The Asharite rulers on the peninsula are dissolute, but this is portrayed more as a positive than a major factor in their decline. Pious characters play a villainous role, wittingly or unwittingly. The main characters we are to sympathize with are cosmopolitan and tolerant, casual in their religion. Kay is an old school left-liberal, and the influence is apparent.
Rodrigo and Ammar and Jehane know what their place in the world is and what they want it to be (not necessarily the same thing). He gets the least attention in the reviews I’ve read, but I found Alvar’s narrative arc to be the most intriguing and satisfying. And Jehane and Alvar bring a more grounded perspective to the narrative. We see Rodrigo and Ammar as men, not just as Great Men. Kay imbues his epic tale, though, with a personal touch at the same time. Rodrigo and Ammar are men whose actions can topple kingdoms. Their actions will attract the attention of the Asharites across the strait to the south. A Crusade called far to the east will push the Jaddite kingdoms to embark on their own invasion south. Events on the peninsula do not happen in a vacuum. The peninsula is fractured into numerous states on both the Jaddite and Asharite sides. The final major character is Ammar ibn Khairan, assassin of the last caliph and advisor to an Asharite king. Kay captures the complexity of Reconquista era Iberian politics, which could see a Jaddite mercenary fighting under an Asharite king one day and against him the next. Events early in the book will lead to Rodrigo’s exile and bring the four main characters together. Alvar de Pellino is a young soldier who joins the company of the famed captain Rodrigo Belmonte (heavily based on the historical El Cid). Fezana remains under Asharite (read: Muslim) rule but Asharites have grown weak, and Fezana pays tribute to the nearest Jaddite (read: Christian) kingdom. Jehane bet Ishak is a Kindath (read: Jewish) physician living in Fezana. It is a thinly veiled retelling of El Cid and the Reconquista, albeit altered and compressed (the reconquest of the Iberian Peninsula did take centuries, after all). Guy Gavriel Kay has given us a true epic in a single volume in The Lions of Al-Rassan.
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