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| About the Book |
Book Title: The Wanderer and the Way
Series: Cuthbert’s People
Author Name: G. M. Baker
Publication Date: March 10th, 2025
Publisher: Stories All the Way Down
Pages: 249
Genre: Historical Fiction
Any Triggers: Rape is mentioned by not portrayed.
The Camino de Santiago de Compostela, now the most famous pilgrimage route in the world,
was founded in the early ninth century, largely due to the efforts of Bishop Theodemir of Iria
Flavia. As with most people of this period, nothing seems to be known of his early years.
What follows, therefore, is pure invention.
Theodemir returns footsore and disillusioned to his uncle’s villa in Iria Flavia, where he meets Agnes, his uncle’s gatekeeper, a woman of extraordinary beauty. He falls immediately in love. But Agnes has a fierce, though absent, husband; a secret past; another name, Elswyth; and a broken heart.
Witteric, Theodemir’s cruel and lascivious uncle, has his own plans for Agnes. When the king of Asturias asks Theodemir to undertake an embassy on his behalf to Charles, King of the Franks, the future Charlemagne, Theodemir plans to take Agnes with him to keep her out of Witteric’s clutches.
But though Agnes understands her danger as well as anyone, she refuses to go. And Theodemir dares not leave without her.
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Author Bio:
Born in England to a teamster's son and a coal miner's daughter, G. M. (Mark) Baker now lives in Nova Scotia with his wife, no dogs, no horses, and no chickens. He prefers driving to flying, desert vistas to pointy trees, and quiet towns to bustling cities.
As a reader and as a writer, he does not believe in confining himself to one genre. He writes about kind abbesses and melancholy kings, about elf maidens and ship wreckers and shy falconers, about great beauties and their plain sisters, about sinners and saints and ordinary eccentrics. In his newsletter Stories All the Way Down, he discusses history, literature, the nature of story, and how not to market a novel.
Author Links:
Website: https://gmbaker.net
Substack: https://gmbaker.substack.com/
Twitter / X: https://x.com/mbakeranalecta
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/gmbaker
Amazon Author Page: https://www.amazon.com/stores/G.-M.-Baker/author/B09WZK7MD4
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| read an excerpt |
The Wanderer and the Way
Excerpt 4:
“I feel very light today,” she said at last. “I don’t know why.”
“You are safe and well, after many weeks of danger and sickness,” he said. “It is no surprise that you should feel light in this moment. I feel just the same.”
“I don’t think it is right, though,” she said. “I have been thinking about Hathus and his men. I have been telling myself for so long that it must all have been a great misunderstanding and that any day we would stumble upon them, or they would be spread out across the countryside looking for us. But Mother Rotlenda tells me that this is foolish. Had they survived, she says, they would have sent a rider to the foot of the pass, since we would have had to come this way. And no such rider has come. And so they must all have died. And they died saving me. I should not feel so light. I should be so terribly sad, and I have been for many days now, but today I feel light.”
“They died saving me,” Theodemir replied. “I am the king’s ambassador. They were sworn to my service, not to yours. It was I who saved you, and I did not die doing it.”
These were dangerous words, adventurous words, and he held his breath, expecting her hand to be angrily withdrawn. But her hand remain clasped in his. Nor did she make any answer.
“Hathus would wish you to be light,” he said. “He died for me, which is to say that he died for his king, Alphonso, for I would have counted for nothing had I not been the king’s ambassador. But it is true that he would have been glad to give his life for you, as we all would, and none of us would wish to see a tear stain you cheek. Be light then, for all our sakes.”
“You will make me cry if you go on,” she said, but she said it with a lightness in her voice, and still her hand remained in his. Not wishing to make her cry, he lapsed into silence.
After a period of quietness, while the sun played on the water and crisp brown leaves settled gently to earth from trees alive with birdsong, she said, “Mother Rotlenda says I am not cursed by God and that I am a terribly vain girl for thinking that I am.”
“She is right that you are not cursed by God,” he said immediately and with conviction. “She is wrong to say that you are vain,” he continued. “It would be vanity to imagine your beauty to be greater than it is, and that would be impossible for you.”
“That’s silly,” she said idly, her hand still lying in his. But they she resumed her theme: “She said she meant spiritual vanity. I don’t really know what she means. Do you?”
“No,” he said. “But still, I do not think it is true.”
“She tells me that instead of imagining I am cursed and running away from it, I need a positive vocation, something I can run toward.”
“She tells me that I am foolish to think I have a positive vocation and for running toward it.”
“Perhaps she just likes being contrary,” she said.
“You are not cursed,” he said.
“God did not make me your vocation,” she replied.
“I love you,” he said, “Whether it is by God’s dictation or merely the prompting of my own heart, I will serve you in any way I can. Indeed, it seems to me that if it is not God’s particular dictation that I should love you, the prompting of my heart could be taken as God’s prompting in a more general sense, and therefore obeyed in the same spirit.”
“You should be a theologian,” she said.
“You should read the letters they write before you condemn me to so harsh a fate,” he replied.
She squeezed his hand.
“You are not cursed,” he said again.
“I half believe it,” she said. “Mother Rotlenda’s words convince my head. If only I could hear Mother Wynflaed and Sister Eormenberg say the same words, I think they might convince the heart.”
“Do my words not convince your heart,” he asked.
“Your words are not disinterested,” she said.
“No,” he said, “But they are not less sincere for that.”
“She says I am not cursed for my sin, for that has been forgiven by a priest, and I have done the penance he imposed, and therefore I am absolved of it, and God will not punish a sin for which I have received absolution. But still, there is the way I look, the way I am. Men behave so strangely towards me. I once thought how wonderful it was that I could enchant men so, without even trying, without even wanting to. But now I think that it is a curse in itself, that God cursed me from my birth, not from the time of my sin.”
“Do you know of a song called the Iliad,” he asked her. “It is this woefully long Greek song that I heard in Rome about a war long ago that was fought over a woman named Helen. She was said to be the most beautiful woman in the world. She was stolen from the Greeks by the Trojans, and so all the Greeks sailed to Troy to win her back. She is called ‘the face that launched a thousand ships?’”
She pondered this. “My face has launched two ships,” she said. “And burned one. I suppose that means my curse is less than hers.”
“But not your beauty,” he said.
“Stop that,” she replied. “What became of Helen?”
“The poet’s disagree, apparently. But I prefer the story that she returned to her husband and lived happily with him.”
“I have no one to return to,” she said.
“Then you are free to choose another,” he said.
“I am a woman torn in two,” she said. “Which half of me do you want to marry.”
“Elswyth is a woman of desire and fancy,” he replied, “But I love Agnes.”
“Agnes is not the marrying kind.”
“Suppose an Agnes not oppressed by melancholy and sorrow,” he said.
“Is that anything but Elswyth?” she asked.
“If you are a woman torn in two, it is melancholy and sorrow that have made the division. Remove them and Agnes and Elswyth become one.”
“There was no Agnes before my melancholy and my sorrow. She is born of them, made of them. Take them away and there will only be Elswyth.”
“Then take them away and I shall love Elswyth as I love Agnes.”
“Elswyth is gone. She is nothing but a dress I can put on to please a hall for a evening.”
“If that were so, you would not be a woman at all, but only two masks, one Elswyth, one Agnes. But a mask must be worn by an actor of flesh and blood. The hand I hold in mine is flesh and blood. Not a riddle, but a woman. And the flesh of me, and the blood of me love the flesh of her and the blood of her. And the soul of me loves the soul of her.”
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| My Thoughts |
When I first started reading, as a non-believer I was dubious about too much spiritual content, however, that was soon irrelevant as the characters neatly took over and their 'journeys' became quite engrossing.
Possibly not a book I would have chosen if I'd seen it advertised, but reading for the Coffee Pot Book Club was interesting, so I'm pleased to have encountered this one.
I've no idea how accurate the author's interpretation of 'What follows is pure invention' in his explanation of his fictional idea of what and how things in the past might have happened, but even if totally inaccurate, it made a very good story.
A good book to take on any personal pilgrimage, I'd have thought, or just to enjoy relaxing at home.
**** 4 stars
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THANK YOU!
Thanks so much for hosting G. M. Baker today, and for your lovely review of his new novel, The Wanderer and the Way.
ReplyDeleteTake care,
Cathie xx
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