December 26 has rolled around again, and that means it’s time for the DMR Books Blog’s birthday post devoted to Keith Taylor. I contacted Keith at his abode Down Under. He was caught betwixt a wedding and Christmas festivities, but he graciously made time to answer some questions from yours truly. We discussed the distant past, the exciting present and what things may come in the future.

Deuce: Starting off, Keith, what was the first fictional character you created?

Keith: I started writing stories when I was nine years old, and my ignorance of history was profound. Not to be wondered at, since my grade school teacher at the time, crusty old Cornelius Hope, told us things like, “People used to point at Christopher Columbus, tap their heads and say, “There goes old Columbus. He thinks the world’s round!” Well, most grade school teachers in those days told their wide-eyed pupils that Columbus was jerry to the world’s being round when everybody else thought it was flat, decade after decade.

The significant thing is that my ignorance of history was profound, and I got most of my ideas from old-fashioned boys’ adventure fiction like Andrew Wood’s Blackbird Patrol, about dashing English navy men putting down the slave trade (in which England had engaged with enthusiasm before the nineteenth century, but never mind). The main character was a lieutenant in Blackbird Patrol, but Wood had written an earlier book called Powder Monkey, in which he hauled powder and shot during sea battles, as a mere kid.

The first ever story I wrote, and character I created, I think, was pretty much a steal from Powder Monkey, although I made my seafaring kid a cabin boy and had him rise to captain while still in his teens. Yes, I knew plenty about the system of naval rank and promotion in the Napoleonic Wars when I was nine, no question. And the teens looked like grizzled maturity to me then. I gave the character what seemed to me the very cool name of Ben Target.

Deuce: Wasn’t there also another character after that? Sort of a cross between Felimid mac Fal and Conan?

Keith: Some questions you ask are embarrassing, not by intent, I know, but I get sensitive about some of my early stuff. De Camp once observed that writers take a hypersensitive view of their own juvenilia, but then, as Harlan Ellison once wrote, “They don’t call that stuff ‘juvenilia’ for nothing, friends ‘n’ neighbours.”

I did start developing a bardic character in my teens, and he was Irish, but I wrote only two stories about that character and they never saw daylight, to my great relief now. I called him Connor mac Curran, he was huge, with a mane of red hair and a bushy red beard, and he carried a harp but he swung a mean sword and axe, and like Beowulf, he had immense, inordinate strength – that of fifty men. Yeah, fifty. I didn’t learn moderation until I grew older. In the first story he was caught outdoors on Samhain Eve, like Fal in “The Unlawful Hunter”, and blundered into another world, from which he had some trouble getting back. I’ve forgotten what the hell happened in the second.

Deuce: Crude or not, I imagine they still would’ve been fun reads. Speaking of Fal mac Fergus…we know he learned the finer points of piracy from one of your other Gaelic protagonists, Nasach the Spear. Will the tale of their meeting ever be told? Also, will the story of Fal's last stand defending Felimid's mother ever be put to paper?

Keith: Fal’s first meeting with Nasach is a story I’d love to tell, and intend to, like the story of his love affair with Caithlenn and his last stand defending her and the new-born Felimid. But just when I don’t know.

Deuce: Did you have any further adventures plotted for Cormac Mac Art and Wulfhere after When Death Birds Fly?

Keith: I did have adventures planned for Cormac and Wulfhere subsequent to When Death Birds Fly. My idea was that they should continue north, find a master shipwright to build a navy for King Veremund of the Suevi in north western Spain, and make him Veremund’s offer of generous payment for the task.

But the shipwright, who was to bear the name of Ketil Wry-leg, having a crooked knee-joint as a result of an old wound, wanted something before he’d agree. His daughters had been abducted by a Jutish chief and Ketil wanted them restored to the bosom of their family, which meant Cormac and Wulfhere must rescue her. The Jutish chief had a malevolent witch of a wife who could not only scry events at a distance but worshipped the sea-goddess Ran, a malicious divinity who “spreads nets for ships.” So getting those daughters back would have been a tough job even for Cormac and Wulfhere. But of course they’d have done it.

Wulfhere, in my plot outlines, which I’ve since lost, was a long time enemy of Hengist, another Jute. Hengist was also one of the early invaders of post-Roman Britain. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle implies that Hengist died in 488 A.D. I was going to have Wulfhere settle accounts with him in that year, on his way back to Spain with the shipwright. But when Andy Offutt stopped doing the Cormac series and ACE Books and the Howard estate declined to let me continue in Andy’s place, that came to nothing.

Deuce: That sounds like some quality blood n' thunder! What a tragic mistake on the part of Ace and the Howard Estate.

Wulfhere and Cormac tussled with Hengist in When Death Birds Fly, so that 488 A.D. battle would've been a cool finale to the feud. I like how you used authentic lore from Beowulf and "Finn and Hengest" to tie Wulfhere and the mighty Jute together in a web of bloody vengeance.

I’ve always wondered: King Veremund was said to have gotten the magical Chain of Motsognir from actual 'dwarves'. Did you ever come up with a background/origin for them? Plenty of mountains to choose from in Old Swabia/Suevia where dwarves might lurk. The Vosges, the Swabian Alps…

Keith: I liked the device of “Motsognir’s Chain” that grew extra silver links when heated, magically made by dwarves, but I never gave much thought to when and how Veremund got hold of it. I might have, if I’d done any further Cormac and Wulfhere novels … c’est la vie.

Deuce: You've written several adventures about a medieval knight--an actual historical person--set in the 1400s, haven't you?

Keith: About that actual medieval knight and his adventures in the 1400s, the answer is, well, not exactly. I’ve had stories planned to feature Thomas, Lord Holand, a real-life dashing rogue whose deeds and impertinences you just couldn’t make up. He lived in the 1300s. His father was quite a rogue too, and came to a bad end after a gaudy career, ambushed and beheaded by his enemies. But Thomas outdid him. He was handsome, bold, a founder member of the Garter order, darling of the ladies, war hero, crusader (in the north against the pagan Balts with the Teutonic Knights, not in the east), and in his day, the most finished scoundrel unhung.

He seduced the Earl of Salisbury’s young wife, Joan, the famous Fair Maid of Kent (and the king’s cousin, if you please), then went to the French wars and captured the constable of France. He sold him to the king like a used car for his share of a huge ransom, then rode to the Pope’s residence in exile and bribed him to annul Joan’s marriage. After which he married her himself.

He was real, though, and he even had a pretty romantic coat of arms – a silver lion rampant on a blue field spangled with silver fleurs-de-lys.

So far, though, I’ve only had one story published in which Holand appears, and he’s not a main character in that one. That is “The Witch With Bronze Teeth,” in the RBE Challenge!Discovery anthology (2017) edited by Jason Waltz. Holand’s in a medieval mystery novel of mine, Winged Spur, set in 1352, but like the REH/Lovecraft inspired Damned from Birth, it’s never found a publisher yet. I’d love to write other stories about him in which he takes centre stage. And I’ve had one story published about another rogue knight, Geoffrey the Bastard, father of REH’s less-than-idealistic crusader, Cormac FitzGeoffrey. REH mentioned him in the Cormac FitzGeoffrey stories, but never said a great deal about his career or wrote any actual stories about him, so I’ve felt free to flesh him out a bit.

Deuce: Can you tell the readers of the DMR Books blog a little bit about your new Felimid mac Fal novel, Sunspear?

Ah, yes. I’ve completed Bard VI: Sunspear recently and hope it’ll be brought out as an e-book and audiobook. It’s set in 516 A.D., three years after the close of Bard V: Felimid’s Homecoming. In that one, Felimid brought about the death of Ruarc Sunspear’s awful mentor, the self styled archdruid and magician Dicuil the Fiery, who had been fathered by a demon – or alien being, depending on the point of view. Ruarc is young, arrogant, and fully human, and claims with probable truth to be a descendant of Lugh the Sun Lord. He’s devoted to the idea of restoring Erin’s mythical past and driving the Cross-worshippers out entirely, which as Felimid points out to him is not possible, and even if Ruarc could do it, he’s not immortal and the religion of Padraigh would return after his death. “New things are here and they will not go away.”

But somehow, starting with almost nothing and without Dicuil’s sorcerous support any longer, Ruarc in just three years has become king of Airgialla in the north and made his royal stronghold a sort of copy of ancient Emain Macha, where King Conchubor reigned and the Red Branch heroes flourished, Cuchulain among them. That should have been impossible, with the mighty clan of the Ui Neill ascendant in the north, so how did Ruarc achieve it?

And Felimid has made the tactical mistake of spending those three years in bardic studies, advancing to the next level, taking his ease otherwise, not even practicing the sword much. He assumed that if Ruarc tried to implement his grandiose plans, he would have a short future, but instead Ruarc seems to have had considerable success. He also doesn’t mean to rest content with that. He’s very much an all-or-nothing kind of bloke.

Rather unwillingly, but seeing the need is imperative, Felimid travels north to inspect and deal with the situation.

There are a couple of real historical characters in the novel, like King Muirchertach mac Muredaig of the Ui Neill, and Brendan (or Brandon) the sailor saint who’s the subject of a medieval manuscript ascribing amazing voyages to him. He’s young in this novel, and Felimid is quite pally with him. There is also Bishop Ailill of Armagh, less amiable than Brandon, a fanatic as fiery as Sunspear. Various wizards, elementals, seeresses and selchies too. And harp magic, which I have tried to set up in advance so that it doesn’t seem arbitrarily pulled out of the writer’s hat.

Deuce: Sounds like high-grade Celtic sword-and-sorcery to me. I’m glad to hear that Felimid finally returned to his bardic studies. There were several times in the earlier Bard novels where he lamented not having mastered certain higher-level bardic skills. The term ‘bard’ has been thrown around quite sloppily for centuries. Most people don’t realize just how powerful Celtic bards could be—in the legends, anyhow. They weren’t lowly minstrels, jongleurs or skalds. They were druids in their own right.

So, are there other Keith Taylor stories on the horizon?

Keith: What I’m doing, now that I’ve finished Bard VI, is a mystery novel, with no fantasy element, set in Galway, Ireland, in 1790. The first of a series, I would hope. Since the detective is a young lawyer just qualified for the bar, back in Galway after putting in his time at the Inns of Court in London, each novel would have “law” in the title, starting with Smuggler’s Law. It’s a reference to a sour comment by a revenue officer in an early chapter. “Mr. Bodkin, smugglers have but three laws. The first is to run any cargo that will pay well. Second, land it in a secret place, but one handy to the market. The third is death to informers.”

The lawyer, Malachi Bodkin, belongs to one of the great merchant families of Galway, the so-called “tribes.” His romantic old city is pretty dilapidated in the 1790s, from the harbour to the walls, because of the vicious, calculated damage done to Galway’s trade by the English. Malachi passionately admires the great Irish advocate John Philpot Curran, who defended the downtrodden and was impudent to harsh English judges like the notorious “Black Jack” FitzGibbon. He’s also devoted to his family, including his hard-drinking, skirt-chasing grand-father, who was a smuggler himself in his young days.

I’m hoping to follow Smuggler’s Law with The Duelling Law and Law of Retaliation.

There are other stories I’d love to write and will try to. At least one follow-up to “Stain of Blood” in Jason Waltz’s antho, Crossbones & Crosses, which had as the main character Geoffrey FitzWilliam, aka Geoffrey the Bastard, father of REH’s less than idealistic crusader, Cormac FitzGeoffrey. I love using bits of REH, if they’re in the public domain, as springboards for stories, but not stealing his characters. The mighty Texan only mentioned Geoffrey and his descent from William the Conqueror in his Cormac stories, never wrote about him directly, as he only gave a bit of discussion to the Dutch pirate van Raven in “Black Vulmea’s Vengeance.” We’re really only told that he hijacked a Spanish silver fleet and that “He’s a bird of passage. Who knows where he sails?” But I find that intriguing enough to want to write a story or two about him.

I’d love to write another few yarns about my own American privateer, Roger Lowell North, who so far has seen print in one story only, “Fountains of Resolve”, in one of Mike Ashley’s anthologies. And Valentine, from Shakespeare’s “Two Gentlemen of Verona”, who was the protagonist in “The Banished Men” in Mike’s Shakespearean Whodunnits.

I firmly believe in stealing only from the best sources.

Best,

Keith