Character Profile: Braeden

I recently realized that I’ve written character profiles for characters that don’t have a POV. Or at least they don’t right now. I’m having serious second thoughts about Teodora as usual, the troublesome bitch. But anyway, I thought I’d get back to the main people. Kendryk and Gwynneth represent one side of this conflict, while Braeden represents the other. He’s a mercenary currently fighting for Empress Teodora. He’d not a big fan, but soldiers for hire don’t have to like their employers; they just have to get paid.

Braeden has had a difficult and somewhat unusual background that I can’t really give away right now, but suffice it to say, he had some good luck making friends and is currently a high-ranking officer and the right-hand man of Prince Novitny, the commander of the Sanova Hussars. I was forced to create the Sanova Hussars when my research reminded me of the famous Winged Hussars of Poland and Hungary, some of the most effective heavy cavalry of the early modern period.

Mostly, they just look amazingly cool, and the fact that they were virtually unbeatable was pretty cool, too. Plus, one of the more thrilling memories of my childhood reading was James Michener’s account of Polish king Jan Sobieski leading the winged hussars to victory against the Turks during the 1693 siege of Vienna. I was about to say that Michener’s Poland is good fun for those who love historical fiction, but fun is probably the wrong word to apply to any part of Polish history, which probably ranks right up there with Ireland in having an extra, super-tragic history.. Anyway, it’s worth a read.

So, back to Braeden. Because of the bad-assedness of the Sanova Hussars, defeat in battle is never very high on his list of worries. But he has others- never fear! Many of them involve women, naturally. So far, my book is terribly short on romance, and the idea was that Braeden would pick up some of the slack. So far, he’s been highly uncooperative. He just recently met a very bad girl, who is frankly, bad for everyone, and after he survives that interaction (this early in the story, you know he’s got to!), Teodora takes up a lot of his time, but not necessarily in a good way. He gets to enjoy looking at Gwynneth, but only from a distance, so that’s a dead end. I already know that some of you lot are cheering on the adorable Franca, but I fear his feelings toward her will remain paternal for now. So see, romance is hard to come by in these times.

Because of his proximity to Teodora for much of the story, Braeden is my window into the workings of the court. He’s also going to be in a position to make interesting observations about, well, other stuff that’s important. And he’s going to become vitally important to another character. Geez, trying to describe his role without giving anything away isn’t so easy. I’d better just get this book done.

You can read little bits and pieces about Braeden here, and on the Weekend Writing Warriors page…

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