The History Behind Crueler Mercies

Content warning for sexual violence, imprisonment, murder, and general historical violence

To say that I am “a history person” is a bit of an understatement. I studied it at university. I worked at a historic house and gave tours with stories that went back all the way to the Black Death. My favorite movies are period pieces, and my favorite podcasts are the ones that teach me about obscure events and people. I didn’t get the joke about men thinking about the Roman Empire for a hot minute because I am always thinking about the Roman Empire (but not, I’ve since learned, in the way that a lot of men are).

So when it came to writing a novel, there was really no way that history wouldn’t factor in somehow. All my favorite stories and bits of inspiration seem to come from various historical figures that I got a little too invested in at some point in my life, and it was inevitable that those would influence my writing.

Fellow history buffs will probably pick up on some of the inspirations as soon as they start reading, but for those who want to learn more, the figures and events who helped me shape this book are listed in the acknowledgements. I’ll include them here too, at least in part: Artemisia Gentileschi, a Baroque artist; Elizabeth I and Anne Boleyn, a daughter-mother pair who were both queens of England, though they met remarkably different fates; Ivan VI, the child-Tsar of Russia whose life was tragic until his death; Julius Caesar and Vercingetorix, two combatants on the opposite sides of a siege; and [REDACTED].

I am redacting the last figure because I’ve given away enough spoilers about the book in using Artemisia Gentileschi’s art, and the last name would spoil much of the rest of the ending if you’re familiar with that person’s story. But you can find the name in the acknowledgements with all the others when you’re done!

So how do they all fit into Vita’s story, and what is there to know about these figures?

Artemisia Gentileschi

The rest of these will be introduced in the order they “appear” in the story, but Artemisia’s impact—while technically coming in only at the very end of the book—actually starts right from the beginning. Without her art, I never would have come up with the initial concept, and there would be no Vita to share with everyone.

Artemisia Gentileschi—born in 1593—was the daughter of Italian artist Orazio Gentileschi. She learned much of her skills in her father’s workshop, being very inspired by both her father and Caravaggio. As a young woman, a fellow artist who was working alongside her father raped Artemisia. This eventually went to trial, which was rather uncommon at the time, and the man was convicted, though not before thumb screws were used on Artemisia during her testimony to see if she was telling the truth.

This attack and the trial that followed impacted much of the rest of Artemisia’s life. As her talents rose in the esteem of potential clients, she started painting many mythological and biblical scenes that featured women attacking (or being attacked by) men. Often, the women in her paintings were modeled after herself, and she painted several self portraits.

That’s the context behind her Judith paintings, which were the inspiration for Crueler Mercies. If you want absolutely no spoilers going into your read, skip the following paragraph! Though I think the amount of times we used the painting as book promo probably means that many of you have already seen it.

SKIP FOR NO SPOILERS: Artemisia painted Judith and her maidservant six different times, both during and after everything with Holofernes, though my favorite of them is, of course, Judith Slaying Holofernes. If you google it, you’ll see a really stunning image: three figures dramatically lit on a bed as though they’re in a stage play (the dramatic lighting is incredibly emblematic of Italian Baroque art, for anyone who might want to get better at identifying artistic movements). Holofernes, the dangerous enemy general in the Biblical story, tries to fight off the two women attacking him, but Judith has already tricked him into getting drunk, and now she and her maid are going to kill him. It’s a very different style compared to how male artists of the time painted Judith—in theirs, she’s often shown as almost removed from the violence, despite the fact that she’s quite literally beheading someone. But Artemisia doesn’t shy away from letting both women be active in the scene. It’s bloody, and gruesome, and disgusting. I’ve been obsessed with it since the first time I saw it. (It’s accurately bloody, too, because Artemisia was able to use the newly-understood parabolic pathway of projectiles as studied by Galileo to make her spurts of blood move through space in a more realistic way than, say, Caravaggio’s).

So naturally, the three figures in the painting became the basis for my three main characters. One protagonist, one love interest, and one antagonist. The violence of the scene was my end goal, and since I knew I definitely wasn’t the right person to write a Biblical retelling, I had to shape them into their own people with their own motivations. So with an ending in mind, I had to take a step back and ask myself: how do you get a person to this point? What all has to happen to them to make this ending feel earned? If I knew where her character arc ended, how could I start it in such a starkly different place that she’d have to go through some crazy development to get her where I wanted her?

Self-Portrait as the Allegory of Painting, Artemisia Gentileschi (Royal Collection, Windsor Castle)

[I have intentionally not included Judith Slaying Holofernes, as mentioned in the piece. This is so Frens can avoid spoilers if they want.]

Elizabeth I and Ivan VI

I had two figures in mind when I decided that she had to start at the lowest possible point of her life: Elizabeth I and Ivan VI.

Elizabeth’s story is well-known to most, but we don’t often talk about her before she was England’s Gloriana. Sure, sure, you’ve got the Elizabethan Age and Shakespeare and the Spanish Armada, but what about when she was a child? Elizabeth was only a toddler when her mother, the infamous Anne Boleyn, fell from her father Henry VIII’s favor and was subsequently accused of some truly heinous things so that he could execute her and try again with a third wife.

If you’ve read the back cover text of Crueler Mercies, you’ll find that the setup sounds pretty similar to this. I was struck by what it was like to be the child of two notorious figures like Anne and Henry, having no say in what happens to you and how aggressively your fortunes can change in a matter of days. Henry was great at loving his children until he didn’t anymore, and when little Elizabeth fell from her father’s favor, it was obvious even to her.

The other figure who inspired me had an even sadder life, but you're going to need to forget everything I just said about Elizabeth Tudor, because this story has an Elizabeth too.

Ivan VI was a Russian Tsar, though he was only a few months old when he came to power. He was chosen to take over not because he was next in line, but because the dying empress who reigned before him was hoping that her lover would be able to serve as a regent while Ivan was still a child (this did not end up working and the lover was sent to Siberia).

A little over a year into his “reign”, Ivan was overthrown by a relative who was the direct descendant of Peter the Great. The new Empress Elizabeth had baby Ivan separated from his family and locked away. He was heavily guarded and kept secret, as Elizabeth did not want anyone to be able to free him and make him a puppet that could be used to steal power from her. Still, she didn’t kill him, perhaps seeing this half-life as an act of mercy.

He grew up in solitary confinement through his childhood and into early adulthood. He was never educated beyond being able to read the Bible. Though he seems to have never been deemed outright crazy by his guards, such an upbringing would impact someone cognitively in myriad ways.

When Empress Elizabeth died and Catherine the Great came to power (after some struggles with her husband, but that’s not the story we’re here for), Catherine kept the orders the same. It was understood by everyone who guarded him that if anyone except Catherine herself ever tried to free Ivan, he was to be immediately killed.

Unfortunately for Ivan, who had been a pawn as a baby and a prisoner all his life, one more person would indeed try to use him. Vasily Mirovich, upon learning that Ivan VI was still alive and where to find him, decided to free Ivan and make him emperor again (at which point Vasily, naturally, would gain quite a lot of power). When he tried to free the young man, the guards followed their orders and murdered Ivan. He was 23 when he died.

It’s not a happy story at all—not at any stage. A lot of people have compared Vita’s early life to that of Rapunzel, which is a comparison I’ve also made myself at times. But in a lot of ways, she is Ivan if Ivan’s story could have had a different ending.

Portrait of Elizabeth I in her coronation robes, Unknown English artist, (National Portrait Gallery)

Portrait of the Emperor of Russia Ivan VI Antonovich, Unknown artist (State Open-air Museum Oranienbaum)

Julius Caesar and Vercingetorix

When I started developing Vita’s story, I knew that it was going to center a war. One of the characters is a general, and Vita’s role as a political pawn really can’t be more starkly shown than by an attempt for someone to use her position to steal the throne. But for all my love of history, I’ve never been a military historian or even all that interested in war. I love learning about why wars start and what the consequences are after, but the middle bit—the actual battles and troop movements—have never interested me all that much. Certainly I’m no tactician, and I would struggle to write something believable from scratch.

So I took a note from my fantasy forefathers and decided to pick a historical siege that I could base the events of my story around. And that’s how I landed on the Battle of Alesia.

I won’t go into the gritty details of Alesia here, in part because I’d just be rehashing the book you’re hopefully going to read, and also because I don’t think I could write it as interestingly here in a few hundred words as I’ve hopefully managed to do in the book. But Alesia was a fascinating battle between two equally fascinating leaders. Caesar led Rome’s army against the Gauls who were, at the time, united under the leadership of Vercingetorix in defending their territory. This was pretty unusual, as the various tribes were often at odds with each other, which had made the early years of the Gallic Wars much easier for Caesar, as he didn’t have to fight against a united front. The siege required massive amounts of infrastructure-building, and yet it seems to have ended quite quickly (I’ve seen lengths as short as two weeks, which I can never quite wrap my head around, which is why it takes months in my version).

In the end, Vercingetorix’s attempt to unite the tribes of Gaul came too late, and the Romans won the day (and, consequently, the Gallic Wars). Much of what we now consider France fell to Julius Caesar. Vercingetorix surrendered and was imprisoned for six years before being executed by strangling at a triumph in Caesar’s honor. It was because of his victory at Alesia that Caesar was able to amass the wealth and manpower to eventually cross the Rubicon and take Rome for himself.

Because I’m not able to talk much about the actual battle here, I will say one thing: I had a really interesting time trying to understand what a siege would look like from the perspective of a non-combatant. Vita has no training and certainly wouldn’t function as a soldier, so she experiences the siege through a unique perspective. Much of it is remarking on the horrors of war: the sounds, the smells, the burning of bodies and the illnesses that go around camp. She focuses on starvation, and death, and what we lose to war. This was not my first time attempting to write a battle, but it was the first time that I was seeing it through the eyes of someone who, frankly, was as lost in that setting as I am.

Vercingetorix throws down his arms at the feet of Julius Caesar, Lionel Royer (Musée Crozatier)

[Redacted]

Okay, so I can’t tell you anything about this last one. But I promise, the final historical figure is a badass, and you’re going to want to look them up after reading Crueler Mercies!

WTF...that's weird.

Crueler Mercies

In the end, I had a lot of great inspirations for the plot of Crueler Mercies. I often joke that coming up with this story was like putting my favorite parts of history into a blender and seeing what type of character came out as a result. Vita is very much a product of the historical figures I had in mind while creating her. I put her through a lot in this book (as evidenced by the stories I just made you all read), and I took writing her trauma and her eventual comeuppance very seriously.

At the time of writing this post, there is still time to snag the paperback of Crueler Mercies before publication day on June 3rd wherever books are sold OR to get the special edition hardcover at a discount directly from Bindery (code: BINDERYINSIDER). The Crueler Mercies audiobook is also available for preorder now exclusively from Audible.

Thanks for reading, Frens! I love to chat history, so if you have any questions or want to learn more, feel free to leave a comment.

Maren ◡̈