Mimus

This long historical fantasy is a fine book, but it merits a health warning. The author is a medieval historian, and her biographical note says: ‘The inspiration for Mimus came in part from reading about medieval monarchies that routinely humiliated and enslaved enemy royalty’. She also researched the lives of court jesters, and central to the book is an intricate psychological portrait of Mimus, court jester to King Theodo of Vinland. This is masterly. Think of Lear’s Fool and of Feste in Twelfth Night, and Mimus could worthily join them. But the Court of Theodo of Vinland follows all too graphically that other line of research. The captured King, courtiers, and boy crown prince of neighbouring Moltovia are not only enslaved and humiliated, but also starved and tortured for the King’s pleasure, almost the whole length of a long book. For its content as well as its length and subtlety, this is a young adult novel.

The plot is essentially simple. Vinland and Moltovia are two of several imaginary medieval kingdoms, and have been at off-and-on war for years. Theodo then contrives a treacherous peace. When King Philip of Moltovia and his men are lured to Vinland for a celebration, and his 12-year-old son Florin brought from home to join them, they are summarily imprisoned – all except Florin, whose fate is to be degraded as apprentice to the jester, Mimus. He becomes ‘Little Mimus’. The core of the book is the complex relationship between jester and boy. Florin is hero and a great survivor, though it beggars belief that he could do what he does on the jester’s starvation diet of one bowl of gruel a day.

Mimus is a story of revenge. Philip of Moltovia once killed Theodo’s brother in a duel, and dishonoured his corpse. This is Theodo’s sadistic retribution, and is one long artistry of viciousness. Although (like many real-life monsters) Theodo has a good side, being a caring father and popular monarch, nothing can compensate for his odious cruelties. When loyal Moltovians finally contrive his downfall, it is appropriately Mimus who breaks up a murderous deadlock and contrives a ‘jester’s peace’. Florin and Mimus are a wonderful creation, and the book ends ‘happily’. But too peaceably, perhaps, for readers sickened by Theodo’s vile depravity. They may be disappointed (as this reader was) not to see him suffer for it. There are atrocities that can never be wiped out by realpolitik, and Theodo’s are among them.