"David Gemmell - Sipstrassi Tales 01 - Wolf In Shadow" - читать интересную книгу автора (Gemmel David)

WOLF IN SHADOW


This novel is dedicated to the memory of 'Lady' Woodford, who believed in love, courage, and
friendship, and gave those who knew her fresh insights into the meaning of all three. Sleep well,
Lady.
And to Ethel Osborne, her sister, for a lifetime of love and care.
 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS


Nothing is created in a vacuum, and I am grateful to many people for their help in the creation of
WOLF IN SHADOW. My thanks to Elizabeth Reeves, my editor, for bringing me out of the mist;
to Peter Austin, for the wagon-master; and to Jean Maund, Stella Graham, Tom Taylor, Ross
Lempriere, Ivan Kellham and Tony Fenelon for invaluable assistance.
Thanks also to Jeremy Wells, for loyalty and friendship, in a world that rarely understands either.
 FOREWORD


Of the many characters I have created over the years, few have captured the imagination of
readers as powerfully as Jon Shannow, the Jerusalem Man.
Alan Fisher, the award winning author of Terioki Crossing, and a fan of the film Casablanca, has
a phrase that sums up characters like Shannow. 'They walk out of Rick's Bar, fully formed and
real. The author doesn't have to work on them at all. There is no conscious act of creation. One
moment they don't exist - the next they stand before you, complete and ready.'
I remember the moment Shannow walked out of Rick's Bar.
It was at the end of a miserable, wet day in Bournemouth at the start of autumn in 1986. I was the
group managing editor of a series of newspapers stretching from Brighton to Portsmouth on the
south coast. The previous week I had a call from my father to tell me that my mother was in
hospital and that surgeons feared she had terminal cancer. They were right. A year before she had
suffered the amputation of her right leg, and fought back to make a dramatic entrance at a
Christmas Dance. This time there would be no fightback.
I had visited her in London, and then driven to Bournemouth for a business meeting, concluding
it at around ten that night. I was Staying in a small hotel of remarkable unfriendliness. The kind
of place - as Jack Dee once said - where the Gideons leave a rope! I hadn't eaten since the
previous evening and I called the night porter. He said the kitchen staff had gone home, but there
was a plate of olives someone had left at the bar. Nursing the olives and a very large glass of
Armagnac I returned to my room and opened the Olympia portable typewriter.
I was at the time preparing a Drenai novel, featuring the Nadir Warlord Ulric, which my
publishers had commissioned. According to the contract the book was to be called Wolf in
Shadow and was, loosely, a prequel to Legend. I had completed around sixty pages. They weren't
good, but I was powering on as best as I could.
Sitting by the window, looking out over Bournemouth's glistening streets, I tried to push the
events of the week from my mind. My mother was dying, I was waiting to be fired, and staff,
who had joined my team in good faith, were facing redundancy. After the fifth large Armagnac I
decided to continue work on the book. I knew I was drunk, and I also knew that the chances of
writing anything worthwhile were pretty negligible. But forcing my mind into a fantasy world
seemed infinitely more appealing than concentrating on the reality at hand.
The scene I was set to continue had a Nadir scout riding across the steppes. The intention was to
follow him to the top of a hill and have him gaze down on the awesome army camped on the
plain below.