Count Scar

 As a historian, I study real medieval people, but my medieval-themed fantasy is mostly populated by people who, I hope, will immediately engage with the modern reader because they are like modern people even if in a fantastic setting.  But I've got exceptions, books that are still fantasy (and I hope engaging!) but are closer to real historical fiction.  The first of these is Count Scar.

I wrote it with my husband, Robert A. Bouchard.  It's set in an alternate version of France in the thirteenth century.  The setting is pretty close to medieval reality, but there is also working magic, studied by priests (just as all branches of knowledge were studied by real medieval priests, the reason why the first universities were attached to cathedrals).

Galoran, the scarred count of the title, believes that his useful life is over once his days as captain in the imperial army have ended.  He has little more to do than hang around his older brother's castle, where it's clear his sister-in-law has no use for him.  The scar on his cheek, from an old burn, means he believes that no woman will want him.

This all changes abruptly when he inherits the castle and county of Peyrefixade, in southern France.  As the only thing he's ever had that is really his, he clings determinedly to Peyrefixade, even while learning that dangerous magic-working heretics covet the castle, which harbors dark secrets.

And the castle comes with a spiritual advisor, named Melchior, of the magic-working Order of the Three Kings.  Supposedly their magic has been redeemed from the heretics, but can Galoran trust his new advisor?  For that matter, Melchior is unsure whether to trust him, as the threat of the Inquisition slowly rises.

The story has twists and turns, betrayals, sword fights, and a touch of romance.  We wrote it from the alternating viewpoints of the two main characters.  See if you can guess who wrote which chapter.  It's available as an ebook on all major ebook platforms; here's the Amazon link.

The theme of people who dislike or distrust each other still having to work together is continued in the sequel, Heretic Wind.  As well as the two main characters, Galoran and Melchior, there's a surprise new point of view character and other new faces to further complicate a story in which the Inquisition plays an even larger role.  It's available both as an ebook and a paperback.

Both Count Scar and Heretic Wind are available bundled together in a big fat omnibus called, appropriately enough, Galoran and Melchior.  It's available as an ebook, a large-format paperback available wherever paperbacks are found, and now as a limited edition hardcover from Amazon.

It's something of a challenge to write characters who are more like real medieval people than modern people wearing medieval outfits (which one sees too often in historical fiction), and still have readers relate to the characters.  As well as the Count Scar books, I've published three books that are retellings of real medieval tales, trying to keep much of the original flavor while making the situations understandable to a modern audience:  Ashes of Heaven (based on Tristan and Isolde stories), The Sign of the Rose (based on a medieval story called Romance of the Rose), and The Knight of the Short Nose (based on the Guillaume d'Orange epic cycle).

© C. Dale Brittain 2022

Count Scar

I'm a fantasy writer as well as a medieval historian, so I periodically get asked why I don't write straight historical fiction, stories set in the real Middle Ages.  Perhaps the closest I've come is in Count Scar, which I co-wrote with my husband, Robert Bouchard.

It's set in a thinly disguised version of southern France in the early thirteenth century, in the aftermath of the Albigensian Crusade.  But it has magic as well!  The story is about Galoran, a scarred warrior and younger son who unexpectedly inherits the county of Peyrefixade in the Pyrenees, and Melchior, a magic-working priest who is assigned as his spiritual advisor.  The two men do not initially trust each other, but they are forced to work together.  The county is threatened by heretics, who have "sort of" been defeated but have their eyes on the castle of Peyrefixade, rumored to shelter, in some hidden corner, an ancient and enormously powerful magical talisman.

Then there's plenty of betrayal, sword fights, sword & sorcery, a touch of romance, and the like.  Here's the link on Amazon.

We wrote it as a series of alternating first-person chapters, each of us taking one of the two main characters.  See if you can guess which one of us wrote which.  Writing with a co-author can be exciting, because the other person can think up plot details that you never would have thought of, but then they'll add a plot twist at the end of their chapter, leaving you to figure out what can possibly pull this out.

Although the people and the county of Peyrefixade are fictional (as is the magic-working Order of the Three Kings to which Melchior belongs), we tried to make the setting as accurate as possible.  Besides such obvious things as castle architecture, weapons, diet, and oaths of fealty, we tried to give the characters the attitudes and outlook real medieval people would have had:  tolerance of different viewpoints for example was never official policy.  I've never liked purported historical fiction where the characters are just modern people wearing old-timey outfits.  The magic of course is not historical, but given that the medieval church was the main center of learning and education, it made sense that if there was magic, priests would study it.

Recently we've published a sequel, Heretic Wind, with the same main characters, set about a year later.  Enjoy!

 © C. Dale Brittain 2021

Dialogue in historical fiction

When one is writing historical fiction (or fantasy, because let's face it, most fantasy is some version of historical fiction for the setting, with the addition of magic), a question is how to handle dialogue.

Should one's characters sound sort of medieval? (or to be more accurate, like Shakespeare).  Do you want them to say things like, "Zounds, thou hast e'en be-causèd me to besmircheth mine trew."  Okay, let's hope that no one would actually have a character deliver this line.  But the temptation is often strong to have dialogue reminiscent of the costumed performers at a Renaissance Faire.

Here it's important to realize that real medieval people (or medieval-style people in fantasy) were not wearing costumes.  They were just wearing clothes.  In the same way, they weren't speaking archaic English.  They were speaking their ordinary language.

The challenge is to give the characters dialogue that will allow the reader to have enough suspension-of-disbelief to imagine (without really thinking about it) that the characters are speaking an English translation of what they are actually saying.  (It's fiction, so with luck the readers are already prepared to suspend belief.)

I write fantasy set in an alternate version of medieval France in the Count Scar series, co-authored with Robert A. Bouchard, but you won't catch us having our characters say, "Franche contesse, Diex te puist consellier!  Iceste chose ne vuel plus respitier."  This is real twelfth-century Old French (it's from the epic Raoul de Cambrai), and it means, "Noble countess, may God guide you!  I do not wish to delay to do this any longer."  I sense our readers would abandon us if we started slapping Old French into our stories.

 

But does this mean that characters should just talk like twenty-first century people?  No, that doesn't work either.  I try especially to avoid idiomatic expressions that are based on things foreign to medieval people.  For example, baseball has added a lot to our turns of phrase.  "He really struck out on that."  "He couldn't get to first base with her."  "I try to be fair, I just call the balls and strikes as I see them."  But even though modern baseball has medieval roots, as I've discussed previously, medieval people would not have used such expressions.

Football and basketball phrases don't work either.  "He shoots, he scores!"  "They're just going to run out the clock."  "He's trying to defend from his own five-yard line."  "They're trying a Hail Mary pass."  And of course the latter only works if you've got Christianity in your fantasy world.

Then there are expressions that go back to nineteenth-century clipper ships.  "He's a loose cannon."  "He's three sheets to the wind."  "All hands on deck!"  Well, maybe you could use them if your fantasy has something like a "Pirates of the Caribbean" setting.  But not pseudo-medieval.

In the same way, there are hordes of informal phrases that would just strike a jarring note.  "The joke made her crack up."  "This is one hot mess."  "Hey, don't freak out."  "Give me a break!"  Many are catch-phrases that got their start in popular movies or TV ads.  "The good, the bad, and the ugly."  "Shake and bake."  "Where's the beef?"  "Houston, we have a problem."  "Rinse and repeat."  "A few French fries short of a happy meal."  "That chick is toast!"

I try to make people speak sort-of formally but not archaically.  If you want to use catch-phrases, make some up!  If you have dragon-riders in your fantasy, surely that experience would have generated sayings or expressions.  Same thing for the people on intergalactic space ships in science fiction.

© C. Dale Brittain 2019

For more on medieval social history (and its modern descendants), see my new ebook, Positively Medieval: Life and Society in the Middle Ages.  Also available in paperback!

Galoran and Melchior

I've got a new book!  It's a paperback, titled Galoran and Melchior, and I cowrote it with my husband, Robert Bouchard.  Here's the link on Amazon.

It's a big fat omnibus edition containing two complete novels, Count Scar and its sequel, Heretic Wind (which I blogged about earlier).  Even though the books are officially fantasy, they are very close to real historical fiction, in that the setting, the religion (against which the heretics rebel), the weapons, the castles, the food and the like are all very close to real medieval society and culture.

The people, however, are not based on real historical figures.  Instead we have given them the kind of outlook and reaction to situations real medieval people would have had.  The two heroes, as you probably figured out all by yourself, are named Galoran and Melchior.  Here's the book's description.

* Galoran is a scarred warrior and younger son, his years of captaining the Emperor's armies over, and now it seems without future prospects.
* Melchior is a priest and magic-worker in the Order of the Three Kings, an order dedicated to redeeming magic from the heresy of the so-called Perfected.
When Galoran unexpectedly inherits the castle and county of Peyrefixade, he also acquires a spiritual advisor - Melchior. The two are not sure they can trust each other but must learn to work together as the heretics threaten the castle and the dark secrets it hides. Galoran's life is further complicated by the ruthless duke who invited him to Peyrefixade, to say nothing of his beautiful and spirited daughter.
Set in an alternate version of southern France in the Middle Ages, the story is told from the alternating viewpoints of the two main characters. The outcome turns on mystery and passion, on betrayal and uncertain alliance, as they are forced to question their very beliefs to determine where true loyalty lies.

 The heresy in the novels is essentially that of the so-called Albigensians in thirteenth-century southern France.  Similarly, the religion called the True Faith is essentially medieval Christianity.  However, neither the heresy nor the orthodoxy is given its historically accurate name, so if you don't want to mix real religion with your fantasy, you can pretend they are also fantastical.

The individual titles are available as ebooks on the major ebook platforms.  In spite of publishing a whole lot of ebooks, I myself continue to prefer a physical book, so this volume makes the novels available for those who feel the same.

© C. Dale Brittain 2020

Historical Fiction and the Middle Ages

I have trouble with a lot of historical fiction set in the Middle Ages.  Too often the characters are just modern people wearing medieval outfits.  And of course it is far too easy to mess up such basic tidbits of medieval social history as when the Black Death came through or when knitting was invented (clue: both were at the end of the Middle Ages).

One book (which shall remain nameless) got me very irritated when the heroine planned a romantic wedding at a nunnery (nunneries were not places to get married, being instead the opposite), when the hero had a friendly chat with the abbess, who sat on the front porch knitting (knitting was not yet invented, and abbesses did not have friendly chats outside the cloister with passing strangers), and the hero went on to disguise himself in the clothes of a dead leper (which he would have recoiled from in terror).

Real medieval people were grim, ruthless, without any religious tolerance, and thought about death a lot—and those were the good guys!  For modern readers, medieval-themed fantasy, where you don't have to worry about historical accuracy, seems to work better than accurate historical fiction.  As a bonus, it doesn't get historians like me upset.  After all, I write fantasy too! (see previous post).

The closest I have come to real historical fiction is Count Scar, which I co-wrote with my husband.  That's the cover to the print edition, done by the late, great Darrell K. Sweet.  The novel is set in a thinly-disguised version of southern France in the early thirteenth century, a time when fear of heresy was rampant.  We mix it up a little by introducing magic, which in the story is practiced by an order of monks.  This actually makes sense, as people interested in the life of the mind mostly went into the church.

In the book, we tried to strike a balance between real medieval society and characters who would appeal to the modern reader.  If you read it, hope you agree that we succeeded!  (Also if you read it, see if you can guess which of us wrote which character.)

Like my Royal Wizard of Yurt series, the book is out of print but is available used, and also as an ebook from iTunes, Kobo, B&N - Nook, and of course Amazon. amazon.com/author/cdalebrittain
For more information about my novels, go to www.Daimbert.com

© C. Dale Brittain 2014