I think "The Lantern Bearers" was the first novel I read by Sutcliff, when I was about sixteen. I've been reading and rereading her books ever since then, seeing them anew each time.

Rereading "The Lantern Bearers" and "Sword at Sunset" this time, I was disturbed by the sameness of the female characters' wilt-for-the-man. It began to feel like a trope that Sutcliff loved. I have no problem with tropes per se; I'm perfectly fine with reading Sutcliff's master-and-slave-become-friends trope (though that trope has some pitfalls also). It's just that the female characters didn't seem to me to have much role in the stories except to play out their trope and provide the male protagonists with an opportunity for angst. It felt very much as though Sutcliff had borrowed a male-gaze fashion of writing about women.

Guenhamara struck me as the best-rounded female character, which made it all the more frustrating that she wasn't allowed to do anything in "Sword at Sunset" except be the object of love. I mean, she is a royal personage, for heaven's sakes. Surely she has some sort of royal duties.