Clash of Culture
Clashes of culture are key to this novel for younger teenagers. It is set in a fictional valley somewhere in the Trossachs region of Scotland a thousand years ago. Scotland at this time is barely a united country. Three different cultures still survive, the Picts in the north, Anglo-Saxons on the east coast and Vikings influencing the highlands and islands. When a group of Flemings ride in, yet another culture is introduced, the rigid feudalism of Norman-influenced countries in Western Europe. Very soon, this will engulf England and also much of Scotland, with ripples of change spreading across Europe.
A Meeting of Misfits
In 1065 a freak snowstorm comes early, blocking the passes through which the Flemings have ridden into the valley from the east. Their leader, the Count of Aucun, has come to offer the return of the clan chief’s two sons, whom he captured in battle, for a ransom. He is the lord of a fictional land in the Somme region, but he is unexpectedly sensitive to the embarrassment the clan faces. The chief, he quickly realises, is regarded as equal to the other clansman although he is highly respected and is the clan’s representative.
The young count is uncomfortable in his own feudal society. There every man has his place and rarely moves from the class in which he is born. His men scorn the clan system in which a chief is thought equal to the lowest worker. The count himself, however, has a private sympathy with this egalitarianism. He realises that the clan owns their land and property (very little) in common. Paying any ransom would impoverish them all.
Also since the clan uses barter and has virtually no coinage, he must find a face-saving solution. The count offers to accept the clan chief’s daughter, thirteen-year-old Ailie (almost fourteen), as his bride. She is clever and lively and much loved by the people of the valley but she, too, is a misfit in the clan. In this harsh place of toil and poverty she has learned to read. As a natural and voracious scholar she is frustrated by the restrictions of her background.
A Further Complication
Ailie is also being courted by an Isles-man, Kenneth, a distant relative of Ailie’s long dead mother. His Viking ancestry brings yet another cultural element into the picture. Kenneth is intent on gaining control of the lucrative trade route which passes through the valley. When he and two equally ambitious brothers arrive from the west with more retainers than usual, danger scents the air.
Ailie, her ailing father and the older village children play a complicated game to protect the Flemings from the Islanders’ rage. They all hope the snows will melt soon enough to allow the visitors to escape.