The Red King (novel)
Encyclopedia
The Red King is a fantasy novel by the author Victor Kelleher
Victor Kelleher
Victor Kelleher is an Australian author. Victor was born in London and moved to Africa with his parents, at the age of fifteen. He spent the next twenty years travelling and studying in Africa, before moving to New Zealand. Kelleher received a teaching degree in Africa and has taught in Africa,...
, set in medieval times about a king who rules his kingdom with an iron fist.
The Red King was shortlisted for the 1990 Australian Children's Book of the Year Award
Children's Book Council of Australia
The Children's Book Council of Australia is a not for profit organisation which aims to engage the community with literature for young Australians. The CBCA presents annual awards for books of literary merit, for outstanding contribution to Australian children's literature.-Awards:The first...
and was at one point runner up in the 1990 South Australian Festival Awards for Literature.
Plot summary
The main character of this book, Timkin is part of a circus troupe that first encounters the wrath of the Red King when her troupe travel to perform at a town not allied with the Red King. The red king sends his men to deliver the red fever, fatal and apparently incurable to the whole town. Timkin and her kind master manage to escape the area but her master dies shortly after, and not long after she passes out nearly dead.Not long after she awakens to find a collar around her neck, the collar was originally on her when she along with others in the circus troupe under the master were slaves yet treated kindly, just before his death her master had freed her, yet now she has it back on.
Not long after she is realizes the one who put on it is a trickster and thief named Petie who, along with his monkey Crystal and bear Bruno, is after the treasures of the red king said to lie deep within his fortress.
Timkin learns that there is one cure to the red fever, a fruit grown on a special tree, not just any tree, but a tree where once a healing pond that could cure any disease, the red king decided to remove it by planting a tree over it.
Timkin soon learns about a fire that is in the red king's fortress, a fire that so hot it can cause someone to live through death due to hardening them but with the sacrifice of their strength and old self.
Such a creature guards this tree. As Petie and the others get to the red king's fortress, they must fool the red king's men, who on the day they arrive, are choosing people to perform in front of the red king, luckily passing.
After a harrowing adventure where nearly being eaten, killed, drowned and poisoned they manage to defeat the red king by forcing him into the fire so many times there is nothing left of him.
While due to Petie's actions at first Timkin at the moment the collar is removed wants nothing to do with him due to his selfishness and risking their lives for gold.
In the end they team up and continue on adventures.