However, the historical events in The Last Troubadour, and all of the characters, were real. Substantive research into these characters and events frames this "grand adventure." Cardinal Sinibaldo (the Hierophant character) will later become Pope Innocent IV. Dame Esclarmonde de Foix was a Perfect and heroine to the southerners became the model for the High Priestess. Every character existed in history — perhaps not as I envisioned them romantically in The Last Troubadour — but real nonetheless.

Real History of Tarot

The tarot history is somewhat more fanciful. Many legends attribute tarot development to everything from the Cathars (the persecuted southerners in my story) to Ancient Egyptians. In fact, we know the first "real" tarot decks appeared around the late fourteenth to early fifteen century, two hundred years after my story.

The Last Troubadour is primarily an entertaining historical thriller — "near-brilliance in which Armstrong blends comedy, parody, and adventure in genuinely innovative ways" (Booklist) — yet I couldn't resist taking some liberties with the legend of the Tarot. After all, the deck is a collection of collectively common archetypes most of us share in history. They are symbols stretching back to ancient Egypt and further, and inclusive of my Cathar heroes, even if the deck itself didn't develop until later.

You Portray Nevara as the Inventor of Tarot

Like Nevara in my story, I took liberties. I meditated on the cards, you could say. I saw my story before I wrote it.

In The Last Troubadour, Nevara, sorceress of the Baug Balar, paints her own trump cards,adding to an ancient card game given to her by her adoptive mother (the Empress in her deck: Magba, the Mother). The card deck refered to was the Turuq, the four ways in Arabic. There is evidence this predated Nevara. Still, here is where I'm simply being inventive — albeit I "saw it in the cards." You could say this history is real, because I visualized it as real when I meditated on the cards. But in truth, only the actual characters can be proven to exist in history.

The Tarot as we know it today must certainly have evolved from a number of sources, not one person. The symbols are common to us all, which is the true power of Tarot. Someone like Nevara — or rather several someone's — must have added cards as it suited them (pun intended). In my story, Nevara adds cards to portray people she knows and incidents both dire and wonderful. She illustrated Death from the haunting Diableteur — a feared witch hunter. She illustrated the tower from the fall of her own city in Novgorod. This is creative license, of course. But what fun to create Diableteur, the living incarnation of Death with his sickle. I couldn't resist. I hope you enjoy!

So What About the Real History?

Pictured above is a gorgeous, if disturbing, card from a Visconti deck. The Visconti decks were commissioned in 1427, and the depicted images dates to 1450. There is evidence of "tarot" card makers as early as 1397. Before that, we certainly have the Turuq, four suited decks without the trumps. In 1378 Tarot was banned in Germany, indicating a much earlier development.

It wasn't until the Renaissance period, however, when the cards became less a card game and more a serious occult study.

The illustrated Tarot cards certainly  include archetypal symbols from Ancient Egypt, Medieval Europe, the Dark Ages. In fact, it is virtually a pictoral "history" of our shared past. So, someone like Nevara might have painted her own "trump" cards and used them as I imagined in The Last Troubadour.

So Why Even Use the Cards In The Novel?

Why not? For more than thirty years I've loved Tarot cards, collected them by the dozen, used them, meditated on them, enjoyed them. To envision characters based on common, shared archetypes and symbols that we can all relate to only makes sense to me. In fact, The Last Troubadour was a labor of love and my passion for the Tarot.