It's 1134. In a bleak monastery somewhere in Germany, Paul of Ardiun begins the chronicle he has been ordered by his religious superiors to write: the story of the knight Karelian Brandeis, for whom Paul once served as squire, who fell prey to the evil wiles of a seductive sorceress, thereby precipitating civil war and the downfall of a king.
But before Paul can set down more than a sentence or two of this cautionary tale, the sorceress herself magically appears to him. He is a liar, she tells him, and always has been. She lays a spell on him: from this moment, he will only be able to write the truth.
But what is the truth? All his life he has rearranged his memories to suit his faith. He has judged Karelian, judged the women, judged the world.
Now, against his will, an entirely different story begins to emerge.
A Message to My Readers
I grew up in a world where there were six months of winter, bad roads, few neighbors, and no schools. Books were everything. I lived in them, and in large measure I still do. And whether I'm reading them or writing them, I'm still fascinated by the same questions-what and why? At the heart of everything which happens in the human world lie ideas about how the world works-or how it ought to work-ideas about power and authority, male and female, love and sex, truth and divinity. And I always wonder what would happen if some of those ideas were changed-not just the ones we think are changeable, but more especially, the ones we think are not.
I've loved many books which explored such questions, extrapolating into the far future, or building alternative worlds. But somehow when I write my own, I generally find myself tackling the questions here, in our own world, our own past, with our own beliefs and history on the drawing board.
I am, I suppose, someone who's never been scared of a good scrap.
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