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Wild Labyrinth
The Feast of the Swans – May, 1306 - Westminster
In an extravagant knighting ceremony, old King Edward prepares a new army to march on Scotland – charged with wreaking revenge on Robert the Bruce. For Lady Illesa Burnel, there’s little pleasure in watching her son knighted simply to become fodder for the battlefield. But amongst the revellers at the feast is a mercurial stranger who resembles a long-lost friend. In the days that follow, a sequence of fateful decisions drives Illesa, and all her family, to the brink of ruin.
Meanwhile in Hereford, the creator of one of the greatest maps in Christendom is planning a subversive pilgrimage. When their paths cross, he and Illesa begin a journey of twists and turns, down strange, dark paths, not knowing what adversary they might meet at the centre of their labyrinth.
Inspired by the Mappa Mundi of Hereford Cathedral, this final book in the Arrowsmith Trilogybrings the reader into its world of marvels and monsters, heights and depths, redemption and damnation.
"Kate Innes is a writer soaked in the thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries. If you opened up her head you’d find medieval stories, illustrations, songs, days punctuated by hours of Christian prayer, clothing, food, drink, mud, blood and smells. And the still recognizable Herefordshire country.
But Wild Labyrinth is no mere retelling of what happened in history. From out of her scholarly material Innes’s imagination has created a crowd of characters from all layers of life, their individual mindsets wholly believable, their adventures well-paced, compelling the reader forward.
What seems at first like an extra character, the marvellous Mappa Mundi, with its mysterious and subversive mapmaker, appears in small, occasional interpolations to the main text. Gradually, the mapmaker’s own story weaves its way in until, in the penultimate chapter, it left me in tears.
This is work of the highest creative historical imagination. A wonderful book." Alix Nathan - author of 'The Warlow Experiment'
In an extravagant knighting ceremony, old King Edward prepares a new army to march on Scotland – charged with wreaking revenge on Robert the Bruce. For Lady Illesa Burnel, there’s little pleasure in watching her son knighted simply to become fodder for the battlefield. But amongst the revellers at the feast is a mercurial stranger who resembles a long-lost friend. In the days that follow, a sequence of fateful decisions drives Illesa, and all her family, to the brink of ruin.
Meanwhile in Hereford, the creator of one of the greatest maps in Christendom is planning a subversive pilgrimage. When their paths cross, he and Illesa begin a journey of twists and turns, down strange, dark paths, not knowing what adversary they might meet at the centre of their labyrinth.
Inspired by the Mappa Mundi of Hereford Cathedral, this final book in the Arrowsmith Trilogybrings the reader into its world of marvels and monsters, heights and depths, redemption and damnation.
"Kate Innes is a writer soaked in the thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries. If you opened up her head you’d find medieval stories, illustrations, songs, days punctuated by hours of Christian prayer, clothing, food, drink, mud, blood and smells. And the still recognizable Herefordshire country.
But Wild Labyrinth is no mere retelling of what happened in history. From out of her scholarly material Innes’s imagination has created a crowd of characters from all layers of life, their individual mindsets wholly believable, their adventures well-paced, compelling the reader forward.
What seems at first like an extra character, the marvellous Mappa Mundi, with its mysterious and subversive mapmaker, appears in small, occasional interpolations to the main text. Gradually, the mapmaker’s own story weaves its way in until, in the penultimate chapter, it left me in tears.
This is work of the highest creative historical imagination. A wonderful book." Alix Nathan - author of 'The Warlow Experiment'
338 pages, Paperback
Published November 27, 2021
3 people are currently reading
19 people want to read
About the author
Kate Innes
9 books54 followersI was born in London, of South African parents, and spent my early life in America. At eighteen, I returned to Britain and studied Archaeology and Teaching. Two years working in rural schools in Zimbabwe helped me to grow up very quickly!
When I returned to Britain, I worked as a Museum Education Officer around the Midlands, and began to write in earnest after the arrival of my three children.
I write about the deep past. My first historical novel- 'The Errant Hours' Book One of 'The Arrowsmith Trilogy' is based on real events in the 13th century Welsh Marches. It was inspired by the seductive art of illuminated manuscripts and the influential legends of the time. These themes weave together into a story of survival and courage, trickery and love.
“Kate Innes’s glorious first novel is a lyrical joy. Up there with the best of Pat Bracewell and Elizabeth Chadwick, it offers utter immersion in an intricate, plausible world.”
Manda Scott
'All the Winding World' Book Two of The Arrowsmith Trilogy interweaves old and new characters in a moving story about the savagery of war, the insistence of love and the power of illusion. 'Wild Labyrinth' completes the Trilogy following Lady Illesa on a journey into the heart of political and religious dangers.
My first children's book, 'Greencoats', is a historical fantasy set in WW2, exploring the forest folklore of Britain. It was shortlisted for the Rubery Book Award in 2022. In 2024 the first book in the Lily Ash Series was published - 'An Ancient Haunting’. It’s set mainly on Crete and explores the paranormal and ancient civilisations for readers age 10+.
Currently I mainly read history in order to get a proper frame of reference for my fiction. But I still enjoy novels when I am not working. Helen Dunmore, Barry Unsworth, Margaret Atwood, Anne Patchett and David Mitchell are profound recent influences, whereas my childhood was more in the fantasy realm, with Ursula Le Guin, Ann MacAffrey, Susan Cooper, Tolkien and CS Lewis.
I have been writing and performing poetry for many years, usually with a particular focus on animals, art or the natural world. These poems, associated research and thoughts are posted in my blog and through @kateinnes2. My poetry collection, 'Flocks of Words' contains poetry from 25 years of writing, and was shortlisted for The Rubery Book Award in 2018. The title poem won the 2016 Imagined Worlds Prize, from the Friends of Samuel Taylor Coleridge.
I enjoy running writing workshops, collaborating with other artists, and undertaking commissions and residencies.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
January 16, 2022
I have now read the whole trilogy mapping the life of Illesa from 1284-1306. Errant Hours, All the Winding World were the first two in the glorious series. Wild Labyrinth is the last of the trilogy, but stands alone as a powerful and very satisfying book in its own right, as do the other two books. I love the way Kate Innes's characters develop and grow. There is coherence in her writing created through meticulous research and wonderful storytelling. It is ill-advised to confuse historical fiction with history itself, but Kate gives the reader an exciting narrative imbued with unforced regard for detail, for different dialects and their status, for religious observances and how the abuse of power threatens the fabric of daily life at all levels. Illesa moves from child to adult to wife to mother through the trilogy. She is a complex character- a woman of great fortitude, intelligence and insight, but I do not see her in the cliched role of "heroine". Kate's writing transcends such simplistic notions and presents a more nuanced and sensitive person who challenges assumptions about class, position and religious belief. Finally I recommend these books for their rich language and the power given through the structuring symbols of the natural world, the illustrated books, the Mappa Mundi in Hereford and the way these become channels into visionary worlds.
August 28, 2022
This period of history is a fascinating one and yet there are few fiction books that really show readers what it was like. Wild Labyrinth is one such book. It’s descriptive and engaging, with a strong plot and characters.
Although the third in the series, the book works as a stand alone. It also reminded me how fascinating this time was for England and how much things were evolving, politically and religiously.
It’s thoroughly well-researched but, despite the depth of knowledge, Innes does not bore readers with excessive fact. Everything shared helps us to visualise and understand the characters and their situation. This book is raw and real; parts of it are gruesome and there is real fear shown by the women who just accept their treatment from their male superiors.
Yet for me the prose really takes the book to another level. At times I felt like I was there watching the story unfold; I could hear the hooves, the clash of swords and the murmur of voices… and I could also smell the dust, the blood and the sweat.
It did take me a while to get into it - and the print is quite small - but once I got to grips with all the characters, I really enjoyed this well-written and extremely interesting story.
Although the third in the series, the book works as a stand alone. It also reminded me how fascinating this time was for England and how much things were evolving, politically and religiously.
It’s thoroughly well-researched but, despite the depth of knowledge, Innes does not bore readers with excessive fact. Everything shared helps us to visualise and understand the characters and their situation. This book is raw and real; parts of it are gruesome and there is real fear shown by the women who just accept their treatment from their male superiors.
Yet for me the prose really takes the book to another level. At times I felt like I was there watching the story unfold; I could hear the hooves, the clash of swords and the murmur of voices… and I could also smell the dust, the blood and the sweat.
It did take me a while to get into it - and the print is quite small - but once I got to grips with all the characters, I really enjoyed this well-written and extremely interesting story.
March 14, 2022
Wild Labyrinth by Kate Innes
This is the third in Kate Innes’ Arrowsmith historical novel trilogy, set in the late 13th / early 14th century. As always, the historical background is very impressive; and as should be with a trilogy, this last book is the best. All three are very good; but Wild Labyrinth is riveting from page one. Time has passed between the second book, All the Winding World, and this one: Illesa has suffered a miscarriage, losing a daughter; also, the reader gradually realises, she and her husband Richard are at odds. Chapter one opens (after an intriguing and atmospheric Prologue) with their son Christopher being sworn in as a knight for an unpopular war (it is 1306, near the end of Edward the First’s reign) in a packed, noisy Westminster Abbey; the atmosphere is anxious, sorrowful and unnerving, setting the scene for much of the book. This disquiet is unsettling, but not off-putting – on the contrary, it enriches the book. The book’s characters – not least Illesa and her family – are complex, faulty people; very realistic. They are mostly sympathetic and attractive, with all their imperfections; but there are two at least who are highly ambiguous – full of wit, a charm which may or may not be manipulative, and an uneasy oddness; part of the writer’s skill is that the reader is kept guessing for some time as to their real natures: are they to be trusted?
The narrative, very adventurous, often tense, sometimes horrifying, goes along at a good pace right from the start; as I said, the book is a page-turner. The story is of journeys made – in more senses than one: by Illesa, her family and their manservant William, and by the maker of the long-famous and treasured Mappa Mundi, who joins them as an eager but highly temperamental guide. This last is a beautifully realised character; the few facts known about him have been combined with a very creative imagination to build up a moving portrait. Richard Oriosus, a scholar and artist of genius, is difficult, obsessive, puzzling and contentious, a man of suffering and regrets; in the end, he is deeply sympathetic. It is he who speaks the highly evocative Prologue, describing the making of the map, the first of several fascinating accounts, encompassing as they do his brilliance, his almost fixated dedication to his work, and of course the state of knowledge of the world: "… I drew the centre of the world – Jerusalem’s wall encompassing the dome of the Holy Sepulchre…" To him, the map is an artistic endeavour to the glory of God – bound up too with his own past; a profound sorrow is hinted at. To others, such as his Bishop, it is mainly a means of attracting pilgrims hoping for miracles, and their donations. Here, as we realise – he doesn’t mention her name – he first meets, and remembers, Illesa.
The book immerses the reader in the past of over seven hundred years ago: its strangeness and also its familiarities. Kate Innes knows her subject extremely well; she has imagined herself, with vivid accuracy, into ways of thinking and beliefs that in some ways are alien to us. But the characters are completely believable. We human beings have changed so completely in some ways; and so little in others. This is part of the fascination of history. What strikes me particularly (as with the other two books) is the way in which people’s lives are soaked through with religious belief. Everything that happens is explained, one way or another, in accordance with a faith that is taken as read; an engagement with a God of sometimes disturbing and incomprehensible ways, and complex angers. What strikes me is that this is not described from above, as it were – that is, from a position of implied superiority; the writer understands and respects – implicitly sifting obvious superstitions from possible truths – the absolute conviction of those days that God was intimately involved with human affairs. This encouragement to think ourselves into a different time does not always preclude dramatic irony: for example, there is a painfully moving account of what is clearly bipolar disorder: the reader knows this at once, but for the sufferer it is an affliction imposed upon him by God, which (however imperfectly he understands the reason) he must endure.
It is also brought home to us how shockingly dangerous, especially for women – and how long, cumbersome and uncomfortable – travel was in those days.
This is a many-layered book; the story is a dense mesh, wide-ranging and excellently plotted, full of real people about whom one is curious, and detailed information about their everyday lives, assumptions and knowledge: we inhabit the peculiar atmosphere of a distant past. The author’s wide knowledge does not intrude, however (I have read novels where the research gets in the way) but is bound in as a whole with the story. No spoilers, but I very much liked the endings: there are two of these, as characters part ways.
Vuyelwa Carlin
This is the third in Kate Innes’ Arrowsmith historical novel trilogy, set in the late 13th / early 14th century. As always, the historical background is very impressive; and as should be with a trilogy, this last book is the best. All three are very good; but Wild Labyrinth is riveting from page one. Time has passed between the second book, All the Winding World, and this one: Illesa has suffered a miscarriage, losing a daughter; also, the reader gradually realises, she and her husband Richard are at odds. Chapter one opens (after an intriguing and atmospheric Prologue) with their son Christopher being sworn in as a knight for an unpopular war (it is 1306, near the end of Edward the First’s reign) in a packed, noisy Westminster Abbey; the atmosphere is anxious, sorrowful and unnerving, setting the scene for much of the book. This disquiet is unsettling, but not off-putting – on the contrary, it enriches the book. The book’s characters – not least Illesa and her family – are complex, faulty people; very realistic. They are mostly sympathetic and attractive, with all their imperfections; but there are two at least who are highly ambiguous – full of wit, a charm which may or may not be manipulative, and an uneasy oddness; part of the writer’s skill is that the reader is kept guessing for some time as to their real natures: are they to be trusted?
The narrative, very adventurous, often tense, sometimes horrifying, goes along at a good pace right from the start; as I said, the book is a page-turner. The story is of journeys made – in more senses than one: by Illesa, her family and their manservant William, and by the maker of the long-famous and treasured Mappa Mundi, who joins them as an eager but highly temperamental guide. This last is a beautifully realised character; the few facts known about him have been combined with a very creative imagination to build up a moving portrait. Richard Oriosus, a scholar and artist of genius, is difficult, obsessive, puzzling and contentious, a man of suffering and regrets; in the end, he is deeply sympathetic. It is he who speaks the highly evocative Prologue, describing the making of the map, the first of several fascinating accounts, encompassing as they do his brilliance, his almost fixated dedication to his work, and of course the state of knowledge of the world: "… I drew the centre of the world – Jerusalem’s wall encompassing the dome of the Holy Sepulchre…" To him, the map is an artistic endeavour to the glory of God – bound up too with his own past; a profound sorrow is hinted at. To others, such as his Bishop, it is mainly a means of attracting pilgrims hoping for miracles, and their donations. Here, as we realise – he doesn’t mention her name – he first meets, and remembers, Illesa.
The book immerses the reader in the past of over seven hundred years ago: its strangeness and also its familiarities. Kate Innes knows her subject extremely well; she has imagined herself, with vivid accuracy, into ways of thinking and beliefs that in some ways are alien to us. But the characters are completely believable. We human beings have changed so completely in some ways; and so little in others. This is part of the fascination of history. What strikes me particularly (as with the other two books) is the way in which people’s lives are soaked through with religious belief. Everything that happens is explained, one way or another, in accordance with a faith that is taken as read; an engagement with a God of sometimes disturbing and incomprehensible ways, and complex angers. What strikes me is that this is not described from above, as it were – that is, from a position of implied superiority; the writer understands and respects – implicitly sifting obvious superstitions from possible truths – the absolute conviction of those days that God was intimately involved with human affairs. This encouragement to think ourselves into a different time does not always preclude dramatic irony: for example, there is a painfully moving account of what is clearly bipolar disorder: the reader knows this at once, but for the sufferer it is an affliction imposed upon him by God, which (however imperfectly he understands the reason) he must endure.
It is also brought home to us how shockingly dangerous, especially for women – and how long, cumbersome and uncomfortable – travel was in those days.
This is a many-layered book; the story is a dense mesh, wide-ranging and excellently plotted, full of real people about whom one is curious, and detailed information about their everyday lives, assumptions and knowledge: we inhabit the peculiar atmosphere of a distant past. The author’s wide knowledge does not intrude, however (I have read novels where the research gets in the way) but is bound in as a whole with the story. No spoilers, but I very much liked the endings: there are two of these, as characters part ways.
Vuyelwa Carlin
July 6, 2024
This book isn't as good as book 2 in this series but it is better than the first. I think it's a 3.5 star read, I feel generous so I've rounded up to four stars.
Illessa feels very different from the young lady, then young mother, of the previous books. I think her crushing on William was an unnecessary element that added nothing to the story. Richard is barely in this book, so it's similar to book one in that regard. Christopher is now a young Knight, and one rather different than the young man we knew in book 2. I think that's the authors biggest weakness, keeping the characters growing and learning but still feeling like the same person.
The plot here feels weak, of all the books this seems the most unbelievable.
I've enjoyed reading these books though, and I think they'll have a decent reread value.
Illessa feels very different from the young lady, then young mother, of the previous books. I think her crushing on William was an unnecessary element that added nothing to the story. Richard is barely in this book, so it's similar to book one in that regard. Christopher is now a young Knight, and one rather different than the young man we knew in book 2. I think that's the authors biggest weakness, keeping the characters growing and learning but still feeling like the same person.
The plot here feels weak, of all the books this seems the most unbelievable.
I've enjoyed reading these books though, and I think they'll have a decent reread value.
August 5, 2025
Compelling. A fascinating story intricately woven with an immense amount of historical knowledge. A superb ending to the medieval Arrowsmith Trilogy.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews