title: Lord Talon's Revenge: A comedy of greed, war, hatred, betrayal, and other desirable things
author:  Tom Simon 
description: Like most writers, Tom Simon has had a wide range of peculiar jobs, from sysop of a dialup chat board (before the commercial Internet) to assistant in a Member of Parliament's constituency office. One of his MP's constituents was an ardent advocate for the population of elves who lived (so he said) in a patch of wild ground in the midst of the city. Mr. Simon regrets that he was never personally involved in dealing with elf issues. However, he has met the usual assortment of witches, wizards, and one creature who styled himself Archdruid of Canada. A Canadian by birth, Mr. Simon lives in Calgary, but part of his heart will always remain among the mountains of British Columbia.
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  Dear Reader:
  
  In the British Isles of the eleventh century, honor and loyalty weren’t merely
  virtues; they were a matter of life and death.
  
  The more I thought about this simple fact, the more I wondered what a loyal
  man would do when faced with choosing between a terrible insult to his honor
  and his loyalty to his lord Dominic.
  
  Simon had learned the bitter lesson of loyalty, life, and death in the First
  Crusade. He had learned it so well he was called Simon the Loyal, and his
  loyalty was to his brother (and his lord) Dominic. When his brother faced war
  in the Disputed Lands over a vassal’s broken engagement, Simon stepped forward
  to marry the jilted lady.
  
  Ariane was a lady with secrets as dark as her midnight hair, as dark as her
  songs. A woman betrayed. A woman without hope. A woman who no longer believed
  in anything, especially love. No longer a virgin, she had been sent by her
  father as a living insult to her future 