He'd be a heartthrob if he hadn't taken that vow of celibacy...
One of the first new characters I created for The Spring of Llanfyllin was a priest who would serve the Kimdom of Macnylleth as a full-time minister to Dylan, Siannon, and the people of Llanfyllin's most remote province.
The book opens with Dylan and Clyde working on Dylan's latest construction project, a grand cathedral near his castle where the people of his city can come and worship. If he's building a cathedral, he's going to need a priest, right?
A quick aside about the timeframe—this is Earth, but not historical Earth. These stories are set roughly in the middle of the Renaissance, but I have no firm adherence to historical accuracy. However, for these purposes, Europe is pre-Reformation Catholic, and that includes Llanfyllin. The church, however, has far less political influence in my world than on real Earth.
Religion, faith, and spirituality are important parts of this novel, but they act more as a moral foundation than as any sort of evangelistic message. Since faith is a component of my own life, I want to be free to express aspects of this faith in my fiction. Father Antonio (I've never made a last name for him) is the face of this faith, my spiritual voice in this fantasy world.
Dylan's Treasure ends with a wedding, so TSOL refers to their honeymoon, and that's where our happy couple first encounter the young priest who will become one of their closest friends and companions.
Here's an excerpt from chapter one:
Dylan met Father Antonio on his first trip through Europe with his wife, Siannon, the summer after they were first married. Their journey took them first through France, Italy, and Greece, all by land. After they left Athens, they traveled by ship through the Mediterranean, stopping for supplies in southern Italy. It was there they met the young priest, fresh from taking holy orders and eager to serve wherever God would lead him. Although the language barrier was considerable—Antonio spoke no Welsh at all, of course, and Dylan’s Italian was almost all technical, mason-speak—they both knew Latin well enough to strike up a conversation in a seaport tavern that led to a quick and familiar friendship, the kind that blossoms and blooms as quickly as a spring daffodil. As Macnylleth had no native clergyman, just a friar who rode a circuit through the four kimdoms south of the mountains, Antonio offered to inquire about serving there permanently. Although Dylan warned him about the rough nature of his home, Antonio wasn’t deterred in the least. It took several months for the various bishops to approve his service, but Antonio arrived in late autumn of that same year. By that time, Siannon was already visibly pregnant with her and Dylan’s first child, and Dylan had already begun sketching his vision for a grand cathedral.
Antonio spends the first half of the novel with Dylan, mostly at sea, as they navigate through the occupied west coast of the kingdom. In part two, he volunteers to embark with Siannon on a mission to Ireland, their last, desperate gamble to try to save Llanfyllin from certain defeat at the hands of the Norse.
Antonio would inspire romance in the hearts of ladies throughout the kingdom were he not a priest sworn to celibacy, and it's young adult fiction, so no Thorn Birds shenanigans here. But he is tall, with dark hair, olive skin, and green eyes. Think young James Brolin. (No, not Thanos! You're thinking of his son, Josh...)
Another excerpt:
As they neared the ground, a figure with the aspect of a strange bear waited for them at the bottom. They both knew, however, that this was no bear but rather the young priest whom Dylan had somehow convinced to leave the sun-drenched coast of southern Italy for the cold, wet kimdom of Macnylleth. Father Antonio was wrapped in a heavy bearskin coat, with a thick fur hat, mittens, and boots that gave him the appearance of a bear with a human face. His bright green eyes sparkled beneath dark, thick eyebrows, and he smiled broadly when he saw Dylan descend.
To find out more about Father Antonio and his adventures with Dylan and Siannon, click on this HOME PAGE link to buy The Spring of Llanfyllin either in paperback or Kindle ebook. I'll be back on Friday with the next in my series of new second-book characters.
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