On Novelettes & journeys

I *think* I have a title for the story – a novelette – I’ve been working on. I’ll test it on my writers group tomorrow night when they hear the first chapter. After what seems like ages – including travel, 6 weeks of the horrible throat/cough/cold plague, and website issues – I finally finished a rough draft, coming in at @18,000 words. (I was calling it a ‘short story’ until I realized I was quickly approaching novella size!)

This is a Henry de Grey/Stephan l’Aigle* story taking place in 1202, three years after the death of Richard the Lionheart. Richard’s brother John is king, and he is fighting the French, his nephew Arthur, Duke of Brittany, and his rebellious barons, attempting to maintain his hold on his continental domains. (The image at the top of this post is related to events in the story: Arthur offering homage to King Philip of France.)

Spoiler alert: If you’ve read Swords of the King (Battle Scars III), you’ll know Henry & Stephan ‘retired’ – i.e., self-exiled – to Yorkshire in 1199, wanting to stay as far from their nemesis King John as possible and stay under the radar.

After 3 years in Yorkshire, this new WIP opens with them in Tours after they’ve crossed the Narrow Sea.

I skipped describing their sailing from England, but as I was dealing with my website problems and archiving old posts I came across one describing an earlier sea voyage of theirs. (And I love sharing photos from my travels. Since I haven’t been to Tours, you get these!)

From my original post:

January 1193. Take away the buildings, the highways, the power lines and imagine how Dover might have appeared to Sir Henry and Sir Stephan as they sailed into the harbor on their return from the Holy Land. Their first sighting of England would have been the magnificent White Cliffs. The keep of Dover Castle would have been prominent atop the Cliffs. Construction on the castle was begun in the 1180s during the reign of Richard the Lionheart’s father, Henry II.

In 1202 the knights’ voyage didn’t have them departing from Dover. They’d have left England via Southampton. Watch the blog for more updates, including a title reveal.

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* If you’re stumbling across this post and new to me & my writing, Henry and Stephan are two fictional knights/main characters I created who served Richard the Lionheart in my Battle Scars series. They also appear as secondary characters in both Tales of Robin Hood books.

Photos by me from a 2013 trip, CC BY-SA.