Sharon Kay Penman's Blog, page 118
April 30, 2013
A sad scene
* * *
“Edward, I should like to talk with you.” Richard waited, watched the boy come forward reluctantly, sit stiffly beside him on the settle. “You think I don’t know how you’re feeling, but I do. I know better than most. I was just your age when Ned did quarrel with our cousin Warwick. I did love them both, Edward, learned a bitter lesson in irreconcilable loyalties.”
Edward said nothing. He was studiously staring down into his lap; all Richard could see was a crown of bright hair.
“What I’m trying to say is that I understand how confusing this is for you. You love your Uncle Anthony and you don’t know me all that well. But once we’re in London…..” And what difference would that make to the boy? Their problem was not one of geography. He was the wrong uncle.
“Edward…..” What was there to say? That he’d loved Ned? That should have been a bond between them, and yet Richard sensed that it was not. Edward had raised his head, was looking up now with Ned’s eyes. No, not Ned’s. Guarded eyes that gave away nothing.
“If you’re ready, lad, we can ride back to Northampton,” Richard said and, without thinking, started to put his arm around the boy’s shoulders as he would have done with his own sons. It was the first time he’d touched Edward; he got a response neither one of them expected. Edward stiffened, jerked back as if stung. The withdrawal was involuntary, and for that reason, all the more telling.
Edward quickly recovered his poise, even looked slightly embarrassed. “I did not mean to be rude,” he said, very politely. “You did startle me, that’s all.”
Richard was stunned, for he’d read in Edward’s recoil more than mistrust. There’d been fear, too. Before he could stop himself, before he could think better of it, he said softly, “Good Christ, what have they told you of me?”
* * *
April 28, 2013
Interview with David Blixt
INTERVIEW WITH DAVID BLIXT
I am sorry for flying under the radar for so long, but I’ve been struggling with twin demons—that looming deadline for A King’s Ransom and what may be bronchitis. I am happy to report that I am finally on the mend and I have a new blog entry—an interview with the author, actor, and director, David Blixt. When you read the interview, you will be able to tell that David and I are friends—and that we share the same somewhat warped sense of humor. (I mean that in a good way, of course.) For anyone who has not yet read one or more of David’s novels, you are about to hit the literary lottery. Yes, he is that good. You can visit his website, but first I hope you read our interview below. http://www.davidblixt.com/
Your novel HER MAJESTY’S WILL is quite the comic romp, very different from the twists and turns of THE MASTER OF VERONA. But they’re both inspired from Shakespeare. Is that where your ideas come from?
Partly. I’m inspired by gaps in stories we all know, or think we know. For MoV, it was the origin of the Capulet-Montague feud. For HMW, it was the biography of Shakespeare himself, those lost eight years after he left Stratford and before he showed up in London. My Roman/Jewish series is the gap in the history of the early Christian church. I don’t want to tell stories people know. I want to tell stories that surprise people, flout their expectations.
You’re an actor. How much is theatre a part of your writing process?
It’s a huge influence, because it’s what I know. Most of my professional life in the theatre involves Shakespeare, so that’s what I know. He’s a great teacher for character, structure, and dialogue. His plots are rather dippy, but he’s a genius for motive and honest expression. Shakespeare also introduced me to my wife. So I owe him a lot.
What inspired you to write your first book?
THE HOBBIT, and DREADSTAR comics, which is a sprawling dark space epic. I was eleven years old, and imitation was the sincerest form of flattery, so it had giant spiders and a magic sword that lives in your soul. But my first real attempt at a novel was inspired by Jonathan Carroll’s SLEEPING IN FLAME. Romantic and disturbing all at once. I was nineteen when I read that, and it spurred me on.
Which novel is that?
The one that lives in a drawer. In fact, that’s probably a better title for it than the original – THE NOVEL THAT LIVES IN THE DRAWER. For all that it’s a dark time-travel romance, it’s actually the novel I had to write to get out of my own way.
What about your first work of Historical Fiction? What was the inspiration for that?
The basic story for THE MASTER OF VERONA was rattling around in my brain when I happened to read Dorothy Dunnett’s Lymond series for the first time. It was her work more than anything that showed me the model I wanted to follow.
But the idea itself came from Shakespeare. There’s a line at the end of Romeo & Juliet that hints, maybe, sorta, at the origin of the feud. It doesn’t work theatrically, but I couldn’t get past the notion. Yet I was physically incapable of not telling that story. So I dove in and wrote a much more ambitious novel than I’d intended, involving Dante and Cangrande and politics and religion and war and honor and love. When I finished that book, I realized I wasn’t done with the story. Which is what kicked off the Star-Cross’d series.
You have a new novel out?
Yes, COLOSSUS: THE FOUR EMPERORS. It’s about Nero’s final year and the terror that follows, known today as the Year Of The Four Emperors. It’s available as a Kindle e-book now, and in trade paperback next month.
And then a new Verona book at the end of the summer?
That’s the hope. I’m terribly behind. THE PRINCE’S DOOM, fourth in the Star-Cross’d series. The first three are available on Kindle and Nook, with the trade paperback edition of VOICE OF THE FALCONER out now, and FORTUNE’S FOOL coming next month. The covers are breathtaking.
Speaking of covers, the cover for HER MAJESTY’S WILL is very funny. A twist on the ‘headless woman’ trend. Except when you look closely, it’s a man. Who designed it?
A wonderful artist and fellow actor by the name of Rob McLean. I knew exactly what I wanted from the cover, but it took Rob to make it real. He got photographer Paul Metreyon to come in and shoot the pic. I borrowed the Renaissance dress from Elizabeth MacDougal, and we stuck a wig on the very talented, very tall actor Matt Holzfeind. The photo-shoot was hilarious and joyful, and I think that comes through in the cover. I’m lucky to know so many talented people.
Is there a message in your novels that you want readers to grasp?
Someone recently said my books convey the message, ‘Life is pain, and then you die.’ I hope not. I’m a pretty happy guy. I’m both bothered and tickled when I see myself being compared to George RR Martin. I love it because I admire his skill at flouting his audience’s expectations. And I approve of his ‘no one is safe’ method. But his work is so bleak, there’s almost no relief. Drama is conflict, and so we thrive on trouble and strife. But there has to be some joy to punctuate the trouble, or else we’re just pummeling ourselves. And our readers.
To actually answer your question – no, I don’t think so. I just like to tell stories. History holds enough messages, and I want people to take away what they will.
You have a great deal of ‘child in peril’ in your Verona books.
I do. Someday my children are going to read these books and wonder what I have against them. Especially as the character Cesco looks a lot like my son Dash. But I created Cesco a full six years before Dash was born. I’m saved by the clock.
What books have influenced your life most?
Dorothy Dunnett’s A PAWN IN FRANKENCENSE. Jonathan Carroll’s SLEEPING IN FLAME. Bernard Cornwell’s ENEMY OF GOD. Colleen McCullough’s THE FIRST MAN IN ROME. And THE SUNNE IN SPLENDOUR.
You’re cute. What book are you reading now?
For pleasure, I’m re-reading Christopher Gortner’s THE TUDOR SECRET in preparation for the sequel, coming later this year. I’m also back in the pages of A. M. Allen’s A HISTORY OF VERONA. That’s my one regret in becoming an author – these days I read so much more for research than I do for fun.
Do you have to travel much concerning your books?
Not nearly as much as I’d like. But I’ve been everywhere I’ve written about, with the exception of Avignon in FORTUNE’S FOOL. That was hard. I hate relying on pictures and written descriptions of places. I need to have my own impression of the land, the color of the light, the roll and pitch of the streets, the smell in the air.
What projects are you working on at present?
I’m finishing the aforementioned fourth Star-Cross’d novel, THE PRINCE’S DOOM. Then two more Colossus novels, WAIL OF THE FALLEN and THE HOLLOW TRIUMPH. After that comes the novel I’m dying to get to, the one that I’ve wanted to write for years but have finally figured out how. It’s about the Devil. I’m very excited.
And future projects?
I want to wade into another Shakespeare property and tackle Othello. I also have a vampire series in the back of my head. Right now I’m about five years behind my brain, and I’m just trying desperately to catch up. I hope I never do.
Part of the hold-up is theatre. This summer I’ll be on-stage playing Orsino in Twelfth Night at the Michigan Shakespeare Festival. While acting can inspire me to write, I can never actually write while I’m doing a show. That’s part of how I fall behind – I took a show last October, and it put me two months off my ideal writing schedule. But theatre feeds a different part of my ego.
Your ego seems very healthy.
Um, thank you?
Vampires, the Devil. You seem to want to genre hop.
My heart is in historical fiction, but there are occasions when I want to play in another sandbox.
What’s your favorite fruit?
To eat, grapes. As a flavor in drinks and whatnot, peach.
Have you ever been in trouble with the police?
Not in the United States.
If you were going to commit the perfect murder, how would you go about it?
I’d replace someone’s medicine with sugar pills, and wait. I’m very patient. It’s like reverse-poisoning.
And if they didn’t take medicine?
A good hand axe. Lots of heft.
What’s the best juxtaposition of life events you’ve experienced?
Being physically thrown out of the Vatican, and being blessed by the Pope. Two different days.
Sounds like a good story.
It is.
Back to acting – you’ve been stabbed how many times? On stage, I mean.
Once in the belly, once in the thigh. Once I thought I’d lost part of a finger during a swordfight on stage, but I only lost the fingernail. Lots of blood, though. I’ve had my nose broken onstage. As safe as we try to be, there are mishaps. And with swords, those mishaps can be pretty dramatic.
That’s disturbingly attractive.
Sharon, I’m married.
What do you consider your biggest failure?
All of them. I relive my failures constantly. It’s like my brain says, “Oh, we’re feeling pretty good, are we? Remember that moment in the second grade when you did this?” And I shake to my core.
What do you like to read in your free time?
Comic books.
Seriously?
Seriously. I’m a lifelong addict. I have well over 20,000 comics, all bagged and boxed. And now that I have an iPad I read comics on that, too.
Would you ever want to write comics?
I would. Like everyone I know, I have a killer Batman story. But mine does not involve the Joker. Or Catwoman. In fact, it’s a new villain, but features an old one. And suddenly we’re talking about a whole different part of my brain. Or maybe the same one. It’s all world-building, with familiar characters.
You seem far less attractive suddenly.
Does that mean you’ll stop undressing me with your eyes?
You’re really a child, aren’t you?
Yes. I discovered the things that made me happy as a child make me happy as an adult. I’ve just added sex, cars, and alcohol to the list.
What’s your favorite movie?
Casablanca.
What’s your favorite movie that isn’t a cliché?
Nice. It Happened One night. Or Die Hard.
Which is pretty much what HER MAJESTY’S WILL is – a combination of It Happened One Night and Die Hard, with a smidge of Brokeback Mountain.
Ha! Yes. With some Hope/Crosby Road Movies thrown in for good measure.
Way to make a callback!
Thank you. Any final words?
Wait – does this interview end with my death?
If you keep this up, yes.
Then I’ll just say what an honor it is to be counted among your friends. And what an inspiration you are, a dynamo of great writing that it is impossible to hope to match.
And….?
And that talent is sexy, which makes you the Marilyn Monroe of Historical Fiction authors.
Excellent answer. Say goodnight, David.
Goodnight, David.
April 28, 2013
April 23, 2013
Daenyrs's dragons--game on
http://insidetv.ew.com/2013/04/21/gam...
http://tvrecaps.ew.com/recap/game-of-...
April 21, 2013
Ten good things
http://newsfeed.time.com/2013/04/19/1...
April 12, 2013
A great prince
On April 11th, 1240, the Welsh prince Llywelyn Fawr died at the abbey of Aberconwy, having taken holy vows in his last hours; this became quite popular, even fashionable in the 13th century. He was sixty-seven and had ruled Gwynedd since the age of 21. While he never claimed the actual title of Prince of Wales as his grandson Llywelyn ap Gruffydd would do, I think he was the Prince of Wales in all but name. He is one of the few figures in British history to be known by the sobriquet The Great and I think he well deserved it. He is also one-half of one of history’s better love stories. As many of you probably suspect, in my pantheon of historical characters, he is one of my favorites. Below is his death scene from Falls the Shadow, pages 114-116.
* * *
Llywelyn awoke with a gasp. He lay still for a time, listening to his own labored breathing. More and more his lungs were putting him in mind of a broken bellows, he never seemed to get enough air. He wondered almost impersonally how long they could operate at such a crippled capacity. He wondered, too, how long his spirit would be tethered like this.
A log still burned in the hearth, and as his eyes adjusted to the flickering firelight, he saw a shadow move. “I’m awake,” he said, glad of the company, and then, when he realized who was keeping vigil, his smile flashed, sudden, radiant. “I’d almost given up on you, lad,” he confessed, and Llelo moved forward, sat beside him on the bed.
(omission)
Llywelyn was quiet for some moments. “Of all the books of the Scriptures, I’ve always found the most comfort in Ecclesiastes. It tells us that time and chance happen to all men—“
“I know what it says, that everything has its season, its time—even death. Is that what you’d have me believe, Grandpapa, that it is your time?”
“Yes.” Llywelyn shoved a pillow behind his shoulders. The pain was back—by now an old and familiar foe—spreading down his arm, up to his neck. But he did not want the boy to know. He found a smile, said, “It has been more than three years, after all. Joanna grows im-patient—and I’ve never been one to keep a lady waiting.”
Llelo’s head jerked up. “How can you do that? How can you jest about dying?”
He sounded angry. Llywelyn looked at him, at last said quietly, “What other way is there?”
Without warning, Llelo’s eyes filled with tears. He sought without success to blink them back, then felt his grandfather’s hand on his.
“Try not to grieve too much, lad. I’ve not been cheated; I’ve had a long life, with more than my share of joys. I sired sons and daughters. No man had better friends. I found two women to love, and a fair number to bed with. And I die knowing that Wales is in good hands…”
Llelo frowned. “Davydd?” he mumbled and his grandfather nodded.
“Yes, Davydd….and you, Llelo.”
(omission)
Llywelyn shifted his position; the pain was starting to ease somewhat. He was very tired and not at all sure that he should have shared his dream with the boy. But then Llelo said, “Do you truly have so much faith in me?” and there was wonderment in his voice.
Llywelyn swallowed with difficulty. He nodded, then leaned forward and gathered his grandson into his arms. Llelo clung tightly; he made no sound, but Llywelyn could feel him trembling. “I’d be lying if I said I had no regrets, Llelo. But I was not lying when I told you I believe it is my time.” After a long silence, he said, very softly, “I should have liked, though, to have seen the man you will become.”
* * *
April 11th, 1471 was also the day upon which the Londoners opened the gates of their city to Edward IV, just a month after he’d ended his exile by landing on the Yorkshire coast with his brother Richard and a small band of supporters. Before another month would pass, the Earl of Warwick would die at Barnet Heath, the Lancastrian army would be routed at Tewkesbury, and Edward would face no further challenges to his sovereignty. Sadly, he himself would do what his enemies could not—ruin his health and doom his dynasty with his premature death.
April 10, 2013
The start of Richard's crusade
Here is the description of their departure from Messina in Lionheart, page 204.
* * *
It was not until Wednesday in Holy Week that the royal fleet was ready to sail and most of the city turned out for the event, thankful that this foreign army was finally departing but also delighting in this extraordinary spectacle. More than two hundred ships and seventeen thousand soldiers and sailors. Large transport vessels called busses. Naves that relied only upon sails. And the ships that drew all eyes and evoked admiring murmurs from the townspeople—the sleek, deadly war galleys, painted in bright colors, their gunwales hung with shields, the red and gold banners of the English king streaming from their mastheads. The crusade of Richard Coeur de Lion was at last under way.
After such a dramatic departure from Messina, what followed was anticlimactic. The wind died and the fleet found itself becalmed off the coast of Calabria. They were forced to drop anchor and wait. After the sun set in a blood-red haze, many took comfort from the glow of the lantern placed aloft in Richard’s galley. He’d promised to light it each and every night, a guiding beacon for his ships, reassuring proof of his presence in the midst of the dark, ominous Greek Sea. The next day the winds picked up, but they remained weak and variable, and not much progress was made. Yet so far the voyage had been calm and for that, seventeen thousand souls were utterly thankful.
* * *
But two days later they ran into a savage Good Friday storm that scattered the fleet and put Joanna and Berengaria in peril when their ship ran aground off the Cyprus coast.
April 9, 2013
A king's death
The Yorkist king, Edward IV, died on April 9th, 1483, just weeks from his forty-first birthday. We do not know the exact cause of death, though pneumonia has been suggested, and it has also been suggested that his health had deteriorated because of his self-indulgent lifestyle; Philippe de Commines claimed it was apoplexy. I saw no reason to doubt Mancini’s report that he’d caught a chill while boating on the river and it grew progressively worse. He lingered for ten days before dying, and his death would have dramatic repercussions. Had he not died so prematurely, the history of England would have been drastically different, for had he lived until his eldest son and heir came of age, I do not think there would have been a Tudor dynasty, which would have been catastrophic for screen writers and historical novelists, and not so good for a playwright named Shakespeare, either. I have always seen Edward as one of those men who were at their best when things were at their worst and vice versa. Historians have differed in their assessment of his reign, but I can say for a certainty that he was great fun to write about. He was buried at Windsor in the Chapel of St George; sadly, his tomb of black marble was never completed, for his dynasty would not long survive him. Here is Edward’s death scene in Sunne, page 662-663
* * *
“You’d best prepare yourself, my lady. It’ll not be long.”
She knew he meant to be kind, but she had to fight the urge to spit at him, to scream that he was wrong, that she didn’t want to hear it. She touched her fingers again to her father’s face, and as she did, his eyes opened. They were glazed a brilliant blue with fever, were sunken back in his head. But they were lucid, looked at her with full awareness for the first time in hours.
“Bess….”
“Yes, Papa, yes! I’m right here.”
“Sorry….so sorry….”
“For what, Papa? You’ve nothing to be sorry about, nothing at all.” She could see him straining to speak, and knew she should urge him to be still, but she could not; these last moments of coherent communication were too precious to lose.
“Sweet Bess….so loved.” He made an uncertain movement; she knew he was searching for her hand and quickly laced her fingers through his.
“Don’t worry, Papa. Please don’t worry.”
“Do you know….what be the worst….worst sins?”
She bent closer, not sure if she’d heard him correctly. “No, Papa. What be the worst sins?”
The corner of his mouth twitched, in what she knew to be the last smile she’d ever see him give.
“The worst be,” he whispered, “those about be found out.”
Bess didn’t understand. “Rest now, Papa. It will be all right for us, truly it will. Rest now.”
April 8, 2013
A heartwarming story
http://collegefootballtalk.nbcsports....
April 7, 2013
The odd couple
Nothing medieval to report on April 7th—at least nothing that interests me! So I am going to post two photos that are sure to bring lots of smiles, courtesy of my friend, Max. And here is a great video of a white lion cub in Australia and his best pal, Honey, who happens to be a dog.
http://www.vetstreet.com/our-pet-expe...
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