Sword Woman and Other Historical Adventures (90 page)

Anyone truly familiar with Howard’s work can find heroic characters of different cultures and races fairly easily, even if they are painted in stereotype at other times. “Hawks Over Egypt” contains several minor moments where modern readers are likely to feel discomfort – for example there is a scene where the Emir Othman is described in terms no one would dare write today: “He shrank back like a great black ape, his eyes burning red, his dusky hands opening and closing in helpless blood-lust.” The blacks in the story are dealt with far more superficially – and with more exaggerated language – than are the rest of the factions.

An exhaustive discussion of the racial outlook of a Texan from the 1930s is beyond the scope of this essay and my own expertise. We should probably be more surprised that, when viewing Howard’s entire body of work, someone from his time and region is relatively open to the idea that a brave and honorable man can be found from any race, than we are surprised that his prose is sometimes colored with racial language typical of his time.

“Hawks Over Egypt” begins with one of the most memorable moments in Howard’s canon, as de Guzman and Al Adfhal meet upon the street just as killers close on Al Adfhal. Howard is reaching for the same complex mix of relatable characters that he worked with in “The Road of the Eagles”; we are presented with intrigues, double-crosses, exotic color, and thrilling battle scenes – but then Howard excels with battle scenes even in his rough drafts. For all of these strengths, “Hawks” never succeeds quite as well as “Road of Eagles” because we are never made to care about the characters and their desires and fates as much as we do in “The Road of the Eagles.” But whereas “The Road of the Eagles” rises to a crescendo then loses power in its final moment, it is in its conclusion that “Hawks Over Egypt” truly excels. Some of the best scenes in the whole of the story are with the depiction of the mad Al Hakim. Indeed, Howard even anticipates a more famous moment, as he has Zaida declare Al Hakim’s godhood to save her life. Robert Graves uses the same trick when Claudius recognizes that Caligula has become a god in
I, Claudius
some years later.

Despite Al-Hakim’s madness, and despite knowing that his death will make things much safer for millions of people, Howard evokes tragedy at the moment of his death. Zaida’s moment of vengeance, a scene we would have expected to feel was deeply deserved, suddenly seems cruel, as the man who thought he was a god is left to die alone under the stars … and a strange legend is born. It’s powerful stuff, and far stronger than what has come in the pages before.

My favorite of these last three post–
Magic Carpet
stories is the “Road of Azrael.” Although there are fine moments in all three, and “The Road of the Eagles” approaches greatness, it is the “The Road of Azrael” to which I have most often returned. It does not matter to me that the prose has more of a purple tinge than the other stories; it’s a grand adventure that starts out at a gallop and never lets up. Howard’s Chatagai narrator is brave, resourceful, a little full of himself, and very charming. Despite the fact that his temper or sense of honor can make him reckless, Kosru Malik possesses a shrewd intellect and has personal insight. His dialogue and thoughts drip with witty asides. In short, he’s a flawed narrator we can’t help but like, which is a huge strength for any piece of fiction. The skeptical reader can scoff at the coincidental meeting between Kosru Malik and Eric de Cogan and their past history, but an intelligent reader accepts the moment and rides with them into their mad adventure. There are moments of grim realism within, and of tragedy – the fate of Muhammad Khan, who throws his life and future away solely over lust for a Frankish girl. Kosru Malik sees greatness in him even in their final moment, as they battle: “ ‘Muhammad Khan, why be a fool? What is a Frankish girl to you, who might be emperor of half the world? Without you Kizilshehr will fall, will crumble to dust. Go your way and leave the girl to my brother-in-arms.’

“But he only laughed as a madman laughs and tore his scimitar free.”

Hubris destroys Muhammad Khan just as it has destroyed other leaders within Howard’s historicals. Yet while it’s a fine moment, it is not the one we remember, as the death of a ruler is perhaps the most resonant scene in three of the four most famous of these historicals. When we experience “The Road of Azrael,” what stands out the most is the brotherhood between the two characters and the friction that results from the different viewpoints of their shared struggle. We remember Kosru Malik’s little throwaway comments, such as “He cursed me beneath his breath as is the custom of Franks when a sensible course is suggested to them …” and the moment when the pair stumble upon a group of Vikings shepherding none other than King Harold. Who else but Howard could have conceived of such a moment and pulled it off? By that scene in the story we are so invested in the characters that what might have seemed absurd in someone else’s hands becomes inspired storytelling, no matter its improbability. With “The Road of Azrael,” Howard meant to introduce us to characters we care about, transport us into a distant land and time, and relentlessly pull us forward into adventure. He gives us moments of humor, poignancy, romance, and tension, and heaps of vividly described action. He achieves all these goals and makes it seem effortless; at the conclusion we cannot help but feel satisfaction at a tale well told, and key moments remain at the forefront of our imaginations, like the afterimage on a television monitor, or the lingering taste of a great wine when the glass is drained.

U
NPUBLISHED
AND
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NFINISHED
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ORKS

Anyone who writes regularly is likely to end up with a few fragments, especially someone who writes professionally. Like an artist sketching out characters or environments before starting on the final drawing, or a sculptor making studies in clay before starting in marble, authors make initial drafts as they’re exploring a story. Someone who’s practiced and gifted, like Robert E. Howard, is likely to produce roughs that are quite polished, but a professional experimenting with different markets and story concepts ends up with false starts and fragments that were put aside because they weren’t quite working. Howard’s early death had nothing to do with the incomplete state of the fragments in this collection; they were abandoned for other reasons.

As I’ve already stated, I think analysis of fragments for literary worth somewhat problematic – naturally they will have flaws that a finished work will not. In the case of the fragments included in this volume, “The Slave-Princess” is the most compelling, and perhaps the only one that practically begs for completion. “The Track of Bohemund” has stirring moments and fine action scenes and it may be that had it been completed we would have seen another success, but it lies unfinished, and Howard himself might have sensed that something was missing. It does not seem to rise to the heights of the completed historicals from “The Sowers of the Thunder” on.

The other fragments seem to have come from earlier in Howard’s writing career. We have his summary and recap of Lamb’s “The Wolf Chaser,” a tale that clearly captivated him, judging both by these fragments, his brief foray into a tale with the same characters, and the similar conclusion to “Red Blades of Black Cathay.” Howard was probably experimenting with the aspects of the story he most wanted to learn from.

In addition to numerous tantalizing fragments, at the time of his death Howard had a bevy of fine stories and partial series that he never saw in print. Wandering through one of them is Turlogh Dubh O’brien, one of the best realized of Howard’s lesser known heroes and one of my personal favorites; I heartily wish Howard had composed more stories of the Irish rogue. Wherever he turns up, he tends to steal scenes through sheer force of personality, as he does in “Spears of Clontarf.”

When “Spears” failed to sell, Howard upped the quotient of the fantastic, retitled it “The Grey God Passes,” and tried, and failed, again to sell the piece. “Spears” is quite similar to “Grey God,” save that it begins with the slaying of Conn’s master and has a little too much story development through dialogue. When Howard cut this opening and replaced it with a brief glimpse of the All-Father, he improved the story.

Clontarf gives us an early glimpse of Howard’s ability to portray multiple characters in battle scenes. It works very well, even though it does not succeed quite as well as it does in his later historicals. Still, Howard at good is better than most adventure writers at their best, and it is hard to find much fault with the piece except in comparison to Howard’s own later and greater work. It seems strange to us now that the story, be it titled “Spears of Clontarf” or “The Grey God Passes,” did not sell in Howard’s lifetime.

Turlogh turned up as a central character in two more stories – one of which is often mentioned among Howard’s best (“The Dark Man”) and popped up in a few fragments, but Howard lost interest in him, or failed to find more stories to tell of him, and moved on. A different fate was to befall another of his promising heroes, Agnès de la Fère.

We can’t be certain when Howard wrote the Dark Agnès stories, although we can be certain that he set them to paper before January 1935, when he sent “Sword Woman” to C. L. Moore. Catherine Moore is well-known in fantasy circles and especially among fans of
Weird Tales
for creating a cycle of stories around space opera hero Northwest Smith, and for her tales of Jirel of Joiry. It is likely that the latter, featuring a flame-haired warrior woman of a mythical province of France, inspired Howard’s letter, though we should not leap to the conclusion that Jirel inspired Agnès.

Superficially Agnès and Jirel sound similar. They are both red-haired warrior women and French – but they are poles apart. There are obvious differences: Jirel is a noble and Agnès a peasant; Agnès narrates her story while Jirel’s adventures are told in third person; Jirel’s adventures have fantastic elements from almost the very start, whereas it is only in the Agnès fragment that the supernatural makes an entrance.

A greater difference than these elements, however, is one of tone. Howard and Moore were both of them splendid writers and Howard at least was capable of a variety of different styles. Here, though, he was direct and forceful, even a little spare, especially when compared to the often glorious prose poetry sprinkled through his best historical pieces. The two complete Agnès stories thunder forward at breakneck pace. Moore writes with a dreamy sensuality somewhat reminiscent of William Hope Hodgson’s best work, for mixed in among the surreal imagery are moments of horror and tension. Howard was perfectly capable of this tone as well, as his Kull stories bear witness, but he did not use it when he wrote of Agnès de la Fère.

If Moore influenced Howard in any way it is not really discernable, and it may be that he sent the stories her way because he sensed a kindred spirit, or because he wanted her to see he’d done something a little similar but hadn’t been stealing from her. Perhaps he contacted her for a bit of both reasons; we can only speculate.

What we do know is that Moore replied that she’d enjoyed Agnès, and that Howard never found a market for the series. He might have been considering altering them for
Weird Tales
– which would surely have required the fantastic element he introduces in the unfinished “Mistress of Death.”

The completed Agnès stories read like the first two chapters of a serial novel, or, perhaps more aptly, like the first two episodes of a radio or television drama. The main characters are introduced in an origin story, and so too is a villain who survives both adventures. It’s a shame we can’t know where Howard was planning to take the series. Presumably he had some idea, but no series outlines survive.

What we can clearly see is evidence to counter one of the critiques sometimes leveled against Howard’s work. No misogynist could have penned a tale with such a valiant heroine. She outwits and outfights any man who stands against her, and is of higher moral fiber besides, sparing Villiers, who would have betrayed her, then risking her life to save him and reigniting his own sense of honor.

Howard should not be faulted if Agnès and her companions are painted in more primary colors than the figures in his more famous historicals. Howard was capable of greater variety than his detractors give him credit for. Agnès comes from a pulpier and more melodramatic tradition, and she can stand shoulder to shoulder with similar heroes. Howard crafted his tales for market requirements. His writing was his living, after all, and it may be that’s why his women often were little more than verbal eye candy. It helped his stories sell. He wrote what sold in the market, and the fact that these fine tales of a heroic female adventurer never saw print are testimony that the wider world, or at least the gatekeeping editors, were not yet ready for the more egalitarian tales Howard was perfectly capable of, and comfortable with, giving us.

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Many writers have left their readers wanting more before they rode into the sunset, frequently because they had a popular character or series that readers could not get enough of. One of many fascinating things about Robert E. Howard’s writing is that he managed to pull this trick not once, not twice, but for almost as many series and genres as he worked with. The craving for more Conan stories fired an entire industry of (mostly bad) pastiche based around the character, and now there is an entire role-playing game as well as an online multiverse so that others can walk into the mighty Cimmerian’s world and find their own adventures. But readers don’t just desire more tales of Conan – they want more Solomon Kane, more Kull, more Bran Mak Morn. And there are lesser known characters as well that we would gladly have glimpsed more of – El Borak, Turlogh, Dark Agnès – the list goes on, and if one reflects upon the length of that list and then upon both the relatively short time Howard was creating professional writing and the immense amount of prose he produced over those years, his accomplishment is all the more impressive. He gave us a great deal of fiction, and yet left us still hungry. He was only thirty when he died, a point I like to raise when critics speak to an immaturity they see in his themes or prose. Given that he was already
this
good when he was thirty, and given he was only getting better, what more could we have seen from him had he lived for ten, twenty, forty years more? When we mourn Howard we should not just regret the passing of a brilliant young man, but the loss of all that he might have lived to give us.