The Hunting Accident

[Excerpt from An Involuntary King: A Tale of Anglo Saxon England by Nan Hawthorne.]

As Lawrence and Ronan rode back through the forest with their small group of men-at-arms and servants, they came at last to a clearing atop a hill where they could see the hall in the distance. Of a sudden, Ronan caught movement at the edge of the clearing. "My lord, look there! It is a hart!"

Lawrence turned in his saddle and saw the animal. He thought to himself that it would be sweet to be the one to bring in the prize this day, and leave Elerde empty-handed. He took his bow and pulled an arrow from his quiver to notch it. From his awkward position, turned in the saddle, he took aim at the animal.

"My lord, wait!" Ronan called.

The king saw him. Elerde was about to ride into the clearing followed by Malcolm and their attendants. They appeared to have seen the hart first and were advancing on it to run it to ground. Lawrence caught a glimpse of an arrow protruding from the animal's flank. The hart sprang, and in a moment where it stood was Elerde, slowing and wheeling to call to his companions.

Elerde glanced up and saw the king. He stared straight at him, not moving.

Lawrence paused for less than a heartbeat. He felt himself let the arrow fly without altering his aim. The arrow flew swift and straight and right into Elerde's shoulder.

The king could not decide in those next few moments if he acted reflexively, if he slipped and let the arrow fly, or if he deliberately aimed for the man. He saw Elerde jerk, then press a hand to his shoulder, a look of shock on his face. He glanced up at the king and bared his teeth in anger at him. "You!" he snarled. He slid off his horse and onto the ground.

"My God, sire, you have killed him!" Ronan breathed.

Lawrence wheeled. 'Do not be ridiculous! He is not dead. I wounded him." The statement of responsibility struck him hard. He had wounded Elerde.

He rode directly to where Malcolm stood. Malcolm was off his horse and at Elerde's side. Elerde was conscious but clearly in much pain. Lawrence dismounted and knelt by him, across from Malcolm. "Lord, you are wounded. My shot was meant for the hart," he began, questioning his own sincerity as he said it.

Elerde's lips drew back tight to reveal a snarl. "My heart, methinks! That arrow was meant to kill me!"

Lawrence's face grew red. "How dare you, sirrah?!" he growled. "How dare you accuse me? If you would challenge me, be a man and put your sword and your life behind it, else hold your tongue!"

Elerde glared back. "You have made that an uneven fight, my liege. Or mayhap it was to even the odds you did this, you miserable... what is the word? Nithing."

Lawrence gave the prostrate man a darkly threatening look. “And why should I so deign, sirrah?”

Elerde’s lip curled. “To prove yourself more worthy of that dear lady’s devotion than am I.”

Lawrence drew his dagger and raised it to plunge it into Elerde's breast. He felt hands grab his raised arm and his opposite shoulder. He heard Ronan’s voice, “My liege, nay!”

He shook them off, sheathed his dagger, and stood. He said in a grim voice to Malcolm, "Get this man to a surgeon. I shall not have his blood on my hands." He looked back at Elerde. "At least, not yet. I will set a guard upon you to wait until you are fit, to accompany you to Lawrencium should you decide to make good your accusation."

The king turned and strode over to his horse. He said not another word but mounted and rode off at a gallop.

Ronan hesitated, then bent to help Malcolm raise the wounded man to his feet. "Can you ride?” Ronan asked Elerde.

Elerde nodded, his face full of pain, anger, and hate. They got him back onto his horse, the king's arrow still protruding from his arm. Elerde leaned heavily and painfully on his saddle's pommel.

Ronan, who followed Elerde and the others to the hall, could hear the party's combined entourage muttering amongst themselves, turned and shot them a glance that silenced them.

Malcolm led Elerde's horse at an easy pace back to the hall, where one of his own men-at-arms with skill dressing battle wounds removed the arrow and cleaned and bandaged the wound.

He started to throw away the arrow. Elerde shot at him, "Nay! Give it to me!"

[Learn what happens next by reading An Involuntary King: A Tale of Anglo Saxon England by Nan Hawthorne.]

Gorey Castle Jigsaw Puzzle

This site, JigZone, allows you to choose the number of pieces and their shapes. E njoy!

What They Would Have Asked Santa For

Susan Higginbotham and I have been thinking about various historical and historical fiction characters and what they might have asked for while sitting on Santa's lap. Here is what we came up with -- see if you can guess which entries are whose.

Edward I -- Scotland.

Ethelred the Unready -- A day planner

Piers Gaveston -- Just something handmade. No, really! Well . . . if you insist, jewels are always appropriate.

Isabella of France -- My jewels back.

Alfred the Great - An oven timer

Hugh le Despenser the younger -- Whatever someone else is getting.

Roger Mortimer -- Hugh on a platter.

Aethelflaed, Lady of the Mercians -- For Bernard Cornwell to get me right in his novels

Edward II -- Fodor's Guide to Italy.

Harold Godwinson - Edward the Confessor's will in writing.. or not

Godiva of Coventry - Super hold hair spray

Edward III -- France.

Offa of Mercia - A really butch Welsh dyke

Branwen Jones - For the King of Mercia to leave me the heck alone.

Edward IV -- Getting to Yes.

Ivar the Boneless - You have to ask?!

Elizabeth Woodville -- An agreeable second husband who will be nice to my large family.

Aethelwald, son of Ethelred - Primo genitor

Richard the Lion-hearted -- To go on a nice long cruise.

Richard, Duke of Gloucester Something round and gold and shiny that fits nicely on my head. (Later, when king -- a horse.)

Henry Tudor -- Something round and gold and shiny that fits nicely on my head.

William Rufus -- A new archery set.

Henry VIII -- 6 free sessions of marriage counseling.

Nicholas de Fleury -- I'm not sure. I keep penduluming back and forth about that.

Anne Boleyn -- Morning sickness.

Katherine Howard -- Someone my own age to pal around with.

Katherine Parr -- Widow's weeds.

Lawrence of Críslicland - For a certain Breton mercenary to take a long walk off a short pier

Boswell the cairn terrier -- Mom to get off her duff and take me for a walk.

Macdhui the Duck, a cat -- For a credible explanation why we have not gone in the car for such a looong time.

Glad Yule and a happy and loving 2009!

Image: Harold Godwinson in the Bayeux Tapestry.

Page 56 Meme -- My Turn

Lucy Pick picked me as one of the people she tagged to fulfill the Page 56 meme.

What is a meme anyway?

From Dictionary.com:

meme

–noun a cultural item that is transmitted by repetition in a manner analogous to the biological transmission of genes.

Origin:
1976; < Gk mīmeîsthai to imitate, copy; coined by R. Dawkins, Brit. biologist

This one requires that I reach for the first book I can put my hand on and copy sentence five and a few more on page 56 of that book. My husband and I are reading Sharpe's Devil by Bernard Cornwell. The selected sentences are:

Albatrosses ghosted alongside the Espiritu Santo's rigging. The frigate, Cape Horn left far behind her, was sailing before a friendly wind on a swirling current of icy water. Dolphins followed her, while whales surfaced and rolled on either flank.

"Christ but there's some meat on those bloogy fish!" Harper said in admiration as a great whale plunged past the Espiritu Santo.

They've added a new twist to this one. We are also supposed to make the selection from our own work-in-progress. I am between books so I will use An Involuntary King.

Lawrence watched for a reaction. The captain made none except to
bow again and affirm that the king’s orders would be carried out. Lawrence
continued, “This may be more diffcult. I do not want the queen to see him
detained, hurt, distressed, or held in any way. She is not to know he is being
watched.”

The captain replied, “With your leave, my liege, I shall select men I know
can be subtle and discreet to watch the warrior. They can more easily take
steps to make sure he does not disturb Her Majesty.”

And now I am to tag five more people. Nicol doesn't have a blog so I guess she's off the hook.

Susan Higginbotham
Mirella Parzer
Erastes
Liam Guilar
Greta Marlow

Eh bien, voilà -- bonne chances, mes amis.

Nan

[Book Review]The Harvesting, By Celia Hayes

The Harvesting: Book Three of the Adelsverrein Trilogy
By Celia Hayes

In a divergence from my usual era in historical fiction, I agreed to exchange reviews of our novels with Celia Hayes who writes about the American West. The novel she sent me is the third volume of her Adelsverein series about German immigrants in Texas. I found a great deal of enjoyment in this novel, and perhaps the highest praise I have is that I am certain to read the other two in the series -- The Gathering and The Sowing, though they take place before the action of The Harvesting, and I already know my heart will take a beating in Book Two.

The Harversting begins with the return of Peter Vining, a Confederate soldier from his recuperation from the loss of most of one arm in the Civil War. His decision to visit his cousins, two families of German immigrants, draws the reader into the central story of the fortunes of these strong and individualistic people. The families are led by the redoubtable Magda Becker and her children and her agoraphobic sister, Liesl Richter with her bluff husband Hansi and their children, all living with a wise and witty old father thanks to being unable to return to their own homes since the war. The novel follows the combined and later separate families through the kidnapping of two of the Richter's young children by Commanches, the return of the Becker property which was taken and Magda's husband murdered for being unwilling to support the Confederacy. The family prospers with a freight hauling business, small mercantile shops, cattle drives, and land. The Richter daughter is rescued and returned to her parents, while the son who was also taken stays psychically if not phsically with his Indian family. Much of the novel is taken up with the doings of the extended families and adjustment to having gone from rags to riches.

What I liked most about this novel was its characters, distinct, well drawn, and appealing. I also appreciated the education about the history of the Germans in Texas. I look forward to learning far more in the two earlier books, the first about the families' emigration from Germany in the 1840s, and the second at least in part about how the War Between the States tore them apart.

There were a few flaws. I found the book almost humorously repetitive at times, such as when Peter feels as if he could reach up and grab a star while on the cattle drive, only to do this almost word for word again just paragraphs away. This happens in probably a couple dozen places in the book, one incident described in its details not that long after the first time. I don't know if the author thinks her readers have poor memories. The other issue I had with the book is the framing of the story within a scene of Magda and her daughter Lotte reminiscing in 1918. Hayes told me she did this on purpose as a lead into a further volume in the series, but I found the short framing scenes distracting and rather illogical, since the two women appear to be able to remember what happened to other people when they were not even around. The opening sequence is entirely about Peter, for example, and neither woman came along for the cattle drive. Minor issues included occasional pronoun antecedent confusion and some grammatical error -- in the narrative, not dialogue.

It's a great story. Sweeping in scope, Hayes does a very good job with illustrating the divers gathering of cultures in the new world. I really cared about the characters and got teary at least twice. I think Hayes has a great insight into family relationships. I have to thank her for one of those handy little reminders of how much loved ones mean to me.

Finally, my hat is off to Hayes for being skilled with keeping a volume readable though part of a series. If you pick up this one first, you will not have been left out of a seeming secret... she fills you in well and properly but lets the current story stand on its own.

Alas, Poor William de Braoise..

I am reading Celia Hayes' Aldsverein: The Harvest, the third of a trilogy about German immigrants in Texas in the mid-19th century. I can tell already that when I get around to the second book, the death of a central character is going to devastate me... I tear up just knowing about what happens to him.

It was that way with William de Braoise, Princess Joan's lover, in the second of the Heaven Tree Trilogy by Edith Pargenter. When what happens to him when he is caught at it by her husband had me sobbing. I grieved for a couple weeks. And I often say "Now I am going to have to kill myself" when I reach the end of a novel I have been thoroughly engrossed in. "How can I go on without these people?" I ask myself.

It strikes me that even if some of these dearly departed who are breaking my heart were not in fact fictional, if they were in fact historical figures, the fact is given my reading tastes -- i.e., anything that takes place after 1600 is science fiction -- these darlings would be dead now anyway. Long. long dead. Llewellyn, Joan, William, the whole lot, would all be pushing up a gazillionth generation of daisies now.

So clearly the author has been effective! When I sat chilled to the bone at the sacrifice of Conal in Edward Rutherfurd's Princes of Ireland or sobbing at the killing of Patrick Smith on Vinegar Hill in his Rebels of Ireland,it's his marvellous characters and stories that are doing it to me, not that I am, like, a sap, or anything, right?

Let's not even get into what Nicholas de Fleury did to me at the end of Book 6 of House of Niccolo! I used to love that man...

Sigh.

The Wit and Wisdom of Piers Gaveston

To mark the occasion of a new release and cover of Brandy Purdy's The Confession of Piers Gaveston, we offer some of the wit and wisdom of King Edward II's Gascon "favorite" drawn from the pages of Purdy's novel. Don't be surprised if you find some of these emblazoned on t-shirts some day.

Confess it, my Lord, I rattle you like the glass in a casement when it thunders!

Finding a costly piece of jewelry pinned to one's pillow is far from an unpleasant way to start the day.

Loving me is expensive.

Letting it be known will not make it be believed.

We must all learn to live with our disappointments.

Beauty and Sincerity do not go hand-in-hand and having one is no guarantee of the other.

Though I have always been faithful to Edward in my fashion, like fashion I am hardly ever constant.

And there are people who say I have no head for business!

When innocence is lost it is gone forever, and what takes root in its place isn't always good or pretty.

If you find this position awkward there are others we might try.

Love come sin many guises; Lust is not the only robe it wears.

People generally do take what they are offered.

There was nothing to be gained by lying, so I told the truth.

We always hate the one who has stolen the life we longed for.

When the day came when I must decide between shoes and shame I chose shoes and would again.

My mother told me never to look down on someone unless I meant to help.

My friend the Earl of Richmond accuses me of fancying you. Naturally, I denied it, but only because it's true.

Verily, My Lord, I shall have to don mourning for your dead sense of humor!

I know full well what I have become, but I also know what I could have
been.

It it true, life touches life, and one person can be like a pebble dropped into a pond creating ripples that spread far and wide.

I shall sit here and strive to appear languid and alluring while I pretend to listen.

Knowledge is power and blind faith is rarely rewarded.

It has long been my practice to only tell you lies that you are likely to believe.

Time has taught me that often the prize isn't worth winning.

I do not sleep under the stars unless they are painted on the ceiling or embroidered on the canopy above the bed!

Why if I had a gold coin for every time I have gone down on my knees...Oh, come to think of it, I do!

Trust and Love, they are a Fool's game, and I am glad to be dealt out even if it is by Death.

Did I never tell you how much I long to feel your lance?

I am determined to make a good death since I could not make a good life.