The Scourge of Muirwood (Legends of Muirwood #3)

In this tome, you will learn about your future and the future of our Family. Your work is not yet done. You and your husband and your children and their wives and husbands will be kings and queens in the new land. I have left you my tome to aid you that you may rule in wisdom and humility. When I sent you to Muirwood, I trusted you would learn the pains and feelings of common people. Their tears and pains and sorrows weigh more on the Medium than the whims and greed and beauty of the rich and the powerful.

I have seen deeply into the future, my darling girl. Our Family will play a great role in events to come. Your writings and wisdom will be added to this tome, helping save generations yet unborn. In the future I have seen your posterity will chain and shackle Ereshkigal for all time and bind her in prison under irrevocare sigil. She knows this is her destiny, which is why she has persecuted our Family. Teach your children to be strong for she will always seek to subvert them. Some will fall under her sway.

Cold aurichalcum and shavings is a poor medium in which to express a father’s love. Clasp this tome in your hands, my child, and think of me. Through the true Medium, you will feel my love for you, stronger than death and deeper than the depths of Sheol. We await you, beloved daughter. We offered up our lives that you might live and fulfill and begin the destiny of our Family.

Your servant,

Alluwyn Lleu-Iselin

Father





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AUTHOR’S NOTE


I dedicated this novel to Sharon Kay Penman because she is the inspiration for this story. I first read her novel Here Be Dragons while I was in college and fell in love with medieval English history. My friend Jeremy told me of the book, which he found in a used bookstore in Switzerland. After Dragons, we discovered Falls the Shadow at a used bookstore in downtown San Jose. It tells the tragic story of Simon de Montfort and his death at Evesham Abbey. The trilogy concluded with The Reckoning which describes the subjugation of Wales to Edward I. It was reading this book that I first learned of the lost princess of Wales, Gwenllian ferch Llewellyn who was banished to the Gilbertine Priory at Sempringham where she died 54 years later. Her story is a sad one, and it inspired me to create Lia in her memory and give her a much happier ending. Many of the political details in the Muirwood series come directly from this era. Yes, even the bit about Tomas Aldermaston abducting her mother by sea (history named him Thomas the Archdeacon).

Writing novels is an endeavor full of surprises. When I first began plotting Muirwood, it was a more comical series than what it ended up becoming. The characters began developing their own personalities and would often buck against the paths where I tried to coax them. For example, Sowe was supposed to go along with Lia and Colvin when they first left Muirwood. But instead she ran off and told the Aldermaston what was going on and whimpered in a corner instead. Another example, the confrontation between Lia and Almaguer, in book one, was supposed to happen at a tavern in the village of Winterrowd. Sometimes my best intentions were deliberately waylaid by the characters. And some scenes ended up writing themselves just by throwing Dieyre into the mix. I enjoyed each of the characters in a different way. But Lia is clearly my favorite.

Lastly, I wanted to thank many of the early readers of Muirwood for their extreme patience in waiting for the story to be finished, and especially for those who read it in little gulps, five chapters at a time. Thanks to Muirwood’s biggest fan, my sister, Emily Bradshaw for her persistent enthusiasm and sharing. My niece, Jenna Wheeler, who could pass for Lia in a pinch if you saw her. For Melanie Hoem and her late-night IM’s with Emily about the series (which they forwarded to me!). I would also like to thank Kate, Colleen, Rachelle, cousin Melanie, and Steve for their feedback on the series. Your feedback and enthusiasm helped keep my motivated to keep writing, one chapter at a time.


For readers who want to know if this is the end. An author rarely shuts the door and locks it when creating new worlds. I wrote a novella years ago called “Maia” which is set in this world in the future, after the ships return and the kingdoms begin anew. The main character is part of Lia and Colvin’s posterity. There is more to be written still as that novella was just a foreshadowing of the plot and characters. You can find this story on my website: www.jeff-wheeler.com



Thank you for reading!