Laeghaire is not a sentimental hero, but rather a product of a brutal time.

He buys her for her black eyes and treats her fairly kindly. Laeghaire deals efficiently with both, trouncing the outlaws (in an encounter that clearly illustrates the power of a horsed knight against attackers on foot) and purchasing yellow haired Hilde from the father who is beating her. We first meet him fleeing Thuringians through Germany, departing the service of Duke Heinrich, who tried to defraud Laeghaire of his wages.Īlong the way he encounters both outlaws and a young woman called Hilde. The story's hero is a wandering Irish mercenary knight from Tralee - Laeghaire of the Long Road (the author informs us that Laeghaire is the Gaelic spelling of Lear). In fact most of the tale takes place in France before the Norman conquest of England. Though Firedrake is set in the time of William the Conqueror and its action includes the Battle of Hastings, the story is not centered on William himself. Unlike many authors in the genre, Holland does not encumber her novels with reams of description of the historical period, but sketches in just enough to give the reader a strong sense of place and period. The protagonists tend to be strong individualists of both sexes. For example Rakossy is about a Magyar prince in a Hungary under relentless attack by the Moors. They are usually set in lesser known periods of history. T he Firedrake is the first (and in my opinion one of the best) of Cecelia Holland's large output of excellent historical novels.

The Firedrake by Cecelia Holland