Guest Blog: Kim Rendfeld

This week, we’re welcoming Kim Rendfeld, author of The Cross and the Dragon, a love story set in eighth-century Europe, spanning today’s Switzerland, Germany, France, and Spain. Kim is here to talk about her novel, answering questions from readers. One lucky winner will receive an e-book of The Cross and the Dragon, compatible with Kindle or Nook. Just leave your comment and e-mail address. Here is the blurb:

A tale of love in an era of war and blood feuds.

Francia, 778: Alda has never forgotten Ganelon’s vow of vengeance when she married his rival, Hruodland. Yet the jilted suitor’s malice is nothing compared to Alda’s premonition of disaster for her beloved, battle-scarred husband.

Although the army invading Hispania is the largest ever and King Charles has never lost a war, Alda cannot shake her anxiety. Determined to keep Hruodland from harm, even if it exposes her to danger, Alda gives him a charmed dragon amulet.

Is its magic enough to keep Alda’s worst fears from coming true—and protect her from Ganelon?

Inspired by legend and painstakingly researched, The Cross and the Dragon is a story of tenderness, sacrifice, lies, and revenge in the early years of Charlemagne’s reign.

**Q&A with Kim Rendfeld**

From Diane Denton: How was the idea for your novel born? Obviously, you have an interest in the period, but what moved you to focus on the characters and their story as you did?

Rolandsbogen
(photo by Tohma via Wikimedia Commons
used under the terms of the
GNU Free Documentation License)

The inspiration for The Cross and the Dragon came during a family vacation in Germany, when we stumbled on a story in a guide book about the ruins at Rolandsbogen—an ivy covered arch on a high Rhineland hill. To recount the legend here would be a spoiler, and I elaborate on it in a historical note at the end of the novel. But I will say it’s a love story, in which Roland (a variant of Hruodland) and his bride are separated by a devastating falsehood.

I learned later that the legend itself is not true, yet the lovers’ story would not leave me alone. On the flight back to the States, I wrote about it in my journal, even drew a little sketch of the arch as it appeared from Drachenfels, a mountain (OK technically a high hill) across the Rhine. Still, the story would not rest. Who were these people? Why would someone lie to the bride?

I had to sit down at my computer and find out, but when I started writing, I knew very little about the real Middle Ages, let alone this particular slice of it.

From Sandy Frykholm: I think of the early Middle Ages as a fairly dry period for source material. What variety of sources did you find? Any that particularly surprised you—either in content or the fact that they exist at all?

Four great resources on the Carolingians
(photo by Kim Rendfeld)

The conditions of the period lend themselves to scarcity of information. It predates the printing press, which means books were rare and expensive. The vast majority of the populace could not write and only a few more could read. In addition, there were cultures, like the Saxons, who did not have a written language as we know it.

Fortunately, a few Franks wrote things down, even if it was to serve an agenda. I could not have re-created life in eighth century Europe without the work of scholars who translated primary sources from medieval Latin and analyzed them. (Historical novelist’s disclaimer: any mistakes in my novel are mine and mine alone.) My library includes:

• Einhard’s The Life of Charlemagne translated by Evelyn Scherabon Firchow and Edwin H. Zeydel, written about 830-33, at least 16 years after King Charles’s death.
• Carolingian Chronicles, which includes the Royal Frankish Annals and Nithard’s Histories, translated by Bernard Walter Scholz with Barbara Rogers, written by several anonymous authors in the eighth and ninth centuries and one of Charlemagne’s grandsons.
• P.D. King’s Charlemagne: Translated Sources, a collection of annals, letters, contemporary biographies, capitularies, and more
• Pierre Riché’s Daily Life in the World of Charlemagne, which describes details of life outside the wars.

Professor King’s book, intended for scholars of Carolingian times, is a treasure trove. The letters are true gems, and I was surprised to find they survived after more than 1,200 years. Among my favorites is a missive from Pope Stephen III, who passionately urges Charles and his brother not to marry the daughter of his enemy. If high school students saw more material like that, they might be more interested in history.

I elaborate more on the four sources mentioned above in a post on my blog, Outtakes, and have listed even more sources on my website.

From Roseanne E. Lortz: How did the epic poem “The Song of Roland” influence you in your writing? Are there elements in the novel that you took from the poem?

Those who are familiar with “The Song of Roland” know him as a hero who bravely fights despite overwhelming odds and stubbornly refuses to use his horn to call for help. The poem also portrays the battle and the brutal justice that follows in gory detail.

I read the poem after I had encountered the love story, and I was moved by Alda’s devotion to Roland. But I like the Rhineland love story better and settled on a very different interpretation. I also wanted to be truer to the historical events.

Roland at Roncesvalles,
Odilon Redon, c.1869
(public domain image via Wikipaintings)

The poem has artistic merit, especially about courage and betrayal, but any resemblance between it and what actually happened at the Pass of Roncevaux is purely coincidental. (See a post I wrote in May on Unusual Historicals to learn more about the massacre.) To use modern parlance, I suspect the poem, written three centuries after the event it describes, was a propaganda piece for the Crusades.

However, its copyright has long run out, and I did borrow some elements. Alfihar, the German variant of Oliver, is Hruodland’s close friend and brother of Alda, who shares the same name as the love interest in the poem. Ganelon is still the villain. And I appropriated a few other names for my characters.

Ironically, the anonymous author of the poem also did some borrowing. Hruodland (Roland), governor of the March of Brittany, is mentioned briefly in Einhard’s biography of Charlemagne. The antagonist in poem may have named after Guenelon (also spelled Vénilon), a ninth-century bishop of Sens accused of betraying one of Charles’s grandsons.

Thanks so much to Unusual Historicals for this opportunity to talk about my book, and thanks to Diane, Sandy, and Roseanne for such good questions.

Thank you, Kim and best of luck with The Cross and the Dragon, published in e-book and print by Fireship Press, available online now at Amazon and Barnes & Noble. 

For more about Kim and her fiction, visit www.kimrendfeld.com.

Read Kim's blog, Like her on Facebook, connect with her on Goodreads, check out her Amazon page, or follow her on Twitter.

Excerpt Thursday: THE CROSS AND THE DRAGON by Kim Rendfeld

This week on Excerpt Thursday, we’re welcoming Kim Rendfeld. Her debut novel, The Cross and the Dragon, is a love story set in eighth-century Europe, spanning today’s Switzerland, Germany, France, and Spain. Join us Sunday, when Kim will be here to talk about her novel and offer an e-book compatible with Kindle or Nook to a lucky winner. Here is the blurb:

A tale of love in an era of war and blood feuds.

Francia, 778: Alda has never forgotten Ganelon’s vow of vengeance when she married his rival, Hruodland. Yet the jilted suitor’s malice is nothing compared to Alda’s premonition of disaster for her beloved, battle-scarred husband.

Although the army invading Hispania is the largest ever and King Charles has never lost a war, Alda cannot shake her anxiety. Determined to keep Hruodland from harm, even if it exposes her to danger, Alda gives him a charmed dragon amulet.

Is its magic enough to keep Alda’s worst fears from coming true—and protect her from Ganelon?

Inspired by legend and painstakingly researched, The Cross and the Dragon is a story of tenderness, sacrifice, lies, and revenge in the early years of Charlemagne’s reign.

**An Excerpt from The Cross and the Dragon**

This scene occurs the night before Hruodland leaves for the invasion of Hispania. Hruodland and Alda lie in a curtained bed, but Alda cannot sleep.

Suddenly, Hruodland’s body stiffened. His throat made a noise like a muffled scream. His breathing changed from deep and slow to shallow and quick. He sweated. He gasped and rolled on his back. He sounded as if he was struggling to get enough air into his lungs.

“Dearling?” he whispered. His voice startled her.

“Yes, Husband,” she said.

She could feel him turn toward her. She ran her fingers through his hair. She traced his ear, his neck, shoulder, chest. He held her tightly against his body, as if he was making sure she was real.

“Another nightmare?” she asked.

“It is but a dream.”

Alda remained silent, knowing he would tell her if she did not prod him.

“I dreamt I watched a man barely out of boyhood die,” Hruodland said, holding her closer. “He had perhaps seen fifteen winters. A Saxon arrow found him but did not land in his heart straight and true. And he screamed. He screamed for what seemed hours as the men tried to pull it out of him and stop the bleeding. And then I was that boy, screaming, and they could not stop the bleeding. That is when I awoke.”

Despite herself, Alda gasped, wondering if Hruodland’s nightmare was an omen.

As if he read her mind, he said, “It is but a dream. Something I saw during the war in Saxony. Nothing more.” He touched her cheek. “I need you to be cheerful when we leave.”

Alda swallowed. She decided not to tell him of her premonition again, but she could not just lie there and pretend to be cheerful. She had to do something to protect him, even if it meant leaving herself vulnerable to the Bretons or the thieves in the forest or Bishop Luc. What mattered most was that he came back.

“Husband, there is something I want you to take,” Alda said.

She rose from the bed, letting the blankets fall from her body, and swung her feet over the edge. Shivering, she drew back the curtain. A thick night candle on a table next to the bed illuminated the solar and sleeping women. What she wanted lay next to the candle.

She picked up her iron dragon and retreated to the warmth of the blankets. The curtain was still drawn back and allowed candlelight to enter. She draped the chain that held the amulet on Hruodland's neck.

“This will protect you,” she said.

Hruodland held it and stared at it in the candlelight. “But dearling,” he stammered, “this is a gift from your father. I cannot take this from you.”

“Husband, please,” she insisted, pressing it into his hand. “It will ease my fears if you take it.”

He gave her a tender smile. “I will give it back to you when I return.”

“The stone comes from the mountain where Siegfried slew the dragon,” she said.

The dragon’s blood had made Siegfried invulnerable, almost, except for where the linden leaf fell on his shoulder.

The Cross and the Dragon, published in e-book and print by Fireship Press, is available online at Amazon and Barnes & Noble. 

For more about Kim and her fiction, visit www.kimrendfeld.com.

Read Kim's blog, Like her on Facebook, connect with her on Goodreads, check out her Amazon page, or follow her on Twitter.

Massacres: Roncevaux 778, Part II - A Medieval Massacre That Became Crusades Propaganda

By Kim Rendfeld

The Cross and the Dragon provides another interpretation, this one inspired by a German legend in which Hruodland survives the attack but his wife is told he died. In my story, Hruodland is left comatose by the ambush. Believing death is imminent, the scouting party leaves him at an abbey hospital to await Christian burial and tells everyone that he perished. They want to spare his family some grief and prevent his wife, Alda, from making a dangerous journey to see him. Instead, that well-intentioned lie sends her into peril as Hruodland fights his way back to health.

As a novelist, I could not resist having my Hruodland comment on “The Song of Roland.” Here, he is letting the world think he’s dead while he travels back home under an assumed name with two nuns who cared for him at the hospital, Sisters Elisabeth and Illuna, and are staying with Elisabeth’s brother, the archbishop of Bordeaux:

A few notes on the harp stirred Hruodland from his thoughts.

“This song is about a hero in our time, a man you spoke of a little while ago,” the singer began. “I speak of Hruodland, prefect of the March of Brittany and nephew of the king. His story is the ultimate tale of loyalty, courage, and sacrifice.”

Hruodland stared into the flames. He was not sure if he wanted to hear this about himself. He took a gulp of wine from a cup and passed it to Illuna, who patted his hand.

The man sang about the Saracens massing on the field, breaking their promise of peace with the Franks. Hruodland and other nobles in the rear guard stayed behind. Then the singer described how Hruodland sliced ribs off his enemies’ bodies and burst their eyeballs. Although defeat was imminent, Hruodland was proud and refused to blow on his horn, until almost everyone around him was dead and needed a Christian burial.

Hruodland walked away from the fire for a moment. He still had no memory of Roncevaux, except that he and the other soldiers were marching through densely wooded, narrow mountain passes, but a gut feeling told him the battle did not happen like this. For one thing, if he were facing thousands of Saracens—or any other foe—on the battlefield as the song described, sounding the horn would be the first thing he would have done to summon help and perhaps scare the enemy.

From what the nuns told him about the ambush by the Gascons, there had been no glory, not the way the singer was portraying it. Hruodland mourned for Alfihar and the others all over again. Anger burned in his belly. His friends and kinsmen had been slaughtered, and here was this fool who had obviously never seen battle making it into a song.

When Hruodland turned toward the fire, Elisabeth was staring at him, and Illuna was wringing her hands.

“Were you there?” Hruodland asked the singer. He made no effort to disguise his ire.

“I would be dead if I was. I first heard about what happened at Roncevaux when the king was here, and the song just came to me.”

“I doubt the prefect of the March of Brittany would be that stupid,” Hruodland growled.

“He was a gifted warrior,” the singer said, “but he was proud.”

“Not to the point of idiocy!”

Elisabeth coughed to disguise a laugh, and he knew what she was thinking. He had left the safety of the abbey with only a knife, a dog, and the clothes on his back. He had neither horse nor food nor even a wineskin.

“Not to the point of needlessly endangering others,” Hruodland added, looking directly at Elisabeth.

“Did you know Hruodland?” the singer asked.

Elisabeth and Illuna nervously glanced at each other.

“My father is from the March of Brittany,” Hruodland answered. “Hruodland was a good warrior and proud of his scars, but he was not so proud that he would allow the slaughter of his fellows without calling for aid. And the people who attacked the rear guard were the Gascons, not the Saracens.”

“I don’t care who it was. The Saracens are infidels and followers of Muhammad, and our king was there because they threatened the Church.”

“We were there…” Hruodland stopped himself, partly because he did not want to reveal himself, partly he could not make sense of the war against the ruler of Cordova.

Kim Rendfeld is the author of The Cross and the Dragon, to be published by Fireship Press. For more about Kim and her fiction, visit www.kimrendfeld.com, read her blog at www.kimrendfeld.wordpress.com, like her on Facebook at www.facebook.com/authorkimrendfeld, or follow her on Twitter at @kimrendfeld.

Massacres: Roncevaux 778, Part I - A Medieval Massacre That Became Crusades Propaganda

By Kim Rendfeld

What happened at the Pass of Roncevaux in 778 was so traumatic no one wrote about it for decades, not while Emperor Charlemagne was alive. Yet a heavily altered version of the event became the basis of a poem to inspire Crusaders.

First, a little backstory: Three Saracen emirs from Hispania (Spain) visited King Charles, as he was known at the time, during his assembly in 777 at Paderborn to ask for his aid is overthrowing the Muslim ruler of Cordova. Perhaps the emirs told Charles Christian cities would welcome a Christian king. Perhaps they said the emir of Cordova would encroach on Frankish territory, as evidenced by a letter from Pope Hadrian referring to Charles’s fear of invasion. Saracens had invaded Francia in the past.

The original Royal Frankish Annals, Charles’s official record, say everything was hunky-dory. Charles marched into Hispania with a vast army, got hostages at Zaragoza, destroyed Pamplona (a Basque Christian city), subjugated the Basques (also called the Gascons), and returned home.

No mention at all of the Pass of Roncevaux in the Pyrenees.

What was so awful that Charles wanted it omitted? The earliest account of the battle, written in the Revised Royal Frankish Annals between 814 (the year Charles died) and 817, provides clues. The Reviser writes about the Basque ambushing the rear guard from the heights of the Pyrenees. Many high-ranking court officials died, the baggage train was plundered, and the enemy scattered in all directions. “To have suffered this wound shadowed the king’s view of his success in Spain,” the Reviser writes.

However, Einhard, writing a biography of Charles about 830-33, more than 50 years after the event, gives the most detailed description of the attack, which takes place as the sky is darkening: “In a densely wooded area well suited for ambush, the Basques had prepared to attack the army from the highest mountain. As the [Frankish] troops were proceeding in a long column through the narrow mountain passes, the Basques descended on the baggage train and the protecting rear guard and forced them into the valley. In the ensuing battle, the Basques slaughtered them to a man.”

Einhard also provides three names: Anselm, the count of the palace, Eggihard, the seneschal, and Hruodland (Roland), prefect of the March of Brittany. Einhard’s work is the only historical reference to Hruodland, the hero of my forthcoming novel, The Cross and the Dragon.

Fast forward to the 11th century, and you get a different take in “The Song of Roland.” A very different take. The poem says a lot about courage in the face of overwhelming odds and betrayal. But don’t look to it for historical accuracy. The most notable change is the enemy, Muslim Saracens, just like the Crusaders were fighting. The poem makes no mention of the Basques or of the Franks destroying a Christian city.

It was propaganda before the term existed.

Learn more about The Song of Roland in Kim's novel The Cross and the Dragon in Masscares: Roncevaux 778, Part II - Wed. May 23

Sources:

Einhard’s The Life of Charlemagne translated by Evelyn Scherabon Firchow and Edwin H. Zeydel

Carolingian Chronicles, which includes the Royal Frankish Annals and Nithard’s Histories, translated by Bernard Walter Scholz with Barbara Rogers

“The Song of Roland,” translated by John O'Hagan, www.fordham.edu/halsall/basis/roland-ohag.asp

Caption info:

The Emperor Charlemagne Finds Roland's Corpse after the Battle of Roncevaux, c.1460, Jean Fouquet

Roland at Roncesvalles, c.1869, Odilon Redon

Illustration to The Song of Roland, 1903, Heorhiy Narbut

Kim Rendfeld is the author of The Cross and the Dragon, to be published by Fireship Press. For more about Kim and her fiction, visit www.kimrendfeld.com, read her blog at www.kimrendfeld.wordpress.com, like her on Facebook at www.facebook.com/authorkimrendfeld, or follow her on Twitter at @kimrendfeld.