Relics – Pip Vaughan-Hughes
Hachette Livre Orion, 2007
276 pages
RRP: AU$22.95
ISBN: 978-0-7528-8124-9

Reviewed by Cat Sparks

“Every drunk is a magician,” states the opening line of this novel and in the case of Relics by Pip Vaughan-Hughes, the magic is all in the prose. The setting of this story is familiar enough to regular readers of fantasy. We begin with a tavern, drunken friends, the lure of gold coins, and a mysterious stranger. Novice monk Brother Petroc (Patch to his friends) is framed for the murder of a deacon by a sinister Templar Knight. He is forced to flee across rough country with his best friend, Will, at his side and a creepy relic, the hand of Saint Euphemia, stuffed inside his shirt. But Sir Hugh de Kervezey, the murdering Templar, is hot on their trail. When Will is slain, a terrified Petroc stumbles onwards, running first to his old Abbey, and then onwards again as he learns that his safe old life has been destroyed forever. Only one man can help him now, a Frenchman who collects precious curios and sails on a ship called the Cormaran.

Captain de Montalhac and his surly crew of Cathar heretic pirates: smugglers of religious relics, both real and fake, are bound across the seas for Greenland. The further he travels, the more the trappings of Petroc’s religious faith are called into question, and the more hardened and experienced he becomes in the ways of men. On their way home to Ireland, on a lonely stretch of beach, Petroc rescues the princess Anna Doukaina Komnena, runaway and stowaway, a young woman keen to experience more of life than her arranged marriage has so far permitted.

Vaughan-Hughes is a writer of high calibre. Despite the familiarity of the terrain, I never knew what was to happen next, and was genuinely surprised by events more than once along Petroc’s arduous journey.

These desperate chases across countryside, brutal encounters, church corruptions, political intrigues, and long sea voyages are all embellished with intricate detail; not only could I see 1235 Mediaeval Europe through the eyes of these characters, I could smell it too, and feel my bones ache with damp and cold.

Perhaps the plotting and pacing does weaken here and there after Petroc’s initial flight from danger, but Vaughan-Hughes more than makes up for this with engaging characters, thorough historical detail and deft craftsmanship. His prose leapt from the page and seamlessly engaged my imagination. Where Petroc travels next, I shall follow willingly.