On Writing The Widow and the King
"A man came among the mountains..."
A feud between father and son is the ultimate evil, the state of absolute despair. The man must destroy the only part of himself that could endure. It is not a thing from which he can release himself by forgiving his son. The act of forgiving is too great a surrender. He cannot escape his fate by himself. How then can he be saved?
This sub-plot, with which the novel opens, illustrates the working of evil in this world - by a bitter, self-nourishing cycle of temptation, betrayal and violence. The story tests various responses to this evil. The Widow embodies one such answer. Violence, of course, is another. Neither succeed. Ambrose's quest is to find the answer that will.
The Widow and The King is an unintended sequel. I hadn't planned that there should be one. But I finished The Cup of the World with a prophecy (a necessary device, at the time). Prophecies are powerful things. They demand that their story be told. They tell you what will happen, but they do not tell you how or why. That's for the writer, and the reader, to find out.
And yes, this book too finishes with a prophecy, of sorts. I just couldn't help it.
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