Romans – She Reads Novels

The second book I’ve read for Karen and Simon’s 1954 Club this week is a children’s classic by Rosemary Sutcliff. This book has been on my TBR for years because, although I’ve enjoyed a few of Sutcliff’s other novels set in other time periods, the Roman period has never been a favourite of mine and I wasn’t sure whether I would love this book the way everyone else seems to have done. Of course, I needn’t have worried; The Eagle of the Ninth is a beautifully written novel with wonderfully vivid and colourful descriptions, a gripping plot inspired by historical fact, a very likeable young hero and even a touch of romance – what’s not to love?

The novel tells the story of Marcus Flavius Aquila, a young centurion posted at a fort in Roman Britain. When Marcus is badly injured during a battle, he is discharged from his duties and goes to stay with his uncle while he recuperates. Here he forms three new relationships, all of which will have an impact on his future life: the first is with Esca, a defeated gladiator Marcus purchases as a slave at the Saturnalia Games in order to save him from a worse fate; the second, with Cub, a tame wolf-cub adopted by the household as a pet; and finally, with Cottia, a young woman from the Iceni tribe who is being raised as a Roman, something she resents very much. Marcus also listens to tales of the Ninth Legion who, several years earlier, marched north to suppress a rising of the Caledonian tribes and disappeared into the mists of Northern Britain, never to be seen again.

The story of the missing Ninth Legion has special significance for Marcus because it was his father’s legion and his father was one of the men who vanished. When his injuries heal enough for him to be able to travel, Marcus decides to head north himself in the hope of learning more about the legion’s disappearance and of retrieving the eagle standard of the legion, which was also lost – and in the hands of Rome’s enemies could take on new symbolic meaning.

Esca is freed from slavery by Marcus, but the two have become good friends and he chooses to accompany Marcus on his journey. The second half of the novel follows their adventures as they travel beyond Hadrian’s Wall and further north into Caledonia. Although there is plenty of drama as they encounter hostile tribes and search for the lost eagle, I particularly enjoyed watching the changes in the relationship between Marcus and Esca as their bond grows stronger while at the same time their difference in status forms a barrier:

You could give a slave his freedom, but nothing could undo the fact that he had been a slave; and between him, a freed-man, and any freeman who had never been unfree, there would still be a difference. Wherever the Roman way of life held good, that difference would be there.

Sutcliff based this novel on the fact that the Legio IX Hispana (Ninth Legion) disappeared from historical records around the year 117 and at the time when she was writing, it was thought that the legion had probably been destroyed in what is now modern-day Scotland. Historians have other theories now, but the way Sutcliff depicts the loss of the legion in this book still feels believable to me. She was also inspired by the discovery of a wingless Roman eagle in Silchester.

I also loved her descriptions of the places Esca and Marcus see as they travel north through Roman Britain, like this one as they approach the mountain Ben Cruachan:

It was an evening coloured like a dove’s breast; a little wind feathered the shining water, and far out on the dreaming brightness many scattered islands seemed to float lightly as sleeping sea-birds. In the safe harbourage inshore, a few trading-vessels lay at anchor, the blue sails that had brought them from Hibernia furled as though they, too, were asleep. And to the north, brooding over the whole scene, rose Cruachan, sombre, cloaked in shadows, crested with mist; Cruachan, the shield-boss of the world.

The Eagle of the Ninth is a lovely novel and I never really felt that I was reading a book for children – I think it’s one of those books that can be enjoyed equally by readers of all ages. I know there are other books in the series following later generations of the Aquila family, but the only one I currently own is Sword at Sunset, which I’m hoping can be read out of order.

This is also book 18/50 read for the Historical Fiction Reading Challenge 2022.

My first introduction to Barbara Erskine’s work last year, River of Destiny, left me unimpressed but I was assured by Erskine fans that her earlier books were better, so when I found this one at the library I decided to give her another chance. I also thought it sounded like an ideal book to read for the RIP challenge, even though it wasn’t on my original list.

When author Kate Kennedy’s relationship with her boyfriend, Jon, comes to an end and she is forced to move out of their London home, she decides to rent a cottage on the Essex coast where she can spend the winter working on her new biography of Byron. The owners of the cottage, Diana and Roger Lindsey, live in a farmhouse nearby and do their best to make Kate feel welcome, but unfortunately not all the members of the Lindsey family are happy to see her. The eldest son, Greg, an aspiring artist, had been using the cottage for his painting and resents Kate for pushing him out. His fifteen-year-old sister, Alison, is an amateur archaeologist and is furious when she discovers that Kate has been interfering with her dig at what she believes is an ancient Roman grave.

When strange things start to happen at Redall Cottage, Kate suspects Greg and Alison of trying to frighten her away, but after several encounters with ghostly figures she begins to accept that she is being haunted by the ghosts of the Roman soldier Marcus Severus Secundus, his wife Claudia, and the Druid prince, Nion. It seems that Kate has stumbled upon a two thousand-year-old love triangle that ended in a murder and a curse – and secrets that have been buried under the earth for centuries are about to be revealed at last.

Midnight is a Lonely Place was much better than River of Destiny, but still not a book that I can say I loved. I was right about it being a perfect RIP choice, though. It has all the elements of a classic ghost story: a lonely, isolated cottage, an ancient burial site, ghostly apparitions, strange smells and unexplained noises, relentless snow, sleet and blizzards. It’s quite scary in places and you might not want to read it late at night if you’re on your own (while I was finishing the book on Friday evening the real-life weather outside obliged with heavy rain and strong winds which made it even more atmospheric).

While Marcus Severus Secundus, Claudia and Nion do have a strong presence in this novel, the story is set entirely in the early 1990s (which actually feels surprisingly dated from a 2013 perspective) and we only learn about the Roman characters’ lives in brief flashbacks at the start of the chapters. I would have liked their storyline to have been more fully developed as I felt I didn’t get to know them well enough to really care about them or their secrets and this meant that, for me, the novel wasn’t as effective as it would have been with a stronger historical element.

The second half of the book is suspenseful and action packed, as the level of paranormal activity increases and more and more of Kate’s friends and neighbours become involved (at one point it felt as if the whole population of Essex were wandering about getting lost in the snow) but I found the ending disappointingly abrupt. I’m not sure I correctly interpreted the final page and after reading what was quite a long book (more than 400 pages) I had expected a more satisfying conclusion. I certainly enjoyed this book a lot more than River of Destiny but I’m not sure I’ll be looking for any more of Barbara Erskine’s books – though I might still be interested in reading Lady of Hay, her first and best known book.