That was the first I saw of the Empire: skill at building, and power, and tolerance. It astonished me -- and I didn't even know that Auzia was just one small fort on the fringe of something so vast a single mind can't know it. [p. 224]
Gillian Bradshaw has taken a single mention of 'an Ethiopian soldier ... a notable jester' in the Historia Augusta and spun a novel around that nameless African man. Dark North is set in Roman Britain in 208AD, during Septimius Severus' efforts to (a) prove that Britain is an island and (b) conquer all of it, even Scotland. The protagonist is a cavalry scout called Memnon: Romans can't pronounce his actual name, rendered here as Wajjaj. We first encounter him in the process of swapping the Second Parthica's standard for a lewder version of the same, an escapade that earns him the plaudits of his fellow soldiers but encourages his commander to send Memnon off on a long, potentially hazardous journey away from any chance of retribution. En route, Memnon encounters, and saves the lives of, two Romans from the Imperial household: Castor, the Imperial chamberlain, and Athenais, a secretary and a member of the Empress' household. Memnon befriends them, and their influence and support is invaluable to him when his duties (and his personal affairs) involve him with the Emperor's feuding sons Geta and Caracalla; with unrest amongst the tribes; and friction between the Aurelian Moors and the Frisian troop with whom they share a fort.
Memnon is a fascinating character: a notable jester indeed, but also a man who's lost (and bloodily avenged) his family, who fears that his bloodthirsty vengeance has made him a demon, who is the stealthiest and probably the cleverest scout in his unit, and who would quite like Roman citizenship but has no ambition to be anything other than one of the lads. 'Ethiopian' was used to refer to anyone south of Libya, and Memnon's origins are sub-Saharan: his dark skin is remarked upon as 'ill-omened', and he is likely the first Black man that any British tribesman has encountered. He's capable of extreme, and effective, violence, but clearly happier playing -- and getting away with -- creative practical jokes. Unfortunately his superiors have recognised his worth, and Memnon is forced to take life more seriously. The episode in the Historia Augusta, neatly woven in, is something of a last plantive rebellion...
It's a shame that this is out of print and unavailable as an ebook: I think Bradshaw has only written two novels set in Roman Britain (the other being the marvellous Island of Ghosts, set a generation earlier and featuring a troop of Sarmatian cavalry: one of my favourite historical novels), and it seems a shame to have 50% of them unavailable.
Fulfils the ‘Secondhand’ rubric of the 52 books in 2023 challenge. (I read this via the Internet Archive: it was a scan of a withdrawn book from the Bedlington branch of the Northumberland County Library, last borrowed in July 2019.)
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