As I write this, Blood of Assassins is making its way into the world and people are diving into and (hopefully) enjoying Girton’s second adventure just as I am finishing his last. It’s been absolutely amazing and I still wake up each morning surprised and overjoyed that, somehow, I write books now and people read them. It seems so utterly unlikely but it is happening. (I keep checking out the window for giraffes in the garden and as there have not yet been giraffes in the garden I am reasonably sure this is not a dream. Though I did once see elephants walking down the street, but that’s a different story.) I hope that, as a reader, you have enjoyed Girton and his master’s adventure and that you’ve found the end of it, although sad, also satisfying.
You’d think that the longer I did this, the longer the list of acknowledgements would get, and it should: I have met increasingly huge amounts of wonderful people, but the more wonderful people there are to meet, the more wonderful people there are to accidentally forget. I am generally a very forgetful person so rather than risk leaving someone off my list of thank yous, it gets smaller. But as ever, if I have met you or conversed with you (whether in real life or on the internet) you have my thanks. Also, thanks to my agent, the wonderful Ed Wilson, who navigates the business of publishing with such aplomb so I can ignore it and just write. Massive thanks to Jenni Hill, my brilliant editor at Orbit, for pushing me to be that bit better all the time, Lindsay Hall, my lovely ex-editor at Orbit U.S. (hope you like how it ended!) and Nivia Evans, my lovely new editor at Orbit U.S. Of course, the rest of the team deserve mention too so Joanna, Tim, Emily, Anne and James you all rock (as do the hidden-away dark wizards of marketing and design who I hear about but rarely have contact with). And all the Orbit people working in other territories, thank you too.
Huge thanks to Joe Jameson who has done such an excellent job narrating the Wounded Kingdom audiobooks. So many people have told me how much they have enjoyed your performances and that you really brought it alive for them.
My wife, Lindy, who stood by me while I was writing the many things no one was reading and my son, Rook, just for being fantastic. And all my family, Mum, Dad, Mum-in-Law and Dad-in-Law, and my brother and my brother- and sisters-in-law and nephews and nieces—all fantastic. As well as my faithful rough copy readers, Matt, Fiona, Richard and Marcy.
I suppose, now it’s the end, I should talk a bit about Girton, his master and some of the other people we have met along the way so I will.
It has been good to watch Girton grow up, from wide-eyed and somewhat innocent in Age of Assassins, resentful and overconfident in Blood of Assassins, to finally the version we get in King of Assassins: a more thoughtful and secure Girton. A very good thing for an author to know about a character is what they want, even though they may not know it themselves. What Girton has wanted, from the start, has been the same thing: a friend. And in King of Assassins he has found that in the most unlikely place: Aydor ap Mennix, his nemesis from book one. It’s partly the strength of this friendship that helps him make the difficult decision to do a terrible thing—which means walking away from everything and everyone he loves. He is true to what he believes in and if he does not get a happy end for himself he at least ensures a better world for many others.
I wrote this trilogy with the idea of the people who are forgotten by history, and Girton is very much one of those. The fracture in the friendship between him and Rufra is due to what Girton is: he is the assassin to a king who believes very much in justice. He is a hidden knife and it is easy, reading this book, to be hard on Rufra, but I think a book written from Rufra’s point of view would show you him as a much more sympathetic and tragic character. A man haunted by guilt and doubt in a way Girton is lucky not to be.
The Wounded Kingdom books are very much a tragedy, and I think the biggest one is that Merela never got to tell Girton just how very much she loved him. How he changed her life for the better and took her off a very dark path and put her on to one, well, slightly lighter. In him she found a measure of peace and, more importantly, let go of the past and did not let it rule her. The woman in King of Assassins is very different to the one in Age of Assassins, more relaxed and humorous. She is happy, and that happiness has been found through Girton, although, of course, it is doomed. But, though Merela will never know it, her actions in raising Girton—to be who he is rather than the magical weapon he could have been—will, in the end, bring part of her dream to life by putting Rufra’s daughter on the throne. The love she knew from her father as a young girl was passed on to Girton, and that in turn created a strength within him that allowed him to do what he believed was right and to know (mostly) right from wrong.
But I think the character who has travelled furthest in these books and—unexpectedly—become most dear to me is Aydor. The redemption of Aydor ap Mennix is all about fear and the conquering of it (as is Girton’s story, the mistakes he makes can often be put down to fear, especially in Blood of Assassins where fear of losing his master drives him to do something terrible and jeopardise everything he loves). Aydor exemplifies something I think is very important and that is forgiveness and accepting who you are. Let us not pretend that Aydor was anything other than awful in Age of Assassins, but he was awful for an understandable reason: he was scared. Not only scared of his mother, but because he knew who he was. Girton, in that book, gives us a very partisan view (shock horror) of Aydor. He paints him as rather stupid but Aydor’s tragedy, as we realise later, is that he was not. Look at the boy in Age of Assassins, overweight, bad teeth, bad eyesight, rubbish with a bow and not even nearly the best fighter. Had Aydor not been the king-in-waiting, he would have been in Girton’s shoes, being bullied for not fitting in. He knew that, and his viciousness arose from it, a boy out of place and terrified he will be found out.
But he is freed of his chains by making a single, huge, brave decision—he gives everything up. Everything. And he does it for his daughter. This familial love (which is a theme throughout these books) is hugely powerful. Aydor does not carry on the pattern that his mother established, he loves his child and is devoted to her. He is rewarded for this (and the death of Vinwulf, though it is never said, is as much Girton saving Aydor’s daughter as it is avenging Feorwic and protecting Rufra and his legacy). Of all the characters, Aydor is the only one who really gets a happy ending: his daughter is safe, he is safe and he still has his best friend.
I’ll stop now. Thank you for reading these books. I hope you’ve enjoyed reading them as much as I’ve enjoyed writing them and I hope you will miss Girton, Merela, Aydor, Rufra and, of course, the mighty war mount Xus* as much as I will. Maybe one day I will come back to the Tired Lands—who knows?
Be kind, try not to hurt anyone and do whatever you need to do to be happy.
RJ Barker, Leeds. January 2018.
Oh, and huge thanks to my publicist, Nazia. You thought I’d forgotten didn’t you? No chance—I like living too much (and you make everything more fun).