the fallen littered the plain; the sinking sun shimmered on burnished helmets, gilt-worked mail, silver breastplates, broken swords and the heavy regal folds of silken standards, overthrown in pools of curdling crimson. In silent heaps lay war- horses and their steel-clad...

Hoofs drummed down the street that sloped to the wharfs. The folk that yelled and scattered had only a fleeting glimpse of a mailed figure on a black stallion, a wide scarlet cloak flowing out on the wind. Far up the street came the shout and clatter of pursuit, but the horseman did not look back. He swept out onto the wharfs and jerked the plunging stallion back on its haunches at the very lip of...

A New York advertising executive leaves his job in the city to write poetry in a hut by the sea. Once there he finds himself caught in the coils of his attraction to two women – a situation that so unsettles his wits that he falls prey to a heavily symbolic dream obsession. The story centers on a love triangle that develops between Landor, the niece of the man he’s staying with, Scarlet and the wife...