The proof is out there!

This morning the page proofs arrived for A PLACE BEYOND COURAGE. It's my last chance to add any final tweaks to the novel. After this it'll be cast in stone and any mistakes will be there for posterity. It's been quite a journey writing this novel about John Marshal. I was curious to discover more about the man behind the notorious 'Anvils and hammers' speech that John made when faced with the hanging of his 5 year old son. 'He said that he did not care about the child, since he still had the anvils and hammers to produce even finer ones.' What I've found through my own digging and what he has chosen to reveal to me, have made me realise that despite that apparently callous speech (and sometimes things are not what they seem) without John Marshal's absolute bravery in the face of impossible odds, William himself would not have come to greatness.
I hope to return to more regular blogging soon, but for the moment I beg a moment's indulgence to visit with John.
I open the novel with a few lines from the Histoirede Guillaume le Mareschal and they are, I think, fitting indeed to the personalities of theMarshal men.

Les proz e les vassals
Souvent entre piez de chevals
Kar ja li coard n'i chasront

The brave and the valiant are to be sought
often between the hooves of horses
for never will cowards fall down there.