"Deus Lo Vult!"
Gilles is the natural son of the Earl Waltheof, executed by William the Conqueror for supposed treachery. Raised in Normandy by Queen Matilda of England, Gilles is a young servant of Robert, Duke of Normandy, when the first call for a Holy War against the infidel and for the liberation of Jerusalem is raised in Christendom. Along with thousands of others, inspired by a variety of motives, intense piety mixed with a sense of adventure and the prospects of richness, Gilles becomes a key and respected follower of the Duke of Normandy and travels through France and into Italy to the point of embarkation for Constantinople and the land of the Greeks.
In this epic first phase of a long and gruelling journey, Gilles begins to discover a sense of his own strengths and weaknesses, encounters for the first time the full might and strength of the Norman war machine and achieves his much coveted aim of knighthood, as well as a sense of responsibility to the men that he must now lead into battle.
The Will of God is the literal translation of the Latin phrase "Deus Lo Vult"; a ubiquitous war cry and a commonly offered explanation of all the horrors and iniquities unleashed by the First Crusade of 1096 to 1099, when thousands of Europeans made the dangerous and terrifying journey to the Holy Land and the liberation of Jerusalem. It is the first of two books on the subject.
Praise
"De la Motte has superpowers as a writer of historical fiction; he's a warhorse of a writer bred to stun and trample the literary senses. You won't stop turning the pages of The Will of God."
Charles McNair, Pulitzer Prize nominee and author of Land O'Goshen
Excerpt
Gilles lay, legs crossed and arms behind his head which rested upon his saddle. He gazed up at the vast spectacle unfolded above him. His left side, facing the fire, roasted uncomfortably whilst his right side froze, one of the many vagaries of life on campaign. His mouth was sour and acrid from a combination of poorly cooked and very elderly mutton and local wine, thin, sour and acidic, unwilling gifts from the last village that he and his small command had visited.
In the jagged and flickering shadows on the other side of the fire his men also rested, seemingly oblivious to the splendour and majesty above them. Ralph, commonly known as 'the Contentious' was once more expressing his views and opinions to a largely uninterested audience. Ralph, a man from the badlands on the Normandy Brittany border, seemingly had a view and opinion on most things. Gilles allowed himself to listen for a while. Ralph had been on the lists of the Duke as long as Gilles could remember, as thickset and stocky as his master, he had been publicly whipped on a number of occasions for his views and the loose tongued manner in which he voiced them, particularly for those relating to dogma and religion. Currently he was treating his largely indifferent comrades to his views on the Holy Trinity. His almost casual remarks would have had a churchman apoplectic with rage and reaching for his bell and candle.
A flaring as a shrub of furze caught and crackled in the flames. Mixed with rosemary, it gave off a strong and aromatic scent amidst the brushwood, a further deterrent to the swarms of midges. Along with snakes, large black spiders with a life threatening bite and venomous toads that seemed to lurk under every rock, they appeared to be a speciality of the region. The sudden blaze illuminated the usually genial features of Ralph in stark chiaroscuro as he relentlessly continued to warm to his theme. Gilles surrendered his thoughts to the skies above him, a vast dome of black nothingness, blacker than anything else he could imagine and dotted with countless shining stars more numerous, it seemed, than grains of sand upon the beach. Despite the oppressive heat of the day, in this strange and alien country the nights were bitterly cold. Gilles shivered and pulled his riding cloak more tightly about him. The horses stood and fidgeted in the dark, tethered to a set of crude hitching posts hammered into the ground. Occasionally one or other of them stamped the ground or raised its ears in alarm. There were, after all, wolves in these high hills and they sensed their presence.
Thank you so much for hosting Julian de la Motte today, with an enticing excerpt from his riveting medieval adventure, The Will of God.
ReplyDeleteTake care,
Cathie xx
The Coffee Pot Book Club