Less than four weeks to go until the March 27 release of Imperial Scandal. I’ve blogged about the challenges of writing battle scenes. Here’s a glimpse of the scene before the battle. Once again I’ll be giving away an ARC to a commenter.
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Mist hung over the fields, mixed with smoke from the Allied cooking fires and those of the French on the opposite ridge. Steam rose from cheap tea brewed in iron kettles. The smell of clay pipes and officers’ cigars mingled with the stench of wool still sodden from the night’s rain. Shots split the air as soldiers fired their guns to clean them.
“Waste of ammunition,” Davenport said to Charles. “It’s going to be a long day.”
And it had yet to properly begin. A breeze gusted over what would be the battlefield, stirring the corn, cutting through the curtain of mist. Wellington had taken up a position before the small village of Mont-Saint-Jean. Fitzroy had said that the duke would have preferred the position across the field at the inn of La Belle Alliance, which Bonaparte occupied, but the Allied position had its advantages. Wellington had seen the ground when he was in Brussels the previous year. Charles remembered the duke mentioning the slope of the land to the north which would allow him to keep most of his troops out of sight of an enemy across the field.
To the left stood the fortified farm La Haye Sainte, with white-washed walls and a blue-tiled roof that gleamed where the sunlight broke the mist, and still farther to the left the twin farms of Papelotte and La Haye. To the right, in a small valley hidden by cornfields, was Hougoumont, a pretty, walled château surrounded by a wood and a hedged orchard. Both had been garrisoned with Allied soldiers.
The ground before them sloped down to a valley, through which the road to Charleroi ran, then rose to the ridge on which stood La Belle Alliance. On this ridge, the French army had begun to deploy. An elegant, masterful pageant. Malcolm lifted his spyglass. Lancers with white-plumed shapkas on their heads, chasseurs with plumes of scarlet and green, hussars, dragoons, cuirassiers, and carabiniers, and the imperial guard in their scarlet-faced blue coats. Gunners adjusted the position of their weapons. Pennants snapped in the breeze and gold eagles caught the sun as it battled the mist.
“Sweet Jesus,” Davenport murmured.
“Bonaparte understands the value of theatre,” Charles said.
“Unless he’s also a master of illusion, there are a bloody lot of them. I hope to God the Prussians get here.”
Charles cast a glance along the Allied lines. “We happy few.”
“Shakespeare was a genius, but he’d never been on a battlefield. Do you know what you’re in for, Fraser?”
“I’ve seen battles before,” Malcolm said, scenes from the Peninsula fresh in his mind. “But I don’t think any of us has seen anything like what’s about to unfold.”
Cheers went up among the French troops as a figure on a gray horse galloped into their midst.
“Boney,” Davenport said. “Odd to think I’ve never seen him before.”
“Nor have I.” Charles handed his spyglass to Davenport. Bonaparte wore the undress uniform of a colonel in the imperial guard and a bicorne hat without cockades. Wellington too wore casual dress for battle, though his buckskins and blue coat were more in the style of a gentleman out for a morning’s ride. He wore four cockades on his own bicorne, for Britain, Spain, Portugal, and the Netherlands.
Even without a spyglass, the cheers of the French troops for Bonaparte were evident. In response Wellington rode among his own troops, at a sedate trot rather than Bonaparte’s gallop. He was greeted with respectful nods but no cheering.
Alexander Gordon pulled up beside Charles and Davenport. “Uxbridge has ordered sherry for his staff so they can toast today’s fox.”
“Fox hunting always struck me as a bloody business,” Davenport said. “And a damned waste. My sympathies go to the fox.”
Gordon shot an amused glance at him and held out a paper. “Well, while you’re feeling sympathetic toward Boney, you can take this to Picton. Wellington’s orders.”
Davenport wheeled his horse round but turned back to Malcolm before he rode off. “I don’t say this often, but it’s been a pleasure working with you, Charles.”
Charles reached between the horses to clasp the other man’s hand. “Likewise, Harry.”
March 7, 2012 at 11:45 am
As a reader, I agree that battle scenes are a real challenge. The author has to give the necessary details without giving too much details and, kind of, losing his/her reader. Alexandre Dumas has written very good battle scenes… I can’t wait to read yours! 🙂
Btw, I’m a beginner to your series… shall I wait for Imperial Scandal before reading Beneath a Silent Moon and Secrets of a Lady, or I can go on with them before that? Will there be spoilers in them?
Thank your for writing such great books (and thanks for making the e-books available to non-nook and non-kindle readers too!)
March 7, 2012 at 3:18 pm
Good thing we know Charles and Malcolm are the same guy. Does that ever get confusing switching the names around?
I liked the scene. I can’t recall reading very many battle scenes so I don’t have much to compare it to. It’s easy to forget that battles were fought by real people who each a life before the war. Many could only hope they would survive to see their loved ones again. Perhaps it’s not the battle that’s the challenge, but the humanity of those fighting it?
March 7, 2012 at 5:00 pm
When is the next one coming out?
How many more books until we get to the time of BSM, DOTG, and MON? 🙂
March 7, 2012 at 6:43 pm
I love the scene, it’s very evocative, but isn’t that sentence “”I’ve seen battles before,” Malcolm said,” an error? Because he’s Charles everywhere else.
I also appreciate that you respect your readers enough to assume we will get the Shakespeare reference.
March 7, 2012 at 7:12 pm
Good question about the reading order, Céline. I try not to spoil the solutions to the individual mysteries in other books. There’s a fairly major revelation about Mélanie/Suzanne in Secrets of a Lady, but it’s also revealed in Imperial Scandal. So I think you could go ahead and read Beneath and Secrets. What do other readers think?
April 17, 2012 at 8:44 pm
I read Vienna Waltz, Beneath and Secrets in chronological order before the release of Imperial Scandal. I would recommend reading Secrets before Imperial Scandal only because the revelations about Melanie/Suzanne were more dramatic in Secrets and somewhat anti-climactic in Imperial. To digress, is Mask ever to be released in book form? I hope the novella is as well.
April 18, 2012 at 8:27 am
Thanks, Kathy – it’s great to get a perspective from someone who read the books in that order. I really hope Mask is released in book form, but unless it gets easier for me to create print copies myself, that would mean a print publisher picking it up which hasn’t happened yet. Though my publisher is doing the novella, right now the plan is e-only. But it’s good to know there are people who want it in print. Maybe eventually if I do enough novellas for a book…
March 7, 2012 at 7:14 pm
Thanks for catching the name error, Susan and Karin! I accidentally copied the scene from the wrong file and then instead of opening the Charles/Mel file I just went through and changed his name – and missed one. That’s one comes of posting late at night in between baby feedings :-).
Susan, I think that’s very true of it being the humanity of those fighting that it’s a challenge to capture. In my first draft of the battle, I was focused on logistics. In subsequent drafts (I did several) I focused on the experience of the characters.
March 7, 2012 at 7:16 pm
The next one (The Princess’s Secret) will probably be out in April 2013, JMM. I’m starting to think about the book after that, which I think may catch Malcolm & Suzanne up to a time period parallel to the time period after Beneath, Secrets, and Mask. We’ll see if I can do that in one book (without events repeating themselves).
March 7, 2012 at 7:17 pm
Glad you liked the Shakespeare reference, Karin – I love weaving in Shakespeare quotes (and I love that readers get them),
March 7, 2012 at 7:20 pm
Thanx for the precision about the reading order, Ms Grant!!
I guess it’s quite a challenge to go on writing as you do with so young a baby! You seem to have entered a nice routine!! 🙂
March 7, 2012 at 7:26 pm
It’s actually less of a challenge than I thought it would be, Céline. Mélanie is incredibly cooperative. But I definitely don’t have as much time as I used to!
March 7, 2012 at 7:28 pm
On the name confusion, I meant to add that I’m at the point where I actually don’t notice the difference most of the time – the names have become synonymous for me.
March 16, 2012 at 3:13 am
Great scene — so descriptive that it’s easy to picture, and to feel the tension. Now I want to read the whole book even more!
March 16, 2012 at 5:59 am
Thanks so much! The book will be out soon – I was at the Kensington offices today and got my first copy from my editor.
April 3, 2012 at 7:53 am
Congrats to newsgirl151 who won the signed copy! If you email me your snail mail at tracy@tracygrant.org, I’ll get the copy in the mail to you. I know I’m late, so if you already have a copy of Imperial Scandal and would like to wait until next year for a copy of Princess’s Secret, let me know.