Marie

Marie is the protagonist of the novel, and she is based on a real-life historical personage, the 12th-century poet Marie de France who is believed to have been the illegitimate half-sister of England's King Henry II. In the novel, Marie lives with her mother and her aunts (all of whom fought in the Second Crusade) in Le Main, France until her mother's death when she 12. Marie continued to live in Le Main for two years after her mother died, maintaining the family estate, then made her way to England, along with her servant since childhood Cecily, with whom she had a sexual relationship.

When the novel begins, Marie is 17 years old and she has just been sent from Westminster Court, where she had been living for about three years. She is sent away by Queen Eleanor, based on the real-life Eleanor of Aquitaine, with whom she is in...