Bracelet of Bones (24 page)

Author’s Note and Acknowledgments

I
’ve stepped into a dozen or so buildings and ruins that have made me gasp—among them Sydney’s Opera House and the Mezquita in Cordoba, the Colosseum in Rome, the sky-high Acoma Pueblo in New Mexico, and the Neolithic village of Skara Brae in Orkney. But the most stunning of all is the huge church-mosque-museum of Hagia Sophia in Istanbul. For more than one thousand years, this was the largest covered space on earth, and there on a high marble balustrade I found Viking runes reading HALFDAN (Half-Dane). They were probably carved by a mercenary in the eleventh century. That’s where this book began.

A great deal has been written about the Vikings at home and in the south and west, but altogether less about their utterly remarkable colonization of Russia and their trading and military expeditions to Constantinople, where the Byzantine emperor’s handpicked guard consisted entirely of Vikings. So this book has entailed plenty of research, but of course the trick for any historical novelist is to remember that he or she is a storyteller, not a historian. Anthony
Cheetham, cofounder of Quercus, suggested I should write it, and in his wake I’ve worked closely with my thoughtful and very supportive editor, Roisin Heycock. I also warmly thank my discerning and eagle-eyed copy editor Talya Baker, and Margaret Histed, Parul Bavishi, Emma Thawley, and Jon Riley at Quercus for all their help.

Hemesh Alles has drawn the delightful and informative map, as he did those for my Arthur trilogy and
Gatty’s Tale
; once again, I’m so grateful to Richard Barber for his imaginative interest and scholarly advice, as well as for the loan of valuable books; the letter carver Gary Breeze allowed me into his dusty workshop and introduced me to Anton Englert, curator of the Viking Ship Museum in Roskilde; my longtime editor Judith Elliott has continued to care for and support my work; Geoffrey Findlay gave me a copy of Cherry Gilchrist’s utterly magical
The Soul of Russia
, a book that has been at my elbow for the last eighteen months; my wife Linda’s Norwegian relatives, Harald Hansen, Randi Hansen, and their families, warmly welcomed me to Trondheimfjord; and Jim Ring has generously given me advice about ships, sailing terms, and a skipper’s feeling for his boat.

I’m dedicating this book to Twiggy Bigwood, who has not only expertly threaded her way through my manuscript and typed it over and over again but also researched many aspects of Viking life and lore. She, my wife, Linda, and I have very often engaged in friendly and fascinating argument about issues and characterization, while Linda could well have been an outstanding editor in another incarnation and tactfully suggested literally thousands of small
textual changes. Mainly cuts! Viking women were on the whole freethinking and strong-willed, witty, capable, and loyal (I’ll set aside some of their less desirable qualities). So are the two women flanking me, and this book would certainly be the worse without them.

I’ve found it thrilling to reengage with the Viking world for the first time since writing
The Penguin Book of Norse Myths
, and this first encounter with Solveig and her father and Harald Sigurdsson (Hardrada) will not be the last. I’m now at work on its successor,
Scramasax
.

Chalk Hill, Burnham Market

September 2010

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