INTERVIEW WITH BERNARD CORNWELL FOR SWORD OF KINGS

Author Bernard Cornwell

SKP:  I am so pleased to have this opportunity to interview one of my favorite authors, Bernard Cornwell—and to thank him for making my annual Christmas shopping so easy.  As soon as I get word that he has a new book out in his superb Saxon series, I know exactly what family and friends are getting, for they love his novels as much as I do.

SKP: Bernard, thank you so much for agreeing to discuss Sword of Kings, your twelfth novel about Uhtred of Bebbanburg, who is surely one of historical fiction’s most memorable characters. I’d like to begin with your Australian interview in which you confided that there is probably only one more book in the Saxon series. This really is your game plan? I do understand your reasoning; time is the one foe that even Uhtred cannot defeat. But if I may speak for your legions of fans, we are not ready to let Uhtred go. Have you given any thought to writing flashbacks of his earlier life, as you did with Sharpe’s adventures in India? Between your imagination and Uhtred’s penchant for finding trouble wherever he goes, I am sure you’d not lack for ideas or plot lines!

BC: At the moment one more book is the game plan! It’s possible that the ‘one more book’ could turn into two - I’m about a third of the way through it - but I really don’t expect that to happen. I always planned to end the series with the Battle of Brunanburh which was fought in 937 AD and was really the foundation event of England, and curiously the site of that battle has been a source of contention for years. No one has been certain where it was fought, but over 40 locations have been suggested from Scotland southwards. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle said of Brunanburh ‘Never was more slaughter on this island! Never as many warriors killed’, which makes it odd that the location was eventually forgotten until earlier this year when archaeologists found hundreds and hundreds of battle-artefacts in the Wirral, a peninsula between Liverpool and North Wales. All those spear-heads, broken swords and arrow-heads strongly suggest that the battle was fought there - a location long favoured by many historians. Somehow that discovery, and walking the Wirral’s fields, made me want to tell the tale though, to be honest, I should probably have written one intervening novel. The answer of course is to write a book like yours - 800 pages! - that works so well for you, but the longest I ever managed was a mere 436. So, yes, I’ll compress some history and it probably is the last full-length novel about Uhtred (who is getting old!), but there might be some short stories later.

SKP: Sword of Kings is one of those books that brings real life to a screeching halt until the last page is reached. I always marvel at your ability to infuse so much suspense into your novels. Surprises literally lurk around every corner. Writers know that it can be challenging to keep a series fresh, to prevent it from becoming stale or repetitive. Even very talented writers can struggle with this. But you have not only met the challenge, you’ve transcended it. Do you find it helps to take breaks now and then? For example, you put Uhtred’s story on hold while you wrote Fools and Mortals—a book I loved—in which you transported readers to Elizabethan London and the tangled relationship of two brothers, one of whom happened to be William Shakespeare. Did that hiatus from Uhtred’s world help you to maintain enthusiasm for the Saxon series? Or do you think the secret lies in the changes—often dramatic– that each new book reveals about Uhtred’s life?

Sword of Kings

BC: I always regarded Fools and Mortals as very self-indulgent - a book I really wanted to write even if it irritated some readers who would miss Uhtred for a year. The truth, I think, is that it’s much easier to keep writing the series and not take a year’s break - in that year a host of details slipped my memory, so it was more than self-indulgent it was idiotic! And I do enjoy writing Uhtred; well, I enjoyed writing Fools and Mortals too! There’s not a lot of point in writing if you don’t enjoy it! I like Uhtred’s company, so it’s always a pleasure to let him loose again and I’ll miss him when his tale is done. And keeping it fresh? You know as a writer that your characters always surprise you and those surprises are what drive us through your stories, so I just leave that to Uhtred! He rarely disappoints.

SKP: I remember a joke circulating on the Internet as Game of Thrones became a global phenomenon: “Guns don’t kill people; George R.R. Martin kills people.” So, it is significant that he believes no writer does better battle scenes than you do. I so agree with him, for I understand how difficult it can be to make each battle fresh and original. I know that sometimes you have historical accounts to draw upon, but the devil is in the details and they are usually left to the writer’s imagination. This is where you excel. I often stop reading to marvel at Uhtred’s tactics. Who else would think to use sails in his assault upon an enemy fort? Or beehives? Or use horses as a temporary dam to enable his soldiers to ford a river? He is a War Lord and glories in that. But he is also a superior battle commander, with a fine military mind. I realize this is a rather lengthy lead-up to my question, but you cannot reasonably expect brevity from a woman who writes eight hundred-page books. What I find most remarkable about your ability to spill blood is that you are so versatile; your wars span centuries. The tactics and weaponry change, but not the immediacy of these battles, our sense that we are there in Uhtred’s shield wall, with the archer, Thomas of Hookton, at Crecy and Poitiers, joining Richard Sharpe and his Chosen Men in the assault upon Badajoz. So, this is what I wonder. Do you enjoy fighting some battles more than others? If you could have traveled back in time, which century and which wars would you choose?

BC: Oh, good Lord! If I could travel back in time, I’d avoid the battles like the plague! They’re extremely dangerous! I’d elect to have supper with Nell Gwynne, who is one of my heroines, and who would be marvellous company with a vast amount of salacious gossip! I can’t say I enjoy one battle more than another - the challenge is to make them different and always to try and give the reader the gut-wrenching experience of being there. I was strongly influenced by the late Sir John Keegan’s brilliant book, The Face of Battle, where he tried (and succeeded) in describing the humble soldier’s experience rather than the commander’s tactics. In almost all battles the combatants don’t have a clue what is happening more than a few paces away, the immediate experience is so overwhelming, but my job is to give the reader an impression of what it was like to face a Viking shield wall or a Napoleonic cavalry charge, but also provide the bird’s eye view denied to Sharpe or Uhtred. I described the battle of Mount Badon in one of the Arthurian books - I forget which one - and like Brunanburh the location has long been lost. So not only do we not know where it was fought, we are equally clueless about what happened, so I merrily adopted Napoleon’s tactics at Austerlitz and imposed them on the Somerset countryside and, to my pleasure, they worked just as well for Arthur as for the Emperor!

SKP: I cannot discuss your Saxon series without mentioning how well you write of women. You’d not think that still needed to be commented upon, but some publishers continue to harbor this odd bias—the belief that male authors cannot write convincingly about women and vice versa. While I have never encountered this bias myself, I have writer friends who’ve not been as fortunate. For anyone who still clings to this outdated notion, I would simply say: Read one of Bernard Cornwell’s Saxon novels and meet the women who matter to Uhtred. Gisela, beguiling and bold, the love of his life. Stiorra, his daughter, who proves that blood will tell. The courageous Abbess Hild, who loves Uhtred, but who loves God more. The sorrowful Welsh shadow-queen, Iseult. His sultry bedmate, Skade, whose capacity for cruelty is horrifying. Brida, his childhood friend and lover, who turns into a monster. Aethelflaed, whose youthful joy is leached from her soul by the burdens of queenship and a wretched marriage. And now Benedetta, whom the readers and Uhtred meet in Sword of Kings, whose spirit still burns with a white-hot flame despite having been sold into slavery at the age of twelve. I have two questions revolving around these remarkable women. In the course of your writing career, did you ever encounter doubts about your ability to breathe life into female characters? And do you have a favorite among them? Was there one who resonated most strongly with you?

BC: If I was being modest, I’d say I approach every female character with extreme trepidation, but that really isn’t true. The clue, I think, is that my heroes, to a man, like women! And they treat women well. I don’t mean they like them as bedmates (though they do), they like their company, their conversation and their wisdom. I always said of Sharpe that few things made him fearful, but a woman could reduce him to a nervous wreck, but only because he craved their company so much. One of the things that annoys the hell out of me is the convention, very prevalent in movies and TV, that when a couple are running away, hotly pursued by some dreadful villain or slavering beast, it’s always the girl who trips over and needs to be rescued. Why? Men trip over as often as women! So my women don’t trip over, and I like them strong. I was very fond of Silvia in Fools and Mortals, to my mind she was all-female (whatever that means), but she was also a stronger character than Richard. The other two of whom I’m particularly fond are Lady Grace in the Sharpe series and Ceinwyn in the Arthurian books. The earliest legends of Arthur name Ceinwyn as a prospective bride, to be cast aside by the appearance of Guinevere, but for me Ceinwyn glowed with grace and kindness. I’m enjoying Benedetta too - a fierce lady, but what a lady!

SKP: This next question does not relate to Uhtred or Sword of Kings. I read recently that you have a Cavalier King Charles spaniel and that you’d been won over despite your initial wish to have “a proper dog,” by which I assume you meant one larger than most cats. I had to laugh at that, for I understand perfectly. I’ve had five German shepherds over the years, but now I have a cocker spaniel. My shepherds regarded the world with a jaundiced eye; Holly would happily welcome Jack the Ripper into my house. Like you, though, I have succumbed to the spaniel charm; they are hard to resist, aren’t they? Mine is named Holly since I adopted her near Christmas; would you feel comfortable telling us the name of your spaniel? I am curious whether you turned to one of your books for inspiration; I do that from time to time. If you’d rather pass on this one, just move on to my final question.

BC: The dog would never forgive me if I passed on that question. He was born nine years ago on Hallowe’en so he should have been called Trick or maybe Treat, but instead we plumped for Whiskey because he’s whiskey coloured and I’m extremely fond of whiskey (Irish, please), so Whiskey he is. He’s an extraordinarily good and affectionate animal, quite unlike his sister, who lives with friends of ours and is an annoyingly yappy Spaniel. Whiskey doesn’t bark unless he wants a ball thrown, but as a guard-dog he’s entirely useless and, like your Holly, would welcome Jack-the-Ripper with licks and a wagging tail. I keep telling him to man up, but he doesn’t. Interestingly I’ve discovered that the fastest way to unsettle readers is to kill a dog in a novel. We can slaughter people by the drove, murder infants horribly, but kill a dog and the complaints pour in!

SKP: This is a question I actually posed to you several years ago, when I interviewed you for The Pagan Lord. It is a subject that my readers and I have frequently discussed on Facebook, for it is one of the potential pitfalls of writing historical fiction. We often have to risk alienating or shocking our readers in honest depictions of life in bygone ages. While I do not think human nature has changed over the centuries, beliefs and superstitions and society’s expectations obviously have. Some writers try to soften the harsh edges of historical reality to make their books more palatable to their readers. It can be subtle; I think we all do that to some extent. Or it can be blatant: a novel set in the Ante-bellum South in which the major characters are all secret abolitionists, or having a female character in a medieval setting be a dedicated feminist or determined to marry for love. One of the things I love about your novels is that I never get the sense that you are coddling your audience. Their gritty reality is one of the sources of their power, even if that means some scenes are very painful for us to read. So, this is my final question. Have you ever been tempted to pull back a bit, to take the sensibilities of today’s readers into consideration? At the time I asked this question, I admitted I’d never seen any evidence of that; your characters in Uhtred’s world always seem firmly rooted in the tenth century. But since I have this opportunity, I wanted to ask it again for the benefit of new readers and because it can be a problem for writers of historical fiction. Was there ever a time when you chose to ease back on the throttle? And if so, what concerned you the most? The depiction of violence? Or the challenge of making modern readers understand beliefs that would be utterly alien to them?

BC: I pull back all the time! Occasionally I write a sentence and think it’s just too ghastly, however true it might be, so out it goes. And having spent far too many years writing historical novels I am increasingly convinced that it’s almost impossible to convey the real feel of the past; the stench of it, the chaos of it, but above all the mindset. I suppose the simplest example is superstition. In Uhtred’s time there really were no satisfactory explanations for the disasters of life - why did my child die, why did the harvest fail, why did the river flood - and they found their answers in a grovelling submission to God or the gods. We’ve lost that extraordinarily strong connection to the ineffable. I know some people still have it, and some people prefer a supernatural explanation over perfectly good and proven science, but as Schiller said ‘against stupidity even the Gods struggle in vain.’ For most of us the link between humanity and the supernatural has been severed. I suspect my biggest failure is that despite my best efforts, I really don’t restore that link and without it the past is seen through 21st Century perceptions. You’re much better at it than I am, but I won’t be discouraged, I’ll keep trying!

SKP: Bernard, thank you so much for sharing some of your thoughts about Uhtred and history and writing. My readers tell me it is always fascinating when a writer pulls the curtain aside and gives the audience a glimpse of how the creative process works. As usual, your interview contained some laugh-out-loud moments, not surprising since you are Uhtred’s sire, so to speak. I have to admit I love the image of you “merrily adopting” Napoleon’s tactics at Austerlitz; that definitely proves the wisdom of the old adage that when you steal, steal from the best. And I totally agree with your observation that killing a dog in a novel is the surest way to bring the wrath of readers down upon our heads; I did this, too—once. So…now that the interview is over, I would suggest that those readers who have not yet read Sword of Kings hurry to get their copies of another mesmerizing Uhtred adventure. Even though we know there is an end in sight for Uhtred, we need not despair; there will be thirteen books in the series and we can always re-read them![image error]

December 12, 2019