Novel 1984 - The Walking Drum (v5.0)

by Louis L'Amour

  ANDRONICUS (Comnenus): Became emperor two years after the death of Manuel. As foreseen by Kerbouchard in this story, the mob turned on him, and he died as told here. No monarch in history died more horribly.

  ASSASSINS: Members of an Isma’ili sect, now an important and honorable sect with many members in Pakistan and headed by the Aga Khan, successor to the Old Man of the Mountain.

  BLANDY: The ruin of this castle with its interesting crypt and secret passage is just over a mile from Champeaux, not far off the route from Paris to Fontainebleau.

  BRIGNOGAN: A small seaside resort with white sands and fantastically shaped rocks on the north coast of Brittany not far from the end of the peninsula.

  CELTS: Their place of origin is uncertain. Perhaps eastern Europe, southern Russia, or even Central Asia. A Celtic language probably existed by 1000 B.C. Celts fought as mercenaries in the armies of Egypt, Carthage, and Greece. A relationship with the Aryan peoples of northern India is indicated, and the tradition of oral learning was common to both. There are ritualistic and ceremonial similarities.

  CHAMPEAUX: The old church, built in A.D. 550, is especially interesting.

  DRUIDS: The Druids were the priests, judges, magicians, and philosophers of the Celts, who carried in their memories the history, ritual, traditions, and genealogies of their people. The earliest recorded mention is by Sotion of Alexandria, a Greek of about 200 B.C. An ancient order, they very likely had roots among pre-Celtic peoples of western France and the Mediterranean. They taught the immortality of the soul, that it passed into other bodies, but there seems to be no connection with the doctrines of Pythagoras. There was some variation in Druidic custom in Brittany, England, Wales, and Ireland. There is an affinity with the Brahmins of India. Julius Caesar and Tacitus both offer comments on the Druids. There is some indication of communication between these peoples and the Minoan civilization of Crete.

  THE FLAT WORLD: The Chinese, Hindus, Arabs, and Greeks long knew it was nothing of the kind. So did many people in western Europe. The story of belief in a flat world has been endlessly repeated by those who would magnify the voyage of Columbus out of all proportion. As a matter of fact, if one studies maritime navigation before and after it will be seen that Columbus had rather an easy time of it. His ships were small by our standards, but oceans have been crossed by many much smaller craft both before and after his time.

  Traveling the routes he followed in his earlier years, visiting or residing in Genoa, Lisbon, etc., Columbus would have had to be both deaf and blind not to have heard of Atlantic voyages. Columbus and his brother made their livings, for a time, copying charts.

  Ancient sea voyaging was much more extensive than has been suspected, and there was probably no land on earth that had not been visited before recorded history. Evidences of man have been found on even the most remote islands.

  The secret of making a discovery then, as now, was to make it at the right time with proper attention to publicity.

  GEESE: The discovery of land by following the flight of birds is as old as mankind. The annual migration of geese from Ireland to their nesting places in Iceland, Greenland, or Labrador would have indicated land in those directions. It is roughly but 600 miles from the west coast of Ireland to Iceland, less than 200 miles to the nearest point on Greenland, and only about 600 or a bit less to Labrador.

  The distances were nowhere so great as those sailed by small craft in the South Pacific or Indian oceans. Many South Pacific islands were discovered by following the flight of birds.

  GUNPOWDER INVENTION: Despite arguments for Roger Bacon, Black Berthold, and others, gunpowder had been used in China before A.D. 1000 (Science in Traditional China, by Joseph Needham). Grenades and explosive bombs hurled by catapults had been used, and it is probable that gunpowder had been used in fireworks as early as the T’ang dynasty.

  HIND: India

  HUELGOAT, YEUN ELEZ, etc: Very much as described. A wild, beautiful setting, strangely eerie, especially on a moonlit or stormy night.

  IRISH IN ICELAND: Recorded in the Norse sagas. When the first Norsemen arrived in Iceland, they found Irish priests waiting on the beach. The Irish had made many voyages into the western seas before the Vikings.

  MANUEL I (Comnenus): Emperor of the Eastern Roman Empire at Constantinople, was in the last few months of his reign at the time of this story, and died in the same year. A man of enormous physical strength, a fine soldier, and a competent ruler, he waged some wars that were wasted effort and failed to strengthen his overall position.

  MEN MARZ: The Miracle Stone, probably erected in Neolithic times. About twenty-five feet high. An object of veneration for several thousand years.

  MOORISH SPAIN: Arabs from North Africa, called Moors, had intermarried somewhat with the Berbers, a white people who occupied most of North Africa, and conquered Spain 710–712. They held all of Spain and a part of France for a time, and more than half of Spain for the best part of 750 years, leaving an indelible stamp upon the land. Cultural diffusion from there and from Sicily, also held for a time by the Arabs, had much to do with the beginning of the Renaissance in Europe.

  MOSLEM LIBRARIES: Literally thousands of manuscripts lie untranslated and unknown in mosque libraries. Many are of religious character, but undoubtedly others could add important chapters to the histories of science and exploration.

  It is possible that archives in private libraries, mosques, and monasteries in China, India, Japan, Tibet, and the Arab countries contain as many books awaiting discovery as ever have been translated into any European tongue.

  PETCHENEGS: Pre-Mongol invaders from the steppes of Asia, who lived, fought, and looked, much like the Mongols who were to conquer much of Asia and Russia in the century following this story.

  PRE-COLUMBIAN VOYAGES: Breton, Norman, and Basque fishermen, as well as others from Bristol and Iceland, had apparently been fishing off the banks of Newfoundland for many years before Columbus.

  Settlers from Greenland came regularly to the coast of Canada to cut timber for building houses or ships, and there is some evidence of temporary settlements at various points along the coast as well as on the rivers. The Maine islands were visited and temporarily occupied at a very early time.

  Alexandre Aufredi, for example, sent ten ships on a voyage into the west from La Rochelle. The ships were gone for several years, but at last when hope had been given up, they returned. The details of the voyage are lost.

  There was never any need to “discover” America. The Chukchi Indians of Siberia had been crossing the Bering Strait for centuries.

  Vitus Bering had a chart showing the west coast of Alaska and Canada as far down as Vancouver Island before any known explorer visited the area. Magellan had a chart of the Strait before beginning his voyage. Seafaring and exploration are far older than any recorded history.

  PROVINS: A walled town with a maze of catacombs, cellars, and tunnels beneath it. The tunnel from Champeaux to Melun and Provins was reported to have been built in the seventh, eighth, and ninth centuries.

  RUE DU FOUARRE: Site of one of the first schools of Paris, this lies behind the Church of St. Julien le Pauvre on the Left Bank, not far from Notre Dame itself. It was named for the bundles of straw on which students sat for lectures. Dante visited there in 1304.

  SAONE: This Crusader castle stands in remote, rocky, and brush-covered hills not far south of the ancient city of Antioch, the modern Antakya. It is approximately opposite (but some distance inland) from the isle of Cyprus. It is still an impressive ruin, but off the beaten track and rarely visited.

  TOLENTE: One does not think of lost cities when thinking of Brittany, yet there were several. Tolente was destroyed by the Norsemen in 875, and was reportedly the site of a school of necromancers. The supposed site is now occupied by the village of Plouguerneau.

  TOURNEMINE: A lawless family of unknown, perhaps British, origin, known for the Castle of Hunaudaye in the forest by that name, situated a bit south of the road from Plancoet
to Lamballe. It is a massive and picturesque ruin, said to have been built in 1378 by Pierre de Tournemine, possibly on the site of an earlier castle built in 1220. The last of the Tournemines is reported to have killed his father, wife, and brother, and according to legend was carried off by their ghosts. There is some suggestion that a still earlier timbered fortress occupied the site before 1220.

  VENETI: The first seafaring people of western Europe, of whom we know, from whom the Irish may have received their impetus. Brittany was their home. The best description of their oak-hulled ships with leathern sails is found in Caesar’s Commentaries. The ships of the Veneti were of heavier construction than necessary for coastwise voyages, and they had many such ships. Nobody knows where or with whom they traded aside from voyages for tin to the Scilly Isles or Cornwall.

  About Louis L’Amour

  *

  “I think of myself in the oral tradition—

  as a troubadour, a village tale-teller, the man

  in the shadows of the campfire. That’s the way

  I’d like to be remembered as a storyteller.

  A good storyteller.”

  IT IS DOUBTFUL that any author could be as at home in the world re-created in his novels as Louis Dearborn L’Amour. Not only could he physically fill the boots of the rugged characters he wrote about, but he literally “walked the land my characters walk.” His personal experiences as well as his lifelong devotion to historical research combined to give Mr. L’Amour the unique knowledge and understanding of people, events, and the challenge of the American frontier that became the hallmarks of his popularity.

  Of French-Irish descent, Mr. L’Amour could trace his own family in North America back to the early 1600s and follow their steady progression westward, “always on the frontier.” As a boy growing up in Jamestown, North Dakota, he absorbed all he could about his family’s frontier heritage, including the story of his great-grandfather who was scalped by Sioux warriors.

  Spurred by an eager curiosity and desire to broaden his horizons, Mr. L’Amour left home at the age of fifteen and enjoyed a wide variety of jobs including seaman, lumberjack, elephant handler, skinner of dead cattle, miner, and an officer in the transportation corps during World War II. During his “yondering” days he also circled the world on a freighter, sailed a dhow on the Red Sea, was shipwrecked in the West Indies and stranded in the Mojave Desert. He won fifty-one of fifty-nine fights as a professional boxer and worked as a journalist and lecturer. He was a voracious reader and collector of rare books. His personal library contained 17,000 volumes.

  Mr. L’Amour “wanted to write almost from the time I could talk.” After developing a widespread following for his many frontier and adventure stories written for fiction magazines, Mr. L’Amour published his first full-length novel, Hondo, in the United States in 1953. Every one of his more than 120 books is in print; there are nearly 270 million copies of his books in print worldwide, making him one of the bestselling authors in modern literary history. His books have been translated into twenty languages, and more than forty-five of his novels and stories have been made into feature films and television movies.

  His hardcover bestsellers include The Lonesome Gods, The Walking Drum (his twelfth-century historical novel), The Walking Drum, Last of the Breed, and The Haunted Mesa. His memoir, Education of a Wandering Man, was a leading bestseller in 1989. Audio dramatizations and adaptations of many L’Amour stories are available on cassette tapes from Bantam Audio publishing.

  The recipient of many great honors and awards, in 1983 Mr. L’Amour became the first novelist ever to be awarded the Congressional Gold Medal by the United States Congress in honor of his life’s work. In 1984 he was also awarded the Medal of Freedom by President Reagan.

  Louis L’Amour died on June 10, 1988. His wife, Kathy, and their two children, Beau and Angelique, carry the L’Amour publishing tradition forward.

  Bantam Books by Louis L’Amour

  NOVELS

  Bendigo Shafter

  Borden Chantry

  Brionne

  The Broken Gun

  The Burning Hills

  The Californios

  Callaghen

  Catlow

  Chancy

  The Cherokee Trail

  Comstock Lode

  Conagher

  Crossfire Trail

  Dark Canyon

  Down the Long Hills

  The Empty Land

  Fair Blows the Wind

  Fallon

  The Ferguson Rifle

  The First Fast Draw

  Flint

  Guns of the Timberlands

  Hanging Woman Creek

  The Haunted Mesa

  Heller with a Gun

  The High Graders

  High Lonesome

  Hondo

  How the West Was Won

  The Iron Marshal

  The Key-Lock Man

  Kid Rodelo

  Kilkenny

  Killoe

  Kilrone

  Kiowa Trail

  Last of the Breed

  Last Stand at Papago Wells

  The Lonesome Gods

  The Man Called Noon

  The Man from Skibbereen

  The Man from the Broken Hills

  Matagorda

  Milo Talon

  The Mountain Valley War

  North to the Rails

  Over on the Dry Side

  Passin’ Through

  The Proving Trail

  The Quick and the Dead

  Radigan

  Reilly’s Luck

  The Rider of Lost Creek

  Rivers West

  The Shadow Riders

  Shalako

  Showdown at Yellow Butte

  Silver Canyon

  Sitka

  Son of a Wanted Man

  Taggart

  The Tall Stranger

  To Tame a Land

  Tucker

  Under the Sweetwater Rim

  Utah Blaine

  The Walking Drum

  Westward the Tide

  Where the Long Grass Blows

  SHORT STORY COLLECTIONS

  Beyond the Great Snow Mountains

  Bowdrie

  Bowdrie’s Law

  Buckskin Run

  Dutchman’s Flat

  End of the Drive

  From the Listening Hills

  The Hills of Homicide

  Law of the Desert Born

  Long Ride Home

  Lonigan

  May There Be a Road

  Monument Rock

  Night over the Solomons

  Off the Mangrove Coast

  The Outlaws of Mesquite

  The Rider of the Ruby Hills

  Riding for the Brand

  The Strong Shall Live

  The Trail to Crazy Man

  Valley of the Sun

  War Party

  West from Singapore

  West of Dodge

  With These Hands

  Yondering

  SACKETT TITLES

  Sackett’s Land

  To the Far Blue Mountains

  The Warrior’s Path

  Jubal Sackett

  Ride the River

  The Daybreakers

  Sackett

  Lando

  Mojave Crossing

  Mustang Man

  The Lonely Men

  Galloway

  Treasure Mountain

  Lonely on the Mountain

  Ride the Dark Trail

  The Sackett Brand

  The Sky-Liners

  THE HOPALONG CASSIDY NOVELS

  The Riders of the High Rock

  The Rustlers of West Fork

  The Trail to Seven Pines

  Trouble Shooter

  NONFICTION

  Education of a Wandering Man

  Frontier

  The Sackett Companion: A Personal Guide to the Sackett Novels

  A Trail of Memories: The Quotations of Louis L’Amour, compiled
by Angelique L’Amour

  POETRY

  Smoke from This Altar

  THE WALKING DRUM

  A Bantam Book / April 2005

  PUBLISHING HISTORY

  Bantam hardcover edition / June 1984

  Bantam paperback edition / May 1985

  All rights reserved.

  Copyright © 1984 by Louis L’Amour Enterprises, Inc.

  Copyright © 1984 by Bantam Books.

  Maps by Alan McKnight.

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  eISBN: 978-0-553-90016-3

  v3.0