Bassander Lin

Bassander Lin is a Mandari Grand Strategos and career Legion officer, born in the fleet to soldier parents, whose arc across the series runs from Hadrian's most implacable adversary to the man who knelt before him as Emperor. He is called the Hero of Perfugium -- the foreshadowed epithet from the very first chapter in which he appears -- and a veteran of Berenike, Danu, and Gododdin. His phoenix-headed cane and surgically reassembled bones are the physical record of injuries that should have killed him. He carries the highmatter sword that once belonged to Admiral Whent, and never drinks alcohol.

Stripped of his rank by Prince Alexander's regime, Lin visits Hadrian in his cell in the Tower of Morne at Tenba wearing no insignia, carrying a cane and a staff like a pilgrim. He brings Hadrian a sword and offers escape; Hadrian declines, gives him a final blessing, and asks him to carry a sword to a grave on Colchis in secret.

At Hadrian's execution in the plaza at Tenba, Lin is present: a gray old man standing in the shadow of the colonnade, head and shoulders above the crowd, his face half turned away as his eyes meet Hadrian's.

In Hadrian's retrospective narration, Lin has carried word of Hadrian's deeds to countless stars and kindled followers across many worlds. Hadrian's earliest narration had named him not only a hero and a knight but ultimately a traitor -- a designation whose full meaning the story leaves for the reader to weigh.