Fred's Book Club: Black Arrow, Read.

We don't just do weird books here at the Humpback Writers feature, the straight-up Wednesday feature with the childishly unfunny name. No, we sometimes do classics as well. Here's one that I enjoyed much more than I even thought I would, an adventure for the ages.

A few years ago we were heading to Californy, on a trip that was a combination of business/wedding attendance/vacation. I always want a physical book for such a trip, because a book never runs out of energy and the crew never tells you to turn off your book. So I grabbed two, The Black Arrow by Robert Louis Stevenson, and Evelyn Waugh's Brideshead Revisited, and they made for some of the best reading I've ever had on an expedition.

The Black Arrow: A Tale of the Two Roses is the third Stevenson classic I've enjoyed, having read Treasure Island and of course that Jekyll thing. He was a terrific writer, as you probably know, who packed a lot of action and strong characters into his books. Very few authors can claim to have invented something that really strikes a cultural nerve, something that becomes a touchstone we all know and feel in our bones -- Mary Shelley with Frankenstein, Dickens with A Christmas Carol, and Stevenson with Jekyll and Hyde are three that come to mind, and it would be easy to argue that Stevenson had a twofer, his Long John Silver being the blueprint for pirates since Treasure Island.

Black Arrow, first published in 1888, isn't nearly as inventive, but is a ripping yarn and, were it to be published for the first time now, might be praised for its daring to break with the typical expectations of historical novels. It takes place in England in the 1400s during the Wars of the Roses. The title makes it sound like it will be a Robin Hood story, but it's not like that. There's not a merry man to be found. But there is a romantic interest for our hero.

The titular black arrow makes its appearance early in the book, striking like a thunderbolt:

An arrow sang in the air, like a huge hornet; it struck old Appleyard between the shoulder-blades, and pierced him clean through, and he fell forward on his face among the cabbages.  Hatch, with a broken cry, leapt into the air; then, stooping double, he ran for the cover of the house.  And in the meanwhile Dick Shelton had dropped behind a lilac, and had his crossbow bent and shouldered, covering the point of the forest.
     Not a leaf stirred.  The sheep were patiently browsing; the birds had settled.  But there lay the old man, with a cloth-yard arrow standing in his back; and there were Hatch holding to the gable, and Dick crouching and ready behind the lilac bush.

What kind of assassin's blow is this? Our hero, Dick Shelton, would like to know...

“Who hath done this, Bennet?” Richard asked, still holding the arrow in his hand.
     “Nay, the saints know,” said Hatch.  “Here are a good two score Christian souls that we have hunted out of house and holding, he and I.  He has paid his shot, poor shrew, nor will it be long, mayhap, ere I pay mine.  Sir Daniel driveth over-hard.”
     “This is a strange shaft,” said the lad, looking at the arrow in his hand.
     “Ay, by my faith!” cried Bennet.  “Black, and black-feathered.  Here is an ill-favoured shaft, by my sooth! for black, they say, bodes burial.  And here be words written.  Wipe the blood away.  What read ye?”
     “‘Appulyaird fro Jon Amend-All,’” read Shelton.  “What should this betoken?”
     “Nay, I like it not,” returned the retainer, shaking his head.  “John Amend-All!  Here is a rogue’s name for those that be up in the world!  But why stand we here to make a mark?  Take him by the knees, good Master Shelton, while I lift him by the shoulders, and let us lay him in his house.  This will be a rare shog to poor Sir Oliver; he will turn paper colour; he will pray like a windmill.”

We soon discover that the Black Arrow outlaws have sworn to strike down Appleyard (check) and three others, including Dick's guardian, Sir Daniel Brackley. From there it's a fast-moving tale of intrigue, betrayal, war, and one young man's quest for honor and knighthood... and vengeance for his father.

It's got a lot of swashbuckling, yes -- many swashes are buckled. But as I say, it has some touches that would surprise a modern audience. For one thing, Richard Crookback, the future King Richard III, or Ricky Trois as I call him, is not portrayed as a mangled, fire-breathing monster but a cunning and ruthless man who is alarming even as a friend:

“My lord,” returned Dick, with a faint sense that he was in the presence of a great personage, “ye are yourself so marvellous a good swordsman that I believe ye had managed them single-handed.  Howbeit, it was certainly well for me that your men delayed no longer than they did.”
     “How knew ye who I was?” demanded the stranger.
     “Even now, my lord,” Dick answered, “I am ignorant of whom I speak with.”
     “Is it so?” asked the other.  “And yet ye threw yourself head first into this unequal battle.”
     “I saw one man valiantly contending against many,” replied Dick, “and I had thought myself dishonoured not to bear him aid.”
     A singular sneer played about the young nobleman’s mouth as he made answer:
     “These are very brave words.  But to the more essential—are ye Lancaster or York?”
     “My lord, I make no secret; I am clear for York,” Dick answered.
     “By the mass!” replied the other, “it is well for you.”
     And so saying, he turned towards one of his followers.
     “Let me see,” he continued, in the same sneering and cruel tones—“let me see a clean end of these brave gentlemen.  Truss me them up.”

You may find this bizarre, but one of the things I liked best about the book is that when it's time to make a daring raid, the hero completely screws the pooch. It goes as badly as any plan I've ever read in a novel, and I have to tell you, I found it refreshing. In the age of the Mary Sue, where the hero's only flaw is a failure to believe in herself, it's almost a relief to see what happens when overconfident novices take command of dangerous situations. Dick Shelton is as brave as any man in the book, but he's a kid when it starts off, and it shows, painfully.

Stevenson originally serialized this novel in a magazine for young readers, and had a tendency to pooh-pooh his historical adventures as "tushery," affected nonsense. But he sells himself short. The plot is sophisticated, and the ending cannot be purely happy and joyful since the path for England and for our characters is far from sunlit at this point in history. Yeah, there's no sex and no gore, but there's nothing in this book that would fail to hold an adult's attention. Had Stevenson not died so young, at age 44, perhaps he would have come to see it in a better light, especially if he knew what dreck would be published as historical fiction later on.

I liked this Dover edition of the book that came with me to the Coast. And for an actual young reader, it has helpful footnotes for some archaic words like arras and shog and louting. But you can get the text for free at Gutenberg, of course, at this link right here. Read on, noble knight!