WolfeLord by Kathryn Le Veque
Author’s Note
Welcome to Will’s story!
I thought it would be fun in the beginning to catch a glimpse of Will’s mother, Athena de Norville. If you recall, she was Scott de Wolfe’s first wife (ShadowWolfe). I don’t want to give too much away for those of you who haven’t read the book yet, but Athena and her sister, Helene, have been key figures (though we never meet them) in several de Wolfe novels. Though we haven’t really met Helene in full, you’ll get the chance to meet Athena. As my mother would say, she’s a pistol…
It was actually quite difficult to write about Athena because she made a magnificent heroine. You’ll see what I mean when you read the prologue. Since I wrote ShadowWolfe and DarkWolfe well before this book, we already know her ending, but to see her alive like this is kind of a punch to the gut. But listen to what she says to her father… and how unique she is… and you’ll understand better why things happened the way they did at the end of her life. You’ll see why her departure left such grief in its wake and why Paris never stopped talking about her and her sister, up until the end of his life.
Now, on to the story –
This book discusses a serious medical condition for a pregnant woman, something that would have been deadly during this time – placenta abruption. That basically means the placenta pulls away from the uterine wall. Nowadays, it can be diagnosed and the survival rate for mother and child are excellent (which is a good thing because I had it with my second child), but in Medieval times, there was no way to treat such a thing. The signs were there, but nothing could be done, and it was always invariably deadly. A forerunner of a stethoscope is mentioned in this tale, but note that the “official” discovery of that instrument didn’t happen until 1816. That’s not to say that something similar wasn’t used as far back as the Greeks when the practice of medicine began in earnest.
Now, some less heavy notes about this tale. Chris de Lohr appears, the grandson of Christopher de Lohr through his eldest son, Curtis. I need to make some family dynamics clear here – Chris appears in ShadowWolfe in 1281 A.D. and then makes another appearance in both A Wolfe Among Dragons in 1287 A.D. and The Red Lion in 1288 A.D. I was never clear on Chris de Lohr’s family – some appear in some books, while still others appear in other books, so to be clear on Chris’ family, he has six sons and one daughter.
Chris’ wife was born Alys Kaedia de Titouan, a Welshwoman, and goes by Kaedia. She was mentioned in A Wolfe Among Dragons. What wasn’t mentioned was the family tradition for the women in the family to have English and Welsh names and then go by the Welsh name. Lily breaks the mold a little, not going by her Welsh name, but once Chris de Lohr married into a Welsh family, things became a little complicated. I’m not sure how thrilled Christopher would have been about Chris infiltrating the Welsh bloodlines, but I’d like to think he would have been tolerant. I never really made all of this clear in the books where Chris appears, so now is the time to avoid reader confusion.
But I digress.
Our first mention of Will de Wolfe comes in Sword and Shields. That book was written several years ago and, at the time, I had no plans to ever write Will’s book, so there are some slight continuity issues between Swords and Shields and WolfeLord. Will also made a brief appearance in ShadowWolfe, and that’s the book I used for accuracy in this book – mostly how Will married Lily de Lohr very early in life (she was 16 when he married her). He did marry her, but now we find out how that marriage actually went.
Swords and Shieldsreally didn’t fit into what I wanted for Will several years down the road – so the years of his marriage to Adria are a little “off”. Not terribly, but a little. If I hadn’t mentioned it, you probably wouldn’t have even noticed. I desperately wanted to fit William de Wolfe, however briefly, into this novel, and he wasn’t alive in 1300 when Swords and Shields was set. So – don’t mind me. With the (literally) thousands of characters and timelines and worlds I have created, I have been known to screw up family ties and timelines on occasion but, in this case, it’s deliberate. Let’s just call it creative license!
The usual pronunciation guide:
Unusually, I don’t think there are any funky names that need clarification except for the heroine – her name is Adria. Basically, pronounced like Adrian without the “n” – so:
Ā-dree-uh (Long “A”)
And with that, I think I’ve covered everything, so I hope you enjoy the rather heavy, beautiful, and emotional tale of WolfeLord!
Hugs,
