The Illuminator
- Book Review,
by Brenda Rickman Vantrease
From Publishers Weekly
A medieval illuminator with radical views finds himself sharing quarters with a widow struggling to preserve her independence in this enthralling historical novel set in the 14th century, a time of religious strife. Lady Kathryn, mistress of Blackingham Manor in East Anglia, must be practical to ensure the future of her 15-year-old twin sons. Little as she cares for the money-grubbing worthies of the local abbey, she is happy to do them a favor by taking in a master illuminator as lodger. Finn, a widower with a 16-year-old daughter, proves to be a congenial guest. He is educated, perceptive and kind--and soon, irresistible to Kathryn. Their subsequent passionate affair blinds them to the romance developing between Finn's innocent daughter, Rose, and Kathryn's pious son, Colin. Meanwhile, the unsolved murder of an unscrupulous priest on the manor grounds puts everyone in jeopardy, and Finn's secret sympathy with John Wycliffe and his Lollard followers, who champion an English translation of the Scriptures, endangers his livelihood, not to mention his life. Kathryn's plainspoken fortitude and warring loyalties to lover and sons make her a compelling figure, and Vantrease's secondary characters are brilliantly sketched as well: confused Colin; his carousing brother, Alfred; Agnes, Lady Kathryn's cook and confidante since childhood; Half-Tom, a courageous dwarf. In Vantrease's medieval England, justice is determined by the powerful; violence is a first, not a last, resort; and love must take second place to duty. This is an absorbing, expertly told tale, plainly and forthrightly written and embroidered with plenty of homespun detail. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From Booklist
Set against the tumultuous backdrop of fourteenth-century England, this is a richly detailed story of love, political intrigue, and religious tyranny. Finn is a master illustrator hired to illustrate an abbot's new Bible. On the side, he is also working on John Wycliffe's seditious translation of the Book of John into English. As part of his salary, he and his teenage daughter, Rose, are billeted with Lady Kathryn of Blackingham, newly widowed and desperately trying to hang on to her lands for her two sons. When alliances are formed, Finn's past and Kathryn's present conspire to tear their world apart. First-time novelist Vantrease mixes the historical figures of John Wycliffe, Julian of Norwich, John Ball, and Henry Despenser with her richly drawn characters, spanning the ranks from highborn to the lowest of the low. Her details and deft storytelling create a luminescent and very readable portrait of a dark time in history. Elizabeth Dickie
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Review
Advance Praise for The Illuminator
"A wonderful novel---a tumultuous panorama of Wycliffe's and Chaucer's England, with an absolutely compelling and irresistible heroine. This is historical fiction in the grand epic manner, beautifully felt and written."
- Max Byrd, author of Shooting the Sun
"In her elegant novel, The Illuminator, Brenda Rickman Vantrease breathes light into the dark corners of feudal England, laying bare the consequences of political and spiritual oppression, and illuminating the power of both love and the written word to save."
- Charmaine Craig, author of The Good Men: A Novel of Heresy
"A very absorbing and masterfully written novel that twines two stories together---a personal one of life on a manor in 1379 and a political one about the undercurrents that led, eventually, to the Reformation. Impressive new talent Brenda Rickman Vantrease has created a cast of characters that stand out as individuals you want to follow."
- Margaret George, author of The Autobiography of Henry VIII
"Brenda Rickman Vantrease's The Illuminator is one of the most engaging books I've had the pleasure to read in many years. Extraordinary characters of an extraordinary period in history are portrayed with a passion that only an accomplished writer can deliver. . . . This is simply a wonderful book."
- Terry Kay, author of The Valley of Light
"A rich and original debut novel. Brenda Rickman Vantrease writes with a strong voice, imaginative scope, and an audacious reach about complex characters during a fascinating historical period."
- Valerie Miner, author of The Low Road
"The Illuminator is a novel with something for every reader. It has young love, older love, political plot and intrigue, and religious and philosophical conflict presented as grand adventure. . . . Each detail is telling, pitch perfect, important. The relationships are complex, engrossing. Vantrease's feel for time and place is natural. This book absolutely glows."
- Frances Sherwood, author of The Book of Splendor
Book Description
It is England, in the late fourteenth century, a time when the whim of a lord or the pleasure of a bishop can seal nearly anyone's fate. The printing press has yet to be invented. Books, written only in Latin or Norman French, are rare and costly, painstakingly lettered and illuminated with exquisite paintings---far beyond the reach of ordinary people.
But there are cracks in the old feudal order---and in the absolute power of the Church. Finn is a master illuminator who works not only for the Church but also, in secret, for the heretical Oxford cleric John Wycliffe. Under the nose of the powerful Abbot of Broomholm, Finn illuminates pages for Wycliffe---an English translation of the Bible, meant to bring the word of God to the masses. And Finn has another secret, one that will lead both himself and his beloved daughter into ever-increasing peril.
Lady Kathryn, the mistress of Blackingham Manor, is a widow who finds herself caught between the King's taxes and the Church's tithes. To protect her sons' inheritance, she strikes a bargain with the abbot---Kathryn will take in the illuminator and his daughter, and gain the monastery's protection. What begins as a hesitant friendship between Finn and Lady Kathryn grows into a passionate alliance that touches off a chain of betrayals, tragedies, and unexpected acts of heroism.
Richly detailed and irresistibly compelling, The Illuminator is a glorious novel of love, art, religion, and treachery at an extraordinary turning point in history.
About the Author
Brenda Rickman Vantrease is a former English teacher and librarian who has traveled extensively in the British Isles. She holds a doctorate in English from Middle Tennessee State University and lives in Nashville, Tennessee. The Illuminator is her first novel.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
PROLOGUE
OXFORD, ENGLAND
1379
John Wycliffe put down his pen and rubbed tired eyes. The candle burned low, spitting tendrils of smoke. It would burn only minutes longer, and it was the last. Only the middle of the month, and he'd exhausted his allotment. As master of Balliol College, Oxford University, he was afforded what would be adequate for most clerics--for most, who worked by day and slept by night. But Wycliffe scarcely slept during the nighttime hours. Purpose drove him from his bed early and kept him from it late.
The orange glow from the charcoal brazier did little to dispel the twilight thickening in the corners of his Spartan chambers. The candle sputtered and guttered out. The girl would be here soon. He could send her to the chandler, paying out of his own purse. He would not call attention to his work by begging more from the bursar or borrowing from colleagues.
At least the chargirl's delay gave him a much-needed respite. The muscles in his hand ached from holding the quills. His head hurt from squinting in the dim light, and his body was stiff from hours bent over his desk. Even his spirit was fatigued. As always, when he grew tired, he began to question his mission. Could it be pride, intellectual arrogance, and not God, that called him to such a gargantuan task? Or had he simply been pushed down this treacherous path by the machinations of the duke of Lancaster, John of Gaunt? The duke was on his way to gaining a kingdom and had no wish to share its wealth with a greedy Church. But it was no sin, Wycliffe reasoned, to accept the patronage of such a man, not when together they could break the tyranny of the priests and bishops and archbishops. John of Gaunt, the duke of Lancaster, would do it to serve himself. But John Wycliffe would do it to save the soul of England.
King Edward's death had been a blessing, in spite of the political struggle now going on between the boy king's uncles. Too much lasciviousness had swirled around Edward; the taint of sin corrupted his court. He had consorted openly with his mistress. It was rumored Alice Perrers was a great beauty, but Wycliffe thought her the devil's tool. What black arts had the scheming baggage practiced to gain the soul of a king? At least with Edward's death, Alice Perrers was gone from the cesspool that had been his court. John of Gaunt was now regent. And John of Gaunt was on his side.
For now.
Wycliffe pushed his chair away from the desk. He faced the window that looked out over Oxford. From below, he heard revelers, students with too much ale already in their bellies and now in pursuit of more, though where they got the money for an endless supply was a mystery to him. He guessed they drank the cheapest, the last pouring, though it would take more of that than a fat man's belly could hold to produce such an excess of exuberance. For a moment, he almost envied them their innocence, their wanton joy, their singular lack of purpose.
The girl should be here soon. She was already an hour late. He judged this by the deep indigo reflected in the window--a glazed window to honor his station. He could have translated two whole pages from the Vulgate in that time--two more pages to add to the packet going to East Anglia on the morrow. He was pleased with the work the illuminator had done for him. Not too ornate, yet beautiful, worthy of the text. How he loathed the profane antics of beast and bird and fool inserted for amusement in the marginalia, the ostentatious colors, the lavishness that the Paris Guild produced. This illuminator worked cheaper than the Paris masters, too. And the duke said he could be trusted to be discreet.
Voices drifted up from below, laughter, a snatch of song, then receded. Surely the girl would not be much longer. He must finish more of the translation tonight. He was halfway through the Book of John. Shadows flickered around the room. His eyelids drooped.
Jesus had faced down the temple priests. Wycliffe could face down a pope. Or two.
The coals shifted in the brazier, whispered to him. 'Souls perish while you dawdle.'
He dozed before the glowing embers.
John knew that she was late as she rushed up the stairs to Master Wycliffe's chamber. She hoped that he was so busily engaged with his writing that he would not notice, but she had seen no candle glow from his window. Sometimes, he hardly noticed she was there as she collected his soiled linen, swept his floor, emptied his chamber pot. Wouldn't it just be her luck 0that today he would be in one of his rare moods, asking about her family, how they spent heir Sundays, if any of them could read?
It wasn't that she resented his curiosity--in spite of his abrupt manner, he had kind eyes, and when he called her "child" he reminded her of her father who had died last year--but today, she didn't want to talk to him. She was sure to cry and besides, he would not approve, she thought, as she fingered the relic hanging from a ribbon attached to a hemp string. It girdled her waist like a rosary.
She smoothed her unbound hair beneath its shabby linen cap, took a deep breath, and knocked lightly on the oaken door. When she heard no response, she rapped again, louder, cleared her throat. "Master Wycliffe, it's me, Joan. I've come to clean your lodgings."
She tried the handle on the door, and finding it unbarred, opened it just a crack.
"Master Wycliffe?"
From the interior gloom, gruffly: "Come in, child. You are late. We waste time."
"I'm so sorry, Master Wycliffe. But it's my mother, you see. She's very ill. And there's only me to see to the little ones."
She scurried about the room while he watched, lighting the rush lights, their flames flickering as she opened the window and slung out the contents of his chamber pot. She collected his soiled linen into a bundle, conscious of his eyes on her. She never disturbed the papers on his desk. She had learned that the hard way.
"Shall I replace the candle, sir?"
"Umph. I've naught to replace it with. I've been waiting for you. So you could fetch more."
"I'm sorry. I'll go right away."
She hoped he would not report her tardiness. Who knew when her mother would be well enough to return to her own work as a charwoman. He turned his chair away from the window to face her, held up his hand in a halting gesture. "Your mother is ill, you say?"
"Her fever is very high." She blinked back tears, then blurted out her confession. "I've been to Saint Anne's to beg the priest to pray for her.
His mouth pressed into a tight line above the gray hairs of his beard. The priest's prayers are no better than yours. Perhaps not as good. Yours may well come from a purer heart."
He stood up, towering over her, austere in his plain robe and tight woolen cap that scarcely covered the gray hair flowing over his shoulders and mingling with his beard.
"What's that you have hanging on your belt?" he asked.
"My belt, sir?"
"Beneath your arm. Something that you call attention to in trying to conceal."
Copyright (c) 2005 by Brenda Rickman Vantrease
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