#d.k. broster

[sanguinarysanguinity]

FTH Charity Auction - Flight of the Heron and other D.K. Broster Novels

For those unfamiliar, @fandomtrumpshate is a fandom charity auction that attempts to counteract some of the harms of the current presidential administration. (And lord knows there's a lot of harm to redress!)

I'm offering fic for various D.K. Broster novels:

The Flight of the Heron | Jacobite Trilogy

The Wounded Name

"Mr. Rowl"

...or another novel of your choice!

I'm offering shipping and gen, for any pairing or triad I've written before. (If there's another set of characters you're interested in, please contact me to discuss; I'm open to a lot more than just the ones I've already written. I'm also open to dubcon ships like Keith/Guthrie: again, please contact me to discuss.)

Supported causes include trans rights, disability rights, immigrant rights, voting rights, libraries, Gaza, and more. Please see the complete list of supported organizations, including which nonprofits accept international donations.

$15 minimum bid for 2K words $50 minimum bid for 7K words

Sanguinity's auction listing

Bidding opens Tuesday March 3rd, and closes Saturday March 7th.

If there's a particular story you've been hoping to see from me, please consider bidding! Feel free to contact me if you have any questions; my email is on the listing, but I'm also happy to answer replies, asks, and dms here on tumblr.

Signal boosts are very much appreciated!

(And please forgive the coming spam about this; I'm offering three fandoms, and will be doing a promo post for each one.)

[surreysmum]

Am I alone in having sought out from early teenhood books - not shows, not movies but books - to feed my at first innocent if insatiable hunger for stories about men being brave and idealistic and affectionate and generally closer than brothers? Just me?

It was D.K. Broster's The Flight of the Heron that set me on that path, in about 1970 or so. I swear if she were writing today instead of in the 1920s and 1930s, she would have been highly celebrated in slashfic circles.

Who or what caught you in the net that's never let you go?

[cakehorse]

“Years ago,” he said reflectively, “when I was a younger man, I used to know a lady—the most beautiful, I think, whom I have ever met in my life. Perhaps you can guess whom I mean? . . . I did not know when you brought me the despatch at Perth, Major Windham, that Lady Stowe was your mother; I have learnt it since. It would give me pleasure to extend to her son a trifle of help at a crisis in his fortunes.—No, say no more about it, Windham; ’tis but the payment of a debt to Beauty, who allowed unreproved worship at her shrine!”

- The Flight of the Heron, by D.K. Broster

Keith Windham's mother is a MILF

[verecunda]

Ewen pulled his bonnet lower on his brows, and, bending his head against the sleety blast, set his face with the rest towards the fatal stretch of moorland, the last earthly landscape that many a man there would ever see. But over that possibility he was not troubling himself; he was wondering whether it were possible to be much hungrier, and what his foster-brothers would do when they returned and found him gone into battle without them. And like a litany he repeated to himself, to be sure that he remembered them aright, the directions Mac Dhomhnuill Duibh had given him: 'Half-way up the southern slope of Beinn Bhreac, about a hundred paces to the right of the waterfall...' Just as they were all taking up their positions, a gleam of sun shot through the heavy, hurrying clouds and fell bright upon the moving tartans, Stewart and Cameron, Fraser, Mackintosh, Maclean, and MacDonald, lighting too the distant hills of Ross across the firth, whence Cromarty came not, and the high ground over the Nairn water on the other hand, where Cluny Macpherson was hurrying towards them with his clan, to arrive too late. Then the gleam went out, and the wind howled anew in the faces of those who should spend themselves to death unavailingly, and those who should hold back for a grudge; it fluttered plaid and tugged at eagle's feather and whipped about him the cloak of the young man for whom the flower of the North stood here to be slain; and faint upon it, too, came now and then the kettledrums of Cumberland's advance.

The Flight of the Heron, D.K. Broster

[sanguinarysanguinity]

Skygiants on Dreamwidth just wrote a GLORIOUS review of D.K. Broster's The Wounded Name: "without exaggeration, perhaps the gayest and most dramatic thing I have ever read."

The review is a delight, as is the book, and I absolutely recommend both.

[sanguinarysanguinity]

In all Lochaber—perhaps in all the Western Highlands—there was no more bored or disgusted man this sixteenth of August than Captain Keith Windham of the Royal Scots, as he rode down the Great Glen with a newly-raised company of recruits from Perth; and no more nervous or unhappy men than the recruits themselves.

— D.K. Broster, The Flight of the Heron

[verecunda]

'Good God!' exclaimed the Englishman aloud; and calling out at the top of his voice 'Stop! stop!' he drove the spurs into his horse, came slithering down the last part of the slope, raced towards the shieling, leapt off, and holding up his hand - but all faces were now turned towards him - ran in between the already levelled muskets and Ewen Cameron.

HE JUST. STRAIGHT-UP FLUNG HIMSELF. BODILY. BETWEEN EWEN AND A FIRING SQUAD. I AM YELLING.

[sanguinarysanguinity]

Meanwhile, to Keith’s surprise, the horseman sprang to earth, flung the reins to his henchman, and came forward empty-handed—a magnificent specimen of young manhood, as the soldier could not help admitting. “I advise you to surrender, sir,” he said courteously, lifting his bonnet, in which were fastened two eagle’s feathers. “I am sorry to take advantage of an injured man, but I have my Chief’s orders. You are completely cut off, and moreover your men are all prisoners—indeed Captain Scott is at this moment in Lochiel’s custody. If you will give up your sword I shall be honoured to take you into mine.” “The deuce you will!” exclaimed Keith, secretly astonished at the polish of his manner—a man who wore a plaid! “And who are you, pray?” “Cameron of Ardroy,” answered the young man. “Lochiel’s second cousin,” he added. “I don’t care whose second cousin you are, Mr. Cameron of Ardroy,” returned Captain Windham to this, “but if you think that you are going to have my sword for the asking, you and your cut-throat there, you are vastly mistaken!” For provided—but it was a big proviso—that the two did not rush upon him at once he thought that he could deal with each separately. Splendidly built as this young Highlander was, lean too, and, doubtless, muscular, he probably knew no more of swordplay than was required to wield that heavy basket-hilted weapon of his, and Captain Windham himself was a good swordsman. Yes, provided Lochiel’s second cousin did not use the pistol that he wore (which so far he had made no motion to do) and provided that the wolf-like person remained holding the horse . . . “Come on and take me,” he said provocatively, flourishing his sword. “You are not afraid, surely, of a lame man!” And he pointed with it to the rough staff at his feet. Under his tan the large young Highlander seemed to flush slightly. “I know that you are lame; and your forehead is cut. You had a fall; I came upon your dead horse. That is why I do not wish to fight you. Give up your sword, sir; it is no disgrace. We are two to one, and you are disabled. Do not, I pray you, constrain me to disable you further!” Hang the fellow, why did he behave so out of his cateran’s rôle? “You are considerate indeed!” retorted Captain Windham mockingly. “Suppose you try first whether you can disable me further!—Now, Mr. Cameron, as I don’t intend to be stopped on my road by mere words, I must request you to stand out of my way!” And—rashly, no doubt, since in so doing he no longer had one eye on that murderous-looking gillie—he advanced sword in hand upon his reluctant opponent. Frowning, and muttering something under his breath, the young man with the eagle’s feathers at last drew his own weapon, and the blades rang together.

D.K. Broster, The Flight of the Heron