Chapter Text
Old Erasmus Fry gave him a key and dragged him to his basement, grumbling like only an old man without his pension could. He talked about the bezoar, about its properties, and Richard did his best to pretend like he cared. His heart felt like it was going to beat out of his chest, he could hear the blood drumming on his ears. It was so close, just down the hallway.
A muse.
An actual muse, one of the Ancient Greek ones, one of the goddesses of old, not simply a woman so breathtakingly beautiful she inspired every artist that came across her. Fry had sworn it to him. Richard was aware that this was nothing more than a promise, that he could be misled, that Fry might show him something else, something mundane, that he was making a deal with the devil, that a thousand and more things could go wrong, but Richard needed it, with the strength of a hundred suns.
“Here,” he said gruffly, pushing open the door with such strength that Richard thought his bones were going to break. The door creaked open, the sound louder than thunder. “This,” Fry said with a nasty little smile, “is my muse.”
Richard's gaze fell on the figure at the edge of the bed, his brain abandoning him when he noticed the shine of the chains tying them to the bedpost.
Fry flickered the lights on.
With dawning horror Richard saw the figure take the shape of a man.
He was seated at the edge of the bed, a book in his hand, covered in a red silk robe that did nothing to hide his thinness, the paleness of his skin, the delicacy of it. The bruises. A thick black chain hung from his gaunt neck, the weight of it seeming almost to bend him down.
“The Prince of Stories,” Fry said at a mode of introduction, mouth twisted in loathing. “He's inspired every story ever written, so he'll be useful to even a lackwit like you.”
The prince looked up. And Richard wanted nothing more than to call the whole thing off and run, run far away and never be seen away. For a moment it seemed to him that instead of eyes he had two voids in his face, swirling with stars. Then Richard blinked and he was faced with brown blue green gray black tired, hateful eyes.
“You,” Fry said roughly, “are no longer bound to me. This is Richard Madoc, he's a novelist. Or at least he wrote one good book and now finds himself in need of inspiration. He's your master now. You cannot hurt him and you must obey him.”
The other man did not speak. Fry’s mouth twisted in quiet hatred. Richard’s thoughts were running at a hundred kilometers per hour. Had Fry cheated him? Was there no supernatural muse? Was he, Richard Madoc, New York bestseller author, implicated in a crime?
“H-How does this work?” He stammered.
Fry rolled his eyes. “Unchain him.”
“Huh?”
“Are you stupid? I'm telling you to unchain him.”
Richard tripped as he entered the room, gazing at the thin curtains covering the city's night life- the distant car speeding and honking, the dull lights of other houses -rather than at the bird boned man in the bed, looking at him with soulful eyes digging into him, dragging the nasty bits forth, dissecting him—
Richard unchained him, doing his best to keep his hands respectfully away from his thin ankle and failing. The man remained very still.
“He obeys you now,” the old man said with what was almost satisfaction. “Tell him to do something.”
“Li-Like what?”
“Like jump or sing or strip or anything that your mouse brain can think of. Christ, no wonder you need him.”
Richard ignored the jab and instead focused on the man in the bed, who, despite the door being thrown open, made no move to escape.
“Uh, can you come with me?”
Instead of answering, he unfurled from his sitting position and stood up. With sharp clarity, Richard realized that the man may have been thinner than him, but he was taller, easily looking down on him.
He looked at Richard with a private sort of loathing.
“You won't hurt me, will you?” He asked, emboldened by the weight of the key on his blazer. And then, after a moment of stony silence: “Answer me.”
The man shook his head, slowly. He made it look like he was considering smiting Richard where he stood.
“Off with the both of you,” Fry barked. “I don't want to see either of you again.”
“Right,” Richard said, swallowing. “Okay, let's go.” The stranger followed wordlessly.
Fry babbled as he all but pushed Richard out of his house, talking about how he wanted his book, Here Comes the Candle to be reprinted, and Richard decided quite sternly to not mention it to his editor. The editor said he was already in a tight situation anyway, he couldn't go around making requests.
Richard was glad that he'd opted to bring his car here, when he saw how flimsy the stranger's clothes were. Nothing but the red robe that did nothing to hide its purpose. Something worn by a lover on a special occasion, though it looked old and uncared for. If he walked around with him in such clothes the prince would most definitely get them stopped for indecency.
The nagging feeling remained inside him. Had Fry tricked him? “Anything I order you, you have to do, right? Answer me.”
The creature nodded, his head bobbing in a weird aviary manner. Richard couldn’t shake the feeling that he’d seen him before.
The ride home was spent in silence.
The prince (and Richard should get around to asking his name) did not speak either when they arrived at Madoc's townhouse or when he showed him his new room, the attic that had just two days ago been crawling with cobwebs and spiders. Richard had called his housekeeper to clean it - for what was probably going to be the last time, considering the new resident.
The prince looked like he could have been plucked straight out of a painting, his red robe trailing after him, stark against the dull brown of the floor, bold against the colorless attic. If Richard had it in him to write a word, he’d paint that image with ink.
“How did Fry get you to inspire him?” He asked. The prince of stories didn’t answer. He stared at the bed, musty and covered only by a thin white sheet, with something akin to disgust.
“How did you help him write?” Silence again. In his attic, the agglomeration of all stories, if Fry was to be believed, stood in defiant silence.
“Will you talk to me?” More silence. Richard shifted uncomfortably under the creature’s colorless kaleidoscope eyes. Anything he ordered was to be obeyed. That was what he said in the car. “Can you talk? Answer me. With your words.”
Now, a reaction. He twisted his head to look at Richard, eyes blazing with loathing. Still, he answered. “I can.”
Richard blinked, taken aback by the depth of it. It seemed unbefitting of such a body, too low, but at the same time it was impossible to imagine him sounding in any other way. That was the sort of voice that was meant to read bedtime stories, lull people to sleep.
“How did you give inspiration to Erasmus Fry?” He asked, heart thundering in its cage.
“You already know.” There was no hesitation in his voice. His eyes were two voids in the shifting white blur of his face.
Richard cringed, hunching inward. He did know, Fry had told him, crudely. “Is there no other way?”
The outside world slipped inside unbidden, electric lights and faint moonlight, the murmur of traffic. Richard should get curtains. Dark ones.
“You could let me go.” It wasn’t imploring. It was an order, something almost kingly in its cadence.
Richard saw his future unraveling in front of him, in a world where he let the stranger out. No new book in three weeks, all the time he’d gotten Larry to extend him. He would lose his editor, lose his deal, lose his house, lose his work and then– And then what? His parents’ home was out of the question and he didn’t have a lover or friends he could ask for help, not ones that weren’t for work, not ones that would help him if he lost it all. He didn’t have anything, he thought, that didn’t come from writing.
“I-I can’t do— that,” he told him. “Not yet. Not now. I- I need time to think.”
He scurried out of the room, ignoring the heavy gaze burning his back. Even without the prince speaking, Richard could feel the brand of the word coward sinking like a physical weight on him.
For three days, Richard tried. He sat in front of his laptop, Word document open, and tried to wring the words out. The page remained blank.
The first night he looked up how did the Ancient Greeks get muses to inspire them. You're supposed to woo them, was his answer, which didn't help him at all because the creature upstairs felt like he would appreciate that as much as a wall would.
The second day he spent staring at the laptop. The blank page mocked him. He, as he always did, strayed to Google. He looked up his name and then his book’s name in reddit and Instagram and twitter and every social media he could think of. Everywhere, all anyone asked was when the next one was coming out.
The third day, he got a call from his editor. Time's running out, Rick. They want their advance, Rick. They're cutting losses and that means you, Rick. You've wasted their money and their time, Rick. They'll take you to court for breach of contract, Rick.
There's no other way, Madoc realized, like being doused with cold water. He was not going to make it, not without divine intervention. He would lose everything, his house, his job, his money. He didn't have time. He needed to send a snippet, a chapter, anything. Unless. Unless. He had a cheat code. He had a muse. All he needed was to be brave enough to use it.
It's okay, he told himself, every one of his steps eliciting a groan from the old wooden stairs. He's not even human. He doesn't eat or breathe.
He is thousands of years old. His hands trembled as he unlocked the door, the key falling to the floor with a dull sound. He doesn't even have a name.
This is what he does. This is what he is. The prince was curled on the bed in a fetal position, his back to the door. This is his purpose, to inspire.
Richard Madoc submitted the first draft of an eighty-nine thousand word manuscript to his editor that same week.
“What the fuck is this?” Richard hissed, slamming open the door of the attic. The prince blinked owlishly up at him. Richard waved the manuscript at him. Revised and approved by his editor, despite everything against it. “This,” he said, “is not a sequel to The Caravel.”
The prince raised a brow as if to say and?
“I wanted a sequel to The Caravel.” Instead of the grim sci-fi he wanted, he'd gotten a romance period novel, not at all the sort of thing that had catapulted Richard into stardom. He'd been so disappointed when he'd come out of his initial writing high and realized that it was not the so-expected sequel, but rather a stupid romance novel.
The prince shrugged. “I don't get to choose what I inspire, that’s up to you.” Then, wryly, he added: “Maybe you're feeling romantic.”
Richard tugged at his hair. “This is not what I wanted.”
The prince gazed at him; bordering on incredulous and ending in appalled. He shook his head mutely, turned his colorless eyes away from Richard.
Richard stared at the offending manuscript and sighed. Better get to reading it, then, to know what he got himself into.
If the creature in his basement had cried, if he had pleaded or begged to be freed, Richard would have done it. He wasn't— He wasn't the type of man that kept people captive just because. He was a good man, he didn't like hurting people, for God's sake.
As it stood, the creature had neither cried nor begged or made anything easier on himself, simply looked at Richard with loathing, laying limp in the bed. Richard couldn't just let him go. The prince looked like the type to hold grudges and he was unlikely to forget what Richard had done to finally wring some inspiration out of him. But Richard couldn't just stop. It was ridiculous to even think of.
And, if he was being honest, he liked it, liked giving lectures and the book signings and the intellectual parties, the way he spoke his ideas as important as the idea itself.
His new book, A Lady's Loveliness, was a resounding success, albeit a controversial one. (“Doesn't it feel like it was written by a different man?”) A masterpiece that transcended genre, nominated for a Booker Prize due to the sheer richness of the material. He accepted it with a smile.
“I want you to answer me when I talk to you, understood?
A Lady’s Loveliness by Ric Madoc: how dark romance became mainstream again
August 13, 2020
By Aileen Roy, for the Atlantic
A Lady’s Loveliness, by Ric Madoc, is a riveting tale of gothic romance that rivals the work of the Bronte sisters. It is a tale of forbidden relationships and blurring familial lines, crime and sin.
The first chapter by itself is a master class in research and historical accuracy—and of foreshadowing as well. Madoc shows how he has matured as both a creative force and story-teller in this romance that is impossible to put down, drawing the reader in and refusing to let us put it down once.
The story begins in 1872, when wealthy gentleman Henry Carmine arrives to London, in the bloom of the industrial revolution. Weeks after his arrival to London, he is informed that an old friend from his urchin boy days has died in suspicious circumstances, alongside three of his four children, leaving the youngest, a girl named Anna, as the only survivor. Henry Carmine agrees to take the orphan girl and become her guardian, bowing to turn her into a proper high society lady and secure her a match, impulsed by a strange care and the realization that the girl was much like him before he became rich, poor and alone, likely to die in a ditch. Only, he recognizes, she has it worse on account of her gender.
Or so he has the reader believe his reasons are, before the other shoe drops at the end of the chapter and he reveals he’s related to the rising organized crime and to the death of the girl’s family.
The following chapters relate the life of the mismatched father-daughter duo, the violence of Carmine’s secret life and the one of his not-so-secret life threatening to darken their doorstep more than once. Through his eyes, we see little Anna grow from a crying child who jumps at shadows to a young woman, seducing and off-putting by turns.
Anna, renamed Annabelle Blanche after her adoption, is undeniably the heart of the story. Showing signs of PTSD for her family's death and of bipolarity, handily labeled as bouts of hysteria in the story, it is around her and her whims that the world of both Carmine and the reader orbits. Their romance blooms amidst the mysterious attacks being perpetuated against his crime ring by a rising new opposition, the White Rose, and amidst secrets from the past, revealed by Annabelle's not so dead sister, Lilian.
“Catherine Earnshaw was a big inspiration when it came to her,” Madoc reflected when questioned. “Though there's a bit of Emma Bovary in her as well. I really wanted her to be this beautiful, fleshed out person. The entire book revolves around her, is about her. Without her there wouldn't be a story.”
A Lady's Loveliness is nothing more than a shameless representation of everything wrong with today's world
August 13, 2020
By torturedswiftdefenderdepartment on Tumblr
Shameless in its predatory nature, A Lady’s Loveliness does nothing to soften the blow that it is watching a young girl become obsessed with her adoptive father. It is a gross book and all of those who liked it are advocating for grooming and manipulative relationships. Allow me to explain why.
See more
1 - 20 of 769 works in Henry Carmine/Annabelle Blanche
Success kept on coming and the prince kept on inspiring. And, look. Richard doesn't want to be ungrateful.
But—
“They asked me about Caravel again,” he accused the figure curled on the sofa. Gone was the gaudy red robe that betrayed Fry’s bad taste. In the aftermath of the booming success of their first novel together, Richard’d had the consideration of giving him use of the kitchen and bath tub so long as he didn't harm either Madoc or himself, and he had, as well, done the honors of throwing the gaudy thing straight into the trash can.
The creature lying on the sofa of his living room looked less like the prince of all stories and more like just some dude with bad bed hair in gray sweats and a Metallica shirt that hung too loose on his rake-thin body.
“Did you hear me?” Richard groaned. “We need to work on that.” All he got was silence and the static from the screen, despite the fact that the mouth of the woman on screen was moving. Richard blinked at the tv. Was it the news? “Answer me,” he ordered.
“I do not control what you find yourself inspired to write,” the prince answered blandly. The air felt charged, like a thunderstorm. Static played on a loop in his head.
Richard raised his hands in mocked surrender. “Yeah, yeah, I know . . .” It wasn't the news that was playing on the tv. It was an old movie, something from the 60s or 70s, the Valley of the Dolls, maybe. That looked like Sharon Tate. “So that just means we have to keep trying.”
He discovered it was better to do it without looking at the other’s eyes, skinny dude with bed head in a Metallica shirt or not. It was hard, in those moments, to think of the other as some sort of inhumane creature, when his body was warm and his hair was soft and he teared up like a child whenever he was too rough.
@richardmadoc mister madoc, I'm a very big fan. I've been wondering when / if the next book of The Caravel will come out???
He'd known Marjorie was going to be a success as soon as he wrote it. The story of a girl in the rural America of the 1920s that wanted nothing but to escape her small town life and become a star, who was, unbeknownst to everyone, a cold-hearted psychopath that killed her mother, father and best friend in fruitless attempts at fame.
A bidding war started over the book and Richard didn't sell the rights to any company until one of them promised to let him write the script and direct. And when he did get the contract drafted and ready to be signed, he tried to translate the book into a script. It shouldn't be so difficult, he reasoned to himself. I already have the book, I wrote it and I know how to write scripts. This will be fine.
Only he wasn't fine. The words didn't flow, the inspiration didn't rush. He lasted two whole weeks before he gave in and ravaged his muse for inspiration, in a way that even Richard could admit had been unsightly, too rough, too much like a junkie cut off from their drug. To make it up to him, Richard forced him to tell him what was a little indulgence he enjoyed so that he could procure it for him.
(It was mint candy.)
RIC MADOC WINS BEST DIRECTOR OSCAR FOR WORK IN MARJORIE
March 11, 2021
By John Monroe, for the New York Times
The controversial Ric Madoc’s debut in scripting and directing in the movie Marjorie, based on his own book, was received with critical acclaim by the Academy…
Subscribe to the New York Times to read more
“I’ve got a new job,” Richard said, entering the bedroom, newspaper in hand. He’d been enjoying breakfast, just a moment before, reading about how some old woman alleged that her old employer, Alexander Burgess, had a siren locked in his basement, but he’d just received the news and he needed to tell someone.
“Congratulations,” the prince supplied dryly without looking up from the book he was reading. Midsummer Night’s Dream. Figures he'd like Shakespeare.
Richard continued, used to the lack of enthusiasm. “The studio hired me a private jet. So there won’t be any trouble getting you into the country. Maybe we’ll decide to stay in L.A.”
The prince shrugged. Richard bit down his annoyance, used to speaking with a wall. His cell phone rang and he sighed when he saw it was Larry. He threw the newspaper to the bed and left the room and closed the door to his studio, knowing better than to let the creature hear him. It was what he expected, the studio wanted to deny his demands of having a fifty percent female cast and just as many people of color. Those old producers, stuck in their ways. “Listen, Larry, I have faith in you. I know you’ll convince them.”
The attic was empty when he came back. Panic surged within him, even if he knew that the prince couldn’t leave the house without Richard with him, he’d been clear in his orders. He rushed down the stairs and there he was, by his desk, a pen in his hand.
Richard pushed him aggressively away from the desk, feeling his heart sink when he saw what he’d written. In big bold letters it read: CALLIOPE, underneath that, strange symbols that seemed to move when Richard tried to read them.
“You know you don’t have to be so goddamn difficult all the time,” Richard snapped, previous good mood evaporated. “Why can’t you just enjoy our success? What do you not like, huh?”
“People used to pray to me for inspiration once,” the prince said slowly, voice veering into danger. “They honored me. Have you prayed to me? Have you honored me?”
“Oh, don’t start with that again,” Richard hissed, tearing the piece of paper and throwing it into the fire. “I let you out of that attic, didn’t I? I’ve ever taken you to the cinema–”
“To watch your movie.” The prince’s eyes were glued to the hearth, watching the fire consume the paper.
“—and to walks and to restaurants, even if you don’t need to fucking eat. The least I deserve is a little cordiality, don’t I?”
“Do you?”
“We’re creating stories that move and inspire people! Just the other day a girl came and told me that Eagle Stones had stopped her from committing suicide! Isn’t that what you were made for? To inspire?” He remained quiet. “Listen. I get you’re stressed, I get you hate it, but I can’t let you go. I’m being good to you, much better than Fry ever was.”
“That’s not a high bar.”
“Calliope,” Madoc repeated. “Who’s Calliope?”
“A muse,” the prince replied, softly. “One would think you would know.”
Richard peered at him. “And what? You are writing her a letter?”
“You could say so.” He tore his gaze away from the fireplace. The fight completely, visibly, fleeing from him.
“Why?” Richard pressed. He hated when the prince got like this, when getting answers out of him was more difficult pulling a tooth, whether it was out of apathy or melancholy. He was prone to bouts of lethargy, Richard knew, when he wasn't being loathsome.
“She was once my wife,” the prince said, not looking at Richard, voice almost tender. “And the mother of my son.”
Richard reeled back. “I–I didn’t know you had a son.”
A flash of venom again, much less lethal than before. “You don’t deserve to know a single thing about me.”
“Act like you like this, goddamnit.”
Is Richard Madoc ever publishing a sequel for The Caravel?
By stannis_the_mannis on r/richardmadoc
I know that Madoc’s been writing other books but has he mentioned anywhere if he plans on writing a sequel to The Caravel? I have seen people on social media say that he said he was going to publish a second book but I’ve also seen people say that he said in some interview or other that he was done with that universe but tbh all I want is to know if there's a direct source for any of this?
sordidbirdwatcher
Madoc said he wanted to write a sequel to the book years ago but as far as i know nothing’s come out of it yet. imo i think he’s never going to do it
batmansabs
they asked madoc about this in the vanity fair interview he did for marjorie a while ago. iirc he said he was working on it but that it was coming along slowly, which is better than nothing
cerebro_galaxial
I hope he does, if we’re being honest. Caravel was a good book but it would definitely benefit from having a sequel where things are explained more in depth.
the_rogue_prince96
(This comment has been deleted)
latte_hatte
he said once that he was working on it and ive been huffing that copium for years
itachi444444
bro STAND UP it’s never going to happen
The thing about having a font of inspiration living in his basement is that he can use it whenever the need arises, be it to write a book or to make him extra witty at a party, to make him incredibly charming for his interview -so long as he's willing to use it. Richard lost his morality years ago, somewhere in between ink and unpublished book pages.
Jessica Marie Lynch: Mister Madoc, I’ve been wondering if you’re aware that people are calling you the new Lord Byron due to the moving material of your newest poetry collection?
Ric Madoc: Wow. That's such high praise, I don't even know what to say to that, that's such an honor. [Chuckles] To be honest I wrote Bird In a River as light work in between real books. Something to throw my thoughts at.
Hob came upon the book by pure coincidence. He’d been talking to a student and then she’d started raving about this new book she was halfway through reading and he had, as one did, asked for the name.
“Oh, it’s Ric Madoc’s new book. Have you read any of his work?”
“I’m pretty sure I have,” he said, trying to recall. “A really controversial one?”
“All of his books are controversial,” Jane informed him. “His latest one was a horror book that’s getting adapted into a movie. You know Mia Goth? She got casted for the main role.” She swung her backpack off her shoulder, and pulled out a book. “This one’s his newest one. It’s called The Stranger and the Immortal and it’s about this peasant from the 1300s, right? And one day he encounters this guy, right? And they get talking and the dude basically goes I’ll see you here in a hundred years and he disappears, right? And we basically follow this guy, his name is Art, around for a hundred years as he realizes he’s immortal and then meets up with this guy for centuries every hundred years. Apparently people on Twitter are trying to cancel it because of all the things Art did in the book, but honestly I think it was pretty good in showing his shifting morality throughout the centuries.” She shook her head, as if shaking cobwebs from her brain. “Honestly what’s more impressive to me is that we never find out who the stranger is. That was a pretty bold move. Some say it was King Arthur and Merlin and while I can see the bases, I feel like the story goes on a different direction—”
“I’m sorry,” Hob said, feeling like he was back to that night in 1989 and like a chasm had opened up inside him and was eating him whole. “Can you say that again?”