TIGANA

Nicholas Eames celebrates a timely tale of magic and identity

Ask five people which of Guy Gavriel Kay’s books is his finest and you’re likely to get five different answers. Many consider his novel The Fionavar Tapestry (an epic homage to JRR Tolkien’s The Lord Of The Rings) their favourite, while others prefer his later works, which forsake conventional fantasy tropes in favour of something that skirts the borders of historical fiction, albeit with “a quarter-turn to the fantastic,” as Kay himself puts it.

Tigana serves as a bridge between these two different styles. While Kay drew inspiration from Renaissance Italy and tales from Slavic mythology, it is unique because it features magic as a major plot device.

The Peninsula of the Palm is invaded by a sorcerous tyrant named Brandin of Ygrath, who sends his son to conquer the province of Tigana. When his son is killed, Brandin crushes Tigana himself, and exacts a terrible revenge. Not only does he kill its prince and massacre its people, but he destroys their art, their sculpture, and uses his magic to erase them from history. Except for a few survivors born in Tigana before the spell is cast, no one can hear or remember its name.

Tigana is rebranded as “Lower Corte” (Corte being their traditional enemy) and its subjects are treated as second-class citizens. Even in their own capital city, since renamed after the tyrant’s slain son, there exists a restaurant they are forbidden from eating in, lest they sully its sterling reputation. In details like this, Kay paints his story over a rough sketch of history, as the prejudice he describes has been practiced many times over, particularly by colonising or conquering oppressors.

Its most poignant historical parallel, however, is that of cultural genocide. By destroying their art and tearing their very name from existence, Brandin deprives the Tiganese of their ability to earn sympathy from others, since an outsider simply cannot understand their plight. And worse, as time passes and fewer remain who recall their once-bright history, his magic robs them of the ability to recognise themselves.

In an effort to reclaim their past, the scions of Tigana are driven to extremes. Alessan, the prince-in-exile, hopes to provoke an all- encompassing war in an effort to kill Brandin and break his spell. Dianora, the daughter of a Tiganese sculptor, becomes the tyrant’s concubine in the hope of getting close enough to assassinate him. Her story is one of titanic inner turmoil, as she weighs her thirst for vengeance against an astonishing (and unforeseen) love for the man she intends to kill. It’s a testament to Kay’s masterful writing that the reader is able to sympathise not only with Tigana’s rebels (regardless of the atrocities they commit to reclaim their identity) but with Brandin as well. Through Dianora’s eyes he reveals a man who did a hateful thing in the name of love and loss.

While Kay (wisely) avoids equating Tigana’s struggle with that of a real-world analogue, there are obvious comparisons to be drawn, such as Nazi Germany’s suppression of Polish culture during the Second World War, or the Taliban’s wanton destruction of Petra’s fragile beauty, but perhaps the most pertinent of these is the West’s ongoing obliteration of Indigenous American culture. While Tigana doesn’t deign to offer a solution, it tells a rare and important story about those fighting to preserve their identity when the essence of who they are has been (or is being) stripped from them.

These reasons, I suspect, are why Tigana remains Kay’s most popular work, and arguably his most relevant.

Bloody Rose: The Band Book 2 by Nicholas Eames is out now from Orbit.