The author’s role is to provide the worst possible voyage through life for their characters, and in the Medieval Era women were treated extremely poorly. This opens up the possibility of terrible mistreatment for our protagonist. Should anyone be offended by her life so far at Dürnstein, my most deep and abiding apologies – while it is true that my role is to torture my fictional characters for the sake of creating drama in their story, I do approach it from the sad understanding that these plot elements exist because they are present in real life and can have a tremendous negative impact on those who experience them.

My interest in Richard stems from my fascination with his mother Eleanor – it does follow that this fascinating woman would be the matriarch of a bevy of English royals, including two kings. Both sons who ascended to the throne are uniquely interesting – Richard, who lived (and fought) enough in his 41 years to have lasted an old man’s lifetime, and John, who history declares was as poor a monarch as his brother was a great one.

Richard’s dedication to battle seems a good reason why he had no legitimate heirs. But he also had only one illegitimate son, which seems unreasonable. These descendants may be lost to history, but might there be more of them? So, I invented a story regarding one, filled with lies and deceit, of course.

Marie of Austria herself is an invention – it is unknown whether Leopold V and Helene of Austria had other children beyond the sons who ruled after them. But there were months when Richard could have fathered a child at Dürnstein Castle if he seduced a servant girl – so now the servant girl is a disgraced child of the Duke and the goal of the seduction is to gain power over the heart of the Lion!