I discovered this book through the artuce "Knights and Knaves in Neutstria" in one of the Conan readers when I was young, and read a copy of the first US edition out of the Toledo (OH) Public LIbrary. I was delighted when it was reprinted by Newcastle. It has gone through several printings since then. As the article pointed out, it is only borderline fantasy, since there is almost no magic barring one appearance of a woman character as a ghost. It is set in recognizably late medieval western Europe in which England. Italy and other places exist as in our world. However, France has been replaced by Neustria and Germany (Holy Roman Empire) by Franconia, and there are still Viking-like raiders along the coast centuries after that ended in our world. The first volume is the adventures of Raoul of Ger, evetual heir to the county of the name ((along what would be the northern French coast) ( )

ORIGINALLY POSTED AT Fantasy Literature.

Raoul will one day be baron of peaceful marshy Marckmont, but until his eighteenth birthday, he’s under the protection of his Uncle Armand, Count of the bleak and windy crags of Ger. Armand has no love for the slight and introspective Raoul, and can’t understand why his nephew would rather play chess and write songs than hunt animals. Raoul, a romantic, likes to think about beautiful things, but at Ger, “you must be smothered in blood before they think you are a man.”

When Raoul is told he can’t go with Armand’s company to the tourney in Belsaunt, he sneaks away and visits the tourney anyway. There he sees, and instantly falls in love with, the beautiful lady Yseult de Olencourt. He is flogged when he returns to Ger, so he runs away and seeks a position in a noble house until he is old enough to claim his quiet and solitary barony.

After leaving Ger, Raoul meets the folk of the land, including a runaway murderer, a few witches, a large warrior woman with flame-red hair, the three deadliest outlaws in the area, a brave serving girl, and several lowborn life-long friends. He also has several frightening adventures in which he surprises himself with his actions. His consideration of these episodes, and the advice he receives from wise people, teach him much about life, love, men, women, and himself. For example:

* “we have oftener to choose between two wrongs than between a wrong and a right.”
* There is “none so cruel as a slave come suddenly to power.”
* “Why do men like killing, boy? Because it is an usurpation of the power of God. What God began, they have ended; red with the mortal sin of murder, they feel godlike power, and fall into the mortal sin of pride.”
* It’s the men in the army who earn the fame for their Lord.
* To gain peace, there must be war, and sometimes brutal acts are required.
* The clod looks at a woman with two eyes: “The eye of contempt, and the eye of desire. No wonder women look for gold and gear beside.”
* “For the thing which sets men naturally at each other’s throats, and the other thing which bids them blush or frown at touch of a woman’s body, there must be somewhere a reason...”
* To be noble is “to have the power, and to refrain”

Leslie Barringer’s Gerfalcon is a beautifully written and exciting coming-of-age epic with a loveable introspective hero who learns that peace has a price and that his own heart’s desires are not to be trusted. The prose, though slightly archaic, is easily read and the story is full of incisive insights into (and sometimes gentle mocking of) human behavior. Gefalcon would be a great read for a mature teenager, if you can find it (Barringer’s fantasies are out of print). Beware of the ebook version which I read (Renaissance E Books) — it’s full of typos. ( )

I cannot recall when and why I bought it, probably it was mentioned or reviewed somewhere. It's an obscure medieval fantasy: the tale of Raoul who must go and live with his uncle as his guardian, runs off to have adventures which turn out to be a cross between a quest and a bildungsroman and finally succeeds his uncle as count of Ger, hence the title.
The author must have been extremely well read in medieval literature, there are numerous allusions to long-forgotten romances. Not to mention the very obscure language and technical terms of the hunt, arms and armoury, and chivalry.
Intriguing, but it requires some follow-up reading. The names of the characters are mostly Frankish in origin, and he calls his fictious country Neustria (one of the Merovingian kingdoms, the western one which much later became France), but the setting and the customs are 15th century Burgundian rather than Merovingian or even Carolingian. I still haven't figured out the reference to Alured.
Did George R.R. Martin ever read this?

(Edited for spelling) ( )

A true forgotten classic! A must read.