Another space of time since a blog entry. I have been writing, but still focused on the third book, at this point still titled The Bone Goddess. It has been an interesting adventure, not least of which the twists and turns it takes that I don’t always expect. Sometimes this is because of characters who do things that I didn’t plan for or expect and then I decide to just go with it. It has a strange way of working out anyway. One such character is Þórsteinn.

Þórsteinn Dromund is a character who is based on (okay more inspired by at this point) Grettir’s Saga, an Icelandic saga. The Saga is lengthy and goes on about many things, but essentially Þórsteinn’s part in it starts with his brother, Grettir who is killed by a man named Þórbjørn who then proceeds to make his way to Constantinople and join the Varangian Guard. Þórsteinn follows him there and also joins the Varangian Guard in order to slay him. He is in the Guard for some time, before Þórbjørn shows himself, by drawing the nicked sword that he had taken off Þórsteinn’s brother Grettir. Without further ado, Þórsteinn takes the sword and kills his brother’s killer. This act of violence of course earns him an arrest and the possibility of a death sentence. Now Þórsteinn is a very fine singer and one day he is heard from his prison cell, singing by a bored lady named Spes (who we can only guess is also Norse as she is married to a man named Sigurd) and she falls in love with Þórsteinn. She is very wealthy and ransoms him and the rest is more or less predictable and it is easy to see where the romantic troubadours of the medieval era got their ideas of courtly love.

This is some silly seventeenth century artist’s idea of what Grettir looked like.

I diverged quite a bit from Grettir’s Saga. Part of this is no fault of mine. Characters tend to have a mind of their own, as I said. In my version, prior to his journey to Constantinople, Þórsteinn finds himself in Kiev and then in Novgorod. He falls in with a young Varangian named Gamli who engages him in a business proposition which finds out young hero with a band of Varangian merchant adventurers on a boat down the Dnieper River. At some point, while making portage around the southernmost of the rapids, they find themselves attacked by Penchenegs and Þórsteinn, our klutzy hero finds himself trapped under their boat that slides down the river embankment. Knocked out, he wakes to find himself alone and injured. Through a series of adventures he manages to make it to Constantinople to join the Varangian Guard. However, as the writer, I found the whole injury with the boat, to be unexpected. Þórsteinn trudges off with his three pounds of gold (the standard entry fee into the Varangian Guard) to sign up. He is promptly disqualified because of his bum leg.

He trudges back.

Author: Why are you here? You are supposed to be a member of the Varangian Guard and be on the hunt for Þórbjørn by now.

Þórsteinn: I can’t. They told me I couldn’t join up because of my permanent leg injury.

Author: Oh that’s very nice. You go get yourself hurt, which wasn’t even in our original outline and now this happens. You sure did screw things up.

Þórsteinn: (offended) How was I supposed to see that boat sliding down the embankment? That’s Helgi’s fault.

Author: Is Helgi even a character?

Þórsteinn: He is now.

Author: So how are you supposed to find Þórbjørn now?

Þórsteinn: I could inquire in some of the tavernas.

Author: We really need to work on your character development.

Þórsteinn (bristling) I suppose you’d be happier if I just got myself killed by Penchenegs.

Author: No. No. That would mess things up too. You aren’t supposed to die yet.

Þórsteinn: Wait. What? I die?

So yes, sometimes stories take a different twist than one originally intended thanks to klutzy or perhaps just – ahem – outright stubborn characters (Þórsteinn: Hey I heard that!) but sometimes you just have to go with it and it makes it more interesting.

Beside which the fictional Þórsteinn really isn’t a very good singer.

Þórsteinn: Hey!