Cursed in the Blood: A Catherine LeVendeur Mystery (44 page)

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Authors: Sharan Newman

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Edgar’s Family

Catherine’s Family

The Anglo-Rorman North

Acknowledgments

All of the people listed below have been of great help in advising me on this book. Any mistakes herein are completely due to my own perversity or lack of comprehension.

Dr. Tess Gerritsen, for not thinking I was crazy when I asked her about amputations and for giving me excellent advice on that grisly subject.

Prof. Bert Hall, University of Toronto, for setting me straight on windmills and for believing that Catherine and I both had the intelligence to understand his explanation.

Rebecca T. Hill, R.N., for telling me what to do until the
medicus
arrives.

Prof. Lester Little, Smith College, for finding the malediction from which this book is titled and for allowing me to use it.

Prof. Nicholas Howe, Ohio State University, for sending me the Durham poem and checking my Anglo-Saxon curses.

Prof. Brian Patrick McGuire, Roskilde University, Denmark, many thanks for all his advice and help on Aelred of Rievaulx.

Roger Norris, and also Wendy and Ivy; Cathedral Library of Durham, for allowing me to do research at the library, for getting the books and manuscripts out before I arrived, for finding a place to plug in my laptop so I could work and for providing a friendly atmosphere in which to work.

Prof. David Rollason, Durham University, for suggesting that I write about the bishops of Durham and then providing me with the chance to do the research there.

Prof. Jeffrey Russell, UC Santa Barbara, for enduring my questions, correcting my Latin and slogging through Lawrence of Durham’s turgid imitation Vergil for me.

Prof. Richard Unger, University of British Columbia, for getting everyone across the channel without anachronisms. (I hope.)

Prof. Linda Voigts, University of Missouri, for help
with dwale
and advice on medieval medicine.

Prof. Alan Young, University College of Ripon & York, St. John, for allowing me to read his notes for his monograph,
William Cumin: Border Politics and the Bishopric of Durham 1141—1144
and for being so enthusiastic about having his work becoming the basis for a mystery novel.

By Sharan Newman from Tom Doherty Associates

Death Comes As Epiphany
The Devil’s Door
The Wandering Arm
Strong As Death
Cursed in the Blood

Guinevere
The Chessboard Queen
Guinevere Evermore

Afterword

This book is a work of fiction. Catherine, Edgar and their families are made up from my own imagination. However, the world they live in is real and so are many of the events and people. William Cumin did attempt to take over the bishopric of Durham at this time, and the story of it is much more complex than I could capture in this book. Alan Young has written a thorough history of Cumin, published by the Borthwick Institute, York.

Aelred was in 1143 a monk and later an abbot of Rievaulx. His history is in his own writings and analyzed in a fascinating study by Brian Patrick McGuire called
Brother and Lover,
Crossroad Press, 1994. Godric of Finchale lived as a hermit near Durham for more than half a century and was over a hundred when he died. Unfortunately, as far as I know there is no good translation of his life story.

For further information on the books mentioned above and for a bibliography of the other sources used in this book, please write to me in care of the publisher. Usually, less than ten percent of my research is actually used in the story, and I would love to direct those interested to the rest of it. But my goal, as always, is to entertain. If I have done that, it even makes the horror of reading Lawrence of Durham worthwhile. Thank you.

—Sharan

This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this novel are either fictitious or are used fictitiously.

CURSED IN THE BLOOD

A Forge Book
Published by Tom Doherty Associates, Inc.
175 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10010

Forge
^®is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, Inc.

Map by Ellisa Mitchell

eISBN 9781466817289

First eBook Edition : March 2012

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Newman, Sharan.

Cursed in the blood / Sharan Newman.—1st ed. p. cm.

“A Tom Doherty Associates book.”