The modern concept of romantic love owes much to the roman of medieval times: a story told in one of the Romance languages (Italian, French, Spanish, Portuguese or Romanian) about chivalry and love. As Marilyn Yalom of Stanford University pointed out in her recent article ‘How medieval storytellers shape our understanding of romance’:

Amorous love, in the Middle Ages and even today, was so bound up in the literature of love that it is difficult to know what came first: Did French medieval stories (romans) create the vision of love we now call romantic, or did romantic love exist prior to the storytellers?

One point in the article really struck home for me:

The heart extolled by 12th-century storytellers was always faithful to its one true love.

‘Fidelity to the beloved was a given,’ writes Marilyn. Is it still? I thought as I read. Is faithfulness still essential for romantic love? A resounding yes was my answer!

Fidelity is established as a major theme in my newly released novel, Aphrodite’s Tears, from the outset. From the blurb:

To archaeologist Oriel Anderson, joining a team of Greek divers on the island of Helios seems like the golden apple of her dreams. Yet the dream becomes a nightmare when she meets the devilish owner of the island, Damian Lekkas. In shocked recognition, she is flooded with the memory of a romantic night in a stranger’s arms, six summers ago…

The question raised at once in the book is: why would Oriel, a woman of strong, traditional values, have given herself to a stranger for a night of passion? The answer is simple: she had been hurt terribly by infidelity. She was 22, and on the island of Aegina as part of her MA in archaeology. Her fiancé, Rob, was expected that evening; but instead, Oriel received a letter from him:

Please believe me that Alicia and I fought our attraction for months, but eventually it became something neither of us could deny. We couldn’t help it, we just fell in love. Alicia is carrying my child and we will be married next month…

Her fiancé had cheated on her with her best friend. Such betrayal – and so damaging to a belief in a true, pure, loyal love.

Fast-forward six years, and Oriel has come to work on the island of Helios for Damian Lekkas. Setting aside their own history – that night of stolen passion – Oriel finds she is fascinated by this man, and interested to understand what has caused the haunted look in his eyes. Through speaking to islanders, she puts together a potted history of the island’s leader.

Damian, it transpires, is no stranger to the heartache wrought by infidelity. First, his parents. Damian’s mother, named for the Greek goddess Aphrodite, was very beautiful and charming, while her husband, Hephaestus, so goes the story, was ugly and dull. But the husband’s brother, Ares, was quite the opposite, and he and Aphrodite fell passionately in love.

‘On Helios people regard marriage as sacred,’ Oriel is told. ‘Fornication outside of it is a mortal sin.’

Aphrodite and Ares paid the ultimate price: Hephaestus set a trap for the lovers during one of their rendezvous, surprising them in bed. He shot his brother and wife, then turned the gun on himself. Poor Damian, but a child of nine then, saw it all.

Can you imagine how that scarred Damian? Little wonder that he grew up to marry a woman for convenience rather than love. Still, Damian did not choose to become the victim of infidelity himself, when his wife engaged in an affair with his own brother – an affair that also ended in tragedy.

Damian’s history is like something out of a Greek myth, Oriel thinks, full of intrigue and drama, and of course I deliberately wrote the story that way. Two people terribly hurt by infidelity, who have been damaged by betrayal, their faith in love shaken… can they find the kind of love that was defined in medieval times?

Love, which rules / All hearts / allows them only / One home.

So wrote French poet Chrétien de Troyes in the 12th century. Now that Damian and Oriel have come together again, on the beautiful island of Helios, can they find that home in each other – can the wounds of the past be healed by a love that is faithful and loyal?