Book Title and Author Name:
The Will of God
Julian de la Motte
Blurb:
“Deus Lo Vult!”
Gilles is the natural son of the Earl Waltheof, executed by William the Conqueror for supposed treachery. Raised in Normandy by Queen Matilda of England, Gilles is a young servant of Robert, Duke of Normandy, when the first call for a Holy War against the infidel and for the liberation of Jerusalem is raised in Christendom. Along with thousands of others, inspired by a variety of motives, intense piety mixed with a sense of adventure and the prospects of richness, Gilles becomes a key and respected follower of the Duke of Normandy and travels through France and into Italy to the point of embarkation for Constantinople and the land of the Greeks.
In this epic first phase of a long and gruelling journey, Gilles begins to discover a sense of his own strengths and weaknesses, encounters for the first time the full might and strength of the Norman war machine and achieves his much coveted aim of knighthood, as well as a sense of responsibility to the men that he must now lead into battle.
The Will of God is the literal translation of the Latin phrase “Deus Lo Vult”; a ubiquitous war cry and a commonly offered explanation of all the horrors and iniquities unleashed by the First Crusade of 1096 to 1099, when thousands of Europeans made the dangerous and terrifying journey to the Holy Land and the liberation of Jerusalem. It is the first of two books on the subject.
Praise for The Will of God:
“De la Motte has superpowers as a writer of historical fiction; he’s a warhorse of a writer bred to stun and trample the literary senses. You won’t stop turning the pages of The Will of God.”
~ Charles McNair, Pulitzer Prize nominee and author of Land O’Goshen
Excerpt 3:
Matilda of Flanders, his companion, co-conspirator and help mate of many years, was a tiny doll like figure the size of a child. William, at one and the same time, both venerated and feared her. In his periodic audiences with her he would begin with unease and trepidation and conclude, exhausted, and with a fine collection of fresh and wise advice; as pungent and lingering as the scent of her store kept herbs. In all their years together, her shrewd and acute mind, sharp as a knife and full of useful filed and stored information, always seemed to be at least two full steps ahead of him; full of speculation and expert analysis, measuring the fine lines between possibility and attainment.
She was in full cry now in her roaring great chamber, a space seemingly made small by the vast impedimenta she had gathered and accrued over the years. She sat at the very centre of her world upon a once immaculate divan. Her nose was pinched and pointed and her hands, once long and slender, now all but crippled with arthritis. Her eyes glittered like diamonds packed in ice. It had been some months since his last visit. To William it seemed that his wife had grown yet smaller. Briefly, he smiled at her with a rare smile of genuine affection. Matilda was unmoved.
‘My fierce little mouse’ he thought fondly to himself. She was sharp as a weasel on a whetstone, a store of bulging information gathered in the recesses of her mind as her eyes sparkled with mischief and, possibly, malice. As ever, the old lady delighted in posing questions to which she already knew the answers, relishing the prospect of throwing a speculation into the air and then seeing where it might land and what might also come with it in its fall back to the earth, and then taking it from there. If, by chance, she did not fully know the answer to her own question then she had a rich store of information stored away in her fevered, busy brain to draw upon. Long ago, from the days of his tempestuous wooing, he had learned to treat her with respect and caution. Once in the early days of his exuberant courtship, back in her childhood home in Flanders and when an unseemly ardour had gripped him, she had actually stabbed him, quite severely, with a large darning needle. Or so it was reported. The story was commonly believed and reported, and indeed he could vouch for its truth but for the fact that it shamed him. The matter was never discussed within the hearing of the Duke and King. With Matilda, honesty was always the best policy. Do not presume to dissimulate and the treasure of her wisdom could be yours for the asking.
Buy Link:
Universal Buy Link: https://geni.us/uXe6u
Author Bio:
Julian de la Motte is a Londoner. He graduated from the University of Wales with a degree in Medieval History. He was further awarded a Master of Arts qualification in Medieval English Art from the University of York.
He studied and taught in Italy for nearly four years before returning to the U.K. and a career as a teacher, teacher trainer and materials designer before taking up a new role as a Director of Foreign Languages and of English as a Foreign Language.
Married and with two grown up children, He is now extensively involved in review writing and historical research, primarily on medieval history.
”The Will of God” [the first of two books on the subject of the First Crusade] is his third novel.
Author Links:
Website: www.historiumpress.com/julian-de-la-motte
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/julian.delamotteharrison.3
Amazon Author Page: https://www.amazon.com/stores/author/B08XWMRPYK
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/list/20873400.julian_de_la_Motte
