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Page 491
Author's Note
To the reader who is familiar with the medieval period, the character of Lady Alinor may seem unrealistic. However, there were strong women in medieval times. The most notable example is Queen Alinor herself, also a character in this book, who was so powerful a woman that her husband's only recourse after he failed to control her by the usual means was to imprison her in England, hundreds of miles and a sea away from her own vassals. There was that Hadwissa, of whom Roger of Wendover says distastefully, "she lacked only the virile parts to be a man," and there was Nicolaa de la Hay, who was Sheriff of Lincoln and, when the castle of which she was castellan was attacked, "proposing to herself nothing effeminate, defended the castle like a man," according to Richard of Devizes. There was also Blanche of Champagne, who conducted an invading army into Lorraine in 1218 to protect the interests of her young son. Others, less high in the social scale, also existedwomen who ran their own businesses and were free members of the early Guilds, but a list would be tedious. Thus, Alinor, although fictional, has adequate historical precedents for her character and behavior. Certainly, she was not the common run of woman, but neither is she an anachronism.
Also fictional are Simon Lemagne and his squire Ian de Vipont, the keep and town of Roselynde, and all of Alinor's vassals, castellans, and servants. The other characters and all incidents of national importance, such as the movements of Queen Alinor and

 
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