Book review: The Lantern Bearers by Rosemary Sutcliff

The eighth book I read in 2016 was The Lantern Bearers by Rosemary Sutcliff, the final volume in what's referred to as her Roman Britain trilogy, following The Eagle of the Ninth and The Silver Branch, though Wikipedia lists eight books in the series.  These three appear to be the only ones readily available in a recent edition.

The Lantern Bearers is set something over a hundred years after The Silver Branch and opens with the latest descendents of Marcus and Cottia at home on the land he earned in The Eagle of the Ninth.  It is now a farm, though due to the retreat of ever-more-beleaguered Rome and the constant threat of Saxon raiders, its best days are behind it.  Young Aquila, like his forebears, serves in the Roman army stationed at Rutupiae, but when the last of the Roman troops are ordered back to defend the empire's nearer holdings, he deserts to make a last stand defending his family and his ancestors' lands.  Denied the death he expects, Aquila is left to live, first as a thrall to his Saxon enemies, then as a renegade, trying to find something to believe in when he has lost everything he has ever known and loved.

This is an excellent book, but it's much more bitter than its predecessors.  Eagle is full of hope for a future in a new land, and Branch at least holds out the hope of saving something from the oncoming disaster; The Lantern Bearers is a book about living in, and after, defeat.  Any novel which opens with a beloved sister ecstatically proclaiming how she loves being alive is going to close with her not: it's a corollary of Chekhov's Gun.  So, really, don't read this book thinking it's going to end well.

In spite of the general theme of loss, however, there are some striking depictions of hope in this book. Aquila, having deserted the ships just before they carry his fellow soldiers away, lights the lighthouse one last time; it is a beautiful image and, later in the story, revealed to have been a consolation in a time of trial to others.  And Brother Ninnias, the lone surviving monk of his monastery after it is overrun by Saxons, both warms and breaks the heart in the kindness and steadfast faith he shows to Aquila and the others left behind by Rome.

At the same time as The Lantern Bearers ends the Roman Britain trilogy, it can also be seen as a prequel to The Shining Company, itself a book accustomed to loss and resigned to defeat without giving in to bitterness and despair.