Kim Headlee lives on a farm in southwestern Virginia with her family, cats, goats, Great Pyrenees goat guards, and assorted wildlife. People and creatures come and go, but the cave and the 250-year-old house ruins—the latter having been occupied as recently as the mid-twentieth century—seem to be sticking around.
Kim has been an award-winning novelist since 1999 (Dawnflight 1st edition, Sonnet Books, Simon & Schuster) and has been studying the Arthurian Legends for nigh on half a century.Thank you for visiting us
today.
Below is a character interview of Rhyddes, heroine of LIBERTY:
My bones were discovered by
some men and women of her era, almost two millennia after I was laid to rest.
Because of the wealth of gladiator-themed grave goods buried with me, these
people surmised that I must have been a popular gladiatrix. But it was Kim
Headlee who unearthed the details of my story for all to read.
We’d love to hear about your
setting. Where and when is it and what makes it special?
My life spans much of the
reign of the Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius, one of a very few men ever to claim
that title who did not abuse his power for personal gain. When my lover Aquila
came to me with news that this man was in danger, I could see the loyalty and
respect—and concern—in Aquila's eyes, and for that reason alone I chose to help
him protect his sovereign, even though I cared not who ruled and who died in
that gods-cursed empire.
Tell us about your journey.
What are your goals and what obstacles stand in your way?
More than anything—even more
than my freedom—I yearn to be Aquila’s equal. As a foreign slave in an empire where
citizenship stands paramount, where an arena fighter such as I can only be
considered the equal of other gladiators, actors, undertakers, and whores, this
goal seems impossibly remote. Aquila has declared that he would renounce his
aristocratic status, wealth, and power for me, but I cannot in good conscience
allow him to destroy himself on my account.
And yet the gods have
granted the impossible to other mortals. I pray that I am worthy to receive
such a boon from them, for surely divine assistance is the only way for Aquila
and I to bridge the social chasm that separates us from a lasting future
together.
Without revealing too much,
what is your favorite scene in the book and why?
While fighting in the bowels
underneath the massive Flavian Amphitheater, better known to you as the
Colosseum in Rome, I chanced upon the bestiary. My odious owners were
unfortunate enough to be there too. I am certain the tiger enjoyed the hunt,
especially its conclusion, though I daresay I enjoyed it even more—even though
it placed me in peril of my life. I shall leave it for you to imagine the
details of what I witnessed in that dark, dank labyrinth and beyond.
Do you like the way the book
ended?
Does a cygnet enjoy shedding
its scruffy plumage to become a sleek adult swan? Of course it does; don’t be
an asinus!
Would you be interested in a
sequel, if your writer was so inclined?
If I understand your meaning
correctly, you refer to the telling of another tale. My beloved brother Owen
shall be the focus of such a tale, along with the woman whom he is destined to
rescue, love, and marry—despite the fact that her people and ours are blood
enemies.
Did you help your writer
come up with the title or do you know how this title was chosen?
The title of my tale is
Liberty, the word in your language that translates to the Latin word Libertas,
my arena name, which I adopted since Rhyddes is too difficult for the Romans’
stiff tongues.
Thank you, Rhyddes, for
stopping by (from Ancient Rome) and letting us get to know you.
And thank you for taking the
time to converse with a lowly gladiatrix-slave. I earnestly pray the
association shall not bode ill for the preservation of your social status.
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