Author Sherwood Smith has written multiple critically-acclaimed and well-loved fantasies for young adults and adults including Crown Duel the Wren series, and multiple other fantasy novels set in her created world of Sartorias-deles, as well as two Regency-set novels, Danse de la Folie and Rondo Allegro. She's here to tell us about a new fantasy journey she's embarking on:
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I first began reading romances set in the Regency era when I was fourteen. My initiation was Desiree,
by Annemarie Selinko. I found Georgette Heyer soon after, and there was
no looking back—I did my degrees in early modern history. What I loved
most were the complicated manners, the gorgeous clothes, the stately
homes. The awareness of the life of art, if you were lucky enough or
rich enough to get it.
When I first encountered Chinese television series
and novels six years ago, with their complex manners and customs and
long braided stories and the underpinnings of a yearning for beauty in
all things, I was utterly blown away. My tastes in reading had evolved
toward braided tales, with characters growing and changing in a world
both breathtaking and strange, where striving to become the best one can
be matters. (And how that gets defined is what drives the story.)
Romance was frosting on a very delectable cake.
After
six years of happy immersion in Eastern history, language, literature
and art, last year when we got sequestered in our homes, I wanted escape
into such a world, so I began writing The Phoenix Feather as a xuanhuan (an offshoot of the far older wuxia genre, which borrows freely from various mythologies), just to see where it would take me.
I
deliberately put in all the tropes I love the most—disguises, hidden
secrets, martial arts training, beauty in people, places, and things.
The first book in the series comes out today.
Here is the blurb:
Twenty-five years ago a pair of lovers ran for their lives from an
angry prince and washed up on an island where they adopted new
identities–and found themselves blessed by an omen promising great
things, a single golden phoenix feather.
Their eldest child, a natural martial artist like his father, seems
destined for those great things. The second son, an artist and a
dreamer, has no desire for greatness–he wants to be left alone to paint.
And the youngest, a daughter, used to wearing her brothers’ castoffs
and trotting at their heels, is the least promising, always scamping her
studies in favor of sword lessons and play.
All three vowed to keep their parents’ dangerous secret. But in this
first volume, Fledglings, the family learns that sometimes children must
follow their own paths . . .
And a sample!
The Phoenix Feather: Fledglings
It is said that tales are like rivers, always renewing as they flow
out to join the endless waters of the sea. I think tales are more like
the streams that feed the rivers, for they must have a beginning.
My tale begins with a monk and a child, who sat on mats under the low
eaves of a thin-walled cottage. A single candle illuminated the young
face and the old, throwing shadows against the bare walls of a room
empty of other furnishings except for the neatly rolled bedding in one
corner.
The child who was generally known as Little Third in the village, and
Mouse within the family, exclaimed, “I get to hear a story all by
myself?”
“Yes,” said the monk. “This story will not be like those I usually tell you.”
“How is it not the same? I hope it will have heroes, at least.” Mouse dug bare toes into the mat, knees pulled to chin.
“This story does not concern the acts of gods, demons, or ghosts. As for heroes, you will see. There was an imperial prince—”
“Oh, princes,” Mouse said on a sigh, suspecting a lesson hidden
behind this story. As if lessons didn’t happen all day. “They’re like
gods and demons and ghosts, all so very very far away.”
The monk replied calmly, “Is this going to be your story about my story, or will you listen?”
“Sorry,” Mouse said contritely.
The monk cleared his throat. “Enjai was one of several imperial
princes. Unlike his various imperial siblings and cousins, some of whom
were reputed to be handsome as long as the gifts kept coming, he truly
was handsome . . . If you’re going to make rude noises, I will leave you
to entertain yourself.”
“Sorry, sorry,” Mouse said, and then to the monk’s surprise, dropped face down, moaning, “This unworthy one deserves death—”
“You do not deserve death. Bad manners do not deserve death,” the monk replied tartly.
Mouse bounced up again, dark eyes round. “It’s how everyone talks to nobles in the hero tales.”
“You have picked up some regrettable expressions from reading those
hero tales. Perhaps I ought to stop bringing them back—you are not the
one who needs encouragement to read.”
At that Mouse looked very contrite. “I just thought it would sound extra sorry.”
“Do you see any nobles here?” The monk lifted a hand callused from
hard work. “Didn’t think so. You are right that it is the humble speech
expected by some nobles and imperials, which can be as false as the
plainer speech of commoners like us. Show your contrition by listening
politely, please.”
Mouse bobbed eagerly, and the monk cleared his throat once more.
“When Second Imperial Prince Enjai turned twenty, as a second son—and a
favorite of the empress—he was permitted to leave the imperial palace . .
.”
The light from the single candle flickered over the round,
unprepossessing face of the child, and smoothed the wrinkles from the
monk as he went on to describe how Imperial Prince Enjai’s father had
died when the prince was young, so he was much indulged by a loving
mother as well as by the empress. No one had ever said no to him, the
monk added, and Mouse thought, here come the lessons, though we aren’t spoiled.
But instead, the monk went right on with his description of the
prince, who, being young, restless, and hot-blooded as many young people
with too much wealth and too little opposition tend to be, decided to
marry. Eyeing his small charge, the monk was vague about how the prince
could (being a prince) summon up female companionship at the snap of his
fingers, but he knew that imperial marriages required the assembly of
the most beautiful and talented among the possible choices. He wanted
the most beautiful and talented consort . . .
The monk paused. “Did you say something?”
Mouse had groaned, thinking that a romance was coming—even worse than
a lesson. Too many romances ended with the woman drowning herself,
especially in the older stories. “My stomach was rumbling.” Then
apologized, half-expecting the monk to stop the story because of bad
manners.
But he started right up again. “All the noble clans were required to
send a well-born, properly trained, comely daughter between the ages of
sixteen and twenty, if no previous marriage treaty had been contracted,
but you can be sure that the most ambitious discovered auspicious signs
in ten-character birth lines, and found ways around betrothal treaties.”
Mouse said, “The families wanted their daughters to marry a prince.”
“Not just the families. The provincial governor of Butterfly Island
decided that one of the twin daughters of Scholar Alk Bemti would
represent the honor of the island, as they were well-born and beautiful,
with features considered perfect, eyes the much-prized shade called
teak. If they had one flaw, it was the color of their hair, which,
though black, was not the true blue-black considered to be the pinnacle
of magnificence.”
Mouse had heard that before. If there was any tinge of red in it
(like Mouse’s), it wasn’t considered perfect hair. Though the monk went
on to say that in every other respect their hair was like silk. Of
course it was, Mouse thought.
One daughter had chosen the temple path at an early age and vanished
from worldly life. The scholar’s second daughter, Alk Hanu, was required
to travel all the way to the imperial island, a long and difficult
journey. But she was not alone, for other girls traveled as well, many
of them wealthy. She fell in with some of these on the boat during a
slow, treacherous passage. Though the Alks had been connected to the
imperial family five generations before, she had not been raised to
insist upon being first, and as a scholar’s daughter, she was full of
entertaining stories, so she was welcomed by the other candidates.
A storyteller? Mouse sat up straight.
The monk went on to describe the journey, which was of necessity
slow. The sun was warm, and as young people will do when time hangs
heavy on idle hands, their mouths kept busy. They talked a great deal,
and Hanu began to learn how young nobles behaved. She did not think of
marriage at all.
Mouse was liking this Hanu better and better. Except if that lesson
was lurking somewhere. “I thought nobles all want to marry princes or
princesses.”
“Not this one.”
“I do like her,” Mouse declared.
The monk explained very briefly that Hanu’s mother, the last of the
Alk clan, had dutifully taken a consort in order to have an heir, but
she had chosen a man a step lower in rank so that there could be no clan
trouble when she parted with him after her daughters’ birth. “Scholar
Bemti preferred the world of books to the noise of the outside world,
and had raised her daughters to reflect that preference, one leaving the
world entirely—”
One of Mouse’s shoulders jerked up. Here came the lesson about the
Importance of Scholarship—as if those didn’t happen every single day
from Mother.
The monk, interpreting this reaction, cut himself short (he had been
about to describe how much the Alk daughters had prized learning) and
resumed the story. “Hanu only wished to fit in rather than stand out,
but such was her beauty that she stood out anyway, especially as she
observed the others closely, for she had been trained to notice detail.
Quietly she shed her rustic customs along the journey, for she was
filial, and did not wish to cause ill reflection on the Alks.
And now we come back to Prince Enjai and his bodyguard Danno.
Imperial guards are forbidden to marry during their time of service,
except for Spring Festival babies, who are always considered
auspicious—”
“I don’t get why everybody says it’s terrible when babies come if
people aren’t married, except for Spring Festival babies,” Mouse said.
The monk eyed his small charge, deciding to keep it simple. “Many
believe that if the gods decide to slip a soul back into the world as a
result of Festival celebration, that child will be lucky, especially if
it’s born right on the new year. Even if it comes a few days early or
late, tradition is firm about considering it inauspicious to go against
divine mandate.”
Sure enough, he saw Mouse promptly lose interest in the subject.
He went on. “Danno’s mother having been an imperial guard, and Danno a
Spring Festival baby, he was given over to Imperial Prince Enjai’s
mother’s household. Danno and Imperial Prince Enjai shared a milk nurse.
Danno was to be Prince Enjai’s bodyguard, his only purpose to protect
the prince with his life, and consequently became his closest companion .
. .”
He went on to relate how the prince’s guards trained every day in the
training court. Part of the day Prince Enjai trained with them. The
rest of the day, the prince was tutored in scholarship, poetry, the
arts, and imperial annals, while Danno continued his martial
exercise—for the personal guard of a prince or princess must be among
the best.
Mouse’s entire demeanor brightened. “How different is it from our training?”
“That you shall discover. Danno’s skills and talent showed early. By
ten he could beat all the other boys in the court, and by fifteen, he
was winning competitions against the lowest rank of the imperial guard.
The Golden Armor General who commands the imperial guard even tried to
lure him away, but he was loyal, and refused to go. And Prince Enjai
would only trust the safety of his body to Danno. Before Danno turned
twenty, he had twice been acknowledged the best swordsman in the
imperial city, and twice he had saved the prince’s life . . .”
The monk said that when Prince Enjai was given his own household
within the city, Danno, also twenty, was appointed head of the prince’s
bodyguards. Usually an older, wiser man was given this stewardship, but
Enjai did not want old men around him, and he extolled Danno as his
brother.
Mouse said cautiously, “He doesn’t sound bad. If he was loyal to Danno, too.”
“That, you will discover. To resume. The prospective consorts and
aunts assembled in the imperial city as the prospective brides arrived
to be examined and tested.
“Some girls were rejected out of hand for being too tall, or too
short, too thin, or too fat. This one’s nose was too prominent, and that
one’s too undistinguished; this one’s eyes too close together, that
one’s too far apart. One smiled too much, displaying her gums. The
imperial consorts and aunts rejected anyone with what they considered
physical flaws, for the sake of the family: they did not want such
traits passing down to imperial children and tarnishing the purity of
the imperial name. All those girls were sent back home. At the third
round of tests, more candidates were sent away for ill-made letters, or
clumsy stitches, or dull answers, or poor dancing. Finally they were
down to those considered perfect in every way.”
Mouse scowled in perplexity. “How do they actually judge beauty once
all those flaws are done away with? Second Brother says beauty is—”
“How indeed? By this point in the selection, judgment becomes more
subjective, a matter of taste, and of political necessity, and finally
the mystery of attraction. All were praised for the perfect melon-seed
oval of their faces, the willow line of their brows, the smoothness of
their skin, and so forth.
“Though the imperial consorts favored this or that daughter of
important ministers or nobles, it was Hanu whom no one could find a flaw
in, except for her lack of an influential clan. But her birth was
distinguished enough to make up for it. And though she had not been
trained in all the subtleties of the court bow, and how to command
movement from room to room, she won favor in the royal consorts’
critical eyes not just for her polite manners, but for her thoughtful
brow, and the way she did not giggle or flirt her fan or hair ornaments.
The choice was at last reduced to five, at which time the prince was
summoned to converse with the prospective brides from behind a silk
screen, looked on by his mother.”
What the monk could not relate, but I can tell you, is that the first
daughter of the Household Minister made languishing eyes at Imperial
Prince Enjai, and flattered him with dulcet tones. The fifth daughter of
the Minister of War managed to loosen her garments and tried to peek
coyly behind the screen, for you have to remember he was very handsome
as well an imperial prince, and she was desperate to get away from her
crowded home where pride in a distinguished family history was about the
only commodity in plenty.
The daughter of the Governor of Five Rivers Island waited
complacently to be chosen, for she had been told from birth that she was
more beautiful than the Morningstar God, and that her family—the Su
clan—was destined for imperial rank.
The daughter of the Harbormaster from Crescent Moon Bay giggled
incessantly, even when the prince’s mother asked her to sit down, and
would she take a cup of scalded gold leaf?
In contrast, Hanu sat with her head lowered, replied in the voice of a
scholar’s daughter, and employed no arts to attract or allure. They
talked of books, then of history, of poetry and music, and he admitted
to finding himself hard put to keep pace with her.
That led to a second interview without the screen.
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Get The Phoenix Feather: Fledglings now!
Learn more about Sherwood's books at her website .
