Keeper of the Black Stones (58 page)

Henry Tudor's army was made up of roughly five thousand men, while Richard controlled eight to ten thousand. According to historians. I've learned over the years, though, that they tend to portray the victor with
less in terms of fighting men and equipment, as it makes their victory seem that much more impressive. So I take these figured with a grain of salt. They could, after all, be nothing more than fifteenth-century sensationalism.

The Battle of Bosworth, fought on August 22, 1485, is notable because it was the last time an English monarch was killed in battle. As the history books proclaim, Henry Tudor became King Henry VII on the battlefield. During his reign, he would lead England and Western Europe out of the dark ages and into the dawn of the Renaissance Era. The Tudor dynasty–Henry VIII, Bloody Mary, and Queen Elizabeth–would all spring from his line, affecting the world for both better and worse. For better, if you believe the historians. Once again, though, we have no way of knowing whether these things actually happened or not.

History is, after all, written by the victor. Often with hidden agendas and a heavy dose of personal opinion and interpretation.

Which brings me to my final point. Today, when we study history, we study the broad strokes of our world's timeline. We may or may not be dealing with absolute fact. We are almost certainly dealing with the writer's personal feelings and interpretations. The broad brush-strokes are important, of course–who won the War of the Roses, for instance. Nazi Germany. The American, French, and Russian revolutions.

But the devil, as they say, is in the details, and we in the modern age don't get to see those. Those small details–the existence of one person or another, the presence of guns in a certain time period, the path of one unimportant soldier–all lead to the broad brush-strokes that make up our ribbon of time. And if one person got it into his head to start changing those details …

Well. Let's just leave that for Doc, Jason, Paul, Tatiana, Reis, and maybe even Katherine to deal with in the next book, shall we? They are, after all, the keepers of the black stones. And with that, the guardians of history itself.

PT McHugh

PT McHugh didn't start out as a storyteller. He was, however, born into a family of that encouraged imagination. He became a fan of history in school and then went to college to become a construction engineer, to build a world of straight lines, angles, and equations.

He was just as surprised as everyone else when he realized that he believed in magic, and might just know the secret of how to jump through time. Since then, he's been researching the possibility and learning everything he can about history. Just in case the opportunity arises.

PT was born and raised in New Hampshire and currently lives in Raleigh, North Carolina with his wife, two daughters, and a dog named Bob, daring to dream of alternate worlds and cheering for his beloved New England Patriots.

For more information or to contact PT McHugh directly, see
www.ptmchugh.com
.