thoughts drip with witty asides. In short, he’s a flawed narrator we can’t help but like, which is a huge strength for any piece of fiction. The skeptical reader can scoff at the coincidental meeting between Kosru Malik and Eric de Cogan and their past history, but an intelligent reader accepts the moment and rides with them into their mad adventure. There are moments of grim realism within, and of tragedy – the fate of Muhammad Khan, who throws his life and future away solely over lust for a Frankish girl. Kosru Malik sees greatness in him even in their final moment, as they battle: “ ‘Muhammad Khan, why be a fool? What is a Frankish girl to you, who might be emperor of half the world? Without you Kizilshehr will fall, will crumble to dust. Go your way and leave the girl to my brother-in-arms.’
“But he only laughed as a madman laughs and tore his scimitar free.”
Hubris destroys Muhammad Khan just as it has destroyed other leaders within Howard’s historicals. Yet while it’s a fine moment, it is not the one we remember, as the death of a ruler is perhaps the most resonant scene in three of the four most famous of these historicals. When we experience “The Road of Azrael,” what stands out the most is the brotherhood between the two characters and the friction that results from the different viewpoints of their shared struggle. We remember Kosru Malik’s little throwaway comments, such as “He cursed me beneath his breath as is the custom of Franks when a sensible course is suggested to them …” and the moment when the pair stumble upon a group of Vikings shepherding none other than King Harold. Who else but Howard could have conceived of such a moment and pulled it off? By that scene in the story we are so invested in the characters that what might have seemed absurd in someone else’s hands becomes inspired storytelling, no matter its improbability. With “The Road of Azrael,” Howard meant to introduce us to characters we care about, transport us into a distant land and time, and relentlessly pull us forward into adventure. He gives us moments of humor, poignancy, romance, and tension, and heaps of vividly described action. He achieves all these goals and makes it seem effortless; at the conclusion we cannot help but feel satisfaction at a tale well told, and key moments remain at the forefront of our imaginations, like the afterimage on a television monitor, or the lingering taste of a great wine when the glass is drained.
UNPUBLISHED AND UNFINISHED WORKS
Anyone who writes regularly is likely to end up with a few fragments, especially someone who writes professionally. Like an artist sketching out characters or environments before starting on the final drawing, or a sculptor making studies in clay before starting in marble, authors make initial drafts as they’re exploring a story. Someone who’s practiced and gifted, like Robert E. Howard, is likely to produce roughs that are quite polished, but a professional experimenting with different markets and story concepts ends up with false starts and fragments that were put aside because they weren’t quite working. Howard’s early death had nothing to do with the incomplete state of the fragments in this collection; they were abandoned for other reasons.
As I’ve already stated, I think analysis of fragments for literary worth somewhat problematic – naturally they will have flaws that a finished work will not. In the case of the fragments included in this volume, “The Slave- Princess” is the most compelling, and perhaps the only one that practically begs for completion. “The Track of Bohemund” has stirring moments and fine action scenes and it may be that had it been completed we would have seen another success, but it lies unfinished, and Howard himself might have sensed that something was missing. It does not seem to rise to the heights of the completed historicals from “The Sowers of the Thunder” on.
The other fragments seem to have come from earlier in Howard’s writing career. We have his summary and recap of Lamb’s “The Wolf Chaser,” a tale that clearly captivated him, judging both by these fragments, his brief foray into a tale with the same characters, and the similar conclusion to “Red Blades of Black Cathay.” Howard was probably experimenting with the aspects of the story he most wanted to learn from.
In addition to numerous tantalizing fragments, at the time of his death Howard had a bevy of fine stories and partial series that he never saw in print. Wandering through one of them is Turlogh Dubh O’brien, one of the best realized of Howard’s lesser known heroes and one of my personal favorites; I heartily wish Howard had composed more stories of the Irish rogue. Wherever he turns up, he tends to steal scenes through sheer force of personality, as he does in “Spears of Clontarf.”
When “Spears” failed to sell, Howard upped the quotient of the fantastic, retitled it “The Grey God Passes,” and tried, and failed, again to sell the piece. “Spears” is quite similar to “Grey God,” save that it begins with the slaying of Conn’s master and has a little too much story development through dialogue. When Howard cut this opening and replaced it with a brief glimpse of the All-Father, he improved the story.
Clontarf gives us an early glimpse of Howard’s ability to portray multiple characters in battle scenes. It works very well, even though it does not succeed quite as well as it does in his later historicals. Still, Howard at good is better than most adventure writers at their best, and it is hard to find much fault with the piece except in comparison to Howard’s own later and greater work. It seems strange to us now that the story, be it titled “Spears of Clontarf” or “The Grey God Passes,” did not sell in Howard’s lifetime.
Turlogh turned up as a central character in two more stories – one of which is often mentioned among Howard’s best (“The Dark Man”) and popped up in a few fragments, but Howard lost interest in him, or failed to find more stories to tell of him, and moved on. A different fate was to befall another of his promising heroes, Agnes de la Fere.
We can’t be certain when Howard wrote the Dark Agnes stories, although we can be certain that he set them to paper before January 1935, when he sent “Sword Woman” to C. L. Moore. Catherine Moore is well-known in fantasy circles and especially among fans of
Superficially Agnes and Jirel sound similar. They are both red-haired warrior women and French – but they are poles apart. There are obvious differences: Jirel is a noble and Agnes a peasant; Agnes narrates her story while Jirel’s adventures are told in third person; Jirel’s adventures have fantastic elements from almost the very start, whereas it is only in the Agnes fragment that the supernatural makes an entrance.
A greater difference than these elements, however, is one of tone. Howard and Moore were both of them splendid writers and Howard at least was capable of a variety of different styles. Here, though, he was direct and forceful, even a little spare, especially when compared to the often glorious prose poetry sprinkled through his best historical pieces. The two complete Agnes stories thunder forward at breakneck pace. Moore writes with a dreamy sensuality somewhat reminiscent of William Hope Hodgson’s best work, for mixed in among the surreal imagery are moments of horror and tension. Howard was perfectly capable of this tone as well, as his Kull stories bear witness, but he did not use it when he wrote of Agnes de la Fere.
If Moore influenced Howard in any way it is not really discernable, and it may be that he sent the stories her way because he sensed a kindred spirit, or because he wanted her to see he’d done something a little similar but hadn’t been stealing from her. Perhaps he contacted her for a bit of both reasons; we can only speculate.
What we do know is that Moore replied that she’d enjoyed Agnes, and that Howard never found a market for the series. He might have been considering altering them for
The completed Agnes stories read like the first two chapters of a serial novel, or, perhaps more aptly, like the first two episodes of a radio or television drama. The main characters are introduced in an origin story, and so too is a villain who survives both adventures. It’s a shame we can’t know where Howard was planning to take the series. Presumably he had some idea, but no series outlines survive.
What we can clearly see is evidence to counter one of the critiques sometimes leveled against Howard’s work. No misogynist could have penned a tale with such a valiant heroine. She outwits and outfights any man who stands against her, and is of higher moral fiber besides, sparing Villiers, who would have betrayed her, then risking her life to save him and reigniting his own sense of honor.
Howard should not be faulted if Agnes and her companions are painted in more primary colors than the figures in his more famous historicals. Howard was capable of greater variety than his detractors give him credit for. Agnes comes from a pulpier and more melodramatic tradition, and she can stand shoulder to shoulder with similar heroes.
