Rest assured, THE COURTESAN is not about sex.
It is about a young woman, Gabrielle Cheney, one of three sisters known as ‘daughters of the earth’ by their friends and ‘witches’ by their enemies (this novel is also not about witchcraft), and a man, Captain Nicholas Remy, a soldier, ‘the Scourge’, and the arduous task providence has placed before them to trust each other and rectify the mistaken choice of their pasts.
Choices are what create the myriad of paths this story could take. Sub-plots weave cascading torrents of quiet streams and tremulous rivers in and out of the story’s theme. Is the story only about Gabrielle and Remy? It could just as easily be about Gabrielle’s sister Ariane, whom with she has suffered a rift. It could be about Martin le Loup, ‘the Wolf’, the young ruffian who rescues Remy three years earlier at the massacre of St. Bartholomew’s Eve. It could revolve around the blind recluse Cassandra, whom Gabrielle befriended, a true ‘witch’ from her practice of the dark arts.
Everything begins with Gabrielle traversing the Parisian streets, in stealth, to visit Cassandra. Unbeknownst to her, she is being followed by Remy. The crux of this stealth is, Gabrielle and Remy have not seen one another since the massacre of St. Bartholomew’s Eve, where she believes he was killed. Her purpose behind this nighttime visit to Cassandra is to seek her skills in necromancy to conjure Remy from the world of the dead. She is seeking his forgiveness; for it is herself she blames for his death.
However, Remy is not dead; and when Cassandra summons his spirit from the netherworld, Nostradamus, the former court astrologer, appears. He tells Gabrielle that her destiny lies in the bed of the king of France. Remy views his own destiny in the rescuing of his captive king, Henry of Navarre, the same man who Nostradamus predicted would become king of France when Catherine de Medici (the Dark Queen for her own practicing of the dark arts) and her son, the current king, Henry Valois, fall.
Thus, the stage is set. Both Gabrielle and Remy seek Henry of Navarre: Gabrielle, in belief, he lies as her destiny; Remy, as bound to the eternal service of rescuing his king. Remarkably, when the two rediscover each other, they find something new battling their souls. There is a mutual affection each carries for the other that cannot be easily shelved.
Is it love? Is it lust? Is it a bewitching inexplicable under normal circumstances? Gabrielle’s father was bewitched into his affair with the courtesan sent from the Dark Queen’s court. Had Gabrielle done the same to Remy? Martin believes it is so; Remy wonders if it could be?
However, there is a significant difference circling about Gabrielle, and here lies a measure of the marvel I discovered in Carroll’s writing. The “bewitching” of any man by a woman is often done by the physical promises of pleasure her beauty can offer. Gabrielle is the most dazzling courtesan in Paris. Remy, though, is appalled by this. The confirmation by her own lips of the rumors he refused to believe disgusts him. He thinks of her not for the physical prowess she, as a courtesan, can deliver; he wants her because of the pristine beauty he recalls from their days on Faire Isle.
Now, she is the most debauched of creatures, a woman who sold her virtue for the vice that brings position and prestige.
The woman he presumed to know, he knew not at all.
Gabrielle never told him, nary a soul, of the unwarranted encounter with a self-centered, pretentious prig-of-a-man whom she deluded herself into believing loved her – as she loved him – but realized, too late, his only desire was not for her, but for the pleasures her virginal body could give him. He then told her she was to blame. She was nothing but a trollop -- a lie she took to heart.
When Remy learns of this history, there is a chivalrous exchange with Gabrielle as he prepares himself to defend her honor. She tries to dissuade him from doing so, knowing it is a trap set by the Dark Queen who wants him dead. How can he defend her honor, she reminds him in tears, she is a courtesan. She has no honor to defend.
Remy believes otherwise, willing to go to his death to do what he views as right.
I literally reveled in this moment. Of course, Gabrielle has no honor! Remy inferred as much when he learned of her courtesan status. She sold whatever honor she had for the prestige and luxury her life now knew. Nevertheless, this man appalled by her lifestyle is willing to go to his death to defend a belief he knows to be more true.
This could easily make THE COURTESAN a book to categorize under the genre of ‘romance’; but such an easy way out would be a mistake. This is a story of the relationship that steps beyond the contemporary shallowness of what we know today as ‘romance’.
I have read books people call romance, and those books end up being nothing more than an excuse for sex. THE COURTESAN tells the story of a man and a woman who actually love one another. It is a relationship as a relationship is meant, i.e. loving one another in spite of the flaws – in fact, if you can accept it, because of the flaws. Who needs love more than a person who is laden with flaws? On the surface, both Gabrielle and Remy are ideal specimens of human perfection; beneath the surface, all is unraveling.
Susan Carroll successfully presents this ideal of what we all should pursue, the standard by which our professions of ‘love’ should be measured, giving to us a story that any man who has ever loved a woman – using the word in all its inherent meaning of passion and eternal existence – will devour. I am certainly one who found myself immensely impressed, adding her name to my list of favorite authors, searching my corner of the world for my own Gabrielle Cheney. Will women out there be searching for their own Nicholas Remy? After reading THE COURTESAN, you betcha.
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