The most basic challenge of historical fiction is to 'get it right'. Given the visceral descriptions of death and physical suffering, it is surprising that Hill is so coy about describing other human actions, such as eating, drinking and love-making. Edmund dies when a spear is thrust up his rectum by an assassin hiding in a cesspit.

Pink entrails are strewn across the mud of battlefields. Many characters are slain, and Hill does not shrink from the brutality of their deaths, with an axe full in the face or shitting out their guts. What Hill does very effectively is to ram home the message that life was short and harsh even for the wealthy. 'Let us surround Edmund and kill him!' he shouted.' For example, on page 345 we find: 'Knut saw his chance to surround his enemy and kill him. Back-slapping and thigh-slapping also appear far too commonly to be indicative of true camaraderie such clichés undermine the characters' individuality. Over and over again we read that some lord 'laughed' as he spoke. Readers who only want a warrior's tale will be satisfied that there are no digressions from the conflict narrative others will yearn for some relief from the gritty determination to keep fighting.įor my part, the unending tone of military hardship and betrayal would be fine if there were contrasts in the ways in which characters dealt with this psychologically but only Godwin's inner struggle is treated in any depth. One of Hill's characters complains that 'poets sang too much of war and glory' and some might say the same of this book. Indeed, there is little else in this book but war. The theme is fairly and squarely war and the loyalties and hardships of war. It is centred on the early career of Godwin, Earl of Wessex, father of the King Harold killed at Hastings, and particularly on his friendship with Edmund Ironside towards the end of the reign of Edmund's father, Ethelred the Unready (978-1016).

Shieldwall is the first part of a trilogy that leads up to the Norman conquest. But how does he fare in his first venture into the strange territory of 11th-century England? Hill has previously won a string of prizes and plaudits for his books about China, while his travel book about Eritrea was listed for the Thomas Cook award. H istorical fiction, like writing for children, is harder than it seems.

Shieldwall by Justin Hill