When the King Comes Home

By Caroline Stevermer

A legendary king becomes a sorcerer’s puppet in this novel of art and artifice from the author of The Glass Magician. “This book is a gem.” —Tor.com
 
When artist’s apprentice Hail Rosamer replicates a coin bearing the visage of the long-dead King Julian, she does so to practice her craft, not to be accused as a counterfeiter. In danger of being imprisoned, Hail flees the city of Aravis—only to come face-to-face with the man whose profile appears on the coin . . .
 
A necromancer has aligned herself with enemies of the current king. Her goal: to sow chaos throughout the empire by resurrecting King Julian two hundred years after his death. If she succeeds, the throne will be hers.
 
While Hail was growing up, the phrase “when the king comes home” meant that all well-meaning promises would be kept. But Hail knows that nothing good can come of it now, not with such malevolent forces at play. As spirits from the past begin to arise, Hail joins the battle, riding into an arena of the darkest magic with only her vision, her craft, and her courage to guide her . . .
 
“Absolutely the best I’ve read in ages! Each chapter is a new revelation on the nature of art or magic, friendship or creativity, heroism or home . . . Stevermer captures the gritty reality that makes fantasy believable; and also finds magic in the most commonplace details.” —Ellen Kushner, World Fantasy Award–winning author
 
“[A] glittering Renaissance triumph set in world an angel’s-wing away from our own. Stevermer brings both hearts and crowns vibrantly to life.” —eluki bes shahar (pseudonym of Rosemary Edghill, New York Times–bestselling author of Book of Moons )
 
“Beautifully rendered . . . fantasy of a high order.” —Kirkus Reviews

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Media
• Release date: Mar 15, 2022
• ISBN: 9781504074025

Caroline Stevermer

Caroline Stevermer (b. 1955) is best known for her historical fantasy novels. She published her first book, The Alchemist, in 1981, and soon began collaborating with fellow Minnesotan Patricia C. Wrede to create a magical version of Regency England. They published the epistolary novel Sorcery and Cecelia in 1988, and returned to the series with The Grand Tour (2004) and The Mislaid Magician (2006). Stevermer’s other novels include The Duke and the Veil, The Serpent’s Egg, A College of Magics, A Scholar of Magics, River Rats, Magic Below Stairs, and her most recent, The Glass Magician.

Book preview

One

(In which I am born into a family of wool merchants.)

I was born on the coldest day of the year. When the midwife handed me to my father, he said, Hail the newcomer! Hardy the traveler who ventures forth on such a day.

After four sons, my family was pleased to have a daughter at last. My father persuaded my mother that I should be named Hail, to commemorate the welcome I’d been given. My name is a greeting, dignified and sober, not a form of bad weather.

My family is in the wool trade and are as hardworking as they are prosperous. My earliest memory is of chasing my brothers through the wool market, a maze of bundles and bales, a mob of people haggling. Fleece in every shade from purest white to dusty black, in every stage, from unwashed and full of burrs to neat bales ready to be shipped downriver—all were there in plenty, for Neven was a busy place in those days, the most prosperous town in northwestern Galazon.

I am not too old to travel home to Neven, even yet. That day will come, but I could still make a journey of moderate length, given a proper escort and sufficient preparation. I don’t choose to visit there, though I have no doubt my brothers’ families would welcome me. I’d rather remember it as it was, a clean and quiet town. My memories range beyond the town itself, from the heights where the flocks spent the summer in wild and open country above the forests that filled the crooked valleys below. Stands of the great old trees were cut even in my youth, sent down the river tied in rafts to feed the shipwrights of Shene. Since then, I’m told, the forests have been much reduced. (I don’t wish to see it now.) Neven was always a sleepy place, and I prefer the city. Aravis itself can seem sadly quiet to me now.

There are benefits to a quiet life. I have more work to do than there are hours of daylight, but the nights are long. The time has come to write down what I’ve learned. I’ve studied the notebooks and treatises written by the masters who have gone before me. It is my turn to set down what I have learned and to explain how I learned it. May this work please those with the wit to read it and instruct those with the wish to learn. I have only the ordinary skill at writing, but if I do not at least attempt to set down my experiences, all will go to waste when I am dead.

Waste was something my family could never abide. My parents expected all their children to work, and to work hard, boy and girl alike. To allow us to neglect our wits through insufficient education was folly, and so we were all set to study with Master Nicholas, a schoolmaster engaged to teach the children of the members of the wool merchants guild.

In addition to our hours at school with Master Nicholas, my brothers and I learned everything about the family business, from tending a flock to keeping the accounts. I was not permitted to do any of these things unaccompanied, at any rate not for long, but by the time I was thirteen I had a full understanding of what we Rosamers did for a living and of just how many of us there were. With so many brothers ahead of me to choose the tasks they liked the best, I had to work hard at each thing to learn the work and earn praise for my skill. At that age, it was not yet clear to me what my role would be.

Some families might have stinted a fifth child, boy or girl, but mine was determined to make the best use of each of us, just as our family made a point of making the best use of each part of every sheep, from a hank of fleece to the toughest mutton chop. My mother held me to an even higher standard than my brothers, for in addition to my schooling and my work in our family trade, I was taught how to keep household accounts. I learned what was needed to make sure that we had sufficient food, shelter, and clothing. Aside from the size of the numbers in the ledger, it was not very different from learning the business. Smaller sums, but the work was just as hard.

For the first few years of my life, I displayed no more genius than any child does, though I liked to make pictures with bits of charcoal or chalk or anything else of that nature which came my way. My brothers delighted in teasing me for this, but I learned soon enough that there was an element of envy in their merriment.

Each year at Twelfth Night, my brothers helped Father’s apprentices with the revels, sometimes devising masques or plays. When I was fourteen, I began to help with the costumes. This gave my mother false hope. She was well versed in the arts of needlework and would have taught me much had I shown the slightest interest. But I had no use for practicality. To set a sleeve into a gaudy doublet, that it might adorn the Master of the Revels, was worth squinting over for hours. To hem a petticoat, for no better reason than to adorn myself, I considered a waste of time.

This is folly and one common to young artists. For the same apprentice who will work hours, days, and weeks to design and cast a frippery cloak pin will scorn the pains it takes to make a simple pewter spoon. Look well to the spoons, the tankards, and the porringers, for in the old simplicity is found greater art than in the new style. More art and use in that honest petticoat hem than in a dozen such doublets, run up in haste for holiday attire.

By the time I was a gawky girl of fifteen I had used up the school-master’s patience. Master Nicholas presented my parents with an ultimatum. I must either pretend to pay attention to his lessons or find some other use for my time. In any case, I was to stop drawing caricatures on my slate. It distracted the other girls and boys. He suggested I be put to some honest labor. As my brothers were all deeply interested in the family business, there was no need for me to manage accounts. But perhaps, with time and application, I might manage to make a competent shepherdess. With a qualified dog to help me, of course.

There was some merit in this suggestion of his, for I had a strong back and long legs. Many other families would have considered my sturdy frame qualification enough for the outdoor life.

Fortunately, my parents were in no particular hurry to see their youngest out the door. Since he had seen a good many of my caricatures, my father thought Master Nicholas was merely offended by my latest effort at portraying him.

My mother found worth in what Master Nicholas said, however, and the pair of them spent a merry quarter of an hour suggesting trades for me. The thought of me as a nun made them laugh the hardest. I didn’t see what was so funny, but I was of an age that seldom saw humor where people of my parents’ advanced years did.

When he had wiped his eyes and rested his ribs, Master Nicholas looked across the table at my mother and said, Hail will be a nun when the king comes home. But I was at school with Angelica Carriera. She has an atelier in Aravis. Shall I write her to see if she has room for another apprentice?

I gaped at him. Even I had heard of Angelica Carriera. She was a famous painter. The old king himself had paid her to capture his likeness. Her paintings hung in palaces and Master Nicholas knew her? To write to? Why do people never tell one the important things? I made it clear to everyone that this was the most brilliant idea Master Nicholas had ever had.

Mother glanced at Father, who was pretending to poke the fire. It’s too soon.

Aravis? Father looked at me. It’s too far.

It’s just down the river, I protested. You go there every year with the woolpack and the timber.

Only once a year. You’re much too young to live in the city all alone.

Most apprenticeships begin at fourteen, said Master Nicholas. Though Hail does sometimes seem quite young for her age. She would hardly be alone in a studio like Angelica’s.

Madame Carriera may not wish to have another apprentice, said Mother.

If she is as prosperous as people say, she must keep several apprentices busy just cleaning her brushes, said Father. I suppose it does no harm to inquire.

Master Nicholas sent his letter a few days later, and in a month the reply came back. Provisionally, I was acceptable. I was to travel downriver with the next shipment of wool. In Aravis, I might be chosen to join the apprentices who helped clean Madame Carriera’s brushes. If I applied myself, and if I behaved myself, well, Madame Carriera would see what she could make of me.

It was a very brief letter, considering how much I read into it. I had an entire filigree of meaning embroidered around each line. To me it all seemed clear beyond possibility of error. My opportunity at Madame Carriera’s was a promise of success, for surely there would be no limit to my hard work. I would live in Aravis, the center of the world, and I would learn everything Madame Carriera had to teach me. I would learn all her techniques. I would invent new forms of art. Fortune was assured, and fame would surely follow. Undying admiration would be mine, deservedly, and any student of art would learn my name along with the greatest of painters.

There are no slower days in life than those between the promise and the performance of one’s release into the world. I am better at waiting than I was then (not saying much), but I would not relive those impatient days before my departure for the great world of art. I couldn’t survive it now. The strain would kill me. What I wanted, now that I knew at last what it was I wanted, I wanted with every fiber. What I knew, I wished the whole world to know. What I wondered, and in my impatience I wondered about almost everything, I wondered ceaselessly.

I am surprised my family did not disown me during those fretful weeks. Certainly they must have been as glad to see me go as I was to take my leave.

The way to Aravis was a familiar one to my father. The wool trade took him there every year. From Neven, the water route ran down the Ruger to the broader current of the Lida. The Lida, made stronger yet by its union with the sleepy Celle at Ardres, passed between the Folliard Hills to the east and the higher, bleaker Howlet Fells to the west. I had studied the maps at school without interest. From the river, I found every mile exciting.

First there was the woolpack to load. The fleeces were baled and stacked on a raft of logs from the forests around Neven. There was an art to lashing the logs together and a greater art to stacking the bales of fleece. Too high was dangerous, as was too low, and too heavy. Anything else was not economical. With one trip downriver a year, waste was unthinkable. By the time we set out we had the best possible raft with the safest arrangement of bales. My father and his men were responsible for navigating the river. I was not permitted to help. Sitting quietly on the cargo was my job.

My mother and my brothers came to wave us off. I didn’t cry. There was nothing to cry about, after all. I was setting forth to seek my fortune, a joyous occasion. It bothered me that my mother wiped her eyes with her white handkerchief more than she waved us on with it. I understand that better now, but I still remember my impatience at her sentiment.

The Ruger is a narrow river. In places it is deep. I had all I could do keeping still, such was my excitement as our craft was shepherded past the difficulties of the current. At the end of the third day, the Ruger flowed into the Lida, and it seemed our pace eased. The river does not run more slowly; it is that the water is wider. As the banks fall back, the world seems to withdraw. Broad water reflects the sky as the horizon drops. Half the world is air. After the hills of Galazon, it seemed flat as a table to me; for the weather was bad, lowering clouds shutting the distance out.

In three more days we came to the great tooth of Ardres, jutting up at the confluence of the Lida and the Arcel. The castle on the rock guarded the whole valley, stone wall within stone wall, rising to slate-roofed towers only a shade darker than the sky.

There was a storm that night. We traveled on despite it. Delays ashore could be as bad as any river snag. By morning, the weather had cleared, so we could see the green waves of the Folliard Hills to our east and the raking bleakness of the Howlet Fells off in the heights to our west. The river ran colder, it seemed to me, the farther from home we traveled. There were waterfowl in plenty, the familiar ducks and geese and heron of home, and new kinds, birds I couldn’t name. They were the birds of the sea. I marveled at the variety of them, the differences in wing and head, markings and mode of flight. What else might the world hold, if it could hold so many things so new to me?

The seagulls were my first sign of the world waiting for me in Aravis. By the time we tied up at the wharf in Shene, I was almost used to them. There was too much more to notice. I couldn’t keep still any longer. The very air smelled different, a compound of fish and sweat, for even in the little town of Shene there were more people than I had even seen before. I could hardly keep to my father’s heels as we found our way through the crowds toward Aravis, so often were we jostled.

Maps at school meant nothing to me. In Aravis, I longed for one. I was glad to follow my father, but I didn’t like not knowing what streets we were on. Our few possessions were left at an inn where Father often stayed when he was in Aravis. How would I ever find my way back there if we were separated? I could probably follow my nose back to the wharf easily enough, but I had no interest in Shene. All my heart was set on finding Madame Carriera.

My father knew the way. Through streets packed with houses as tightly as our raft was packed with wool, he led me past more people than I’d ever dreamed could fit into one place. The noise, the smells, the half steps and haltings all conspired to confuse me, yet only my body was lost. My mind was fixed as a needle toward a lodestone, focused on our destination. The rest was mere detail.

Madame Carriera’s house seemed large and high ceilinged to me that first day. There was a distinctive scent to the place, a combination of familiar household smells, lavender and beeswax, but with a sharp overlay I could not identify—until I boiled my first batch of sheep parchment into liquid and combined it with chalk to make gesso. After the bustle of the streets outside, the house was quiet. A girl with red hair showed us the way into Madame Carriera’s salon and left us there. After a short wait, the great painter joined us.

At that time Madame Carriera was probably in her middle forties. To me she seemed prodigiously old. She was tiny, and as finely made, as tightly laced, as any lady of fashion, but no one could ever mistake her for an ordinary person. Her eyes were keen, almost piercing. Her merest glance had force, and her hands were a revelation. I was vain of my own hands, which were slender and fairly well shaped. I had recently come to fancy they were proof of my artistic nature. But Madame Carriera’s hands rid me of any such foolish notion. Madame Carriera’s hands were as swift and sure as a hawk’s flight, as elegant as ivory.

My father was a tall man, but well knit and graceful for his size. He loomed over Madame Carriera, who was the picture of courtly grace in black velvet and boned lace, wearing pearls worth our whole season’s woolpack.

She looked him up and down, glanced dismissively at me, and demanded, Where is my earth of cullen? At our blank expressions, she frowned. My umber. Nick promised to send some with you. It lies about on the ground where you come from. Or so he claimed in his letter.

Master Nicholas did entrust me with a parcel for you, Madame Carriera, said Father. He caught himself slouching a little to meet her eyes and drew himself up straight. But he said it was pigment. Cologne brown. It is with our gear at the Sheepcrook. I will send for it now if you wish. I didn’t think city folk went about with parcels when they paid calls.

It looks like dirt, I said, and it is very heavy.

She hardly spared me a glance. The parcel can wait, she said to Father. I see you brought a baggage with you. She smiled at him then, and the stiffness went out of his shoulders as he smiled back. Nick can be such a pedant. Thank you, then, for troubling to bring me my Cologne brown. Earth of cullen is its common name. She turned to me then. I may teach you to grind my colors for me, girl. And more, if you pay attention. What’s your name again? Nick put it in his letter, but my memory grows worse by the day.

Hail Rosamer.

Good heavens. She looked at Father. What were you thinking? Why not give her a sensible name, like Daisy? Or even Maud. She can’t help growing up a virago with an extraordinary name like that.

She’s an extraordinary person. She will be a great artist.

I felt my eyes sting with love and pride and embarrassment. I had always known my parents loved me, yet to hear Father speak so to Madame Carriera herself nearly choked me. I treasure the memory now, but when I was fifteen the embarrassment of it nearly killed me.

Madame Carriera sniffed. Nick thinks she can draw.

She can do whatever she sets her mind to.

We’ll soon see about that. Here, girl. She tossed me a stub of chalk as if it were a sweetmeat and I a dog. Draw me a circle.

I caught the chalk. Then I looked around the room. Madame Carriera’s salon was very elegantly furnished, but there was no sign of artistic activity to be seen. Not so much as a scrap of paper. Where, ma’am?

Anywhere. But I just had the walls done last summer, so leave them alone. The floor is slate. That will do.

If there is one thing every artist’s apprentice learns, it is that the hardest shape to draw is a perfect circle. But I was not an apprentice yet. I had no training, and so I did not know enough to worry about my circle. I was an ignorant girl, rawboned and ill-mannered, face hot with embarrassment over my father’s pride in me.

So I knew no better than to sit cross-legged at Madame Carriera’s feet. I found a spot that looked right to me, and I drew a chalk circle about nine inches in diameter on the well-scrubbed slate tiles.

She inspected the circle in silence. When she spoke at last, she sounded so gloomy that I looked up, fearful that I had done something irretrievably wrong. It isn’t a perfect circle.

I tilted my head and studied it from a fresh angle. No? But it looks perfect.

Draw me another.

Her gloom had shaken my confidence, and my second circle wobbled. Would you like me to try again?

No. She helped me to my feet. That will do. You are willing to serve your apprenticeship with me? It is seven years, Hail.

You still want me? Even though the second circle was crooked?

It is only on the strength of your second circle that I am willing to take you at all. If all your circles were like your first, you’d have nothing to learn from the likes of me.

But even the first one wasn’t perfect.

Perfection abides in heaven, child. It looked perfect, that’s what matters. Reason tells us there must be some flaw, though our eyes cannot perceive it. What is reason but a rumor? It is our eyes we trust. To Father, she said, If she applies herself, and if she behaves herself, I will instruct her for seven years. And then we shall see.

Two

(In which I begin to work in the atelier of Madame Carriera.)

When first I learned to grind pigment for Madame Carriera, I fretted to make the brilliant colors. Vermilion, orpiment, ultramarine—to me the very sound of their names held magic. But her old-fashioned methods won out. Long before I ground my first sinopia, I understood that all colors, be they never so exotic, fall far below the king and queen of pigments: black and white.

Eventually I learned to find merit in the subtler colors—ocher, umber, staniel—and perhaps because I had brought it with me all the way from home, and because it was the first pigment I learned to grind, I grew to like earth of cullen best of all.

On my first day in Madame Carriera’s service, I asked her why it was not earth of Neven, since the pigment came from Neven, not from Cologne.

Madame Carriera fixed me with a keen glance. When you are famous for your use of it, you may call it earth of Neven, if you wish. You may call it Rosamer brown, if you wish. You may even call it ultramarine, if the whim strikes you and you think anyone will pay attention. Not yet a while though, girl.

But it’s from Neven.

"So are you. Yet you are living in Aravis now. While you are in my service, under my

Reviews for When the King Comes Home

[isana-943166 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

It was short but entertaining. I was really pulled into the story and enjoyed it a lot. Only thing that irked me was the ending. It felt so rushed which, I suppose, makes some sense since the book is her talking about that one adventure but it still felt really, really weak. I still liked it enough that the end didn't ruin my opinion of it though.

[atimco-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

What a strange mix of reality and fantasy. In this story, Caroline Stevermer combines elements of Catholic Christianity, black magic, Renaissance Europe, and her own imagined realm of kingdoms to dish up an unusual take on Arthurian legend. I loved the writing. I've read the three books in the Sorcery and Cecelia series that Stevermer co-authored with Patricia Wrede and enjoyed them quite a bit, but in this novel Stevermer really shows what she can do as a prose stylist. Other reviewers, quoted in the first couple pages of my paperback copy, rightly praise the "economy and grace" of Stevermer's prose. Unfortunately, the story itself is somewhat lacking. Many things go unexplained and the reader follows the characters without really understanding their motivations and goals. The narrator Hail Rosamer is well developed, but she's pretty much the only one. The plot feels disjointed and is not particularly memorable. I found the inclusion of real-life saints and religious references pleasant and not at all jarring, but unfortunately the simplistic Roman Catholic notion of "be a good person to get into heaven" is very much present and Hail takes an arrogant stance: "If honest repentance is required, St. Peter will turn me away. Fair enough" (236). It soured the ending for me; Hail is basically saying, "God, I'd like to get into heaven on my terms, but if You won't let me, it's Your loss." Unattractive, to say the least.In some ways the story reminded me of Robin McKinley's The Hero and the Crown—and not many fantasy stories can boast a comparison to that favorite of mine. Ultimately, however, Stevermer's story is far less cohesive and compelling than McKinley's, and I'm not sure I will ever revisit Stevermer's novel. But I'd say When the King Comes Home is somewhat better than the usual run of short fantasy novels, if only for the prose. Nicely done, but there's no need to dash out to find this one.

[tjsjohanna_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

One of the blurbers on the back of my copy describes the world in this novel as 'an angel's wing away from our own' and it's a good description. Though there is an element of fantasy or magic, this is a book firmly set in Renaissance Europe. I enjoyed Hail's tenacity and intuitiveness. The storyline seemed a bit of a paradox - the magic was strong enough to make people do things against their will, and yet when it was ended, the actual conflict was quickly resolved. I did like the exploration of will - how the binding of it is horrible, and how it is tricky. Enjoyable entertainment.

[jellyn_7 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I liked this book better than I expected, given that I really did not enjoy A College of Magics. I could like the protagonist, even though it did get the point where she's going around with these people for no particular reason and also seems to be an adjunct to the actual goings-on. She does actually do things and has at least one important thing to do.I think I picked this book up for a promised threesome. That is, a love triangle that's not at odds with itself. There might be another word for this? Love triad? Anyhow, there is one, but you have to read into it a little bit. And it doesn't involve the main character, though it is central to the story.So, in short, it's pretty good.(I'm not sure why it says A College of Magics in parantheses on goodreads. This may take place in the same world, possibly, though I'm not too sure about that. Otherwise it has nothing to do with it as far as I know.)

[dckmbell · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This book is a bit dark. But alas the descriptions of the real time frame it represents and the artiist's work and struggles are very vivid and accurate. Kudos for making the renaissance jump off the page in a fantasy novel.

[ascexis · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Grim, predictable and unoriginal. It felt unfinished, almost as though one story was abandoned halfway through for the formulaic fantasy. Tedious and hard going.