A Byzantine mercenary, a Florentine physician, a Welsh wizard, and Sforza walk into a tavern...
I stumbled across this tattered and battered novel some time ago and forgot about it on my to-be-read pile. So, when I came round to reading it, you can imagine how marvellously surprised I was to discover I should have read it the moment I peeled it off the shelf in the shop.
An alt medieval fantasy in which the Ottoman Empire hasn't slowed the Byzantine Empire? Machiavelli hold my Hagia Sophia mosaics!
Now, I'm no stranger when it comes to alternate historical fantasy. Currently, I am querying my own, with my victims being King Charlemagne and the 12th-century Netherlands (in simple terms, but it's too socio-politically complicated to dwell on now). Returning to the novel here, it's huge and complex. Like a weary medieval serf, I cowered at such a daunting task, but...
It's a modern classic that really deserves a name, and it should exist beyond the dusty shelves of old National Trust bookshops. Yet, it remains hard to find, having been lost in a limbo of publishing rights and the parting of its writer, John M. Ford. It’s the kind of novel that takes a shovel to your brain and digs out the way you think about alternate history and magic.
It's like a talisman. I will carry it around with me forever.
At its most basic level, The Dragon Waiting is a 15th-century alternate historical fantasy where Christianity never becomes the dominant force in Europe, and the Byzantine Empire stretches across the entire continent. But still, this description is misleading because it's so much more. It was mysterious and tragic and politically thrilling. Vampires were sinking their fangs into my imagination and taking an axe to the Machiavellian notion of the ends justifying the means.
Philosophical, fatalistic, and poetic? Like a tavern guest begging for another, let me smash a tankard and call for more!
Ford sold the novel as a fantastical alternate history, and one prizing the plausibility of technological advancement and the presence of real historical figures such as Richard III who is a sly and cunning devil of man, reshaping our historical events timeline. His Jonbar point (divergence from real history) is barely mentioned at all, actually! But, that's what was so captivating. Ford sticks us in the audience, and we're gripped by the familiarity of the real, and the unfamiliarity of what could be. And don't we just experience it...
Julian the Apostate marginalises Christianity and – and – and – a secular, pluralist Byzantium rises as Europe’s superpower!
With this narrative scaffolding, Ford builds an elusive history in the first three chapters alone. We have Hywel, a young Welsh man drawn toward wizardry; Dimitrios, a noble-born Byzantine swordsman; Cynthia, a Florentine doctor fleeing political crossfire; and Gregory, a Bavarian scholar who is actually vampire. They're all melancholy in their own ways and deeply pitiful. My favourite kind.
And so they meet – at an inn – and it's snowing. Oh my god, they meet at an inn. Anyway, it's a classic fantasy meet-cute. But here, we understand time and identity and fate. They are away from their own worlds in a literal and physical sense. Yet, they meet. And it's like alchemy the way they blend.
Now, clouds drifted across the low sun, making shadow patterns on the ground. The river dulled to slate, then flashed bluesilver. The standing stones seemed to move, to march, beat spears on shields in salute. Sparrows were forgotten as Hywel moved his cohorts, as soldier and king and god.
One of details I always notice about fantasy fiction is the worldbuilding. And reading this didn't quite remind me of anything Tolkienesque or Sanderson for its magic systems, but rather its own stunning articulation of magic that feels both elegant and restrained. It's so human and yet just out of reach enough for me as a reader to yearn for it to be real. Ford gives you as a reader room to breathe with the worldbuilding:
Her eyes hurt, as if she were crying, but any tears would be lost in the rain. Lost the silver owl and gained an ugly blob of lead—an alchemical miracle.
We forget that anyone who can curse can bless.
They are short, snappy, and stunning. They are moments of insight just as we find with learning in the real world. I mean this style actually, out of everything, reminds me of Josephine Tey’s The Daughter of Time which is another book hyperfixated on Richard III like he's a Shakespearean villain. But he's more than that. He's made to be complex political player, neither saint, nor monster looming over the princes in the tower like Count Orlok. The novel doesn’t exonerate Richard so much as contextualise him. The infamous Princes in the Tower are there, but rather than being murdered, the princes smuggled out of the Tower of London by our protagonists.
Reading this didn't feel like Ford was trying to correct history. They just simply exist in this alternate timeline as written by the victors of those in power. By repositioning Richard, not as a villain, but as a pragmatic figure resisting the influence of the Byzantine Empire, Ford illustrates how history can be falsified or repurposed to control public perception. It's the truth of events that always comes secondary to the narrative that survives time.
Hywel paused at the top of the cellar stairs. “There’s a prisoner with them. A wizard." Dafydd put the poker down, wiped his hands on his apron. “Well then,” he said quietly, “that’s bad news for someone.”
By using magic as well in a mundane way, I felt that it was ancient and rooted in the bones of the characters. Hywel's sorcery is focused on language and symbols. I was captivated by the tone that surrounded his depiction of magic use. It was ritualistic and intentional in the same way modern witchcraft is counselled. Machiavelli would've deduced these magic users are strategists, not saints. Hywel uses his powers to protect his allies and decieve his enemies. He uses it violently and maniputively because the ends justify his means.
Never attempt to win by force what can be won by deception. – Niccolo Machiavelli, The Prince
Magic is simply a realpolitik, a tool used as much as any pen or sword. In that, it also works as a form of dominance and control. Sorcery supported the Byzantine Empire's military power and religious influence. Yet, it was also used as a form of control to imprison and enslave populations. Just as Machiavelli believed fear was a tool of rule than love, magic exists a source of fear. It's weaponised to control the minds of the Empire and enforce domination.
It is much safer to be feared than loved. – Niccolo Machiavelli, The Prince
For Ford, he treats magic as a historical agent. The victors seek to erase and marginalise those who wield it. For example, the disappearance of dragons and the suppression of sorcery tradition mirror how culture and religion are buried under empires that seek to make their beliefs the sole narrative. Even characters like Cynthia (a doctor and woman of science and healing) and Hywel (a magician and exile) embody forgotten or hidden knowledge and are living proof of a history that's been overwritten.
In simple terms, Ford is stating that history is propaganda unless someone or something reclaims and resists it. And that truth is subjective – it's fought over and stolen and rewritten and buried.
For Ford, history and magic are discourses on power. He teaches us exactly what empires do to those they deem outsiders. It is used strategically, not sentimentally by relying on deception despite being repeatedly suppressed by those in power and rediscovered by those seeking change. Magic and history are means to an end, but they are not the end itself.
For me, this book is one of those rare, layered novels that doesn’t fall into a single category. Its comparable titles span genres but the best I can do is Tigana by Guy Gavriel Kay for the resistance imperial control meets The Sarantine Mosaic by Guy Gavriel Kay as an alternate-history set in a Byzantine-inspired empire while also sprinkling some of Ash: A Secret History by Mary Gentle for the razor realism with bursts of magical or fantastical weirdness. Dense, immersive, and emotionally brutal.
Like an alchemist, Ford changes you as a reader by plunging you into a mixture of violence and politics and history.
