Sultana: Two Sisters by Lisa J Yarde

Prior to writing Sultana: Two Sisters, I had not envisioned a six-part series on the Nasrid Dynasty. Two years ago, after a long fascination with the matriarch of the last Muslim dynasty to rule in Spain, I released Sultana and Sultana’s Legacy. Lingering interest became an obsession that would not go away, even after other novels took me in different directions. Some readers kept asking if there would be another book on Moorish Spain, but I adopted a wait-and-see approach. Once the first books did well, including a foreign rights deal, I felt confident enough to pursue the tale of the next generation of Nasrids.

Spain has always been an amalgamation of various cultures and religions. After thousands of years under the Celts, Romans and Visigoths, the last major invasion began in 711, when Arabs and Berbers took the peninsula. They might have claimed France if Charles Martel, grandfather of Charlemagne, had not halted their advance twenty years later. Christian kingdoms slowly pushed back the Moorish tide in the Reconquista until the late 1200’s when only Muslim Granada remained. Still, almost eight hundred years of Moorish rule left its mark on Spain’s identity as a Catholic nation, and on its music, foods and language.

Why do I find Moorish Spain and this particular family so interesting? The Nasrids ruled from their hilltop fortress of the Alhambra from 1232 and held out for 260 years. Castile considered Granada as a vassal rather than an enemy for most of that period and demanded annual tribute payments rather than expanding its borders. Muslim Granada exemplified the idea of the Spanish melting pot, as Christian women became the mothers of Moorish Sultans, men who employed Christians as their personal bodyguards. Theirs was a kingdom in its death throes, weakened internally by infighting between fathers and sons, and among brothers rather than the lackluster attacks of Christian adversaries.

In this period, women whom we might think of as trapped behind harem walls played important roles. Their choices affected the history of the dynasty. One of the most influential women was Fatima, the heroine of Sultana and Sultana’s Legacy, who was the descendant of the first two rulers of the dynasty, sister to the next two, and ancestress of all who followed until the royal line ended with Isabel and Ferdinand’s capture of Granada in 1492. Then there were the Christian slaves Butayna and Maryam, the main characters of Sultana: Two Sisters whose rivalry extended beyond harem walls and toppled the legitimate ruler. With all the internal strife, dysfunctional family interactions and intrigue that beset the Nasrid Dynasty for centuries, I could not help but write about such a family.

There are other reasons why the history is so appealing. The past is usually the story of the victors, those left alive to chronicle events, and history too often becomes “his story”, the exploits of the men at the forefront of momentous change. Propaganda and biases on both sides of the Moorish and Christian frontiers make a full account difficult, but the contributions of Moorish society to the Spain we know today remain evident. In addition, the role of women and their impact merits greater exploration. My goal with the series is to shed light on a period that remains a mystery to many, while attempting to provide good and interesting stories.

These stories have required an enormous amount of research, which started back in 1995 when I was a junior in college. If there is an English language book about Moorish Spain, I have probably read or bought it in the last 18 years. While study was critical in writing the first books of the series, and I often return to the sources, I also remind myself that no one wants to read the history of the Nasrids; entertainment is the goal. There are elements of the past, Moorish culture and the language included to give a real sense of time and place, but not so much as to bog down the plot. I am a storyteller at heart, even if I lose countless hours on details that never make it on to the page.  

Lisa's website       

A Thing Done by Tinney Sue Heath

A Thing Done started life as a footnote.  Several footnotes, actually – one in a translation of Dante's Inferno, others in history books covering the 13th century in Florence.  And as I threaded my way through all these footnotes, I often felt I was working backwards from the end of the story, looking for its beginning.

           

At first what caught my eye was this:  “The vendetta against Buondelmonte was the origin of the Guelf and Ghibelline factions in Florence.” 

Well, that division was no small matter.  It colored politics - not just in Florence, but in all of Italy - for well over a century, and vestiges of it remained in place several centuries later.  To this day, Italian cities can be classified as used-to-be-Guelf or used-to-be-Ghibelline (or, not infrequently, used to be one and then the other).  You have only to look at the crenellations on castles and public buildings:  square crenellations = Guelf, swallowtail crenellations = Ghibelline.

So how did a vendetta against one man get all of this started?  First let's set the scene.

Florence at the beginning of the 13th century was bristling with violence – hereditary enmities, power struggles, deep resentments.  The city was a commune, with no king or duke or other titular head.  Her ruling class was formed by members of the ancient noble families, but also by wealthy bankers and merchants – an oligarchy made up of men of substance and influence, who also commanded a certain amount of sheer military might.  Florence had her share of knights, men with superb military training and ability, and they didn't share their power easily.

Clearly, Buondelmonte was on one side and those who sought his ruin were on the other.  Further reading told me that Buondelmonte had been betrothed to a woman of the Amidei family (the other side), and had broken off the engagement to wed a woman of the Donati family (his own side), and that the Amidei and their allies were so incensed at this insult that they called for a vendetta against Buondelmonte. 

The story was getting more interesting.  But I didn't quite understand:  if feelings were running that high, what was Buondelmonte doing getting himself betrothed to a woman of his enemies' clan?  Especially if she wasn't really the woman he wanted to marry?

More footnotes, more reading.  As I suspected, it wasn't that simple.  Buondelmonte had been forced into that betrothal as a result of an altercation that took place at a banquet.  He had answered what he perceived as an insult from Oddo, one of his enemies, with violence, resulting in a knife wound to Oddo's arm.  Eventually, as was a custom of the times, a marriage was offered to make peace between the factions.  Not a marriage he chose; not a marriage he wanted. 

This was beginning to sound like a story I wanted to write.  But what, I wondered, started it all?  What did Oddo do that got Buondelmonte so enraged? 

Past the footnotes now and deep into the contemporary and near-contemporary chronicles, I finally found what looked to me like the point of origin.  At that feast, which took place to celebrate a knighting, a jester snatched a plate of food away from Buondelmonte and his dining companion.  Was he acting on orders?  If so, whose?  

Buondelmonte's companion was outraged, and Oddo took the opportunity to mock him and make fun of him because of it.  The companion told Oddo “You lie in your throat!” (yes, it really does translate that way - “Tu menti per la gola!”), but it was Buondelmonte, impetuous and hotheaded, who pulled a knife and then drew blood.  And drawing blood was an insult too serious to overlook. 

So yes, it was a story.  And I tried to tell it, writing of the conflict between Buondelmonte and Oddo, and of the two women from noble families, and of the mother of the Donati girl, who was said to have goaded Buondelmonte into forsaking his betrothed to wed her lovely daughter instead. 

But I couldn't stop thinking about that jester.  The one whose prank had started the whole thing, and had plunged his city into near civil war.  What was this experience like for him?  How did he feel?  What did he do?  How did the resulting chaos affect him? 

And when I found myself writing about the jester walking home late that night, I realized I had no idea where he lived, or how, or who he lived with.  I didn't know who his friends were, who he would want to tell about what had happened, what would worry him, how this incident would change his life.  And I wanted to know.

So it became the jester's story, and the story of his friends and neighbors.  Buondelmonte and his quarrelsome friends and foes are still there, as are the women, but the story unfolds as the jester sees it.  And it is richer for that; even the truculent nobles and their ladies are more fully developed for being seen through the eyes of one of their least imposing contemporaries.  (Especially the ladies, who lived in a society that allowed them very little initiative, but who were perfectly capable of making things happen from behind the scenes.  And the jester was so insignificant that he was in a position to see it all.) 

My jester is a man of the lower classes, living by his wits, without power, clout, or rights, marginalized in a society that didn't think much of self-employed performers.  But for all that, he's a man who makes sharp observations and has plenty to say.  I believe readers will agree that he was the right person to give voice to the story.

Find out more on the Authors Blog 

The de Lacy Inheritance by Elizabeth Ashworth

Although I’ve been a short story writer for many years I had never planned to write a novel −until I came across the story of a hermit who had lived in a cave under the castle at Clitheroe in Lancashire.

The idea took form when I was researching a non-fiction book, Tales of Old Lancashire, for Countryside Books. Whilst looking for more information about the hermit I discovered that he was claimed to be a member of the de Lacy family. As a local, some of the history of the de Lacy family, who were Lords of Blackburnshire, was already familiar to me, but when I realised that the hermit would have inherited a fortune except for his leprosy I wanted to know more about him.

Richard was a real person. He is recorded as Richard of Chester and as Richard, a leper. In those days, around the turn of the 13^th century, those who suffered from this terrible affliction were forced to hear the Mass of Separation and make vows that included not entering any church or marketplace and not touching the rim or rope of a well except with gloved hands. Lepers were also excluded from inheriting, which is where the basic idea of my book came from.

When you go back a thousand years events are not always well recorded and that can be a good as well as a bad thing. Lack of finite detail gives the opportunity to fictionalise the gaps between the known facts, although known facts can be worked into the story.

So where does the truth end and the fiction begin in The de Lacy Inheritance? That’s not as easy to answer as you might think. One thing you learn when you’re researching for a historical novel is that there are many, many versions of the truth. Inaccuracies are often copied from source to source and sorting out the reliable from the unreliable is difficult and time consuming.

The lives of women and lepers are not so well documented as those of nobles, and there is much more information about Richard’s brother Roger de Lacy than there is about him and his sisters. The other main character in the book, Johanna, is based on a figure who is recorded as being a daughter of Roger de Lacy, but for the novel I decided to make her a sister of Richard and Roger as the ages seemed more appropriate. There is no clear historical record of her name and sometimes she is referred to as Maud or even confused with another family member Helen de Lacy, so I took a leap of faith based on very flimsy evidence and named her with the feminine version of John, who was either her father or grandfather.

In the end this is a story. It is fiction. Although it is based on known facts and on an old legend it is my interpretation of the lives of people who lived almost a thousand years ago. But they are very real and important to me and I hope that I have told their stories with integrity and not done them a disservice. As I continue with my research into the history of the de Lacy family I may discover facts that are at variance with the ones I’ve presented in the book. But I hope that doesn’t detract from anyone’s enjoyment of the story, because, in the end, it is a novel and not an academic history.

My webpage/blog is: www.elizabethashworth.com

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