Fortune’s Price, the sequel to my first novel Small Acts of Kindness, was published last week.
The book’s action commences in the summer of 1830, a time when Russia experienced an uprising in the Kingdom of Poland and the arrival from the east of a cholera epidemic. The main characters, many of whom the reader will know from the previous book, are fated to interact with these major historic events while confronting their own personal issues.
The Polish revolt was stimulated by the July Days, an uprising in France which toppled the Bourbon monarchy. This event ignited a series of popular revolts across Europe, disturbing the settlement achieved at the Congress of Vienna in 1814. In Poland, Russia’s failure to allow the Poles to exercise previously agreed liberties had upset liberals for some time, and at the end of November 1830 a group of young soldiers rose up against the Tsar of Russia, who was also the King of Poland. War was swiftly declared and, after a chaotic and irresolute campaign, the insurrection was finally put down in the early autumn of 1831.
Not much attention was initially paid in Russia to the spread of cholera, until it started to threaten the towns on the Volga, and ultimately Moscow and beyond. Very little was understood about the causes of the disease and how it spread, which led to panic and rioting among the people and heavy-handed responses from the authorities. The government struggled with what measures should be taken and society was swamped by conspiracy theories leading to civil unrest.
When researching these events I dug into the historical sources available, using both personal memoirs of eyewitnesses and also more general histories. The latter included an exhaustive (and exhausting) diplomatic history of post-congress Poland which, for the benefit of the reader, I hope I have managed to condense into a few hundred words. More lively were the relevant parts of General Orlov’s 1880 history of The Saint Petersburg Grenadiers, later renamed for the King of Prussia, a regiment that fought with distinction in the Polish war.
The family drama that is central to Fortune’s Price is of course fictional, but the issues of legitimacy, heredity, nobility and religion on which it touches were matters of great importance in early 19th Century Russia. The difference in life expectations experienced by people of different status and rank was very stark. Only legitimate members of the nobility were allowed to own land and serfs; they were exempt from taxation and the officer ranks of the army and civil service were in general exclusively open to them. Contentious matters were decided by the courts, but the Emperor, as supreme autocrat, had the power to overrule their decisions and often did so, although as time went on they became increasingly reluctant to exercise this prerogative.
Although I have tried hard to ensure the book’s historical accuracy, like its predecessor Fortune’s Price, it is above all intended to entertain. I hope to transport the readers to a different time and place and to keep them turning the pages until the end. I also hope that they will learn something new, since the book depicts events in Poland and Russia that are not particularly well known in the UK and also have some resonance today.
Primarily to be read for pleasure, Fortune’s Price does have an underlying message, and the clue is in the title. Having worked in the City of London for many years, I know that wealth and status seldom come without strings attached, and the question therefore arises as to how far people will compromise to attain their desires. It seems in fact that generally there is no such thing as a free lunch.
Fortune’s Price is available now from the publisher, The Book Guild, and from all good bookshops. An electronic version is available on Amazon.