A modern retelling of the Dream of Macsen Wledig from the
ancient Welsh legend, the Mabinogion
Magnus Maximus is a former general with such a fearsome reputation that even emperors fear him. Magnus’ fear is that he will be assassinated, but fate has other plans, and he is given the command of the three legions stationed in Britannia.
The idea to write my previous book,
Brethren, popped into my head one windy day on the top of Dinas Bran, the famous castle above Llangollen in Wales. Welsh resistance to the English invasions and brutal occupations in the middle-ages are fairly well-known, but about those who lived within the barely discernible ditches over a millennium before the iconic castle was built up there, I realised that I knew next to nothing.
From the very start, I didn't want to just write one book, I wanted to be a writer. And so after countless hours online reading up on all I could find about how to be a successful self-published author, I followed what seemed to be the best advice for long term success; choose a unique niche and write a series.The mysterious, semi-mythical foundation of my native Wales has not been written about before, and so the Foundation of the Dragon series was born. The dragon being the flag, of course, officially the coolest flag in the world! Brethren was set in the first century, and the story was about the last of the native ‘Celts’ fighting the Roman legions.
And if anyone has read it, they will understand why there can be no sequel. For the subsequent long centuries of the Roman occupation many tumultuous and history-changing events took place across the known world, but not so much in the back-water province of Britannia Secunda, the mountainous province that would one day become Wales.
The earliest historically attested story that can be set there comes almost at the end of Roman rule with the figure of Magnus Maximus, or Macsen Wledig, as he is known in the collection of early Welsh literature the Mabinogion. His legend still endures and is still celebrated in Caernarfon, one of my favourite places in North Wales. And his story in the historical record, of how he managed to rise from almost forgotten general to the Western Emperor, a position he held quite successfully for five years, I found fascinating. You don’t get a much better historical fiction character arc than that, and a really rewarding one to write.
In Brethren, both Cadwal and Brei, were both perfect people, not a streak of badness in either of them. However, my favourite genre to read is grimdark, so I wanted the POV of a more morally questionable character to add some contrast and some depth to the narrative. Conan Meriadoc (In the book spelled as Kennan as Conan conjures up images of SFF and Arnold) is recorded in the, admittedly largely fictional, Historia Regnum Britanniae, as averting a garrison of British troops clashing with Magnus' entourage as soon as he landed.
Out of jealousy, he then led an invading barbarian army from beyond the wall against him, so his conflicted reasonings coming from a place of fear and weakness, were great to write. And what he ended up doing to the women settlers of Brittany (which will be in Book 3) is one of the most grimdark stories I've ever come across. I wanted to explore what would lead a young man to do something so abhorrent that two thousand years later, it still has the power to shock.
When it came time to put pen to paper, the first issue I had was that Magnus' story is wrapped up in legend and there aren’t any common threads to connect the mythic Macsen Wledig of the Mabinogion with the historical Magnus Maximus. But I wanted to include the dream of Macsen Wledig as a way of paying homage to our Welsh literature heritage… and so I needed some way of bridging the mythical and the real...
Randomly, while I was mulling on this, I saw a YouTube video of a rather irate Miriam Margolyes giving someone a piece of her mind. Wide eyes, finger-wagging, wild hair... and a woman with powers beyond those of even an emperor was born. I absolutely love Miriam, and she is the inspiration for the cheeky 'auger' is my favourite character. This character is also a link back to Brethren.
Weaving the Mabinogion story in the plot was a lot of fun and, as a Welsh historical fiction writer, quite a privilege as well. I hope I did it justice. For the established facts about the actual historic person, the book Magnus Maximus: The Neglected Roman Emperor and his British Legacy by Maxwell Craven was an invaluable source of information and, so far, is the most academic story of Magnus Maximus I've come across.
As with any historical fiction research, five different sources will give five different dates and ages, but wherever there was some ambiguity, or some leeway for a bit of creative license to meld facts into the plot structure, I more often than not went with Craven’s conclusions.
Initially, I intended Usurpers to cover the whole eight years of Magnus' story from outcast to emperor, but at only half way with the text at over 100,000 words, rather than edit the life out of it, I decided to split it in two.
So the stories of Magnus, Elen, Kennan and his grumpy Master of Horse Andragathius will get wrapped up in Book 3, which I intend to have out this winter, around Christmas, if I don't have too many Ferrari and Porsche stories to write in the meantime - which is the day job. I am already 20,000 words in. I don’t know if it’s what other writers do, but I began with the rather harrowing ending… a bloodsoaked rainbow. You’ll have to wait a few months to find out what that means.
Moving forward to summer 2024, Book 4 will cover the struggles of Vortigen, a figure I've been interested in for a very long time, and the tumultuous period of the fall of Roman rule in Britain. And perhaps I'll do something with King Arthur... although at the moment I'm a little reluctant to do so as this story has been done to death over the last few hundred years. I am not sure what unique angle I can take to write about him. Perhaps some readers will have some suggestions?
Robb Pritchard
# # #
About the Author
Robb grew up in North Wales but left for a life of travelling when he was a teenager. After living in a dozen different countries around the world over nearly thirty years, he became nostalgic for his home country. Hiraeth, in Welsh. For the day job, he has the unbelievable privilege of travelling the world to test drive, and write about, classic Porsches and Ferraris and the occasional crazy off-roader and has lived off his writing, and some half-decent photos for the last fifteen years. The passion though, has long been writing novels. It took a few long years for him to get here but
Brethren is malting its fluffy fledgling feathers and has been released into the wild. Hopefully, he wrote it well enough that it can fend for itself. Find out more from Robb's website
www.robbpritchard.co.uk
Writer and historian Beverley Adams holds a Masters Degree in English and has written several non-fiction titles for Pen and Sword Books, including The Rebel Suffragette: The Life of Edith Rigby. Her work focuses on bringing the lives of inspirational women back to life. She is passionate about local history and has contributed numerous articles for the local press. She lives in Preston, Lancashire. Find our more at Beverley's website https://beverleysreads.wordpress.com/ and find her on Twitter @WriterBeverleyA
.png)
