For this month’s recommendation I’m sticking with Historical Fantasy but Inges (2021) by British author John Brunsdon is set in a very different era from last month’s Regency Fantasy. A subtitle describes this novel as A Jacobean Tragedy of Murder Witchcraft Revenge and Cats and the title character is an imp in feline form. Already published are a full length sequel set in India, Inges & The Tyger (2021), and a related novella called Boye. Both the novels are available in paperback or as ebooks.

The story begins in Fewston, a village in Yorkshire, in the year 1621. The main narrator is an imp who has been living for the past nine years in the form of a black and white cat called Inges. Having no souls of their own, such imps bond with a particular human soul. As long as their Soul remains alive, an imp can go on being reborn. When he was a tiny kitten, Inges chose to bond with a young girl called Peg, the daughter of village Wise Woman and Healer, Maggie Waite. Maggie has her own `familiar’, a big black cat called Quin. The two imps don’t get on well but Inges is still horrified when Quin is murdered and fails to be reborn. This is just the start of a grim sequence of events.

A melancholy aristocratic poet called Edward Fairfax lives near the village with his family. When Edward’s youngest daughter falls ill, Maggie is called on to help but the baby still dies. Inges tries to console a female cat called Fillie who was bonded with this little girl. When a sinister figurine is found in the dead child’s room there are rumours of witchcraft being involved in the death. Inges gathers the local imps to investigate what is going on but they soon find themselves framed for attacks on the remaining Fairfax daughters. Maggie, Peg and several other equally innocent woman are accused of witchcraft and locked up in York Castle to await their trial. Inges is determined to save them by discovering who is behind the plot against them.

After a violent encounter with a mysterious blonde woman who seems to be one of the plotters, Inges travels to London. The only clue he has is a ring from the mystery woman’s finger engraved with the name George. Inges finds London a dangerous place but he is advised to seek the help of a Guild of Imps ruled over by a formidable and ancient cat known as The Mazger. This King of Cats and Master of All Imps, who lives in the sewers under the old Bridewell palace, eventually agrees to help Inges in his quest. Inges encounters some of the greatest men of the age, including a famous poet, a notorious nobleman, an archbishop with a secret and a king obsessed by fear of witchcraft. He discovers a plot more far-reaching and more terrible than he had ever imagined. The brave imp survives ferocious fights and devastating acts of treachery. Can Inges avenge evil crimes and save the humans he loves from a dreadful fate?

This is a complex book with an unusual structure. Inges himself tells most of the story but not all of it. You don’t often come across a novel with a chapter told from the point of view of a snail. There are also sections set further in the past which focus on the human world and show how a member of the Fairfax family affected the fates of two devoted sisters. In the early stages of the book, conceited Inges is an entertaining if somewhat confusing narrator who keeps going off on tangents. He is endearing when he tries to conceal his adoration for the beautiful Fillie and unconvincing when he claims to act only from selfish motives. At first he reminded me of other Fantasy works with demon narrators, such as Jonathan Stroud’s entertaining Bartimaeus series (see my Fantasy Reads post on The Golem’s Eye, September 2012) or some of the short stories of Nicholas Stuart Gray. The difference is that Inges develops into a fully rounded character with great intensity of feeling. This happens partly because Inges’ narrative is shaped by several different literary genres.

The early stages of the book seem to be influenced by folktales such as The Musicians of Bremen which feature clever animals as the main characters. Brunsdon writes accurately and amusingly about felines but not all imps become cats. Among the animal characters you will meet in Inges are a huge hound, a foolish but brave Indian bird, an optimistic frog, a gentle snail, a friendly plague rat and a pike who ferries fellow imps across the Thames. Initially there is plenty of humour in the efforts of a diverse group of animals to investigate events in the human world but tender-hearted readers should be warned that this is a novel with a high death-rate.

When naive country cat Inges arrives in London his adventures reminded me of those of young swordsman d’Artagnan in Dumas’ dashing historical novel, The Three Musketeers. Like d’Artagnan, Inges quickly makes some allies but doesn’t know who to trust in the big city or at court. In Inges’ case he has two royal courts to deal with – those of the human and feline kings – and both prove dangerous in unexpected ways. As the story progresses, Inges loses his innocence and becomes more like a character in a blood-soaked Jacobean revenge-drama. This novel has many of the gruesome ingredients of plays such as The White Devil and The Revenger’s Tragedy including seductive villainesses, murdered innocents, deranged rulers, complicated revenge-plots and the inventive use of poisons.

An Afterword makes it clear that a surprising amount of the plot of this Historical Fantasy is based on historical fact. The Fairfax family were real people. Charles Fairfax was killed in 1604 while fighting against the Spanish during the siege of Ostend. At this dark time it is important to say that Inges is a novel which stresses the horrors of war and the sufferings of civilians caught up in a conflict. Inges cannot understand why humans slaughter each other instead of just showing an enemy that he is beaten and letting him walk away as cats do.

Edward Fairfax wrote a pamphlet accusing a group of village women of witchcraft and even naming the animals he regarded as their Familiars. At this time, female Herbalists and Healers, women living alone with only pets for company and elderly women with dementia were all vulnerable to bizarre charges of witchcraft and the penalty was death. The Scottish government has just issued a belated apology for all the innocent women executed for practising witchcraft during the 17th century. Inges is a novel filled with violence, cruelty and wickedness and yet this is not a bleak or depressing read. Inges discovers a surprising amount of good within himself and others. Even in the Jacobean Period there were people who showed compassion towards women accused of witchcraft or bravely spoke up for them. Inges admits that some humans `might even have made good cats had fortune been kind enough to bless them with that incarnation.’ This eloquent feline imp is an appealing hero and I commend his adventures to you. Until next time…

Geraldine