Occasionally while happily writing away, you write yourself into unexpected corners. For example, in my current main work in progress ‘Lucifer Mandrake and the Hanoverian Proxy’, the plot requires a hole in the arcane wards protecting Queen Victoria’s court. As plots are want to do…

As the lead character is Victoria’s court magician and was responsible for the wards, there had to be a ‘good’ reason why this hole existed. the hole in question being that the wards do not detect or disable subtle magics like glamours, but are directed at more opaque malfeasance.

There is one very good reason why Lucifer would not set wards that dispelled glamour magic, but his reasons apart he needed a justification for doing so that did not involve him. The simplest explanation I could come up with was crows feet… That been that ‘cosmetic’ glamours are all the rage in Mandrakes magic infused version of the Victorian era. Ladies of the court (and the odd gentleman or three) who are a little older than they are willing to admit might employ bit of jewellery with a glamour spell woven into the metal, making their crows feet ‘vanish’.

Having wards about the palace that would dispel such harmless arcane enhancements might be considered, impolite…

Of course, as is my curse, I could not just stop there. It was a nice, fun, little explanation of how Mandrake justifies there being no wards against glamours in the queens court. Sparing the blushes of Lady Bernice of Montrose, who everyone knows won’t see forty again but looks to be in her twenties. Well its just polite. But it came to me that ageing ladies in waiting and the odd vain courtier who ate too many pies wanting to appear slimmer was one thing. But if Lucifer needed a more solid reason to not ward against glamours I would need to use diplomacy.

Well diplomats…

Diplomats are ever vain creatures. Swift given to offence, and oft to pea-cocking. they were bound to use glamours. But magic had been around in Mandrakes world, so there had to be a few diplomatic incidents over the years to do with glamours been used, or failing, or been dispelled in order to cause another diplomats embarrassment… It more or less had to have happened at some point in the past. Giving mandrake a better reason to not ward against glamours…

So i came up with the Count of Salamanca, and an incident that almost cost Wellington the Peninsular campaign half a century earlier. The Count, for reason best known to himself ‘overly tight trousers were in fashion.’, was given to going about the place sans trousers, with as glamour cast upon him so he appeared fully clothed. This was all very well until a dastardly French spy managed to counter the charm the Count was using, revealing the Counts sartorial gaff… and, reputedly, what little his trousers would be hiding in the crotch department…

The common British soldiery, as is its want, on hearing of the incident made up a marching song ‘the Maggot of Salamanca’. The song was swiftly outlawed by Wellingtons Officer cadre due to the embarrassment it caused a previously firm and reputedly virile ally of the crown. This of course assured it caught on with the ranks and that it had remained a popular rabble rouse in music halls for the last fifty years or so. Memorialising the incident with the common populous, and complains from the Spanish crown on a regular basis.

All this is background justification, and while Mandrake alludes to some of it in his narrative, it is just that, a thing he alludes to and this blog post is much longer than the bits alluding to any off this, court ladies to the Count, in the actual narrative. Which will probably be trimmed back in any case, as its all a bit superfluous to the story, and only I need to know about it in its entirely. But it exists in my notes now and serves as an example of ‘the process’ or at least ‘my process’ of writing Victorian urban fantasy, or indeed anything. Which is to say there is always a lot more in the authors head than ever sees the page…

However, having strung all this together in my head, to figure out a plot point that is of minor importance, I have boxed myself into a corner where I have to write ‘a soldiers marching ballad’ called ‘the maggot of Salamanca’, a fictional song about a fictional Count who while graced with wealth and high birth was not graced in the trouser department… Because at some point Mandrake will probably hum a few bars of it to himself, or quietly sing a line or two at an inappropriate moment.

And yes, I don’t have to write it. It will never appear in the novel, certainly not in full, It just that I do, as it exists as a thing in my head now and sometimes those voices I spoke of last week sing… 

So with apologises…

The count of Salamanca,
What a fine upstanding gent
They say he never wore his trousers,
No matter where he went.

Oh… the maggot of Salamanca
The Frenchie’s were to blame
the maggot of Salamanca
It wriggles to his shame

The count he was a pompous man
A more than a little vain
But want dangled there between his legs
Well that’s just a crying shame

Oh… the maggot of Salamanca
The Frenchie’s were to blame
the maggot of Salamanca
It wriggles to his shame

Some men are blessed with looks and charm
Some men are born to money
Some men are bless with many things
But not bless down there now honey

Oh… the maggot of Salamanca
The Frenchie’s were to blame
the maggot of Salamanca
It wriggles to his shame

Oh… the maggot of Salamanca
The Frenchie’s were to blame
the maggot of Salamanca
It wriggles to his shame

The Maggot of Salamanca,
A regency marching song popular in The Peninsular War…
sort of…