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Book Log 16/2010 - Elizabeth Chadwick - The Love Knot
Elizabeth Chadwick: The Love Knot
Another excellent Elizabeth Chadwick historical. When Oliver Pascal returns from a long pilgrimage in 1140 he finds his brother dead and their lands given to a Flemish mercenary. The country's in turmoil with civil war raging between Stephen and Mathilda. Drawn to the site of a raid by the smell of smoke, he finds two survivors, Catrin, a young widow, and her charge Richard, bastard son of the old king. He delivers them safely to Earl Robert, in command of Mathilda's garrison at Bristol, and true to his promise continues to have an eye for their welfare. He's already attracted to Catrin, though still bruised from the loss of his beloved first wife in childbirth.
When Catrin persuades the old midwife, Ethel, to train her, she embarks on a new but dangerous career and Oliver is somewhat disturbed because, as a hearth knight in Earl Robert's employ, he goes where he's sent and he's not always there to protect her when she's called out in the middle of the night.
As the fortunes of war ebb and flow. Catrin's feckless husband - presumed dead - turns up and separates Oliver and Catrin, but of course that's not the end...
It's one of Chadwick's engaging historicals with a well researched background and peripheral characters, some of them real and some of them fictional.
Another excellent Elizabeth Chadwick historical. When Oliver Pascal returns from a long pilgrimage in 1140 he finds his brother dead and their lands given to a Flemish mercenary. The country's in turmoil with civil war raging between Stephen and Mathilda. Drawn to the site of a raid by the smell of smoke, he finds two survivors, Catrin, a young widow, and her charge Richard, bastard son of the old king. He delivers them safely to Earl Robert, in command of Mathilda's garrison at Bristol, and true to his promise continues to have an eye for their welfare. He's already attracted to Catrin, though still bruised from the loss of his beloved first wife in childbirth.
When Catrin persuades the old midwife, Ethel, to train her, she embarks on a new but dangerous career and Oliver is somewhat disturbed because, as a hearth knight in Earl Robert's employ, he goes where he's sent and he's not always there to protect her when she's called out in the middle of the night.
As the fortunes of war ebb and flow. Catrin's feckless husband - presumed dead - turns up and separates Oliver and Catrin, but of course that's not the end...
It's one of Chadwick's engaging historicals with a well researched background and peripheral characters, some of them real and some of them fictional.