Character Showcase -- Master Rory Denham

Rory Denham cheerfully describes himself as a “packsaddle scapegrace of no account and few cares”. Born the love-child of Lady Eliza Meadowaine and a wandering Scots rogue, he has spent most of his life looking out for himself. His father once appointed a good friend, Captain Cosimo Jilani to keep an eye on Rory, but since the Captain had no experience of fatherhood himself and much preferred making a drinking friend and fellow carouser, to making an adopted son with whom he must be serious and stern, the natural chaos ensued. More trouble was caused by that “guidance” than was put in abeyance.

Rory Denham’s world has had no boundaries, but all is not light and sunny— even if his smile remains undaunted. Sometimes, it is possible to catch him with darkness in his eyes and a thoughtful countenance that suggests his  life contains more sadness than he will ever admit. As a penniless child, born out of wedlock, he has no prospects other than those he can steal for himself. When his father died, he sent to Rory, not only the friendship of Captain Jilani, but also a fairly new pair of boots, of which he thought his son could make use.

Now, the leather of those boots is old and weathered, and they have walked a path just as wild and reckless as the one set by their previous owner. The once scrawny, urchin lad has grown to have healthy bones that grant him good height, sturdy shoulders, strong teeth and broad fists, and with all of that he has done whatever he must to survive. Sometimes he is not proud of it, but a man learns to harden his skin and blind his conscience for its own good.

“Look ye afor’ard and up, and ge’ oan wae it,” as his father would say.

Apart from Captain Jilani, Rory is also befriended by the Samways family, who own a tavern beside the docks, and this is where he often sets down his head to sleep, in a little room above the barrels.

He earns his living in London by undertaking any job he is offered. But each summer he gets away from all that and heads into the country to work on a farm. He finds this a good way to refresh his body and his mind, away from the stink of the great city. When he returns to London in September, after all that good sun and hard work, he is always in a good mood. So everybody knows that September is the best time to beg a boon of Rory Denham.


And in September 1608 Captain Jilani has a particularly difficult favour to ask of Rory. Three mysterious foreigners are on their way to England and the Captain wants Rory to guard them while they get settled in London.

“Look hafter the dears until I am coming in spring,” Cosimo Jilani has written in his poor English and a very uneven hand. “At such older ages, it will not be any trouble, although the younger ladhe need guarding with open eyes”

Later, of course, Rory will realize that the Captain meant to write “lady” and not “lad he”. But with that letter a great many misconceptions are begun.

Not the least of which is that his new charges will “not be any trouble”. 

Funnily enough, Master Denham thinks he knows what "trouble" is. But he has never seen anything like this.

*

Meet Master Rory Denham this Friday, when you can grab your copy of THE CROLLALANZAS!

(Image: detail from the Tailor by Giovanni Battista Moroni c. 1570)

Character Showcase - Goody Murklins

In THE CROLLALANZAS, Goody Murklins is an eccentric old lady who lives at Threavewode House in the care of Rollo Meadowaine, the Marquess of Abbingford. Goody Murklins was, many years ago, nurse to Rollo’s wife, which makes her close to her centennial, but she still manages to enjoy a few lively adventures— even if they are mostly in her head.


Employing a selective deafness, she gets away with a great deal of bad behavior. Her most oft repeated phrase is a gleefully uttered, “That stain won’t come out.”


With only a few teeth left, she is brought pottage and broth to eat, but that does not stop her from lusting after the meat at table and she will gladly cause a distraction just to steal it from somebody else’s plate. If you should chance to be seated opposite her at the table, best wear your oldest clothes.

Rollo takes her words of advice to heart, even though nobody ever sees her give him any. The old lady seldom speaks any apparent sense, considers the people among whom she lives as “ne’er do wells” and is on a constant hunt for plum puddings that she claims she was once promised.

Nevertheless, Rollo often spouts her words of wisdom. Is he remembering conversations long past, or does he simply put his own words and wishes into her mouth?


Goody Murklins is the only female who resides at Threavewode House. The only living female, that is.  But she seems well aware of the presence of others and many of them live in the library, wandering among the books and treasures Rollo has collected there. She might have eyes milky with age, but Goody Murklins has seen a great deal of life and death. And she still sees a lot that goes on in that house. When the master of it is being stubborn, bull-headed or unintentionally blind, Goody Murklins is not afraid to steer him right. At least, he tells folk that he hears all this from her, but he would not want anybody to think he’s going soft and suddenly in possession of an unmanly conscience, would he?


Perhaps Goody Murklins is his conscience.


Like the spirits in the library, Goody Murklins enjoys books too, but primarily for the crunching noise they make as she rips out their pages. And be warned -- it is a favorite game of hers to hide those pages inside other books, scattered all over the library.

She is a lady who has lived well beyond the age of life expectancy in her century, but she is not yet ready to give in. Although most folk may not see it, she knows she still has a purpose in this world. She still has a wrong to right.

As she says to a certain playwright one day, “Good wombs have borne bad sons. And far better daughters.”

Rollo Meadowaine has two grandsons. One is the only surviving legitimate child of his son, Percival. The other is the illegitimate son of Rollo’s daughter, Eliza, who he once disowned because she refused to obey him and marry the man he chose for her. Now, Rollo believes he must not show any fondness for his daughter’s son (referred to by him as “The Bastard”), or else he will lose face. But Goody Murklins, who loved Rollo’s wife all her life, knows he must be made to put his pride aside and see sense, before it is all too late. She is not quite so "in the dark" as her name suggests.

Meet Goody Murklins— in her best ginger wig, if not her best behavior— this Friday in THE CROLLALANZAS. And if you value your fingertips, best bring plum pudding.

(Image:  Portrait of an old woman reading by Gerrit Dou c. 1630-1635)

Character Showcases - Briar and Julie

There are several stories entwined within 'THE CROLLALANZAS' and women of three separate eras all face their own challenges. From the nineteenth century, an artist named Briar Lockwood relates the tale of her struggles as a woman trying to set herself free from a stifling marriage. She wants to make her own decisions about her life, and be appreciated for her talent, but her "eccentricities" seem destined to land her in a mental asylum. Her husband is already making the arrangements behind her back and Briar's permission is not required to have her shut away from society forever. He is an ambitious politician and cannot have her wild ways ruining his chances with the electorate. Divorce would be a scandal. Better she be put somewhere out of sight. For her own good, as well as his.

But Briar Lockwood (Lady Calvert by marriage) comes from a long line of  'prickly' females on her mother's side. There are rumors of a murderess lurking way back in their history, as well as accusations of witchcraft.  It has even been suggested that she might have Italian blood somewhere down the line (a matter her one remaining relative, being starched crisply British herself, finds only slightly less embarrassing than the idea of a murderess in the family). Briar certainly has no intention of going quietly to her doom in an asylum, just to convenience Sir Milton Calvert. She will do whatever it takes, however scandalous, to break free of her husband's scheme and carve out a shockingly independent life.

It will take courage to leave her marriage behind and she can escape with little more than the clothes on her back, but she must be bold and take her own life in her hands. She's been stuck, too long, inside a cocoon of the safe and the predictable, trying to conform with the conventions of the day and keep everybody else content.

Perhaps, with inspirational help from the diary of a long-dead relative, she will find the strength to pursue her own happiness, no matter how daring and unconventional.

* * *

Another heroine whose story unfolds within the pages of  'THE CROLLALANZAS' is Julie, a modern-day woman with problems to escape in her own life. Although she already knows greater freedoms than Briar, she too has found herself stuck in a rut, unhappy and searching for something more in her life.

When she enters a charity draw and wins a summer holiday stay at Threavewode, an old house on an island situated off the Surrey bank of the River Thames, she's excited at the prospect of peace and tranquility -- a few blessed weeks all by herself. She needs this break to refresh and recoup from her hospital job and the frantic pace of everyday life in the twenty-first century. On this island, nobody can get to her except by boat. It's like stepping back in time.

A further plus for Julie, is that the house she's staying in was once the temporary home of a Victorian artist she has long admired -- Briar Lockwood. Julie hopes that while she's a resident there herself, she might find out something new about the mysterious and reclusive painter. You see, she once thought she saw Briar Lockwood, in a pub beer garden in the summer of 1982, as 'Come on Eileen' played on the radio. But Briar died, according to her gravestone, more than forty years before that. Because of this impossible sighting, Julie has always felt an affinity of sorts with Briar. For years, she has researched that woman's life to find out as much as she can about it.

But at Threavewode, Julie will find much more than one woman's spirit pushing the rusty swing back and forth under the rose arbor. She will also find a pig named 'Tartufo', the pages of a very old diary, and a girl named 'Truzia', who, being inordinately fond of games and riddles, desperately wants her to play ' hide-and-seek'.

Julie's eyes are suddenly open to a new world and to realizations she's never stopped to think about before. Thanks to these women who came ahead of her and struggled to cut the path, her own life is full of potential she never properly appreciated. Hope blooms all around her and she feels reborn. She might even find a handyman. She's heard that some men can be handy, but she's still waiting for proof on that score. Here at Threavewode House anything seems possible. She's certainly not likely to be bored.

Who needs good Wifi when you've got your own, personal ghost banging on the bathroom pipes, a secret gate in a garden wall, and a flying cow called the Great Fuggity Wumpus?

At Threavewode House, Briar, Julie and Truzia will find a way to come together through the maze-like corridors of time and their imaginations. But it may be more than just a meeting. Perhaps its a reunion.

* * *

Find out more about this multitude of dangerous and dastardly heroines in THE CROLLALANZAS -- out on April 3rd, 2020.

(Images: Reading the Letter by Thomas Benjamin Kennington 1856-1916 and A Girl Reading by Johann Georg Meyer 1848)

Character Showcase - Rollo Meadowaine, Marquess of Abbingford (Supposedly).

The Marquess of Abbingford is a man disappointed by life. He has lost a wife and a daughter, and has no time for his son, Percival, Baron Meadowaine— probably because they are alike in too many ways. In addition to all this, his one surviving, legitimate grandson, Wulfrid, is a sickly boy who prefers books to hunting, whining to women, and cataloguing his aches and pains to carousing.

Now the marquess, crippled himself and having lost one eye, left unable to enjoy country pursuits, has withdrawn to one of his houses on an island in the middle of the river Thames (an ‘eyot’), where he breeds Wolfhounds and waits to one day rejoin his dead wife. Although he sees no benefit in reading books himself, he has even stocked a library in the house with treasures that he hopes will one day lure her back to him. He has been told the house is haunted, but although he’s heard creaks and voices, he has never yet seen any ghosts.


To pass the time on his little island, he has decided to invite some interesting or amusing folk to be his guests from time to time. The stranger and rarer the better. If they happen to be pretty ladies with noble manners and some fine jewelry, all the better – for he needs to find his weak and listless grandson a wife as quickly as possible. His own time is running out and the thought of leaving everything to his despised son, Percival, brings old Rollo too much bitter pain.


Although the title and the estate in Kent must go to his heir and nothing can be done about that, Rollo’s Eyot— which once came to him as part of his wife’s dowry— has always been kept separate to the marquessate. The deed, therefore, can be given elsewhere. He would rather skip a generation and let Wulfrid have it, but only as long as he can get the boy married safely and see him on the way to fatherhood. Then he can go peacefully, knowing he left this world with the Meadowaine name destined to continue, and his extraordinary little island out of Percival’s greedy, unappreciative clutches.


Rollo is not a man much prone to contemplative soul-searching, nor does he waste time considering the feelings of others. He is a man of his age, born in the time of King Harry VIII, raised during the reign of Elizabeth I and now spending his dotage under King James. He has seen many a rich nobleman lose all, including their head, whilst also observing how the sons of butchers and tradesmen can rise up to great consequence. He has watched schemers plot to win out over members of their own family, witnessed fathers trampled into the dust by ambitious youth, and seen sly deeds conquer all at the cost of good intentions. He has known the ‘sweating sickness’ take people to the grave within the space of a day, and heard of once-popular fellows arrested on some spurious charge, tried and executed within the same space of time.


So Rollo knows how fortunes can change in the blink of an eye. He has retreated here to his little island with the intent of setting his house in order. The fact is, the Meadowaines’ claim to the marquessate of Abbingford might not be entirely legitimate. Although he maintains that it was granted to him by Good Queen Bess in one of her better moods, there are some who say Rollo’s documents are forged; that the estate in Kent was given to him on a whim soon regretted and thus withdrawn.


In these ever-changing times, Rollo needs to strengthen the family’s place in the world, but the English nobility are wary of aligning themselves to a Meadowaine by marriage. The young and virginal maidens of upper crust England are a valuable commodity, bartered by their fathers and brothers into the most advantageous matches with the oldest and most well-connected of families. The Meadowaines are upstarts compared to most, and they balance precariously on tentative ground. This puts them far down the pecking order when it comes to finding a suitable bride for Wulfrid.


Rollo realizes his grandson is a frail sapling and of little appeal to healthy young ladies, but surely, he’ll grow out of his shyness and do his duty. Eventually. He’s a Meadowaine, after all. And another failure will not be borne. Wulfrid has been too fussy and squeamish in his hunt for a bride; Rollo is certain the boy’s bullying father has not helped in the matter. What they need is some good, strong, healthy blood in the family; something to inject spirit and fight back into their veins. A woman with a bit of spit and fire might be a handful for young Wulfrid, but at least she will give that boy some additional, much-needed backbone to stand up against his domineering father Percival.


It is a pity that Wulfrid— the only acknowledged bud upon the family tree— remains such a quivering, wilted shadow, but Rollo can hardly show more approval and favor to his illegitimate grandson, Rory, can he? Rory is the bastard child of Rollo’s disobedient, disowned daughter (with her lover – a Scotsman, of all things!) The marquess is still so angry with his dead daughter that he can barely bring himself to look at that young fellow. Perhaps, one day, when he does look properly and without bias, he will realize that Rory has grown into a man of whom he can be proud. But old Rollo does not like to admit he’s made a mistake or forgive anybody for their sins against him. Yes, Rory can be amusing and useful, but he’s still a bastard. And one-half Scottish.


In any case, he knows that Rory can stand up for himself. Rory is a survivor. It is young Wulfrid who needs a wife handed to him on a plate.


So bring on those mysterious sisters Crollalanza— three, fiery-eyed women with clever minds, exceedingly proud manners and rumors of a rich, colourful past. Women who clearly upset his son, Percival. What could be more entertaining?


In Rollo’s opinion, people are there to amuse him, to entertain him and to obey him. As long as they do that, they are welcome at his supper table. So are you!

** Find out more on April 3rd, when you can acquire your copy of THE CROLLALANZAS

(Image: Portrait of a Man by Anthonis Mor van Dashorst 1561.)

Character Showcase - Jacobella

In my upcoming release, The Crollalanzas, Jacobella is the heroine’s mother. Born in Venice—'La Serenissma’— Jacobella has happily lived there all her life. In childhood, due to an outbreak of plague, she was briefly forced to leave the city, but since then she has sworn never to go away again. This is the place she knows and loves. It has been good to her.


Jacobella has led a colourful life, raising three daughters alone, tending to sick, injured and pregnant women of the district (often fighting their battles with debt collectors too), and chasing the ill-tempered, hypocritical parish priest away from her door with a sauce ladle. The finery in which she dresses herself and her daughters on market day, raises more than a few eyebrows and brazenly flouts the sumptuary laws, but Jacobella has defied the rules for so long that nobody seems capable of reining her in. Or perhaps she has a supporter in high places. After all, in the bloom of her youth, before she was required to clean her own kitchen table, and back when she kept her hands soft as lily petals, men sang that Jacobella held the light of Venice in her striking gaze— the same verdigris and gold radiance that twinkled off the canal at sunset.


Now beyond those years, the passage of life having broadened her waist and rumpled her edges, she remains, for her daughters, that very light itself and the center of all existence.

Her refusal to be commanded or controlled by anybody, has provided plenty of speculative gossip for her neighbors. According to local rumor-mongers, the pride, confidence and independence that she has likewise instilled in her daughters, will do those young girls no favours. It has given them a high and mightiness far above their place in life and will lead to their disappointment, unless they come back down to earth. They are strange girls already and Jacobella’s lack of discipline— her childlike enjoyment of games, and her dreamy, carefree attitude to motherhood— will only encourage mischief.

And who really was their father? He’s been gone from the scene since before the youngest was born. Jacobella claims he was an Englishman and a poet, whose name translated in Italian to Crollalanza— hence the name she gave to her three daughters. But the only proof she has now is a little book of bad poetry and a tattered map of London.


But so loyal, self-sufficient and thriving is their little famiglia, that her daughters cannot imagine where a man would fit within it.


Jacobella grows the ingredients for her medicines and salves in pots around her crumbling house, and on a balcony over the water. The sheer abundance of lemons on her little tree and the lush flora on her balcony astonishes everybody and causes some to accuse her of witchcraft, especially when they compare her plants to their own sad specimens.


When she is not causing a scandal with her neighbors, fighting the parish priest or insulting the local apothecary (who considers her a dangerous competitor), Jacobella enjoys figs, biscuits, wine and story-telling. She also likes to sing, one song in particular— but only a part, as if she never knew the entire song, or has forgotten it. Long after she is gone from their lives, this snippet of an unidentified tune will always remind her daughters of their happy childhood and of the mother who gave them everything.


If only they could figure out who “Eileen” is and why she is perennially summoned to no avail.



The Crollalanzas  -- Coming April 3rd!

(Image: Two Women at a Window by Bartolome Esteban Murillo 1617-1682)

Coming soon: The Crollalanzas

“I have seen the day I am to die.

And I have seen the man who will murder me— he who will, one day, snuff out my flame.

It is an odd thing to foresee one’s departure from life and the face of the man with the means to bring it about. I can only hope I have some time yet before he comes to find me.

But what is worse: knowing one’s fate in advance and worrying over it, at the cost of all present and possible joys, or being ignorant of what is to come and waking each day without that cloud above; to be allowed excitement without restriction; to live without limitation, until the very end?”

So writes Truzia Crollalanza inside me: her diary.

She had a vision, you see, and she knows the face of her cursed enemy as well as she knows her own reflection. And that is before they ever meet in person.

Unfortunately for Truzia, this man—the harbinger of her doom— turns out to be far more amusing and tempting company than she expected.

Her life, and her death, are about to become complicated. 

♣

In Renaissance Venice, the sisters Crollalanza are raised by their mother to walk with their heads high, question everything, settle for nothing and always fight for justice. But as women ahead of their time, they are curiosities to their gossiping neighbors, and a dangerous— even deadly— menace to the men who would control them.


Some claim these prideful women keep dark secrets and strange customs. In their presence, more than one flying flower pot has struck a man’s head. Entirely, it seems, by its own power, without the ladies’ hands being seen to propel it.


They ought to be stopped; their outspoken ways must be suppressed, before other women are encouraged to rebellion. Everybody knows the world is best managed by men.


But these eccentric females are determined to manage their own affairs, including love, magic and vengeance. Now they embark upon a journey to a new land, a new life, and it’s wise not to get in their way. You might find yourself trapped in the privy, thrashed about the kneecaps by a flying ladle, or elf-locked by an inexplicable desire.


All this wickedness you will find confessed within me: the youngest sister’s diary. If you can believe what you read within my pages. She does, after all, enjoy story-telling, games and trickery.


Here, in this new country, she tries to outrun the fate she long ago foresaw, while living every moment she has left to its fullest. And I, her diary, try to keep up with it all, in…

The Partially Comical and Oft-Times Tragical History of Three Sisters and a truffle pig, told with select examples of drollery, dignified into scenes by way of dialogue, arranged for the pleasure and benefit of all curious persons.

Modernized, henceforth, in spelling and punctuation. The main of it translated, for better or worse.

The like never before published (mayhap with reason sound, if good profit be the aim).