Thornspell

by Lowe, Helen

• ISBN13: 9780375844799
• ISBN10: 0375844791
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Trade Paper
• Copyright: 2010-05-11
• Publisher: Yearling

Summary

PRINCE SIGISMUND HAS grown up in a remote castle, dreaming of going on heroic knightly quests while staring out at the forbidden wood that looms to the west. His great-grandfather placed an interdict on the wood nearly 100 years ago, though no one seems to know exactly why. But for those still young or credulous enough to believe in magic, the rumors and stories aboundof an enchanted castle and a sleeping princess cursed by an evil faie. Helen Lowe has spun a grand, adventurous, romantic tale about the prince destined to wake the sleeping princess. This thoughtful hero must delve into a world of mystery and magic to discover the truth of his own fate. Enemies with powers he never imagined abound, sometimes hiding behind a mask of friendship. And an elusive girl haunts his dreamsis she helping him or binding him tighter into a thorny cage? For Sigismund, the truth turns out to be more fantastical than any story he's ever heard. From the Hardcover edition.

Author Biography

Helen Lowe won the inaugural Robbie Burns National Poetry Award in 2003 and was the recipient of a New Zealand Society of Authors/Creative New Zealand award for emerging writer. For Thornspell, she received the Sir Julius Vogel Award for best young adult novel. She received a second Vogel Award as best new talent in the fantasy field.

In addition to her writing life, Helen has a second-dan black belt in aikido and represented her university in the sport of fencing. She lives in a ninety-year-old house with a woodland garden in Christchurch, New Zealand, which she shares with her partner, Andrew, and two cats.

Excerpts

The Silent Wood

A boy was lying on his stomach on the topmost tower of a small, square castle, basking like a lizard in the sun. There was a book open on the lichened stone in front of him, and one slightly grubby finger traced the illuminations on the page. Neither he nor the book was supposed to be there at all, but he had slipped away from his many guardians to lose himself in the enchanted world of Parsifal and the Grail quest. When he was done with reading, he would simply doze on in the warm afternoon sun or look out, lofty as a falcon, over the world that surrounded the castle.

Even from the high tower it was a small enough world, for the castle, the gardens, and the parkland that surrounded it were contained by a high stone wall. The wall snaked for miles between the park and the white dusty road, and even the local village lay inside the great wrought-iron gates.

Sigismund, for that was the boy's name, couldn't remember the gates opening since the day his father had first brought him to the castle, several years before. He supposed they must open sometimes to let his father's couriers pass, and the merchants who brought luxuries from the capital, but he had never seen it happen, not even when he raced to the top of the tower to watch a departing caravan. There was always something that distracted his attention at the critical moment--or the dust in summer, or snow of winter, would be too thick for him to see the gate at all.

Sigismund could lie for hours watching the road and imagining the long leagues to the capital, with all the towns and great houses, woods and fields, along its length. He would daydream of the adventures that might befall a traveler along the way, for there were still tales told of both faie and ogres dwelling in these remoter provinces. Sigismund's tutor, Master Griff, might look down his nose at such tales, but Sir Andreas, the castle steward, would shake his head and say that you couldn't take anything for granted, not in this country. Sir Andreas himself would never say more, but Wenceslas, who worked in the stable and was a particular friend of Sigismund's, said that Sir Andreas's own father had been killed fighting ogres. He too had been the King's steward and led his men against the ogres when they began killing travelers and raiding outlying farms.

This story always gave Sigismund a shiver down his spine, because it was both exciting and sad at the same time. He liked to imagine riding out in the same way when he was older, protecting the people from outlaws and monsters, except that in these daydreams Sigismund always overcame his opponents and set any wrongs done to right. His favorite dream, however, was of the day when his father would come riding back from the endless rebellions and outright wars in the southern provinces. Then, thought Sigismund, his eyes half shut against the sun's glare, they would go adventuring together--perhaps along the fabled Spice Road and into the Uttermost East, where dragons flew like silken banners in the noonday sky and men spoke in strange tongues.

He didn't like to think about what would happen if his father never came back, if he was killed fighting in the south. Sigismund supposed that he would have to return to the capital if that happened and be crowned king in his turn, although he would much rather ride out alone, like Parsifal on the Grail quest. I could be a knight-errant, he thought, and make my own way in the world, as princes used to do in the high days of King Arthur--or the Emperor Charlemagne, when Roland held the pass at Roncesvalles.

"But not crown princes," Master Griff had said on the one occasion when Sigismund voiced this dream aloud. "You'll find that was only younger sons, even then. The oldest son still had to be responsible and mind the kingdom."

Thoughts of princes-errant and the Grail quest drew Sigismund's eyes away from the eastern road to the great

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Excerpted from Thornspell by Helen Lowe
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