Copyright © 2015 Deborah Harkness

The right of Deborah Harkness to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

This Ebook edition was first published by Headline Publishing Group in 2015

All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Cataloguing in Publication Data is available from the British Library

Author photo credit: Vania Stoyanova

eISBN: 978 1 4722 3135 2

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Contents

Title Page

Copyright Page

About the Book

About Deborah Harkness

Praise for Deborah Harkness

A Discovery of Witches

Real-time Reading Calendar

Real-time Reading Companion Notes

Shadow of Night

Real-time Reading Calendar

Real-time Reading Companion Notes

The Inspiration for A Discovery of Witches and the All Souls trilogy

Discover The World Of . . .

Photograph Credits – A Discovery of Witches

About the Book

It began with A Discovery of Witches. It continued with Shadow of Night. Now, as The Book of Life has brought Deborah Harkness’s stunning No.1 internationally bestselling trilogy to its finale, enrich your experience of the heart-stopping conclusion by stepping deeper into the fantasy world Deborah has created.

This exclusive All Souls trilogy real-time reading guide brings to life A Discovery of Witches and Shadow of Night with exciting behind-the-scenes extra content.

If you are a new reader, you can immerse yourself in the real-time world of the All Souls trilogy by following this chapter-by-chapter timeline, enjoying Deborah’s fascinating background notes along the way (caution: there will be spoilers for new readers so don’t get ahead of yourself). For those avid fans who have already read and loved the books, why not step back into Diana and Matthew’s enchanting story. Here collected for you exclusively in one volume are some of the wonderful notes Deborah has shared about the people, places, music and history that inspired her when writing the books.

About Deborah Harkness

‘I began to wonder, If there really are witches and vampires, what do they do for a living? A DISCOVERY OF WITCHES is the unexpected answer to that question.’

Deborah Harkness is a historian of science and a professor of history at the University of Southern California. The recipient of fellowships from the American Council of Learned Societies, the Guggenheim Foundation, and the National Humanities Center, Harkness has also been awarded the History of Science Society’s Pfizer Award and Derek Price Prize, and the North American Conference on British Studies’ John Ben Snow Prize. She spent several years in Oxford doing research (and really did once find a missing manuscript in the Bodleian Library!). She has written The Jewel House: Elizabethan London and the Scientific Revolution as well as the three books of the highly acclaimed and internationally bestselling All Souls trilogy.

Praise for The Book of Life:

‘Rich in arcane detail, fans will relish this exotic cauldron of romantic fantasy’ Sunday Mirror

‘I could not imagine a better way to leave my favourite characters and trilogy. The Book of Life is stunning’ Compelling Reads

‘A perfect ending to a spellbinding trilogy, Harkness has woven her characters into my life; this is a series I will be re-reading in the not-too-distant-future!’ Elise Italiaander, Audible Blog

‘The research and writing in The Book of Life is what I have come to expect from Harkness – erudite, engaging and clever, using her academic knowledge to underpin a sweeping and increasingly complex tale . . . The Book of Life was worth waiting for and comes highly recommended’ Curious Book Fans

‘A beautifully written, fitting end to a wonderful trilogy’ Notes of Life

Praise for Shadow of Night:

‘[A] magnificent sequel to A Discovery of Witches. Her weaving of time and ancient lore, of modern science and alchemy, or vampires, daemons and all too mortal humans is magical and utterly addictive’ Manda Scott

‘An inventive addition to the supernatural craze . . . recounted with enchanting, page-turning panache’ Marie Claire

‘We devoured it . . . If magic, witches, vampires, love, lust and time travel are your thing (with cameos from Queen Elizabeth the First and Shakespeare), Shadow of Night is your perfect companion’ Glamour

‘As with the first book, comparisons to Twilight from previous reviewers do it no justice . . . This is truly a gem of a book that deserves to stand on its own’ British Fantasy Society

Praise for A Discovery of Witches:

‘Gripping and impossible to put down, this is Twilight for grown ups – a wonderful read!’ Katie Fforde

‘A romp through magical academia’ Guardian

‘Romantic, erudite, and suspenseful’ O, The Oprah Magazine

‘A spellbinding saga . . . unputdownable’ Woman & Home

It begins with absence and desire. It begins with blood and fear. It begins with . . .

Real-time Reading Calendar

Message from Deborah

Around September 2008, I started writing what would turn out to be A Discovery of Witches. As many of you know, the main action of the book takes place over forty days between September 21 and October 31. Diana Bishop’s first encounter with Ashmole 782, however, occurred on September 18. Why not read or re-read A Discovery of Witches as the action elapses? Some days have more than one chapter, and others have none at all, but it’s interesting to read it and have just as much time as Diana and Matthew did to absorb the enormous changes happening to them, and all around them. It may give you new insights.

Please note: because the action of the book starts on a Friday, the days of the week will be wrong, but the dates are right and you will end up, as they did, on Halloween.

Real-time Reading Companion Notes

18 September, Chapter 1:

The leather-bound volume was nothing remarkable. To an ordinary historian, it would have looked no different from hundreds of other manuscripts in Oxford’s Bodleian Library, ancient and worn.

Inside Duke Humfrey’s, the Bodleian Library.

21 September, Chapter 2:

No matter what I told myself in the quadrangle, my walk home was faster than usual. The gloom of New College Lane was a spooky proposition at the best of times.

New College Lane, Oxford.

21 September, Chapter 3:

The vampire sat in the shadows on the curved expanse of the bridge that spanned New College Lane . . .

The Bridge of Sighs, Oxford

22 September, Chapter 4:

I managed to get down river, but the serenity of the outing had evaporated. Turning the boat in front of the Isis Tavern, I spotted Clairmont standing beside one of the pub’s tables. He’d managed to get there from the Donnington Bridge – on foot – in less time than I’d done it in a racing scull.

Here you can see the stretch of river Diana is rowing down, with the Isis Tavern (now called the Isis Farmhouse) in the distance, where she finds Matthew waiting for her.

23 September, Chapter 6:

The manuscript inside the next box was smaller than the last, but it contained interesting sketches of alchemical apparatus and snippets of chemical procedures that read like some unholy combination of Joy of Cooking and a poisoner’s notebook.

Claudio de Dominico Celentano di Valle Nove, Book of Alchemical Formulas (Naples, 1606), images of chemical purification through sunlight and moonlight, pp. 8–9. Manly Palmer Hall Collection of Alchemical Manuscripts: http://www.getty.edu/research/special_collections/highlights/alchemy/index.html

24 September, Chapter 7:

We walked in silence for a few minutes, wrapped up in the gray fog and the strangeness of being alone, witch and vampire.

Christ Church Meadow, Oxford

25 September, Chapter 8:

A two-story Tudor manor house was arranged around a central courtyard. Its bricks glowed in the illumination of powerful spotlights that shone through the branches of gnarled oak trees to light the face of the building.

My inspiration for the Old Lodge was Speke Hall, near Liverpool, owned and operated by the National Trust. It’s not exactly true to the Cotswolds in architectural style, but I visited this house for the first time in 1973 (I was eight) and it has been the house of my dreams ever since. If you are in the north of England, please stop by to visit the house and support the National Trust’s efforts to preserve British heritage.

25 September, Chapter 8:

‘My sister Louisa,’ he said, coming around the counter with a fully outfitted tea tray. He looked up at the canvas, his face touched with sadness.

The image that inspired my vision of Louisa de Clermont is ‘Portrait of a Lady’ probably Mary Parsons, later Mrs Draper by Peter Lely, ca. 1665, which can be seen at the wonderful Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge: http://webapps.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/explorer/index.php?oid=3584.

26-29 September, Chapter 9:

Pulling up to what had been the back entrance of an old hunting lodge, where rough brown stone stood in sharp contrast to the creamy stuccoed front, he climbed out of his Jaguar and lifted his bags from the trunk.

Here you encounter Hamish Osborne’s Scottish hunting lodge for the first time. In case you are wondering about my inspiration, it was Chatelherault in Hamilton, Scotland. Built in 1732 as a hunting lodge for the Dukes of Hamilton, Chatelherault is all that remains of a once-grand estate. Can’t you just picture Matthew and Hamish playing chess here?

26-29 September, Chapter 10:

Fleeing from the warden’s lodgings, I turned toward my old refuge in the cloisters and walked among the pillars until my pulse stopped racing. My mind was occupied with only one question: what to do now that two witches – my own people – had threatened me in the space of a single afternoon.

New College Cloister, Oxford University.

26-29 September, Chapter 10:

I glanced through the small window stuck into the swinging door that led to the Upper Reading Room, and I gasped. The room was full to bursting with creatures.

As a research student at Oxford I spent a lot of time in libraries – college libraries like All Souls, Merton, Corpus Christi, the History Faculty Library, as well as most of the reading rooms at the Bodleian. When I wasn’t in Duke Humfrey’s looking at rare books and manuscripts, my friends knew they could find me in the Bodleian’s Upper Reading Room surrounded by index cards and notes.

The amazing architecture, painted friezes along the walls, and the collection of portraits atop the bookcases provide plenty of inspiration for any historian – or novelist.

30 September, Chapter 11:

He pulled off Holywell Street into the arched gates of the lodge. Fred glanced at the car and grinned before looking discreetly away.

View from the east end of Holywell Street looking west with New College on the left.

1 October, Chapter 12:

Matthew shook his head. ‘No. It was 1811.’ I stared in astonishment at the almost two-hundred-year-old wine in my glass, fearing it might evaporate before my eyes.

A bottle of 1811 Château Yquem (now known as Château d’Yquem, but that name was not used in the 1811 label). This was the famous ‘comet vintage’ that Matthew gives to Diana. A bottle of this wine was sold in the summer of 2011 for approximately $123,000 (US). I was not the buyer.

Read more about it here:

http://thetastingbook.com/wine/chateau_dyquem/dyquem_1811

1 October, Chapter 12:

The main dish was the only part of the meal that required heat, and not much of it. I had already made a bizarre biscuit-like thing from ground chestnuts. All that was left for me to do was sear some rabbit. The list of ingredients included rosemary, garlic, and celery. I decided to forgo the garlic. With his sense of smell, garlic must overpower everything else – there was the nugget of truth in that vampire legend.

What do you make if a vampire is coming to dinner? While Matthew spent most of the day wondering what would happen later when he was alone with Diana (if you are wondering what I thought might be going through his romantic brain during these long hours, listen to The Spill Canvas’s ‘The Night Will Go As Follows’. It will make you smile.), Diana was shopping and worrying about what to feed this new friend of hers.

Dating a vampire would be a challenge. A huge challenge. Because food is a major way for warmbloods to share, get to know each other, and socialize. There had to be ‘something’ for Diana and Matthew to share besides mutual passion, which is why there is such an emphasis on wine as something they can at least converse about over the dinner table.

But of course, as Matthew points out, he ‘can’ and does eat. And bless Diana: she tried to come up with a vampire appropriate meal – which meant I had to do so, as well. All of the recipes are on the web in one form or another, but this dish for rabbit and chestnut cakes struck me as a winner straight away. It’s based on a traditional Tuscan dish. Olives and garlic are optional if you are serving it to vampires. I imagine it would be quite good with little, butterflied Cornish game hens if you don’t want to go down the rabbit route, or even some chicken pieces – though of course if you are cooking poultry be careful to cook it properly.

If you are making this recipe, please note that it involves Australian measurements and temperatures and make the necessary adjustments for where you live: http://www.sbs.com.au/food/recipes/rabbit-chestnut-cake.

Matthew and Diana have a wonderful Rhone Syrah with this dish. Here, they suggest a far more affordable red Shiraz from Australia – which is the same grape so it’s a good choice.

1 October, Chapter 12:

My face softened at his beautiful, ancient features. How could people walk by him on the street and not gasp. Before I could stop myself, my toes were gripping the old rug and I was stretching up to kiss him quickly on the cheek.

Oh, a first kiss.

Over the course of the evening, in between the wine and the food and the conversation, Diana has given up trying to deny her feelings for Matthew.

Over the Rhine’s ‘Drunkard’s Prayer’ is the song that accompanied the writing of most of their conversation about wine and history and science. And yes, their first kiss, too.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f3ZucFa_Ra4

2 October, Chapter 13:

The gloomy weather made him look a little less startling, but it wasn’t enough to make him blend in entirely. People turned and stared in the Bodleian’s central courtyard, then shook their heads.

Inside the Bodleian Library’s courtyard.

3 October, Chapter 14:

A pair of ornate, scrolled gates guarded his college as if it were Wonderland.

The All Souls College gates, Oxford.

5 October, Chapter 15:

It had been no more than an hour since I’d been with Matthew, but the sight of him stretched out among the first bay of Elizabethan desks in one of the medieval wing’s purgatorial chairs was welcome.

Inside Duke Humfrey’s, the Bodleian Library.

6 October, Chapter 17:

In the center of rolling hills was a flattened peak dominated by a crenellated hunk of buff and rose stone. Seven smaller towers surrounded it, and a turreted gatehouse stood guard in front. This was not a pretty, fairy-tale castle made for moonlit balls.

Chateau Dauphin near Pontgibaud in the Auvergne, the castle that served as the model for Sept-Tours.

7 October, Chapter 19:

Fly, I encouraged her silently. Rakasa shot forward as if she’d been slapped on the rump, and my instincts took over.

An Andalusian horse, the breed that Ysabeau rides.

8 October, Chapter 21:

This vampire didn’t care who knew he was different. His wolfish expression was the only imperfection in an otherwise angelic face, with symmetrical features and dark hair worn curling low on to his collar.

Andrea del Sarto, Portrait of a Man: my inspiration for the character Domenico Michele.

9 October, Chapter 24:

From afar I beheld a black cloud covering the earth. It absorbed the earth and covered my soul as the seas entered, becoming putrid and corrupted at the prospect of hell and the shadow of death.

The image of the ‘dark sun,’ representing the step in the alchemical process called nigredo. This is from the Splendor Solis, a famous illustrated alchemical manuscript, and the picture below comes from the British Library’s copy, Harley MS 3469, dated 1582.

When thinking of Godfrey de Clermont’s copy of the Aurora Consurgens, I imagined the main images would resemble those in Harley 3469 though the surrounds would be much earlier in style (as befits a work of Bourgot Le Noir, who was active in the middle of the fourteenth century).

10 October, Chapter 26:

I needed no encouragement to be with you. You say you’ve loved me since you resisted hitting me with an oar on the river.’ His eyes were unguarded. ‘I’ve loved you longer than that – since the moment you used magic to take a book from its shelf in the Bodleian.’

‘Moon Song’ by David Berkeley: I listened to a lot of David Berkeley writing A Discovery of Witches, because Berkeley captures the bittersweet nature of love and longing so perfectly.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J1RXTcEwt5k

11 October, Chapter 27:

Matthew met my eyes with difficulty. They were full of pain and a vulnerability that he’d carefully hidden before now. It broke my heart.

‘I can’t risk it Diana,’ he said. ‘I want you – more than anyone I’ve ever known.’

‘Iris’ by The Goo Goo Dolls – a song all about letting yourself be vulnerable with the one you truly love.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NdYWuo9OFAw

12 October, Chapter 29:

We descended toward something that looked like a crater set apart from the surrounding countryside by yawning ravines and overgrown forests. It proved to be the ruin of a medieval castle, with high walls and thick foundations that extended deep into the earth.

Image of Château de Murol in the Auvergne, my inspiration for La Pierre.

13 October, Chapter 32:

We turned down the rutted road leading to the Bishop House. Its late-eighteenth-century lines were boxy and generous, and it sat back from the road on a little knoll, surrounded by aged apple trees and lilac bushes.

My inspiration for the Bishop House was actually a house one of my grandfathers built in Western Massachusetts around 1750. Many settlers to upstate New York came from Western Massachusetts, and they built farm houses that looked like those they grew up in.

14 October, Chapter 34:

A thick brown envelope wormed its way through a crack in the green-painted panelling next to the fireplace. Once it had worked itself free, it shot across the keeping room and landed, faceup, in my lap.

Colonial houses had separate rooms for meeting guests, dining, cooking, and sitting as a family. The most formal of these rooms was usually the parlor, and the family’s room was often called the keeping room. In the Bishop House, I put an extension on the back of the original house. Sarah’s office is the old parlor. The keeping room – though once the more ‘casual room’ – is now used as the formal living room in the house.

15-19 October, Chapter 37:

There was an anomaly in the forest, felt rather than seen. It was a bending of the fading light, a sense of momentum, an aura of dark intention. My head swivelled over my shoulder.

‘Someone’s here,’ I said.

‘The Gloaming’ by Radiohead sets the perfect atmosphere for Diana’s realization that she and Matthew were in danger.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xW4uZdJgsLQ.

15-19 October, Chapter 37:

‘I am Juliette Durand.’

‘Gold Dust Woman’ by The Spill Canvas was always ‘Juliette’s Song’ in my mind. Enjoy this cover of a Fleetwood Mac classic.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KiW2gNgLNgM

20-21 October, Chapter 38:

I traveled countless miles that night, fleeing from place to place, never more than a step ahead of whoever was pursuing me – Gerbert, Satu, Juliette, Peter Knox. Whenever my journey brought me back to the Bishop House, Matthew was there.

‘Duet’ by Rachael Yamagata ft. Ray Lamontagne: this song perfectly captured Matthew’s mood while he watched Diana fight to survive – and her efforts to come back to him.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=2EO0w9i5wmA

22-28 October, Chapter 39:

Above me the branches of the tree were cracked and withered. Bare limbs forked and forked again into shapes reminiscent of a stag’s horns.

Ancient ‘stag-headed’ oak.

29 October, Chapter 40:

The two young men had stormed out of the room when we broke up to go our separate ways, mumbling something about getting milk. They’d then climbed into Marcus’s car and torn down the driveway.

One of Marcus’s sports cars (his was navy), and the one he drove to Madison: a Ferrari 250 GT SWB California Spyder. You can see why Matthew told Nathaniel ‘no speeding’.

30-31 October, Chapter 41:

‘In this room we understand why such a war might be fought. It’s about Diana and the appalling lengths the Congregation will go to in an effort to understand the power she’s inherited. It’s about the discovery of Ashmole 782 and our fear that the book’s secrets might be lost forever if it falls into the witches’ hands.’

‘The Pearl’ by Emmylou Harris: this is the song that I heard for the conventicle’s call to battle. Even now I can’t listen to it without thinking of the group gathered at the Bishop House before Diana and Matthew timewalked.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fd8nTY46oTQ

31 October, Chapter 42:

The bag held a ring made of three separate gold bands twisted together. The two outer bands were fashioned into ornate sleeves, colored with enamel and studded with small jewels to resemble embroidery. A golden hand curved out of each sleeve, perfectly executed down to the tiny bones, slender tendons, and minute fingernails.

Many, many readers have asked me about Ysabeau’s ring. Some can’t imagine what it looks like. Others wonder if it is real, or imaginary.

In general I don’t make things up unless I have to. As a historian, I spend as much time as I can in libraries, archives, museums and historical places. I love including real historical people, books, places and all sorts of real items into the books. One of them was this stunning ring from the Victoria and Albert museum in London: http://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O72588/ring-unknown/.

As you can see in the piece beautifully recreated by Janet Cadsawan below, it resembles the ring Matthew gives to Diana quite closely. And when you finish the trilogy, you might also notice how aspects of it are linked to themes in the books: the three bands that become one, the inscriptions ‘my whole heart for my whole life’, ‘my beginning and my end’ and ‘remember the past, and that there is a future’.

Ysabeau’s Scribble Ring by Janet Cadsawan, based on a German Gimmel ring in London’s Victoria and Albert Museum. To see more jewellery inspired by the All Souls trilogy, visit shop.cadsawan.com.

1 November, Chapter 43:

A slip of paper stuck out of the top. It led her to the dedication page. ‘To my deare and most worthy friend Matthew Roydon.’

The dedication page from George Chapman’s The Shadow of Night (1594).

*For all the songs referenced in the notes, please support these amazing artists who have inspired me throughout the All Souls trilogy and purchase their music through legal channels.

Black is the badge of true love lost. The hue of daemons, and the

Real-time Reading Calendar

Note from Deborah

Here we go again! We’re timewalking to 1590 with Diana and Matthew and below is the chapter-by-chapter calendar. As you can see, the timing is far more spaced out than in A Discovery of Witches, switching between the Gregorian and Julian calendars, and there is a month off in February while Matthew and Diana make their long journey to Prague, resuming in March and on through to July.

Please note: some days don’t have chapters because they aren’t covered in the book.

The Julian/Gregorian Calendars Explained

When people went to bed on 4 October 1582, a time-rift opened up in Western Europe. In most places, people woke up and it was 5 October. But in the Polish-Lithuanian region, Portugal, Spain, and most of Italy, the next day was officially 15 October. Timewalkers were not to blame. Instead, the loss of ten days was the result of Pope Gregory XIII’s new calendar.

Why did Europe need a new calendar? Because the old Roman calendar put in place by Julius Caesar (the Julian calendar) instituted a calculation error that meant it gradually drifted away from key astronomical markers of the season, like solstices and equinoxes. By the sixteenth century the spring equinox fell on 11 March according to the calendar – not 21 March – thereby affecting the calculation of important ‘movable’ Christian celebrations like Easter.

When I decided that Diana and Matthew were going to travel back to 1590 in Shadow of Night, it soon became clear that the existence of this ‘new style’ Gregorian calendar was going to throw a monkey wrench in the plot. For while most of Catholic Europe had adopted the pope’s new calendar by 1590 (including France and Bohemia), Protestant Europe (including England and Germany) stuck to the ‘old style’ Julian calendar. For Shadow of Night, it meant France and Prague were ten days ahead of England.

It can lead to some confusion about dates. When did the Spanish Armada start, for instance? According to the Spanish, who used the ‘new style’ calendar, it began when their fleet set sail on 20 May 1588. According to the English, who used the ‘old style’, it began on 10 May 1588. Same day, different calendar. Because Shadow of Night was a work of fiction, I had to find some way to weave the calendar problem into the plot or run the risk of confusing my readers. I decided this historical rift in time added to the ‘timewalking’ element of the story, and let Diana reflect on the discrepancy as further evidence of just how fluid time can be.

Keeping all the dates straight was something of a nightmare (you should see my tea-stained, much-revised working calendar complete with phases of the moon and sunrise/sunset times), but it did mean that Diana and Matthew got to celebrate Christmas twice.

The curious might wonder when England and the British American colonies adopted the new calendar. It was 1752. By then, they had to skip eleven days to bring the date into proper alignment with the astronomical data.

Real-time Reading Companion Notes

1 November, Chapter 1:

‘Looking for something, Kit?’ At Matthew’s words the young man dropped the paper to the table and pivoted, joy lighting his face. I’d seen that face before, on my paperback copy of Christopher Marlowe’s The Jew of Malta.

Christopher Marlowe – ‘Kit’. Playwright, radical, spy . . . and Matthew Roydon’s closest friend. A member of the School of Night, he is a daemon and maker of plays.

2 November, Chapter 3:

As a historian I had spent years reading old handwriting and knew exactly how the letters should look, what words were most common, and the erratic spelling choices that were mine to make in a time when there were few dictionaries and grammatical rules.

An English commonplace book from the early seventeenth century – much like the one Matthew gave Diana – showing someone’s practice handwriting.

4 November, Chapter 4:

The severe lines of his doublet made him look even broader through the shoulders, while the acorns and oak leaves stitched in black around the edges of his white collar accentuated the paleness of his skin.

These images illustrate blackwork embroidery on a man’s shirt of the style (though not the exact design) Matthew would have worn under his black doublet. Blackwork embroidery was a type of embroidery popular throughout the sixteenth century, and involved dark monochromatic stitching on a pale background.

5 November, Chapter 5-6:

‘That’s part of the MALLEUS MALEFICARUM. I did not know that your Latin was good enough to comprehend such a difficult work, Mr Danforth’ Matthew said. It was the most influential witch-hunting manual ever produced, and a title that struck terror into a witch’s heart.

Title page from a 1519 edition of the MALLEUS MALEFICARUM (THE HAMMER OF WITCHES), produced and published in 1486-1487.

7 November, Chapter 7:

Few scholars had reason to poke through the bizarre range of books and objects the Gonçalves had collected over the years. Most researchers were down the street at the Archivo General de Indias, arguing about Columbus.

The Archivo General de Indias, Seville.

8-26 November, Chapter 8:

Raleigh had accompanied us from the Old Lodge to Portsmouth and had piloted the boat that took us to Guernsey.

Sir Walter Raleigh

8-26 November, Chapter 8:

‘Immensi tremor oceani’, Matthew whispered as he contemplated the heaving seas. Staring out across the bleak water, he had all the expression of a carved figurehead.

IMMENSI TREMOR OCEANI (‘the tremor of the immense ocean’) is the motto of a French chivalric order founded in 1496 by King Louis XI, the Order of Saint Michael, the patron saint of Mont Saint-Michel. This is an illustration from the first page of the order’s statutes, showing the heraldic chain associated with membership and some of the order’s original thirty five knights surrounding the king.

8-26 November, Chapter 8:

After braving the exposed sands around Mont Saint-Michel at low tide and traveling inland, de Clermont allies welcomed us into the city of Fougères and lodged us in a comfortably appointed tower on the ramparts overlooking the French countryside.

Chateau de Fougères, France

8-26 November, Chapter 8:

‘This was René’s favorite hunting lodge. It was so full of life when he lived here, with artists and scholars in every room.’

Château de Baugé, the hunting lodge of René of Anjou, France.

24 November, Chapter 8:

We reached the stone walls and timbered houses of Saint-Benoît on schedule, just as Philippe had commanded.

Saint-Benoît-du Sault is a real village in France – and well worth the visit.

26 November, Chapter 8:

When I had first seen Matthew, my instinctive response had been to run. But Matthew – large and brooding as he’d been that September night in the Bodleian Library – hadn’t appeared half so otherworldly. And it wasn’t because Philippe de Clermont was a monster. On the contrary. He was, quite simply, the most breathtaking creature I had ever seen – supernatural, preternatural, demonic, or human.

‘Immortal Memory’ by Lisa Gerard and Patrick Cassidy. This is, and always will be as far as I’m concerned, ‘Philippe’s Song’.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VXds_l8UyHI

27 November, Chapter 9:

‘Diana’ Philippe said, stepping from behind his son. He reached for the nearest book and took it to the fire, leafing through the pages. ‘You are reading The History of the Franks – not for the first time I trust. This book would be more enjoyable, of course, if Gregory’s mother had overseen the writing of it. Armentaria’s Latin was most impressive.’

Gregory of Tours, Historia Francorum (History of the Franks) from a seventh century copy in the Bibliotheque Nationale de France, Manuscrits Latin 17655 fol.2.

Gregory was a historian and bishop, born in Clermont c.538 and died in 594.

28 November – 3 December, Chapter 10:

Like many religious buildings in this part of France, Saint-Lucien’s house of worship was already ancient in 1590. Its simple lines were altogether different from the soaring heights and lacy stonework of a Gothic cathedral.

Sant’Appolinare in Classe, Ravenna, the inspiration for the Romanesque church in Saint-Lucien. The village church would have been far simpler than this one, but the design and decorations would have been similar in style.

5 December, Chapter 11:

‘Matthew is in a blood rage. We manjasang are closer to nature than other creatures – pure predators, no matter how many languages we speak or what fine clothes we wear. This is the wolf in him trying to free himself so that he can kill.’

Today is the day Diana learns that Matthew is not just short-tempered and possessive. He has blood rage, a mysterious illness that is passed in the blood from maker to reborn vampire. Ysabeau is a carrier for the disease, though she doesn’t have the symptoms. Matthew – and his sister Louisa – are both symptomatic. And it is not Matthew who shares this secret with her, but Philippe.

People always wonder when I ‘know’ things in the plot, for example was this when I realized Matthew actually had a vampire illness? The answer to this particular question is that I knew back in A Discovery of Witches that Matthew was not like other vampires. I knew that his sickness was somehow connected to the ‘vampire murders’ Diana read about in his laboratory. As I wrote ADOW and thought forward about SON and TBOL, I fleshed out the rest of this plot line.

As I did so, Matthew’s other secrets came into view. Secrets he is still holding on to at this moment in the hay barn, even though Philippe has exposed one of them to the light. This song, Damien Rice’s ‘Volcano’, captures perfectly Matthew’s mood at the moment when Philippe and Matthew are fighting, and also the aftermath with Diana. Matthew is still holding an awful lot back – to protect Diana, himself, and his mother. We don’t realize how much until TBOL. But if you’ve read that book, and listen carefully to these words, you will see how much it captures Matthew’s complex feelings in ways you might not have appreciated if you listened to the song previously.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZduDvIBu3EU

5-6 December, Chapter 11:

The air felt full, tingling with an almost electrical current. I half expected to hear a rumble of thunder, the atmosphere was so thick. Peter Knox had been mentally invasive, and Satu had inflicted great pain at La Pierre, but this witch was different and somehow more dangerous.

‘The Wizard’ by Bat for Lashes.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X5BNBrnDXwE

8 December, Chapter 12:

He silenced me with another kiss, while he lifted the heavy chain from my shoulders. We broke off momentarily so Matthew could get it over my head. Then his hands breached the crenelated line of pickadils where sleeves met bodice. His fingers slid among the gaps, searching out a weak point in the garment’s defenses.

This is the model I used for Diana’s wedding dress, from a portrait by Lavinia Fontana of an anonymous ‘Lady of the Court’ from c.1590. As you can see, I stuck very close to the image right down to the pickadils. It is actually surprisingly difficult to find portraits of women from around 1590 – or at least to accurately date portraits from that period – as women’s fashion was in a major upheaval. This is very French in style – and much simpler than what was being worn in England at a similar moment. In a few weeks, when you see English and then Czech fashion you will be amazed that these gowns were all worn at approximately the same time given their striking differences.

It is additionally challenging to find women’s clothes that I could actually see Diana wearing without too much difficulty or complaint. Matthew might have struggled to get Diana out of this gown but at least I could imagine her agreeing to put it on.

17 December or Saturnalia, Chapter 13:

The clock shuddered to a stop in its splintered wooden case.

‘Skata.’ Philippe looked sadly at his ruined clock.

‘Monsieur Finé, God rest his soul, would not be pleased with your improvements to his design.’ Matthew waved the smoke from his eyes as he bent to take a closer look. ‘Every year Philippe tries something new: jets of water, chiming bells, a mechanical owl to hoot the hours. He’s been tinkering with it ever since King François lost it to him in a card game.’

This is Oronce Fine’s (1494-1555) lost clepsydra or water clock, an ancient method of keeping time, which he gave to King François I of France and which has since disappeared: http://catalogue.drouot.com/ref-drouot/lot-ventes-aux-encheres-drouot.jsp?id=1493384

Oronce Fine.

25 December, Chapter 15:

‘It looks like a demented hedgehog,’ I observed. The London skyline was filled with needlelike spires that stuck up from the huddle of buildings that surrounded them.

Detail from a London panorama, Visscher, 1616, showing St Paul’s Cathedral in the center, Baynard’s castle on the river to its left, and the Blackfriars to the left of Baynard’s castle.

26 December, Chapter 16:

Matthew shared his memories of the city during the course of the afternoon as the tide rose and fell. He told me about the time in the fifteenth century when the Thames froze for more than three months – so long that temporary shops were built on the ice to cater to the foot traffic.

Though the river Thames in London is a tidal estuary, it does sometimes freeze over. During the Early Modern period, Europe experienced widespread climate change. Known at times as the ‘Little Ice Age’, this drop in temperatures led to many challenges as arable land decreased and harvests were poor. But challenges could sometimes provide opportunity. When the river froze, it drove London’s busy watermen out of business as they could not ply their oars – or their trade – by shuttling passengers from the playhouses of Southwark to the city. Instead, people walked across the river. And in a city that was full of trade regulations, this led to the establishment of a free market zone of shops, dramatic entertainments, temporary pubs and eating establishments – you name it. These moments of hard freeze were called ‘Frost Fairs’, and sometimes artists preserved them on canvas, as in the freeze of 1683/4 (pictured on left below). The incident Matthew refers to was in 1410, when the Thames froze for fourteen weeks.

28 December, Chapter 16:

My forehead creased. Why had Matthew given me a prayer book?

‘Turn the page,’ he urged, his hands heavy and quiet against the small of my back.

On the reverse was a woodcut of Queen Elizabeth kneeling in prayer. Skeletons, biblical figures, and classical virtues decorated each page. The book was a combination of text and imagery, just like the alchemical treatises I studied.

Image from the prayer book known as ‘Queen Elizabeth’s Prayer Book’, first printed in 1569 and reissued many times during the queen’s long reign. It is often referred to as a ‘Protestant Book of Hours’ because of its lavish illustrations. More information about the book can also be seen here: http://www.lambethpalacelibrary.org/content/elizabethprayerbook.

29 December, Chapter 16:

When Matthew turned us toward the city, I looked up. There was St. Paul’s.

‘I’m not likely to get lost with that in the neighborhood,’ I murmured. As we made our slow progress toward the cathedral, my senses grew accustomed to the chaos and it was possible to pick out individual sounds, smells, and sights. Bread baking. Coal fires. Wood smoke. Fermentation. Freshly washed garbage, courtesy of yesterday’s rains. Wet wool.

Of all the things I’ve enjoyed most about writing the All Souls trilogy was a chance to bring late sixteenth-century London – the London I spent more than fifteen years researching as a scholar – to life for my readers. I know a lot about the city during the reign of Elizabeth. Not everything, but a lot. Some of it made its way into my history books and articles, but not all of it.

My challenge in Shadow of Night was to paint a portrait of the city that was as round and real and three-dimensional as possible. It was all the more important to me because the Elizabethan city is barely perceptible in modern London. Much of what Diana and Matthew would have known was destroyed by fire in 1666 or by bombs in World War II.

I did what I could to reconstruct it with words, and hoped your imaginations would fill in the rest.

29 December, Chapter 16:

Her feet twinkled in the firelight, the silver embroidery on her richly colored slippers picking up hints of red, orange, and gold.

A woman’s shoe from the sixteenth century, showing insects (a spider), at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NYC: http://www.metmuseum.org/collection/the-collection-online/search/111277, as well as this example of Elizabethan embroidery showing natural elements, will help you imagine Mary Sidney’s shoes. The embroidered skirt is a detail from a portrait of Elizabeth I painted by Nicholas Hilliard c. 1599.

29 December, Chapter 16:

Matthew nodded and directed my attention down the street. ‘And that is Baynard’s Castle.’ It was the largest building I had seen yet except for the Tower, St Paul’s, and the distant prospect of Westminster Abbey. Three crenellated towers faced the river, linked by walls that were easily twice the height of any of the nearby houses.

Baynard’s Castle

30 December, Chapter 17:

‘Or you could see Nicholas Vallin,’ Jacqueline suggested. ‘He is expert with metals, Mistress Roydon, and also makes fine clocks.’

Like many of the Elizabethan figures in the book, Nicholas Vallin was a real craftsman. He was a French protestant who fled his native country for religious reasons and took up residence in the Blackfriars. This carillon clock, made by Vallin in 1598, is one of the earliest musical clocks in existence. When you listen to it, just think, you are listening to something that people were listening to more than four hundred years ago . . .

Listen to it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ao2DXVK7mH8

31 December, Chapter 18:

‘Have you seen Mary’s laboratory!’ I exchanged the shapeless gray coat for my cloak before sending Joan away to tend to her other duties. ‘She’s taken over one of the castle’s towers and painted the walls with images of the philosopher’s stone. It’s like working inside a Ripley scroll! I’ve seen the Beinecke’s copy at Yale, but it’s only twenty feet long.’

These are photographs I took of Yale’s Ripley Scroll—the very same one Diana describes here. It is hard to picture them all at once, in a continuous forty-foot high mural, but that’s the great thing about fiction. You can imagine what an impact they would make. The images in the Ripley scroll present an allegorical representation of the making of the philosopher’s stone. The study of chemical imagery like this is Diana’s research speciality.

Ripley scrolls are very rare – only around two dozen survive – and are infrequently displayed because of their fragility. Sometimes (as with the Yale example) the scrolls were cut in sections to keep them from being damaged by unrolling/rolling them.

Image of Sol, Ripley Scroll, Beinecke Library Mellon MS 41, Yale University

‘You must make water of y’erthe, and erthe of y’eyere, and eyere of ye fyere and fyere of y’erthe.’ Alchemical allegory, Ripley Scroll, Beinecke Library MS Mellon 41, Yale University

Step in the making of the philosopher’s stone, Ripley Scroll, Beinecke Library MS Mellon 41, Yale University

Image of the red elixir, Ripley Scroll, Beinecke Library Ms Mellon 41, Yale University

12 January, Chapter 19:

The area surrounding St. James’s Church was far more prosperous than the Blackfriars, with spacious well-kept streets, large houses, busy shops, and a tidy churchyard.

The parish of St James Garlickhythe, where Susanna Norman, Goody Alsop, and the rest of the Garlickhythe gathering lived, was a prosperous area in the Elizabethan city of London. You can explore all of Early Modern London at the wonderful site dedicated to the Map of Early Modern London at the University of Victoria, https://mapoflondon.uvic.ca/;

18 January, Chapter 22:

A silver tree grew from a small seed in the bottom of the flask. Branches had sprouted from the trunk, forking out and filling the top of the vessel with glittering strands. Tiny beads at the ends of the branches suggested fruit, as though the tree were ripe and ready for harvesting.

‘The arbor Dianae,’ Mary said proudly.

Alchemists produced effects in their experiments that caused great wonder, like the arbor Dianae. Today, we know it as a dendritic amalgam of crystallized silver – but in the sixteenth century it was seen as a mystical revelation about the creative, generative properties hidden in the natural world. This image captures modern attempts to replicate the alchemical process that Mary Sidney performed in her London laboratory.

21 January, Chapter 23:

A transparent creature with the reptilian head of a dragon hovered in the air, bright wings striking the rafters and sending the ghosts scuttling for cover. It had only two legs, and the curved talons on its feet looked as deadly as the points along its long tail.

‘How many legs does it have?’ Marjorie called, unable to see clearly from her position. ‘Is it just a dragon?’ Just a dragon? ‘It’s a firedrake,’ Catherine said in wonder.

The inspiration for Diana’s familiar, Corra, taken from seventeenth-century engravings and watercolors.

22 January, Chapter 23:

My thoughts drifted while Mary worked. The day was sunny, and a beam of light sliced through the smoky air and fell on the mural depicting the alchemical dragon. I sat forward in my chair.

‘No,’ I said. ‘It can’t be.’

But it was. The dragon was not a dragon, for it had only two legs. It was a firedrake and carried its barbed tail in its mouth, like the ouroboros on the de Clermont banner. The firedrake’s head was tilted to the sky, and it held a crescent moon in its jaws. A multipointed star rose above it. Matthew’s emblem.

Detail from the Ripley Scroll, images of which decorate the walls of Mary Sidney’s laboratory.

26 January, Chapter 24:

Whether for propriety’s sake or to avoid his disorderly brood, Dr Dee was strolling in his brick-walled garden as if it were high summer and not the end of January. He was wearing the black robes of a scholar, and a tight-fitting hood covered his head and extended down his neck, topped with a flat cap. A long white beard jutted from his chin, and his arms were clasped behind his back as he made his slow progress around the barren garden.

Portrait of John Dee from the Ashmolean Museum collection. The description above was based on research into Dee’s house at Mortlake, this portrait, and the interviews Elias Ashmole conducted in Mortlake in the seventeenth century after Dee’s death where he interviewed villagers about Dee’s appearance and behavior.

28 January, Chapter 25:

‘I believe that your husband and his friends call me the Old Fox. I am also, for my sins, the lord high treasurer.’ The shrewdest man in England, and certainly one of the most ruthless, allowed his words to sink in. His kindly expression did nothing to diminish the sharpness of his gaze.

William Cecil was sitting in my parlor.

Portrait of William Cecil, c. 1590, from the workshop of Marcus Gheeraerdts. William Cecil was Elizabeth’s most-trusted minister and advisor.

30 January, Chapter 25:

‘And silver and black are the queen’s colors. That’s why Walter is always wearing them,’ Mary explained, smoothing the puffed sleeves.

But my favorite garment by far was the white satin petticoat that would be visible at the front of the divided skirts. It was embroidered, too, with mainly flora and fauna, accompanied by bits of classical architecture, scientific instruments, and female personifications of the arts and sciences.

My inspiration for Diana’s petticoat was a real late-sixteenth/early seventeenth-century petticoat panel now in the collections of the Victoria and Albert Museum: http://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O85436/petticoat-panel-unknown/. The dress Diana wore over it to meet the queen was based on this portrait, c. 1589 (Elizabeth Brydges, maid of honour to Elizabeth I). The petticoat panel would have been the dramatic front portion that showed between the separated skirts (they are drawn together here, but you can see the silvery trim where the opening was).

30 January, Chapter 25:

My first glimpse of Richmond Palace was the top of a creamy stone tower, the royal standard snapping in the breeze. More towers soon appeared, sparkling in the crisp winter air like those of a castle out of a fairy story.

Only a few traces remain of this once-famous palace built in 1501 by Henry VII on the banks of the Thames to the west of the city of London. At the time of Diana’s visit to Elizabeth’s court, it would have looked like the images below.

30 January, Chapter 25:

The most lavishly dressed, heavily scented, and thickly painted creatures in the room turned slightly to study us. Their movement revealed Elizabeth, the queen bee seated at the center of the hive. My heart skipped a beat. Here was a legend brought to life.

As Elizabeth aged, her portraits grew more stylized, fantastic, and iconic. As a result, it can be hard to imagine what the queen really looked like. Artists didn’t want to paint an unflattering picture. In 1590 Elizabeth would have been fifty-seven – and I imagine this is as realistic a likeness as we are likely to have.

A portrait of Queen Elizabeth I painted sometime between 1585 and 1590 by an unknown artist, possibly Marcus Gheeraerdts, owned by Helmingham Hall, Stowmwarket, Suffolk.

1 February, Chapter 26:

Rad. It was a confusing rune, one that stood for both an arrival and a departure, a journey’s beginning and its ending, a first meeting as well as a long-awaited reunion. Gallowglass’s hand closed around the bit of wood. This time, its meaning was clear.

‘You travel safely, too, Auntie Diana. And bring that uncle of mine with you’ Gallowglass said to the sea and the sky . . .

Runes were a Germanic alphabet used widely throughout the Norse world of Northern Europe and into the Anglo-Saxon period in the British Isles. Rad (Anglo-Saxon) is the same rune as Raido (proto-Germanic).

Inscribed runestone (twelfth century) is the ‘Vaksala Runestone’ near Uppsala, Sweden.

Diana and Matthew are now on their way to Prague which means Gallowglass gets the last word for about five weeks. To send us off into our journey, here is what I think of as ‘Gallowglass’s Theme’, ‘The Gael/Promontory’ by Circa Paleo.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kxG7XiHnyPg

11 March, Chapter 27:

After we’d lived out of saddlebags and a single shared trunk for weeks, our belongings had arrived three days after we did at the tall, narrow house perched on the steep avenue leading to Prague Castle known as Sporrengasse. Our German neighbors presumably dubbed it Spur Street because that was the only way you could persuade a horse to make the climb.

This is the house in Prague, in the Mala Strana district, on a steep street leading to the castle, that was the inspiration for Diana and Matthew’s house.

11 March, Chapter 27:

The artist [Hieronymous Bosch] had covered the outside panels [of the triptych] with a velvety black pigment. A wizened tree shimmering in the moonlight spanned the two front panels. A tiny wolf crouched in its roots, and an owl perched in the upper branches. Both animals gazed at the viewer knowingly. A dozen other eyes shone out from the dark ground around the tree, disembodied and staring. Behind the dead oak, a stand of deceptively normal trees with pale trunks and iridescent green branches shed more light on the scene. Only when I took a closer look did I see the ears growing out of them, as though they were listening to the sounds of the night.

Hieronymous Bosch did several large altarpieces – though none like the one I described in the book. Instead, I used this Bosch drawing for inspiration, and imagined how it might have been a study for a large-now-lost piece of art.

The Trees Have Ears and the Field Has Eyes by Hieronymous Bosch.

24 March, Chapter 28:

‘It’s an automaton, Jack,’ Matthew said, picking the thing up. When he did, the stag’s head sprang open, revealing the hollow chamber within. ‘This one’s meant to run down the emperor’s dinner table. When it stops, the person closest must drink from the stag’s neck. Why don’t you go show Annie what it does?’

The automaton, Diana and the Stag, that Rudolf sent Diana was based on a piece owned by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. It is by a German maker, Joachim Freiss, from about 1620. Automata were popular in the period, and were made in many European cities.

http://www.metmuseum.org/collection/the-collection-online/search/193623

24 March, Chapter 28:

The man bowed. ‘Joris Hoefnagel.’

‘The calligrapher,’ I said, thinking back to Pierre’s remark about the ornate penmanship on Matthew’s official summons to Rudolf’s court. But that name was familiar . . .

‘The artist,’ Gallowglass corrected gently.

Joris Hoefnagel was one of the foremost artists of the late sixteenth century. Here is a portrait, and some of his artwork including a calligraphic manual and an illustration of Diana and Actaeon. Many museums have pictures by Hoefnagel. Here is a partial list: http://www.artcyclopedia.com/artists/hoefnagel_joris.html.

4 April, Chapter 29:

Back at the Three Ravens, I was still taking my cloak off when an eight-year-old boy and a flying mop practically knocked me off my feet. The mop was attached to a lively pink tongue and a cold black nose.

The breed that inspired Lobero: the Komondor. This is a younger dog, whose coat hasn’t fully grown into the long, mop-like strands. It is probably just about the age that Lobero was when Rudolf sent him to Diana.

4 April, Chapter 29:

Then we crossed over a wide street and passed through a gate into the Jewish Town. More than five thousand Jews lived in this small enclave smashed between the industrial riverbank, the Old Town’s Main square, and a convent.

I visited Prague when I was researching locations for Shadow of Night. Here are a few photos I took of the Jewish Town, also known as Josefov and the Jewish Ghetto.

The back of the Old New Synagogue, Prague, completed around 1207, and an old metal sign near Herr Maisel’s house indicating a synagogue.

The grave of Rabbi Lowe and the Jewish Cemetery.

8 April, Chapter 30:

‘In spite of her name, Diana doesn’t like hunting. But it’s no matter. I will fly the merlin,’ Matthew said.

This small, feisty bird of prey was the model for Šárka.

8 April, Chapter 30:

‘Master Habermel stopped by. Your compendium is on the table.’

Erasmus Habermel (c.1538-1606) was one of the sixteenth century’s most prominent mathematical instrument makers. I used elements from several of his known instruments, and combined them into a new device.

Listed below are the instruments from which I drew inspiration. The first was not by Habermel, but another period instrument maker named Johann Anton Linden, and it provided me with the general structure of Diana’s compendium, on to which I then projected Habermel’s style.

Johann Anton Linden’s compendium held by the British Museum: http://www.britishmuseum.org/explore/highlights/highlight_objects/pe_mla/a/astronomical_compendium.aspx

Compendium by Erasmus Habermel, once owned by Johannes Kepler, c. 1600. National Technical Museum, Praha Inv. No.: 57 921 6,4 x 1,6 x 8: http://frombork.art.pl/wp-content/uploads/sites/InventoryWVN/view/jk_ins.html

Erasmus Habermal’s Astronomical Compendium, Louvre: http://cartelfr.louvre.fr/cartelfr/visite?srv=obj_view_obj&objet=cartel_15944_18673_ov019208.003.jpg_obj.html&flag=false

20 April, Chapter 31:

On the day of the performance, servants dragged every spare candelabrum in the palace and cathedral into the echoing expanse of stone to provide the illusion of a starry night sky and spread fresh rushes on the floor. For the stage we used the base of the stairs leading up to the royal chapel.

Here are more photographs I took when visiting Prague to research Shadow of Night. The first is of the staircase in the great hall of Prague Castle, and the second is Diana’s view of the great hall from her vantage point on the stairs.

20 April, Chapter 31:

‘I was greatly entertained, La Diosa – much more than I expected to be. You may ask Zeus for a reward,’ Rudolf said, his eyes drifting over my shoulder and down to the swell of my breasts.

Portrait of Rudolf II, c. 1594, painted by Joseph Heintz the Elder. Now at the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna.

30 April, Chapter 31:

I lifted the ouroboros so that I could study the enameling. It wasn’t an ouroboros, exactly, because it had feet. It looked more like a lizard or salamander than a snake. A bloody red cross emerged from the lizard’s flayed back. Most important, the tail was not held in the creature’s mouth but wrapped around the lizard’s throat, strangling it.

‘It is a mark of respect, Herr Roydon.’ Rudolf placed a subtle emphasis on the name. ‘This once belonged to King Vladislaus and was passed on to my grandmother. The insignia belongs to a brave company of Hungarian knights known as the Order of the Defeated Dragon’

Below is the emblem of the Order of the Defeated Dragon, based on evidence from textiles in Austrian museum holdings. The order was founded in 1408 and, yes, Vlad the Impaler and Vlad II Dracul (his father) both belonged to it.

20 May, Chapter 34:

The fourth-floor tower room in Greenwich Palace afforded a sweeping view of the gray river, muddy ground, and England’s stormy skies.

Historic marker on the site of the former palace, where now the Greenwich Old Royal Naval College stands.

27 May, Chapter 36:

Bedlam was an oubliette in all but name – a place for forgetting, where the insane were locked up with those interred by their own families on some trumped-up charge simply to be rid of them.

The treatment of the mentally ill in Elizabethan England centred on containment rather than meaningful therapy. For those interested in learning more, Mystical Bedlam: Madness, Anxiety and Healing in Seventeenth-Century England by Michael MacDonald is a good place to start.

22 June, Chapter 38:

Matthew treated me to dinner at the famous Belle Savage Inn just outside the Blackfriars on Ludgate Hill. More than a simple eatery, the Bell Savage was an entertainment complex where customers could see plays and fencing matches – not to mention Marocco, the famous horse who could pick virgins out of the crowd.

Marocco, also known as ‘Bankes’s Horse’ after his trainer William Bankes, was a popular London attraction. Born around 1586, the famous horse worked the London inns and traveled throughout the country and even into Scotland until his death around 1606. Marocco was known for being able to walk on two legs, play dead, and was sometimes called ‘the politic horse’ because he would bow when the Queen’s name was mentioned and bare his teeth and chase his master off stage if the name of the Spanish king, Philip II, was uttered. And yes, one of his most applauded acts was picking out the virgins in the crowd of onlookers.

This is a contemporary image of Bankes and Marocco, performing their act.

23 June, Chapter 38:

‘Life is the strong warp of time. Death is only the weft. It will be because of your children, and your children’s children, that I will ‘live forever’.’

‘Live Forever’ is the song that inspired Stephen’s letter to his daughter, a beautiful song from Drew Holcomb & the Neighbors that celebrates love and family and friendship. Enjoy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XUf4FEiimwg&feature=kp

24-30 June, Chapter 39:

And so Thomas Harriot, mathematician and linguist, made scientific history in the courtyard of the Hart and Crown while sitting in a battered wicker garden chair pulled down from our attics. He trained the long metal tube fitted with two spectacle lenses at the full moon and sighed with pleasure.

Portrait of Thomas Harriot (1602)

3 July, Chapter 41:

Matthew’s house in Amsterdam turned out to be a seventeenth-century mansion on the most beautiful stretch of the Herengracht.

Image of the Herengracht by 17th-century artist Jan van der Heyden.

4 July, Chapter 41:

A Spyker Spyder. Marcus collects cars named after arachnids.’ Matthew activated the car doors and they scissored up like wings on a jet fighter. He swore. ‘It’s the most conspicuous car imaginable.’

Marcus has a thing for sportscars – dark blue sportscars in particular – and he has quite a collection stored in garages all over the world. This is his Spyker C8 Spyder, the car he left for Diana and Matthew so they could drive from Amsterdam to Sept-Tours.

30 May 1593, Chapter 42:

‘Love’s Labour’s Lost,’ he wrote in large letters.

Yes, Shakespeare mused, he’d definitely use that one day.

Title page of the first quarto (1598) of William Shakespeare’s Love’s Labour’s Lost

*For all the songs referenced in the notes, please support these amazing artists who have inspired me throughout the All Souls trilogy and purchase their music through legal channels.

The Inspiration for and the

A conversation with Deborah Harkness

Diana is an appealing heroine, determined, accomplished, and yet aware of her own weaknesses. In what ways, if any, does Diana reflect your own experience or personality?

There are some similarities – Diana is also a historian of science, also interested in the history of alchemy, and shares some of my passions (including television cooking programs, tea, and rowing). Really, all the characters have some element of me in them. I think that’s how authors create imaginary people who nevertheless feel real. The rest of Diana’s character comes from a combination of qualities I admire in others, wish fulfillment, and my completion of the following statement: ‘Wouldn’t it be great if a heroine in a book was . . .’

You’ve written two well-received scholarly books. What inspired you to write a novel?

It’s pretty hard not to notice the popular preoccupation with witches, vampires, and things that go bump in the night. But we aren’t the first to be fascinated with these creatures. Today, we often imagine them into fantastic otherworlds, but the people I study believed that such magical beings were living alongside them in this world. So I started thinking, if there are vampires and witches, what do they do for a living – and what strange stories do humans tell to explain away the evidence of their presence? A Discovery of Witches began with the answers to those questions as I essentially re-imagined our modern world through the eyes of medieval and Renaissance people.

Matthew observes that Diana sees her work as a historian as similar to that of a detective. Is this how you approach your own research? Is a novelist also a type of detective?

I definitely see my historical work as a process of detection. Historians fit pieces of evidence together and hope that they eventually form a coherent picture. Often, a historian’s most compelling questions – and the most difficult to answer – concern personal motivations and why something happened the way it did. These are questions we have in common with detectives. Fiction is more like alchemy, though. You take a little of this, a little of that, combine it, and hope that something wonderful occurs so that your creation is greater than the sum of its individual parts. Novelists, like the alchemists of old, know that true creation takes time and patience, and that it’s likely you will have many disasters and failures before you achieve success.

How did you become interested in the intersection of alchemy, magic, and science? Historically, what do you see as the relationship between science and religion or mysticism?

In college, I had a wonderful professor who taught a class on these subjects. To kick off the class, he asked us, ‘How do you know what you think you know?’ I’ve spent the last quarter century trying to answer that question. Because the world is a mysterious place and our relationship to it is not always clear, people have often turned to science, faith, and magic for answers. They help people find responses to the questions of, who am I and why am I here?

Elias Ashmole and Ashmole 782 are taken from real life. Who was Elias Ashmole? Why did you base your novel on this particular manuscript?

Elias Ashmole was a seventeenth-century English antiquarian and scholar. He gave major bequests to Oxford University, including the collection of books and objects that provided the foundation for the Ashmolean Museum (which is still in operation today). Ashmole’s books and manuscripts were first kept at the museum and then moved to the university’s Bodleian ‘Library, Oxford’ in the nineteenth century. The Ashmole manuscripts include numerous rare alchemical texts. One of the manuscripts, Ashmole 782, is currently missing. As a scholar, I’ve done a lot of research in the Ashmole alchemical manuscripts and always wondered what Ashmole 782 might contain.

What was your inspiration for the concept of the Congregation and its trinity of daemons, witches, and vampires?

Both came from my desire to imagine extraordinary creatures into our modern world. I reviewed ancient and medieval ideas about the organization and creation of the universe and was struck by how many of them use organizing principles based on the numbers 3, 4, and 7. Four species of creatures – daemon, human, vampire, and witch – were soon central to the novel. But I was still troubled by the problem of how humans could be surrounded by such beings and not know it. The Congregation was useful in resolving that issue because it’s an organization dedicated to preserving and protecting daemons, vampires, and witches from the majority of the population – which is human.

From the publication of Bram Stoker’s Dracula in the nineteenth century to the current Twilight series, vampires have always fascinated the reading public. What is the appeal of the occult novel? What kind of freedom from the ordinary does it provide, both for readers and writers?

Vampires are relative newcomers among the supernatural creatures who have fascinated readers. The word ‘vampire’ wasn’t even used in English-speaking countries until the early eighteenth century. Before that, readers were far more interested in ghosts, devils, witches, daemons (and demons), and exotic hybrid creatures like dragons and the basilisk. The appeal of all these creatures – and vampires, too – is that they help to explain the inexplicable. Readers and writers are given the opportunity to suspend belief and wonder, how do I know there aren’t witches? and even more important, what if there are?

When writing a novel that involves the supernatural, it’s necessary to create a framework for that invented world, a set of rules to maintain consistency and credibility. How difficult is it to establish that kind of structure and to faithfully work within it?

As a historian of science, I study the changing ideas that past generations have had about the world and how it works. Throughout history, most educated people believed in a theory of creation that was essentially alchemical; for example: some combination of opposing elements resulted in new life if subjected to the right celestial and terrestrial influences. This was entirely logical, given their understanding of the world and how it worked. A number of ancient and medieval worldviews helped me create the logic and structure of the world of A Discovery of Witches. Once those were in place, I found them very helpful in imagining what could (and could not) happen in it.

Discover The World Of . . .

VAMPIRES

The common opinion of vampires is that they are cold, focused and dangerous, whereas vampires themselves are proud of their elegance and discipline. They are charming, yet have a tendency to unveil a darker side when they smell blood. Vampires love wine. Given their bottomless bank accounts and the years they’ve devoted to collecting great bottles from the world’s best producers, it’s no surprise that they have terrific cellars. Sparkling, white, red, or fortified – all wine is fascinating to a vampire thanks to their long memories and preternatural palates.

WITCHES

Witches are well known for being the most natural of creatures. Family and strong lineage are incredibly important, though witches also pride themselves on being open and warm when forming friendships. Witches have strong and reliable instincts, and can be relied upon for their worldly knowledge.

DAEMONS

Daemons are creative, artistic creatures who walk a tightrope between madness and genius. They live life in a chaotic fashion yet show great affection for those around them who share their ideals. Daemons are exceptionally talented and often have a love for music.

The origins of daemons are complicated, with many being born into human families who are unaware of their offspring’s unusual character.

HUMANS

Humans are rational, sensitive beings who thrive in the company of others. They show talent in many different ways, ranging from academic interests to more practical endeavours. The humans in A Discovery of Witches are aware that their interactions with creatures are unusual but they often turn a blind eye to the peculiar activity of the ‘others’ in their midst.

If you could be a witch, daemon or vampire, which would you choose?

To discover more behind the go to www.adiscoveryofwitches.co.uk and www.deborahharkness.com, and for regular updates follow Deborah on Twitter @debharkness and Facebook www.facebook.com/AuthorDeborahHarkness

PHOTOGRAPH CREDITS -

Inside Duke Humfrey’s, the Bodleian ‘Library, Oxford’: photo (unmodified) © David Iliff (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Duke_Humfrey%27s_Library_Interior_2,_Bodleian_Library,_Oxford,_UK_-_Diliff.jpg)

New College Lane: photo (unmodified) © Pierrot Heritier 2015 (http://pher.ch/photos/cities/oxford/slides/Oxford,%20New%20College%20Lane%203.html)

The Bridge of Sighs: photo (unmodified) (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:1_oxford_bridge_of_sighs_2012.jpg)

The Isis towpath and pub: photo (unmodified) © Steve Daniels (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_towpath_next_to_the_Isis_-_geograph.org.uk_-_1253628.jpg)

Christ Church Meadow: photo (unmodified) © tejvanphotos (https://www.flickr.com/photos/tejvan/6191501297/sizes/l)

Speke Hall: photo (unmodified) © Daviessimo (http://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Speke_Hall,_Liverpool.jpg#mw-jump-to-license)

Chatelherault Country Park: photo (unmodified) © Alistair McMillan (http://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:AM_Hunting_Lodge.jpg#mw-jump-to-license)

New College Cloister, Oxford University: photo (unmodified) © Simon (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:New_College_cloisters.jpg)

Holywell Street, Oxford: photo (unmodified) © Jim (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:New_College,_Holywell_Street,_Oxford.jpg)

Courtyard of the Bodleian ‘Library, Oxford’: photos (unmodified) © Deborah Harkness

All Souls College gates: photo (unmodified) © Tony Hisgett (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:All_Souls_College_Gate_(5647159701).jpg)

Inside Duke Humfrey’s, the Bodleian ‘Library, Oxford’: photo (unmodified) © David Iliff (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Duke_Humfrey%27s_Library_Interior_1,_Bodleian_Library,_Oxford,_UK_-_Diliff.jpg)

Chateau Dauphin: photo (unmodified) © Groumfy69 (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ch%C3%A2teau_Dauphin_-_Facade.JPG)

Andalusian Horse: photo (unmodified) © Just chaos (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Andalusian.jpg)

Andrea del Sarto, Portrait of a Man: PD (http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Andrea_del_Sarto_-_Portrait_of_a_Man.jpg)

Image from Splendor Solis: photo (unmodified), PD, The British Library (http://www.bl.uk/catalogues/illuminatedmanuscripts/ILLUMIN.ASP?Size=mid&IllID=28027)

Chateau de Murol: photo (unmodified) © Fabien1306 (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Chateau_de_murol_auvergne.jpg)

‘Stag-headed’ oak: photo (unmodified) © Kate Jewell (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Stag-headed_oak,_Croxton_Park_-_geograph.org.uk_-_608537.jpg)

Ferrari 250 GT SWB California Spyder: photo (unmodified) © DougW (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:1961-ferrari-rc.jpg)

Ysabeau’s Scribble Ring: photo (unmodified) © Janet Cadsawan (shop.cadsawan.com)

PHOTOGRAPH CREDITS –

17th century English commonplace book: photo (unmodified), PD, Beinecke Library (http://brbl-dl.library.yale.edu/vufind/Record/3522020)

Blackwork embroidery - Portrait of Simon George by Hans Holbein the Younger (1536/7): photo (unmodified) © The Yorck Project: 10.000 Meisterwerke der Malerei (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hans_Holbein_d._J._056.jpg)

Blackwork embroidery - English blackwork cushion cover, late 16th century: photo (unmodified) (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:English_cover,_AIC.jpg)

The Archivo General de Indias, Seville: photo (unmodified) © José L. Filpo (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Archivo_General_de_Indias._Sevilla.jpg)

Sir Walter Raleigh: PD (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Raleigh-Walter-Sir-LOC.jpg)

Chateau de Fougeres: photo (unmodified) © Indian Joe (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ch%C3%A2teau_de_Foug%C3%A8res.jpg)

Château de Baugé: photo (unmodified) © Skouame (http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ch%C3%A2teau_de_Baug%C3%A9_-_Fa%C3%A7ade_arri%C3%A8re_(2011).jpg)

Saint-Benoit-du Sault (2&3): photo (unmodified) © Iago17 (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Saintbenoitdusault2.JPG) (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Saintbenoitdusault3.JPG)

Gregory of Tours, Historia Francorum (History of the Franks): photo (unmodified), Bibliotheque nationale de France, Manuscrits Latin 17655 fol.2 (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Gr%C3%A9goire_de_Tours,_Histoire_des_Francs,_livres_1_%C3%A0_6,_page_de_frontispice.jpg?uselang=fr)

Sant’Appolinare in Classe, Ravenna: photo (unmodified) © Zitumassin (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sant%27Apollinare_in_Classe,_Ravenna.jpg)

Portrait by Lavinia Fontana of an anonymous ‘Lady of the Court’ c.1590: PD (http://www.wikiart.org/en/lavinia-fontana/portrait-of-a-lady-of-the-court-1590)

Oronce Fine: PD (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Oronce_Fine.JPG)

Detail from a London panorama, Visscher, 1616: PD (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:London_panorama,_1616b.jpg)

Frost Fair of 1683: PD (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Frost_Fair_of_1683.JPG)

Great Frost, 1608: photo (unmodified), Houghton Library, Harvard University (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Houghton_STC_11403_-_Great_Frost,_1608.jpg)

Image from ‘Queen Elizabeth’s Prayer Book’: PD (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Brief_History_of_Wood-engraving_Christian_Prayers_Elizabeth.png)

Detail from a portrait of Elizabeth I, Nicholas Hilliard c. 1599: PD (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Elizabeth_I_of_England_Hardwick_1592.jpg)

Images (5) from the Ripley Scroll (Yale University): photos (unmodified) © Deborah Harkness

Arbor Dianae: photo (unmodified) © ΛΦΠ (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Arbre_de_Diane_(d%C3%A9tail_bas)_23.jpg)

Dragons (2): 2D scan (unmodified) PD (http://vintageprintable.com/vintage-printable-medieval-mythology-fantasy-monsters-and-various-beings/animal-monster-italian-dragon/) (http://vintageprintable.com/vintage-printable-medieval-mythology-fantasy-monsters-and-various-beings/monster-medieval-dragon/)

Detail from the Ripley Scroll, Yale University: photo (unmodified) © Deborah Harkness

Portrait of John Dee: PD (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:John_Dee_Ashmolean.jpg)

Portrait of William Cecil: PD (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:William_Cecil_Lord_Burghley_Gheeraerts_Workshop.jpg)

Portrait of Elizabeth Brydges c. 1589: PD (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Elizabeth_Brydges_1589.jpg)

Model of Richmond Palace: photo (unmodified) © Daniel Newman (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Model_of_Richmond_Palace.jpg)

Richmond Palace, Wyngaerde 1562: (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wyngaerde_Richmond_1562.jpg)

Portrait of Elizabeth I: PD (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Elizabeth_I_in_Parliament_Robes.jpg)

Vaksala Runestone: photo (unmodified) (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Vaksalastenen.jpg)

House in Prague, Mala Strana district: photo (unmodified) © Deborah Harkness

The Trees Have Ears and the Field Has Eyes by Hieronymous Bosch: PD (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_Trees_Have_Ears_and_the_Field_Has_Eyes_by_Hieronymus_Bosch.jpg)

Mira calligraphiae monumenta, Joris Hoefnagel: PD (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hungarian_-_Mira_calligraphiae_monumenta_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg)

Portrait of Joris Hoefnagel: PD (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Portrait_of_Joris_Hoefnagel.jpg)

Diana and Actaeon, Joris Hoefnagel: PD (http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Joris_Hoefnagel_-_Diana_and_Actaeon_-_WGA11452.jpg)

Young Komondor: photo (unmodified) © Kari ja Leena (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Warlock2.jpg)

Old New Synagogue, Prague, metal sign near Herr Maisel’s house, grave of Rabbi Lowe and the Jewish Cemetery: photos (unmodified) © Deborah Harkness

Bird of prey, Merlin: photo (unmodified) © Just a Prairie Boy (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Merlin_prey_fencepost_Cochrane_cropped.jpg)

The Great Hall, Prague Castle: photos (unmodified) © Deborah Harkness

Portrait of Rudolf II, c. 1594: PD (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Joseph_Heintz_d._%C3%84._002.jpg)

Emblem of the Order of the Defeated Dragon: photo (unmodified) © CristianChirita (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Dragon_order_insignia.jpg)

Historic marker, Greenwich Palace: photo (unmodified) © Richard Croft (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Placentia_-_geograph.org.uk_-_1154521.jpg)

Image of Bankes and Marocco: PD (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Maroccus_extaticus.png)

Portrait of Thomas Harriot: PD (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:ThomasHarriot.jpg)

Herengracht by Jan van der Heyden: PD (http://www.the-athenaeum.org/art/detail.php?ID=66437)

Spyker C8 Spyder: photo (unmodified) © Thecodemaster (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Broughtonsspyker.jpg)

Title page of Love’s Labour’s Lost: PD (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Loves_labours_tp.jpg)