The Firebrand

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I wish to acknowledge especially the help of my husband, Walter Breen, who assisted materially in the research, and whose knowledge of classical Greek - both language and history - was an invaluable help in creating this story, particularly including the quotation from the Athens museum which will be found in the postscript, providing historical basis for the—fate and the very historical existence—of Kassandra of Troy, from whose viewpoint this story is told.

Readers will be likely to bring challenges; ' That's not the way it happened in the Iliad.' Of course not; had I been content with the account in the Iliad, there would have been no reason to write a novel. Besides, the Iliad stops short just at the most interesting point, leaving the writer to conjecture about the end from assorted legends and traditions. If the writers of Greek drama felt free to improvise, I need not apologise for following their excellent example.

One further apology: Walter's knowledge of the language persuaded me, in the name of linguistic 'correctness' and rather against my better judgement, to use classical transliterations rather than the more familiar Latinised forms; hence Akhaians for Achaeans (the term Greek was not known then), Akhilles or Akhilleus for Achilles and, worst of all, Kassandra for Cassandra. To me the difference is appalling and changes the whole meaning of the name and character. A cow or a crow would not, after all, be the same creature if called a kow or a krow. To those whose visual aesthetics are as acute as mine, and to whom the look of a name on the page alters its very essence, I can only express my apologies. Linguistics and aesthetics are, after all, very different things, and the argument between them will never be solved - at least not by me.

I also acknowledge my debt to Elisabeth Waters, who on many occasions when I was 'stuck' with the 'what happens next' blues, never failed to help me find the most constructive answer, and to the other members of my household who suffered all through the fall and the sack of Troy with me.

Marion Zimmer Bradley