[View of Vindolanda: Nilfanion, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons]
My Quintus Valerius Roman Britain mysteries are closely linked, both in time and action. So readers will find regular characters appearing throughout the series: Quintus himself, Tiro, Julia Aureliana, and some of their family members, friends and colleagues, like Britta. But the books are widely separated by location. The Governor’s Man , for example, is mainly set in the west country of Roman Britain; while my follow up, The Carnelian Phoenix, ranges wide across the western empire as far as Rome. Inevitably there are characters in each book related to the settings, such as accountant, Tertius, at the lead mines in Vebriacum (Cheddar), and Ulpian, chief counsellor to the emperor in Rome.
My current book, The Loyal Centurion, takes my main characters — Quintus, Tiro and Julia— to Eboracum (York) and beyond, past the imposing Aelian Wall into barbarian Caledonia. Naturally there are new characters to meet in these parts. Some of them I planned right from the start, like Placidia Septimia (inspired by the beautiful Ivory Bangle Lady in Yorkshire Museum), and Lossio Veda ( name and background borrowed from an actual Caledonian whose life ended peacefully in Colchester. There is no truth in the rumour that he was a spy.)
Other newbies came to me later, some unexpectedly; it’s this multi-strand process of character development I want to explore a little in today’s blogpost.
Plot-driven characters One channel for character development is the demands of the plot. From the start, I knew I would be sending Quintus north to build bridges between his own superior, Governor Aradius Rufinus in Londinium, and the legate/governor of the northern province at Eboracum (York). I knew this would start to be problematic, and become a far more demanding mission. So I wanted a couple of burly experienced soldiers in Eboracum and at the famous fort of Vindolanda, who would be local witnesses and possible allies. Hence the Camp Prefect at York, Antonius Gargilianus, and a senior centurion at Vindolanda, Litorius Pacatianus, came into being.
Research-driven characters Another springboard for character creation is my research. This is an iterative process, beginning with the basic fact-finding like initial reading and site visits. With Centurion, our trip to Scotland was delayed by train strikes till January. By then I had already begun to thinking about a major theme of population genocide, suggested by Emperor Septimius Severus’s command that his army in Scotland should wipe out every man, woman and child they came across. He was not a well man by this stage in his life (he died shortly afterwards, at York in AD 211), but even so, that seems quite vindictive. I was thinking about the consequences of genocide in terms of emptying the countryside, and what that might mean for any tribes beyond. That got me interested in the pre-history of the Pictish people of the far north of Scotland. One thing led to another, and suddenly I needed a Pictish chieftain. Lacking any historical records, I had to make up my own: enter Athair. He will have a major role further on in the story, and will help me solve a puzzle archaeologists have recently uncovered on the north coast of Moray.
Imagination-driven characters Another theme in this story is trafficking, of various kinds. This is where KT Tunstall comes in, or her look-alike, I should say. I needed a girl in Vindolanda, a trafficking survivor, feisty and energetic. I couldn’t quite picture her until we went to Birmingham Symphony Hall to see KT Tunstall a fortnight ago. There on the stage was a bouncy, strong, opinionated little Scots girl. Vindolanda girl — sorted.
I have another girl in an earlier scene, who is a victim of that hideous and still-common trade, but she’s already dead when we meet her. I was going to move on quite quickly, leaving the unfortunate victim to be tidied away by the local authorities of Lagentium (Castleford in West Yorks). In fact, I had already finished that scene, and was preparing mentally to start a new chapter. As I was drowsing in the early hours a young boy came into my mind, fully-fledged. His name is Nicomedes; he is the orphaned son of a member of the imperial court of Julia Domna, the old empress, and he was born while the vast imperial entourage was making its slow way south back to Rome, after Septimius Severus died. The birth is difficult, Nico’s mother dies, and he suffers birth damage consistent with what we now know to be cerebral palsy. Hemiplegia on right side of his body means his mobility is hampered, but he is a bright lad, with an outstanding talent: Nico is a horse-whisperer. He can get horses (and dogs) to trust him enough to do pretty much anything. This new character appeared initially as a friend of the dead girl in the Lagentium mansio, fair enough. But I soon found Nico wasn’t willing to be left behind on the main road when my fellas rode on to York. I thought again, and now he has gained a sizeable role right through this book, and probably beyond.
I had no idea I would be writing in a character with cerebral palsy, about which I know very little. Fortunately we have amazing expertise available to the general public here in the UK, by way of the wonderful people at Scope, the charity for cerebral palsy. I was kindly granted the opportunity to conduct a Zoom interview with Richard Luke, Specialist Information Officer and Cerebral Palsy Programme Lead at Scope. He patiently answered all my questions, going me a detailed picture of the various manifestations of cerebral palsy. The best part was that everything Nico had told me about himself turned out to be not only possible, but completely plausible (once I had compensated for the lack of Roman knowledge about the condition.)
So that’s a flavour of how I’ve developed new characters in this third book. Hopefully they’re all in place now, with lots of adventures to come as we head north into the unknown.
My March News
This month, I’ve mostly been doing some actual writing. I’m 20,000 words into The Loyal Centurion, and have reached the end of the first act. This is the point at which my lovely Roman trio have arrived in new pastures, thinking they know what their mission is. And then bodies begin to clutter the wayside, Julia is mightily distracted, and Quintus gets a creepy feeling that nasty stuff on a big scale is kicking off all round them. Sound familiar? It can only get worse.
My specially-commissioned short story, ‘Fool’s Gold’ was published on the Ides of March (15th), in new Roman anthology Triumphs and Tragedies. The ebook is out now on Amazon at £2.99; paperbacks to follow soon.
Lovely people keep reading my novels and giving them great ratings and reviews on Amazon and Goodreads. Both books are now well into three figures for ratings, sitting nicely around 4.3-4.5 average. Thank you, Dear Readers!
Don’t forget, you can follow my author pages on both sites, or write to me here and at jacquierogersauthor@gmail.com.
Old soldiers, a horse-whisperer, and KT Tunstall
Tiro loves you too, Fiona! (Me ,I have a hankering for your very own Lucius Sestius …)
“Fools Gold” is a great story - again setting is important and different. Butt of course what I loved was seeing Tiro in the limelight!