The Sign of the Rose

 Our word "romance" goes back to medieval French, but its meaning was somewhat different then compared to how we use the term now.  A medieval French roman was a story in which the emphasis was on personal interactions, rather than on feats of arms, as was the case with epics.  (In fact the romance-epic demarcation was not always very clear.)  More broadly it meant a story, and in fact modern French still uses roman for a novel.

We now use "romance" in a narrower sense, to mean a love story.  In fact, romance is a well-established genre.  It has its rules, such as that you are required to have a happily-ever-after ending, or at least a happy-for-now conclusion, as the couple intends to be each other's special and only love partner.

It's easy to mock modern romance, and indeed it can easily become formulaic.  Young woman from a small town/big city moves to a big city/small town for reasons that are intended to make the story distinctive.  There she encounters a new man/a previous flame.  Sparks fly!  Problems arise.  Will they get together in spite of them? (I think you know the answer.)  But anything that makes people happy and indeed encourages reading is to be applauded (so saith the author).

Why did medieval people call a story a roman?  It was because a lot of their stories were set in mythical long-ago times.  For us long-ago is the Middle Ages.  For them it was the Roman Empire.  So accounts of deeds could be characterized as Roman stories.  (Our word "story" comes from "history," historia.  Also an account of deeds.)

By the way, because many people made pilgrimages to Rome, pilgrims were often referred to colloquially as Romies, including those going to Santiago in Spain, in the opposite direction from France than Rome.

This brings us to Guillaume de Dole ou le roman de la rose.  This was a roman written around the year 1200 in France, and which I have rewritten under the title of The Sign of the Rose.  It is in part a love story, but the Guillaume of the French title is not one of the lovers.  He gets to have adventures and go to tournaments, while his sister has to overcome slander to win the heart of the king.

The actual people in both versions of the story (the medieval original and mine) are imaginary, but I've tried to set it in something close to the real society of the thirteenth century.  I did have to make some changes for a modern audience, primarily having the lovers meet and fall in love, rather than fall in love just by hearing about each other from afar.

I characterize it as a "historical romance," and it does obey the Happily Ever After law, even though there's a lot more about the heroine's brother than a die-hard romance fan might prefer.  It's for sale on all major ebook platforms and in paperback; here's the Amazon link.

Here's the opening to whet your appetite.

Chapter 1 - Sir Kunz

“Remember how important you are to the realm, sire,” the seneschal said sternly.  “Stay with the party so that the knights can protect you.  Do not ride off by yourself like you did last time.”
Konrad did not answer, other than by giving a huff that could have been either agreement or denial.  What good was it being a king if he was still treated like a child?
It was cold for April, low clouds threatening rain or sleet.  He could feel the stallion under him wanting to run off across the fields, not to continue plodding along with the whole court.  There was a thin layer of mud on the old Roman road, its stones uneven enough to make speed impossible, even if speed had been an option when they had to hold their pace to that of the wagons.
Behind them the ladies had been singing, some songs of fighting and glory but mostly songs of love.  Konrad dropped back in the line, as if intending to converse with one of the ladies, ignoring the seneschal’s dark frown.
But the frown did it.  As soon as he was well back from the vanguard, he dug his spurs into his horse’s sides and was off, almost flying across the fields.  “No one follow!” he bellowed over his shoulder.  The cold wind streamed his hair out behind him, and he laughed as the seneschal’s faint shouts were lost in the distance.
He looked back just before he reached a line of trees.  The court, knights and ladies, servants and squires, horses and wagons, was spread out along a quarter mile of road.  At least no knights were racing after him.  There were advantages after all in being king—the court had to obey him even if they did not want to.
Besides, none of the knights could keep up with his Spanish stallion.
“Old men,” Konrad told his stallion when he finally pulled the horse to a trot, “might as well be old women.”
The seneschal was not really old in truth, he conceded to himself.  But the seneschal and the other barons who had served on the regency council had always been strict and proper.  “They would have been happy to be regents until I was thirty, had I let them,” Konrad added to the stallion.  The stallion was uninterested.
The horse pricked his ears instead at a rustling in the underbrush, and Konrad loosed the reins and let him run again.  Over a hedgerow, over two hedgerows, past a huddle of houses and they were back in the open fields again.  The soil was freshly turned—the peasants must have been plowing, thinking, as had he, that it was really spring.
Mud splashed halfway up Konrad’s legs, but he didn’t care.  A wide loop, he told himself cheerfully, and he would join the Roman road again.  He would trot back to meet his court, let the seneschal say whatever he liked because he would not be listening, and then he would ride sedately the rest of the day, chatting with the ladies.

Except that he did not find the Roman road again.

© C. Dale Brittain 2023