East of Ashes (31 page)

EVENTS:

For the most part the events in this novel can be divided into two fairly neat categories. Whenever a scene touches on events pertaining to the First Crusade itself, I've tried to keep them as historically accurate as possible.

Any event that does not directly have anything to do with the First Crusade, however, is mostly fictitious.

In some places I've blended the two slightly to keep the setting historical, but to let the story flow without hindrance. In other cases where history doesn't tell exactly how an event took place - only that it did - then I used my imagination to describe as best I could what most likely could have happened.

A good example of this would be where Lamech and Othniel take part in the raid on the Caracen garrison of Harim: we know that the raid took place and that Bohemond commanded it. We also know roughly what happened, but not enough to place a character in the events and describe them from their point of view.

Likewise for Firuz: we know he helped the Crusaders onto the walls of Antioch, but we don't know exactly what his motivations were. One of the leading theories was that there was some bad blood between himself and the commander of Antioch over confiscated property, but we don't know what and why. I couldn't very well leave his motivation for turning traitor out though, so I had to come up with a best guess as to what must have gone through his mind while standing on that wall.

These are small liberties with history though and I believe that this novel should give you a good idea of what unfolded in front of the walls of Antioch. Of course, as pivotal as the fall of Antioch had been, it is but a small part of the First Crusade. Things were far from over and the Crusaders still had huge battles on their hands before they finally reached the walls of Jerusalem.

I encourage you to read up on that as it's massively interesting and goes a long way in describing the horrors that religion can lead to when manipulated by evil men.

Lastly, I want to just say something about the violence in
East of Ashes
: when I first set out writing this novel, I was mesmerized by the horror of the First Crusade. Here were men who professed belief in God but did horrible things in his name. Most of the bloody events I described in the novel are things that actually happened during the course of the war. One example is the Crusader knight and the Caracen maiden who were caught in an orchard and beheaded - that actually happened. And their heads
were
catapulted into the Crusader camp.

Why add these violent events, you ask? Two reasons: firstly, they did happen and we must be aware of the violent
Christian
history that lies behind us. It is a wake-up call, showing us how important it is to watch ourselves to make sure we don't fall into dead religion. Dead religion is a dangerous place to live in.

Secondly, I wanted to set a contrast between the darkness from which Lamech came to the light he was brought into. To appreciate the magnitude of your salvation, one needs to know what you were saved from.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS:

I made use of a number of sources to fill me in on the historical events of the First Crusade. Naming them would be fairly pointless as most of them only offered small pieces of information.

However, one source deserves special mention: Thomas Asbridge's
The First Crusade: A New History
. It is simply superb. It's very detailed but magnificently easy to read. I used it as the basis for most of the historical events described in the novel.

I highly recommend it to anyone interested in reading up on the rest of the First Crusade.

Lastly, I would like to thank all of those who helped me with this novel. Your comments and encouragement is deeply appreciated. I look forward to tackling the next novel with you too!

CONTACT ME

I'd love to hear from you! Hopefully you enjoyed the novel - but if you have some constructive criticism I would really appreciate it if you could drop me an email at [email protected]. And if you just feel like chatting, you're also welcome!