This year, both my assignment and the treat I wrote were based on historical novels but, I hope, manage to work outside of them (while doing their canon justice). Though last year I discovered with Stella Duffy*s Theodora duology two more novels about the Byzantine Empress I liked, Gillian Bradshaw's The Bearkeeper's Daughter is still my uncontested favourite. Aside from Theodora herself, the most intriguing character in it is for me is probably Narses, so I was delighted to get an assignment where one of the recipient's prompts asked more about him, which resulted in this story:


Of What is Past (3255 words) by Selena
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: The Bearkeeper's Daughter - Gillian Bradshaw, 6th Century CE RPF
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Relationships: Narses & Theodora, Justinian I Emperor of Byzantium/Theodora I Augusta of Byzantium, Narses & Anastasios, Narses & Belisarius, Narses & Justinian
Characters: Narses (The Bearkeeper's Daughter), Theodora I Augusta of Byzantium, Justinian I Emperor of Byzantium, Anastasios (The Bearkeeper's Daughter)
Additional Tags: Character Study, Backstory, Canon Backstory, Yuletide
Summary:

As he rises from castrated slave boy to one of the most powerful men in the Empire, Narses knows about prices - and worth.

As for my treat: It's a tough contest, but Stealing Fire (set in the aftermath of Alexander the Great's death; our hero fictional Lydias goes from suicidal traumatized soldier to starting a new life and new relationships healed survivor while teaming up with Ptolemy Soter and leading the most audacious bodynapping heist ever as he steals AtG's corpse for his boss) might be my favourite of the Numinous World novels Jo Graham wrote, though last year I via the audio version which I hadn't known before did a rehear/retread of Black Ships (based on the Aeneid, from the pov of the Sybil) and it's certainly up there. Anyway, one of the most interesting characters in the novel is Thais, a historical character, a hetaira from Athens who joined Alexander's campaign and was the long term mistress of Ptolemy with whom she had several children. Settiai had asked for more about Thais, what life with with Alexander had been like, how she reacted when Ptolemy eventually fell in love with another woman (as opoposed to political marriages), etc, and I swear I originally had more of a romantic mellow character piece in mnd. But then I actually read the ancient sources on Alexander. And thought: he must have been absolutely hell to live with at times, especially in his final years. I can't imagine a more dangerous combination than all powerful, depressed, hard drinking and already having killed friends in a rage before. Thinking this, I got an idea, and the tone of my planned story changed completely. With this result:


Her Last Confession (6796 words) by Selena
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Numinous World Series - Jo Graham, Stealing Fire - Jo Graham, Classical Greece and Rome History & Literature RPF, Ancient History RPF
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Relationships: Ptolemy I/Thais, Alexandros III of Macedon | Alexander the Great & Thais, Thais & Berenike I. of Egypt, Thais & Chloe (Stealing Fire), Alexander III of Macedon | Alexander the Great & Ptolemaios Soter | Ptolemy I of Egypt, Alexandros III of Macedon | Alexander the Great/Hephaistion of Macedon
Characters: Thaïs the Hetaira (c. 4th Century BCE), Alexandros III of Macedon | Alexander the Great, Ptolemaios Soter | Ptolemy I of Egypt, Berenike I of Egypt | Berenice, Chloe (Stealing Fire), Demosthenes (c. 384-322 BCE), Kleitos ho Melas | Cleitus the Black, Callisthenes of Olynthus
Additional Tags: Character Study, POV Female Character, Talking To Dead People, Complicated Relationships, War, Angst, Reveal, Yuletide Treat
Summary:

Thais has always guarded her secrets well. It kept her alive in the years that saw her go from Athenian Hetaira to joining Alexander's campaign to conquer the world to settling down in Egypt where her lover Ptolemy became Pharaoh. But it also cost her. And now she is about to confront her past one more time...

Having finished the available episodes on the History of Byzantium podcast - it's not over by two hundred more years, but I've now listened to all the finished episodes - with the last one just happening to be the 1204 sacking of Constantinople (sob!); I've felt inspired to go back to a few Byzantine tales I'd read before and look for new ones.

My favourite novels set in or around Byzantium are by Gillian Bradshaw, and of those three, I can never decide whether I prefer The Bearkeeper's Daughter or Imperial Purple.

( Vague spoilers about both ensue. )

These novels I'd read first decades ago. A much more recent reading experience, courtesy of the podcast reccommending it, was the graphich novel Theophano: A Byzantine Tale, text by Spyros Theocharis, art by Chrysa Sakel. If you're German, the first historical personality you think of when hearing the name "Theopanu", is this lady, the Ottonian Empress, who isn't the subject of this graphic novel. Rather, it is the woman she was possibly named after, , the Byzantine Empress. Now, according to the History of the Byzantium podcast, some of the deaths Theophano got blamed for were product of scapegoating, snobbery (she was a commoner) and power struggles long after her death where a rival family needed to damage her son, and that in all likelihood she's not responsible for any of them. Otoh, the graphic novel actually does let her go through with various murders (or aid them), but still goes with a sympathetic reading, not least by providing her with good motivations in all cases. ( Spoilers are determined not to die in the Game of Thrones and manage to keep their kids alive as well. )

And finally, seeing as the podcast got me as far as the century of the Komnenoi (i.e. the twelfth century), I checked, and lo and behold, the AO3 has this excellent fic with lots of UST between Alexios I. Komnenos and his most enduring arch nemesis, Bohemund the Norman. You don't have to know more than what is in the story itself to enjoy it, I promise.