Hawk Quest, by Robert Lyndon. Book review

Sphere 2012. ISBN 978-1-84744-497-4. 658 pages.

Hawk Quest is set in 1072 in most of Europe, the North Atlantic, European Russia and Anatolia. All the main characters are fictional.

Vallon, a Frankish outlaw and soldier of fortune, is on his way through the Alps to join the Varangian Guard in Byzantium when he encounters a dying Greek scholar and his assistant, a Sicilian medical student named Hero, who are on their way to England to deliver a ransom demand to the family of a captured Norman knight. After the scholar’s death, Vallon is talked into accompanying Hero to England to deliver the letter.  But the ransom demands a fabulous price, four pure white gyrfalcons, found only in Greenland. Vallon and Hero undertake the impossible quest, each for their own reasons – which have little to do with the captured knight – accompanied by the downtrodden younger step-brother of the captured knight, a German soldier, and an English peasant falconer and his giant dog. Pursuing them and intent on murder is the knight’s elder step-brother, Drogo, who stands to inherit the family estate if the ransom is never delivered. So begins an epic journey to the limits of the known world, from the everlasting ice of Greenland to the ship-destroying Russian rivers and the deserts of Anatolia, a journey on which the travellers find friendship, love, betrayal and heartbreak. Not everyone will reach the end.

Hawk Quest is a classic adventure quest on a grand scale. At over 650 pages, this is a huge book, and the story is big enough to justify the length. The journey itself covers a vast area, from the north of Greenland far beyond the Arctic Circle to Anatolia (modern Turkey). The travellers face just about every imaginable hazard – storm, shipwreck, hunger, cold, marauding Vikings, hostile tribes, cheating merchants, double-crossing officials, bandits, and dangerous wildlife including a polar bear. Not to mention Drogo’s murderous threat, and the perils posed by a beautiful, fiery Icelandic noblewoman, Caitlin, and her violent, selfish brother. Astonishingly for such a long book, the pace never flags and the tale is gripping from end to end.

Part of this is due to the quality of the writing. Lyrical, terse, poignant or humorous as occasion demands, the prose brings the events and landscapes of the journey to vivid life. On occasion I would look up from the book and experience a slight shock on realising that I was not watching an elk in the forests of northern Russia or on a glacier in Greenland. The various obstacles the company have to overcome are explained clearly enough that the reader understands enough to share the experience, so that erecting a ship’s mast or tracking an escaped falcon becomes as thrilling as any battle scene or chase sequence.

The other reason why the book was so compelling was the characterisation, which I thought was outstanding. All the central characters of Vallon’s company are individuals, with their own strengths and weaknesses, their own reasons for joining the expedition, their own hopes and objectives and motivations (sometimes in conflict). All have their own talents and contribute to solving the problems faced by the expedition in their own way. Deep friendships and romantic relationships are forged on the journey.  Even enemies can develop a grudging respect for one another and can co-operate when mutual survival depends on it (even if they promptly revert to type when the immediate danger is over). The variety of individual characters and the interactions between them was the best feature of the novel for me.

Was there anything I didn’t like?  Very little. It took me a while to get into the story, partly because the storytelling in the early chapters has quite a number of flashbacks, which I initially found confusing, and partly because the captured knight’s Norman family and their military retainers all seem so thoroughly unpleasant (Richard, the younger son who joins the expedition, is an exception, but this doesn’t become apparent until much later in the book).  Once the journey gets under way, the book gets into its stride and all these initial problems disappear.  I also found the relationship between Caitlin and Vallon a little puzzling, probably because Caitlin’s thoughts are never shown and Vallon is – understandably, given his history – reluctant to think much about his emotions.

A word of warning: the cover strap-line breathlessly promises “An epic novel of the Norman Conquests”.  ‘Epic’ is entirely justified, but ‘of the Norman Conquests’ is misleading. The Norman conquest of England is at most a minor background event. Readers expecting an adventure involving William, the Battle of Hastings, et al will not find it here.  The title Hawk Quest gives a much more accurate idea of the novel.

A map at the front is invaluable for following the characters on their extraordinary journey. There is no author’s note, just a few comments on the price of gyrfalcons in medieval Europe and the dates of the handful of historical events mentioned in the novel.

Compelling, beautifully written epic quest spanning most of the world known to medieval Europe, with high adventure, convincing characters and a vivid sense of place.

The White Raven, by Robert Low. Book review.

Harper, 2009, ISBN 978-0-00-728798-7. 352 pages.

Third in the Oathsworn series, following The Whale Road (reviewed here earlier) and The Wolf Sea (reviewed here earlier), The White Raven is set in the winter of 972-3 AD, mainly in what is now Russia and the Ukraine. Olaf Tryggvason (later King of Norway), his uncle Sigurd, Vladimir Prince of Novgorod and his uncle Dobrynya are historical figures. All the main characters are fictional.

Orm and the remaining Oathsworn are living on a farmstead in Scandinavia granted them by Jarl Brand, and one of them, Kvasir, has married a capable wife, Thorgunna from the neighbouring farmstead. Orm would like to settle down and earn a reliable living by horse-breeding, but the rest of the Oathsworn are obsessed with returning to Attila’s tomb, deep in the steppes, in search of the hoard of cursed silver that cost many of their comrades their lives (recounted in The Whale Road). When a raid captures Thorgunna’s sister Thordis, the Oathsworn take to the seas again, sailing to Novgorod and trekking across the winter steppes in search of revenge and riches. But they are not the only ones out on the steppe in this bitter winter. Young Prince Vladimir of the Rus wants the treasure to finance his wars against his rival brothers; Brondolf Lambisson wants it to rebuild his dying town of Birka; and the fearsome Amazons, woman warriors of the steppe, are oathsworn to protect the hoard to the death against all comers.

Like its two predecessors, The Whale Road and The Wolf Sea, The White Raven is a larger-than-life adventure, a “saga to be told around the fire”, as the author puts it. On their quest for a hoard of cursed treasure, the Oathsworn encounter monsters (given a poignant modern twist), impossible battles against the odds, the treachery and friendship of princes, and legendary female warriors.

Olaf Tryggvason, nicknamed Crowbone, was the outstanding character for me. A couple of decades later, he was to become a notable king of Norway; here he is an enigma in the shape of a nine-year-old boy with an uncanny wisdom beyond his years, clearly destined for great things. An inspired touch was to make him a gifted storyteller, always ready with a tale to illuminate – often uncomfortably – the current situation. According to the Historical Note, this ability of Olaf’s is fictional, but the rest of the events involving him are documented (minus Orm and the Oathsworn, of course) in the Saga of Olaf Tryggvason. Whether the saga was itself recounting sober historical facts or adding its own embellishments is a different question.

The characters of Thorgunna and Thordis were also strong aspects of the novel for me. In the previous two instalments, women have been either disposable slaves or witches with hints of dark supernatural powers. In Thorgunna and Thordis we meet the capable, forthright, down-to-earth Norse women so familiar from the Icelandic sagas, women who are strong-minded and courageous without the need for swords or sorcery. The Amazons of the steppe are based in part on archaeological excavations of tombs of women armed as warriors in the Ukraine, southern Russia and Kazakhstan. A sort of female counterpart to the Oathsworn themselves, they are a warrior band sworn to their leader and each other, dedicated to protecting the memory of the long-dead Attila.

The plot rattles along at a dizzying pace as the Oathsworn encounter one adventure after another on their quest first to rescue Thordis and then to return to Attila’s tomb and its hoard of unimaginable riches. This instalment completes the Attila plot that was begun in The Whale Road, and resolves the plot threads that were left hanging at the end of that book. The story of Attila’s tomb seems to be at an end now (or at least, I cannot see how it could reappear), but the same is not necessarily true of the Oathsworn, who will return for at least one further adventure in Book 4, The Prow Beast.

The political and military rivalries between the Rus princes (Vladimir is a major secondary character) make for a suitably dramatic backdrop as the Norse colonies up and down the great rivers are starting to form the beginnings of a state, which will be the forerunner of Russia and the origin of its name. A helpful Historical Note outlines some of the underlying history, which, as so often, is stranger than fiction (assuming one counts the Saga of Olaf Tryggvason as history), and a map at the front helps to follow the far-faring Oathsworn on their journeys.

Larger-than-life adventure saga following a band of tenth-century Norse warriors on their quest for the cursed treasure of Attila the Hun, through the biting cold of the winter steppe, battles with monsters and Amazons, and the shifting politics of the emerging Rus kingdoms.

The Whale Road, by Robert Low. Book review

Harper Collins, 2007. ISBN 978-0-00-721530-0. 334 pages

The Whale Road follows the adventures of a band of Norse mercenaries in 964/965 AD in Scandinavia, Russia and the Ukraine, set against the backdrop of the emerging Rus kingdoms around Kiev. The historical figures Sviatoslav of the Rus and his sons Yaropolk and Vladimir have walk-on parts. Harald Bluetooth of Norway and Denmark is an important off-stage presence, and Attila the Hun – a historical figure from 500 years earlier – is the subject of the heroes’ quest. The legendary Volsungs also feature. All the main characters are fictional.

Brought up on his uncle’s farm in Norway, Orm Ruriksson knows his father only as a name, until a threat from the uncle brings Orm’s father home to take vengeance and to sweep Orm away to a new life as a warrior of the Oathsworn. Sworn to each other and to their formidable leader Einar the Black, the Oathsworn are a verjazi band, Norse mercenaries who travel and fight for pay. This time they are on a quest for a rune-inscribed sword and the legendary hoard of Attila the Hun, trying to keep one step ahead of rivals and ex-employers who are also seeking the same treasures. The trail will lead them across the wild oceans and deep into the Russian steppes to face battle and treachery and dark magic – and the inexorable doom woven by a broken oath.

As the author says in his ‘Note on the history’, this is “...a saga, to be read around the fire against the lurking dark.” It has classic saga ingredients – a sword engraved with runes that has magical symbolism in two religions, a beautiful woman with a mysterious link to the Otherworld, a mountain forge of immense antiquity, a long-lost treasure hoard, desperate battles in far-off lands and epic sea voyages through storm and tempest. It also has something of the feel of the Icelandic sagas beyond the adventure, partly from the prose style and partly because of the sense of grim and implacable fate closing in as a result of the characters’ own choices and the unyielding demands of oath and obligation. The language is laconic, sprinkled with occasional vivid phrases reminiscent of Norse kennings, e.g. “...[the ship] leaped like a goosed goodwife”, “windows comfort-yellow with light”, “crow-wing hair”. The title of the novel itself is a classic Norse kenning – the whale road is the open ocean. Dialogue is terse and lively, liberally laced with black humour and Scots or Norse dialect terms. In keeping with the hard-drinking, hard-fighting life of the main characters, modern four-letter words are frequent; readers who are offended by words such as f**k and c**t may like to consider themselves warned.

The book is narrated throughout in first person by Orm. I often dislike first-person narratives, as the reader sees only the narrator’s point of view, but fortunately Orm is intelligent and interested in working out hidden information and in trying to understand other people’s motivations.

The plot is non-stop action, with plenty of casual violence (the “Glasgow kiss” makes an appearance under another name), gory battle scenes and gruesome ways to die. As one might expect from the subject matter, it’s a dangerous novel to be a character in. The Whale Road captures the precarious nature of life as a mercenary warrior, forever poised between the possibility of riches beyond the dreams of avarice and the (much more likely) possibility of an unpleasant death. It is a little surprising that Orm, an inexperienced youth of 15, fits into this tough, ruthless band with apparent ease, although this might be explained by Orm’s ability to read Latin (which turns out to be a skill of considerable use to the fearsome Einar) and his father’s status as a respected member of the group.

A strong sense of the supernatural is woven through the narrative. Storms are sent by angry gods, a lost comrade has to be honoured by a sacrifice, and who else would emerge from an abandoned mine under a mountain but an angry black dwarf wielding a hammer (a scene that still makes me laugh weeks after reading it)? For the most part the supernatural exists in the minds of the characters; the exception seems to be the mysterious and beautiful Hild with her aura of evil spirits, dark magic and supernatural link to the mysterious treasure hoard.

A useful map at the front of the book and a list of place names with their modern equivalents at the back is helpful for following the Oathsworn on their epic journeys, and a ‘Note on the history’ gives a brief summary of the historical background to the tale. There is no glossary for the colourful Norse terms; I recognised most of them and those that were new to me were clear from the context, but I have a long-standing interest in Norse history. Readers who are not familiar with the period may find the Norse glossary on the author’s website useful.

Gripping saga of epic journeys by land and sea, hard-fought battles and the dark power of oaths, as a band of Norse mercenary warriors seek a legendary sword and a long-lost hoard of cursed silver in tenth-century Scandinavia and Russia.