I can’t hate the darkest parts of myself. They are the things that showed me how special and rare the bright flames of trust, loyalty, friendship, and love were. My darkness showed me how to love Rob.
But now I choose light and fire and love.
Now I choose freedom.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
In ending this trilogy, one of the things I would really like to address is the history.
First—how cool? Writing this trilogy has been a dream come true for me because I’ve always seen Scarlet’s character, and her nature in general, as being part of the larger story of England. Many people say she’s anachronistic, but that’s not entirely true either. We see examples like the utterly legendary Eleanor of Aquitaine who rode into battle during the Second Crusade, fought with her husband, and made almost every man in England and France fall at her feet while she was still raising lions as she went along. She’s incredible, and she’s such an inspiration to write about and to research.
More than that, though, is this idea of the person that Scarlet represents. King Richard did come home, the ransom paid. He never had a legitimate child though. Roughly a decade after the close of this novel, after Prince John Lackland becomes King John, his nobles gathered together and forced him to sign the Magna Carta, subverting many of his divine rights as king—signed by all of the earls mentioned in the final chapter, in addition to several more lords and castle-holders, and clergymen to bear witness.
The common man also (though less publicized) forced him to sign the Charter of the Forest, a similar document for the rights of the people (and, in particular, revolutionizing how the royal forests, like Sherwood, were used). The Magna Carta, though almost immediately trounced and made ineffective in British law, became one of the inspirational documents when America was forming its Constitution and Bill of Rights. What an incredible effect!
I’ve always thought that this mindset didn’t spring up out of the blue. It was created by a society that had grown intolerant, and Scarlet was always meant to be the epitome of that. What if—what if there was a girl spurring all of this change? What if there was a girl at the heart of Robin Hood’s legend? What if history forgot all about her, because it’s somehow easier to believe a man was capable of such great things and a girl like Scarlet would simply be anachronistic?
I love that. I hope that she—and the long-reaching effect that she could have had—might stir up questions in your mind. I hope Scarlet will challenge your idea of what kind of power lay people, nobles, and women had in this era.
But I also want to come clean. I’ve always laid a benchmark for myself of this whole trilogy unfolding roughly between autumn and spring of 1191–1192. In some ways this is pretty accurate—it fits fairly well with Prince John’s problems (he did come back from France in October of 1191, had a political falling-out with an archbishop, and tried to gather support in England, only to lose to the archbishop and find himself in desperate need of political favor. It’s totally reasonable to think that at this point he would have visited his holdings, including Nottingham). So Lady Thief is pretty sound. However, Lion Heart takes a lot of liberties with Richard’s timeline. He didn’t leave the Holy Land until late 1192, and he shipwrecked and was essentially walking home for four months before he was captured—during which time he would have been virtually impossible to find. After that, it took months to even call for the ransom (which Eleanor did raise, and John did try to thwart) and more than a year to orchestrate.
Forgive me, I sped things up.
Oh, and just so you know exactly what Eleanor and Scarlet were facing, 65,000 pounds of silver roughly amounts to 2 billion British pounds now. Which, by some exceptionally rough and unqualified math, is about 3.5 billion US dollars.
However, as far as happy endings go, there are a lot of accurate pieces of history in here. Winchester does marry Margaret. Isabel and Prince John annul their marriage so that he can marry Isabelle of Angouleme, and Isabel of Gloucester marries Essex. Maud—who has the tiniest of cameos—marries Hugh Bigod, another minor role in the book. Yay, weddings!
I played with history a little; my hope, however, is that you will begin to see that almost all history is a written narrative, and that, like me, someone had the authorial hand. The greatest legacy Scarlet could have is to leave you questioning when history may not have gotten it right—and who might be left out.
Thank you for taking this journey with me, and with Scarlet!
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS