Standing at the third angle of this extraordinary relationship is an extraordinary woman: Jehane bet Ishak, a Kindath physician from the town of Fezana, who has been drawn into the orbit of these two living legends and comes to love them both. Meeting in the Asharite city of Ragosa, these two remarkable exiles find a kindred spirit in one another, and a friendship is formed which has the power to topple kings, raze cities and change the destiny of Al-Rassan forever.Ĭome, brother… Shall we show them how this is done? Elegant and subtle, he is renowned as a poet, diplomat, swordsman, statesman and political assassin. The other is Ammar ibn Khairan, former adviser to the Asharite king of Cartada. One is the great Jaddite general Rodrigo Belmonte, Captain to the King of Valledo, who is sent into temporary exile with his devoted company of men as the result of political rivalries. People say there are no lions any more in Al-Rassan, but in this febrile age, caught between the fading luxurious beauties of the khalifate and the pugnacious ambitions of the north, there are two men who are perhaps worthy of that name. (If you know your medieval Spanish history, this may be beginning to sound familiar.) The Jaddites, for all their primitive hardness, are great warriors and excellent horsemen, and their kings harbour dreams of reconquest. But the khalifs are gone – the great kingdom parcelled up among ambitious lords – and once-invincible Al-Rassan must now look over its shoulder to the north. In the south, beyond the barren no-man’s-land of the tagra, lies the dwindling glory of the Asharite kingdom of Al-Rassan, once a splendid khalifate rich with fountains, poetry, gardens and military might. In the north, the Jaddite worshippers of the sun-god fight among themselves as the three petty kings of Valledo, Ruenda and Jaloña vie for supremacy, having carved up the kingdom of the great Sancho the Fat.
The great peninsula which was once united as Esperaña is now divided.
Poignant and powerful, it’s a sweeping medieval epic, tempered with nostalgia for two lost worlds: a glorious civilisation already on its deathbed and a utopia of religious tolerance, which perhaps only ever existed in the imagination.
You may remember that I’ve mentioned it before: it’s one of my favourites and so, when I heard that Helen was planning to read it for the first time, I asked if she would mind me re-reading it along with her. There are some books which leave you sitting in silence after you’ve finished them, staring into space.
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