'...British gone wild, like dogs that run away to hunt in the woods.’
Owain felt clammily sick. To be here in the dark hiding from Saxon raiders was no more than physical danger; to be here hiding from one’s own kind, broken men turned wolf pack, was a hideous thing, an uncleanness like leprosy. [p. 77]
Reread after finishing Dark Earth, which also depicts life in the ruins of a Roman city after the Romans have left. I hadn't read Dawn Wind since at least 2005, and had forgotten much of the plot: the scenes in the crumbling remains of Viroconium are actually only a small part of the story.
Owain is fourteen when he wakes on a battlefield surrounded by the dead: he's survived the battle, but the British lost and his father and brother are both amongst the corpses. Accompanied by a war-hound whom he names 'Dog', Owain heads north with some thought of returning to the lands he knew. He falls sick on the road, and is cared for by a retired potter and his wife: but, unwilling to stay with them, he continues his journey and ends up in abandoned Viroconium, where he meets Regina, a louse-ridden and emaciated girl who begs for a share of his dinner.
The two eventually decide to head south, hoping to reach Gaul, but Regina contracts a fever and Owain trades his freedom so that she can be cared for by a Saxon family. He accompanies his new master, Beornwulf, to a farm on the south coast, and finds himself making a life there: the children like him, he still has Dog, and he's bonded with the magnificent white stallion that will likely be tribute to the King. And he fights alongside the Saxons, and they accept him as one of the war-band...
An understandably bleak book, with Owain convinced that Britain is finished and the lights have gone out, that the Saxons have won and that, when he fights as one of them, he is fighting not for anything, but only against. Owain is not free, but he has a better life than many thralls: Beornwulf likes and trusts him, he is treated well, and he finds some inspiration in the words of the Welsh envoy, Einon Hên, who speaks of a glowing future for Britain: 'not the dawn as yet, but I feel the dawn wind stirring'.
Owain's emerald ring, which becomes a plot point in itself, shows that he is a descendant of Marcus Flavius Aquila (from The Eagle of the Ninth) and more recently Aquila who was Artos's advisor in The Lantern Bearers: but this novel is set a century after Artos' victories, and the memory of Rome is faint. Still, Owain is heartened in a very dark moment by the discovery of a mosaic in an old shrine:
...he scraped and scrabbled on, the loose black soil formed by the drifted leaves of a hundred summers crumbling easily away under his fingers. In a little, he had cleared a medallion surrounded by a delicate border of ivy leaves and berries, and was looking at the half-length figure of a girl with a bird in one hand and a blossoming branch in the other. Part of the border had been destroyed by the roots of something that had grown through it, but the little figure was perfect, delicately charming and full of joy.[p. 165]
More comfort there than in his notional Christian faith, though the latter does bring him face to face with Augustine, not yet sainted and eager to raise his church in Saxon lands.
As in Dark Earth, there's a post-apocalyptic feel to this story: the lights have gone out, outlaws roam the land, all that was civilised and beautiful lies in ruins. And yet there is hope, and love, and found family. I found Owain's story rather darker than Isla's narrative, perhaps because he is so alone, or perhaps because the stories and roles available to him, as a man, are very different.
Fulfils the 'involves a second chance' rubric of the 52 books in 2022 challenge.
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