Mary's Bookcase : Have a sneak-peek between the covers of Return to the Eyrie by Katerina Dunne

Return to the Eyrie
By Katerina Dunne

Publication Date: 30th April 2024

Publisher: Historium Press

Page Length: 404 Pages

Genre: Historical Fiction (Medieval) / Historical Romance

Honour, revenge, and the quest for justice.

Belgrade, Kingdom of Hungary, 1470.

Raised in exile, adolescent noblewoman Margit Szilágyi dreams of returning to her homeland of Transylvania to avenge her father's murder and reclaim her stolen legacy. To achieve this, she must break the constraints of her gender and social status and secretly train in combat. When the king offers her a chance at justice, she seizes it—even if it means disguising herself as a man to infiltrate the vultures' nest that now occupies her ancestral ‘eyrie’.

Plagued by childhood trauma and torn between two passionate loves, Margit faces brutal battles, her murderous kin's traps and inner demons on her quest for vengeance. Only by confronting the past can she reclaim her honour—if she can survive long enough to see it through.

Return to the Eyrie is an epic coming-of-age tale of a young woman's unwavering pursuit of justice and destiny in 15th century Hungary.

Excerpt

As they emerged into the great hall, Margit’s chest brimmed with wonder. She surveyed the chamber with eyes and mouth open wide to absorb every detail of the treasures that lay there. Sasfészek was not simply her ancestral home but her inheritance too—a legacy connecting her ancestors to future generations through her.

Although smaller than the great hall in King Mátyás’ palace, an air of grandeur filled the space. Tapestries lined two of the walls, their colours so vivid that they seemed about to leap out of their golden-threaded borders. In a strange, but by no means sacrilegious, blend of Christianity and pagan Magyar legend, the first tapestry depicted The Last Supper while the other displayed the Wondrous Stag chased by the hunters Hunor and Magor.

What inspired hands had crafted these? Enraptured, Margit reached out to stroke the lush fabric, sending ripples through the hanging with the stag. Her fingertips tingled. Between the two, this was her favourite scene.

To her left, arched windows let the languid sunlight flood the hall and cast vibrant stained-glass shadows that danced across whitewashed walls. Margit’s eyes chased the multi-hued shapes, falling at last upon the vaulted ceiling, decorated in splendour with intricate carvings on its wooden beams.

Her gaze shifted across the chamber, heart swelling at the Szilágyi of Szentimre crest of sculpted marble ensconced above the fireplace. Margit bowed her head, sparing a moment to pray for the souls of her ancestors, men and women, who had built and defended this haven time and again.

The family coat of arms appeared also on a banner hanging from the cornice of the wall on the right, beside the flag of the Siebenbürgen. Whether out of pride or for show, her cousin seemed to honour both his Magyar and Saxon legacy. A third flag, that of the kingdom of Hungary, proclaimed the family’s loyalty to the Crown. Margit sneered. The Szilágyi family’s loyalty certainly; but what about Márton’s?

Ilona nudged Margit out of her thoughts. “I see the tables are already in place.”

The main dining table, made of solid wood, stood on a dais central to the hall. Margit counted seven high-backed chairs along its side; the middle one the most ornate. Márton’s surely.

This will be my seat one day, with Endre by my side.

She turned to Ilona. “I assume the lord and his guests will sit there. Who will sit at the side tables?”

“The officers, the voivode’s knights and his niece’s maidservants.”

“Of course,” Margit mumbled absently. The seating arrangements were inconsequential. Only the knowledge of her family and her childhood memories mattered.

As she turned her back to the tables, her eyes fell on a display cabinet standing in the corner by the door to the kitchen. Her jaw dropped. How had she missed that?

A full suit of armour—old-looking, scratched and dented—with the family crest engraved on the breastplate was mounted on a stand inside the cabinet.

Why is it here and not in the armoury or my cousin’s chamber?

“Tell me, Ilona, does the armour belong to Lord Márton? Does he wear it? I heard he never goes to war.”

The maid shook her head. “It’s not his. It belonged to the previous lord, his uncle. And so did the weapons.”

Margit’s breath caught at the sight of her father’s knightly equipment: the misericorde, the cross-hilted sword, the spiked horseman’s axe and the cavalry shield. His coat of arms adorned them all although the colours of the crest painted on the shield had faded with time. For a heartbeat, Margit thought she saw bloodstains on the axe’s blade. Real or imagined? It mattered not; the grief of her loss tore through her anew.

Tears flooded her eyes and then flowed unchecked as she took in the relics of the man she barely knew; the armour he wore and the weapons he wielded in life, now remnants of his valour and love for his homeland.

Turning swiftly, she wiped her cheeks before Ilona glimpsed her sorrow. She shifted her gaze elsewhere—anywhere but on the lingering imprint of her father’s ghost in this hall. There would be time to grieve when she would do so freely. For now, she must keep her eyes dry and steel her heart and spirit lest she raised suspicions and questions impossible to answer.

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Katerina Dunne

Katerina Dunne is the pen-name of Katerina Vavoulidou. Originally from Athens, Greece, Katerina has been living in Ireland since 1999. She has a degree in English Language and Literature from the University of Athens, an MA in Film Studies from University College Dublin and an MPhil in Medieval History from Trinity College Dublin.

Katerina is passionate about history, especially medieval history, and her main area of interest is 13th to 15th century Hungary. Although the main characters of her stories are fictional, Katerina uses real events and personalities as part of her narrative in order to bring to life the fascinating history of the medieval Kingdom of Hungary, a location and time period not so well-known to English-speaking readers.

Return to the Eyrie (published April 2024) is the second book in the Medieval Hungary series, a sequel to Lord of the Eyrie (published in February 2022).

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