Audio
Adventures in Time and Space #35
The Quality
of Mercy
written by
David A. McIntee
Okay, so
another one of these. In this case the minor non-BBC owned aspect BBV
are working with is Guy de Carnac, a Templar Knight and one-off love
interest of Bernice Summerfield from the novel Sanctuary
which even when this was made was five years or more out of print. I
haven;t read Sanctuary in
years and I'm pretty sure Guy dies at the end but, well, retcons are
a thing and here we are: the further adventures if Guy de Carnac that
I can't imagine anyone was clamouring for but here we are.
If
I seemed down on this series yesterday its because I had fond
memories of these releases that I Scream
didn't live up to. Happily, The Quality of Mercy
was a better production all round. It had none of the off-putting
straight to listener narration or lack of ambient sound that made I
Scream such a slog. In fact, it
made a good impression straight off with a Gregorian chant intro,
church bells and neighing horses to set the scene.
Its
Crusades o'clock and Guy de Carnac is a former Templar knight
wandering darkest Mummerset in search of a farrier. He comes to a town which
is awaiting an inquisitor to question a strange man who fell from the
sky and speaks no known language. As a well-traveled man and servant
of God, Guy is asked to look in on the stranger who he judges to be
neither angel nor demon but simply a man, a sailor from some strange
and unknown land.
The
inquisitor, when he arrives, is naturally a lot more cynical. He's no
as bloodthirsty as the stereotype would have it because this is David
A. McIntee writing and he does a lot of historical research. The
inquisitor is still the villain of the piece and he has less than
pure motivations but he doesn't start torturing people out of boredom
or anything like that.
Thankfully,
the debate over who or what the sailor from the sky is doesn't form
the whole mystery of the story. I say thankfully because anyone
paying even minimal attention can tell instantly that he's an alien
and no amount of listening to Guy and the inquisitor trying to puzzle
that out with their literally medieval frame of reference is going to
make that carry an entire hour. Its made clear early on that Guy is
no longer a Templar and the reasons for his expulsion are made a
central mystery of the story even as he tries to discover the truth
behind the sailor. Guy has a good line in theological debate even if
it is mainly to convince people that the way he wants to do things is
the way God intended. I'm also interested that Guy's complex attitude
towards Christianity (though not towards God, it seems) is presented
as quite morally neutral, neither a reason to condemn him or a reason
to lionise him which is an unusual attitude for an author to take.
As
it happens this was the sole Guy de Carnac story BBV produced before
the Audio Adventures ended but it does make me want to revisit
Sanctuary now I have a
voice to apply to the character.
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