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ROBERT NATHAN AND THE NECESSITY OF LOVE
(1983)

Robert Nathan is one of the truly forgotten writers of the twentieth century. He outlived all of his contemporaries and most of his critics, favorable or unfavorable, and eventually reached that curious status of many artists who attain an advanced age, of having been entombed in the minds of his public before his actual physical death. This was unfortunate, both for himself and for discerning readers of fantasy, for he penned, in a career of sixty years—from publication of his first story in about 1915 to the release of his last novel,
Heaven and Hell and the Megas Factor
, in 1975—some six to ten novels (out of more than sixty books published) that may survive the test of time, and at least two,
Portrait of Jennie
(1940) and
So Love Returns
(1958), that may justifiably be considered classics of modern literature.

Nathan’s work is unique in several respects. Virtually all of his fantasy stories are novellas or short novels, averaging about forty thousand words in length, perhaps twenty thousand words shorter than the “average” novel; and although he wrote some short stories at the beginning of his career and several longer “serious” works, almost all of his later prose fiction fits neatly into this intermediate length, one not especially popular with trade houses (his usual publisher, Alfred A. Knopf, used large type and wide leading to push his wordage into longer lengths). Second, Nathan’s stories are in many cases blatantly autobiographical, including names of real-life friends and incidents gleaned from the lives of himself and his acquaintances. This is generally true of all writers, of course, but one feels with Nathan that he writes very directly from his inner life. His stories, although charged with emotion, are not sentimental, but mix elements of tragedy, love, and fantasy in almost equal proportions, everything tinged with a dark streak of sadness.

One can see these elements at work in
So Love Returns.
Lenny, a writer of children’s books, is trying to work through the sorrow he experienced at the recent death of his beloved wife, Trina. With his two young children, Trisha and Chris, he rents a small house on the California coast, and there begins writing a new book about a witch from the sea. One day he hears Trisha scream and rushes down to the beach to find Chris’s body sprawled near the surf line—he had been out swimming and nearly drowned. Both children tell their father that Chris was saved by a “lady” who suddenly appeared in the water from nowhere and carried the boy back to land. He spies the girl, talks with her briefly, and she walks off down the beach.

A week or two later he again meets Kathleen standing alone on the beach, and they talk briefly; she then calls him on the phone and arranges to meet him a third time at a cove. She is young and slender, with ivory skin and green eyes; her bathing suit is made of some scaly green material, and her hair is wound with a piece of kelp. The children immediately accept and trust her. Kathleen is enigmatic about her origins, parrying some of Lenny’s questions, declining gently to answer others. When Lenny and the children leave for the day, they last spy her swimming effortlessly far from shore, as if she had fins.

As Lenny’s feeling for Kathleen progresses from fondness to love, other strange events occur so naturally that their peculiarity is obscured. Lenny gets drunk in Los Angeles after talking with a producer who takes out an option on one of his stories; while driving home in a semi-stupor, he suddenly feels that his dead wife Trina is driving the car, and begins talking to her. Then Trina becomes Kathleen, telling him in Trina’s voice to get home immediately. When he arrives home, Chris reports that Trisha is sick, but Kathleen is there to tend her. She does not leave again, but moves into a small cottage nearby, decorating it with items from the sea. They never speak of her background, although the girl drops hints now and then of otherworldly origins. The two lovers declare their feelings for each other, but always there is the threat, just under the surface, of their imminent separation.

There follows, as Lenny puts it, a period of enchantment. Some months later they hold a picnic at their seaside home for a number of friends, including Dick and Alice, who inform Lenny and Kathleen that they are engaged. Kathleen offers to have the wedding there, and their friends gratefully accept. Unfortunately, Lenny is virtually penniless, so Kathleen gives him an ancient necklace to pawn to raise enough money for the refreshments. The jeweler tells Lenny that the necklace resembles the published description of one known to have been lost at sea in the year 1687.

At the last moment, the scheduled minister falls ill, and a replacement, a heavy-bearded man known to none of them, appears in his place. Kathleen seems uneasy around him, and, when the ceremony begins, gasps at his unusual substitutions. For, the minister states, men are assisted by unseen ethereal beings, God’s messengers, whose names are love; they are sent by the Almighty to tell man that he is not forgotten. As they are sent out, so must they return to the elements of which they are composed. “So love returns, to love.” Kathleen kisses Lenny, tears streaming down her cheeks, telling him she must go, that she has things to do. He never sees her again. As the party winds down, he realizes that she has disappeared and goes down to her cottage by the sea; it has been stripped clean of its artifacts, and he hears the sound of weeping, coming from somewhere out of the fog, from the sea. A month or two later, he hears someone, Trina or Kathleen, calling him, and awakens to find the house threatened by a brush fire. He and the children escape, but the house, with all their belongings (including the story of the sea witch), is burned to the ground. Later he finds a written account of the strange marriage ceremony penned by Bernard of Trèves, who had continued: “These beings are indeed sendings, sent to the beloved to take the place of one gone from his side; not being mortal, however, for them to love a mortal is forbidden; if and when they do, they must find themselves recalled into the element from which they came.”

This sad and beautiful tale of love, death, and the necessity of hope is the best novel of Nathan’s later period, and perhaps the best he ever wrote. It is deceptively simple, for it manages to confront in a brief space questions basic to man’s existence: the death of a loved one, coping with the inevitable sorrow, the constant struggle against despair and self-pity, the loneliness of the individual and particularly of the writer, pride in one’s work, and the basic need of all men to come to some sort of understanding with themselves, their friends and lovers, and the universe, however one interprets it. In the end, Nathan seems to be saying, everyone needs someone special, if not to survive, then just to live well.

THE NEUSTRIAN FANTASIES OF LESLIE BARRINGER
(1983)

Born in 1895 in Yorkshire, England, Barringer was the son of a schoolmaster. He served in World War I in France, was wounded in action, and returned home in 1917, joining the staff of Thomas Nelson & Sons, the British publishers, as an editor and salesman. In 1942, he became an editor at the
Radio Times
, a popular weekly magazine published by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC); four years later, he entered the British government as Senior Information Officer for the Central Office of Information. Finally, he moved to the Amalgamated Press in 1954, working as an editor for their Encyclopedia Department. He died at his home in Ilkley, Yorkshire, England, in 1968.

Of the six novels published by Leslie Barringer during his lifetime, none were bestsellers. They include three historical fictions set in medieval England—
Kay the Left-Handed
(1935),
Know Ye Not Agincourt
(1936), and
The Rose in Splendour
(1953)—and the three novels for which he is likely to be remembered—
Gerfalcon
(1927),
Joris of the Rock
(1928), and
Shy Leopardess
(1948), a loose trilogy of novels which Newcastle Publishing Company called the Neustrian Cycle when reprinting them in 1976 and 1977.

Barringer was an accomplished historian—he contributed an outline of world history to the
Amalgamated Children’s Encyclopedia—
so it is no surprise to find him utilizing the events of medieval history as a background for his novels. Curiously, however, he chose to place the Neustrian books in an alternate world where the Merovingian Empire apparently never dissolved. In real history, the Franks conquered much of what is now France and Germany, beginning in 486
a.d
. under their first great leader, King Clovis I. With his successors of the Merovingian Dynasty, the kingdom split at various times into two or more parts, Neustria occupying what is now central and northwestern France, Austrasia covering what is now northeastern France and southwestern Germany, and Burgundy lying to the south and east of these two. The borders of these states were not fixed in the modern sense, but varied with the fortunes of war; the constant struggles between the dynastic branches resulted in the unification of the states on four different occasions, but ultimately led to chaos and a decline in royal power. The Mayors of the Palaces gradually assumed real political power and finally deposed the Merovingians in 751. Thereafter, the western Franks merged with the old Romanized population to form the political entity that is now called France; the eastern Franks established the Holy Roman Empire, although the Franks themselves basically occupied the Duchy of Franconia in southwestern Germany, an area which had previously been a part of Austrasia.

Barringer’s version of history is not at all clear from his books. The geography of “Neustria” as displayed on maps accompanying the first two books is clearly that of present-day Normandy and Brittany; other lands to the south and east are mentioned as part of Neustria, but their extent is never indicated. England exists as an independent kingdom, but Germany has become Franconia. There is one fleeting reference to Austrasia. Italy is divided into duchies and small states, much as it was in real history. There are a few clues, however: King Thorismund of Neustria is a Merovingian name taken from one of the real kings of that dynasty; King René may be patterned after a real King René who ruled Burgundy. The royal house of Franconia, according to Barringer, is closely related in the male line to that of Neustria, thereby following a pattern common in the old Merovingian Empire. From these hints, it may be inferred that Barringer did more than merely switch a few place names, actually implying a continuation of the Merovingians into medieval times, with Neustria more or less occupying the same space as present-day France, and Austrasia becoming Franconia, a development that could actually have happened. The loose confederation of states that is now called the Holy Roman Empire does not exist in Barringer’s world; Franconia, which appears to occupy the area which later contained Württemberg and Bavaria, is a single, unified state under a strong king. Barringer’s given names for his characters would seem to support this theory, as they indicate a strong Germanic element in the population. Old King René’s bastard son, for example, is Conrad of Burias.

Whatever the guiding principle, Barringer’s world is a compelling mix of politics, intrigue, fierce battles, treachery, religion, and strong characters, all set in the early 1400s (no specific dates are mentioned). If France and Germany have changed, the major sweep of world history continues as before: the Ottomans threaten Constantinople, the same religious conflicts exist between Muslim and Christian, and the Franconians hate the Neustrians as the Neustrians do the Franconians.

The first book in the series,
Gerfalcon,
follows young Raoul of Ger, nephew of the reigning Count. Orphaned at an early age (his father was killed in the Crusades), Raoul must live on the stingy generosity of Count Armand, playing second fiddle to Armand’s son and heir, Charles. When Raoul disobeys one of his uncle’s rules, he is publicly whipped; he therefore decides to find his own way in the world until he comes of age, when he will become eligible to succeed to a small, desolate barony left to him by his grandmother. Under the assumed name Herluin, Raoul wends his way to the castle of Lorin de Campscapel, called the “Butcher Count” by his soldiers, a fierce warrior whose erratic behavior has endeared him to few. During one of Lorin’s rages, Raoul kills him and escapes from the castle. In the woods to the east, he encounters Nino Chiostra and John Doust, an Italian and an Englishman who become Raoul’s friends (and later his associates); they settle in the merchant town of Belsaunt for the winter, until Raoul comes of age; and there one day, Raoul sees his cousin Charles murdered by a jealous lover, making him heir to his uncle’s seat. When he returns to his uncle’s castle on the coast and confronts him with the demand to render him his small barony, Count Armand collapses in his rage with a stroke, making Raoul regent of Ger. Raoul then gathers a small party of soldiers and returns to Campscapel, where he defeats and kills mad Count Jehan, Lorin’s brother and successor, restoring peace to his part of Neustria. At the end of the book, he marries his cousin, Reine, after saving her from an ambush by the outlaw, Joris of the Rock.

The second novel,
Joris of the Rock
, begins earlier than
Gerfalcon
and ends later, revolving around the same incident in which Raoul and Reine fight the notorious bandit. In the first novel, the attack is told from Raoul’s point of view, in the second, from Joris’s. Joris is the illegitimate son of a Neustrian noble, a brilliant lad who is embittered when his mother is killed. He sets himself up in a forest retreat high on the “Rock,” not far from Belsaunt, where he ambushes unwary travelers on the nearby highways. Certain from a prophetic verse of his own ultimate destiny, he gradually gathers an army of one hundred desperate men, vagabonds who will follow him anywhere. Old King René is ill and his own son has died in a hunting accident; his heir is his nephew, Prince Thorismund, who duly succeeds to the throne when the old man dies. René’s illegitimate son, Duke Conrad of Burias, has gathered a following who believe him more suited for the throne than the young, inexperienced, flighty Thorismund, and a vast conspiracy is set in motion. Joris exploits the situation by selling his men to Conrad, while Raoul works for the legitimate heir, believing that only he can keep the kingdom secure. In the climactic battle of the civil war, Raoul saves the day with a flanking attack; Joris and his surviving men escape the battlefield but are pursued by Raoul, who has convinced the King to grant him the authority to eliminate this menace to the kingdom’s safety once and forever. Hounded by Raoul’s troops, Joris goes underground for several months, finally emerging from hiding when the troops have largely disbanded, thinking him dead. Ironically, he encounters one of his own bastards, Juhel, sired by Joris when he raped the lad’s mother, and meets his death at the hands of his son.

Shy Leopardess
is set ten years after the culminating events of the previous volume and concerns fourteen-year-old Yolande, heir to the Duchy of Baraine. When her father is ambushed in his own castle by bandits, Yolande becomes the ward of her uncle, Count Azo, hero of a recent war with Franconia. Azo persuades the King through flattery to betroth his ward to Azo’s son and heir, Balthasar, thereby making Balthasar Duke of Baraine when the marriage is finally consummated. Azo gradually begins concentrating power into his own hands, with the ultimate goal of killing King Thorismund and placing his underage son, Prince René, on the throne; Azo, as constable of the kingdom, will then become regent. Balthasar, called “Belphegor” behind his back (after the devil of the same name), is as cruel and depraved as he is handsome, a sadistic young monster who enjoys torture, both physical and psychological. Gradually, Yolande realizes that Azo murdered her father by hiring a surviving remnant of Joris’s displaced band; with the assistance of her pages, Diomede and Lioncel, both of whom have become her lovers as well, she gradually gains control of her own life and plots the downfall of Balthasar. Count Raoul of Ger, heir to her Duchy, helps to expose Azo’s conspiracy. Yolande lures her husband to her father’s castle to consummate their marriage, presumably ending whatever shreds of independence she still possesses; instead, she and her pages murder Balthasar in cold blood, recounting to him the long list of innocents he has killed or injured; Yolande then sends her husband’s pickled head to Count Azo on the eve of the final battle for possession of the kingdom. Azo is defeated and hanged for his crimes, but in the course of the struggle, both Diomede and Lioncel are killed. At the end of the book, Count Raoul suggests to Yolande, still under the age of twenty, that she seriously consider marrying the widowed King Thorismund and using her strong will to bring peace to Neustria.

Barringer’s books are all
bildungsromans
. In each volume, he focuses on an innocent, immature youth and follows the development of that character’s personality as he or she finds himself or herself. Raoul of Ger is his paradigm of the medieval nobleman; a shy and untried lad at the beginning of
Gerfalcon
, he quickly uses his spirit and intelligence to make his way in the world. He learns to kill when necessary for his own survival, but he never glories in the violence forced upon him. Short and plain in looks, Raoul’s gentle, unassuming nature, his lack of pretense, and his quick wit and sense of humor make him an attractive figure to men and women alike. His experiences with the “Jacquerie,” the common folk, provide him with a perspective that few of his fellow nobles possess; he never abuses his power when he finally inherits the crags of Ger.

In
Joris of the Rock
, Barringer balances out the sly, intelligent amorality of Joris with the sensitivity of his retiring bastard son, Juhel, who has been reared after a peasant revolt as the supposed Count of Ath. Whereas Joris is bold, forceful, arrogant, cruel, and wholly selfish, Juhel is shy, religious, unassertive, kind, and almost completely unselfish. Because of his (false) position, Juhel is forced into the role of nobleman, a role he ultimately rejects. After fighting at Raoul’s side in the great civil war, Juhel is left numbed by the carnage; some months later, when he revisits the site, he wanders away down the river bank, where he spies a lone hunter fording the river. Recognizing Joris but unaware that he is his real father, Juhel challenges the outlaw and rides him down. Joris, in one last moment of spite, tries to ruin the lad’s life by blurting out his secret, but he dies choking on his own blood. Juhel, mortified nevertheless at one more death laid to his hands, asks Raoul for permission to leave the nobility and enter the ranks of the Church. In Barringer’s eyes, clearly, Joris’s sins will be expiated and balanced by Juhel’s life of sanctity. If Joris is the devil, a human version of Satan, Juhel is the saint, a human version of Christ. Thus is the natural order restored.

Finally, Barringer’s paradigm of woman is Yolande of Baraine, the
Shy Leopardess
. Orphaned at the age of fourteen, Yolande is forced to grow up ahead of her time in a world where men make the rules and expect women to follow. Once again, Yolande, as with all of Barringer’s leading characters, is exceptionally intelligent and seems to have a natural sense of self-possession. Manipulated by her cruel and ambitious uncle, Count Azo, Yolande is forced to find a subtle road to revenge, a road fraught with peril. Having been married to Azo’s monster of a son, Duke Balthasar, Yolande literally has no rights under the law; although legally Duchess of Baraine, her uncle is Regent and Grand Seneschal of the Duchy until she comes of age—and when she does come of age and Balthasar claims his marriage right, he legally becomes Duke of Baraine, possessing all temporal authority in her domain. Through luck, fortitude, courage, and an utter determination to rule her own mind and body, and with the help of her cousin, Count Raoul of Ger, Yolande begins directing events to her own ends. Ultimately, she gains possession of the treasonous document constructed by Count Azo to disgrace Raoul and his supporters; Azo had then hoped to murder the unwise King (whom Balthasar has already cuckolded) and make himself and his son the final authority in the kingdom, as regents for Prince René. By the end of the novel, Yolande has lost her innocence but gained a sense of wisdom; never a fool, she has grasped the reins of her own life, in both love and war, and has decided that she will never again relinquish them to anyone. It is Raoul, however, who sees the kind of person she has become—and sees her potential as Queen of Neustria. The leopardess is shy no longer.