Читать книгу An Honourable Rogue - Carol Townend - Страница 3

Carol Townend has been making up stories since she was a child. Whenever she comes across a tumbledown building, be it castle or cottage, she can’t help conjuring up the lives of the people who once lived there. Her Yorkshire forebears were friendly with the Brontë sisters. Perhaps their influence lingers…

Carol’s love of ancient and medieval history took her to London University, where she read History, and her first novel (published by Mills & Boon) won the Romantic Novelists’ Association’s New Writers’ Award. Currently she lives near Kew Gardens, with her husband and daughter. Visit her website at www.caroltownend.co.uk

Author Note

In 1066 William, Duke of Normandy, seized the English crown. Many Franks came with him, including knights from Brittany and elsewhere in France. The hero of my last novel was one of these, and I wondered how it might have been for the family and friends he left behind.

This novel opens in Brittany in the summer of 1067. Politically, the Breton Duchy is in chaos. Rival counts are jostling for supremacy and allegiances change like lightning. What if William also attacks neighbouring Brittany? In AN HONOURABLE ROGUE two young Bretons are drawn into this political maelstrom. A lute- player, Benedict Silvester, is one. He carries out secret missions for the Duke of Brittany—which means a journey to turbulent England. Rozenn Kerber, Ben’s childhood friend, is another. Knowing that Rose is ambitious, Ben arranges for her to receive a ‘proposal of marriage’ from a knight in England, and together they set off…

Minstrels would both sing and recite the ancient epics, stories in which heroes and heroines are tested to their limits. On his travels Ben recites The Romance of Tristan. He also sings a version of The Song of Roland, originally made famous by a renowned minstrel known as the dwarf Turold. Turold can be seen on the Bayeux Tapestry.

I hope you enjoy reading about Ben and Rose as they embark on their journey, a journey which will put them to the test…