Fiction Reviews
Between Two Fires
(2012 / 2026) Christopher Buehlman, Gollancz, £22, hrdbk, 430pp, ISBN 978-1-399-63836-4
This book has an interesting publishing history: first published in 2012 by Ace, to little notice, then bought back by the author to be self-published before being picked up by Gollanz and sent back out into the world in its current guise. Is it worth all this belated attention, including a warm-up from one of the masters of scary fiction, a certain Joe Hill? Oh yes indeed!
Set in plague-ridden fourteenth century France, the story is basically a Hieronymous Bosch painting in literary form. God has walked away from their creation, allowing Lucifer and the legions of Hell to rise up and besiege Heaven. And lay waste to the Earth while they’re about it. Across this landscape of suffering walks Thomas, an aged yet still capable knight, bearing the scars of Crecy and nursing a grievance against the aristocrat who stole his lands and his wife. Having fallen in with a band of brigands, plundering their way through the countryside, he saves a young girl, Delphine, from their clutches. She, of course, turns out to be Something Other Than What She Appears To Be and the echo of Joan of Arc reverberates through the text when we learn that an angel has instructed her to go to Avignon. And if you’re on top of your mediaeval ecclesiastical history, you’ll know that from 1309 to 1376, the Papacy resided there rather than at Rome.
So this is, at root, a quest tale, as Thomas and Delphine, accompanied part of the way by Matthieu, a gay priest, face various dreadful obstacles on their journey south, from pirates to penitents, not to mention assorted demons. Lest there be any doubt, this is historical fantasy with a pungent twist of horror, which manifests in one episode in particular that I found genuinely terrifying. Off-setting the setbacks and losses along the way are various small redemptions and moments of peace and beauty, not least when Delphine reveals that she is not just a bright pre-teen with a snappy comeback.
And it’s the dialogue, especially between Delphine and Thomas, that really lifts the book into the Realm of the Special. Typically sharp on her part, blunt on his, it is also occasionally laugh out loud funny as Delphine effectively bends her travelling companions to her will. It goes without saying that Thomas softens towards her as the story continues and she takes the place of the family he has lost.
Although the climax is suitably apocalyptic, that’s not the end of the tale and I hope it is not too much of a spoiler if I say that is redemptive.
Beautifully and powerfully written, this is one of the best novels I’ve read for a long while. Indeed, the last one that I felt as enthusiastic about was Anna Spark Smith’s A Sword of Bronze and Ashes. Like the latter, Between Two Fires transcends its specific genre origins to present us with a mirror on our times: granted, there are no gigantic demons striding across the world (although some days I do wonder …) but as the newsfeeds fill up with images of war and genocide, the idea of acting with grace, of being a Good Samaritan, in however low-key and local a fashion, carries more weight than ever.
Steven French
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