The Bloody Crown
Page 29
Every author is faced with hundreds of choices when planning a novel, none more so than the writer of historical fiction. They can be quite small – which historical detail to omit to help the story flow – or very large, such as whether to leave out a huge event that is irrelevant to the central story that’s being told. These aren’t history textbooks, after all – they are stories, and the author’s primary responsibility is always to the storytelling, the depth of character, the deep themes, the meaning, and, most potently, how the great sweep of history impacted upon people’s lives at the time: the human story.
I had some tough choices to make, right from the very beginning. One might expect a tale about the English resistance to the Normans to show the actual invasion. But in 1066 Hereward was away from his homeland, fighting as a mercenary in Flanders. Could I really allow such a pivotal event to take place in the background, dismissed in a couple of lines?
Luckily, I had Hereward’s adopted brother Redwald to bear witness to that shattering event. I’m sure some readers would have liked more – a detailed, blow-by-blow account of William the Bastard’s arrival through to the moment he sat upon the throne. But that is a book for someone else to write. This was Hereward’s story, and I had to remain true to that, while providing the necessary context in dramatic form.
And, I must confess, I originally planned to end Hereward’s tale at the end of book three, End of Days. As I’ve mentioned before in these public musings, we have only scant evidence for the life Hereward lived, and no knowledge of when his death occurred. We can take a punt and guess it wasn’t at the Battle of Ely when King William finally crushed the resistance to his reign – we would most likely have some account of that in other historical mentions of that final struggle in the fenlands.
We have plenty of evidence that many of the surviving rebels, and those nobles who could afford to flee William’s brutality, sailed east to find new lives in Constantinople, with the most seasoned warriors seeking to join the highly regarded Varangian Guard.
And as I pondered Hereward’s final fate, I thought I noticed an opportunity.
One of the difficulties in teaching history is the understandable necessity to break down the great, glorious sweep of it all into easily understood, easily ring-fenced sections. The Elizabethan Age. The Unification of Italy. The Chinese Dynasties.
But, of course, everything is connected – across time, from then to now, and in any given year, across the world too. At school, like every other child, I learned of the Norman Conquest. But my teacher never felt it necessary to talk about how the Normans were also spreading south and east, influencing the course of history across Europe.
In the second half of the eleventh century, there were two absolutely pivotal events that changed the course of everything up to the modern day. William the Bastard’s invasion ended the developing Anglo-Saxon golden age and set England on a new path, for better or worse (as the academics are still arguing). And in Constantinople, the rise of the Comnenoi and the sweep of the Seljuk Turks across the eastern Roman empire had repercussions that are still playing out in the struggles we see on the news almost every day.
With Hereward, I had a chance to show how those two great dramas were linked, while also tying in to the deeper themes that I wanted to examine in these books.
Deciding to follow the English refugees east created a whole new set of problems for me, though. The vast numbers of people involved in the events in Constantinople, high born and low, could have bloated the story beyond all bounds of reason, and dragged it into a dull crawl, if all were detailed here. I had no choice but to wade into them with a machete. No time to give Alexios’ brother Isaac much time centre-stage. No time for the ranks of powerful government figures, who all had parts to play, or for the many plotters and backstabbers and throat-slitters (yes, there were many more than you have read about here).
I had to be ruthless, cut everything back to the most essential players. There are times when I think I’ve been too ruthless, and at times not ruthless enough. But these are the choices that have to be made. Some are right, some are no doubt questionable, but they’re my choices and I can live with them. Actually, I have to live with them. That’s the job.
This is the last story about Hereward, at least for a while. There are more to tell, as you might have gleaned from the book’s ending. If you are still interested, I may well return to them in the future. If not, Hereward and the spear-brothers will be battling on in your own imaginations.
For me, it is time to move on to a new era and a new story, one rooted firmly in the Dark Ages. Keen-eyed readers may have picked up on elements in book three which suggested that Hereward was the template for the mythic character of Robin Hood (with apologies to my friend, Angus Donald, who has written some excellent historical Hood novels). A hero, a champion of the common man, hiding out in the greenwood with a band of merrie men which includes a monk, a strongman and more, while battling against a wicked sheriff (of Lincoln, not Nottingham) when the country is in the grip of a tyrannical king.
In a completely different way, my next project will also tackle the theme of how harsh reality becomes myth. It’s a generational story, following a bloodline that may be blessed or may be cursed, and its working title is Pendragon.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
To my editor, Simon Taylor, for his always-excellent advice and guidance.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
James Wilde is a Man of Mercia. Raised in a world of books, he went on to study economic history at university before travelling the world in search of adventure.
Unable to forget a childhood encounter – in the pages of a comic – with the great English warrior, Hereward, he became convinced that this great fighter should be the subject of his first novel. Hereward was a bestseller and four further successful novels, chronicling the life and times of this near-forgotten hero, followed. Hereward: The Bloody Crown brings his action-packed story to a thrilling close.
James Wilde indulges his love of history and the high life in the home his family have owned for several generations in the heart of a Mercian forest.
To find out more, visit www.manofmercia.co.uk
Also by James Wilde
HEREWARD
HEREWARD: THE DEVIL’S ARMY
HEREWARD: END OF DAYS
HEREWARD: WOLVES OF NEW ROME
HEREWARD: THE IMMORTALS
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First published in Great Britain in 2016 by Bantam Press
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Copyright © Emerald Eye Limited 2016
Cover photograph © Jonathan Ring & Stephen Mulcahey
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