Michael Barnes
Hell is empty and all the devils are here. The Chatelaine has come.
Set during the Flemish Peasant’s Revolt of 1323 – 1328, this is a historical fantasy which provides an incredible cast of strong women a literally hellish world. Once men half blended in the forges of hell with beasts, and birds and even devices becoming walking canons stalk the streets and dead men swarm the walls, revenants who visit to call on their loved ones and bring them to hell or infect them with a lingering death called The grief. Hell is a gigantic beast whose mouth has opened in Flanders. Its new mistress (I would usually defer to the term master but the Chatelaine calls herself mistress and so I adopt her choice) is a woman so long resident of hell that she has forgotten her name but she declares when asked if she is the Queen of hell replies
"I have no right to that kingdom as it had no right to me, but I am, for now, its mistress and manager. I hold the keys, you may call me perhaps its chatelaine". This magnificent introduction perfectly describes the titular character.
She is one of the fascinating women encountered. We meet Margriet de Vos killed her first soldier when she was eleven. Who as a child tricked an invisible water monster with a riddle and so was promised transport on its back throughout the canals. She has buried six children and will fight for the daughter left to her. And she’s on a mission to reclaim her daughter’s stolen inheritance. Jacquenine Ooste who employed her as wet nurse for her daughter is at one point dismissed by a clergyman as a moor underestimated her sharp with in a court. Beatrix Margriet 's grown and married daughter whose kind heart is given visions of the horrors that will one day come to Flander's fields and one of the intriguing man characters Claude a trans man who has stolen a copy to the key to hell, sold it to Margriet's husband and wants it back.
"This isn’t a book about saving the world, that the characters are ordinary people – widows and their children and a man-at-arms – who are more interested in getting the money to live than dealing with the disaster around them. That’s the province of kings and counts who fight and make life hellish enough for common folk without actual hell arriving. These ordinary people are the sort fantasy and historical fiction pay far less attention to, but they have stories of their own". - Sifa Elizabeth
Hell is empty and all the devils are here. The Chatelaine has come.
Set during the Flemish Peasant’s Revolt of 1323 – 1328, this is a historical fantasy which provides an incredible cast of strong women a literally hellish world. Once men half blended in the forges of hell with beasts, and birds and even devices becoming walking canons stalk the streets and dead men swarm the walls, revenants who visit to call on their loved ones and bring them to hell or infect them with a lingering death called The grief. Hell is a gigantic beast whose mouth has opened in Flanders. Its new mistress (I would usually defer to the term master but the Chatelaine calls herself mistress and so I adopt her choice) is a woman so long resident of hell that she has forgotten her name but she declares when asked if she is the Queen of hell replies
"I have no right to that kingdom as it had no right to me, but I am, for now, its mistress and manager. I hold the keys, you may call me perhaps its chatelaine". This magnificent introduction perfectly describes the titular character.
She is one of the fascinating women encountered. We meet Margriet de Vos killed her first soldier when she was eleven. Who as a child tricked an invisible water monster with a riddle and so was promised transport on its back throughout the canals. She has buried six children and will fight for the daughter left to her. And she’s on a mission to reclaim her daughter’s stolen inheritance. Jacquenine Ooste who employed her as wet nurse for her daughter is at one point dismissed by a clergyman as a moor underestimated her sharp with in a court. Beatrix Margriet 's grown and married daughter whose kind heart is given visions of the horrors that will one day come to Flander's fields and one of the intriguing man characters Claude a trans man who has stolen a copy to the key to hell, sold it to Margriet's husband and wants it back.
"This isn’t a book about saving the world, that the characters are ordinary people – widows and their children and a man-at-arms – who are more interested in getting the money to live than dealing with the disaster around them. That’s the province of kings and counts who fight and make life hellish enough for common folk without actual hell arriving. These ordinary people are the sort fantasy and historical fiction pay far less attention to, but they have stories of their own". - Sifa Elizabeth