Chronicles by J W Elliot

Author:J W Elliot [Elliot, J W]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2019-04-14T22:00:00+00:00

Author's Note

I wrote The Deadly Jest because I needed to know more about Mara, who appears in Book V and will play a role in the other books of the series. I also needed to understand the Order of the Rook, which appeared officially in Book III for the first time.

Most readers will have missed its appearance in Book I. Airic, the trader that Brion, Neahl, and Redmond rescued from the bear, also belonged to the Order. He had been carrying a copy of the letter Mara secured to warn King Geric of the invasion by the combined forces of the Hallstat and the Dunkeldi. He never delivered the message because he was killed by a Taurini ambush. Neahl recovered the letter, together with the full plans for the invasion, and carried it to King Geric.

To explore Mara's character, I sent her on a mission that forced her out of her comfort zone and challenged her skills and ingenuity. Though Mara's character is complete fiction, Muckle Jack and the kidnapping and marriage of Duke Peyton both have authentic historical roots.

Jesters, also called "fools," were a common feature of medieval courts. They evolved out of the traveling minstrels and performers who were skilled in storytelling, juggling, tumbling, and telling jokes. Some were itinerant, meaning they traveled from place to place. Others were permanent employees of noble families. Their job was to entertain the court while at meals or at celebrations. They often served as social critics who made fun of the political hierarchies and personal foibles of their societies, much like our modern comedians. Jesters came from a variety of backgrounds, but some of the most famous had the condition known as dwarfism.

Muckle Jack in this story does not technically have dwarfism, but he is small in stature and is modeled loosely on Jeffrey Hudson (1619- c.1682), who was presented to Queen Henrietta Maria, wife of Charles I of England, in 1626, by bursting out a large pie. He became a jester for her household until the English Civil War, in which he was named Captain of Horse, and he may have seen combat.

After the war, Hudson refused to play the role of jester any longer. When a man made a joke about his height, Hudson challenged him to a duel and shot him in the forehead. Hudson was exiled for this act because dueling was illegal in France at the time, and he spent twenty-five years as a captive of Barbary pirates before he returned home to England, where he died around 1682. Charles I also employed a jester named Muckle John, about whom little is known.

Bridenapping, or marriage by abduction, has been a common practice in patriarchal societies with strong taboos against sex and pregnancy outside of marriage. Lower class men who could not afford to pay the bride price to the woman's family often engaged in the practice. Sometimes the abduction was consensual. Often it was not. As usual, women and children have suffered—and continue to suffer—most from these practices.

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