Black Ships

Categories: Fiction

Here’s one for readers who remember Mary Renault’s historical novels of the ancient world fondly.  It’s Jo Graham’s reworking of the tale of Aeneas, the fall of Troy, and the founding of Rome, Black Ships.

Gull is a slave, a child of rape, whose mother is one of the conquered people of Wilusa (Troy).  Lamed in an accident as a child, she faces a grim fate in her captors’ shore town of Pylos. 

But her mother takes her to the Pythian priestess who serves the goddess of death.  The visions Gull sees declare her the priestess’s successor as sibyl.

Growing up in her role as priestess, Gull continues to serve Pylos until a war party of Wilusans attacks to avenge further raids on their home and people.

Taken away from captivity by her mother’s people, Gull becomes a wanderer with them.  Their city has been destroyed, their population decimated; there is nowhere for them to settle. 

Their leader, Neas, tries to ally their small fleet to some of the fortified or merchant cities along the seaways, and eventually takes them into service to the great country of Egypt.  Gull marvels that the Egyptians are so powerful that they hardly seem to protect themselves against the wars that are ravaging the rest of civilization.

But to become one of the subjugated peoples who serve Egypt isn’t what Gull foresees for the Wilusans, any more than she can imagine Neas tamely remaining as an Egyptian princess’s concubine.  With the goddess’s blessing, they devise a ruse to sail away.

This has all the elements to appeal to Renault fans—a fascinating reworking of the legends and known facts of the ancient story (including the fact that Troy didn’t fall once, but multiple times), a touch of mysticism, a little romance, and warmly sympathetic characters.  The many readers who enjoy a bit of revisionist history from the women’s point of view will also find it a rewarding read.