Xenograffiti by Robert Reginald Page A

small piece of land surrounding the cave where the cult holds its most secret ceremonies. There he meets Melusine, Princess of Albany, who has been brought there to seduce Raymond and run his life, but who eventually falls in love with him. The castle of Lusignan is built next to the cave. Within a few years, Owain has poisoned Bertrand, and Raymond, the next heir, becomes Earl. Melusine, high priestess of the cult, conducts a service each Saturday evening in which she appears in a suit woven from adders’ skins. Owain, having brought his plans to fruition, leaves the country to scout other areas of the world for possible control. Melusine and Raymond, utterly devoted to each other, rear eight sons.
    Owain arranges for the three older sons to seek their fortunes in distant lands, where they repulse the Saracens and marry female heirs to three different thrones. As the years pass, trouble threatens when Melusine gradually becomes enamored of the Christian faith and discontinues the weekly Sabbaths. When informed of her lapsed ways, Owain returns to Poitiers and forces her to hold another ceremony. There he rapes her on the high altar; nine months later, a son, Geffray, called “The Devil,” is born. Geffray is wholly unlike his brothers: unruly, disrespectful, independent, courageous, and rash, it is clear that he will be the heir of both Raymond and Owain. Upon coming of age, he immediately establishes himself as a mighty warrior, putting down rebellious lords and conquering enemies in several different lands. His hatred for religions of all kinds is evident. Learning that his younger brother, Froimond, has become a monk, he bolts off across the countryside, burning the abbey and all its members, including his kin. He then leaves immediately for Albany, in Britain, where a giant is threatening the people.
    Geffray’s actions have far-reaching consequences. In Albany, Owain greets him as his son and tells him of his destiny. In Poitiers, Raymond renounces both son and wife, whereupon Melusine must take her leave. Appearing in the great hall of the castle dressed in her snake suit, she bids farewell to her lover and plunges from the open window into the moat far below. Raymond is left utterly destroyed. Geffray returns from overseas to claim his lands, which Raymond no longer has the will to rule; Raymond retires voluntarily to a hermit’s life in Spain. Geffray restores the land’s peace. Melusine, who has not been killed, returns to Albany, where she lives with Owain until the latter dies; she then is united with her triplet sisters, who had also been impressed into duty in far-off lands. When Raymond finally dies, years later, a great thunderstorm breaks over Lusignan.
    Haldane has invested the legend with new life, making full-blooded characters out of the players. Melusine, in particular, is one of fantasy’s most attractive female characters: intelligent, attractive, politically knowledgeable, and strong-willed. Owain is also a “fine figure of a man”: wise, virile, sensitive, and humane, far better in many ways than his Christian opponents. Owain and his ilk desire the return of the earthbound values of hearth, home, loyalty, and respect; he possesses no skills other than his own very human abilities to move men and women. In many respects, the book anticipates the Deryni novels of Katherine Kurtz, although Kurtz is more sympathetic with the Christian side of the conflict than is Haldane. For both writers, the powers of the mind are the only magical forces at work, aided at times by objects of power (Melusine, for example, possesses the ability of precognition, reinforced by use of a crystal); for both, political conflict is at the heart of their work in the interactions of mighty men and women. Melusine is a superior novel of fantasy, richly wrought and imbued with the aura of the Middle Ages; it deserves a wider readership and wider critical acclaim.

12. GORY INTERLUDES
    JOHN NORMAN AND THE ENNUI OF SEXUAL