Blood and Sand

It is absolutely tragic that I didn't read Rosemary Sutcliff's Blood and Sand before sutcliff_swap, because it is the slashiest book ever. One could say this about a lot of Sutcliff's books, but Blood and Sand carries the prize because the subtext is so lightly buried in the sand that the slightest breeze flings its covering away.

Our hero is Thomas Kent, a Scottish soldier whose regiment gets blasted to smithereens in Egypt during the Napoleonic wars. A local Ottoman general buys him, various things happen, and then Thomas meets Tussun Bey, his future bestest best friend forever. Like this - and this is a direct quote -

The rest of his awareness was entirely taken up with the boy on the chestnut mare, who seemed to focus the sunlight in his own being.

For a long moment still, they remained unmoving, hot tawny gaze and cool grey meeting and locked, while the frown gathered between the princeling's amber brows. Then suddenly it was gone, and his face lit with a smile that could charm the heart out of any woman.

Or out of Thomas. Even when Tussun sends ten men to kill him, Thomas loves him so much that he has no trouble forgiving him.

At Tussun's wedding, Thomas sits around reminding himself "Don't behave like a jealous lover, don't behave like a jealous lover." (I am paraphrasing, but only very slightly.)

And then all of Tussun's friends are ribbing Tussun about the wedding night, and Tussun is all "I know how to have sex! Thomas, tell them that I'm GREAT AT SEX."

Ostensibly because they go to brothels together, but - as Thomas informs us - he's only interested in going to brothels when Tussun's around to go with him. I kind of envision them having threesomes with dancing girls, only to forget the dancing girl halfway through. (It would not surprise me if there were such scenes in the original draft. I think that Sutcliff wrote parts of this in the spirit of "Do you think I can sneak this innuendo past them? Yes, yes I CAN!")

And then Thomas gets married and Tussun does behave like a jealous lover. Thomas tells him, "Don't be ridiculous, Tussun, do you think I can love only one person at a time?" (This is also only a very slight paraphrase.)

And then they have a conversation in which Tussun is all "I know you like your wife Anoud but YOU STILL LOVE ME BEST, RIGHT????"

A surprising number of Sutcliff books involve a love - triangle isn't the right word for it; love triangle implies that people are wrangling to be the hero's one-and-only. A situation where the hero has his ambiguously well-beloved best friend and also his girlfriend. Esca & Marcus & Cottia in The Eagle of the Ninth, Prosper & Conn & Luned in The Shining Company (arguably; I'm not sure how much Prosper would be part of this love tripod if Conn and Luned weren't severed by a vast social gulf), and of course Tussun & Thomas & Anoud in Blood and Sand.

I guess three books is not an overwhelming number - she has plenty of books where this doesn't happen - but I've rarely run into this particular relationship configuration outside of Sutcliff. Maybe Singin' in the Rain - although you really have to read the subtext into that one.

(Also I need a Sutcliff icon. So many things to do, so little time.)