Niccolò Rising ~ Dorothy Dunnett

I've read many historical fictions with Scottish protagonists who fought in Flanders. Usually, these books are set in Scotland and obviously after the battles. I'd always wondered what the fuss in Flanders was all about but never bothered enough to actually do research on the subject. While this work by Dunnett does not completely clear up matters, it does provide a terrific backdrop for the conflicts that will affect the area. This is, I do believe, the first novel I've ever read that is set in Flanders, and am now disappointed in myself, that I've waited so long.



The book begins with the sinking of the fictional "Mons Martha" - the twin of Mons Meg which is located today at Edinburgh Castle - by three young men in a boat on the Sluys in Flanders. Claes, the servant who continues to cause an unending number of awkward and disastrous situations is punished through beatings and released to carry on with his duties as a dyer for the Charetty's a well respected merchant family.

The nearly 600 page book follows roughly a year of the characters' intertwined lives; how the merchant class works along side the Medici banking system and papal decrees; the English fight over whether they should side with the Yorks or Lancasters; and the Dauphin waffles about dethroning his father in France. Dunnett weaves each of these people through the politics, power plays, religion, loves and betrayals with such finesse that the reader knows that something is lurks under the surface, but is too engrossed in the prose to bother with working it out for him or her self. There's a magic in this tapestry threaded in bright and dark colours and silhouetted by a backdrop of mountains and seas.

I look forward to more of Claes and the Charettys, but am still savouring the first instalment and know that it will stay with me for a long while.

Review originally appeared on the now defunct Paternoster Row Legacy blog.