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Terrorism and democracy

Edward I was nearly killed by an Assassin during Lord Edward’s Crusade, most likely sent by the Mamluk Sultan Baibars, in order to remove his opposition to a 10-year truce with the Christian states at Jerusalem. He narrowly survived poisoning from the blade of the Assassin. – Gustave Doré, 19th Century

I’ve noticed an unsettling trend recently in democratic societies around the world. People who are unable to convince the majority to support them are turning to disruption to make their point. Tipping out milk in supermarkets to object to the farming of animals for food. Stopping traffic during the rush hour to make a case for trains, or the removal of mask mandates, or preferential treatment for a particular occupation, or any of a dozen causes.

In a tyranny, when free speech is suppressed and people cannot assemble to make their case, such reactions may be the route to social change. In a democracy, where peaceful protest is permitted and those of like mind can organise to convince others, there are more productive ways to change society. And if your efforts are not succeeding, perhaps it is because the majority do not agree with you. That’s democracy, too.

Protest marches and the like often cause some disruption as a byproduct. But those I’ve detailed above seem to have been organised and intended to cause maximum inconvenience. The fact that so many organisers are clear that they’re going to repeat their actions over and over until they get what they want borders on standover tactics and blackmail. They have three fundamental things in common with terrorism. First, they want to bring about change by coersion or intimidation. Second, they seek to achieve this by inconveniencing (in the case of activism) or attacking (in case of terrorism) the wider public–ordinary people who are merely going about their business. Third, they claim that their actions are required to protect or advance a moral principle, whether religious or secular.

Let’s define terrorism as the systematic threat or use of violence against innocent people to intimidate a political group into accepting the demands of the terrorist. Pouring milk on a supermarket floor is a long way from bombing a kindergarten. But it feels to me as if it is on the continuum.

Historian trace terrorism back a long way, to the terrorist campaigns of the Zealots against the Romans in Judea, and to those of the Shi-ite Muslim sect, the hashashin, against Sunni Muslims and medieval Christendom. More recently the Reign of Terror was an example of the use of terror to achieve governmental ends–Robespierre and his colleagues used it after revolutionaries seized power in the French Revolution to maintain power and supress political rivals.

And so we come to more modern times, when terrorism is practiced by authoritarian governments against their citizens and against the citizens of territories they invade, as well as by pressure groups who want to force political, social, religious and economic change.

Alexander Ulyanov, who tried assassinate Czar Alexander III in the 1880s, summed it up as: “is the only form of defense to which a minority, strong only in terms
of its spiritual strength and in its knowledge of the rightness of its beliefs, can resort against the physical strength of the majority.” Admittedly, that wasn’t a democracy by any means. But taking the words at their face value, they are plain wrong. In a democracy, where everyone has a right to a voice and a vote, a minority who do not agree with the beliefs of the majority has no place trying to intimidate the government into giving the minority beliefs preference over those of the majority.

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Dialogue on WIP Wednesday

Dialogue should tell us about character, move along the plot, feed us bits of backstory, or all three. I shared this bit in a Facebook chat the other day. What do you think? It’s from The Flavour of Our Deeds, novel 5 in The Golden Redepennings.

My lord, if the case goes against me, would you take Paul and protect him? I know it’s a lot to ask, but—”

“Consider it done,” Chirbury interrupted. “If things go badly, I will take him into my family. But we shall endeavour to ensure that they don’t, for my sister will be upset if they hang you by the neck until dead, Lucian Ogilvy. Speaking of which, what are your intentions towards my sister?”

Typical Chirbury. A soothing remark then a sneak attack. Two, in fact. Luke forced back the visceral reaction at the thought of his hanging, and tried to deflect the second jab. “Your sister?”

Chirbury raised a single eyebrow. “You thought I might possibly mean my sister Meg or my sister Lady Bexley?”

Luke stopped jousting. “I cannot have intentions towards Lady Catherine.”

The other eyebrow lifted. “Cannot. Not will not, or do not.” The earl’s tone was contemplative. “Perhaps you mean should not? My question is why not? You travelled for a week introducing her as your wife. Some would say you owe her a proposal.” He pulled out one of the chairs at the table, turned it around, and straddled it so he could rest his forearms on the back. “Take a seat, man.”

Who knew that words could knife a man in the chest and, at the same time, lift him to the stars? Luke sat in the other chair without thinking about what he was doing. “Chirbury, with due respect, I am the bastard son of an earl and a gamekeeper, I’m twelve years older than her, and to cap it all off, I’ve been arrested for murder. What do I have to offer her?”

Chirbury shrugged with his eyebrows. “What she wants, apparently. So Kitty says, and my countess agrees, so it must be true.”

Luke gaped at Chirbury. “Lady Chirbury thinks Kitty and I should marry?” He had forgotten to call her Lady Catherine.

“Not what I said,” Chirbury pointed out. “My lady thinks that Kitty wants to be your wife, and that she—that Kitty doesn’t care about your birth, your age, or the false accusations against you.”

Kitty cared. Luke knew that. But Chirbury would never let her make such a mistake, and if Chirbury would, Luke wouldn’t. “She is too young to know her own mind,” he said, arguing with himself even as he said the words. She was twenty-three, almost twenty-four. Her family’s trials had matured her early, and—except for her feelings about him—he would trust her judgement and her instincts ahead of those of most people he knew. The earl in front of him included.

Chirbury shrugged. “She was young six years ago when she set her heart on you. Anne and I told her that it was an infatuation. That she was reacting to the trauma of Selby’s assault and then the kidnapping. That she fixed on you because you helped to rescue her, and because she knew so few other unmarried men.”

“All true,” Luke agreed, though reluctantly.

Chirbury shook his head. “Demonstrably not. She has been courted by a broad selection of English gentlemen, Luke. I’ve no wish to dwell on the number of suitors I’ve turned away. I passed on to her anyone I thought she had even the slightest interest in, if they were honest and respectable. More than a score over the years, and she refused them all.”

Luke, was it? They’d never been on first name terms, though that was more on Luke’s side than Chirbury’s. The earl had asked him years ago to call him by his nickname, Rede. Given that he lusted for the man’s sister-in-law, Luke thought such familiarity a mistake. He had to remember that he was not a fit mate for Kitty. But Chirbury apparently thought differently.

“Are you telling me that you would permit Kitty to marry me?” he asked, though it came out as more of a challenge.

“It is Kitty’s decision. And yours, of course. My countess and I would not oppose the match, and she could still marry you if we did. She is three years past the age of needing our consent. You are twelve years older than her, and that age difference mattered when she was not quite eighteen. To us, at least, though even larger age gaps are common. Now? She is an adult, and to my mind, uncommonly mature for her age. You are base born, you tell me, but you are the acknowledged son of a baron and the guardian of another.”

He shrugged. “Yes, some will believe she has married down, but not people whose opinion she cares for. Which leaves us with your current situation. That, of course, needs to be resolved. However, we are ahead of ourselves, my friend. I still need to hear what your intentions are towards my sister.”

Luke groaned. Heaven was his for the grasping, except a hangman’s noose dangled between him and it. “I cannot deny that I love her, Rede. Marrying her would be the greatest privilege I can imagine. Also, if I win my freedom and prove my innocence, I have my own estate. It is not much compared to Longford, but I can afford to take a wife. If I can prove my innocent. My uncle is determined to see me hang.”

“Whereas I am determined that you shall not,” Rede replied.

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Tea at Gunter’s with Kitty

Another excerpt post. This one is from The Flavour of Our Deeds, novel 5 of the Golden Redepennings. Kitty has taken refuge with her godmother, the Duchess of Haverford, and they are out for the afternoon.

Afterwards, Her Grace ordered the open carriage to stop at Gunter’s for ices, sending a footman in to make the order, and eating the delicious confections in the carriage.

It was a sunny afternoon, and many other people had had the same idea. All four ladies were hailed by friends and acquaintances, many of whom came to chat for a time. Not all of them were welcome.

One of younger ladies who persisted in regarding Kitty as a rival to be brought low asked Kitty, “Is it true that your brother’s gamekeeper has been arrested for murder?”

Kitty opened her eyes as widely as she could. “Goodness, Miss Fairburn, who is spreading such a story?”

Miss Fairburn blushed. “I heard it somewhere.” She looked up and past Kitty’s shoulder. “I wondered if it was true.”

Kitty frowned, and shook her head slightly. “It does not sound likely,” she said. “I wonder which gamekeeper, and who he might be supposed to have murdered? And why?”

Lady Juliana Meredith leaned closer. “I heard that you were at the house when the man was arrested, and that the constable tried to arrest you, Lady Catherine.”

Kitty answered that perfectly true statement with a burst of laughter. The Duchess of Haverford broke from her conversation with a couple of matrons to say, “I can assure you that no constables have attempted to arrest a lady staying in my house, Lady Juliana.” She finished with a harrumphing sound that indicated her opinion of any constable foolish enough to try.

One could depend upon Miss Fairburn and her cronies to repeat juicy gossip, and to add speculation to make it more inflammatory. One could hope that the disapproval of the duchess might help to button their lips.

When Aunt Eleanor turned away again, Miss Fairburn changed the subject. “Such a pretty dress, Lady Catherine. Are you hoping to bring back the sleeve style from last Season?” She batted her eyelashes at the rest of the group as if hoping for applause.

Kitty chuckled again. “I am happy to leave the pursuit of fashion to you young ladies, Miss Fairburn. This is a gown from last Season. For some reason, I barely wore it, though I like it very much.” She lifted one arm. “The sleeves are particularly pretty, do you not think?”

“You were very polite to her,” Jessica said, after the group made their farewells and excuses, and moved away. “I wanted to scratch her eyes out, and she wasn’t even addressing her nasty comments to me!”

Kitty smiled again. “My niece’s nanny, Hannah, always said, A soft answer turneth away wrath. In my experience, a soft answer drives one’s would-be persecutors wild with rage. Their barbs have failed to pierce my armour, and yet, I have said nothing to which they can take offence.”

Jessica chuckled. “I shall remember that.” Jessica knew all about barbs from the likes of Miss Fairburn. She and her sisters Matilda and Frances had been raised and luxury and given every advantage, but in the eyes of Society’s high sticklers, nothing could wipe out the stain of their birth. They were all three daughters of the Duke of Haverford by different mistresses.

“Lady Catherine! Lady Catherine!” The voice, a man’s tenor blemished by a shrill nasal whine, could come from only one man. Kitty turned to look, suppressing the inevitable sigh.

Sure enough, Hardwicke-Chalmers came rushing through the crowd, oblivious to the child he nearly stepped on and the waiter whose tray of ices nearly flew up into his face. The waiter performed an aerobatic masterpiece of a maneuver, and continued on his way as Hardwicke-Chalmers skidded to a stop beside the landau and looked up into Kitty’s face with a delighted smile, sure of his welcome.

“You need to tell your brother to dismiss his butler, Lady Catherine. They told me at your house you were not in town.,” he said.

Her Grace answered the man while Kitty was still gasping at his impertinence. “I daresay, Mr Hardwicke-Chalmers, that they said she was not at home. And no more she is. Lady Catherine is my guest at Haverford House.”

Hardwicke-Chalmers gaped at the duchess as if surprised to find her there, then blinked hard and gulped. “That would be it, Your Grace,” he agreed.

He then turned to Kitty and asked what entertainments she was attending, as he wished to reserve as many dances as she would grant him, and if she was planning on taking in a musicale, he wished to claim the great honour of sitting beside her.

Kitty could scarcely believe the affrontery of the man, ignoring the existence of the duchess’s two wards and even the duchess herself. “I must defer to Her Grace,” she said, pointedly, who has been kind enough to chaperone me, along with her wards, Miss Grenford and Miss Jessica Grenford. The choice of invitations is entirely over to Her Grace.”

Hardwicke-Chalmers looked at the two Grenford girls, at the duchess, and then back at Kitty. “Awkward,” he said. “I will have to think about this.”

With that remark, he walked away. Even for Hardwicke-Chalmers, that was extraordinarily bad manners.

“Have you known Mr Hardly-Charming for long?” Jessica asked. The nickname fitted perfectly. Kitty giggled at the apposite mangling of the oaf’s name even as she answered.

“He has been pursuing me all Season. He seems to think that I am too old to be selective. What is awkward? And what does he have to think about?”

“Us,” Matilda provided. “If you are chaperoned by our guardian, he can hardly dance with you and refuse to dance with us.”

Kitty was quick to say, “Surely not. Would he say such a thing in front of you if that is what he meant?” Yes, she answered her own question. He is that crass and dense.

“A foolish and conceited young man, with little justification for either” the duchess said. “I believe him to have sufficient native wit if he cared to apply it, but instead, he depends on his mother to do it for him.”

Kitty was surprised, for the Duchess of Haverford seldom spoke ill of anyone.

“Have a care, dear Kitty,” Her Grace added. “Honoria Hardwicke-Chalmers’ sense of ethics is bound up with her own self-importance. If she has set her sights on your dowry to drag her family out of River Tick, she will not hesitate to be underhanded in her methods.”

“I will not give him the opportunity to stage a compromise,” Kitty promised, adding, “and I would not, in any case, marry a man who tried to force my consent, even if it meant giving up Society. Living without invitations is much preferable to living with a tyrant and a liar.”

She would have caught back the last sentence had she thought them through before she spoke them. The Duke of Haverford was both tyrant and liar, as well as erratic and a rakehell.

However, the duchess merely commented, “Very wise, my dear, but best avoid the need to make such a choice.

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Not enough spoons

I just want to apologise to newsletter subscribers. You will get your newsletter this month, and the different newsletter options I talked about last month shortly after.

I have another thousand or so words to write in your story for this month’s issue, and I’ve not been able to get them done. I have two novels and a novella that need to be finished by mid-December, which means a monthly word count I must meet, and various visitors plus trips away for medical appointments (one for my son and one for my husband) have kept me from my writing much for five of the last sixteen days, and at all for three.

I’ve learned to pace myself. If I veer into spoon deficit*, my chronic illness is going to steal more days.

But I’ve paced myself with a vengeance this month, writing when I can, even if only a few hundred words at a time. Today, I hit the halfway point for the month’s words. The novella is exactly where it should be, at 12,000 words, and I’m just 12,500 off my end of month target on Perchance to Dream, and 13,000 on Flavour of our Deeds. So tomorrow, I’m going to take some time out to finish The White Gown, and by the end of next week, you’ll have it in your hot little hands.

Thank you for your patience. It’ll be rewarded when I have a book out every month from next month until February 2024.

For an explanation of spoon theory, see this story. Or this graphic is a good way of how spoon theory works in practice.

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History shapes us

We were at Whanganui hospital today for a routine procedure. While I waited, I examined the photos on the wall with some interest, for family lore tells me that a failure by the government to pay for the building work my great grandfather did on one of the buildings led to the bankruptcy that, in turn, led to my grandfather returning to live with his parents and to raise his seven children in the family home. The building pictured above are gone, now. Replaced with a more modern hospital–and a very efficient one, too, we found. But the old family story lingers.

In other news today, Charles III appears to have hinted that he’s open to having the remains of children, buried in the royal vaults after being exhumed from the environs of the Tower of London, tested to see if their DNA supports the oft repeated suspicion that they are the Princes in the Tower, the two sons of Edward IV. Shakespeare tells us they were horribly murdered on the command of their uncle, Richard III, because they stood between him and the throne. The story has flaws, since he already had the throne, having convinced Parliament that their father was secretly married to someone else when he wed their mother.

I’m a #RichardIIIwasframed person myself, but I’ll watch for the results of the testing with interest. Is a long standing historical injustice about to be addressed? If so, which one?

Speaking of Charles III, quite a number of voices have been raised calling for redress from the new King for colonial oppressions. It seems a bit misplaced to me, given that the Kings and Queens of England have had little real power for several hundred years. But that’s the down side of being a walking talking symbol, I suppose.

Which reminds me that it was only in 2015 that the British government finished paying off the debt incurred to compensate British slave owners for freeing their slaves. That’s right, folks. Nearly two centuries of debt to pay people to stop owning other people. I get that it was a political decision, required to get the necessary support to stop an outrage. But how about compensation for the slaves, and their descendants?

All of which goes to today’s point. History matters. Perhaps, with enough time, past injustices become merely something interesting to study, but when the impacts are still echoing in the lives of people alive today, we ignore such injustices at our peril.

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Descriptions on WIP Wednesday

When I write, I want you to see what I see in my mind’s eye, without belabouring the point. In my fourth novel for the A Twist Upon a Regency Tale, I’ve been describing the nursery to which my heroine and her charge are consigned.

The nursery at the Paris townhouse was ruthlessly clean and sparsely furnished with a random collection of unmatched items. Against one wall were two beds, made with fresh sheets, sported a continental style of comforter each. Between the windows stood a table with two chairs. The wall opposite the beds had fitted shelves, which stood empty. A circular rug, the colours faded except where someone had darned a couple of worn places, covered the centre of the wooden floor. And that was all, apart from Pauline’s and Jane’s bags, which a footman had deposited just inside the door.

No pictures or ornaments softened the room, which held no toys or books to read.

“It is not very nice, is it?” Jane murmured to Pauline.

The footman shut the door as he left, and she heard the tumblers of the lock fall as he locked it. Pauline felt the strain go out of her shoulders. She had been afraid they might be separated straight away, or that one of the maids might be assigned to stay with them. She was determined to escape tonight, and to take Jane with her.

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A bird needs two wings to fly

“We can lift ourselves out of ignorance, we can find ourselves as creatures of excellence and intelligence and skill.”
― Richard Bach, Jonathan Livingston Seagull

The terms ‘right wing’ and ‘left wing’ carry a lot of emotional weight today. They have their origins, though, in a concrete description, and in the National Assembly of early modern France.

It was the government of the revolution, meeting in the aftermath of the storming of the Bastille. Their job was to write a new constitution and one of the important issues they needed to settle was whether the king would have a right of veto over the decisions of the assembly.  Those who thought he should sat on the right of the president of the assembly. Those who thought he should not sat on the left.

The terms were used in the newspapers reporting on the legislature, and swiftly came to represent those who wanted to follow tradition–the right, and those who wanted more change–the left.

Fast forward to today, and a number of people have applied the term in a different way. Billy Graham has been quoted as saying that he’s not for the right wing or the left wing, but for the whole bird. Birds need their wings. The wings allow flight, but both are needed. The far extremes of the wings twist and turn according to the position of the bird, this flexibility providing an aerodynamic advantage. Yet all things in balance. The bird needs both wings for lift, both sets of flight feathers. A bird whose wings have been clipped cannot take flight. And the wing does not exist for itself. It exists for the bird.

As a metaphor for community, it works well. Our community is the whole bird. To thrive, it needs both stability–the function of the right–and an openness to new things–the function of the left. Even the extreme wing tips are important: the extreme right can be a brake on change for change’s sake; the extreme left a goad to try new ideas when tradition does not have the answers to never-before-seen conditions and problems. But, for the most part, in a sensible and logical community, left and right, like the wings of a bird, can work together, exchanging information, and coming up with joint strategies to support flight.

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A storied kingdom

When I began to write Paradise Regained, prequel to my Return of the Mountain King series, I didn’t have much of a clue about the location. The plot required that my hero and heroine live in Central Asia, somewhere along the Silk Roads, but boy, did I need to research.

Half a dozen books, scores of academic research papers, and quite a bit of Sufi medieval poetry later, I’d nailed down the place and the time, and become fascinated with the tumultuous and ever intriguing history of Iran.

1794 in the Western calendar was a tumultuous year in Iran, which we in the West persisted in calling Persia, after the practice of the ancient Greeks. The short-lived Zand dynasty took its last gasp that year, to be superseded by a rival clan, the Qajars.

The rivalry for supremacy in Iran was brutal. The founder of the new dynasty was known as the eunuch monarch. Āghā Moḥammad Qajar was castrated when young to prevent him from becoming a political rival to the then reigning Afsharid dynasty.

Instead, what was then seen as disqualifying someone from supreme leadership seemed to inspire Āghā Moḥammad to greater efforts. He was a political hostage for much of his young adulthood, but escaped when Karīm Khan Zand died, and spent ten years fighting his own relatives to unite his clan.  By 1886, he was the head of the tribe that controlled northern Iran.  He spent the next eight years at war with the last of the Zand kings, finally capturing the ruler and having him killed in 1794.

He was crowned as shāhanshāh (king of kings) in 1796, but was assassinated the following year. The story goes that he grew annoyed when two of his servants argued loudly in his hearing. He ordered them executed, but since it was the evening of the holy day, he commanded them back to their duties until the next day.

You can’t say he lacked confidence, but in this case it lead him astray.

During the night, the servants stabbed their master, and took the crown jewels to a powerful prince who offered them his protection.

Nonetheless, the Shah was succeeded by his nephew, and his dynasty ruled Iran until 1929.

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All of this formed the background to a minor plotline in Paradise Regained. The father of my heroine is a minor Zand khan, that is, ruler of what we would now call a province. In the turmoil that followed the death of the king, he flees to his daughter’s mountain kingdom in the Kopet Dag mountains, through which runs the border between Iran and Turkmenistan. He is closely pursued by Qajar troops, who settle outside the gates.

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Mystery on WIP Wednesday

I do like a mystery with my romance. What about you? This is from a made-to-order story tentatively called The Missing Daughter. I’m looking at you, Laura!

Louisa still had no idea what was going on three days later when the three of them reached Mama’s home village. Papa arranged a suite of rooms at the inn for his family, and baths to refresh after the journey. Mama ordered dinner to be served in the suite’s sitting room in one hour.

“I have a note to write before my bath,” she announced.

“To the vicarage?” Papa asked. “Or the house?”

“Vicarage,” Mama said. “I will make an appointment in the morning.”

“What is going on, Mama?” Louisa asked. “Why are we here?”

“Go and see if your bath is ready, dear,” Mama said. “I will come through shortly to undo your buttons and laces.”

Mama would say nothing more. Not then, not over dinner, and not when she came to check that Louisa was safely tucked up in bed, with the door to the outside passage locked and bolted.

Louisa tried again over breakfast. “Are we going to visit your family, Mama?” she asked.

“I don’t have family here anymore, Louisa, and no, I am not telling you anything else just yet. All in good time.”

That again. Louisa cast a pleading glance at her father. His response was unexpected. “I might still have a brother here.”

“A brother? I have an uncle?” Papa had never mentioned his family. And Papa came from the same village as Mama? How had Louisa not known that?

“I assume you still have an uncle,” Papa said. “He might still live here. We lost touch.”

Louisa’s mind whirled, teaming with so many questions that she couldn’t find anything to say.

Mama frowned at Papa, then said to Louisa, “I am going to visit the vicar. Stay in your room while I am gone, Louisa.”

“No need for that,” Papa told her. “I am going to walk your mother to the vicarage, Louisa, and then go and visit my brother, or at least my old home. You can come with me, if you wish.”

“Will!” Mama objected.

Papa raised his eyebrows. “I will take my daughter to meet her uncle, Lissie,” he declared. And that was the end of it. People thought that Papa lived under the cat’s paw; that Mama was head of the family. Louisa knew that Papa seldom countered Mama’s commands and decisions, but when he did, Mama subsided.

“She will be safe now,” he said, reassuringly.

Had Louisa not been safe before? The more she heard, the less she felt she knew!