His hands rose, and he turned and looked all around. It was crowded up to the rock and heaped with black ash find stubs of wood. He lifted one hand and thrust back the hood of his cloak. He had not realized how high he had come, following the ancient trail. But when he rounded the rock he saw that the ground fell sharply away, sweeping back down to the forest. He thought the ground was level beyond it. He lifted the reins over the head of the black horse and let them trail. The spur of the rock would make good shelter.

He moved the black horse a little farther from the trees and dismounted. The trail wound back down the slope and vanished into the deep heavy darkness. He could see only a little way into the forest. Here in the clearing the sun still shone a little.

The decisions of the dark and violent eleventh century were no more inevitable and no less agonizing than the decisions of the dark and violent twentieth century. I ask the reader to approach the events of this tale not as accomplished facts, but as the unfolding of the continual, unforeseeable present. The greatest inaccuracy a writer of historical fiction can commit is to assume the inevitability of events. I ask the reader’s pardon for these and any other inaccuracies. I have rearranged the facts here to suit purposes of plot and characterization. The major exception is the events of October 1066, prior to the occupation of the town of Hastings. The historical details of the story are as close to truth as possible. It may be pronounced that way, although a speaker of Gaelic would undoubtedly correct it, The name “Laeghaire” is the Gaelic spelling of Lear, as in King Lear.

The Firedrake by Cecelia Holland