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“They came at first light, when the eastern skies were still gray and before anyone on the manor had risen. Shadows lay across the land: across the hall upon the mound and the fields surrounding it, across the river and the woods and the great dyke beyond that runs from sea to sea. And it was from those shadows that they came upon Earnford, with swords and knives and axes…”
The Splintered Kingdom
James Aitcheson • Sourcebooks
416 pp. • Hardcover • $24.99
Set in England in 1070, one year on from the end of Sworn Sword, it once more features the ambitious Norman knight Tancred, who has been rewarded for his exploits with a lordship in the turbulent Welsh borderlands. But his hard-fought gains are soon placed in peril as a coalition of enemies both old and new prepares to march against King William. With English, Welsh and Viking forces gathering and war looming, Tancred is chosen to spearhead a perilous expedition. Success will bring him glory beyond his dreams; failure will mean the ruin of the reputation he has worked so hard to forge. As shield walls clash and the kingdom burns, not only his Tancred’s destiny at stake, but also that of England itself.
Like all my novels, The Splintered Kingdom can be read as a standalone adventure, so you don’t necessarily have to read Sworn Sword first in order to follow what’s going on. As always, e-book editions are available on all platforms for the more digitally inclined. Both the physical and the electronic versions also include a sneak preview of the third novel in the series, Knights of the Hawk, which is already scheduled to be published by Sourcebooks Landmark in 2015.
If you’re interested in finding more about the Welsh borderlands, where The Splintered Kingdom takes place, I’ve just published a mini-history of the region in the Tancred’s England section of my website – my historical guide to England as it was c.1066. It’s a project that I’m constantly developing and which I’m looking to expand over the coming months, with entries on some of the other places visited by Tancred in the course of his travels.
The reconstructed Viking ship, Sea Stallion, the subject of Tom Birkett’s paper at the Unlocking the Vikings conference, sails into Dublin, 14 August 2007.
(Image adapted under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic licence from an original photo by William Murphy.)
2014 is turning out to be the year of the Norsemen! As well as visiting the Vikings: Life and Legend exhibition at the British Museum and attending the Midlands Viking Symposium in the spring, last weekend I took time out from working on my latest novel-in-progress to go to the Unlocking the Vikings conference at the University of Nottingham.
In common with last year’s The Middle Ages in the Modern World at the University of St Andrews, the focus of the two-day event was as much upon the various ways in which the Viking Age has been represented in modern culture as it was upon the history itself. There were so many excellent papers and presentations – too many to mention individually – but I’ve chosen some of what, for me, were the highlights of the weekend.
The first session of the conference focussed on the Vikings in fiction, something of great interest to me since the Norsemen feature prominently both in Tancred’s saga and in the wider story of the Norman Conquest. Historian and novelist VM Whitworth (University of the Highlands and Islands) spoke about developing Viking Age characters, and the need for authors to fully immerse themselves in the thought-world of their creations. Ruarigh Dale (University of Nottingham) discussed portrayals of berserkers in current fiction, and how modern concepts compare with the original descriptions of these warriors in the Norse sagas.
The findings of the Languages, Myths and Finds project were brought together in these five beautifully produced booklets.
The conference also marked the conclusion of the Languages, Myths and Finds project, which aimed to investigate how Norse heritage and culture continue to make an impact in the twenty-first century, and the ways in which the Viking past is remembered and celebrated in Dublin, Munster, the Isle of Man, the Hebrides and Cleveland. Each of the regional teams presented their findings, which included the dramatic reveal by the Cleveland researchers of a previously unknown Viking runestone – an especially exciting discovery since, in contrast to Scandinavia, so few have been found in England.
As well as giving presentations at the conference, the teams also produced a series of booklets containing the findings of their research (pictured, above left): one for each of the five regions explored in the study. The booklets can also be downloaded in PDF form from the Languages, Myths and Finds website, where you can also find out more about the project and its aims. The video below from the University of Nottingham also gives a brief introduction.
Other highlights from the conference included a skaldic performance by Thor Ewing, featuring music on reconstructed Viking Age harp and flute, and a paper by Tom Birkett (University College Cork) on his experiences aboard the Sea Stallion – a reconstructed Viking ship based on the remains of Skuldelev 2, an eleventh-century vessel excavated at Roskilde, Denmark in 1962.
As always with these events, I came away brimming with ideas and armed with several pages of notes, furiously scribbled during the various talks and presentations. And who knows? Somewhere in all those notes might lie the inspiration for a future novel or two…
Tell your friends! Today, the brand new paperback edition of Sworn Sword will be hitting bookshelves across the United States. Featuring an updated, more vibrant cover design (similar to the UK paperback cover; see below right), it also contains a short excerpt from the sequel, The Splintered Kingdom, which is due to be published this August and of which I’ll be posting more details here in the next few months.
Sworn Sword • James Aitcheson • Sourcebooks Landmark • 400 pp.
Trade paperback • $14.99
I’m pleased to say, as well, that Sworn Sword has been picking up excellent reviews since its hardback publication last summer, including one in Publishers Weekly and another recently in the Philadelphia Inquirer. Thanks to all those of you who have kindly taken the time to email me through the Contact page or sent messages on Twitter and Facebook to say how much you’ve enjoyed the book and are looking forward to Tancred’s further adventures. He and his brothers-in-arms will ride again in the not-too-distant future!
If you already own the hardcover edition of Sworn Sword and can’t wait until August to find out where Tancred’s travels will be taking him in The Splintered Kingdom, you can find the synopsis as well as the first chapter, which is available to download for free, here.
The Normans are coming! Not content with conquering England, they now have their sights set on the USA as well…
And their campaign begins today with the Stateside release of Sworn Sword in both hardcover and eBook editions, courtesy of the hard-working people at my publisher Sourcebooks Landmark, who have done an absolutely fantastic job of making the book a reality.
Sworn Sword • James Aitcheson • Sourcebooks Landmark • 400 pp. • Hardback • $24.99
As readers in the UK already know well, Sworn Sword is the first instalment in the Conquest Series, which tells the story of the violent and treacherous years immediately following the Norman invasion of England in 1066, when rebellion gripped the kingdom and its fate hung in the balance. As will become clear, the fateful Battle of Hastings was not the end of the struggle for England; in fact, it was just the beginning.
Based on real-life events, the series follows the career of the ambitious young knight Tancred, who is hungry for battle, for glory and for vengeance after his lord is murdered by English rebels. To find out more, have a look at the cover blurb and download the first chapter from Sworn Sword to whet your appetite.
The second in the series, The Splintered Kingdom, will be published in the US in summer 2014, followed by Knights of the Hawk in summer 2015, so there are plenty of Norman Conquest-related adventures to look forward to! As always, I’ll be posting the latest information about the novels as and when I have it, so keep checking back from time to time to see what’s new.
The 12th-century tower of St Rule (St Regulus), in the grounds of St Andrews Cathedral.
While many of these and other dramatisations dress themselves in the lavish costumes, scene-dressing and CGI that are the hallmarks of the so-called “sexy historical”, the content is often much less glamorous. The main focus of the discussion revolved around the prevalence and degrees of vice, debauchery and violence (including sexual violence) depicted in these programmes, their portrayal of women, and the ways in which they make use of the commonly held belief that the Middle Ages were a period in which life was “nasty, brutish and short”.
Clearly this is a very skewed and limited vision of the period, and yet it seems to be one that the US-based cable networks such as HBO, Showtime and Starz, who commission and in large part fund these series, have hit upon as a means of drawing in viewers. A similar formula can also be found in the treatments afforded to The Tudors and The Borgias. Why is it that this recipe has recently found success, and should we be concerned that the Middle Ages are getting such a bad press?
It should be noted that this new brand of “dirty medievalism” is, by and large, the preserve of the cable channels. Indeed in the UK, the BBC’s dramatic uses of the Middle Ages have tended to be oriented more towards family entertainment, with series such as Merlin and Robin Hood offering a very different depiction of medieval life: one that is gentler and interspersed with humour. Which of the two approaches, if either, presents a better reflection of the medieval reality?
St Andrews Castle (foreground), with West Sands Beach and the North Sea beyond.
Nevertheless, I’d hope that readers of my novels come away with the sense that kinship, duty and love did matter to medieval people, just as they matter to Tancred and his allies, and that there was honour to be found in their world. While treachery, backstabbing, power games and violence abounded, it seems strange to argue that these facets were peculiar to the Middle Ages, or that they were the main distinguishing features of that period. For that reason, as entertaining as these recent TV dramatisations are, there remains for some a nagging sense that, in limiting their vision, they do the Middle Ages a disservice.
Needless to say it was a fascinating discussion – one of many over the course of the conference. Even now, more than a week after coming back, I’m still working my way through and absorbing the various notes I made. I hope to share some more of my findings from my time in St Andrews in the not too distant future!
If you missed it last week, catch up with Part One of my report from “The Middle Ages in the Modern World”.
Sworn Sword • James Aitcheson • Sourcebooks Landmark • 400 pp. • Hardback • $24.99
Based on real-life events, Sworn Sword tells the story of the great rebellions that swept England in the years after 1066, as seen through the eyes of a Norman knight named Tancred, who seeks vengeance after his lord is killed by English rebels.
Published by Sourcebooks Landmark, it’ll be available from all good bookstores and, of course, online as well, in both hardcover and eBook editions. Here’s the full synopsis:
January, 1069. Less than three years after the Battle of Hastings in 1066 and the death of the usurper, Harold Godwineson, two thousand Normans march in the depths of winter to subdue the troublesome province of Northumbria. Tancred a Dinant,a loyal and ambitious knight, is among them, hungry for battle, honor, silver, and land.
But at Durham, the Normans are ambushed in the streets by English rebels, and Tancred’s revered lord Robert de Commines is slain. Badly wounded, Tancred barely escapes with his own life. Bitterly determined to seek vengeance for his lord’s murder, the dauntless knight quickly becomes entrenched in secret dealings between a powerful Norman magnate and a shadow from the past.
As the Norman and English armies prepare to clash, Tancred uncovers a cunning plot that harks back to the day of Hastings itself. If successful, it threatens to destroy the entire conquest-and change the course of history.
This stunning debut sweeps readers into a ruthless, formidable world, where violent warriors seek honor in holy places and holy men seek glory in dark deeds. As the two opposing forces battle for conquest, the fate of England hangs in the balance.
Battles and betrayals abound, and there’s also a touch of romance, too – something, I hope, for everyone. And if that’s whetted your appetite, here’s the first chapter to give a further taste of what’s in store.
