REVELATIONS, chapter 13, part 7

When they returned to their chambers in the Motherhouse, wonderfully warm, and for the first time in days, clean and dry and relaxed, Magritta was pacing up and down impatiently.

“Where have you been?  What have you been doing?  What took you so long?”  Her accent was stronger when she was annoyed.

“Why?  What’s the fuss?  Magritta, we have been travelling for days.  And we haven’t had a bath since we left Cappor.  We needed a thorough soaking.  A beautiful bathhouse, by the way.”

 “Humph!  The wisewoman believes that we will have a week of fine weather.  The clan-mother suggests that you use this chance to go and see the Great Ice.  She thinks that without seeing it, you will never understand the Yarsfelders.”

“Is it a long way?”

“A three-day journey to the south.  The land rises higher and higher till we reach the Great Ice.”

“What about the negotiations?”

“There will be no progress until you have seen the Great Ice.”

“I see.  ‘Suggests’, eh?”

Magritta smiled wintrily.  “Precisely.”

“Very well,” replied Steppan, secretly amused despite himself.  “I’ll give orders for our company to get ready.”

“I have already given orders,” Magritta attempted to gloss over the discourtesy, but he could tell that she felt she had obviously overstepped the bounds of being a polite hostess.

“That is not your right!”  Steppan was angry, and he spoke coldly.  “You have presumed too much!”

“I didn’t want to waste time,” she replied, avoiding their eyes.

“We are a diplomatic mission from the Empire.  You cannot simply order our guard to do the things you think are necessary.  I am the head of this diplomatic mission; you are my employee.  Just because you are here among your own people, just because you are the granddaughter of the head of the clan, doesn’t give you the right to order the guards around.” 

The guards might not be needed to protect them, given his own powers, but the look of the thing affected their prestige, their standing.

“We are far from our home, among strangers, who, if you will forgive me for saying it, appear to be potentially hostile.”

Magritta made denying gesture, spreading her hands out, and pushing away at this comment.  “Yes, yes, I apologise.”  Her embarrassment made her accent sharper and more guttural. “I wasn’t thinking.”  Her face coloured and she looked everywhere but at his face.

When Magritta attempted to speak again, Steppan held up his hand for silence.  “I understand that you wish also to serve your grandmother and your clan, but your ordering our guards around endangers our mission.  It makes us look weak.  And that will do us no favours with the clan-mother.  We have come with a generous offer to assist your people, and, to be sure, to also help the Empire.  What will happen if your grandmother insists on asking for more than we can give, because she thinks we are weak and over eager?”  He shook his head, and added, more in sorrow than in anger, “You are no longer working for a shifty and dishonest lawyer in some small country town.  You are working for me.  I am a duly appointed delegate of the Panthron.  And I have duty to ensure that this mission succeeds.” 

She stood sulkily silent in front of him.  He debated telling her about their fears about the likely Khars invasion, and decided to his regret that he didn’t trust her not to tell her grandmother, which really would make their mission impossible.  “Very well, that’s over now.  We had better go and pack our gear.”

Magritta’s face went scarlet.  “Very little needs to be done,” she mumbled.  “I have given orders to our servants to attend you.  They have packed clothes for the journey—” she waved her hand as Steppan opened his mouth to speak “—most of which came from our own stock.  The clothes you came with are not warm enough for the Great Ice.  We have provided you with furs and woollens, and your guards, too.”   Seeing both men silent, just staring at her in amazement, she added, defensively, “We have also provided sleighs and our ice-deer to pull them.  Your horses would not survive the journey.”

“It gets that cold?”  Tilthon was aghast.

“You Capporeans are so weak and cosseted,” she replied scornfully.  “Cold enough that you would die without our clothes, our tents, and our fire-bricks.  And because of we are only able to spare three sleighs, only two of your attendants may come with us.”

Tilthon and Steppan were silenced.  Only then did Steppan notice the clothes laid out on their bed: long woollen underwear, thick woollen shirts and trousers, fur gloves, full-length sheepskin coats, and sheepskin hats with ear flaps.

Well, we will warm enough, he thought.  But he was still angry that Magritta had been so rude.  She might at least have pretended to observe the niceties.  In public, anyway.

The air was still and the sun shining when they set off.  The sky was almost clear of clouds, except for some high wisps against the piercing blue, and the sunshine sparked off the banks of snow and the snow-covered roofs.  It was cold, but it was nevertheless a lovely day.

“Our weather shaman says that we will have 5 days of this weather, but after that, the spirits tell her that a storm will come.”

“You have a mage who tells you what the weather will be?” Tilthon was interested.

“Yes.  Our climate is severe.  Our people need warning.”

“Is her foretelling any good?”  ask Tilthon, with a sly sideways glance at her.

Magritta didn’t deign to reply to this.

“We’d better waste no time, then,” observed Steppan briskly.  “Let’s start.”

REVELATIONS, chapter 13, part 6

When he’d eaten enough, Steppan pushed his plate away, and asked “Where are the baths?”

Magritta stood up and pulled a bell pull in one corner, which Steppan hadn’t noticed before.  A male servitor appeared in response to the summons.

She spoke to him in Yarsfeld.

The man bowed.

“Follow, my lords,” he said, his accent so strong his speech was barely understandable.

“Towels? Soap?” asked Tilthon, ever practical.

“All  …. there …. ah ….. ready,” replied Keiron calmly.  His Capporean was limited, but they could make that out.

Outside, it had stopped snowing and though the air was cold, the sun was shining.  The baths were a block or so away from the Motherhouse.  It was a large brick building, divided into several rooms.  Each one they went through had a glowing fire and a tiled bath, filled with water which steamed a little.  It was utilitarian, not luxurious.  In Cappor, there might have been marble statues, mosaic artwork on the walls.  The waters might be scented, the towels thick.  These were baths for working men, not the rich and pampered.

 Around the baths were slatted wooden benches.  The fires were surrounded by stones.  There were scoops set next to the stones.  Keiron explained, “Water. Take.  Throw.” And followed this by showing them what to do, by scooping up some water from the bath and dashing it onto the stones.  A cloud of steam rose from the stones, making the air thick with moisture.  He showed them the shelves where towels were provided.  There were small tablets of coarse soap, too.  When Steppan proffered a coin in payment, the attendant shook his head.  “No pay,” he said, “Proud guests.”  He bowed and left them.

Tilthon and Steppan took a towel each, and stripped off.  There seemed to be no one else there.  They sank into the warm water and, for the first time since they had left Cappor a week before, they felt comfortable. 

“Shall we?” inquired Tilthon.

“What if somebody turns up?”

“There’s no one here.”

“Now.  But what if someone does arrive?  Anyway, Til, we’re representatives of his Serenity the Panthron.  We must keep up our state, and not make mad love in a bathhouse, rutting like crazed rabbits.”

Tilthon kissed him.  “You totally sure, Step?”

Steppan smiled at him.  “No.  Not really.  All the same.  Best not.”

“Are you completely sure about that, honey?” He nipped Steppan’s ear with his teeth, while squeezing one of his nipples with his hand.

Steppan pulled him down and kissed him, enfolding him in his arms.  “I do love you, so much, moi car ….”

“I thought we weren’t going to,” gasped Tilthon when he came up for air.

“A man can change his mind.” 

“Are you sure it’s your mind we’re talking about?” queried Tilthon, eyeing Steppan’s erection.

Tilthon stroked the other man’s hair.  “Well, perhaps not,” he replied complacently, his eyes gleaming, his smile soft.   He bent his head to kiss Tilthon’s nipples, his tongue tracing lines round the stiffening nubs of flesh.  Tilthon’s own cock hardened.  

As always, their love-making felt completely right, perfect.  Though it was familiar now, their bodies known, the way to ecstasy habitual, yet Steppan never tired of it. 

After, they sank back into the blissfully warm bath, arm in arm.

“Do you miss Lthon?”  asked Steppan, out of the blue.

“A bit,” replied Tilthon, leaning against him, and nuzzling his neck.  “But he wasn’t strong enough for me.  He was—is—very pretty, but you’ve got iron in you.  And I need that.  I need someone strong to resist me.  And to lean against.”

“You mean I’m not pretty?”  Steppan pouted.

“Not on the least.  You” —and he kissed him vigorously on the mouth—” you are manly, sexy, suavely handsome, erotic, desirable, and perfect.  And while we’re asking, do you miss Fluin?  Or Ilya?”

“Both,” answered Steppan sombrely.  “I was friends with Fluin first, before we were lovers, and it was never about strong passion for me.  I loved him and love him, deeply, and always will.  He has moved on, though.   He has Lthon—though Lthon will have as many partners as he can—and he has Alisya.  I watched him you know, when we were at the Khedha’s castle.  I saw him looking at her.  He was …. smitten, even then.  I only made love to him the first time because he had been tortured, and he needed to be loved.”  Steppan had told Tilthon the story of Fluin’s capture and torture before, when he and Fluin had been in the Bridgetown, so Tilthon just nodded.  “And I don’t regret it.  I would never have found out that I could love men, if I hadn’t.”  He squeezed Tilthon tightly round his waist, making him gasp.  “Sometimes making love, you know, isn’t just about desire or lust, but about comfort and joy.  He and I will always be blood brothers.”  He was silent for a moment, and Tilthon thought he’d finished, but then he added,  “As for Ilya, we were never friends.  There was sex, but never comfort.  Never joy.  Never companionship.  With you, my dearling, I have both.”

“What if the Panthron asks too much, one day, relying on your love for him to make you do what he asks?”

“Then I would retire to my holdings.  If necessary, in Elfhame.  And I’d hope that you came with me.”

“You’d never be able to give up power that easily.  You are meant for high office.  Idleness would make you ill-tempered.”

“Let us hope that never happens.  In the meantime, we have a task, right here, right now.”

In silence, they gently washed each other’s bodies and hair with the coarse soap, rinsed off using the scoop, and carefully dried each other off.

“We should get a bath like this when we get home, yes?”  murmured Tilthon as he dressed.   “That was good.”

“Yes, we should.  At the keep and the city house.”

“Surprising to find something so civilised in Yarsfeld.”

“They need it because of the cold.  It would be very unwise to underestimate them, I think.”

Tilthon nodded. 

Through a crack in the wooden walls that divided up the building into separate rooms, a watcher observed them, ready to report back to the clan-mother.

REVELATIONS, chapter 13, part 5

“Yet he is missing, and your Empire is ruled instead by a ‘Steward’.  Whoever—or whatever—he is.”

“He is utterly loyal to Fluin.”

“Ah yes, ‘Fluin’.  Are you sure you’re not getting carried away by your love for him?” she inquired shrewdly.

Steppan just smiled.  Tilthon said, sleepily (the wine was affecting him and it had been a long day on horseback), “When I met him, I felt it. He is easy to love, hard to forget.  I think he charmed his way into the heart of the people.  He is Goddess-touched.  Even though I was not at Carlathan, even so, I could tell that.  He is Her instrument.  And She is the Mother of all peoples in this world, of all animals and all things.  And She has a plan, and though we don’t know our precise parts in that plan, we will do our best with what we have to fulfill it.”

“Sounds as if you are in love too.  Anyway, I don’t trust men with too much charm.”

“Perhaps,” answered Tilthon placidly, holding out his empty wine glass to Steppan to refill.  As Steppan refilled it and his own, he realised that they were already negotiating the treaty.  Both the old harridan on her throne in her hall of stone, and her granddaughter here, were not to be underrated, and despite Magritta’s ostensible contempt for her homeland, she still cared.  A lot.  He had been wise to share Cappor’s proposals with her.  He didn’t doubt that they would be passed on to the clan-mother.  And they would be fully considered.  He hoped that they would be accepted.

They sipped their wine in silence.  

At last, Magritta yawned, and apologised.  “It’s been a long day.  Time I turned in.  May the Goddess keep you and cup you in Her hands!”

They returned her good wishes, and she stood up and left them to go to the door connecting them with the room next door. 

“Before you go, princess,” said Steppan drily, “where is our guard sleeping?”

“Don’t call me that!” she snapped.  “And of course, they have been provided for.  Not in the mother-house, naturally, but in the barracks.”

Steppan bowed.  “I thank you, princess.”

“Stop smirking.  Good night, wizard.  Good night, ninny.”

“Sleep well, princess,” they chorused.

“Tcha!” she replied.

The next morning, food was brought to them, fine food, and the plates and goblets and left-over food from the night before were taken away.  They were clearly to be fêted and well cared for.  When they had eaten, the women returned, and in heavily accented Capporean, explained that if they wanted to bath, a tub would be provided.

Steppan and Tilthon were effusive in their thanks, and didn’t hear the interconnecting door open. 

“Don’t bother.  Too much trouble,” said Magritta.  “The barracks have steams.  For men.  We have no women warriors here.  Go there, instead.”

“Why don’t you have women warriors?” asked Steppan intrigued.

“Fighting is for men,” she answered with disdain. “Women plan and order and arrange.  Men do the dirty work.”

“As yes,” replied Steppan, after all a man, “I quite see.”

Surprising them all, she giggled.   When she smiled, she looked very likable and attractive.  Steppan wondered if she knew that.

“To tell the truth, some of our best generals have been women,” Steppan conceded.  “Where then will the lieutenant and her women bathe?”

“I shall give instructions that they be admitted to the women’s baths in the house.”

“How kind,” murmured Steppan.

“Off you go,” she said, smiling sarcastically at him.  “You both need a good wash.”

Steppan grinned at her.  “Ever tactful, ever polite, that’s our Magritta.  Until later, princess.”

“Don’t call me that!”  Magritta snapped, her eyes glinting.

“Sorry!”  Steppan smiled, impenitently. “But you must permit us to eat, first.  One doesn’t want to waste all this food, does one?”

REVELATIONS, chapter 13, part 4

“I am authorised to offer, first, a reduction in taxes on Yarsfeld’s key exports to the empire.”

“You mean, spirit water, furs and timber.”

“You know more about it than you pretend, Magritta,” he said wryly.  “Just so.”  Though in fact the Steward hadn’t mentioned timber to him.

“Well,” she replied irritably, tossing her head at him, “so I should, not so?”

He merely nodded in response.

“And ….?” she queried.

“A healer, temple trained.  There are still too few, you know.  Fluin has started the schools and universities again, and we have borrowed Elvish tutors from Elfhame, so that is a great boon.”

“Have you been to Elfhame,” she asked, diverted.

“I am from Elfhame.”

“You don’t look Elvish,” she said, suspiciously.

“We are both elf-kindred,” interjected Tilthon placidly.  But his eyes were amused when they turned to meet Steppan’s.

“Don’t mock me!” Magritta was angry.  “Just because you’re Elvish.”

“I am sorry,” answered Tilthon demurely.  “We did not intend it.  And to be honest, Mags, you are full of courage and …. achievement.  I admire you.”  To Steppan’s surprise, Tilthon was completely sincere.

“Mags?! Hmph!”  She had so exactly the tone of her grandmother that Steppan had to hide his smile.

“And….?” she insisted, impatiently.

“Ambassadors.  One from Cappor to Yarsfeld and one from Yarsfeld to Cappor.”

“What we really need is more land.  Our soil is thin, our summers short.  Without war, our people grow in number.  We need farmsteads for our young men.  They fight each other in the taverns, and are a sore trial to our women.  We need land,” she repeated fiercely.

“We are ahead of you, there,” replied Steppan calmly.  “The Steward and I talked of this.  I am authorised to offer your people land in the southern forests of the Empire.  They would become citizens of the Empire and have to give up allegiance to Yarsfeld, but there is land in abundance there.  Imperial land, which is the Emperor’s to give.  And title deeds would be issued by the Ambassador here.  To all who wished it.”

“That is …. very generous,” Magritta replied, sulkily, mortified at being wrong-footed.

Steppan and Tilthon sipped their drinks, watching her patiently.

 “And what do you require in turn?” she asked.

“Peace,” Steppan murmured.  There was a tense silence.  He continued, “The Emperor has experienced war.  He fought the Roidan at the Battle of Woodend.  He saw people he loved killed in the battle.  He does not care about prestige or the sort of ‘honour’ some men think is achieved by prowess in battle.  He just regards it as a waste.  He wants peace.  Don’t misunderstand me, if he must wage war, he will.  He will do it to save his peoples.  And he regards them all as his peoples: humans, Elves, dragons, Bantes, all sentient beings.  He believes he does the Goddess’s will in this.”  He sipped again.  “I do too.”

REVELATIONS, chapter 13, part 3

For the first time since they had met her, Magritta appeared to be at a loss for words.  She walked over to the window and stared out.  After several heartbeats, she muttered, “I didn’t lie to you.  I really did want to escape.  And I was the apprentice of the lawyer in Bridgetown.  And I still want to escape.  Surely you can see why?”  She waved her hand at the building, the township, the country which surrounded them.

“Yes, but we’re from Cappor.  We wouldn’t want to leave there.  But you wanted to leave here—despite being who you are!  Explain.”

“It was all I could do, to get away from here.  It’s so …. backward and …. dull …. and I just don’t ….”

“Don’t what?” asked Steppan in a hard voice.  “Let me guess.  That terrifying old monster in the hall is your mother—”

“—grandmother—”

 “—and she’s furious with you.  For leaving?”

Magritta nodded in silence, looking down at her hands as if they contained a most fascinating novel, full of engrossing tales of love and iniquity and suffering and redemption.

“And no doubt she thinks we are your fancy-men, here to carry you off to a life of sin, oblivious to the dictates of the Mother and the Weavers.  Or, in this place, is it to be you who will carry us off?”

“Don’t be vulgar!” she rebuked, offended.

Steppan went over to the table, where several flagons of wine and one of the local spirit water were set out with some ornate glasses on a tray. He poured out three glasses of a sweet, golden wine (from its taste and bouquet, he thought it very likely that it came from one of the vineyards north of Cappor) and gave Magritta and Tilthon each a glass.

“My dear, I don’t care one way or another what you’ve done to offend the customs of your home.  Or not offend them. But I do care about my task.  I am on a mission from the Steward to settle the southern borders.  And you’ve just royally screwed us.  So, I ask again, what is going on?”

Magritta coloured and looked away.

“Stepp,” interjected Tilthon, his tone a warning.

“Yes, you are right, moi car.  Magritta, I am sorry, but you do see, don’t you?  How is our treaty going to succeed, now?”

“Well why not?” she responded, suddenly furious.  “It’s not the polite words that matter!  It’s what you have of substance to offer!”

“That’s just the point!  I have much to offer!  But now your grandmother is too annoyed to listen to reason!  And my mission will fail.”

Magritta glared at him, then looked away.  “What are you offering?”

Steppan stared at her and deliberated how much he could or should tell her.  She had to be on their side, or their mission would be a failure.  He gestured to the others to sit down, and sat himself.

REVELATIONS, chapter 13, part 2

Inside, the stone floor of the fort was covered with rushes, and though it gave an impression of gloom, in fact there were many oil lamps attached to hooks on the stone walls, as well as generous fires in four different fire places.  Against the far wall there was a raised stone platform with steps up from the hall floor, and arranged at the centre of the platform was what looked uncommonly like a throne.  Seated on the throne was an ancient old woman.  Neither Steppan nor Tilthon made the mistake of assumed that merely because she seemed ancient and past it that she was.  All the power in the room seemed to flow from her.  The retainers around the room had the sort of deference used only with great lords, and their eyes were on her, except when they turned to gaze at the doorway where Magritta and her two companions entered.  Steppan wasn’t certain, but their stares seemed hostile.

The old woman didn’t speak until they had reached the foot of the stairs up to the raised dais. 

Then she spoke harshly, and her dialect was so strong that once again, neither Steppan nor Tilthon could understand it.   Magritta answered in the same idiom, proudly and defiantly, it seemed to Steppan.  She bowed her head to the matriarch on her throne, but only a little.

Next the ancient turned her attention to Steppan and Tilthon.  She spoke to them in heavily accented Capporean.

“Why are you here?”  She wasted no time with honorifics or politeness.

Steppan and Tilthon bowed deeply.  Steppan judged that it would be unwise to kneel to the old termagant.  He was, after all, the representative of a powerful empire, and came from the largest and most populated city in the world, a city in which this tawdry township would vanish without trace.

“We are come from the Steward to negotiate a treaty with the Yarsfelders.”

“Hmnph!” was her only reply.

“The Steward wishes to be at peace with all our neighbours,” said Steppan, coolly.

“I’m sure he does,” replied the old lady, dry as dust.  In Yarsfeld, she addressed several women who were hovering near her, and added, to Steppan and Tilthon, in Capporean, “We will talk more on this later.  These women will show you to your rooms.”

Steppan had no choice but to bow in thanks to this ungracious display.

Two women rose from the end of the dais where they had been sitting on the stone floor, and gestured in silence to Steppan and Tilthon to follow them.  Steppan turned to Magritta, to ask what was happening, but she was already following.  He cast a glance at Tilthon who met his look with eloquently raised eyebrows.  Steppan nodded at him, as if he knew precisely what was going on, and turned to follow the women.  They were led up to the fifth floor, and a fine carved door was opened, and the women gestured them inside.  The chamber was large and luxuriously furnished.  This was obviously the place where honoured guests stayed, and Steppan relaxed a little.  Perhaps, after all, this embassy might be successful.

The wooden timbers of the floor were for the most part covered with a thick Jernan carpet.  There were three beds, one double, one in one corner, and one in a sort of alcove next to the window.  A few moments after they entered the room, two male servitors arrived, one carrying a brazier, the other two steaming bowls of wash water.  A moment later, more servitors arrived with scented soaps and unguents and warmed towels.

“We are indeed honoured guests,” commented Tilthon drily.

Steppan stared at him for a moment before turning to Magritta.

“Well?” he said.

“Well, what?”

“You are no simple Yarsfelder.  The guard admitted you, with …. respect? …. and us—he gestured to himself and Tilthon—on sufferance.  Explain.”

(To be continued)

REVELATIONS (chapter 13, part 1)

(The story so far: The Emperor was lost after the sacrifice at Carlathan, and is still not yet found. But before he disappeared, he appointed Jaan, Demon-King, as his steward. Jaan has sent Steppan, the emperor’s blood-brother, and Steppan’s lyubon, Tilthon, to the Yarsfelders in the far south of the country, a people who live in the shadow of the great ice cap, to draw up a treaty with them, with the intention of averting war or incursions, because he knows that in the far north-east, there will be an imminent invasion by the Khars.)

It is a mistake to assume that the way of the Goddess is clearly marked and easy to find.  Oftentimes, that path we follow appears to deviate from the smooth and straight way we think the Goddess and the Weavers plan for us.  Only after, when we look back on the path we have followed, do the logic and necessity of what we have endured emerge.  Even the most advanced wizard-priest experiences doubt and fear.  Even the highest initiates wonder, at times, whether their Goddess has deserted them.  Yet if we wish, as wizards or shamans or priests, or whatever name it is we serve Her and Them under, to achieve our aim—unity with the One, the ecstasy of knowing that we are part of the Great Spirit Mother and She embraces us—then we must accept all that comes our way, and attempt to fit it into our lives.  That does not mean we must acquiesce in wrong-doing, or supinely submit to events.  But it does mean that we must consider, deeply, and reverently, all that happens to us and to those we love, and try to make sense of it, using prayer and such drugs as I have already mentioned.

This way lies wisdom and serenity.

Yarl Icbodo ys Dalrim

The “capital” of the Yarsfelders was a town made mostly of timber, brick, and thatch.  There was a single structure made of stone: a large five-storeyed building in the centre of town. It had the fortifications of a military outpost.  The windows at ground level were no more than slits, wide enough to shoot arrows out but narrow enough to prevent ingress. The windows on the second floor were also slits, but on higher floors they widened, though all were protected by iron grilles.  There was a single door in the front, made of stout oak planks, bound together with iron.  At the door stood two doormen, each armed with a sword and wearing armoured gauntlets, greaves, cuirasses and helms.

The doormen bowed deeply to Magritta, but blocked the door with their crossed javelins to the others.

“These may enter,” said Magritta with a sigh, gesturing to Steppan and Tilthon, and avoiding their eyes. 

“Not the soldiers, my lady.”  The guards were firm.  Their words were on the edge of understanding to Steppan and Tilthon, because they spoke in the strongly accented guttural argot of the Yarsfelders.   But they inferred the guards’ meaning from Magritta’s answer.

“No, not them.” Magritta gestured at Steppan and Tilthon, and the javelins were momentarily lifted to an upright position and as soon as Steppan and Tilthon had stepped over the threshold, were raised again, blocking the lieutenant, the sergeant, the healer and the soldiers.

Steppan turned to them.  “We will be back shortly.  I will give you further instructions then.”  The lieutenant looked mutinous, the sergeant amused, the healer dismayed.  Steppan didn’t care—he had enough to worry about.

He leaned closer to Magritta as they entered the gloom of the stone fort.  “You have some explaining to do.”

She merely waved her hands irritably at him, and shook her head.  “Later,” she said, out of the side of her mouth.

(to be continued)

Writing again

It’s been a decade since I wrote freely and prolifically. There have been a few reasons for this. I was grieving the deaths of my mother and my parents-in-law and of a dear friend who died, too young, of bowel cancer. I lost my job, and that made me depressed. And poor. Many people, at least, those who have not been chronically depressed, think it is the same as sadness. It isn’t. It’s rather as if all the colour has gone out of the world. Nothing seems important. Everything is grey, everything is too much trouble. Of course, you can be grieving as well as being depressed, which was the case with me. So writing was too hard. Sometimes I’d force myself to write a hundred or two hundred words, but the writing didn’t gel, it didn’t inspire. Yet all the time, my head was filled with ideas for stories, set in my various universes. I just didn’t have the energy to write them down.

All this was in addition a deep feeling that what I wrote was …. indifferent. I compared myself to the fantasy and other authors I liked and admired, and I felt my scribbles were inferior. The Artist’s Way warns us against our inner critic. I think mine was too severe.

So what has changed?

First, I got a job. This was as a cleaner in aged care. I would go to old people’s homes and clean them. It was a humble job, but I felt that I was making a difference. People needed me. But it was also the first job I’d found since I’d been made redundant. It gave me the confidence to trust myself again. Somebody believed in me, even if I’d stopped believing in myself.

Second, over the last few years, I’ve read a lot of fantasy authors, including some I hadn’t read before, including some which were, well, mediocre. I have realised, with my new-found confidence, that while I am still not the greatest fantasy author ever, I am, shall I say, at least average. Not miserable. Not feeble. Not indifferent. And these mediocre authors I read were published, and widely read, and made a living out of their writing.

My fears that I was derivative and unoriginal were overdone. For example, I discovered Sharon Lee’s and Steve Miller’s Liaden series, and realised that Lois McMaster Bujold’s Vorkosigan novels were influenced by the Liaden novels (or perhaps the other way round) yet remained in their own way quite original. And both these series were in turn infused by the spirit of Georgette Heyer’s Regency romances. Tanya Huff’s novels are perhaps also inspired by one or both of these series. Yet they remain original, too. I myself have been influenced and inspired by many fantasy authors, and by many novelists, such as Mary Stewart, Jane Austen, Dorothy Sayers, Mary Renault, and Robin Hobb, but that doesn’t make my writing derivative. Ideas and inspiration and creativity flow backwards and forwards between creators. What matters is: do you take the original seed of inspiration from someone else, and grow it into a tree which is unique? And I think I do. The worlds I create are the product of my imagination. My great southern empire, centred on a capital sited precariously in an extinct volcano, beset by internal and external enemies, is mine, a creation I’ve been living with inside my head for more than four decades. I first started writing snippets about what became Cappor in the 1970s, but I had no confidence in myself as a writer, and I put them aside.

Third, I realised how much I enjoy my writing. Writing takes away my depression. I’ve decided I’ll write what I like, not what other people might like. Lee and Miller said that after their first few books, their publisher said that their oeuvre wasn’t selling well, and refused to consider any new novels in the Liaden universe. So they decided to write what they enjoyed, what gave them pleasure. And got a new publisher. The rest is history. If you like what I write, good! If you don’t, oh well. I enjoyed writing it.

Although I have a rough plan in my head about what is to happen in my stories, often the characters drag me off in another direction, and the story decides to follow. In that sense, it’s almost as if I’m reading someone else’s story. I find it engrossing to see what my guys want me to do next. My characters are alive in my head to me. They are my friends, they populate my inner world. And they often surprise me. I live with them every day. When I am having a coffee, or waiting for a train, or sitting on the patio, next to the cats, thinking, my mind is busy wondering how I will extend the story, and what will happen next. I often don’t know until I start writing.

I’m writing 500 to 1000 words a day of my latest novel, AngelFire, volume three of my Tapestry of Life trilogy. And I’ve decided to post my efforts each day or every second day to my blog here. Normally I revise and rewrite extensively, and this can actually take more time than the first draft, but those loyal readers (those who are still left!) have borne with my long writer’s block for ages, and deserve to have their patience and loyalty rewarded.

I DIDN’T WANT TO TALK ABOUT THIS

thatdarnmuse

I do not want to talk about this. I have spent a lifetime trying not to think about it. I have relived nightmares for decades because of it. But now, because of events threatening us all, I know I have to speak up. Maybe what I say will motivate others to combine forces to fight against a Conspiracy of Evil.

An Evil that emanates from the pulpit, creating brainwashed, mindless soldiers of hate.

I was literally born into an Evangelical cult. My parents were already engaged in it when I came into the world, so my very first recollections was an immediate indoctrination into their lies, deceit, and hatred.

It should have all seemed normal to me, it having been my first experiences and interacting with others on my beginning journey on this planet. But by the age of eleven, something inexplicable inside me was already rebelling; sensing something “off”…

View original post 1,982 more words

Pic of the Day