History Creator / RosemarySutcliff

* HandsomeDevil: The [[HotGuysAreBastards beautiful]], [[BlondGuysAreEvil golden]], charming Glaucus takes over ownership of Beric from his father in order to spite his sister Lucilla and persecute Beric for refusing to help him cheat his father over a horse. They tacitly loathe each other, and Glaucus forces Beric to use a slave name and plans to sell him to the mines.

* MosesInTheBullrushes: Complete with OrphansPlotTrinket, in order to escape HumanSacrifice. He is HappilyAdopted by a MamaBear and PapaWolf.

* MosesInTheBullrushes: Brychan was a DoorstopBaby. The titular dagger is his OrphansPlotTrinket, which combined with his DistinguishingMark leads to the revelation of his parentage.

** The {{Galley Slave}}s in ''Outcast'' owe more to ''Literature/BenHur'' than to history.

* GalleySlave: Beric spends two years in the army's Rhenus fleet, chained to a rowing bench alongside his oar-mate Jason.

* MadeASlave: Beric is duped by a crew of slave-traders, sold to a merchant in Rome, and bought by a well-to-do Roman family. When he runs away from them, he's caught in the company of a robber band and sentenced to become a GalleySlave.

* TraumaCongaLine: Virtually every terrible thing than could happen to Beric happens: His parents die in a shipwreck, other children harass him for being Roman, his father's enemies [[PersonaNonGrata make him a scapegoat and get him exiled]], he is kidnapped and enslaved, bought by a venal master, given to a worse one with a grudge against him, helps his only friends leave him forever, gets caught and arrested as a bandit, is sent to be a GalleySlave, has his only friend die, gets beaten and thrown overboard, and finds out his rescuers hoped he was someone else. On the other hand, he never quite dies, either.

* DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything: The colonization of Roman Britain (or Norman England) and the crumbling of the Roman Empire evoke UsefulNotes/TheBritishEmpire, particularly TheRaj, to the point of anachronism. Most of these novels were written during the dismantling of the British Empire and following in the footsteps of Creator/RudyardKipling.

Greece, 412 BCE. A young Athenian runner [[NotSoDifferent befriends]] his [[WorthyOpponent Spartan competitor]] at the OlympicGames in the middle of UsefulNotes/ThePeloponnesianWar.

NapoleonicWars. Thomas Keith, a Scottish prisoner of war, is befriended by Tussun, son of the governor of Egypt, and serves them through a deadly power struggle in their court and a war in Arabia, rising to become governor of Medina.

Rosemary Sutcliff (1920-1992) was a British writer of YoungAdult HistoricalFiction, who published some fifty books between 1950 and 1997. She is best-known for her novels set in Roman Britain, particularly ''[[Literature/TheEagleOfTheNinth The Eagle of the Ninth]]''. She was awarded Commander of the British Empire for her services to children's literature.

She published her first books, ''The Chronicles of Robin Hood'' and ''The Queen Elizabeth Story'', with Oxford University Press in 1950. They were followed by three more novels before her breakout bestseller ''[[Literature/TheEagleOfTheNinth The Eagle of the Ninth]]'', which as SchoolStudyMedia became the TropeCodifier of the LostRomanLegion for generations of children, and has inspired several adaptations including the 2011 film ''Film/TheEagle''. It was eventually followed by seven loosely linked sequels sometimes known as "The Eagle of the Ninth Chronicles" or "the Dolphin Ring series", after the signet ring [[GenerationalSaga passed down through the generations]] of a Roman British family.

** ''{{The Eagle of the Ninth}}'': Cub, the tame wolf pup caught by Esca.

** ''{{The Eagle of the Ninth}}'': Marcus and Cottia, who is [[SheIsAllGrownUp All Grown Up]].

** CanineCompanion: Esca "the Centurion's hound" in ''Literature/TheEagleOfTheNinth''; Cullen "the Hound of Curoi" in ''[[Literature/TheDolphinRing The Silver Branch]]''; Drem is a "Hound of Dumnorix in ''Warrior Scarlet''; Randal the dog-boy in ''Literature/KnightsFee''; ''The Hound of Ulster'', Cú Chulainn; Jestyn in ''Blood Feud''; Hugh Herriot in ''Bonnie Dundee''.

** NobleBirdOfPrey: the Roman Legions, or the Eagles; [[Literature/TheDolphinRing the Aquila family]]; the Grandfather of ''Warrior Scarlet''; Captain Faa of ''Bonnie Dundee''; [[Literature/KnightsFee the Montgomery brothers]]; [[Literature/SwordAtSunset Pharic and Maelgwn]].

** ''Warrior Scarlet'': Drem was born with an undeveloped right arm.

** ''Warrior Scarlet'': Whitethroat, for whose sake Drem fights a duel; Fand the Beautiful; various sheepdogs.

** ''Warrior Scarlet'': Drem and Blai, his not-quite adopted sister.

** Briton vs. Briton: ''The Changeling'', ''Warrior Scarlet'', ''The Mark of the Horse Lord''

** ''The Eagle of the Ninth'': Marcus and Esca, whose eyes met across a crowded gladiatorial arena.

** ''Warrior Scarlet'': Drem and Vortrix

** ''Warrior Scarlet'': Blai's mother was Irish, and there are people of mixed parentage among the Half People.

** ''Brother Dusty-Feet'': Playwright Jonathan Whiteleafe

* PerfectlyArrangedMarriage: TruthInTelevision compels some characters into ArrangedMarriage, but it inevitably turns out all right, after perhaps a little BelligerentSexualTension. Truly unpalatable matches end up prevented.

** Flavius of ''[[Literature/TheDolphinRing The Silver Branch]]''
** Drem of ''Warrior Scarlet''
** Androphon and Cador of ''The Bridge-Builders''
** Red Phaedrus of ''Literature/TheMarkOfTheHorseLord''
** Prasutagus of ''Song for a Dark Queen''
** She also apparently subscribed to the FieryRedhead stereotype:
*** Amias Hannaford of ''Simon''
*** Cottia of ''The Eagle of the Ninth''
*** Drem
*** Gisella of ''Literature/KnightsFee''
*** Bryni Beornwulfson of ''Dawn Wind''
*** Phaedrus
*** Connla of ''Literature/FrontierWolf''
*** Alan Armstong of ''Bonnie Dundee''

** ''Warrior Scarlet'': The druid Midir, though eccentric, is highly respected and instrumental in reestablishing Drem in his tribe.

** ''Literature/KnightsFee'' takes place in the same valley as ''Warrior Scarlet'', featuring the Hill of Gathering. Lewin the shepherd's left-handed flint hand-axe is implied to have belonged to one-handed Drem.

!! '''''Warrior Scarlet'''''

* AwesomeMomentOfCrowning: Two chapters are devoted to the accession of the king of the tribe, who is never given a name or heard from before or afterward.
* BecauseYouWereNiceToMe: Drem accidentally wins Blai's UndyingLoyalty by showing her some when her father rejects her. Later, however, she ''hesitates'' to marry him because she thinks he's merely being kind.
* BirthDeathJuxtaposition: Drem kills three wolves defending a mortally-injured shepherd and the labouring ewe they were searching for. At the Feast of the New Spears, each boy ritually "dies" and is "reborn" as a man.
* CanineCompanion: Drem's mentor Talore sets Drem his first test – bringing down a bird with a throw-spear – with the promised reward of a fine half-wolf hound puppy (a gross overpayment) whom Drem names Whitethroat. Drem volunteers for a duel at the king's coronation in order to save Whitethroat from a dog-fight, and Whitethroat in turn brings down one of the wolves who attack Drem in the quarry.
* CharacterDevelopment
* ClingyJealousGirl: Drem observes with bewilderment that Blai won't let his new sister-in-law near him.
* ComingOfAgeStory: Drem spends half his life preparing for the RiteOfPassage that he fails, then spends the next year as a shepherd learning skills he hadn't trained for as a warrior, like "patience" and "compassion".
* CoolOldGuy: Doli the senior shepherd, who doesn't give a shit that Drem is one of the Golden People.
* TheDeterminator: Drem compensates for his disability by sheer force of personality.
* DisappearedDad: Blai's travelling blacksmith dad, who left her behind in Drem's village after her mother's DeathByChildbirth. Blai constantly tells the other children that he'll come back for her someday and is mocked for it. After he makes his disappointing return, she denies that he is her real father.
* DontYouDarePityMe: If there's one thing Drem hates, it's sympathy.
* DuelToTheDeath: At the king's coronation, Drem's chieftain Dumnorix quarrels with another chief over the iron dagger and demands satisfaction in a duel. The new king de-escalates this into a dog-fight, and selects Whitethroat as one of Dumnorix's team. Drem, knowing Whitethroat would die in a NoHoldsBarredBeatdown, volunteers himself for a knife-fight instead. He fights his opponent to first blood, when the king TakesAThirdOption and confiscates the dagger as a coronation present.
* GrumpyOldMan: Drem and Drustic's grandfather, the Grandfather, an old warrior who fancies himself a BadassGrandpa and figures ScrewPolitenessImASenior, who's outlived all his contemporaries and his sons.
* HandicappedBadass: Talore the Hunter, who lost his hand but still manages to hunt and fight like the rest of the Men's Side. He advises Drem on what he can and can't do as a one-armed warrior. And Drem himself, obviously.
* HeterosexualLifePartners: Drem and his {{Blood Brother|s}} Vortrix, who cries in his arms when they're about to be separated forever.
* HiddenDepths: The point of the chapter "The Dagger and the Fire", in which pale, silent, but occasionally fierce Blai is juxtaposed with her father's iron dagger, a cold silvery metal that nonetheless strikes sparks.
* LastMinuteHookup: Lampshaded. Drem is ObliviousToLove until it suddenly dawns on him in the final scene of the book that he and Blai are BirdsOfAFeather and asks her to marry him roughly five seconds later.
* MyGreatestSecondChance: Drem was supposed to kill a wolf within one day in order to pass his initiation, and no wolf he killed later in the usual course of guarding the sheep would ever count for it. But because he kills the very same wolf, Vortrix persuades the tribe that it had always been unfinished business.
* NecessaryFail: Drem is practically the masculine ideal for his culture in talents, personality, looks, social status – everything except his missing hand. The only thing that gives him the slightest insight and sympathy for those who don't have his inborn advantages – like Blai or the Half People – is the experience of losing his social position and [[LoonyFriendsImproveYourPersonality living among them as an outcast.]] It [[MiseryBuildsCharacter doesn't necessarily make his life better,]] but it makes him a better person.
* RedHeadedHero: Drem's a FieryRedhead, but so are his entire family and many of his Tribe. Blai is visibly foreign because she's an EeriePaleSkinnedBrunette.
* ReferencedBy: In ''Literature/KnightsFee'' (published two years later), the medieval inhabitants of the same village on the Hill of Gathering puzzle over an ancient flint hand-ax, evidently made for a left-handed man – or, thinks the protagonist for no reason at all, a one-handed one. . .
* TheResenter: Drem's prickly year-mate Luga carries a permanent grudge against Drem after Talore embarrasses Luga's father by [[SeriousBusiness giving Whitethroat]] to ten-year-old Drem instead of him. Drem eventually discovers that while Luga will always be a thorn in his side, he'll nevertheless close ranks with him against outsiders.
* SavageWolves: The Men's side mounts the Wolf Guard of the sheep every winter, and each New Spear has to kill a wolf single-handed to join the Men's side. Drem screws it up, but he kills the same wolf a year later while guarding the sheep as one of the shepherds.
* ShoutOut: The setting of the prehistoric shepherds beset by wolves is heavily inspired by Creator/RudyardKipling's story and poem "The Knife and the Naked Chalk" and "Song of the Men's Side" in ''Rewards and Fairies''.
* SiblingYinYang: Drem the supremely confident and his elder brother Drustic, a worrier.
* SlaveRace: The Half People, an underclass who live in a village higher up on the Downs, serve Drem's village as shepherds and other labourers, while the Golden People are a warrior caste. The only time the two mix are during certain yearly events like the winter Wolf Guard, the spring sheep-shearing, and the summer fertility feast. The Half People are the mixed descendants of the stone-using aboriginal Little Dark People and the copper-using "golden giants" who conquered them, who were in turn conquered and enslaved by the bronze-wielding Golden People – who will, inevitably, someday be conquered by someone carrying the new, magical metal called iron.
* SnowMeansDeath: Drem's battle against the wolves happens in the snow, after he and Doli follow a sheep into a snowstorm. Images of scarlet on white throughout the book, like the blood on the breast of his swan, foreshadow blood on the snow.
* TextileWorkIsFeminine: Drem's mother Sabra is sick of weaving for her irritating father-in-law, the Grandfather.
* ThisIsSomethingHesGotToDoHimself: Zig-zagged. Each New Spear is required to kill his wolf unaided. When Drem slips, Vortrix stabs his wolf to keep it from killing him, which Drem isn't entirely grateful for. When Drem does kill the wolf a year later, Vortrix identifies it by the scar of his spear and uses it to convince the rest of the clan that Drem has passed his test.

Works with their own pages:
* Literature/TheDolphinRing sequence

The official site of her literary estate is [[http://rosemarysutcliff.com/ rosemarysutcliff.com]]. A 1983 [[Creator/TheBBC BBC]] Radio ''[[Radio/DesertIslandDiscs Desert Island Discs]]'' interview with Sutcliff can be heard [[http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/features/desert-island-discs/castaway/cf9decb8 here]]; a 1986 interview can be read [[http://d.lib.rochester.edu/camelot/text/interview-with-rosemary-sutcliff here]].

----
!! Rosemary Sutcliff's work includes examples of:

* AuthorAppeal: Every trope in this folder, pretty much.

** Young men and dogs tend to "plunge joyfully" into fights.
** Flesh wounds are "juicy."

** ''Knight's Fee'': the battle of Tenchebrai.

** CareerEndingInjury
*** ''The Eagle of the Ninth'': [[spoiler:Marcus is discharged from the army for a maimed leg.]]
*** ''The Mark of the Horse Lord'': Midir was blinded to make him ritually unfit for kingship.
*** ''The Capricorn Bracelet'': Lucius Calpurnius is invalided out of the legions.
*** ''Blood Feud'': [[spoiler:Jestyn's leg is maimed; he becomes a physician.]]
*** ''Simon'': Simon's dad loses a leg in battle.
*** ''Bonnie Dundee'': [[spoiler:Hugh loses an arm; becomes a one-armed painter.]]
* CadreOfForeignBodyguards: The bodyguard of the Byzantine emperor is featured in several novels as a kind of French Foreign Legion analogue. Jestyn, Thormod, and Anders are part of the founding of the Varangian Guard in ''Blood Feud''; Prosper and Cynan ride off into the sunrise to join it at the end of ''The Shining Company''; and Bedwyr is on his way to join it when he meets Artos and takes up with him instead in ''Literature/SwordAtSunset''. And Sir Everard d'Aguillon says he'd join it if he were young in ''Knight's Fee''.

** ''Knight's Fee'': Joyeuse, named for a sword, to Bevis.

** AnimalMotif:
*** ''{{The Eagle of the Ninth}}'': Esca Mac Cunoval – "I am the Centurion's hound, to lie at the Centurion's feet."
*** ''The Silver Branch'': Cullen, the hound of Curoi, who sleeps on the floor and wears a dog's tail.
*** ''Warrior Scarlet'': Drem fights a metaphorical dog fight to keep his dog out of an actual one.
*** ''Knight's Fee'': Randal, erstwhile kennel boy, who calls himself Herluin's and Sir Everard's dog
*** ''The Hound of Ulster'': Nobody uses Cú Chulainn's real name after he becomes the smith's watchdog, per the legends.
*** ''Blood Feud'': Jestyn, a "lone wolf" – "he had whistled me to heel like a hound; and like a hound I had followed."
*** ''The Lantern Bearers'': Aquila is likewise nicknamed "lone wolf"
*** ''Literature/FrontierWolf'': The Frontier Scouts, who wear wolfskins, call themselves a pack and wolves their "four-footed brothers".
*** Saxons are invariably "the Sea Wolves"

** ''Knight's Fee'': Randall and Gisella

** ''Knight's Fee'': Randal and Bevis, a squire and knight.

** ''Dawn Wind'': Ditto the Saxon kings in former times
** ''Knight's Fee'': The unexplained death of William II in the New Forest is suggested to have been ditto.

** ''Knight's Fee'': Randal is the son of a Saxon soldier and a Norman lady.

** ''Knight's Fee'': Herluin the minstrel

** ''Knight's Fee'': Philip de Braose to Aanor
** ''Dawn Wind'': Helga and Lilla's betrothals

*** Gisella of ''Knight's Fee''

* SatelliteLoveInterest: To a degree. Female love interests are rounded characters, but their story function is to be the hero's female friend – they're seldom involved in the main events of the plot or connected to main characters other than the hero. This is not the case for male love interests of Sutcliff's (few) female point-of-view characters.

** ''Knight's Fee'': Gisella appears in three scenes and interacts only with Randal.

*** "Seisin", a ritual dedication that appears in ''Brother Dusty-Feet'' and ''Knight's Fee'', is performed by the children in ''Puck''.

** ''Knight's Fee'': Randal is squire to the d'Aguillons

** ''Knight's Fee'' takes place in the same valley as ''Warrior Scarlet'', featuring the Hill of Gathering. Lewin the shepherd's left-handed flint hand-axe is implied to have belonged to one-handed Drem.

** ''Knight's Fee'': "along with most of their faults he has learned the hound's chief virtue of faithfulness"

* ReferencedBy: In ''Knight's Fee'' (published two years later), the medieval inhabitants of the same village on the Hill of Gathering puzzle over an ancient flint hand-ax, evidently made for a left-handed man – or, thinks the protagonist for no reason at all, a one-handed one. . .

* CadreOfForeignBodyguards: Prosper and Cynan ride off into the sunrise to join the Emperor of Constantinople's Varangian Guard.

* ShoutOut: Prosper and Co. spend their wakefulness test in the wolf-haunted ruins of Castellum in a Shout Out to ''Literature/FrontierWolf''. The various references to KingArthur are also specifically to ''Literature/SwordAtSunset''.

!!'''''Knight's Fee'''''

* AnimalMotifs: Randal grows up in a kennel and is frequently likened to a hound himself, including ''by'' himself.
--> '''Herluin:''' He has lived so long with hounds that along with most of their faults he has learned the hound's chief virtue of faithfulness.
* BecauseYouWereNiceToMe: Randall's stated reason for his devotion to Herluin and to Everard d'Aguillon, although Herluin disclaims any actual kindness on his part. It's also the reason Sir Everard 's Saxon villeins love their Norman overlord.
--> '''Sir Everard:''' Randal–do you love me then?
--> '''Randal:''' If you take a half-starved dung-hill whelp and bring it up to be your hunting dog and hearth companion, you're likely to find that the silly brute loves you!
* {{Blackmail}}: Randal threatens to expose Thiebaut de Coucy as a conspirator against Red William in order to keep him from taking Dean.
* BurnTheWitch: In one of the story's unlikelier twists, de Coucy dons a PaperThinDisguise to incite a mob with TorchesAndPitchforks against Ancret and the manor in order to attack Randal.
* ComingOfAgeStory
* DarkSkinnedBlond: Randal's colouring shows his [[MixedAncestry half-Saxon heritage]] and contrasts with his Norman foster brother Bevis's RavenHairIvorySkin.
* DawnOfAnEra: Of a shared English nationality united against [[FrenchJerk further invasions]].
* DiedInYourArmsTonight: [[spoiler: Bevis in Randal's after Tenchebrai]].
* FamousLastWords: The dying William de Braose's message to his equally dying friend and liegeman Everard d'Aguillon:
-->'''de Braose:''' ''I am away; see that you follow my banner as close as you did at Senlac.''
* FieryRedhead: King William the Second, "Red William"; Hugh Goch and his brother Robert de Belleme; and Gisella.
--> "Hugh Montgomery, whom the Welsh called Hugh Goch–Hugh the Red–from the colour of his hair and perhaps for other reasons also."
* ForWantOfANail: Randal's life changes course entirely because he accidentally dropped a fig off the battlements of Arundel Castle...onto the lord of Arundel Castle.
* HeroicBastard: Randal, the son of a Saxon lady and a Breton man-at-arms.
* HeterosexualLifePartners: Randal and Bevis, foster brothers who plan to spend the rest of their lives as squire and knight.
--> '''Philip de Braose:''' God forbid that I should part [[Literature/TheSongOfRoland Roland and Oliver!]]
* HistoricalDomainCharacter: Red William, Duke Robert and Henry of Coutances; Hugh Goch and Robert de Belleme, notably.
* IdenticalGrandson: Everard and Bevis d'Aguillon, as the characters lampshade.
* IntrepidMerchant: Sir Everard's old friend Laef Thorkelson, with whom he made a voyage to the far north.
* TheJester: Herluin the minstrel of Robert de Belleme, who is able to protect Randal from Hugh Goch through socially-acceptable insolence.
* KnightInShiningArmour: The d'Aguillons, notably.
* {{Knighting}}: Bevis undergoes a formal knighting when he comes of age, with an overnight vigil which Randal and Joyeuse secretly share outside the chapel. [[spoiler:Bevis knights Randal on the battlefield as he is dying.]]
* TheLadysFavour: Gisella gives Randal a sprig of rosemary before his first campaign, which he tucks away with his lump of amber. He gives it to Bevis after Tenchebrai.
* LastMinuteHookup: The narrator notes that it hasn't yet occurred to Randal in the last scene that he's eligible to marry Gisella, but it will.
* LostHimInACardGame: Herluin wins Randal off Hugh Goch in a game of chess. Because SmartPeoplePlayChess.
* PropheciesAreAlwaysRight: Ancret the wise-woman's prophetic dreams and the random old woman Randal meets in the woods on the eve of Tenchebrai are uncannily accurate about future developments.
* RescueRomance: Randal rescues Gisella from the midst of a dog fight the second time they meet. [[SingleWomanSeeksGoodMan She's extra impressed]] because she'd slapped and insulted him the first time.
* SecretTestOfCharacter: After Tenchebrai Randal's liege-lord gives him the choice of Dean or the chance to ransom the captive Herluin. Randal chooses his debt to Herluin. His lord then remarks that he'd like to have a liegeman who's faithful to the point of stupidity, and gives him both. Naturally he wins Randal's UndyingLoyalty on the spot.
* ShoutOut: The prehistoric left-handed hand-ax Lewin the shepherd shows to Randal in "The Flowering Flint" is implied to have belonged to Drem of ''Warrior Scarlet'', written two years earlier. The old name Ancret uses for Bramble Hill, the Hill of Gathering, is that used in WS.
* SissyVillain: de Coucy is always described in terms of effeminacy, wearing a musk that reminds Randal of a noblewoman and with a voice that is "curiously smooth and hairless."
* StockWeaponNames: Bevis names his dog Joyeuse after Charlemagne's sword and his horse Durandal after Roland's.
* ZeroPercentApprovalRating: King William II is widely unpopular among his Barons, which is probably why he ended up dead in his deer park in the middle of a hunting party.

1580s CE. A runaway headed for Oxford joins a troupe of travelling entertainers.

* ShoutOut: The "young Relf" mentioned here is, if not the same Zeal-for-the-Lord Relf who is a major character in ''Simon'', written six years before, at least a reference to him.

1640s. {{Heterosexual Life Partner}}s Simon Carey and Amias Hannaford join up on opposite sides of the EnglishCivilWar. Simon's estrangement from Amias, and his corporal [[AerithAndBob Zeal-for-the-Lord Relf]]'s vendetta against a treacherous friend, are ultimately tested in the battle of Torrington.

* FreakierThanFiction: The "roof falls; everybody dies" epilogue actually happened.

* SupportingProtagonist: Hugh and his LoveInterest Darklis are both the SideKick to Claverhouse and ''his'' LoveInterest Jean respectively. Darklis needles Hugh about being too much of a follower, and he retorts that she's no different; and in fact they don't commit to each other until their prior obligations to the first objects of their loyalty are moot.

Sutcliff was the daughter of a Royal Navy commander, and much of her work focuses on military officers and the life of the service. At two years old, she developed juvenile arthritis which partially crippled her; she spent much of her childhood in and out of hospital and used a wheelchair in later life. Medicine and disabled characters play a prominent role in her fiction. She was educated largely at home by her mother, who introduced her to literature, especially CelticMythology and [[KingArthur the Matter of Britain]]. She also became a great admirer of Creator/RudyardKipling, who strongly influences her prose, settings, and themes. As a young adult, she trained as an artist, working as a painter of miniatures. A vivid evocation of visual detail later translated to her writing.

* CelticMythology: Most of Sutcliff's fiction is set in the British Isles and Ireland, in a period when most of the population is Celtic. She wrote two volumes of Celtic legends, and referenced elements of Celtic mythology in many of her novels.

** The women washing at a ford in the first scene is probably another of Sutcliff's references to the Washer at the Ford, a harbinger of death from CelticMythology.

* DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything: The colonization of Roman Britain (or Norman England) and the crumbling of the Roman Empire evoke TheBritishEmpire, particularly TheRaj, to the point of anachronism. Most of these novels were written during the dismantling of the British Empire and following in the footsteps of Creator/RudyardKipling.

* ''Black Ships Before Troy'': TheTrojanWar.

* SorryBillyButYouJustDontHaveLegs: Drem was born with his undeveloped right arm (and boundless self-confidence), and doesn't realise that other people consider him handicapped until he overhears his grandfather complaining that he'll never wear the [[RedIsHeroic Warrior Scarlet]].

* ThrowingOffTheDisability: An aversion, which is the whole point. Lucian has fled from acknowledging, until he has to to protect the deserter, that SorryBillyButYouJustDontHaveLegs.

The official site of her literary estate is [[http://rosemarysutcliff.com/ rosemarysutcliff.com]]. A 1983 BBC Radio Desert Island Discs interview with Sutcliff can be heard [[http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/features/desert-island-discs/castaway/cf9decb8 here]]; a 1986 interview can be read [[http://d.lib.rochester.edu/camelot/text/interview-with-rosemary-sutcliff here]].

** ''The Capricorn Bracelet''

* DatedHistory: Not all of her research has held up against later discoveries and interpretations - most egregiously, the Ninth Legion might or might not have been [[LostRomanLegion lost.]]

** ''Sword at Sunset'': "I can't possibly assassinate him, it's his destiny to kill me, for my sins. Also I shall let the children of my defeated enemies go free."

** ''A Circlet of Oak Leaves'': Aracos is a Roman army orderly
** ''The Witch's Brat'': Lovel is an infirmarian monk
** ''Blood Feud'': Jestyn is a cow-doctor who becomes a physician
* MixedAncestry: As Britain is made of intermingled peoples, so too are Sutcliff's protagonists. (Alternatively, they might be adopted, giving them a mixed cultural heritage.) [[HalfBreedDiscrimination Rarely does anyone let them forget it.]]

* PerfectlyArrangedMarriage: TruthInTelevision compels some aristocratic characters into ArrangedMarriage, but it inevitably turns out all right for them, after perhaps a little BelligerentSexualTension. Truly unpalatable matches always end up prevented.

** ''Outcast'': Lucilla

* SatelliteLoveInterest: To a degree. Female love interests are rounded characters, but their story function is to be the hero's female friend – they seldom have direct involvement in the main events of the plot or connections to the main characters other than the hero. This is not the case for male love interests of Sutcliff's (few) female point-of-view characters.

* ShoutOut: Sutcliff's work includes many homages to Creator/RudyardKipling.
** Sutcliff reused several of the settings visited in Kipling's ''Literature/PuckOfPooksHill'' and its sequel ''Literature/RewardsAndFairies'' (in which two children are told stories of England's past by various ghosts) in her novels, and directly lifted several of his turns of phrase. She also wrote a monograph about his writing for children ([[http://rosemarysutcliff.com/2010/04/25/3772/ condensed version here]]).
** Marcus Flavius Aquila of ''The Eagle of the Ninth'' was directly inspired by Parnesius, the similarly bushy-browed young Romano-British officer of auxiliaries from ''Puck of Pook's Hill''.
** The Dacian Cavalry, who appear in ''The Eagle of the Ninth'', ''The Capricorn Bracelet'', ''A Circlet of Oak Leaves'' and ''Swallows in the Spring'', was not a historical unit. It's the outfit Parnesius wanted to join in "A Centurion of the Thirtieth".
** Parnesius and Pertinax's participation in the [[MysteryCult cult of Mithras]], which Kipling treats like his beloved Freemasonry, is probably the reason why [[Literature/TheEagleOfTheNinth Marcus]], Justinius, [[Literature/TheDolphinRing Flavius]], [[Literature/FrontierWolf Alexios]], and [[Literature/SwordAtSunset Ambrosius]] are Mithrans.
** "The Men's Side" and "the Women's Side", which appear in all Sutcliff's British tribes, are inspired by "The Knife and the Naked Chalk"'s accompanying verse, "Song of the Men's Side", from ''Rewards and Fairies''.
** "Seisin", a ritual dedication that appears in ''Brother Dusty-Feet'' and ''Knight's Fee'', is performed by the children in ''Puck''.
** The phrase "a singing magic", used by Flavia and Aquila in ''The Lantern Bearers'' and Ia in ''The Changeling'', is taken from "[[http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/k/kipling/rudyard/justso/chapter11.html#chapter11 The Cat Who Walked By Himself]]" in the ''Literature/JustSoStories''.
** "Oar-thresh", a word used by Bruni in ''The Lantern Bearers'', is coined by a character in "[[http://www.online-literature.com/kipling/3775/ The Finest Story in the World]]".
** Jestyn's rowing song ("A long pull for Miklagard!") in ''Blood Feud'' is inspired by "Thorkild's Song" ("A long pull for Stavanger!") in ''Puck''.
** Sutcliff's ''The Bridge-Builders'', in which no literal bridges are built, is presumably named in tribute to Kipling's ''[[http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/k/kipling/rudyard/days/chapter1.html#chapter1 The Bridge-Builders]]'', in which one is.

** ''The Witch's Brat'': Lovel becomes an infirmarian brother of the order that took him in as an orphan.

* ShoutOut: The Corporal Relf mentioned here is, if not the same Corporal Relf who is a major character in ''Simon'', written six years before, at least a reference to him.

** Parnesius and Pertinax's participation in the [[MysteryCult cult of Mithras]], which Kipling treats like his beloved Freemasonry, is probably the reason why Marcus, Flavius, Alexios, and Ambrosius are Mithrans.

* DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything: The colonization of Roman Britain (or Norman England) and the crumbling of the Roman Empire evoke TheBritishEmpire, particularly TheRaj, to the point of anachronism. Most of these novels were written during the dismantling of the British Empire and following in the footsteps of RudyardKipling.

* Creator/RudyardKipling: Sutcliff reused several of the settings visited in Kipling's ''[[http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/k/kipling/rudyard/puck/contents.html Puck of Pook's Hill]]'' and its sequel ''[[http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/k/kipling/rudyard/rewards/contents.html Rewards and Fairies]]'' (in which two children are told stories of England's past by various ghosts) in her novels, and directly lifted several of his turns of phrase. She also wrote a monograph about his writing for children ([[http://rosemarysutcliff.com/2010/04/25/3772/ condensed version here]].)
** Marcus Flavius Aquila of ''The Eagle of the Ninth'' was directly inspired by Parnesius, the similarly bushy-browed young Romano-British officer of auxiliaries from ''Puck of Pook's Hill''.
** The Dacian Cavalry, who appear in ''The Eagle of the Ninth'', ''The Capricorn Bracelet'', ''A Circlet of Oak Leaves'' and ''Swallows in the Spring'', was not a historical unit. It's the outfit Parnesius wanted to join in "A Centurion of the Thirtieth".
** Parnesius and Pertinax's participation in the [[MysteryCult cult of Mithras]], which Kipling treats like his beloved Freemasonry, is probably the reason why Marcus, Flavius, Alexios, and Ambrosius are Mithrans.
** "The Men's Side" and "the Women's Side", which appear in all Sutcliff's British tribes, are inspired by "The Knife and the Naked Chalk"'s accompanying verse, "Song of the Men's Side".
** "Seisin", a ritual dedication that appears in ''Brother Dusty-Feet'' and ''Knight's Fee'', is performed by the children in ''Puck''.
** The phrase "a singing magic", used by Flavia and Aquila in ''The Lantern Bearers'' and Ia in ''The Changeling'', is taken from "[[http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/k/kipling/rudyard/justso/chapter11.html#chapter11 The Cat Who Walked By Himself]]" in the ''Just So Stories''.
** Jestyn's rowing song ("A long pull for Miklagard!") in ''Blood Feud'' is inspired by "Thorkild's Song" ("A long pull for Stavanger!") in ''Puck''.
** Sutcliff's ''The Bridge-Builders'', in which no literal bridges are built, is presumably named in tribute to Kipling's ''[[http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/k/kipling/rudyard/days/chapter1.html#chapter1 The Bridge-Builders]]'', in which one is.

The official site of her literary estate is [[http://rosemarysutcliff.com/ rosemarysutcliff.com]]. An interview with Sutcliff can be read [[http://d.lib.rochester.edu/camelot/text/interview-with-rosemary-sutcliff here]].

* BuryYourDisabled: Is constantly averted along with other disability tropes. This is RealitySubtext - Rosemary Sutcliff used a wheelchair for most of her life. Her soldier protagonists are prone to CareerEndingInjury.

* ConflictingLoyalties: Perhaps the most characteristic conflict in Sutcliff's work, probably most often ToBeLawfulOrGood, between duty and personal loyalties, or between two cultures to which a character belongs.

* HumanSacrifice: A common thematic and plot point in pagan settings, often as a form of HeroicSacrifice associated with kingship (an idea borrowed from Sir James Frazer's influential ''The Golden Bough''.)
** ''The Changeling'': Tethra was saved from ritual infanticide by being switched with Murna's son.
** ''Flowering Dagger'': Brychan was conceived for the purpose of ritual infanticide.
** ''The Flowers of Adonis'': Alkibiades who (allegedly) sacrifices himself for Athens is identified with Adonis, a fertility god who symbolically dies every year.
** ''The Mark of the Horse Lord'': the Horse Lords are expected to commit some form of HeroicSuicide if hard times require a HumanSacrifice.
** ''Literature/SwordAtSunset'': Ditto the High King Ambrosius's death
** ''Dawn Wind'': Ditto the Saxon kings in former times
** ''Knight's Fee'': The unexplained death of William II in the New Forest is suggested to have been ditto.
** ''The Chief's Daughter'': Nessan tags in for the friend who's supposed to be the victim, because she's the king('s daughter)
** ''Sun Horse, Moon Horse'': The horse has to be dedicated with a sacrifice. Of the guy who is sort of king.
* HeterosexualLifePartners: If it's not the central relationship of the book, the protagonist probably has one in the background. ([[OneThingLedToAnother Inevitably leads to]] HoYay - deliberate in ''Literature/SwordAtSunset''; presumably conscious in YA novels like ''The Mark of the Horse Lord''.)

** ''We Lived in Drumfyvie'': Eckie Brock and Donal Dhu

* HistoryMarchesOn: Not all of her research has held up against later discoveries and interpretations - most egregiously, the Ninth Legion might or might not have been [[LostRomanLegion lost.]]

** ''The Lantern Bearers'': Aquila, in Jutland.

** ''Bonnie Dundee'': Hugh Herriot, painter

* NominalImportance: Averted.

* OneSteveLimit: Aversion. Though there's generally only one per work, characters' names are among the many elements Sutcliff liked recycling. There are, for instance, at least eight major and minor characters named "Cordaella".

* {{Supporting Protagonist}}s: [[HeterosexualLifePartners Heterosexual Life Partnerships]] are often seen from the perspective of the less dynamic (and/or socially inferior) of the pair. {{Historical Domain Character}}s are almost invariably presented through a Supporting Protagonist.
* SubordinateExcuse

* UndyingLoyalty

Has its own tropes page.126-9 CE. [[AnOfficerAndAGentleman Marcus]] and Esca search Caledonia for the eagle standard of the [[LostRomanLegion lost Ninth Legion]].

* BecauseYouWereNiceToMe: After a few months as a slave, Beric just wants to recognised as a human being. He reverses his opinion of Lucilla after she's kind to him. Hearing years later that she invented an alibi to disprove the charges against him helps pull him out of his ShellShockedVeteran state.

5th century CE. Aquila deserts from the departing legions and devotes his life to holding off the Saxons from Roman Britain.

Has its own page. 5th century. A generation after the withdrawal of Roman forces from Britain, KingArthur struggles to unite Romano-Britons, Celtic tribes, and the elusive Little Dark People against the Saxon invasions.

* AnAssKickingChristmas: Mynyddog's second equipment-giving feast is at Midwinter. The Company and the Teulu, the king's bodyguard, fall to arguing about [[SeriousBusiness the Champion's portion of the roast]] and end up in a mead-fuelled brawl and nearly burn down Dyn Eidin.

9th century CE. Bjarni Sigurdson, a Norwegian Viking, is exiled from his British settlement for killing the man who kicked his dog and sells his sword as a mercenary, embroiling himself in the feuds of Viking earls from Dublin to the Orkneys.

!!'''''Brother Dusty-Feet'''''
16th century CE. A runaway headed for Oxford joins a troupe of travelling entertainers.
* YoungFutureFamousPeople: Sir Walter Raleigh

1634 CE. Tamsyn Caunter, who desperately wishes she could be a merchant venturer, must instead go to live with her uncle in London. She settles into the colourful life of the household and city while sharing the secret of their mutual seafaring ambition with her quiet cousin Piers.

150s CE. Beric, a Roman {{foundling}}, is cast out of his adoptive British tribe and [[MadeASlave enslaved]] in Rome.

* GreyEyes: The sign of Beric's mixed Roman-and-something-else ancestry, and what makes Justinius wonder if he could be his lost son.

* AuthorAppeal: Every trope listed below this one, pretty much.

** "wave-lift": also known as a hill, usually the Downs of southern England

* BasedOnATrueStory: Most of her HistoricalFiction is set in the context of true events. Though her protagonists are usually fictional characters on the ground, they often cross paths with a HistoricalDomainCharacter.

** ''Bonnie Dundee'': John Graham of Claverhouse

* TheMedic: One of the professions Sutcliff was most interested in, along with soldiers and artists. Several of her protagonists are medics, though usually the CombatMedic:

** Drem of ''Warrior Scarlet'', a FieryRedhead

** Prasutagus of ''Song for a Dark Queen'', not a FieryRedhead

* ChekhovsGift: The hairpin Long Axe gives to Moon Eye is the only weapon allowed into the sacrificial gathering.

* BecauseYouWereNiceToMe: After a few months as a slave, Beric just wants to recognised as a human being. He reverses his opinion of Lucilla after she's kind to him.

!!'''''Literature/TheMarkOfTheHorseLord'''''
Has its own tropes page. 180s CE. Phaedrus, a freed gladiator, plays the role of [[RightfulKingReturns lost heir]] to the patriarchal Dalriads in their war of succession against the matriarchal Caledones.

Has its own page. 340s CE. Alexios, a disgraced officer, is ReassignedToAntarctica to command the [[ArmyOfThievesAndWhores irregular]] [[SurprisinglyEliteCannonFodder Frontier Scouts]] in a precarious border outpost.

* AnAssKickingChristmas: Mynyddog's second equipment-giving feast is at Midwinter. The Company and the Teulu, the king's bodyguard, fall to arguing about the Champion's portion of the roast and end up in a mead-fuelled brawl and nearly burn down Dyn Eidin.

* DefeatMeansFriendship: Zig-zagged. Prosper accidentally shames a shieldbearer named Faelinn during a test, and Faelinn [[TheResenter resents it]] until another test exposes the same weakness in Prosper to him. They fall together during the siege of Catraeth and become Cynan's replacement shieldbearers, and though still not exactly friends, they'd rather go into the LastStand together than not.

* LoopholeAbuse: Though he's put off his InconvenientHippocraticOath for just this moment, when Anders staggers to his door to assassinate him, Jestyn can't bring himself to murder a guy who's already dying of tuberculosis. He does his best to save him, but assures Anders that Thormod already killed him when he stabbed him in the lung and pushed him into the river – it just took longer than they thought it would.

** [[HoYay Platonically speaking]], Thormod "rescued" Jestyn from the slave-market, and Jestyn "rescued" him from a tavern fight, which is why Thormod freed him.

* ForWantOfANail: The sight of a beggarwoman's hands holding a flower leads Hugh to his second career and his reunion with Darklis.

Rosemary Sutcliff (1920-1992) was a British writer of [[HistoricalFiction historical fiction]], mainly for [[YoungAdult children]], who published some fifty books between 1950 and 1997. She is best-known for her novels set in Roman Britain, particularly ''[[Literature/TheEagleOfTheNinth The Eagle of the Ninth]]''. She was awarded Commander of the British Empire for her services to children's literature.

She published her first books, ''The Chronicles of Robin Hood'' and ''The Queen Elizabeth Story'', with Oxford University Press in 1950. They were followed by three more novels before her breakout bestseller ''[[Literature/TheEagleOfTheNinth The Eagle of the Ninth]]'', which as [[SchoolStudyMedia a set text in schools]] became the TropeCodifier of the LostRomanLegion for generations of children, and has inspired several adaptations including the 2011 film ''Film/TheEagle''. It was eventually followed by seven loosely linked sequels sometimes known as "The Eagle of the Ninth Chronicles" or "the Dolphin Ring series", after the signet ring [[GenerationalSaga passed down through the generations]] of a Roman British family.

** ''Film/TheEagle''

* RescueRomance: Blue Feather and Singing Dog get together when she hurts her foot on the beach.
* FullBoarAction: Singing Dog attracts Long Axe's notice when he disputes the credit for killing a ferocious sow. Unfortunately for his survival prospects, this is regarded as tantamount to ChallengingTheChief.
* ChekhovsGift: The hairpin Long Axe gives to Moon Eye is the only weapon allowed into the sacrificial gathering.

* AwesomeMomentOfCrowning: Two chapters are devoted to the accession of the king of the tribe, who is never given a name or heard from before or afterwards.
* BecauseYouWereNiceToMe: Drem accidentally wins Blai's undying loyalty by showing her some when her father rejects her. Later, however, she ''hesitates'' to marry him because she thinks he's merely being kind.

* HiddenDepths: The point of the chapter in which pale, silent, but occasionally fierce Blai is juxtaposed with her father's iron dagger, a cold silvery metal that nonetheless strikes sparks.

* DeliberateValuesDissonance: The Iceni have uncongenial attitudes to murder. Killing someone completely harmless without making them suffer too much or mounting a WorthyOpponent's head on a stick are noted as gestures of mercy and respect. In the most marked example, Boudicca kills some Roman women in a way that even the narrator finds unspeakable, then is horrified. . . that she might have profaned the ritual because she got some political gain out of it.

* EpistolaryNovel: Partially – starting about halfway through the novel, the chapters are ended by letters written by [[YoungFutureFamousPeople Gnaeus Julius Agricola]] to his mother, explaining events from the Roman perspective. The main body of the text is narrated off the cuff by the Iceni's official historian, a harper, as he lies dying under a tree at the end of the story.

* "Rome Builds a Wall" 123 AD: OneLastJob

* "Traprain Law" 196 AD: MaybeMagicMaybeMundane

* "The Eagles Fly South" 383 AD: GreatOffscreenWar

* ButtMonkey: Virtually every terrible thing than could happen to Beric happens: His parents die in a shipwreck, other children harass him for being Roman, his father's enemies [[PersonaNonGrata make him a scapegoat and get him exiled]], he is kidnapped and enslaved, bought by a venal master, given to a worse one with a grudge against him, helps his only friends leave him forever, gets caught and arrested as a bandit, is sent to be a GalleySlave, has his only friend die, and gets beaten and thrown overboard. On the other hand, he never quite dies, either.

* DefeatMeansFriendship: Zig-zagged. Prosper accidentally shames a shieldbearer named Faelinn during a test, and Faelinn resents it until another test exposes the same weakness in Prosper to him. They fall together during the siege of Catraeth and become Cynan's replacement shieldbearers, and though still not exactly friends, they'd rather go into the LastStand together than not.

* HeroicBastard: Ceredig the Fosterling, captain of the Teulu and the Company. Prosper speculates that Mynyddog may never have publically acknowledged him as his son until sending him off on his SuicideMission.

* KingArthur: Artos (as seen in ''Literature/SwordAtSunset'') is the optimistic precedent for the effectiveness of a Company of three hundred. The other precedent is the Spartans at Thermopylae. ''Y Goddodin'' happens to be the earliest record of Arthur.

* CycleOfRevenge: Thormod and Jestyn return home to find that Thormod's father has accidentally killed a neighbour and his sons, Thormod's best friends, have duly killed him, and expect Thormod to hunt them down in Miklagard for a DuelToTheDeath. Jestyn's blood brotherhood with Thormod obligates him to carry on the feud, and the conflict with his beliefs as a [[TurnTheOtherCheek Christian]] and a [[InconvenientHippocraticOath doctor]] is the ethical crux of the novel.

!!'''''[[Literature/TheDolphinRing Sword Song]]'''''
9th century CE. Bjarni Sigurdson, a Norwegian Viking, is exiled from his British settlement for killing the man who kicked his dog and sells his sword as a mercenary, embroiling himself in the feuds of Viking earls from Dublin to the Orkneys.

* DarkSkinnedBlond: Randal's colouring shows his [[MixedAncestry half-Saxon heritage]] and contrasts with his Norman foster brother, white-skinned dark-haired Bevis d'Aguillon.

She published her first books, ''The Chronicles of Robin Hood'' and ''The Queen Elizabeth Story'', with Oxford University Press in 1950. They were followed by three more novels before her breakout bestseller ''[[Literature/TheEagleOfTheNinth The Eagle of the Ninth]]'', which as [[SchoolStudyMedia a set text in schools]] became the TropeCodifier of the LostRomanLegion for generations of children, and has inspired several adaptations including the 2011 film ''Film/TheEagle''. It was eventually followed by seven loosely linked sequels sometimes known as "The Eagle of the Ninth Chronicles" or "the Dolphin Ring sequence", after the signet ring [[GenerationalSaga passed down through the generations]] of a Roman British family.

* ''Literature/TheEagleOfTheNinth''
* ''Film/TheEagle''

* ''Literature/FrontierWolf''
* ''Literature/SwordAtSunset''

** The Flavius family's signet ring, a dolphin on a flawed emerald, is passed down through ''The Eagle of the Ninth'', ''The Silver Branch'', ''Literature/FrontierWolf'', ''The Lantern Bearers'', ''Literature/SwordAtSunset'', ''Dawn Wind'', ''Sword Song'', and ''The Shield Ring''.
** A song called "The Girl I Kissed At Clusium" is referenced in ''The Eagle of the Ninth'', ''A Circlet of Oak Leaves'', and ''Eagle's Egg''.

[[folder: The Eagle of the Ninth Series]]

!!'''''{{The Eagle of the Ninth}}'''''
[[TheEagleOfTheNinth Has its own tropes page.]] 126-9 CE. [[AnOfficerAndAGentleman Marcus]] and Esca search Caledonia for the eagle standard of the [[LostRomanLegion lost Ninth Legion]].
!!'''''The Silver Branch'''''
290s CE. Justin and Flavian stumble upon a [[TheCoup conspiracy to assassinate]] the emperor Carausius and join LaResistance against the Saxon-allied usurper of Britain.
* AllHallowsEve: Justin and Flavian receive word of Carausius's assassination on Samhain, the Celtic day of the dead.
* BattleAmongstTheFlames: The Saxons set Calleva on fire while they loot it after fleeing Asklepiodotus's army. The flames eventually reach the basilica where the civilians have taken refuge and the Lost Legion has rushed in the defend them.
* CadreOfForeignBodyguards: Allectus's Saxon Guard, who seem to operate as a secret police.
* CoolOldLady: Flavius and Justin's straight-talking cosmetic disaster Great Aunt, Honoria.
* DayOfTheJackboot: Allectus poses as a liberator from a corrupt Carausius, but his Saxon backing makes his reign effectively a foreign occupation, with the Roman British citizens treated as enemy civilians.
* DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything: Huge blond Teutonic barbarians marching through the streets of Britain were [[UsefulNotes/WorldWarII a fairly recent concern]] when the book was written, and Carausius's plan for Britain as a last bastion of civilisation after the fall of Rome evokes Britain's position during the Nazi occupation of Europe. Paulinus's organisation is very much in the tradition of French Resistance dramas.
* FaceYourFears: Paulinus hides Justin and Flavian in a tiny secret room in the old theatre. Justin, we learn, suffers from {{Claustrophobia}}.
* HappinessInSlavery: The curious case of Cullen the Fool, who likes to think of himself as a hound, to the point of sleeping on the floor, wearing a dog's tail ''and wagging it'', and UndyingLoyalty to his master. He eventually explains to Justin and Flavius that he was BornIntoSlavery and to him, being ownerless is like being unemployed.
** [[FurryFandom Or maybe he's just ahead of his time.]]
* HeroicSacrifice: Paulinus [[spoiler: lets himself be cut down by the Saxon Guard to allow the others time to escape]]. Evicatos [[spoiler: dies defending Cullen in the basilica]].
* LaResistance: A somewhat ironic version, given that they're Carausius's followers supporting Constantius as a liberator from Allectus, who overthrew Carausius, who rebelled against Constantius in the first place.
** FiveManBand: Flavius is TheHero, Justin is TheLancer, Anthonius is TheSmartGuy, Pandarus is TheBigGuy, Cullen is TheChick ''and'' TeamPet, Honoria is TheTeamBenefactor, Myron is the TagalongKid, and Evicatos is TheSixthRanger.
** RagtagBunchOfMisfits: Flavius's "Lost Legion", including two deserted centurions and a surgeon, a freed gladiator, and a jester, who use a battered and wingless legionary eagle as their standard.
** TheSpymaster: Paulinus, the [[Creator/JohnLeCarre George Smiley]] of Portus Adurni. A small – ahem – plump, timid tax collector with an – ahem – VerbalTic, who enjoys {{Creator/Euripides}}.
* LegendFadesToMyth: Flavius knows there's a vague family story about their ancestor Marcus [[TheEagleOfTheNinth having some adventure in the North]]; he suspects it may have had something to do with the Ninth Legion. Justin thinks this is far-fetched.
* ReassignedToAntarctica: Justin and Flavius are KickedUpstairs to Hadrian's Wall after accusing Allectus of conspiracy. They realise later that Carausius put them out of Allectus's reach.
* AStormIsComing: Saxon invasions and the breakup of of the Roman empire, which overshadow all the later Roman novels, are first invoked here.
-->'''Carausius:''' Always, everywhere, the Wolves gather on the frontiers, waiting. It needs only that a man should lower his eyes for a moment, and they will be in to strip the bones. Rome is failing, my children...If I can make this one province strong–strong enough to stand alone when Rome goes down, then something may be saved from the darkness. If not, then Dubris light and Limanis light and Rutupiae light will all go out. The lights will go out everywhere.
* VeryLooselyBasedOnATrueStory: Carausius did make himself the emperor of Britain and was betrayed by Allectus. History is silent on whether he was warned by a couple of junior officers who later led a resistance with the help of a ProudWarriorRaceGuy and a guy who thought he was a dog.
* WellDoneSonGuy: Justin believes he's a disappointment to his father, who wanted him to follow in his footsteps as a soldier. He eventually receives a letter assuring him that no, his father is just terrible at showing affection.

!!'''''Literature/FrontierWolf'''''
Has its own page. 340s CE. Alexios, a disgraced officer, is ReassignedToAntarctica to command the [[ArmyOfThievesAndWhores irregular]] [[SurprisinglyEliteCannonFodder Frontier Scouts]] in a precarious border outpost.

!!'''''The Lantern Bearers'''''
5th century CE. Aquila deserts from the departing legions and devotes his life to holding off the Saxons from Roman Britain.
* UsefulNotes/AngloSaxons: More precisely, Jutes. King Vortigern has granted the mercenary brothers Hengest and Horsa a foothold on the island of Tanatus in exchange for defending the coast from all other Saxons, which Aquila's father views as setting the fox to guard the chickens. Vortigern eventually cedes Kent and then is held hostage on the Night of the Long Knives for all of southeast Britain.
* AntiHero: Aquila is a bitter, angry JerkassWoobie with no friends, an ArrangedMarriage, and a distant son, who enjoys nothing but killing as many Saxons as he can reach.
* AwkwardFatherSonBondingActivity: Aquila lets his son the Minnow ride his warhorse for the first time to make up for reprimanding him too sternly (yet again.) He realises he's tainted the experience for Minnow by making it a compensation instead of a triumph. Then the horse throws and nearly kills him, and they have a brief moment of closeness when Minnow wakes up days later, until Aquila is called away to battle (yet again.)
* BelligerentSexualTension: Aquila and Ness eventually achieve a PerfectlyArrangedMarriage, but they conceive their only child the Minnow in the first year of their marriage when they still resent each other.
* BigBrotherInstinct: Aquila is so close to his sister Flavia that their tutor jokes they were twins born apart through cosmic error. Unfortunately the only thing he can do for her when they're separately abducted by Saxons is [[HonorBeforeReason pray that she's dead]] instead of DefiledForever. Twenty years later he saves the life of her Saxon son for her sake.
** Aquila offends Ness on their first meeting because he mocks her sister.
* ChronicBackstabbingDisorder: Hengest, the warlord of the invading Jutes, makes a deal with Vortigern to fend off other Saxons in return for in southeast Britain. After marrying his daughter Rowena to Vortigern, [[SacredHospitality he murders all his escort and holds him hostage for more land]] on "the Night of the Long Knives". After Ambrosius and Hengest fight to a standstill and reluctantly make terms, he spends the period of peace building up for a surprise attack just before the armistice is due to expire.
* CynicismCatalyst: Aquila is a friendly, generous, optimistic soul until Saxon raiders murder his entire household, abduct his beloved little sister, and enslave him. And then he finds out that the king of Britain sent the raiders, because his father's co-conspirator betrayed him. And then his sister decides to stay with the guy who kidnapped her rather than get rescued by Aquila.
* DaddysLittleVillain: Aquila happens to be in Hengest's burg just in time to see Hengest's beautiful daughter Rowena seduce Vortigern, whom she will shortly marry to tie him closer to her family's interests.
* DarkerAndEdgier: ''The Lantern Bearers'' is markedly grimmer and more adult than its predecessors in the Dolphin Ring series.
* DistinguishingMark: Invoked by Aquila and Flavia when he shows her his new dolphin tattoo and says that she could recognise him by it after twenty years apart: "Look, I'm your long-lost brother." She replies that anyone could get a bad tattoo and she'd know him by his beaky nose. The Saxons later name him Dolphin after the tattoo, and his wife points out that [[MamasBabyPapasMaybe he can be sure his son is his]] because he's inherited the nose. When Aquila sends Flavia's son back to her, he makes him tell her about the tattoo and [[SomethingOnlyTheyWouldSay everything they did on the night they first talked about it]].
* DoomedHometown: Aquila's family villa, where the household makes a LastStand against a Saxon raiding party, and his fort at Rutupiae, which the Auxiliaries abandon and the Saxons later occupy.
* EndOfAnAge: The book begins with the final withdrawal of Roman soldiers from Britain around 450 CE. The usual cutoff date for Roman Britain is 410, but Sutcliff fudges it by making them Auxiliaries in order to fit her theme of [[OrderVersusChaos civilization vs. barbarian]] into a timeframe that fits with traditional dates for KingArthur.
* EvilCannotComprehendGood: Ambrosius declines to take a hostage during his truce with Hengest to make the point that their sacred oath should be binding enough. Hengest is visibly unimpressed by HonourBeforeReason.
* FateWorseThanDeath: Flavia is abducted by the Saxon raiders who kill the rest of their household and leave him for dead, and he spends the next three years hoping that she's dead. Not only is she not dead, she married her captor and declines to run away from him, and Aquila's character arc for the rest of the book is about coming to terms with this perceived betrayal.
* IdenticalGrandson: Aquila saves the life of Flavia's son because he looks unmistakably like her.
* MadeASlave: The raiders who attack Aquila's villa leave him unconscious for the SavageWolves, but a second group happens along and someone takes him home as a present for his grandpa. Rechristened "Dolphin", Aquila spends the next three years as a Homer-reading thrall in Jutland until the entire village decides to up sticks for greener pastures in Hengest's Britain. Meanwhile Flavia has been not-enslaved with the original raiders in Hengest's burg.
* MarriedToTheJob: Ambrosius's excuse for ordering his officers into marriage alliances with the Welsh while he remains single himself.
* AMatchMadeInStockholm: Flavia herself can't say exactly how she feels about the Saxon chieftain's son who abducted her from the raid on their villa, then married her and gave her back their father's ring, but she isn't afraid of him and doesn't run away from him at the first opportunity. Aquila never learns any more about him or their relationship.
* RuleOfThree: Invoked by Aquila and Brother Ninnias, who share an uncannily accurate feeling that they will meet three times, though their middle meeting has no particular plot significance except to establish the possibility of a third.
* ShoutOut: Flavia's phrase "a singing magic" is borrowed from Creator/RudyardKipling's "The Cat Who Walked By Himself" in the ''Just-So Stories''.
* SiblingYinYang: Ambrosius orders Aquila to marry one of the two daughters of a Welsh ally: pretty, blond, sweet-natured Rhyannidd or dark, sharp-tongued Ness. He chooses Ness, because he prefers people he doesn't have to be nice to.
* SurvivorsGuilt: Ambrosius's old, alcoholic retainer Valarius was the bodyguard who saved him after failing to stop his father's assassination. He loses all self-respect until he achieves RedemptionMeansDeath by giving Ambrosius advance warning of Hengest's surprise attack.
* TangledFamilyTree: The main political players in the novel are all linked in kinship by Vortigern's marriage to Rowena. Ambrosius's father and Artos's grandfather Constantine is the brother of Severa, the first wife of Vortigern and the mother of his rebellious sons, Ambrosius's allies Vortimer, Catigern and Pascent. Rowena is, of course, the daughter of Hengest. Aquila's family, meanwhile, also links the Roman, Welsh, and Saxon factions: his wife Ness is the daughter of a Welsh chieftain while Flavia's husband's family are Saxon chiefs under Hengest.
* ThereAreNoTherapists: It's the fifth century. There are priests, but Aquila loses his faith along with his family.
* VeryLooselyBasedOnATrueStory: Vortigern, Hengest, Rowena, Ambrosius and much of the rest of the story are based on the ''Literature/HistoriaBrittonum'' and ''Literature/HistoriaRegumBritanniae'', the earliest pseudo-historical accounts of KingArthur and the fifth century in Britain.
* WellDoneSonGuy: Flavian, but Aquila is so bad at dadding that Flavian's given up on him in favour of Artos by the time he's old enough to fight alongside them. Aquila is surprised and touched by Flavian's declaration of Well Done, Father in support of Aquila's rescue of Flavia's son.
* WhatHappenedToTheMouse: Aquila never goes to see what became of his family's land, despite the fact that's it's quite close to the British headquarters and he's short of income.
* YoungFutureFamousPeople: Ambrosius's nephew and eventual cavalry commander, [[KingArthur Artos the Bear.]]

!!'''''Literature/SwordAtSunset''''' (adult novel)
Has its own page. 5th century. A generation after the withdrawal of Roman forces from Britain, KingArthur struggles to unite Romano-Britons, Celtic tribes, and the elusive Little Dark People against the Saxon invasions.

!!'''''Dawn Wind'''''
585-597 CE. Owain, a Briton, [[MadeASlave becomes a Saxon thrall]] and is drawn into the affairs of a Saxon family.
* AfterTheEnd: The novel takes place in the gap between the Saxon defeat of the British and the conversion of the Saxons by Saint Augustine of Canterbury. The British resistance to the Saxon invasion having finally broken, Britons turn on each other and Owain and Regina scavenge to survive in the abandoned city of Viroconium.
* ArcWords: "What else could I do?" Owain says it twice to Einon Hen – while explaining how he surrendered to the Saxons to save Regina, then how he postponed his freedom to protect his ex-owner's children. Little though he wishes to live in the Saxon world, common humanity outstrips HonorBeforeReason.
* CoolOldLady: Priscilla the no-nonsense hill farmer.
* DawnOfAnEra: The alliance of Saxons and Britons and the arrival of St. Augustine "the Dawn Wind" of Canterbury.
* DeathOfTheOldGods: Three-fold. British ''Christianity'' is thought by Rome to have been wiped out by the pagan Saxon conquest, and the reader knows that St. Augustine "the Dawn Wind" is going to show up any day now to convert the Saxons. However the Saxon religion, though civilizing (no more HumanSacrifice unless it's really, really important) is still going strong, and everyone knows that the Saxon king tolerates Augustine with an eye to political expediency. Meanwhile, the trope is played straight with the mostly-forgotten Roman pagan gods like Pan Sylvanus.
* EndOfAnAge: Opens on the defeat of Kyndylan and British resistance to the Saxon conquest.
* EverybodysDeadDave: The aftermath of the Battle of Dyrham, in which the book opens.
* FullBoarAction: Owain's hotheaded charge Bryni throws himself into a boar hunt to get the attention of the king, his dead father's foster-brother.
* GhostTown: Viroconium and the other Roman cities that the British abandon.
* GoodShepherd: The fiery little hill preacher Priscilla drags Owain to listen to is the book's main example of the survival of native Christianity in Britain before the coming of Augustine.
* HumanSacrifice: On the night Teitri the foal is born, Vadir Cedricson explains to Owain that Saxon kings used to sacrifice themselves for the sake of their people, and though the Saxons no longer sacrifice men, they do sacrifice the "king" of their horse herds, a WhiteStallion like Teitri. When Teitri later kills a man who tried to ride him, the Saxons interpret it as their still-powerful gods claiming a sacrifice in spite of the Christians' arrival.
* IronicName: Regina the thieving, whining, louse-ridden beggar girl, whose name means 'queen' in Latin.
* KnowWhenToFoldEm: Owain and Regina would rather cross the sea than stay in Saxon England, but Regina develops a lung infection on their trek to the coast. Owain has to decide that giving themselves up to a Saxon household is better than letting her die in the woods.
* MadeASlave: Owain is never actually captured and forced into slavery. When Regina falls gravely ill, he surrenders them both to a Saxon farmwife in exchange for nursing, understanding that he and Regina will become thralls. The farm has no use for Owain, but Beornwulf, who happens to be staying there, takes Owain home with hime, separating him from Regina for more than a decade.
* MySisterIsOffLimits: Bryni loathes Vadir so much that the rest of the family keeps it a secret from him when Vadir asks to marry Lilla, lest Bryni try to kill him. Eventually, of course, Vadir can't resist throwing the tacit betrothal in his face.
* PostApocalypticDog: His name is Dog.
* TheRustler: Owain and Regina are finally convinced to leave Viroconium by an ugly encounter with a band of British cattle thieves.
* ShellShockedVeteran: Owain walks from Dyrham to Glevum in something of a fugue.
* SoleSurvivor: Owain and Dog. He goes looking for the retreated war host, but there isn't one.
* YankTheDogsChain: Owain is freed after eight years, then almost immediately has to promise he'll stick around for another four to look after his ex-master's family. Then he has to promise his widow another year.
!!'''''Sword Song'''''
8th century CE. Bjarni Sigurdson, a Norwegian Viking, is exiled from his British settlement for killing the man who kicked his dog and sells his sword as a mercenary, embroiling himself in the feuds of Viking earls from Dublin to the Orkneys.
* ArrangedMarriage: The aristocrats in the story all have political marriages: Onund marries the daughter of one of his fellow sea lords, and Groa marries a Pict chief to ensure the safety of Thorstein's Caithness settlements. None of the women are overjoyed at the prospect, but they expect to be reasonably happy when they've [[BabiesEverAfter settled in their new lives]].
* AuthorExistenceFailure: ''Sword Song'' was Sutcliff's last book, first published five years after her death, based on the second of three intended drafts.
* TheBerserker: Everything tends to disappear behind a red mist for Bjarni whenever someone [[BerserkButton threatens]] either [[{{Protectorate}} his dog or his employer]]. Strategically ''not'' killing someone is the [[OOCIsSeriousBusiness apex of his character arc]].
* BreakHisHeartToSaveHim: Bjarni's beloved captain Onund chops off two of Hugin's toes to disqualify him as a sacrifice and throws Bjarni off his island to save him from a knife in the back. Bjarni [[IdiotHero does not immediately put this together]].
* BurnTheWitch: Angharad's neighbours suspect she's a witch, because she uses [[OminousLatinChanting Latin prayers]] in her doctoring, and because her hired sword Bjarni is clearly a white-haired, [[ASinisterClue left-handed]] sea demon. They burn down her farm at the behest of her cousin who wants to steal her land.
* CallToAgriculture: Bjarni leaves a blue glass dolphin in a likely-looking glen before he leaves Rafnglas. When his five years are up and he brings the homeless Angharad back, he plans to make a land-take there.
* CanineCompanion: Bjarni's troubles begin because he drowned the man who kicked Astrid, the dog he brought to England from Norway. He washes up in Wales because he jumped overboard in a gale to rescue his second dog, Hugin.
* ComingOfAgeStory: Bjarni is exiled at sixteen and has the next five years to debate whether he ever wants to go back. There is running commentary on the progress of his beard.
* CoolBoat: Several, as you expect from island-dwelling Vikings: Onund's vixen-headed longship ''Sea Witch'' and the rest of the Barra fleet; Lady Aud's galleys, swan-headed ''Fionoula'' and ''Seal Maiden'' built in the Caithness woods; and the merchantman ''Sea Cow'', while not precisely cool, is effectively Bjarni's taxi from plot point to plot point.
* CycleOfRevenge: Three separate blood feuds in the course of the novel, all based on historical accounts: Onund Treefoot ambushes Vestnor and Vigibjord for killing his younger brother; Onund kills the man who was given his land, then kills the man who killed his grandfather in retaliation, then defeats the man sent to avenge that man; Melbrigda's son tries to kill Guthorm for his father's improper burial, gets killed by Thorstein, and then his brother kills Thorstein and Bjarni kills him.
* GuileHero: Onund Treefoot is a HandicappedBadass who commands a Viking fleet. He lures his old enemies into battle where their numerical superiority is nullified and kills their commander while wearing a milking stool as a wooden leg. He later forces Jarl Sigurd to water his ships by foisting his infant only son on him as a foster-child.
* KnowWhenToFoldEm: Though it goes against the grain with Bjarni not to simply KillEmAll when the villagers burn Angharad's farm, he realises that he'd leave Angharad defenseless. He tells her later that she's the only person for whose sake he has ever run ''away'' from a fight.
* PinballProtagonist: Bjarni is merely the employee of the characters who actually drive the story, like Onund, Thorstein, Groa, and Aud. It's justified in that the plot is based on incidents of their real lives. And when he takes up with the fictional Angharad, the crux of his character growth requires him to be restrained and passive.
* PlotTriggeringDeath: Bjarni's accidentally drowning [[AssholeVictim the missionary]] gets him [[TheExile exiled]] from his settlement to walk the earth, because his chief [[TheOathBreaker guaranteed safety]] to Christians in his lands. Bjarni eventually runs into the chief's Christian foster-brother and conveys his forgiveness back to the chief.
* VeryLooselyBasedOnATrueStory: Bjarni is a fictional character, but his bosses Onund Treefoot, Thorstein the Red and CoolOldLady [[AwesomeMcCoolname Aud the Deep-Minded]] are {{Historical Domain Character}}s who turn up in Literature/TheIcelandicSagas.
* WelcomeToTheBigCity: In one day in Dublin Bjarni gets laughed out of a job, robbed of his purse, and loses the rest of his possessions. He claims to have [[RefugeInAudacity traded them for a stray dog]].
!!'''''The Shield Ring'''''
1090-1100s CE. {{Tomboy}} Frytha and WarriorPoet Bjorn defend the last hidden Norse stronghold against the Normans.
* TheAce: Bjarni is not only a ProudWarriorRaceGuy, he's a better harper than the guy who does it for a living. As a kid he can beat up a rival two years older than him. He has one great fear (because he's ''more imaginative'' than other people), which he volunteers to face for the sake of his country and overcomes with flying colours, then no-big-deals it back to fight the climactic battle while injured, side-by-side with his won-over childhood enemy. And he does all this with a "faintly mocking gaze."
* ActionGirl: The Norse women are archers and fight in the last battle in direct defence of the Dale.
* AnAxeToGrind: Gille Butharson's weapon of choice, which is why [[spoiler:Wave-flame is buried with Aikin the Beloved.]]
* ColdBloodedTorture: Bjorn and Frytha learn their highest duty – never to give away the Dale's location – from the story of Ari Knudsen's friend who was tortured to death by the Normans. [[DevelopingDoomedCharacters Ari Knudsen is then tortured to death]] shortly thereafter, and Bjorn gets a complex. Then, of course, [[WhyDidItHaveToBeSnakes Bjorn gets tortured]].
* DeadGuyOnDisplay: Red William's army use the Norse envoys' bodies as standards in their first battle. The ordinary Norman soldiers are more unnerved by it than the Norse.
* DoomedHometown: Frytha's family farm in Lancashire gets burned in reprisal for a Norman knight's death, leaving her ConvenientlyAnOrphan and refugee to the Dale.
* FaceYourFears: Bjorn develops a fear of torture, but volunteers to spy on the Normans. Sure enough...
* ForcedToWatch: Frytha, whose turn is next, and then Bjorn gets to watch her! It's treated as heroic, however, that Bjorn has no intention of talking no matter what they do to Frytha. (The possibility of Frytha talking to protect Bjorn never comes up, because plotwise it's Bjorn's big moment, and watching without affecting the plot is kind of Frytha's job in the story.)
* JustBeforeTheEnd: Invoked. The people of the Dale will either get slaughtered or defeat the Normans and go home to their old lands, but either way it's the end of the secret settlement.
* LadyLooksLikeADude: Frytha looks like a boy when she wears trousers and cuts her hair during the fighting season, and has a husky voice. She goes to the Norman camp as a SweetPollyOliver named Erik.
* LastBastion: Butharsdale in the Lake Land is the last corner of England remaining outside Norman control.
* LuredIntoATrap: The Norse know that the Normans will eventually attack the Dale from the North, so they reroute their northern road into a narrow dead-end side-glen killing zone, which they call the Road to Nowhere.
* MasterApprenticeChain: Ari "Grey Wolf" Knudsen and his foster-son Aikin the Beloved, then Aikin and his nephew Gille Butharson.
* NamedWeapons: Wave-flame, the famous sword Ari Knudsen leaves to Aikin the Beloved.
* OopNorth: The Dale is in "Lake Land", or the Lake District, in the Cumberland Fells.
* PlatonicLifePartners: Bjorn and Frytha, who meet when they're five and six and stick together ever afterwards. They eventually get a RelationshipUpgrade via LastMinuteHookup, or at least, they answer a CallToAgriculture together, so [[MaybeEverAfter we assume they do]].
* PostVictoryCollapse: Bjorn, who fights the last battle with a burnt hand and then spends the rest of the summer recovering.
* SignatureItemClue: Bjorn is rustled in the Norman camp because a young knight whom he had failed to kill recognises the emerald signet ring that flashed in his eyes when they fought six years before.
* SupportingProtagonist: Frytha is the default point-of-view character, but most of the time she's just observing Bjorn, who is pretty clearly the actual protagonist. Frytha doesn't influence the plot except by discovering the mazelin.
* TomboyAndGirlyGirl: Frytha, who sometimes wishes she were a boy, and her "soft" friend Gerd, who nevertheless works alongside her in the war camps.
* TranquilFury: Aikin the Beloved, Ari Knudsen's foster-son and the leader of the Sword-band, spends the rest of the book very quietly hating the Normans.
* WistfulAmnesia: The Norman ShellShockedVeteran whom Frytha and Bjorn rescue can only recall that he once had a very nice orchard in Picardy.

[[/folder]]

* ShameIfSomethingHappened: The story is bookended by two indirectly threatening conversations. Kyndylan claims that his hotheaded young warriors will be upset by the building of a signal tower in the tribe's lands, leading the Commander to predict a series of fatal accidents during the construction. Then Androphon pointedly doesn't accuse his "host" of kidnapping him, so that the Commander can spare the British village and Kyndylan can cooperate in return.

!!'''''The Mark of the Horse Lord'''''
[[Literature/TheMarkOfTheHorseLord Has its own tropes page.]] 180s CE. Phaedrus, a freed gladiator, plays the role of [[RightfulKingReturns lost heir]] to the patriarchal Dalriads in their war of succession against the matriarchal Caledones.

600 CE. Prosper, a Welsh shieldbearer, recounts the mustering and destruction of the Gododdin host against the Saxons of Catraeth.

** The Roman and Viking heroes of ''Frontier Wolf'' and ''Sword Song'' are familiar with Cuchulainn, and the Viking also hears about [[Literature/TheChildrenOfLir Fionoula]] and Iseult.

** ''Frontier Wolf'': Alexios and Cunorix
** ''A Crown of Wild Olive'': Alexias and Leon

** ''Frontier Wolf'': Morvidd the druid encourages the Votadini to rebel against the Romans.

** The Flavius family's signet ring, a dolphin on a flawed emerald, is passed down through ''The Eagle of the Ninth'', ''The Silver Branch'', ''Frontier Wolf'', ''The Lantern Bearers'', ''Literature/SwordAtSunset'', ''Dawn Wind'', ''Sword Song'', and ''The Shield Ring''.

* DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything: [[DayOfTheJackboot Huge blond Teutonic barbarians marching through the streets of Britain]] were [[UsefulNotes/WorldWarII a fairly recent concern]] when the book was written.
* FaceYourFears: Paulinus hides Justin and Flavian in a tiny secret room in the old theatre. Justin, it turns out, is claustrophobic.
* HappinessInSlavery: The curious case of Cullen the Fool, who likes to think of himself as a hound, to the point of sleeping on the floor, wearing a dog's tail ''and wagging it'', and UndyingLoyalty to his master. He eventually explains to Justin and Flavius that he was BornIntoSlavery and to him, being ownerless is like being unemployed.

* JustBeforeTheEnd: Saxon invasions and the breakup of of the Roman empire, which overshadow all the later Roman novels, are first invoked here.

* BurnTheWitch: Angharad's neighbours suspect she's a witch, because she uses Latin prayers in her doctoring, and because her hired sword Bjarni is clearly a white-haired, [[ASinisterClue left-handed]] sea demon. They burn down her farm at the behest of her cousin who wants to steal her land.

* CoolBoat: Several, as you expect from island-dwelling Vikings: Onund's vixen-headed longship ''Sea Witch'' and the rest of the Barra fleet; Lady Aud's galleys ''Fionoula'' and ''Seal Maiden''; and the merchantman ''Sea Cow'', while not precisely cool, does Bjarni several solids.

* SceneryPorn: Prone to DescriptionPorn of all kinds, especially in her most SliceOfLife stories, but SceneryPorn is most abundant. Usually involves BritishWeather. Consider a typical description of Scotland in late winter:

** ''Sword at Sunset'': Artos's Companion Gwalchmai is clubfooted, but it doesn't stop him from being a cavalryman and a surgeon.

* CadreOfForeignBodyguards: The bodyguard of the Byzantine emperor is featured in several novels as a kind of French Foreign Legion analogue. Jestyn, Thormod, and Anders are part of the founding of the Varangian Guard in ''Blood Feud''; Prosper and Cynan ride off into the sunrise to join it at the end of ''The Shining Company''; and Bedwyr is on his way to join it when he meets Artos and takes up with him instead in ''Sword at Sunset''. And Sir Everard d'Aguillon says he'd join it if he were young in ''Knight's Fee''.

** ''Sword at Sunset'': Gault and Levin, previously HeterosexualLifePartners

** Crossing and coming back: ''The Eagle of the Ninth'', ''Literature/FrontierWolf'', ''Literature/TheMarkOfTheHorseLord'', ''Sword at Sunset''

** ''Sword at Sunset'': Ditto the High King Ambrosius's death

* HeterosexualLifePartners: If it's not the central relationship of the book, the protagonist probably has one in the background. ([[OneThingLedToAnother Inevitably leads to]] HoYay - deliberate in ''Sword at Sunset''; presumably conscious in YA novels like ''The Mark of the Horse Lord''.)

** ''Sword at Sunset'': Artos and Bedwyr

** ''Sword At Sunset'': Artos

** ''Sword At Sunset'': the adult Artos unites Britain against the Saxons.

** ''Sword at Sunset'': Artos is half-Romano-British, half-Celtic, which is one of the reasons he's able to unite the two peoples.

** ''Sword at Sunset'': Artos to Guenhumara

** ''Sword at Sunset'': Artos clashes with the landowning Church, who object to paying him to defend God (partly because they're already supporting the local people.) The Archbishop, however, is instrumental in appointing Artos leader of the Britons.

** The Flavius family's signet ring, a dolphin on a flawed emerald, is passed down through ''The Eagle of the Ninth'', ''The Silver Branch'', ''Frontier Wolf'', ''The Lantern Bearers'', ''Sword At Sunset'', ''Dawn Wind'', ''Sword Song'', and ''The Shield Ring''.

* VestigialEmpire: Britain, where most of her books are set, is of course cut loose from the crumbling Western Roman Empire and its inhabitants left to fend for themselves. ''The Lantern Bearers'', ''Sword at Sunset'', ''The Shining Company'', and ''Dawn Wind'' are set in the immediately post-Roman period, but even 400 years later the Viking protagonist of ''Sword Song'' can recognise Roman ruins.

!!'''''Sword at Sunset''''' (adult novel)
5th century CE. A generation after the withdrawal of Roman forces from Britain, KingArthur struggles to unite Romano-Britons, Celtic tribes, and the elusive Little Dark People against the Saxon invasions.
* AnyoneCanDie: Pretty much everyone does, because the story covers forty years of warfare and Dark Age medical expertise.
* AuthorFilibuster: Artos makes a point of mentioning that he'd rather Gault and Levin form a stable Battle Couple, [[AncientGreece a la Theban Band]], than have his Companions fight over women or divide their loyalties with their wives (a point eventually exemplified by his situation with Bedwyr and Guenhumara). Since the book was published a few years before homosexuality was decriminalised in the UK, the timing is suspicious.
* AwesomeMomentOfCrowning: Artos is spontaneously acclaimed the Emperor of the West at the White Horse of Uffington using the rituals of all the allied British war host after the Battle of Badon Hill.
* BandOfBrothers: Artos's Company, or Brotherhood, of three hundred cavalrymen. Their unity eventually weakens and a youthful faction follows Medraut into the last battle.
* BastardBastard: Artos's son by his insane sister, herself a BastardBastard, has been raised to hate and undermine him, and engineers Guenhumara's downfall as well as giving Artos his mortal wound. He can pose as a loyal follower, however, because illegitimacy per se isn't the issue – Artos himself is a HeroicBastard.
* BattleCouple: Gault and Levin, [[ThoseTwoGuys two of Artos's warband]] who tried out SituationalSexuality and never looked back. They become a captain and second of a squadron and the subject of a [[BringHelpBack heroic subplot]].
** LookalikeLovers: Artos finds their resemblance symbolic of being equal and perfectly-balanced and having unity of purpose, unlike a relationship to someone outside the Company (e.g. a woman). Being already members of the Brotherhood, it also gives them a faint zest of IncestSubtext.
* BecauseDestinySaysSo: Artos never does much to avert the evil he anticipates from Medraut, like kill him, because he's convinced that he and Medraut are meant to make an end of each other as his punishment for committing incest.
* BringHelpBack: Levin disappears from starving, snowbound Trimontium in an apparent (but unconvincing because he's a DeathSeeker) ScrewThisImOuttaHere, but actually travels cross-country in the dead of winter to summon the supply train back weeks early with desperately-needed food, after dying to get there.
* ChangingOfTheGuard: Almost the only direct sequel Sutcliff ever wrote, ''Sword at Sunset'' takes up where ''The Lantern Bearers'' leaves off, with Artos as the point of view character. Aquila, Ambrosius, and various others remain secondary characters in ''Sword''.
* CharacterizationMarchesOn: In ''The Lantern Bearers'', Artos is a cheerful and charismatic secondary character. In his own narration in ''Sword at Sunset'', he's a joyless martyr to duty and his crippling psychological issues.
* CelibateHero: Artos's [[SurpriseIncest long-lost half-sister]] Ygerna [[RapeAsBackstory tricks him into sleeping with her]], and he's [[ParalyzingFearOfSexuality so traumatised]] he loses interest in sex. Their difficulty in conceiving strains his marriage with Guenhumara.
** DefiledForever: Artos's feeling about himself after unwittingly committing incest, partly because of DoubleStandardRapeFemaleOnMale.
** GoodPeopleHaveGoodSex: Averted. The problem isn't explicitly described, but Artos and Guenhumara's sex life is. . .lacking.
** GladToBeAliveSex: Except that one time. An inversion, because they think they're about to die of scurvy in a snowbound fortress.
* CoolHorse: The first part of the story is taken up with the difficulty of aquiring enough horses large enough to carry Artos's heavy cavalry, which are critical for the mobile force he intends to deploy, and he meets Bedwyr because he's the only person who can control a prize stud horse called The Black One. Artos's WhiteStallion Signus is The Black One's son, and he fights the greatest victory of his career in the White Horse Vale and is crowned on the White Horse itself. The Saxons, meanwhile, also fight under the banner of a white horse, and one of them tells Artos that their ancestors served in the Second Legion, whose badge was the winged horse {{Pegasus}}.
* DarkerAndEdgier: ''Sword at Sunset'' is the only book in the Dolphin Ring sequence written for adults. Besides the sexual content (or ''dis''content), it's more pessimistic and depressing, which is saying something.
* DeathSeeker: Levin, after Gault's death. Artos also observes that Ygerna reveals her EvilPlan partly because she wouldn't mind if he just killed her.
* DefiledForever: Guenhumara begs Artos to marry her because if he rejects her father's very public offer, everyone will think he'd already slept with her...and not found her worth marrying.
* {{Demythtification}}: No Merlin, no Round Table, no shining armour, no magic.
* DiedInYourArmsTonight: It's implied after the final scene, in which Bedwyr holds the dying Artos.
* DividedWeFall: Persuading local rulers to support a united front (led by him) against the invaders rather than protecting their own territories is the ongoing struggle of Artos's life.
* DueToTheDead: After taking Trimontium, the Companions find the body of a Little Dark Woman who had been gang-raped. Artos solves their concerns about her ghost by burying her with honour in the fortress that night under nine dead warhorses.
* ElCidPloy: Artos refuses to have his imminent death officially proclaimed for reasons of morale, but lets it be known that he is injured. The only person who will be definitely informed is be his successor Constantine, whom he leaves in charge until his return
* EvilDetectingDog: They hate Medraut.
* FiveManBand: Artos's closest companions fit the roles, though Guenhumara isn't a member of the Company: Artos is TheHero; Bedwyr is TheLancer; boisterous Cei is TheBigGuy; TheMedic Gwalchmai is TheSmartGuy; Guenhumara is TheChick.
* FlorenceNightingaleEffect: Guenhumara and Bedwyr fell in love while she nursed him with a life-threatening injury he received in the battle of Badon. But averted when Guenhumara nursed Artos before their marriage.
* GambitRoulette: Ygerna's epic scheme to get {{Revenge}} on her (dead) absentee father is to have a one night stand with her long-lost half-brother when he wanders unknowingly and at random into her clutches, get pregnant, have a son, raise that son to hate his father, and unleash him on Artos, but only after she dies. Justified in that she's quite mad.
* HandicappedBadass: Gwalchmai, the Hawk of May, a clubfooted infirmarian brother who abandons the monastery to become a cavalryman and battlefield surgeon.
* HeterosexualLifePartners: Artos and Bedwyr, until Bedwyr falls in love with Guenhumara.
* HomoeroticSubtext: Also Artos and Bedwyr.
* InfantImmortality: Averted.
* ItHasBeenAnHonor:
-->'''Bedwyr:''' I have always been one to choose with care the company I die in.
* LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters: Well over a hundred named characters, many of them mere extras, for an average of more than one every five pages. There are four {{Mauve Shirt}}s introduced in the last chapter alone.
* LonelyAtTheTop: Invoked. Artos never wished to become king because he dreads loneliness, and he gets it after Bedwyr and Guenhumara leave him.
* MixedAncestry: Artos's Roman and Celtic background helps him to understand both cultures to get them to work for him.
-->'''Artos:''' At the worst, it might be to be torn between the tree and the stallion. At the least, it is to be always a little in exile.
* OurFairiesAreDifferent: The Little Dark People, secretive subterranean-dwelling aboriginal Britons whom Artos befriends by paying one the respect DueToTheDead, who become his scouts and messengers. Guenhumara is convinced that they steal Hylin's life after she is forced to give birth in one of their villages.
* PlainJane: Bedwyr's face is noticeably asymmetrical and fantastically ugly, and by middle age he's almost TheGrotesque. Guenhumara is unremarkable looking aside from her blond hair. Ironically the member of the love triangle described as beautiful is Artos, as are Ygerna and Medraut.
* SecretStabWound: Gault dies of blood loss after leading his patrol home with an arrow in his ribs, unbeknownst to them.
* SecretlyDying: Ambrosius, of cancer.
* SelfSacrificeScheme: Ambrosius, who is [[ConvenientTerminalIllness dying of cancer]], arranges a HuntingAccident to make himself a HumanSacrifice.
* ShadowArchetype: Medraut to Artos. Medraut looks uncannily like Artos and has his skill as a soldier, but none of his morals.
* SituationalSexuality: Implied. "I write mostly about men in a man's world, fighting men; and the homosexual relationship, or at any rate very deep friendship between men, tends very much to occur in this kind of society." -- Sutcliff in 1977
* AStormIsComing: Invoked. The night before Ambrosius's death there is a massive display of the northern lights. The eve of the final battle has a flaming sunset.
* SuccessionCrisis: Ambrosius deliberately creates one, because he needs to leave Britain to Artos but can't do it legally. So he kills himself without naming an heir and leaves Artos to reluctantly seize power.
* TakingTheVeil: Guenhumara retires into a nunnery when Bedwyr rejoins Artos. This has an added touch of tragedy because she had hated being confined in one for a single campaign season during her marriage to Artos.
* TangledFamilyTree: Artos is distantly related to his favourite enemy Cerdic. Cerdic's father Vortigern was a Welsh prince, like Artos and Ambrosius, whose first wife was Ambrosius's aunt.
* ThreeSuccessfulGenerations: Aquila, Ambrosius's cavalry commander and the hero of prequel ''The Lantern Bearers'', here has his adult son Flavian, one of Artos's squadron captains, and Flavian's teenage son the Minnow. [[spoiler: Aquila dies at Badon Hill, while Flavian falls in the last battle, which Artos sends the Minnow away from with the family ring.]] Artos's own line is a subversion, since Artos loves and succeeds his uncle and foster-father Ambrosius, but his own son Medraut is his enemy.
* TriangRelations: Artos and Guenhumara enter into an ArrangedMarriage, to his best friend Bedwyr's dismay. Artos falls in love with Guenhumara, but his sexual dysfunction hurts their marriage and Guenhumara blames him for the death of their only child. Guenhumara and Bedwyr fall in love, and Artos repudiates them both. Years later, Bedwyr leaves Guenhumara behind to rejoin Artos.
** A platonic, filial version in which Medraut is jealous of Artos's regard for Cerdic son of Vortigern, their enemy kinsman whom Artos would have liked to have as a son.
* VeryLooselyBasedOnATrueStory: The Battle of Badon is associated with King Arthur and Ambrosius, a HistoricalDomainCharacter, but no one knows the true details.
* WellDoneSonGuy: Medraut, sometimes, but Artos is too suspicious of him to respond to it.
* YouAreWorthHell:
-->'''Bedwyr:''' You fool, Artos! Don't you know that if you were deservedly frying in your Christian's Hell for every sin from broken faith to sodomy, you could count on my buckler to shield your face from the flames?
-->'''Artos:''' I believe I could. You are almost as great a fool as I.
** and
-->'''Artos:''' You would take this stain [of murder] on your soul?
-->'''Bedwyr:''' Yes. But you must say the word.
* WhatHappenedToTheMouse: Cerdic loses the final battle, but we never hear whether he died.
* YourCheatingHeart: Artos says that he'd always resolved not to object if Guenhumara had a lover, because he's impotent. It's the fact that ''she and Bedwyr'' cheated on him that he can't bear.

* KingArthur: Artos (as seen in ''Sword at Sunset'') is the optimistic precedent for the effectiveness of a Company of three hundred. The other precedent is the Spartans at Thermopylae. ''Y Goddodin'' happens to be the earliest record of Arthur.

* AuthorFilibuster: Artos makes a point of telling the reader that he'd prefer his Companions to form stable {{Battle Couple}}s, [[AncientGreece a la Theban Band]], than to fight over women or divide their loyalties with their wives (a point eventually exemplified by his situation with Bedwyr and Guenhumara). Since the book was published the year before homosexuality was decriminalised in the UK, the timing is suspicious.

* {{Demythtification}}: No Merlin, no Round Table, no shining armour, no magic, no French guys.

* GambitRoulette: Ygerna's epic scheme to get {{Revenge}} on her (dead) absentee father is to have a one night stand with her long-lost half-brother when he wanders unknowingly and at random into her clutches, get pregnant, have a son, teach that son to hate his father, and unleash him on Artos, but only after she dies. Justified in that she's quite mad.

-->'''Artos:''' At worst it is to be torn between two horses, but even at best it is to be always a little in exile.

* PlainJane: Bedwyr's face is noticeably asymmetrical and fantastically ugly, and in old age he's almost TheGrotesque. Guenhumara is unremarkable looking aside from her blond hair. Ironically the member of the love triangle described as beautiful is Artos, as are Ygerna and Medraut.

* ''Film/TheEagle''

*** ''Frontier Wolf'': The Frontier Scouts, who wear wolfskins, call themselves a pack and wolves their "four-footed brothers".

** The Washer at the Ford, a forerunner of death, appears (or is thought to appear) in ''The Hound of Ulster'', ''Song for a Dark Queen'', ''Frontier Wolf'', and ''Bonnie Dundee'', and is perhaps alluded to in ''Flowering Dagger'' and ''The Changeling''.

** Crossing and coming back: ''The Eagle of the Ninth'', ''Frontier Wolf'', ''The Mark of the Horse Lord'', ''Sword at Sunset''

--> "They mounted the waiting ponies, and with hounds loping on in front, headed down the steep slope to the river crossing, where the black stone that the troops called the Lady stood in the sere winter grass beside the ford. They splashed across it and headed on up the estuary, past the faint track that Alexios had ridden with the old Commander on their courtesy visit to the Lord of Six Hundred Spears, and still on towards the ruins of Credigone and the eastern end of the old Northern Wall. Presently they turned inland, with no track to follow this time, leaving the narrowing estuary with its gulls and its crying and calling shore-birds behind them, and heading up a side glen where alder and hazel crowded the banks of a small fast burn. The burn was coming down in spate, running green with melting snow-water from the high moors, so that they must follow the bank a good way before they could come to a good crossing-place; but between the darkly sodden wreck of last year's bracken and the soft grey drift of the sky, the catkins were lengthening on the hazel bushes, making a kind of faint sunlight of their own, and in one especially sheltered place, as the two young men brushed past, the first pollen scattered from the whippy sprays so that they rode through a sudden golden mist. Even here at the world's end, spring was remembering the way back, and for a moment a sense of quickening caught almost painfully at Alexios somewhere below the breastbone." – '''''Frontier Wolf''', ch. 5''

!!'''''Frontier Wolf'''''
340s CE. Alexios, a disgraced officer, is ReassignedToAntarctica to command the [[ArmyOfThievesAndWhores irregular]] [[SurprisinglyEliteCannonFodder Frontier Scouts]] in a precarious border outpost.
* [[spoiler:AlasPoorVillain]]
* AnimalMotifs: The Frontier "Wolves", obviously. Each Scout kills a single wolf to wear its skin as a cloak, and never hunts wolves otherwise, whom they call their "four-footed brothers", and themselves a pack. The tribesmen suspect lycanthropy.
* AnyoneCanDie: [[DwindlingParty And they mostly do!]]
* ArmyOfThievesAndWhores: The Frontier Scouts are partly a dumping ground for anyone the regular legions don't want, like Alexios. Other than him and Bericus "the emperor's hard bargain", [[InformedAttribute it's unclear what any of them did to deserve their reputation.]]
* AssInAmbassador: Glaucus Montanus, the new Praepositus of the Frontier Scouts, comes up to inspect Castellum and meet-and-greet the Votadini, but he doesn't bother to conceal his contempt for the irregular Wolves or the tribes, and offends Cunorix and Connla by disparaging their horses. He isn't a GeneralFailure, though – he's a competent soldier, but a bad diplomat.
* AnAssKickingChristmas: Two of the book's action set-pieces take place at Midwinter, when the Frontier Wolves celebrate Christmas, the [[MysteryCult birth of Mithras]], and sketchy tribal gods. In Alexios's first winter with the Wolves, they start recalling their ethnic feuds during their Midwinter knees-up and Alexios wins their respect by breaking up the ensuing brawl. On his second Midwinter with the Wolves, Alexios fights a DuelToTheDeath.
* AwesomeMomentOfCrowning: Cunorix emerges from the Chieftains' Death Place as the new chief after Ferradach Dhu's funeral. At his chief-making feast, is wife gives birth to their son, the Wolves beat the Votadini at pseudo-polo, and Alexios hears the first whispers of the Attacotti invasion.
* BigBrotherInstinct: Cunorix does not allow harm to Connla to go unpunished.
* BilingualBackfire: Ferradach Dhu and Connla both comment disparagingly on Alexios's boyish looks before discovering he speaks British. Neither of them is remotely abashed.
* BirthDeathJuxtaposition: Cunorix's son is born in the middle of his chief-making feast, right after his father Ferradach Dhu's funeral.
* ABoyAndHisX: Rufus the junior trumpeter and his vicious kitten Typhon (named after a Greek hell-monster).
* BreakTheCutie: Connla is the carefree, impertinent younger son of Ferradach Dhu. He steals a horse as a prank and ends up getting executed for the deaths of two Frontier Wolves sent to retrieve it.
* TheCavalry: A lone patrol of the First Ordo that happened to be out when Bremenium fell and unwittingly returns to find the Third Ordo under attack.
* ChasedByAngryNatives: First when Alexios abandons his first fort in Germany, then again when he withdraws the Frontier Wolves from Castellum and the Votadini hunt them back to the frontier.
* ChekhovsHobby: Alexios's skill with a sword is fairly irrelevant until he has to fight a duel.
* ComingOfAgeStory: Alexios is in his twenties, but the story chronicles his growth from a young officer not ready for independent command to one who is.
* CoolHorse: The Praepositus's stallion, whom Cunorix wants to borrow for stud.
* CycleOfRevenge: Connla borrows the Praepositus's horse as a prank because the Praepositus insulted Cunorix. The Praepositus has Connla executed for theft because the horse is killed. The Votadini attack the Frontier Wolves because Cunorix now has a blood feud with them. Alexios can end the feud by defeating Cunorix in CombatByChampion, because he's the man who actually executed Connla. Alexios notes that if he's defeated, the Wolves will try to avenge him.
* DanceBattler: The Wolves' "weapon dances". If the Votadini and the Damnonii are dancing the Bull Calves, it might end in actual battle.
* DueToTheDead: Alexios and an escort of Wolves attend Ferradach Dhu's burial, sitting all night on the edge of the Long Moss while the Votadini burn his body in the Chieftains' Death Place. On the retreat, [[spoiler:Kaeso and Lucius's]] bodies are carried on to the Wolves' next camps and buried with the rites of their respective religions, while the wounded who die in the night are left in their foxholes.
* DuelToTheDeath
* EatTheDog: The starving Frontier Wolves are scandalised that Alexios expects them to eat a dead pony. He assures them that the proper apologies have been made to the goddess of horses.
* TheEmperor: Co-emperor Constans turns up in Onnum in time to see the Valentian garrisons' arrival.
* EnsignNewbie: Alexios isn't actually a rookie, but he's young to be third-in-command of his fort in Abusina, and was promoted over more experienced men because his uncle is a general.
* EquivalentExchange: The Frontier Wolves are convinced that crossing through the Chieftains' Death Place will require [[HumanSacrifice a death]] as payment for the others' safe passage.
* AFatherToHisMen: Julius Gavros, Alexios's predecessor at Castellum, and eventually Alexios himself, who frets over their rations and pay and makes a HeroicSacrifice for them.
* FingerInTheMail: The couriers sent to BringHelpBack to Abusina have their heads chucked back over the fort wall.
* FiveManBand: The Third Ordo's officers.
** Ducenarius Alexios: TheHero, AnOfficerAndAGentleman, TheCaptain, ReasonableAuthorityFigure, HeroesPreferSwords, GreyEyes
** Senior Centurion Hilarion: TheLancer, DeadpanSnarker, MeaningfulName, MrExposition
** Junior Centurion Lucius: TheSmartGuy, BadassBookworm
** Quartermaster Kaeso: TheBigGuy, TheAlcoholic
** Anthonius: TheMedic
** Druim of the Arcani: the SixthRangerTraitor, TheMole, InnocentBlueEyes
** Cloe: the TeamPet.
* FoolishSiblingResponsibleSibling: Connla the terminally irresponsible FieryRedhead, and his quiet, serious older brother Cunorix the future chief.
* ForWantOfANail: Invoked. Connla actually steals the Praepositus's horse twice – the first time, the Wolves got it back with no harm done. The second time happens because [[WhosLaughingNow someone laughed at him about it.]]
* FromBadToWorse: Just...every time. Abusina: the Marcomanni attack–the messengers are dead–the commander dies. Castellum: Connla dies–the Arcani desert–the Votadini attack–the Praepositus dies–the fort is untenable. Bremenium: the fort has fallen–the Votadini arrive–Cunorix dies–the Votadini attack.
* GoingNative: Despite being an ArmyOfThievesAndWhores who have been ReassignedToAntarctica, Frontier Wolves are expected to put aside family and tribal loyalties and form a BandOfBrothers. Each one has to kill a wolf and wear its skin, and the outgoing commander tells Alexios he'll be superstitiously touching their [[CargoCult good-luck rock]] before he knows it.
* HowWeGotHere: The first chapter opens with Alexios in a cell awaiting court-martial. The Abusina disaster is framed as his agonised reminiscence.
* IChooseToStay: For his handling of the retreat, the emperor Constans offers Alexios a fast track to promotion on his personal staff, or the command of five hundred raw barbarian recruits to the Frontier Wolves. Alexios signs up for the barbarians.
* InfantImmortality: Nope. The SoleSurvivor at the Rath of Skolawn kills somebody with the spearhead she pulls from her baby's cold little corpse. [[spoiler:Not even kittens are immune.]]
* InterserviceRivalry: Frontier Wolves like to look down on the regular Legions, while the legions and everyone else look down on the Wolves.
* KindheartedCatLover: Alexios wins the loyalty of his first Frontier Wolf, junior trumpeter Rufus, by teaching him how to suckle a lost kitten like a lamb.
* LeaningOnTheFurniture: ''Modus operandi'' of Alexios's [[RuleAbidingRebel vaguely insubordinate]] second-in-command, Hilarion, who is frequently described with the verb "to lounge".
* TheMole: Druim and the Arcani are Castellum's spies (this seems to consist of going on longer patrols, since they obviously operate from a Roman fort). They fail to inform Alexios of a rumoured Pict invasion, except for a single loyal Arcanus who gets a knife in the back, and desert ''en masse'' the night before the Votadini attack. When the Third Ordo finds Bremenium opened from within and the garrison slaughtered, the SoleSurvivor points to the First Ordo's Arcani. Alexios never finds out why they betrayed the other Wolves.
* MyGreatestSecondChance: After his terrible misjudgement at Abusina, Alexios is ReassignedToAntarctica, out of the way of serious responsibilities for the rest of his career. TheNativesAreRestless in Castellum too, however, and he is horrified that once again YouAreInCommandNow while TrappedBehindEnemyLines. The example is slightly unusual in that he not only revisits the same situation, but has to retain enough confidence in his judgement to make the same choice, which was disastrous the first time around, but the right call now.
* MysteryCult: Christianity has recently become the empire's official religion, co-existing with paganism. Lucius and Anthonius are Christians, but Alexios and Kaeso keep to the soldiers' cult of Mithras, celebrated in a "cave" in Castellum.
* TheNativesAreRestless: Unluckily for the Frontier Wolves, their falling-out with the friendly Votadini coincides with an invasion of the Picts, the Attacotti, and the Damnonii. The Romans seldom have any idea ''why'' the tribes revolt when they do, but suspect it often originates at a piss-up.
* ThePatriarch: Ferradach Dhu, the clan chieftain of the local Votadini and father of Cunorix and Connla, is a gigantic old warrior who eventually succumbs to his chronic illness, leaving Cunorix as chief.
* PlotParallel: Rather than a parallel, the siege and retreat from Abusina are a smaller-scale preview of the events of Castellum.
* PostVictoryCollapse: Alexios drops from the infected wound in his sword-arm the moment they get to Onnum.
* ProudWarriorRaceGuy: Cunorix and the other Votadini.
* ReassignedToAntarctica: Alexios is technically KickedUpstairs to the rank of Ducenarius after his pardon for Abusina because his uncle is the commander of Britain, but it's with the Frontier Scouts at the ends of the empire and his uncle reflects cheerfully on the possibility that they might cause him to have a fatal accident.
* RecycledInSpace: The "retreat with unreliable troops across hostile country in the face of a native uprising" scenario was inspired by [[VeryLooselyBasedOnATrueStory an incident in the Third Anglo-Afghan War in 1919.]] Sutcliff apparently learned about it from fellow novelist Wallace Bream, who wrote a more direct dramatisation of it, and to whom ''Frontier Wolf'' is dedicated.
* RidiculouslyDifficultRoute: A [[SwampsAreEvil huge bog,]] the Long Moss, with a secret path through it to the Chieftains' Death Place that the Frontier Wolves don't actually know. They expect ShortCutsMakeLongDelays.
* TheRustler: A sympathetic version, in which livestock theft is a tolerated aspect of local culture, and the inflexible new Praepositus of the Frontier Wolves destroys Castellum's good relationship with Cunorix's clan by punishing it mercilessly.
-->'''Hilarion:''' I don't count horse thieves, that's a gentleman's sport in these parts–
* SacrificialLamb: The older but junior officer at Abusina, whose completely correct advice Alexios disregarded.
* SarcasticDevotee: To Alexios's surprise, Hilarion, perhaps because they've become FireForgedFriends.
* ShorterMeansSmarter: Alexios is slight, while Cunorix is shorter than Connla.
-->'''Connla:''' ''[on meeting Alexios Flavius Aquila]'' That's a fine big name, but maybe you'll grow into it in time.
* TheSiege: At Abusina, while the commandant is away, and at Castellum from the morning after Connla dies to the next night, when Alexios decides to do a moonlight flit.
* SnowMeansDeath: The snow begins to fall on the second day of the retreat and is falling when [[spoiler:Lucius]] is [[YouShallNotPass killed at the bridge]], when they reach the garrison at Bremenium, and when [[spoiler:Alexios kills Cunorix]].
* SoleSurvivor: Two: the woman at the Rath of Skolawn, and the wounded artilleryman at Bremenium.
* TakeItToTheBridge: The bridge over a river called the Roaring-Water is the Votadini's last chance to ambush the Wolves before they reach the safety of Bremenium. Lucius pulls a YouShallNotPass in the Rear Guard while the other Wolves pull the bridge down.
* ThisIsSomethingHesGotToDoHimself: His friends can help him hunt it, but each Frontier Scout has to kill his own wolf for his wolfskin cloak.
* ATragedyOfImpulsiveness: Relations between the Frontier Wolves and the Votadini collapse and dozens of people die, because Connla couldn't resist borrowing a horse.
* TrappedBehindEnemyLines: The Frontier Wolves have to steal out of their fort under cover of darkness and take a back way out of Votadini territory, then find that the Picts have overrun the neutral Selgovae, the Bremenium fort has been compromised, and the Habitancum fort is on the point of evacuation, leaving no safe refuge between Castellum and the Wall.
* VeryLooselyBasedOnATrueStory: The emperor Constans did visit Britain in the early months of 343 CE, and there was some kind of tribal unrest that year, in which Castra Exploratorum (Bewcastle Roman fort) was overrun. Castellum is the Cramond Roman fort on the west side of Edinburgh, and Bremenium and Habitancum are at Rochester and West Woodburn, Northumberland. The adventures of the Frontier Wolves were based on 20th century [[KiplingsFinest Indian Scouts.]]
* WeUsedToBeFriends: Cunorix and Alexios, before [[spoiler:Alexios has to stab his little brother to death]].
* WellDoneSonGuy: Alexios's uncle washes his hands of him and his mother despairs of him, and he feels he's disgraced [[FamilyHonor the line of soldiers who wore the family signet before him]]. After he redeems himself and wins his uncle's respect, Alexios reflects that doing it for the sake of his men [[TheMenFirst was far more important]].
* WhatAreYouInFor: Averted. Alexios got half his men killed, Bericus is a troublemaker, and Hilarion is [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking slightly raffish]], but what the rest of them did to merit the name of "scum and scrapings of the Empire" [[InformedAttribute is never explained.]]
* XanatosGambit: Alexios offers Cunorix a chance to kill him in CombatByChampion. [[ThanatosGambit If Cunorix kills Alexios]], the Frontier Wolves will try to avenge him, but if Alexios kills Cunorix, the rest of the Votadini will leave the Frontier Wolves alone. Cunorix accepts this not particularly enticing offer, despite the Votadini's numerical advantage, because [[BatmanGambit they have a religious prohibition against possibly getting killed after sunset]] (and because Alexios calls him chicken.)
* YankTheDogsChain: The DwindlingParty makes it to their fallback position at Bremenium. . . where EverybodysDeadDave.
* YouAreInCommandNow: Happens twice to Alexios. The first time, when his commander is absent and the second-in-command is killed, he misjudges disastrously. The second time, when the Praepositus is killed, he performs well, with results only slightly less disastrous.

* CoolHorse: The first part of the story is taken up with the difficulty of aquiring enough horses large enough to carry Artos's heavy cavalry, which are critical for the mobile force he intends to deploy, and he meets Bedwyr because he's the only person who can control a prize stud horse called The Black One. Artos's WhiteStallion Signus is The Black One's son, and he fights the greatest victory of his career in the White Horse Vale and is crowned on the White Horse itself. The Saxons, meanwhile, also fight under the banner of a white horse, and one of them tells Artos that their ancestors served in the Second Legion, whose badge was the winged horse {{Pegasus}}.
* DeathSeeker: Levin, after Gault's death. Artos also observes that Ygerna reveals her EvilPlan partly because she wouldn't mind if he just killed her.
* DefiledForever: Guenhumara begs Artos to marry her because if he rejects her father's very public offer, everyone will think he'd already slept with her...and not found her worth marrying.