Historical novel ‘sort of’ set in Renaissance-era Europe

'Children of Earth and Sky' by Guy Gavriel Kay (Penguin Canada)
'Children of Earth and Sky' by Guy Gavriel Kay (Penguin Canada)

“Events, destinies, the flow of the river of time…these are altered, often, by very small things.” So writes Guy Gavriel Kay, the Winnipeg-based award-winning novelist in his book Children of Earth and Sky which will be published in May.

That sentence is one of the main themes in this historical/fantasy novel set during the Renaissance-era.

Sort of.

I say “sort of” because while Gavriel Kay grounds this novel in the  real world, as he did with his two previous novels set in an alternate history of China, he uses fictitious place names and characters.

READ: MARRIAGE OF OPPOSITES IS A CAPTIVATING, THOUGHTFUL, PROVOCATIVE BOOK

Children of Earth and Sky is set in what is obviously the east Mediterranean, shortly after (in real history) the fall of Constantinople and before the Turks set out to siege Vienna.

Except in this novel, the Turks are the Osmanlis, Venice is represented by Seressa and Rome, Rhodias. Drawing from his earliest novels, Gavriel Kay names the three major religions, Jaddites, Asharites and Kindath (Christians, Muslims and Jews, respectively, although their methods of worship are nothing like their real-life counterparts.)

The central plot of this novel is a journey that the three major characters take from Seressa across the Seressini Sea to Dubrava and further east to the fallen Jaddite city of Saratarium, now named Asharias by the conquering Osmanlis.

Pero Villani is a disgraced young artist living in Seressa, a merchant city state that depends heavily on trade. Although talented, Pero’s second commission was to paint a contessa. The contessa was a beautiful red-haired woman, much younger than her husband and bored. Inevitably she seduces Pero who reflects her desire for him in his portrait. Found out by her husband, he is disgraced, blackballed and forced to make a living binding books.

He is rescued from this plight by the Council of Twelve, the leaders of Seressa, who tell him that the ruler of the Osmanlis, the Grand Khalif, wants a portrait done of himself in the western style. This would be a unique opportunity for the Seressans to study the machinations of the Osmanlis.

No one from the west has ever set foot in Saratarium since it fell, let alone spent time with the Khalif, the enemy of the west.

The mission carries a huge risk, of course. It’s unlikely that Pero will ever be allowed to return home, but they promise him that should he return he would be in huge demand as an artist and they would commission him to paint a portrait of the Duke of Seressa himself.

With little to lose, Pero agrees and goes aboard a ship, the Blessed Ignacia,  to sail to Dubrova from where he will be escorted with other merchants to Asharias.

He is not the only one travelling on the ship by order of the Council of Twelve. Also aboard is Leonora Valeri. The young noble woman was impregnated by her secret lover. He was found by her elder brother and cut to pieces and left for the wolves. Her father sent her to the Daughters of Jad, a retreat home to spend the rest of her disgraced life there.

The Council of Twelve also rescue her. They are sending a doctor to Dubrava (the Dubravae frequently send such requests to Seressa where the best doctors are often found.) The doctor is an older, single man. They want her to go over to Dubrava as his wife and be their eyes and ears in Dubrava, a competing state they distrust.

She agrees. Like Pero she has nothing to lose.

As it journeys across the Seressini Sea, the ship is boarded by a notorious band of raiders from Senjan, a walled town just north of Dubrava. One of the raiders is Danica Gradek, a brave, young and ambitious woman, talented with a bow and arrow. Her parents were killed by Osmanlis and her younger brother kidnapped by them. Her goal is to be able to avenge this.

Aboard the ship, through circumstance, Danica ends up having to kill a fellow Senjani raider to prevent a bloodbath. Not wanting to return to Senjan, where she will likely be killed, she offers to serve as a bodyguard to the ship’s captain. Like the other two, her fate is set.

The first part of this book follows this journey. But soon the tales diverge as they each seek their own paths upon arriving in Dubrava.

Leonara pays a visit to a religious order on an island off Dubrava and gets involved in a plot that includes the island’s secret guest, the surviving empress of Saratarium.

Danica comes across a band of notorious guerrilla-style raiders attacking Osmanli supply lines and realizes that her destiny lies with them.

Pero carries on to Saratarium/Asharias and becomes the Khalif’s painter but soon becomes embroiled in an intricate power struggle. The choices he makes will have repercussions throughout the world.

And that is the central theme. No matter how insignificant, each person has a role to play in the political chess game of history. Sometimes you do certain things and life is altered, as Danica realizes aboard the Blessed Ignacia. Minor incidents change our fate. Life and death are random.

Sometimes Gavriel Kay repeats certain events from the different points of view of various characters. All this adds to the fluidity of the book and its characters. Life does not have one viewpoint.

READ: DERSHOWITZ’S TAKE ON THE WORLD’S FIRST JEWISH LAWYER

A word about the Kindath. Set to represent the Jews, the Kindath don’t play a major role in Children. However one of the interesting minor characters we come across is the Khalif’s Grand Vizer, Yosef. As Gavriel Kay writes,  “Vizers – indeed most high-ranking officials in Asharias – tended to be eunuchs. Sometimes, instead, they were Kindath, followers of a marginal, often-derided faith. The principle was the same: members of neither group could have any hope of achieving something dynastic. They would owe everything, including their continued existence, to the khalif’s mercy and grace.”

Gavriel Kay is known primarily as a fantasy writer. His novel Ysabel won the World Fantasy Award in 2008. This work is mostly grounded in the real world despite the not-so-subtle geographical name changes.

Yes, there are elements of fantasy. Danica has conversations with her long-dead grandfather, and Pero comes across some magical artifacts in the forest, but these moments are fleeting. While it is fiction, it is set in a real historical period around real events. Do not expect dragons. This is Game of Thrones for adults. n