A KING’S RANSOM AND MORE RANDOM THOUGHTS

A KING’S RANSOM AND MORE RANDOM THOUGHTS

 I just finished Chapter 33 of Ransom, which ended well for Richard, not so well for the French king.  The happiest day of Philippe’s life had to be the day that Richard died at the siege of Chalus.  But I am taking a quick breathing space to put up a new blog.  I thought you  might like to read some brief excerpts from Ransom since the ones I’ve posted in the past were well received. 
 Aboard the pirate ship Sea Wolf, November  1192.
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 The ship shuddered, like an animal in its death throes.  Its prow was pointing skyward, so steep was the wave, and the men desperately braced themselves, knowing the worst was to come.  The galley was engulfed, white water breaking over both sides, flooding the deck.  And then it was going down, plunging into the trough, and there was nothing in their world but seething, surging water.  Richard heard terrified cries of “Jesu!” and “Holy Mother!”  Beside him, Arne was whimpering in German.  The bow was completely submerged and Richard was sure that the Sea Wolf was doomed, heading for the bottom of the Adriatic Sea.
 “Lord God, I entreat Thee to save us, Thy servants!”  Richard’s voice rose above the roar of the storm, for he was used to shouting commands on the battlefield.  “Let us reach a safe harbor and I pledge one hundred thousand ducats to build for Thee a church wherever we come ashore!  Do not let men who’ve taken the cross die at sea and be denied Christian burial!” 
*     *     *
 Aboard the pirate ship Sea Serpent, December 1192
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 At last the shoreline came into view, greenish-grey under an overcast, dull sky.  The pirates were manning the oars again.  As soon as they had reached the shallows, they plunged into the water to beach the galley.  The ground was marshy and they sank into it almost to the tops of their boots, but even a quagmire seemed like Eden to them after their ordeal on the Sea-Serpent.
 The pirates were positioning the anchors to keep the galley from being caught in the next high tide and cursing among themselves as they confirmed that the rudder had indeed broken off.  The wind had a bite and the men began to shiver.  A silence fell as they looked around at the most barren, bleak landscape any had ever seen.  No trees.  No vegetation, just salty marsh grass.  No sounds but the surging of the surf, not even the cries of sea birds.  No signs of life.
 Richard spoke for them all when he said at last, “Where in God’s Holy Name are we?”
*     *     *
 Austria, December 1192
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 By late afternoon, they could see castle walls in the distance.  Even before Gunther pointed toward it and said, “Durnstein,” Richard knew that he was looking at Leopold’s “impregnable stronghold.”  It cast a formidable shadow over the valley, perched high on a cliff above the Danube, as rough-hewn, ominous, and impassable as the surrounding mountains.  Richard would normally have assessed it with a soldier’s eye, seeking its weaknesses and weighing its strengths.  Now he saw only a prison.
*     *     *
London   January 1193
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 Eleanor was sitting up straight now, no longer slumped back in the chair as if her bones could not bear her weight, and Andre saw that color was slowly returning to her cheeks; that sickly white pallor was gone.  As he watched, it seemed to him that she was willing her body to recover, finding strength from some inner source that defied her advancing years, and he felt a surge of relief.  It had shaken him to see her looking so fragile, so vulnerable, so old.  She was on her feet now, beginning to pace as she absorbed the impact of the emperor’s letter, and when she turned to face Andre, he saw that her hazel eyes had taken on a greenish, cat-like glitter, reflecting nothing at that moment but a fierce, unforgiving rage.
 “They will not get away with this,” she said, making that simple sentence a declaration of war.  “We shall secure my son’s freedom, no matter what it takes.  And we will protect his kingdom until he can be restored to us, Andre.”
*     *      *
Marseilles  August 1193  Joanna’s first meeting with the son of the Count of Toulouse, who was a controversial figure because of his tolerance of the Cathar heretics.
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 There was so much tension over Raimond de St Gilles’s impending arrival that Mariam joked privately to Joanna, “It is as if we are expecting the Anti-Christ.”  Joanna smiled sourly, for her sense of humor seemed to have decamped as soon as she’d learned of Alfonso’s double-cross, for that was how she saw his surprise.  Soon afterward, she found herself seated on the dais with Alfonso, Sancha, and Berengaria, awaiting the Anti-Christ’s entrance.
 There was a stir as he entered the hall, for he was accompanied by a rising troubadour star, Ramon de Miravel.  Joanna never noticed the troubadour, though, for she saw only Raimond de St Gilles.  He was taller than average, with a lean build and the easy grace of a man comfortable in his own body.  She had never seen hair so dark—as glossy and black as a raven’s wing—or eyes so blue, all the more striking because his face was so deeply tanned by the southern sun.  He was clean-shaven, with sharply sculptured cheekbones and a well-shaped, sensual mouth that curved slightly at the corners, as if he were suppressing a smile.  He was not as conventionally handsome as her brothers or her husband, but as she watched him approach the dais, Joanna’s breath caught in her throat, for the first time understanding what the troubadours meant when they sang of a “fire in the blood.” 
*     *      *
 Now, on to those random thoughts.   Sometimes it can be a good thing to be late to the party.  I was very, very late to the George R.R. Martin party.  I had not read any of his Ice and Fire novels until HBO began running the Game of Throne series.  I would follow Sean Bean anywhere so I tuned in, and was hooked.   Naturally I then moved on to the books.  But I was spared the endless waits between books, six years for one of them!  And now it has happened again.  I did not watch Downton Abbey when it first aired.   Once I did come to the Downton party, I enjoyed myself enormously.  It reminds me of one of my all-time favorite series, Upstairs, Downstairs.  And no waiting—I can move on to Seasons Two and Three.   I know many of my readers share my fascination with Game of Thrones.   Are many of you fans of Downton Abbey, too?
 I hear there is going to be a television series in the U.K. based up Philippa Gregory’s novels, The Cousins’ War.  And of course the media remains keen on stories about the king in the car park.  I will admit that I hope Sunne benefits from this surge of interest in the Wars of the Roses!  I have already been given a rare opportunity—I was able to make revisions for the new hardcover edition of Sunne coming out in September.  Nothing drastic; Richard still loses at Bosworth Field, I’m sorry to say.  But Sunne was a learning experience for me, it being my first novel, and I subsequently concluded that when it came to writing medieval dialogue, less is more.   I have also written a new Author’s Note;, for how could I not discuss  the remarkable discovery of Richard’s lost grave.  I will try to include the new Sunne cover in this blog, but no promises, for Melusine has been her usual contrary self lately, joining Demon Spawn on the dark side.  I don’t mean to brag, but I doubt that anyone has the sort of computer troubles that I do.  
April 5, 2013