New Release/Guest Post: Empire's Heir by Marian L Thorpe

 I am so excited that Marian L Thorpe's new book, the latest in her Empire's Legacy series, is released today!

I have read all the books in the series so far and have thoroughly enjoyed them all. Marian has built such a believable world and peopled it with brilliantly rounded characters.

I'm delighted to welcome Marian to the blog today to talk about a poignant and central theme in the new book.

But first, a little about that new book:

Some games are played for mortal stakes.

Gwenna, heir to Ésparias, is summoned by the Empress of Casil to compete for the hand of her son. Offered power and influence far beyond what her own small land can give her, Gwenna’s strategy seems clear – except she loves someone else.

Nineteen years earlier, the Empress outplayed Cillian in diplomacy and intrigue. Alone, his only living daughter has little chance to counter the Empress's experience and skill. Aging and torn by grief and worry, Cillian insists on accompanying Gwenna to Casil.

Risking a charge of treason, faced with a choice he does not want to make, Cillian must convince Gwenna her future is more important than his – while Gwenna plans her moves to keep her father safe. Both are playing a dangerous game. Which one will concede – or sacrifice?

So now over to Marian:

A Father Growing Old

“To a father growing old, nothing is dearer than a daughter.” Euripedes

Fathers and daughters: often a complex and layered relationship, and more so when your daughter is heir to your country’s leadership – the position you turned down. Add dangerous secrets and sensitive marriage negotiations to the mix of family and political dynamics, and they only amplify the conflicting views of love and duty that lie at the heart of Empire’s Heir.

Eighteen-year-old Gwenna is summoned to Casil, the capital of the Eastern Empire, to be considered as the bride of the young Emperor Alekos. Her father, fifty-three-year-old Cillian, disabled and in pain, insists on accompanying her: the diplomacy of Casil’s palace will be too subtle and nuanced for her skills. And possibly for his now, too.

Like Gwenna, I had an ‘older’ father: when I was eighteen, my father was sixty. Like Gwenna, I would follow in his footsteps of interests and career, at least for a while. At sixty, my father was still active, physically and mentally, but he was slowing down a bit, preferring to spend his leisure time in reading. Like Cillian, he’d always had his head in a book: an amateur historian, his interest was focused on the Tudors and the Plantagenets. And I, taught to read at three by a bored ex-teacher grandmother, growing up in a small farming town, would read anything – and so I read the biographies of Henry VIII and his daughters; of Francis Walsingham, of Cromwell and Cranmer, Eleanor of Aquitaine, Henry II… and a dozen others, at least. In that reading, I absorbed not just timelines and characters, but the intricate dance of diplomacy and power in all its facets, whether wielded by kings or queens, spymasters or administrators. As I grew older, and began a degree in history I didn’t finish, we talked a lot about social history, too; how events affected the common man and woman, about failed grass-roots rebellions and the slow process of change, all of which has influenced all my books enormously.

But there was a second period of British history that also interested my father – and inevitably me, for more personal reasons: the reigns of Victoria, Edward VII, and George V.  His grandfather worked for both Edward VII and George V (or more precisely, Queen Mary) at their country house at Sandringham in Norfolk. (Sandringham was bought for Edward, then Prince of Wales by Victoria and Albert in 1862, and my family’s connection began when Joseph Rainbow, my great-grandfather and a cabinet-maker, came from the firm of Holland and Sons in London to assist with furnishings. He ended up staying to work for the Prince of Wales.)

My father spent six or seven years living with his grandfather in the 1920s, attending Christmas parties for the staff’s children at Sandringham House, playing in the gardens, and observing his mother serving tea to the Queen and princesses when they came to visit his grandfather’s home, as they did every so often. His interest in their history was born of his own social history, of wanting to better understand the family his family had served.

I heard those stories, from the grandmother who lived with us, from aunts and from my father, and I read the biographies, because they were there. One of the many things that stayed in my mind was Victoria, ascending the throne at eighteen, dependent on older, ‘father figure’ advisors, her marriage prospects limited to men of her rank. I cannot believe that did not influence my concept of Gwenna at eighteen!

In my depiction of Cillian in Empire’s Heir, the aging man worried for his daughter’s future, I often saw glimpses of my own father, his measured speech, his logic and sense of history, his undemonstrative affection. My father died, at nearly 99, in the same month my first book, Empire’s Daughter, was published; he never read it in any form, but I think he would have seen his influence in it and subsequent books, most of all in this newest one. I dedicated Empire’s Heir to him.

Thanks so much to Marian. You can connect with her HERE

and you can purchase Empire's Heir from today. 

 

Guest Post: Marian L Thorpe

I've had the great pleasure of reading all of Marian's books and so enjoy being immersed in her imaginary world which, in lots of ways, feels familiar.
I'm delighted that Marian has written for the blog today, explaining how she has built this world and focusing on one important aspect: The Ti’acha. Over to Marian:

My books – the Empire’s Legacy trilogy, the novella Oraiaphon, and my new release, Empire’s Reckoning, are ‘historic fiction of another world’. The setting bears a fair resemblance to northern Europe in the ‘dark ages’: between the decline of Rome and the Norman Conquest, roughly, but also many, many differences. There is no magic, though: they are simply stories of war and politics, love and loyalty, no different than historic fiction, except that it’s not our world. 
But one of the most frequent comments in reviews is how real my world, and I’m often asked to explain how I do that. I’m not sure I can: I simply write, with fifty years of reading about medieval Britain behind me. However, I’m going to try to analyze one important aspect of my world, and how I created that aspect: the Ti’acha, the schools that exist in the country north of the Wall, Linrathe.

In this scene, the narrator of my first trilogy, Lena, has been chosen to stand as hostage to a truce between her country and Linrathe. The Teannasach of Linrathe, Donnalch, is thinking about what to do with her for the months she’ll be his responsibility.


“Will you read? And write?” Donnalch asked.
"Of course I can,” I said, too startled to be more polite. 
"No, lassie, that's not what I asked,” he said, spreading his hands. “I asked if you will. Do you like to do such, I should perhaps have said.” 
"Yes,” I said slowly, with a quick glance at Casyn. “I have learned to like both; I have been reading the stories of our Empire, and I keep a journal, a private record of the happenings of my life.” 
“Then,” he said, with a confirming look to his advisors, “I know what to do with you. You were a bit of a puzzle, lassie, but now I have it: I will send you to a Ti’ach; a house of learning, as we do with one of our own sons or daughters who are drawn to the written word. Will that suit you?”


Ti’acha are boarding schools. Both boys and girls are sent to them for education: depending on which Ti’ach, the focus may be history and politics, or mathematics and science, or the healing arts, but music and  languages are always part of the learning, regardless of where. Children of the nobility mix with children of the peasantry: a keen mind, not status, gains you entrance.

Where did the idea come from? Like almost everything in my fictional world, the concept has some basis in history: the monastic and cathedral schools of Ireland, Scotland, and England. 

In Ireland, the monastic movement began in the mid-500s, possibly at the monastery of Clonard, and spread out across Ireland and into what is now Scotland. Most monasteries had a school attached, and not just for the young men who had a religious vocation, but for youth who would take their place in government or the military. Boys of the land-holding class, for the most part. Latin and Greek were part of their education, as was a study of not just religious texts, but classical authors such as Virgil and Socrates, as well as mathematics, astronomy, and music. The equivalents in my world are what are taught at the Ti’ach – actually, all I did was change the names of the Greek and Roman writers. I’ve used some classical writers – notably Marcus Aurelius, who becomes Catilius in my books – verbatim. 

When Lena arrives at the Ti’ach, she learns a man named Perras is the Comiádh, or head of school. This is another borrowed concept. In his 1906 book A Smaller Social History of Ancient Ireland, (which may be a rather romanticized view) Patrick Joyce tells us of the Fer-leginn, the ‘man of learning’ who was responsible for the educational direction of the school, in concert with the abbot, who was responsible for the religious aspects of the monastery. Christianity doesn’t exist in my invented world, so there is no abbot. However, there is the ‘Lady’ of the Ti’ach, Dagney, who is also the scáeli (bard) attached to the house. Her authority is equal to that of Perras, but whereas he teaches history and politics, and the language that corresponds to Latin, she teaches music and literature.

Dagney’s teaching and her specialities are based on the traditional bardic schools, which may have existed in pre-Christian Ireland, taught (perhaps) by Druids and likely by bards. They concentrated on the passing on of oral history and literature, continuing in some form into the 19th century. In my Ti’acha, I simply combined the two. Is it accurate? No. Does it feel familiar? Yes, and that’s what I was aiming for.

Not all education occurs at the Ti’acha, however. Younger children of landholders, or those not suited to the rigors of advanced study, are frequently taught by a travelling teacher. Taught themselves at the Ti’acha, these journeying teachers may stay for a season or a number of years. Here I drew on a long tradition throughout Europe of itinerant teachers, priests and otherwise, attached both to noble households and wealthier towns. 

But – including women in the Ti’acha? Well, women in the real early-medieval world weren’t all as badly educated as popular culture would have us believe, but neither were they included in mixed schools. Daughters of the nobility could be tutored in mathematics and sciences, languages and history; nuns in certain houses were taught Latin and Greek. I deviated quite a bit from real history, but I had my reasons: the exploration and challenging of gender roles is one of the themes of the series. 

The role of the Ti’acha in politics and diplomacy will become a central theme in the planned next trilogy, Empire’s Reprise, borrowing from one of the roles played by the English scholar Alcuin at the court of Charlemagne, in the mid-700s, and that of Columba of Iona two hundred years earlier, when he undertook diplomatic negotiations between the Kingdom of Dalriada and the Kingdom of Ireland. Diplomacy needs educated, agile minds, so I have little doubt those who acted as envoys and negotiators were taught well, either at the monastic schools or by teachers who themselves had learned there.

I also had a solid vision of what the school looked like, based not at all on the monastic schools and entirely on the farmhouse and related outbuildings near the Roman fort of Vindolanda. Completely the wrong era, but it gave me a structure to work with, and a geography of the school and its surrounding area.

The Ti'ach

This is the history behind one aspect of my world. I realize it doesn’t truly explain how I created the Ti’acha and their roles, but that’s a matter of taking these facts, mixing them together with the themes of my books, baking them in the creativity of my subconscious, and hoping what emerges is palatable. I cook like that, too.

Many thanks to Marian. If you want to read her books - and I heartily recommend them - you can find her website here:
https://marianlthorpe.com/