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A few years back during a conversation with a fellow tracking student, they mentioned a project they were interested in: investigating tracking in Lord of the Rings. I recently re-read the first two novels and the frequency of tracking, how it’s used to reveal plot points and character behavior as well as important details of Middle-Earth’s landscape and history, jumped out at me. Tracking doesn’t just occur occasionally in LotR; it’s a thread running through the entire story. Among other things, it underlines Aragorn’s claim to the kingship of Gondor: here is someone who knows the country he moves through with an intimacy of belonging that counters any claims of his being an outsider. It’s not as overt as his leadership against the armies of Mordor, his prowess on the battlefield, or his work in the Houses of the Healing, but it underscores his deep knowledge of the world in which he lives.

This possession of deep knowledge that informs both perception and understanding also describes Hild, Nicola Griffith’s fictionalization of real-life British saint and historical figure Hilda of Whitby. In Menewood, Griffith’s second novel featuring this protagonist, Hild is required to step out of the role created to protect her from the vicissitudes of seventh-century British dynastic conflict and into one where she must use her intellect and skill to survive, to protect her friends and allies, and to exact retribution against those who destroyed all she held dear.

Tracking plays a prominent role in this story, and not only in reading marks and signs to find out where a quarry has gone. Hild’s ability to notice, interpret, and predict rivals that of Sherlock Holmes. Whether the quarry is a deer, an intimate friend, or a sworn enemy, her method remains the same: an art of noticing that reads the stories the landscape tells, with uncanny accuracy. Though onlookers have a tendency to ascribe her abilities to witchery or divine providence, it’s clear all along that Hild’s is a human skill: honed to a rare capability, but human all the same. At one point, when she observes birds taking flight and by this predicts and mediates trouble for herself and her companions, I was reminded of a story the tracker and naturalist Jon Young likes to tell about locating a mountain lion by following bird alarms. (He was successful.)

So I want to recommend this book to all my tracking friends, but that’s not the only reason to read Menewood. Griffith has always been skilled at immersing the reader into the lives and worlds of her characters, whether they’re an exiled scion in a cyberpunkish future (Slow River), a tough-as-nails Norwegian ex-cop (The Blue Place, Stay, Always), or a government agent re-establishing contact with a colony on another planet (Ammonite). That skill was in full flower in Hild, and even more so in Menewood, as the stakes of Hild’s life and her people’s lives are raised to the highest possible. Hild’s status as something of an oracle—a godmouth, in the parlance of the novel—was always a precarious one, with the necessity of striking a fine balance between accurate foresight and telling her patron, the ambitious, cunning, but shortsighted Edwin king of Deira, what he wants to hear. That this eventually goes catastrophically wrong is itself foreseeable, and brings about one of the most vivid, difficult, and brutal parts of the novel. When Hild emerges from the disaster, it is with the recognition that she will have to step forward into the fullness of her power, leveraging all of her intelligence, discernment, physical resilience, and capacity for bringing out the capacities of others. (I found myself wishing that all middle managers were like Hild.) In roughly the novel’s first half, she’s on something of a pedestal, placed there by the ambitions and goals of others. In the second half, she stands on her own.

Other reviewers have remarked on how readers may find themselves at sea with the history, place names, and people participating in this story; many of the latter did exist, but unlike more recent episodes of British history, little is known about them. As for place names, those have mostly changed; Griffith inserts a few deliberate anachronisms to help readers along. I found myself consulting the family trees, glossary, and maps far more often than I usually do when reading the sorts of books that tend to include them. This is the kind of thing that either interferes with your enjoyment of a book, or not; I found that it didn’t in this case, and actually helped me understand some of both the political and physical landscapes of the story better than otherwise. This is perhaps in part because this is a real landscape that—climate change and modern industrial development notwithstanding—to some extent still exists today. In addition, Griffith did a lot of research into what the landscape of her story looked like back then, and it shows. Landscape affects behavior, and that’s as true for humans as it is for other animals. Even in our increasingly automated and convenient modern world, this is true; it’s definitely true for Hild and her contemporaries, who of necessity live in relationship so intimate to their land that it shapes their very natures.

That intimacy and the material reality of it is one of many immersive aspects of Menewood. I’ve read few novels where the assertion that “an army marches on its stomach” is more true and evident than in this one; a moment where Hild encourages her followers to snack on what are essentially Fruit Roll-Ups before a battle is a moment of levity and insight all rolled into one (gotta carb-load before heavy physical exertion!), and then there’s the running not-really-a-joke where she encourages them to carry eggs with them. (Frank Reynolds would approve.) That materiality and physicality is everywhere present in Menewood, even in its darkest and grimmest moments—yet balanced with a wonderful economy in Griffith’s prose. That may seem like an odd thing to say about a novel that clocks in at over 700 pages in hardcover, but it’s true: this is not a story that wallows in gory details, even though there’s gore aplenty in the battles and their aftermaths. The same selectivity of detail makes for some surprisingly strong character moments; Griffith is a master at turning a phrase, an expression, or a gesture into a communication that speaks volumes. This is as crucial in the novel’s most intimate moments as it is in its most high-stakes political negotiations. (Sometimes, those are the same thing.)

I hesitate a bit to say that those jonesing for the remaining A Song of Ice and Fire books would be well served to check out Menewood and its predecessor, but they do scratch a bit of the same itch. Okay, there’s no dragons or frozen zombies marching out of the north, but there is a wall of massive strategic importance, and the political stratagems and maneuverings eventually breaking into armed conflict are if anything more intricate and sophisticated (though the armies, once they clash, are far smaller, as befits the period). So if that’s your jam, Menewood is immensely satisfying.

There’s also far more going on in it than that comparison might imply. It’s a fascinating story, richly detailed, with all the depth and complexity that make Griffith’s novels so rewarding. I hope it won’t be ten years before the next one.