BYZANTIUM'S CROWN
Susan Shwartz
Medieval Magic and Mystery
> an Empress of Byzantium who is also a sorceress
> seers and healers, including:
> a royal prince, descendant of Alexander and of Cleopatra, gifted with the powers of the ancient Egyptian Hawk-god, Horus
> a slave-girl who is also, secretly, an initiate and a priestess of Isis
Medieval Outsiders
> slaves
> a shaman
> another shaman who is also a bearmaster and a ruler
Like MBG (see his review of Silk Roads and Shadows) I am a great fan of Susan Shwartz. And it was these books, the Heirs to Byzantium trilogy, that first drew me to her. The setting is Byzantium, but Byzantium as it might have been if Antony and Cleopatra had won the Battle of Actium and made the ancient city of Byzantium their capital, and their heirs had reigned in the city for a thousand years. Everything is different. The established religion, for instance, is that of ancient Egypt with temples of Isis and Osiris and so on, each cult with its own powerful High Priest or High Priestess.
When the story opens, the sorceress Irene, widow of the late emperor, has seized power and become known as the Red Empress. The two legitimate heirs, Marric and Alexa, are powerless. Marric had been posted to a distant part of the Empire by his father, the late Emperor, before his death, and never called back. Alexa is a prisoner in the palace.
Alexa gets a message to Marric, summoning him to her aid. He comes, but his attempt to rescue her fails. She is killed (or so he believes) and he is captured and sent on a slave-ship to Egypt, where he is sold.
This first book of the trilogy is the story of Marric's growth during his period as a slave from spoilt, callow princeling to a man fit to be emperor, Horus, the falcon, incarnate. Two people aid him in this, both fellow slaves of his. One, Necephorus, becomes his friend.
A warmth, very different from fever or the merciless sun, filled Marric. As a prince he had tended to have associates, servants, officers. But no friends. Especially not for him, because of the daily treacheries in his life. But here was friendship, given him for the man he was, not for any imperial favours ...
The other, Stephana, who saves his life, becomes his first real love. Although a slave, Stephana is an initiate in the cult of Isis and extremely powerful in her own right. She calls him back when he has been, literally, whipped to death and has left his body; and it is her more than anyone else who is responsible for his growth and his final triumph.
There are some great characters here, such as Audun, the Bearmaster, who plays a large part in the subsequent books, where we follow the adventures of Princess Alexa. I also particularly enjoyed the Druids who wander the Empire (at the end of this first book we learn that Alexa is in their home, the Isles of Mist) and the shaman who accompanies the Huns and clashes with Stephana when Marric goes to meet with them and enlist their support.
The shaman raised his face up to the light. Flawed by cataracts as his eyes were, he could barely see this world. But that would not hinder his sight in the one he sought now to enter. In a harsh, eerie voice he bagan to chant. Stephana stiffened, he hand closing upon Marric's.
This and the two other books, then, all highly recommended. It is wonderful that the trilogy at least is now available in digital format. Now they should be made available in print as soon as possible; as of course should Silk Roads and Shadows, and the spell-binding thousand-and-one-nights-style short story sequence Arabesque. Myself, I look forward to the day when all such books which have been negligently allowed to go out of print are made available both as ebooks and in print again by means of the wonderful (and astonishingly simple to organise) POD (print-on-demand) technology.
JM
