"Irene Radford - Merlin's Decendants 04 - Guardian of the Promise" - читать интересную книгу автора (Radford Irene)

First paperback printing, April 2004 1234 5 6789 10



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DAW TRADEMARK REGISTERED U.S. PAT. OFF. AND FOREIGN COUNTRIES тАФMARCA REGISTRADA HECHO EN U.S.A.
PRINTED IN THE U.S.A.
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This book is dedicated to my patient husband who promSd me much and lived up to most of it
AUTHOR'S NOTES AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
hen I embarked upon my journey into Elizabethan his-ry, I had no idea I could produce two very large books bout the
Kirkwood family, spanning four generations, hat is even more amazing to me, I still did not have a ance to go play with
William Shakespeare. The Bard is obably the single most famous character to emerge from e long reign of Elizabeth I.
Yet his life and work falls to the declining years of her era and overlaps with her uccessor, James I of England and VI of
Scotland. This "cmonstrates to me just how important this queen was to istory. She counted among her suitors Ivan
the Terrible f Russia, two French princes, King Philip of Spain, and umerous others. In an age when women had little
status she led alone, without a consort, without a man to make her ecisions. She did it for forty-five years. The
anniversary of er accession to the crown, November 17, was celebrated as national holiday in England into the
eighteenth century. During her reign we see an explosion of creativity in the arts. The merchant class' emerged as a
power to be contended with. Commerce led to the growth of a merchant fleet, better ship designs, and professional
sailors. Education became commonplace, the English language was codified, and people began to participate in
government and religion rather than having it handed to them from on high. It was truly no accident that the English
defeated the Spanish Armada; though even they admitted to a little help from God. Elizabeth is a wonderful role model
for modern women. Historians have documented nearly every waking moment of the queen's life. Before her accession
to the crown, there are gaps in the documentation of her life. Thus I was able to insert the character of Robin, a
fictional bastard son born to Elizabeth and Robert Dudley. No proof of such a child has ever been found. Speculative
historians
ix
x Author's Notes and Acknowledgments I
suggest that descendants of such a child still live in Britain and still pass down the family lore of their most famous
ancestress.
I must also confess to taking liberties with history in two other places. Mathew Parker, Elizabeth's Archbishop of
Canterbury, died in his bed of old age. He was not murdered by a werewolf or anyone else as far as we know. Gilbert
Gifford, the Catholic priest recruited (blackmailed) by Sir Francis Walsingham into setting the trap to expose Mary
Queen of Scots' plots to assassinate Elizabeth probably carried through with the scheme as planned. But given his
previous devoted service to Mary's cause, 1 thought it likely that he might have double-crossed Elizabeth's spymaster.
The existence of werewolves is no longer believed to be true. Lycanthropy is regarded as a serious psychological
disorder that may be cured. In the sixteenth century, the best scientific minds began to look at shape-changers from
this viewpoint. King James I of England, and VI of Scotland wrote a learned treatise on the subject. The Catholic
Church, however, regarded werewolves as demon-infested beings in need of cleansing. Their favorite form of
banishing the Otherworldy spirit was fire, burning at the stake. Reports of the number of executions of confirmed
werewolves during the sixteenth century vary from three hundred to three thousand. I touched upon these contrasting
views briefly in this book. For the purposes of the plot I chose the magical origin of werewolves and created
Yassim-ine's culture. As far as I know, no society existed that worshiped the wolf as depicted. The ritual, of course,
while using some historical elements, is the product of my imagination.
\
The title of El LobisonтАФor El LobizonтАФrefers primarily to a South American version of the werewolf. This can be
traced to Spanish and Portuguese legends that depict a man cursed to pay for his sins by shape-changing on Good
Friday. I needed a title for my Master of Werewolves and appropriated this one. Many of the early documents about
lycanthropy refer to a Spanish princess as the mother of werewolves. This could be part of the propaganda against