This is a fantasy version of the story of William the Conqueror, widely known as the Bastard (in both senses of the word) and of Mathilda of Flanders. There is (as there was in Kingdom of the Grail) magic everywhere. It begins when William is conceived (in the Prologue, dated confusingly 1127 instead of 1027): the young Duke of Normandy meets the Goddess in the person of Herleva in a Druid ceremony under an oak that is "older than France, older than Gaul, and half as old as time. Charms were wound in its branches, blessings and beseechings and the odd black twist of a curse. Low on the trunk, for those with eyes and knowledge to see, a golden sickle gleamed, all but swallowed in the bowels of the tree [...] One of the worshippers had not joined in the dance. She sat beneath the tree, bathed in its strange light. As cold as the night was, sharp-edged with frost, she seemed perfectly at ease, as if it had been midsummer and not midwinter. And yet her garment was barely there: a shift of white linen so thin that the watcher in the shadows could see every line of her body [...] She opened her arms. He had no power to refuse, nor could he wish to. This was the old rite, the great rite, the marriage of king and goddess. However devout a Christian he might be, the old blood was in him. Tonight it was stronger than any priest's cant. She was waiting. Even the stars had paused in their courses ..."
But the priests win. The Duke, in disgrace, goes on pilgrimage to Jerusalem, and never returns. The young bastard, offspring of that ceremony under the oak, is left as sole heir to the duchy, unwelcome to the people, and abhorrent to the Church.
But he grows up, wins the support of the King of France because of his prowess as a warrior, and establishes himself in his duchy.
Both William and Mathilda are full of magic. He has always tried to hide his, believing it to be the cause of all his misfortunes. He has tried to be a devout son of the Church, which has always rejected him.
Mathilda, though, whose father, the Count of Flanders, is one of the four mystical guardians of France, has spent years in the forest learning the Old Ways. She knows that William is destined to be King of England. She believes that he is the reincarnation of Arthur. The concept of reincarnation (an obsession of mine, I completely believe in it) is integral to this story. When Herleva, William's mother, is dying, Mathilda is there. (This is a book you can't help quoting from - or should I say a writer you can't help quoting from?)
Mathilda should know better than to gape. When great enchanters' bodies failed, their magic grew purer, stronger; it shone out of them [...]
'Death is a door,' Herleva said. 'One walks through, and there is the Otherworld, whole and complete, just as this one is. And one lives there until one's life is finished. Then there is the door, and there is this world. Over and over, time and again, worlds without end.'
She nearly sang the last of it. Her voice was losing its humanity, gaining the purity of that other world.
'Listen, she said. 'Listen, daughter. Can you see? The door is opening. The time is come. Look and see.'
'What?' said Mathilda. 'What should I see?'
'Destiny,' said Herleva. [...] 'Yours. His.'
No need to ask who the other was. 'And that is?'
'King once,' Herleva said, 'and king to be.'
Wonderful. Now I am looking forward to reading the sequel, King's Blood.
KB
