Chapter 11 of Wallachia is out. Get it from the App Store and read it for free (then tip generously).

⚾️Nicolae plays oină and 🥬Romanian cabbage rolls are consumed.

Here is the complete tale of Manoli the mason, from E.B. Mawr’s Roumanian Fairy Tales and Legends, 1881. The monastery in question, the Curtea de Argeş Cathedral, still stands.

I actually wrote a complete sequence where they were practicing oină before realizing I had clearly established it was raining the entire day in chapter 9. Then later, I placed Dracula at the castle when, also in that same chapter, I had him a ways south at the same time. Ugh.

Chapters 9–11 all more or less overlap with one-another. I don’t think—at least I hope—it doesn’t come off as confusing. I wanted to follow each character’s journey through these days until they wind up back together. Marley goes off with Margareta, Ion is at the castle, Abraham goes to visit the farmer’s sick father, and then by the next morning they’re all back in the village. On a TV show you’d probably just cut back and forth.