Amethyst. Concept for an historical Romance Novel
by Anita Sands Hernandez

Once upon a time, (515 A.D.,) a little girl was born in Italy, (the land God loved so much for its beauty that he gave it two summers, one of a few places in Ancient Europe where you could plant in Autumn and Spring!) She is blonde, pale with enormous and unique purple eyes, so VERY BEAUTIFUL. She lives with adoring peasant parents tending animals, planting, on the coast where fishermen work small bays and farmers on the hills plant grapes, olives and jasmine. It is a land so wealthy that Pirates attack regularly. One day,  strategies fail and Amethyst's  mother and father are taken as slaves but she is a lucky orphan, fed by a family who later gives her to the Catholic Priest when he comes to town for his weekly church service. She will be raised by the early Catholic Church, the nuns at a Convent.
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I think of Anna Nicole when I see her in my mind's eye. Not the brightest candle in the box but the nuns at the Convent like her, teach her to cook, educate her in Christian catechism, church mythology, reading and writing. Later Amethyst will say that even the dumbest child can become a genius it there are teachers near ---referring  to the nuns then later to Father Benedictus himself.

A young novitiate, Cora, the lowliest housemaid of the Convent adopts Amethyst as a 'younger sister' but cannot protect the child all the time. There's a horror of an event (at the hands of  a pedophile priest) but it's an ill wind that blows no good as this creates her meeting Father BENEDICTUS, the top Catholic functionary in the region. BENEDICTUS is making an inquiry into the allegations of a pedophile burrowing into the Mother Church. The child is the witness. Benedictus sends the hinky priest away. She cannot stay at the monastery. Benedictus sends her back to the Convent and sends monks to instruct her. He visits occasionally.

Gradually the old man and his monks educate Amethyst in things beyond soup making & catechism. He wakes her to the realities of the  world outside, the dark heart of mankind which only the Church can reform. he teaches her geography, history, world politics and in later chapters, as she nears puberty, the art of birth control, figuring that she will in her lifetime be coveted and assaulted.

Benedictus' presence as much as his teachings, changes her. At first it makes her audacious, but soon reverent of knowledge, then preoccupied with and for the WORLD.  So by mid book, when Amethyst  ends up in Constantinople with Justinian chasing after her, and Empress Theodora wanting to MURDER her, the girl handles herself well. Theodora realizes that her target victim is a conspicuous Christian. Theodora  posed as a Christian and knows she cannot with blood on her hands so she tries in covert ways.

I see the character of Amethyst as Anna Nicole Smith as I began work just as she died and that week, I was also working on an article about  535 AD, the year of the VOLCANO  which for three years after darkened the entire earth --- creating failed crops, famine, plague, wars and the death of half the population along with the fall of empires everywhere ---courtesy of history's biggest volcanic eruption.

I somehow put that together with JUSTINIAN as these events lined up with the Great Lawgiver, same years. I wondered what girl, and Anna Nicole's face came to me but as I meditated on that, I saw a huge AMETHYST... I don't know why but I saw a raised purple/violet gem on the book cover, a single faceted jewel done in bas relief. That is when I gave the character a name. I am so HOLLYWOOD that if that's where I start, ---writers have started with less, perhaps. The combo of visions was very evocative for me (being Aquarius) and that being my birthstone, one which supposedly  protects against drunkenness, of the Dark ages.

While I'd like to put Anna Nicole  herself into "THE PLEIADES"  my epic HOLLYWOOD novel, I thought I could borrow parts of her to do the Amethyst character right. She should be the kind of dumb-as-a-ditch-carp  the Blonde so dumb she's smart ----- like other heroines of historical ROMANCES, a FRANK YERBY type girl, FOREVER AMBER but.....sent by Benedictus to nail the Kings of that day.

I loved historical romances as a teen and when I try to think of the periods I'd write about, the time of Justinian, the early dark ages has appeal as this huge, apocalyptic planetary disaster occurred then.

Several thinkers /writers of that period have endured: BENEDICTUS the monk who founded the Benedictine order (first monastery ever) JUSTINIAN the Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire and the great law giver. PROCOPIUS the emperor's Boswell, and an ad hoc Historian.

Benedictus lived three miles high in a remote monastery in MONTECASSINO ITALY, the other two men in CONSTANTINOPLE.  This was the period of the big KRAKATOA volcano going off, which darkened earth for l8 mos, killing most humans of disease or starvation. Enabling the plague bacillus to get started and the catholic religion to really play on people's guilts and get them to join the Church and be protected from Satan. While the plot of AMETHYST doesn't have the actual, dramatic standard Christian story line of "THE ROBE, "BEN HUR, I look on the bright side. The dark ages haven't been done much, right? I love them and I'm fascinated by that one single event, Earth's LIGHTS being punched out.

So I see AMETHYST's dramatic childhood, some church pedophile after her and the humble housemaid Cora as her companion, later the Monk BENEDICTUS who accurately reads her future and teaches her how to be a citizen of the world at this isolated first monastery, three miles high in the sky. Reason so high? The monks rec'd tithe crops from many lowland villages where they sent their priests to give Mass.. They did not need to till the soil. Pirates were frequent, so being a lowlander was dangerous. Pirates learned new tricks all the time for surprising the villagers to capture more slaves. So the Montecasino mountain peak was remote, dependable and secure.

In early chapters, Benedictus tells the little girl Christian morality tales, Bible tales, Greek mythology. "The stone AMETHYST protects from drunkenness, he says. Have you ever been dizzy from wine? Yes, she replies. "The people will tell you drinking wine is safer than water, but they only argue that to defend drunkenness. They die at thirty, livers swollen. There is something pernicious in the fermenting of fruit. There are many kinds of inebriation,  --foremost is that of the intoxicating love by a mother for the new born child. Do you know why God placed that there, or how? The parable of the First mother, who ate her newborn child. God thought up the breast and when the child nursed, the mother fell in love and that infant she kept and cherished and served.

"Then, there is the drunken passion to possess the beautiful.. That joy comes from fine clothing, jewels and the gold that buys them. There is a third kind of drunkenness, the most prevalent of all, passion for the beauty of a lover, which man's lower nature turns quickly to insatiable lust". No man can protect himself from that flame if it starts for it starts as a bonfire. Not a spark. You must learn to keep that spark out of your mind. Many men will see your purple eyes and fall into false love with you. I could give you lessons on how to test a man's character if I thought you would marry. But You have the line of teaching." He takes her palm. So for you, the tricks to develop your inner unity, resist the temptation to burn and breed. Never cross that line.. "Where there's dualism there's the devil. When there's purity within, you cannot be attracted by all the flitting impulses, the ones that start in youth, before romantic love." Which are they?" The joy in being admired. She looks up at him. "Seeking admiration is a kind of addictive narcotic you know. Do you? " She isn't sure. "Do the other children know that I teach you?" "Yes." "Do they admire you for that? " Yes." Do you feel pride?" "Yes, I do.". "Well, Pride is a kind of drunkenness, Amethyst. You can choose to feed it or eliminate it."

 "You see, If there are impurities in you, like these iron filings. Unseen forces work on you. He puts a magnet near them and they slide across the parchment". They even are ruled from beneath. He puts the magnet under the paper. You cannot obey things coming from the outside! Instead be immune, direct yourself from the inside, here--' he touches her forehead. Using a language she understands, he teachers the girl great lessons, spiritual as well as practical. By age 14, she's taller than he is and luminous like a diamond. He realizes she will be stolen one day, so he might as well prepare her. He begins to teach her the four main languages of the Mediterranean: Punic/Hebrew of the Phoenician traders; Latin spoken in all Christian countries, even those where French or Greek were the main languages.

"Will I see these places?" she asks. "Yes, you will be carried to all of them which is what pirates do in an attempt to sell you for the highest price. The pirates will take you to Kings, one after the other seeking your bridal price. I doubt that you can teach these tyrants the spiritual lessons that you've learned, but every beautiful girl gets to demand her price. You can do one thing, demand that a King create Law and that the Law reflect what the Nuns and my monks have taught you. The Laws of the Hebrews, the ten commandments.  Man's Law must reflect God's law. That's all you have to do, carry that message and carry it to every King. You will be offered to ambitious, passionate men as a toy. You must place an obstacle to their possessing your heart, a payment price. You turn away your mouth until they listen and do what you want them to do.

Important, he has the nuns teach her birth control, vinegar on a sea sponge. Later, he says to her "having a child by any man will stop you right where you are. You will become like the lowest housemaid at that point. You want to be like Sister Cora? for life? Dumping chamber pots? Have a baby and you will happily dump pots the rest of your life.Be a goddess you will change the world.

So jump cut a few years; She is eighteen, she is returned to the village of her birth. Benedictus was right; Amethyst is  taken by Phoenician pirates carried to many Kings,  (following routes through different Mediterranean countries/ adventures along the way) as the Pirates make various stops, trying to get top dollar for her?)

CONSTANTINOPLE: Queen Theodora is the toughest whore from a Turkish Bordello that the world has ever seen. http://www.isidore-of-seville.com/justinian/3.html

PROCOPIUS was Schlesinger to the Emperor Justinian. He  wrote up his multi decade stint, all the palace gossip, (see the chapter above) especially telling all on THEODORA. He  loathed & despised her, said she was a peasant street slut, murderess who'd killed many courtiers out of sheer malice.

The monster EMPRESS is jealous of Amethyst and say to her privately. "You have no chance. Whatever I ask, he does." She sends Amethyst away and Amethyst's servant goes out with her. The canny servant says "Mistress, she has said that The Emperor is entirely hers." Amethyst shakes her head. She may have said that but here's what I heard. What she really told me was, 'that Justinian has the capacity to be a woman's slave. That means to any master or mistress. This mighty Emperor does all she asks. well then, he will do all that I ask him. He will be my slave. No slave in a household belongs to just one mistress. A slave serves many. I will demand unique favors, " she says, thinking of what Benedictus has instructed her to do when he let her loose.

Amethyst makes good on her word and when she is close to the Great Law Giver, she may even suggest a few of those new laws that he did which are reputed to have favored slave against owner, vassal against lord, etc. The very first civil rights on the planet Earth.

This is a pitch, a query from Authoress ANITA SANDS HERNANDEZ,whose RESUME  is here.