Category: Book Excerpt

That autumn, when the weather finally broke toward winter, Blaise and I returned to my long-abandoned lessons. I studied with greater intensity now because I had the hunger, and because I so wanted to make up for lost time—committing the stories and songs of our people to memory; sharpening my powers of observation; increasing my store of knowledge about the Earth and her ways, and those of all her creatures; practicing the harp; delving deep into mysteries and secrets of earth and air, fire and water.

But it soon became apparent that in the realm of things men call magic, my knowledge outstripped his. Gern-y-fhain had taught me well; what is more, the Hill People possessed many secrets even the Learned Brotherhood did not know. These I possessed as well.

The winter proceeded, one cold leaden day following another, until at last the sun began to linger longer in the sky and the land to warm beneath its rays. It was then that I reached the end of Blaise’s tutelage. “There is nothing more I can give you, Hawk,” he told me. “On my life, I cannot think of another thing to teach. Yet, there are many you might teach me.”

I stared at him for a moment. “But there is so much—I know so little.”

“True,” he said, his lean face lighting in a grin. “Is that not the beginning of true wisdom?”

“I am in earnest, Blaise. There must be more.”

“And I am in earnest too, Myrddin Bach. There is nothing more that I can teach you. Oh, a few of the minor stories of our race perhaps; but nothing of import.”

“I cannot have learned it all,” I protested.

“True again. There is much more to be learned, but I am not the one to teach you. Whatever else there is, you must learn it on your own.” He shook his head lightly. “Do not look so downcast, Hawk. It is no disgrace for pupil to leave master behind. It happens….”

— Merlin, Chapter 14

News of [Prince] Elphin’s astounding prowess in the battle with the cattle raiders spread quickly throughout the six cantrefs. His kinsmen greeted him respectfully when they saw him and told one another once and again about the uncanny change in the king’s son.

He was bold, they said, and brave; the soul of an ancient hero—perhaps the very one whose torc he now wore—animated him. The lumbering Cuall, formerly one of Elphin’s harshest detractors, became overnight his greatest advocate.

Elphin enjoyed the praise and his increased status in the clan but did not make too much of it, preferring to minimize his role in the remarkable series of events that seemed to be clustering around him since his discovery of the babe in the weir. And Hafgan [the druid], whose prophecy had foreseen the change, appeared to view the young man in a different light. Clan members saw the two talking together frequently….

With no shortage of eager volunteers, work [on Elphin’s house] was progressing quickly: timbers were cut, shaped, and erected around the perimeter of the excavated hole and connected with beams and rafters; walls of split logs had been lashed into place and the chinks were being filled with clay; soon reed thatch would be laid and trimmed for the roof….

…Then there came the sound of hammering. Elphin looked back toward his house where Cuall, having prepared the heads of the two raiders slain by Elphin’s spear by dipping them in cedar oil, was now nailing them to the doorposts of his nearly-finished house. “This is a warrior’s house,” he said, stepping back to admire his handiwork. “Now everyone will know it.”

“A warrior’s house,” muttered Elphin, shaking his head. “It was luck, not a warrior’s skill that felled those two.”

“Do not mock the faith of simple men,” replied Hafgan. “Luck in battle is a thing of power, for whatever men believe they will follow.” He paused and pointed at Cuall. “I spoke of the future. There is yours.”

“Cuall?”

“And men like him. A battlechief must have a warband.”

“A warband! Hafgan, we have not maintained a warband since before my grandfather was a boy. With the garrison at Caer Seiont there has been no need.”

“Times change, Elphin. Needs change….”

The druid turned and walked away. Elphin watched him go, and then went back to inspect his house. Cuall was lingering nearby, and Elphin realized with some surprise that the man waited for a look or sign of recognition from him. He stopped and studied the heads nailed to his doorposts and then directed his gaze to Cuall.

“I am honored by your thoughtfulness,” he said and watched a huge grin break like sunrise across Cuall’s crag of a face.

“A man should have renown among his people.”

“You have earned the hero’s portion often enough yourself, Cuall. And I have heard your name lauded around the feast table more times than I can count.”

Elphin was amazed at the impact of his words. The hulking Cuall grinned foolishly, and his cheeks colored like a maid’s when her clumsy flirtation is discovered.

“I would fight at your side anytime,” said Cuall earnestly.

“I am going to raise a warband, Cuall. I will need your help.”

“My life is yours, Sire.” Cuall touched his forehead with the back of his hand.

“I accept your service,” Elphin replied seriously. The two men gazed at one another and Cuall stepped close, taking Elphin in a fierce hug. Then, suddenly embarrassed, he turned and hurried away.

“You will make a good king.”

Elphin turned to see [his recently-wed wife] Rhonwyn watching him from the doorway. “You saw?”

She nodded. “I saw a future lord winning support. More, I saw a man putting aside the hurt of the past and reconciling a former enemy, raising him to friendship without rancor or guile.”

“It is not in me to hurt him. Besides, he is the best warrior in the clan. I will need his help.”

“And that is why you will be a good king. Small men do not hesitate to repay hurt for hurt….”

— Taliesin, Chapter 13

Magic comes in a great range of forms of participation, which it is helpful to break down further. Three forms of participation can be distinguished: transcendence, transformation and transactions. Transcendent relations exist where the universe is influencing people but is beyond their ability to affect it. A classic example of transcendence is astrology, where astral bodies shape human lives, but people do not influence the movement of the stars or planets. The Medieval and Early Modern European maxim concerning astrology was ‘as above, so below’, a clear one-way set of influences. People can understand, navigate and respond appropriately to transcendent effects, but there is nothing they can do to change them.

Transformation is an aspect of participation: for example, alchemical practices might turn lead into gold, or unremarkable chemicals into an elixir of eternal youth. Magic often also surrounds and informs strong transformations: such is the case with metalworking, where, in many African instances, the smith prepares himself by magical means for his work…. People also transform themselves. Shamans on the Eurasian Steppe can inhabit another creature, such as a reindeer or bear, or become a spirit to enter the spirit world. The process of initiation as a shaman often involves the person being taken apart and put back together in a new form, with novel powers. For Australian Aboriginal people the landscape was transformed during the Dreamtime by the actions of ancestral spirits, such as the Rainbow Serpent, to give the land a set of powers and dangers that people need to attend to through ceremonies.

Here transformations blend into transactions. In many forms of magic people make bargains with the universe in its many forms. In China the ancestors were given feasts and offerings to ensure their good will towards their living descendants and could be contacted through divination. Divination was common in many other instances, such as in Ancient Greece, when the gods responded to questions put to them at oracles. In some cultures, especially monotheisms, a host of lesser beings, such as demons, angels or saints, received forms of supplication or more aggressive attacks to influence their behaviour in favour of humans. Across prehistoric Europe we will see how carefully placed deposits of important objects and bodies were made to the spirits of the place and the social group over many thousands of years in continuing cosmic bargaining.

Transcendence, transformation and transactions were often all found together in mutual interaction. In Medieval Europe, for example, people believed in astrology, with the influence of the planets paramount, experimented with alchemy in the hope of getting rich and gave offerings to saints to gain their favour. But when transcendent relations were predominant, people could feel alienated and fearful of the universe, lacking control over it. More mutual relations existed through transformation and transaction, in which a moral relationship was often important, motivating people to act with due respect and care.

— Magic: A History, pp. 9-10

…While local peasantry, paid or pillaged, usually furnished food and horses’ forage, a major expedition or siege or fleet at sea required organized supply of biscuit, smoked or salted meat and fish, wine, oil, and oats and hay for the horses. Ordinarily knights ate white bread made from wheat, meat in the form of beef, pork, and mutton, and drank wine daily. The common soldier received wine only on feast days or in active combat; otherwise he drank beer, ale, or cider, and ate rye bread, peas, and beans. Fish, cheese, olive oil, occasionally butter, salt, vinegar, onions, and garlic also figured in the rations. Poultry was so widely consumed and easily obtained that it was not recorded. Sugar, honey, mustard, spices, and almonds were kept for the wounded and sick and the privileged. On active duty, soldiers did not fast but were allotted fish as substitute for meat on the twelve “thin” days a month. The more continuous war became, as it did in the 14th century [C.E.], the more organization and money it required.

— A Distant Mirror, Chapter 6

But whatever his antecedents, the feudal knight was an important cog in the military machinery of the eleventh and twelfth centuries [C.E.]; and although Sidney Painter may have been guilty of some exaggeration in his summary of the achievements of European military feudalism, his opinion is worth quoting:

Feudal military organization was on the whole highly effective. The knights of Europe conquered vast territories from the Slavs, pressed the Moslems steadily back in Spain and drove them from Sicily, and established themselves at least temporarily in Palestine, Syria, the Byzantine lands, and Greece. As a defensive system feudalism was almost perfect. No organization ever devised could so quickly produce an effective military force wherever it was needed. The feudal army was essentially a militia, but a militia composed of the best soldiers of the day.

Perhaps so strong an assertion was needed to put the accomplishments of the feudal knight in proper perspective.

— Warfare in England: 1066-1189, Chapter 10

Thereupon Elrond paused a while and sighed. “I remember well the splendour of their banners,” he said. “It recalled to me the glory of the Elder Days and the hosts of Beleriand, so many great princes and captains were assembled. And yet not so many, nor so fair, as when Thangorodrim was broken, and the Elves deemed that evil was ended for ever, and it was not so.”

“You remember?” said Frodo, speaking his thought aloud in his astonishment. “But I thought,” he stammered as Elrond turned towards him, “I thought that the fall of Gil-galad was a long age ago.”

“So it was indeed,” answered Elrond gravely. “But my memory reaches back even to the Elder Days. Eärendil was my sire, who was born in Gondolin before its fall; and my mother was Elwing, daughter of Dior, son of Lúthien of Doriath. I have seen three ages in the West of the world, and many defeats, and many fruitless victories.”

— The Lord of the Rings, Book Two, Chapter 2

Imagine a Highland Napoleon. Imagine a Bonny Prince Charlie with European ambitions who, having won back Scotland from King George II, sets off at the head of his clans not just to conquer England—a mere preliminary—but to cross the Channel, to meet and beat the French army on the River Somme, then journey south into Spain to besiege and subdue its principal fortresses, return north to challenge the Holy Roman Emperor, twice confront and defeat him at the head of his forces, seize his Crown, burn his capital, bury his corpse and finally depart eastward to cross swords with the Tsar of Russia or the Sultan of Turkey. Imagine all this compressed into, say, the years 1745-56 [C.E.], between the princeling’s twenty-second and thirty-third birthdays. Imagine on his death, at the age of thirty-two, the crowns of Europe shared between his followers—Lord George Murray ruling in Madrid, the Duke of Perth in Paris, Lord Elcho in Vienna, John Roy Stewart in Berlin, Cameron of Lochiel in Warsaw, a gaggle of tartaned chieftains braying for whisky in the small courts of south Germany and London garrisoned by a crew of bare-kneed highlanders. Finally, imagine most of the Jacobite empire enduring into the nineteenth century, parts of it into the twentieth, and its last fragment into the twenty-first.

Or imagine, if you prefer, a George Washington Bolivar, a Founding Father who determines also to be the Liberator of Latin America; who, having endured the long winter of Valley Forge and the setbacks of the middle years of the War of Independence, to exult at last in the capitulation of Yorktown, conceives the ambition of ridding all the Americas of foreign governments. Imagine him embarking the Continental Army in the ships of the new-born United States Navy to voyage south, clear Mexico of Spanish troops, garrison the West Indies with Virginians or New Englanders and make a landing on the shores of South America. Then, victorious in Peru, he crosses the Andes, defeats the Spanish army of the east, and expires on the approaches to the empire of Brazil.

Thus is it just possible to grasp how extraordinary was the career of Alexander the Great. The distances and obstacles of either enterprise defeat the imagination—and they have, indeed, no parallel in any reality except that of Alexander’s own life. The world has, of course, known conquerors of extraordinary ambition in its time: Attila the Hun whose horsemen rode from Central Asia to the gates of Rome in the fifth century; the Arab successors of Mahomet turned back into Spain by defeat on the banks of the Loire in the eighth century; and the sons of Genghis Khan, whose Mongols menaced Venice and Vienna in the thirteenth. Napoleon, a devotee of the Alexander epic, came close to re-enacting it in the years between Rivoli, 1797, and Moscow, 1812, as again did Hitler, in whom some gobbet of classical learning also nourished an admiration for Alexander. His orgy of victory was, of course, even more telescoped in time than Napoleon’s, who in turn gave battle oftener than Alexander ever did. Yet the achievements of none of these earthshakers quite match those of the original. Napoleon and Hitler scarcely ventured beyond their own continent. Attila, the Arabs and the Mongols broke the boundaries of Asia but only scratched the heartland of Europe. Alexander, by contrast, first made himself master of the Greek world, then translated himself to another, the Persian Empire, and finally ventured into a third in India. At his death in June 323 BC, he had subdued the largest tract of the earth’s surface ever to be conquered by a single individual—Genghis Khan’s short-lived empire excepted—and ruled as overlord, emperor or king from Mount Olympus to the [Himalayas]….

— Mask of Command, Chapter 1

Emphases mine.

Apart from the changes that took place in the method of ignition, the evolution of portable firearms may also be understood from another point of view. Given a certain level of development, the power of any technological device is a function of its weight and size. In the case of the arms in question, too, what mattered was finding an acceptable balance between weight and size, a balance which determined tactics, and was in turn determined by them. Early firearms were very small but, in order to add power, increased steadily in size. This development meant that, whereas the sixteenth-century arquebus could still be couched in a soldier’s arms while it was fired, the early seventeenth-century musket no longer could. The weapon, weighing 12 to 14 pounds, had to be supported by a forked rest. This impeded mobility and made muskets difficult to use on the offense—an unwelcome development. The bayonet, invented around 1660, would have been useless unless the musket was lightened to the point that the rest could be discarded and the weapon swung in the arms of an average soldier. This was duly done, even at the cost of some loss of power. Not everybody liked the change, and the Marechal de Saxe during the middle of the eighteenth century was calling for the introduction of an amusette, an even heavier musket which would have to be pivoted on a wall or attached to a cart. Thus the different qualities demanded of the weapon clashed and interacted, pushing development along.

— Technology and War, Chapter 6

Emphasis mine.

[Set sometime in the near future.]

Next morning, after the King’s staff assembled for their daily meeting, James announced his intention to host a slap-up Hogmanay celebration. “I want it to be a New Year’s Eve bash to end all bashes—sit-down dinner and entertainment laid on. Spare no expense. I’ve drawn up a guest list.” He slid sheets of paper across the table to Shona and Cal. “I want everyone on the list to get an invitation.”

“Mind if we invite a wee friend or two as well?” asked Cal.

“Got someone special in mind?”

“If you remember,” replied Cal, “I invited Izzy and her family up to the estate to go riding.” At James’ blank look, he said, “Isobel Rothes, remember?”

“Isobel, sure. Why not? Let’s cast the net wide,” said James. “The more the merrier.”

“Would I be right in thinking you had an ulterior motive for hosting this party?” asked Embries. He held his head to one side, regarding James shrewdly.

“All will be revealed on the night,” James told him. Eager to end the scrutiny, he rose abruptly. “Right! Everyone get busy. We’ve got a party to plan.”

James, like many Scots, considered Hogmanay the great event of the calendar, and the only fitting and proper way to usher in the New Year. Throwing open Castle Morven for a royal gala celebration—the first since Scotland reclaimed the throne—would, he thought, provide the perfect opportunity for the future royal couple to announce their engagement.

Cal and Gavin undertook the cleaning and furnishing of the great hall; Shona spent hours closeted with Priddy in the cook’s pantry, poring over the old Duke’s favorite recipes and drawing up a menu. Rhys, along with Mr. Baxter and anyone else who happened along, was press-ganged onto foraging and decorating crews.

A truck was driven up into the forest, and a load of fresh greenery cut and brought back to deck the hall. The Duke’s fine bone china—which hadn’t seen the light of day for thirty years at least—was uncrated, washed, and sorted into place settings; likewise the silver and crystal. Assorted salvers, bowls, tureens, and decanters were removed from display cases, polished, and brought back into service. Some of the pieces, so old and eccentric their uses could only be guessed at, provided a few good laughs and were swiftly snatched up for decorative purposes.

As the short winter days moved swiftly on, arrangements steamed ahead; everyone became caught up in the fizzing spirit of the occasion, and a harried conviviality set in. The night before the party, James went to bed exhausted, and with a mountain of chores left to do, but feeling that if this was to be the last royal Hogmanay ever to be celebrated, at least it would be one to remember.

On December 31, Jenny and her cousins, Roslyn and Cara, arrived in the morning to help with the final preparations. The Rotheses appeared just after lunch; Caroline and Isobel came bearing gifts, and Donald a briefcase full of unfinished business. “An MP’s work is never done,” he explained. “But I promised the ladies I would not keep my nose buried the whole time we’re here.”

Introductions were made all around, and Jenny, Caroline, and Isobel settled down to making one another’s acquaintance….

“We’ve got all night ahead of us.”

“Speaking of which…” Cal said, glancing at his watch. “You’ll have to excuse me—I’ve a few last-minute chores.” He grinned suddenly and confided, “Actually, I was thinking of maybe getting Isobel to help me raid the Duke’s cellar. How about it, Your Highness? Fancy a posh tipple for tonight’s revel?”

“I expect nothing less,” James replied with regal aplomb. “Those bottles have been gathering dust long enough. Bring ’em out, I say. High time they did some good for King and Country….”

Talk turned to other things then; tea arrived, the afternoon fled, and before long it was time to get dressed for the party. Jenny, aided by her cousins, arrayed herself in a long, low-cut, blue satin gown with long blue gloves; with a length of Ferguson tartan over one shoulder, and her long dark hair tied in a blue velvet bow, she looked every inch a Celtic queen. James dressed in his best kilt and jacket—complete with the Duke’s old belt with an enormous silver buckle, and his father’s sgian dubh tucked into the top of one wool sock.

As the clock struck seven, James took his place in the castle foyer to greet his guests. Besides Jenny’s immediate family and relations, numerous local friends had been invited: drinking buddy Douglas; the Reverend and Mrs. Orr and their daughter Janet; Malcolm Hobbs, James’ longsuffering solicitor, and his wife and children; Calum’s parents; Shona’s boyfriend; Gavin’s girlfriend; along with the rest of the castle staff and their families. It must have amounted to nearly half the town and surrounding countryside. They all came dressed in their finest: the men in kilts, for the most part; the women in ball gowns, many with gloves, and most with traditional tartan shawls secured at their shoulders with jeweled brooches.

James stood for over an hour greeting them all, and watching the foyer and corridors fill up. He had given instructions that the great hall was to be locked and no one allowed in until the dinner bell had been rung. The delay served to heighten the anticipation; unable to help themselves, the children took turns trying the door handles every few minutes to make sure the doors were still locked.

When the last guest had arrived, James signaled Rhys to sound the bell, whereupon the King announced that it was his very great pleasure to extend the hospitality of Castle Morven to all his friends. “Embries,” he called across the crowd, “open the doors and let the festivities begin!”

 

The two huge doors were opened to reveal a room fragrant with the scent of peat and pine, and glowing with candlelight and hearth fire.

Artificial light had been banished. Massive iron candletrees—rousted out of the stables and reblacked—were stationed in every corner, each bearing a score of candles; there were candles all along the center line of the tables and also in the high, deep window wells all around; huge cathedral candles and slender tapers. A log and peat fire burned lustily in the enormous fireplace, taking the chill off the vast, high-roofed room.

The old oaken floor had been washed and waxed, and the two long medieval banqueting tables as well; every surface gleamed with a dull, ruddy luster. Every knife, fork, and spoon, every salt-cellar and sugar caster had been polished; every plate, goblet, cruet, and bowl gleamed in the soft lustrous light. Ivy trailed in long garlands from the stag heads and ancestral portraits on the walls. Boughs of spruce were piled heavily over the mantel. A low stage had been set up at the far end of the room, and this was all but covered in ivy and spruce.

To step across the threshold was to step back in time. Simple, elegant, and inviting, the hall looked very much as it would have looked during the High Middle Ages.

The old Duke’s armor-wearing ancestors, my ancestors, would have seen the hall just this way, James thought.

A trivial thing, perhaps—the modest festive decoration of an old room—yet James did feel that in some way he was connected with his ancestry and lineage; he felt rooted. No longer a usurper playing laird o’ the manor, he was the laird. He was the King and, for the first time since assuming the throne, he actually felt regal.

This realization produced in him a peculiarly intense longing; the fiosachd tingled, and he glimpsed, like the ghosts of Christmas past, the images of all those lords who had preceded him. They filled the hall, welcoming him with satisfaction and approval, raising their bowls to drink his health. The phantom image faded as quickly as it had arisen, but the effect lingered long, lending the festivities a mellow, golden glow. Calum and Isobel had masterfully plundered the old Duke’s wine cellar, and the resulting treasures were lined up like soldiers the length of the two great tables; reinforcements stood at the ready on improvised sideboards around the room. There were other choices as well, from heather ale to sparkling apple juice, and as they entered each guest was offered a glass of whatever they fancied. Cal and Izzy drafted Gavin and his girlfriend, Emma, to help with the drinks, and all four worked the crowd with bottles in both hands, priming the celebration pump.

Children flitted around the room like fairies. Dazzled by the candlelight and medieval ambience, they darted among the tall folk, their eyes wide with delight. The girls in their satin and tartan dresses and velvet hair bows and the boys in their diminutive kilts and high socks looked like miniature, less-restrained versions of their elders, racing from one end of the hall to the other, hooting and giggling.

When everyone was assembled, the bell sounded again and the guests were invited to find their places at the table. Shona and Cal had worked hard on the seating arrangement, and their ingenuity took some capricious turns. Embries, for example, was paired with Malcolm Hobbs’ nine-year-old daughter, and Mr. Baxter was placed between Caroline Rothes and Gavin’s girlfriend. James could not help notice that although he had not been allowed to sit with Jenny, Shona had managed to save a place for herself next to Rhys, and Cal was pleased to find himself next to Isobel.

No sooner had the last guest taken his seat than the first course appeared: Priddy’s champion oak-grilled salmon with peppercorns and cream. A smallish sample only, James was resisting the temptation to lick the plate when someone at the end of the table set his crystal goblet ringing with a spoon.

The guests looked up to see Sergeant-Major Evans-Jones standing at his place. “There is an old custom in the valleys where I was born,” he announced, “that on gala occasions such as this, the chaps help out with the serving so the dear ladies are not left with all the chores.” He paused, and added with a wink, “It’s a long, long night, after all.”

Looking up and down the room, he called, “Are ye wi’ me, lads? Say aye!”

There came a chorused Aye!, and, the Sergeant-Major cried in his best parade-ground bellow, “On yer feet, men! Let’s show ’em how it’s done!”

The menfolk rose and began clearing the first course plates and carrying them to the kitchen, where a very surprised Priddy protested that she didn’t want a lot of clumsy men tromping through her kitchen—but Owen wouldn’t hear of it. In no time, the two of them had the next course dished up and served: haunch of venison, roasted with fennel and herbs.

Among the castle’s tableware, Priddy had found a half dozen silver platters large enough to hold an entire haunch, and these were carried out, with great ceremony, three to each table. Bowls of steaming vegetables followed: potatoes roasted in dripping, braised carrots and parsnips with coriander, and apples baked with cloves, brown sugar, and rum—all filling the hall with a magnificent aroma.

Six stout and trustworthy men were given the task of carving the haunches. The bowls were taken place to place, and plates were filled. The next hour was presided over by the clink of cutlery and the happy murmuring hubbub of conversation punctuated by bursts of laughter and much passing of bottles. Could the Duke of Morven’s worthy claret ever have been put to such a noble purpose, James wondered, or enjoyed half so much?

Cal and Izzy had plucked the best vintages from the cellar, and made sure the glasses were generously and regularly supplied. Once during the meal, Isobel appeared at James’ side with a bottle in her hand. “This,” she promised reverently, “is going to be magic.”

Gathering the attention of all the nearby guests, she proceeded to uncork the bottle. “Now, you’ll have to drink this right away,” she said, pouring a small amount into each glass. “It won’t last long, but it will be amazing.”

As soon as she finished pouring, she raised her glass. “Slainte!” She tossed it back in a single gulp, rolled the wine around in her mouth, and swallowed. “Oh, that is good.” Her smile was dizzy with rapture.

All followed her example, and drank it down.

“Well? What do you think?” she asked.

“It is”—James searched for the right word, the flavor still alive on his tongue—”utterly divine.” Others volunteered other words: rhapsodic, ethereal, bottled light, glorious, sublime.

“What is it?” someone demanded.

Lifting the bottle, she presented the label. “It’s a Château Lafite-Rothschild”—she paused, drawing out the suspense—”of the year 1878.” There were gasps of astonishment all around. “When I found this, I knew we had to have it tonight. Isn’t it spectacular?”

There was half a swallow left in James’ glass, and he took it. But the flavor enjoyed only seconds ago was gone. It was as if the liquid in his glass had turned to ashes—flat, muddy, dank ashes. He swallowed with difficulty. “Extraordinary,” he remarked. “It’s gone. Vanished.”

“I know.” Izzy sighed in commiseration. “Wine that old only survives a few seconds once the air touches it. But isn’t it a miracle while it lasts?”

Isobel moved on to delight some more guests. The glow of that rare magic remained, however, and those who had tasted it were warmed to their very souls. James exulted in die revelry. Everyone was happy and talking, life’s cares and burdens forgotten for a while. This was, he reflected, how a holiday was supposed to be celebrated but rarely was: friends and loved ones gathered around die table for a little foretaste of heaven….

— Avalon: the Return of King Arthur, Chapters 32-33

The furniture of the thirteenth century [C.E.] was limited to beds in their various forms, and with their accompanying bedding, tables, still normally made of boards placed on trestles, and chairs, or more frequently benches. There were also chests of several sizes, many of which were large enough to be considered as furniture. The chest was usually very sturdily made, bound with iron and closed with lock and key. It was in constant use as a safe depository for any articles of value. Small caskets for jewels were often decorated with ivory or enamel and were very elegant.

— A Baronial Household of the Thirteenth Century, p. 34

“Your fief is increased from five hundred koku to three thousand. You will have control within twenty ri.” A ri was a measure of distance that approximated one mile. “As a further token of my affection, when I return to Yedo I will send you two horses, twenty silk kimonos, one suit of armor, two swords, and enough arms to equip a further hundred samurai which you will recruit. When war comes you will immediately join my personal staff as a hatamoto.” Yabu was feeling expansive: a hatamoto was a special personal retainer of a daimyo who had the right of access to his lord and could wear swords in the presence of his lord….

— Shōgun, Chapter 6

Emphasis mine.

Men-at-arms got a good deal of protein from cheese and a much wider variety of fish and meats than is common today (including, for example, crows and smaller wildfowl, cranes, larks, boars’ heads, eels and lampreys, squirrel, goat, mutton, rabbit, venison, and swans and peacocks for great feasts); this made them taller and stronger than the common folk, especially in Mediterranean regions, where the peasants had less dairy in their diets. Men-at-arms commonly drank wine, while lesser folk more often consumed ale or cider, which were much cheaper. In the household of the sober Sire Jean de Joinville (1225-1317), Seneschal of Champagne and boon companion of St. Louis ([King] Louis IX of France), young valets were given wine heavily diluted with water, squires got a stronger mixture, and knights had separate flagons of wine and water, to blend as they wished….

— Soldiers’ Lives Through History, p. 10

Going to war with [medieval knights] was a costly affair, in many cases bringing belligerent princes to bankruptcy. A knight would rarely embark for battle without the six horses which he was permitted, or his page apprentice to help him on with his armour. Providing enough food, shelter and material for a large number of these knights and their attendant foot soldiers was…a far more complex and sophisticated job of administration than is generally imagined. The logistics were considerable, involving smiths, armourers, painters, tent-makers, fletchers (arrow-makers), cordeners (leather-workers), bowyers, turners, carpenters, masons, wheelwrights, saddlers, purveyors (of food), quartermasters and farriers. There were also surgeons, chaplains, legal and clerical staff, trumpeters and pipers, and, most important, cooks.

— Connections, p. 57

While not exclusively, the bulk of this logistical challenge is people. Squires, retainers, and hirelings, oh my!

Swords were thought to have miraculous powers and lives of their own. Soldiers defeated in battle prayed at the shrines of the war-god Hachiman, asking why their swords had lost their spirit. Many stories have come down about the spiritual powers of notable blades. One of these tells about two famous swordsmiths, named Muramasa and Masamune, who were almost equal in skill. When a sword made by Muramasa was held upright in a running stream, every dead leaf that drifted against the edge was cut neatly in two. This was a good performance, but not the best. When a Masamune sword was put to the same test, the floating leaves avoided its edge and passed unhurt on either side; Masamune’s blade therefore possessed spiritual power over the leaves and was superior to its rival.

— Early Japan, pp. 77-78

…Before the Tokugawa period [in Japan], when the feudal [daimyo] depended upon the martial skills of their retainers, inspired leaders understood the fundamental importance of foot soldiers in the winning of battles, and warriors of the lower ranks, such as the nakakosho, the tomokosho, and the kachi (that is, the huge mass of foot soldiers (ashigaru)), were properly trained and even encouraged to develop their abilities to the point where the might even attain a position of supreme command as had Oda Nobunaga, Hideyoshi, and others equally famous. The age of heroes defeating armies singlehandedly had always been more myth than reality—history proving with depressing regularity that battles were usually worn by using masses of troops in the most advantageous manner.

Even great warriors, vastly skilled in the arts of archery and spearmanship, were, upon occasion, cut to pieces by veteran spearmen of hirazamurai rank or by their attendants (chugen) led by leaders of kogashira rank. Each group of spearmen composed of warriors of these ranks was a formidable unit of combat that could be neutralized, not by a lonely knight charging blindly and vaingloriously into their midst, but only by similar body of trained archers or spearmen. Once the compact unity of the group had been shattered, the warriors of higher rank and their sword-wielding officers could finally engage in individual, close-range swordplay. And there is evidence to indicate that even then many of these officers and leaders fell beneath the skilled spear-thrust of an obscure veteran of the lower ranks.

— Secrets of the Samurai, pp. 108-9

Toda Hiro-matsu, overlord of the provinces of Sagami and Kozuké, Toranaga’s most trusted general and adviser, commander-in-chief of all his armies, strode down the gangplank onto the wharf alone. He was tall for a Japanese, just under six feet, a bull-like man with heavy jowls, who carried his sixty-seven years with strength. His military kimono was brown silk, stark but for the five small Toranaga crests—three interlocked bamboo sprays. He wore a burnished breastplate and steel arm protectors. Only the short sword was in his belt. The other, the killing sword, he carried loose in his hand. He was ready to unsheathe it instantly and to kill instantly to protect his liege lord. This had been his custom ever since he was fifteen.

No one, not even the Taikō, had been able to change him.

A year ago, when the Taikō died, Hiro-matsu had become Toranaga’s vassal. Toranaga had given him Sagami and Kozuké, two of his eight provinces, to overlord, five hundred thousand koku yearly, and had also left him to his custom. Hiro-matsu was very good at killing.

— Shōgun, Chapter 7

This character was my inspiration for Grimblade.

More than two decades passed between the meeting of Sulla and Orobazus [in 96 B.C.E.] and the next diplomatic contact between Rome and Parthia. Ancient states did not maintain permanent embassies in each other’s capitals or feel the need to be in constant touch, and instead sent ambassadors only when there was something that they wished to say. Preoccupied with bitter internal strife and with enemies and friends closer to their territory, neither the Romans nor Parthians chose to seek out the other.

— Rome and Persia, pp. 63

The conduct of a siege [in the Renaissance period] was a hugely expensive undertaking in terms of supplies, consuming tons of food, gunpowder and shot. When an army was engaged upon a siege it was unable to threaten anywhere else, and also became vulnerable to outside attack. This situation is exemplified forever by the comical situation at the Siege of Turin in 1640 [C.E.]. The French in the citadel were besieged by the Spanish in the city who were in turn besieged by a French army outside the city walls who were also besieged by a Spanish army in siege lines!

— The Art of Renaissance Warfare, Chapter 8

The optimum combination of pike and shot, both as a numerical ratio and as a form of deployment, remained hotly debated in military treatises. Setting aside the numerous theoretical models, essentially only two formations were used in the field. Those adopting the Dutch-style counter-march needed thinner lines and more shot than pike, deploying a ratio of two to one in a ten-rank line by the 1590s [C.E.], with the pikemen in the centre, flanked by equal numbers of musketeers. The Spanish and imperial infantry favoured the larger, deeper formations that had been the norm earlier in the sixteenth century. Their pike were grouped as a central block with always twice the number of men in each line as there were ranks deep, because each man needed twice the amount of space in depth as in width to wield his weapon. The effect was to produce a square block that would be flanked by ‘sleeves’ of musketeers. An additional three to five ranks of light arquebusiers generally lined the entire front to maximize firepower. If caught by a cavalry attack, the musketeers could shelter under the pikes that would stretch over their heads. When attacking enemy foot, the arquebusiers would retire round the flanks once they had fired, leaving the pike free to charge. Spanish and imperial commanders sometimes grouped additional blocks of musketeers on the four corners, which can be seen in many battle engravings from the early seventeenth century. This was simply a formation for deploying and advancing, and the additional shot would fan out towards the enemy to fire, falling back to a less exposed side of the square if the formation came under attack.

The large square formation has become known as the tercio after the term used by the Spanish for their infantry regiments, while the thinner, longer Dutch formation is called a battalion. It has become a historical convention to see the latter as inherently superior to the former, not least because of its association with firearms that have appeared to later generations as obviously more advanced than pikes, weapons first used by the ancient Greeks. This distinction is not accurate, nor does it correspond to sixteenth-century military thinking that drew directly on the ancient world for its inspiration. The deeper block formations offered better all-round fighting ability than the thinner Dutch lines, where each unit relied on its neighbours standing firm or its vulnerable flanks would be exposed if the enemy broke through. Though only the first five ranks of the tercio could fire at any one time, the presence of another ten or more behind stiffened the resolve of those in front, or at least made it harder for them to run away. The unit assumed a more imposing presence on the battlefield; something that was a considerable advantage as it bore down on a wavering foe. In an age of black powder, the battlefield soon filled with smoke, making it extremely difficult for commanders to see what was happening. It was easier to lose control of long thin lines, composed of smaller, but more numerous battalions, than a deployment of fewer, larger tercios. These could be positioned en échelon, or diagonally staggered in chequerboard fashion about 200 metres apart. If one became detached or separated, it was generally large enough to fight on alone until rescued.

There was a trend towards increasing the ratio of shot to pike and to stretch formations into thinner lines that became pronounced in the 1630s, as we shall see later. It was partly related to minor technological advances producing the lighter muskets, and possibly also to pressure from soldiers themselves. Recruits generally preferred becoming musketeers rather than pikemen, who often had to stand under fire without personally being able to retaliate. Pikemen had originally received higher pay and were still seen by officers as more honourable than musketeers. Men who rose from the ranks did so ‘from the pike up’ (von der Pike auf), and not from the musket. Pikemen killed using cold steel, like the traditional knight’s lance, whereas musketeers relied on the devilish invention of gunpowder producing thick clouds of acrid smoke, striking their foes from a distance, rather than looking them in the eye. Pikemen also accused their more lightly equipped colleagues of being more prone to plunder, whereas they could not enter houses with their long weapons—something that clearly had a ring of jealousy to it. Certainly, pikemen were more likely to throw away their weapons if their formation broke, thus becoming defenceless, whereas musketeers could flee still fully armed.

The trend towards more shot around 1590 was also due to the deployment of musketeers in smaller, looser formations to open a battle or to delay an enemy while the rest of the army assembled. Parties of 50 or more musketeers would be pushed out in front of the main line, covered by groups of 250 pikemen as a reserve and rallying point. Such methods anticipated those of 200 years later, but generally disappeared around 1630 with the growing emphasis on massed, disciplined firing by ranks developed by the Dutch and copied by the Swedes. Given the inaccuracy of individual shots, commanders emphasized the volume of fire, and later also its rapidity, culminating in the disciplined firing by platoons adopted around 1700.

— The Thirty Years War, pp. 89-91

The bulk of Japan’s people in the early feudal age were peasants, as in any simple agrarian society. Most of them were serfs bound to the land they cultivated and forced to surrender a large part of their crop to a landlord, usually a nobleman or a monastery. To these masses who tilled the soil, the comparative stability imposed by the early feudal rulers brought little change, but it had far-reaching consequences for the merchants and skilled artisans, whose numbers increased in Kamakura times. The coming and going between the imperial capital, Kyoto, and the shogun’s headquarters at Kamakura, some 300 miles apart, stimulated travel and thereby opened new market areas to the merchant class. This led to the growth of commercial towns, which formed in much the same way as trading centers in medieval Europe. Settlements of merchants gathered at road junctions, at the gates of important monasteries, near the strongholds of noblemen who offered good protection and at natural harbors along the seacoast. The merchants attracted artisans and encouraged them to produce goods that could be sold, sent to other districts or shipped abroad….

— Early Japan, p. 75