The Silver Horn Echoes
Page 33
In 1987, while attending Brigham Young University, I had the good fortune to take a class on the early Middle Ages taught by Dr. Paul Pixton. Dr. Pixton, as part of the coursework, required us to read an English translation of La Chanson de Roland. Later, when I was his teaching assistant, we spoke about the poem, and he expressed the opinion that this would make for an epic movie. It was shortly afterward that I went with Michael Mitchell, who was also a teaching assistant in the History Department, to spend a short break between semesters camping in the Wasatch Mountains (with the indulgence of my patient wife, Lori). In the evenings, as the sun faded over the distant peaks, we huddled about a campfire to read aloud The Song of Roland. With each stanza one could hear the clatter of arms and the cries of the doomed as the brave words came alive. By the summer of 1988, I had outlined the first draft of a feature-length screenplay.
But life seemed to encroach upon my desire to write the script, and the outline remained untouched in a folder for a long time. However, Roland remained on my mind. My father had died of cancer during the autumn of 1986, and when I graduated from BYU, my mother presented to me a gift that he had selected prior to his death. From a long, slender box, with trembling fingers, I pulled out a replica of Charlemagne’s sword. My father had found a way to touch my heart long after he was no longer physically with me.
Soon after I graduated, my boyhood friend and oft-times writing partner, Steve Arnold, and I plunged into writing Annwyn’s Blood, which was based on a short story I had written in college. I always intended to come back to Roland and Roncevaux. But months slipped into years, and my children grew as I progressed in both my professional life, as well as in writing that I squeezed in around coaching soccer and running taxi duty for children’s activities. As I neared my fortieth birthday, the realization hit me that if I didn’t write down some of the stories swirling around in my mind and push them into view, no one would do it for me. With mounting urgency, I found the old outline and began work on the screenplay, at this point entitled The Silver Horn Echoes: A Song of Roland. The first draft was nearly two hundred pages long, and I had produced a piece of work with which I had no idea what to do. But I was driven to see this one across the proverbial finish line, even though film professionals I spoke with warned me that a historical epic as my first project would be a heavy lift.
And they were right.
Paul Young, a screenwriting guru, and William Nix, a film producer, both took interest in my progress and have become ongoing mentors and friends. Paul worked relentlessly with me to navigate the sometimes-treacherous passage between what I felt the story demanded and what would make for a compelling screenplay. But as I revised and redrafted what was now simply called Song of Roland, the screenplay evolved into a svelte one-hundred-page script that became my initial calling card to producers and production companies in Los Angeles.
During the summer of 2008, Song of Roland caught the attention of Alan Kaplan at Cine LA, who expressed excitement about packaging it for a feature film. Alan’s enthusiasm for the material was infectious, and shortly after the option was negotiated, we launched into a familiar next step for a script in development—a rewrite. Working with Alan was a pleasure, and he always had broad insights into scenes that then allowed me to work through the mechanics. However, our collaboration was short-lived, and in December 2008 Alan died of cancer. Our vision for Roland was nipped in the bud, but I will always be grateful for the opportunity I had to work with him.
During the next few years, Song of Roland opened doors and started conversations that have continued to allow me to pursue other feature film concepts. However, I always knew that I hadn’t finished with the story. In early 2013, I revisited Roland, Aude, Oliver, and the others as I began revising and drafting with the intention of writing a novel based on the screenplay, and Steve jumped in to help me bring the entire work across the finish line.
And now I come full circle with the story of Roland and his companions. My intent was to capture the spirit of the epic Chanson de Roland, and this telling, like the original, is not rigidly consistent with historical, or even geographical, reality. The goal was to provide a tale of intrigue and adventure set in a world very different from our own, and I hope you feel this has been accomplished.
In keeping with the spirit of the original poem, the anonymous author used a device that has never been fully explained. Inserted into the breaks in the stanzas are the letters AOI. We’ve sprinkled them into the story not only in honor of the poem but also to take the place of section breaks that would typically be placed within chapters at strategic locations.
Thank you to my wife and family, for this story is as much for my own children as it was for me so many years ago when I climbed the willow tree and lost myself in Dark Ages France. In addition, I owe much to Dr. Paul Pixton, who provided me with encouragement and threw me into a bygone age full of heroes, villains, and cataclysmic events that shaped our world today. Special thanks go to Steve Arnold, who bravely waded into a story that appeared fully baked, nevertheless always willing to collaborate and put his creative stamp on the material.
And finally, I wish to express my heartfelt love for my father, Clifford Eging. A hero from the greatest generation who served during World War Two in the very lands encompassed by much of this work. Dad, this is for you.
May the silver horn echo in your dreams,
Michael Eging
2017
When Mike asked me early in 2014 to help him with A Silver Horn Echoes: The Song of Roland, I have to admit I was a little surprised. Granted we had been writing stories together since our school years and already had collaborated on several projects, most notably Annwyn’s Blood, which we had just published, but also the screenplay Feast of St. Nicholas (which was then going into fundraising and soon to be in the rewriting phase), and we were just getting started on Shades of Knight, the second volume in the Paladin of Shadows Chronicles. But I thought we had a pretty full slate as it was with these three—and that wasn’t even counting several other books and scripts that were, and still are, waiting in the wings and being kicked around in small ways as inspirations strike and otherwise are waiting their turn on the docket. But when the ideas get in your head, there’s little to do but get them onto paper, and like Mike said, if we didn’t do it, no one else would. I knew he had been at the Roland epic for a long time as a script, and getting the bug to turn it into a book was a logical next step for him, but as far as I knew, it was a project he was trying to get finished on his own once we had completed the final draft on Feast. But then one day there was a message in my in-box with a large file attached. He needed a fresh set of eyes, and he wanted mine.
To be truthful, I hadn’t had a lifelong passion for Roland like Mike. Arthur was always my exemplar, but that’s probably because many generations ago my ancestors lived in southern Wales from where many of The Once and Future King’s legends originate. I was only very vaguely cognizant of Roland’s story. I had read one of Mike’s earlier screenplay drafts, but that had been some years ago, so when I opened the file, I was essentially diving in cold.
But as I worked my way through the manuscript, I found myself also drawn into this foreign world of eighth-century France, as Mike had been many years before. There was much I saw there that brought Arthur to mind—the struggle to maintain one’s life in the face of foreign aggression, the treachery of ambitious family members, the tragic battle at the end—but with an entirely different flavor. Arthur’s fall ushered in the depths of the Dark Ages, while Roland lived at a time lit by the faintest, earliest rays of the Renaissance. Despite his sacrifice, one walked away from it left with a sense of hope that the prices we pay for the things we value most are not vanity.
I thoroughly enjoyed the work done on Roland, and I am deeply grateful for Mike including me in bringing it to print. I think it’s a story for our time and hope that its message of brighter dawns after the darkest nights will c
ontinue to inspire a new generation of readers.
With gratitude to Divine Providence for stalwart companions and noble heroes,
Steve Arnold
2017
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Michael Eging is coauthor of Annwyn’s Blood, as well as a screenwriter and partner at Filibuster Filmworks. He and his wife have five children and live in Virginia.
Steve Arnold lives in Ohio with his wife and kids. Besides coauthoring Annwyn’s Blood, he has collaborated on everything from short stories to screenplays for Filibuster Filmworks.