The period feel of Elizabeth Chadwick’s The Falcons of Montabard, a story of romantic historical fiction set in early twelfth century Outremer, is competent, the characterisations solid, and many stimulating turns of phrase makes the solid prose a pleasure to read. On the other hand, the linear plot plods from point A to point B to point C with too much foreshadowing and nothing more than a few mild surprises to shake up the even tenor. This novel was always pleasant to pick up, but it was also easy to set down.
1120. Sabin fitzSimon’s reckless behaviour earns him a pilgrimage to Jerusalem to pray for the soul of his father and to atone for his own sins. The knight who has consented to take Sabin into his household, Edmund Strongfist, keeps a sharp eye on the young man to ensure his interest does not stray to Strongfist’s only child, Annais, who is reluctantly intrigued by the charming troublemaker.
In the Crusader states of Outremer, men with a talent for battle are swiftly rewarded with estates and riches beyond anything dreamt of back home in Europe. Strongfist soon prospers. But for Sabin and Annais, the paths to fullfillment twist through shadows of loss and danger.
Elizabeth Chadwick plants her fictional cast in a firmly historical setting. From the England and Scotland of the introductory chapters we move swiftly to the crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem, and thence northward to the County of Edessa and the Principality of Antioch. The Franks (Europeans) have a tenuous hold on their conquered territories, and raids, skirmishes, and full-scale battles are routine fare.
Paradoxically, after a rousing battle scene with pirates the protagonists’ arrival in the Holy Land proved an anti-climax. This is Jerusalem, the literal centre of the world according to mediaeval beliefs, the heart and soul of mediaeval Christendom; the Earthly Kingdom of which pilgrims dream and for which kings ruin themselves. How does our little travelling party react? They comment on the hot weather.
This leads me to something I missed in this novel, via some praise. As a practiced mediaeval re-enactor, Chadwick knows how period clothing feels and her insight into the details and routines of daily mediaeval life from medicine to cookery is unquestionable. One can rely on her characters looking and speaking and behaving in a manner consistent with the times. That makes her historical fiction both readable and worthwhile, and head and shoulders above most of her colleagues.
On the downside, in The Falcons Of Montabard she relies mainly on everyday objects to convey a sense of the physical setting. At all times, the reader knows what people are eating or wearing or how they wash themselves, whether or not this is relevant to a scene. Lack of natural integration into scenes sometimes meant the research comes across like an educational lecture, interrupting the pull and flow of the story. Trades are enumerated and sources of income are listed in conversations, but - for example - craftsmen or farmers are not shown in action, and if villagers till the land below Montabard or crops suffer from drought as the seasons pass, we never glimpse it. Castles, a street in Jerusalem, and a pair of bath houses are nicely rendered, but all wider geographical settings such as a river valley, the mountains, or even important towns, are not painted in any useful detail nor is their atmosphere captured. To orientate oneself, a map is a must, because scant signposts are given in the text. (For example, I had to look up Zerdana to get a proper clue to its whereabouts; it lies 65 kilometres east-south-east of Antioch, which lies roughly 500 kilometres north of Jerusalem.) The time traveller in me was reasonably contented, but the armchair traveller pouted.
To me, this myopic focus on what is right under the nose and rarely being able to survey the greater surroundings created a feeling that the protagonists exist in a vacuum. I did not get a sense of the general population or of their lives, other than abstractly through bland summaries of political events. But for that I can consult historical non-fiction.
After an intriguing introduction and a shipboard incident that led me to expect Annais to blossom into a vibrant character, she instead turns into a brat on her arrival in Jerusalem. Fortunately, marriage makes her grow up although for me she never recaptured the promise of her early scenes. Things happen and are done to her, but her personality remains limp as a ragdoll. This cannot be blamed simply on the fact that women of her time were treated as subjects and subordinates. Even her own sphere of influence as a chatelaine trusted with the welfare of a fortress in her husband’s absence, or as the leader of the women who serve as her ladies, she does little to assert her personality, habitually reacting rather than acting. Things happen around her or to her, and what we see her doing is sulking or smiling, prettifying a solar, carrying a child, or playing her harp.
The struggles of Sabin fitzSimon to harness his restless energies and find his place in the world make him a much more dynamic character than Annais. From the first chapter to the last, he grows and develops, learning from his various experiences with people, places, and events. What exactly he sees in Annais and how his attitude changes from irritation and amusement to passionate love is less obvious to me. I was told of the fact, but I was not able to feel it. Similarly, when Annais’s feelings for Sabin exploded in the midst of a period of supposedly numbing grief, I had not caught up with her change of mind and mood.
Although I liked Sabin (and did not dislike Annais), my favourite character by far in The Falcons Of Montabard is Edmund Strongfist, Annais’s gruff father, as robust of spirit as he is of body, who scorns the decadence of Eastern baths until he is forced to endure a “lousy” sojourn in the cellars of Kharpurt (Harput in modern Turkey)… I also liked the unimaginative but honourable Gerbert de Montabard, and developed a fondness for the jaded Mariamne fitzPeter’s sharp nerve. Her presence never failed to liven up a scene.
For three quarters of the book, Saracens are reduced to nebulous cartoon figures who are almost exclusively brought into a scene to capture or be killed, screaming (Chadwick does, however, write battles well). Towards the end, the author brings in the historical Usāmah Ibn-Munqidh (Usamah ibn Munqidh in the novel), whose exchanges with Sabin finally allows the non-Frankish population a voice in the story. Unfortunately, much of it felt tacked on as a lengthy afterthought rather than a seamlessly integrated plot thread. At least I appreciated that the author firmly bypassed the common fictional cliché of making the two men from opposing camps bosom friends. Usāmah Ibn-Munqidh is allowed to retain (most) of his dignity.
In the final verdict, although The Falcons of Montabard failed to excite me the novel nonetheless represents agreeable historical fiction. Later sections lost the verve and unpredictability that the opening chapters had led me to expect, but Elizabeth Chadwick is a talented storyteller with a good ear for conversation (when she resists the temptation of research dumping) and her characters kept me interested in seeing how the ending would play out. I would like to add that this is an author whose skill has consistently improved. Thus, while I was no way overwhelmed by The Falcons Of Montabard, I felt no hesitation in recently adding two later novels, The Time Of Singing (re-titled For The King's Favor in the USA) and To Defy A King, to my TBR stack.
(Time Warner Books UK, library binding, 2003, page 172-3):
"'Aye,' said Durand, who had noticed [Sabin's] response. 'The Falcons Of Montabard are famed. Lord Gerbert has to present one every year to King Baldwin as part of his feudal obligation. If you ask me who is the bravest man in the fortress, I would say the falconer who has to scale the rock face on a rope and collect the young birds from the nest.'
Sabin nodded in heartfelt agreement.
'There is a legend that as long as there are shahins at Montabard, it will remain a Christian fortress.' Durand shrugged. 'It's a fine story, but I think that the birds have been there through every rule, and will still be so when we are long gone...'
The River Orontes gleamed in the distance but, rather than reflecting the blue of the morning sky, was a rain-swollen-brown torrent. Beyond its banks, the flood plain spread to Sabin's view, lush and green, dotted by grazing animals and arable fields.
'Montabard grows cotton and grain and sugar cane,' Durand said. 'There is good hunting along the riverbanks, and plentiful fish in the river.'
Sabin's lips twitched. 'A veritable land of milk and honey.'
Durand returned the smile. 'That too, if you do not mind scorpions.'"
A book of related interest: A contemporary, local, non-Frankish view of mores and manners in Outremer is provided by the real-life Usāmah's memoir. Snippets are freely available on the internet, but for a more complete picture I recommend An Arab-Syrian Gentleman & Warrior In The Period Of The Crusades: Memoirs Of Usāmah Ibn-Munqidh, translated by Philip K. Hitti, Columbia University Press, 2000. For anyone who has familiarised themselves with Crusader society through Frankish sources, Usāmah Ibn-Munqidh provides an eloquent and fascinating counterpoint.
A film of related interest: While Kingdom Of Heaven plays out sixty years later than the events related in The Falcons Of Montabard and is heavily fictionalized, the Director’s Cut brings to visual life much of the same world. Not only is it an entirely different film from the mutilated version relased in cinemas, but it tries to deal fairly with relations between Muslims and Christians at a time in history that still sends ripples into our own. If you are able to temporarily set aside demands for strict historical accuracy, this is a medieval epic for lovers of absorbing storytelling. There is a good romance thread, too, for those romantics who don’t mind angsty drama.
