Introduction

Promise of the Black Monks - Robert E. Hirsch's hot-selling dynamic new historical fiction

Religious war erupts between Church and King

A young man, who is predestined to be the catalyst of war, is torn between his heart and the church: one he knows to be his true love and the other a farce.

Born of nobility in France in the year 1066, the fate of seven-year-old Tristan de Saint-Germain is thrown to the winds upon the execution of his father for treason against William the Conqueror of Normandy. Then, abandoned by his mother who remarries and departs for England, Tristan and his four-year-old brother find themselves thrown into the monastic world of the Benedictine Black Monks of Cluny, France. Under the tutelage of Grand Prior Odo de Lagery , who one day will ascend to the very pinnacle of power within the Catholic Church in Rome, Tristan develops into an academic and linguistic prodigy by the age of twelve and becomes known as the Promise of the Black Monks.

Tristan’s unusual talents become useful to the Benedictines as well as to Rome, and the boy soon finds himself pulled into the visceral power struggle between Pope Gregory VII and Emperor Henrich IV as they mercilessly wage spiritual, political and military war upon each other to claim supremacy over the continent of Europe.

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Excerpt

Mielikki heard nothing as she had finally located the infant’s head. Tightening her fingers, she grasped it, extricating it to the neck– and suddenly witnessed the infant’s startling grey eyes staring at her. Simultaneously, Asta’s womb issued a gushing stream of dark blood filled with tiny pulsating lines of black flesh. Terrified, Mielikki drew back, releasing the infant’s skull which was draped with dark afterbirth, looking much like a cloaked hood. Trembling, Mielikki stroked the wanton flesh and declared, “The Devil’s Caul! Curse of ages! We must kill this child before it breathes life!”

Sister Angelina, confronted by Mielikki’s wild ravings, advanced toward the bed and knocked Mielikki from it. “We’ll do no such thing you pagan whore!” she shouted. Seconds later, she broke the infant’s torso free. Shuddering, the infant’s face twisted into a root and issued a string of terrified bleats, announcing its arrival upon the earth.

Sister Angelina prepared a clean knife to remove the unusual membrane. Placing a small incision in the membrane across the nostrils so the child could breathe, she carefully un-looped the bulk of it from behind the ears. Next she gingerly peeled back the hideous murk from the skin and gently rubbed the fresh skin with a soft linen cloth. “It’s a boy!” she exclaimed, displaying a shriveled penis.

The other nuns, seeing the newborn and hearing his cries, swarmed the bed, But Mielikki, refused to come near. She sat there mute, shaking as though her body had fallen victim to seizures. Her eyes were no longer following Asta and the newborn, nor was she even any longer in that same chamber with Asta and the nuns... but in the nether world, pursuing shadowy necromancy and superstitions engrained into her Nordic clan over generations of isolation in the distant, forgotten reaches of frozen Finland. Ah, but ‘the Devil’s Caul, she trembled... those strange, aberrant black lines of pulsating blood and flesh that accompanied this

child’s entrance into light.... what twisted trail of tragedy and disaster do they prophesize? view abbreviated excerpt only...

Discussion Questions

* To what extent did superstition and ignorance drive life in the Dark Ages?

*To what extent can the individual repel the raging currents of life, circumstance, and chance?

*Is it emotion, in the end, that drives humanity... or is it the chase for power?

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