Review: The Coming of the King

Manda Scott, The Coming of the King, (Transworld Digital, 2011)

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/19183790-rome

Christian legend and Jewish history in a new, surprising plot

Saulos convalesces among the Berbers after the Fire, the skin on his burned feet growing back. He plots revenge on ‘the entire Hebrew people’. He brings Iksahra to Caesarea, accompanied by her cheetah and four hunting birds, to tend King Agrippa (II)’s beasts.

Pantera arrives with Mergus. The message-birds had told them Saulos was travelling, and he knows they are. They travel with a Sabaean camel train, looking to sell their beasts to Yusaf ben Matthias.

Hypatia has a gift for Berenice from Poppaea.

The story brings the enmity between Pantera and Saulos from Book 1 to Judaea. The task at hand now is to save Jerusalem. Syrians and Hebrews riot nightly over the issue of a synagogue. Rebellion is in the air.

The references to Christian legends and names and events from Jewish history—Yusaf ben Matthias, Menachem ben Jehudah, Ananias ben Ananias—are tantalising, and they are crafted into a new, surprising plot.

Secret letters in code, graffiti symbols scratched into stone, passwords and countersigns, oracles and prophecies, message-doves intercepted by hunting falcons, tunnels with listening spaces inside palace walls—the plot is full of intrigue and drama. It ends on a cliffhanger, leaving us certain to buy Book 3.

The intricate cultural detail and subtlety of writing pulls you in. The understatedness of the language makes it sound believably ancient.

Beautiful writing: ‘[She] smiled at them covertly across the sea of strangers’ faces, and their smiles, covertly returned, had felt like splashes of colour in a grey winter’s day’; ‘a certain kind of individual, having met Pantera, was inclined to follow him closely, if not out of desire or admiration, then in the understanding that where he went, life was always interesting.’; ‘he was walking round and round the gold like a hen who has hatched her first egg and found she has given birth to a harpy.’