Name: Malve von Hassell
Book Title: The Price of Loyalty: Serving Adela of Blois
Series: n/a
Publication Date: August 21, 2025
Publisher: Historium Press
Pages: 376
Genre: Historical Fiction
Any Triggers: Some violence, some references to rape [not graphic]
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Book Title and Author Name:
The Price of Loyalty
by Malve von Hassell
Blurb:
In a time of kingdoms and crusades, one man’s heart is the battlefield.
Cerdic, a Saxon knight, serves Count Stephen-Henry of Blois with unwavering loyalty-yet his soul remains divided. Haunted by memories of England, the land of his childhood, and bound by duty to King William, the conqueror who once showed him mercy, Cerdic walks a dangerous line between past and present, longing and loyalty.
At the center of his turmoil stands Adela-daughter of a king, wife of a count, and the first to offer him friendship in a foreign land. But when a political marriage binds him to the spirited and determined Giselle, Cerdic’s world turns again. Giselle, fiercely in love with her stoic husband, follows him across sea and sand to the holy land, hoping to win the heart that still lingers elsewhere.
As the clash of empires looms and a crusade threatens to tear everything apart, Cerdic must confront the deepest truth of all-where does his loyalty lie, and whom does his heart truly belong to?
Excerpt 1:
Bayeux Cathedral
Here Harold has sailed the sea, and with sails filled with wind has come into Count Guy’s territory. — Here they have given Harold the king’s crown. Here sits Harold as King of the Angles. — Here Angles and Franks have fallen together in battle. Here Bishop Odo holding his staff encourages the younger soldiers. Bayeux Tapestry
1077 Bayeux
Adela’s feet itched. She was tired of standing still. “Stop wiggling,” she murmured, kicking Henry in the side with her elbow.
“You are wiggling too,” he hissed.
At least they stood in the front row on one side of the cathedral. Adela craned her head to watch her father and mother with her father’s closest advisors on the opposite side.
The new cathedral was massive. Despite the hot summer day, the cavernous expanse felt damp and chilly. There was only one large round opening and several smaller ones allowing sunlight into the interior. Candlesticks set up along the perimeter made the stone pillars and niches and the high ceiling appear even more imposing. Gilded candelabras illuminated the dais. The cathedral wasn’t finished; there was still scaffolding in some areas. The workers had set up temporary wooden stakes all along the outer wall for displaying the tapestry, one segment on the left, another segment on the right, and two others flanking the entrance.
“I expect you to be still and to refrain from talking,” Adela’s mother had told Henry and Adela, fixing them with a stern look. “Bishop Odo will bless the church with holy water on the outside. He must walk around the entire building three times and then repeat the blessing inside.”
A loud knock reverberated through the hall. Nobody moved. Another knock. Silence. At the third knock, the wide double doors opened, and the procession filed in, the monks chanting as they moved along. The chanting grew louder, drowning out all sounds from the people inside the church. “Let this temple be sanctified and consecrated,” the monks intoned. The bishop circled the interior three times, followed by other priests and monks. He sprinkled holy water on each section of the wall. After that, he anointed each of the crosses along the walls with oil.
Adela pressed her lips together to keep from giggling. It made her think of maids at home wandering around with dusters and polishing the silver. Then she sobered as the chanting of the Benedictus washed over her. “O how fearful is this place; truly this is no other than the house of God, and the gate of Heaven.”
She glanced at her father, tall and heavy next to her mother. His reddish curls were hidden under his crown; his beard had lately acquired a new shade of gray and yellow. He was frowning, his lips pursed as if something about this ceremony irritated him.
Maybe her father was annoyed with his brother, the bishop. She’d worm it out of him later. When he was in a good mood, he liked to explain things to her. Only, when he went on too long, sounding just like her tutor, her mind wandered. Noticing her abstraction, he’d laugh and pull on her hair as if she were a horse. “I’m glad you are asking questions, but run along now.”
Bishop Odo held his head and chin high, glancing down his nose at the scene in front of him as he made his circuit around the interior of the church, resplendent in his vestments and miter. The gold threads along his long sleeves glinted as he continued to sprinkle holy water on the walls. He certainly appeared prominently on the tapestry. In one scene during the battle of Hastings, he wore full armor and a helmet and held a huge mace in his hand. Adela hadn’t thought that bishops would go to war. But it did look impressive.
“Your uncle supported the production of the tapestry; most of the work was done at the embroidery school of Cambridge,” her mother had told Adela the day before. “So he deserves a place on it.”
She had taken Henry and Adela to a visit to the cathedral for a private viewing of the tapestry. “Tomorrow, during the ceremony there won’t be time.” She told them how much work it took to create all these scenes. “Just imagine how many women had to sit there for many hours over many days placing the individual stitches in accordance with a drawing.”
“If women did all this work, why aren’t there more women shown in the tapestry?” Adela asked.
“War is fought by men.” Matilda studied her daughter from the side. “You should know that by now. Women act on another stage.”
Adela had stopped listening. “Look, there is a woman next to someone on a bed. Who is that?”
Matilda stepped closer and peered at the lettering. “Oh, that’s Edith, the wife of King Edward, at his deathbed.”
Adela pursed her lips. She loved all the animals along the edges, some unlike any she had ever seen. There were wild beasts from Africa and from the East, lots of horses, dogs, and all manner of birds.
“What’s that?” she asked, mesmerized by a bright blue bird with a huge multicolored long tail that fanned out like a carpet.
“That’s a paon. The English say ‘peacock,’” her mother explained.
“Oh, a paon,” Adela said dismissively, as if she had known that all along while she repeated the strange word to herself.
“Why isn’t that man wearing any clothes?” Adela pointed and then quickly pulled her hand back. She had been chewing her nails again, and her mother would scold her.
“No clothes?” Matilda peered at the edge of the tapestry. Then she laughed. “I suspect someone might have put this in as a joke.” She pondered the skillful embroidery. “Come to think of it, there are several scenes here where I am not sure of the intended meaning.”
“Look, mother!” Henry pointed at another section. “Here they are cooking!”
“Well, soldiers need to be fed.”
“Why did that house get burned down?”
“It’s a battle, silly.” Adela poked him in the side. “Things get burned.”
“You wouldn’t like it if it happened to you.” Henry made a face at his sister, while poking her back.
“Remember where you are. You shouldn’t argue inside a house of God.” Matilda led them to the end of the tapestry. “Any battle is hard and full of bitter loss for many. But that doesn’t mean these battles shouldn’t be fought.”
Buy Link:
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Author Bio:
Malve von Hassell is a freelance writer, researcher, and translator. She holds a Ph.D. in anthropology from the New School for Social Research. Working as an independent scholar, she published The Struggle for Eden: Community Gardens in New York City (Bergin & Garvey 2002) and Homesteading in New York City 1978-1993: The Divided Heart of Loisaida (Bergin & Garvey 1996). She has also edited her grandfather Ulrich von Hassell’s memoirs written in prison in 1944, Der Kreis schließt sich – Aufzeichnungen aus der Haft 1944 (Propylaen Verlag 1994).
Malve has taught at Queens College, Baruch College, Pace University, and Suffolk County Community College, while continuing her work as a translator and writer. She has published two children’s picture books, Tooth Fairy (Amazon KDP 2012 / 2020), and Turtle Crossing (Amazon KDP 2023), and her translation and annotation of a German children’s classic by Tamara Ramsay, Rennefarre: Dott’s Wonderful Travels and Adventures (Two Harbors Press, 2012).
The Falconer’s Apprentice (namelos, 2015 / KDP 2024) was her first historical fiction novel for young adults. She has published Alina: A Song for the Telling (BHC Press, 2020), set in Jerusalem in the time of the crusades, and The Amber Crane (Odyssey Books, 2021), set in Germany in 1645 and 1945, as well as a biographical work about a woman coming of age in Nazi Germany, Tapestry of My Mother’s Life: Stories, Fragments, and Silences (Next Chapter Publishing, 2021), also available in German, Bildteppich Eines Lebens: Erzählungen Meiner Mutter, Fragmente Und Schweigen (Next Chapter Publishing, 2022).
Her latest publication is the historical fiction novel, The Price of Loyalty: Serving Adela of Blois (Historium Press, 2025).
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When Angels Fly 