Minor Fictional Characters in Through Darkest Europe

This article lists the various minor fictional characters who appear in Through Darkest Europe. These characters play, at best, a peripheral role in the novel. While they were usually given a name, some weren't. Most were simply mentioned or had a very brief, unimportant speaking role that did not impact the plot, and never appeared again.

Abdallah ibn-al-Zubayr
Abdallah ibn-al-Zubayr was the author of Concerning the Development of Natural Creatures Through Time, which first popularized the evolutionary theory.

Ablanalp
Ablanalp was a Turk who invented aerosol spray in the late 14th century AH.

Adolphus
Father Adolphus was the Aquinist Corrector of München. His message to followers emphasized Jesus' statement in Matthew 10:34: "I came to bring not peace, but a sword."

Giulia Cadorna
Giulia Cadorna (b. c. 1970) was a surgeon on the staff of the hospital of San Agostino in Rome, Italy. This was an unusual accomplishment for a European woman. Dr. Cadorna had studied medicine at the madrasa of Alexandria, Egypt. In a televised interview, Dr. Cadorna warned Italian women that their choices in life would be housewifery or nunnery under Aquinist rule.

Annarita Pezzola, while on Grand Duke Cosimo's staff, had met Dr. Cadorna several times, and considered her a hero for Italian women.

Dino Crocetti
Dino Crocetti (b. c. 1958) was Naples' leading crime figure.

Dawud al-Buwayhidi
Dawud al-Buwayhidi was a popular singer from Iraq. Even people in the Grand Duchy of Italy listened to him on occasion.

Enrico (driver)
Enrico was an errand runner in the service of Dino Crocetti, a Neapolitan organized crime boss. He drove Khalid al-Zarzisi and Dawud ibn Musa from their hotel to an interview with the boss, and back again. All the while, Enrico drove like a madman with a callous disregard for life and limb, which is to say, in the typical Italian style.

Faruq al-Ghaznavi
Faruq al-Ghaznavi was an Indian warlord in the 14th century AH. During the Indian conflicts, Faruq engineered the systematic killing of four million Tamils, who were killed not because they were enemy combatants, but simply because they were Tamils. Faruq's regime was defeated by enemy nations, and he was put on trial for crimes against mankind, found guilty, and decapitated. In his last photographs, Faruq appeared a mild, unassuming man (much like his grandfather, a chicken farmer), who looked nothing like a mass murderer. A lifetime later, Faruq was regarded the world over as the most evil man who ever lived.

In 1439 AH, Aquinist terrorists in Italy issued broadsheets proclaiming admiration for Faruq's methods.

Giorgio
Giorgio was a personal valet of Pope Marcellus IX. He was highly intelligent, and clearly regarded by the Pope as trustworthy. However, the trust did not extend to allowing Giorgio to be in the room while Marcellus discussed sensitive information with the Maghribi agents.

Giuseppe
Giuseppe was the second son of Grand Duke Cosimo III of Italy.

Jean XXIII of France
King Jean XXIII of France joined with the enlightened nations of the world in the fight against terrorism in AD 2018. An Aquinist suicide bomber attacked a podium where the king was speaking, killing a general and a police official. The king survived with non-life-threatening injuries, although one of his ears had become deaf and was not expected to recover.

Shortly before this, the king's son and heir had survived a gunshot wound while on a state visit to Rome, Italy.

Lisarh ibn Yahsub
Lisarh ibn Yahsub was a Maghribi archaeologist in charge of an expedition to Pompeii.

Luigi (Aquinist)
Luigi was a guard at the Aquinist Seminary in Rome. His most apparent traits were extreme irritability and a low intelligence. Visitors and co-workers alike found him off-putting.

Martino of Padua
Martino of Padua, whose birth name was Andrea Assarotti, was an Aquinist priest.

Enrico Pavarotti
Enrico Pavarotti was a captain in the army of the Grand Duchy of Italy. He was short and fat, with a resonant tenor voice, a bushy black mustache, a tendency to make theatrical gestures, and a fondness for good dining. Pavarotti deputized Khalid al-Zarzisi and Dawud ibn Musa into his service in Florence, and was with them during their baptism of fire in a fight against the local Aquinists.

Literary comment
The captain's name is a reference to legendary opera tenors Enrico Caruso (1873-1921) and Luciano Pavarotti (1935-2007). His physical description very closely matches the latter.

Persian tourist
A little man with a Persian accent was visiting Rome, searching for the Mausoleum of Augustus. He asked a local where this could be found, and the man pointed him in the proper direction. However, the "local" was in fact Dawud ibn Musa, an undercover agent from the Maghrib, who did not really know where the tomb was, but did not want to admit this and break cover. Dawud told his partner Khalid al-Zarzisi that if his guess about the tomb turned out to be wrong, someone else would come to point the Persian in the right direction.

Gottlieb Schrempf
Gottlieb Schrempf was a German Aquinist from the Archbishopric of Ochsenhausen, captured in Italy by Grand Ducal forces. At his interrogation, he recited Aquinist doctrine like clockwork and proved immune to logic.

Pietro Vaccaro
Pietro Vaccaro, police prefect of Naples, was understood to be in cooperation with Dino Crocetti, the city's leading organized crime boss. Khalid al-Zarzisi and Dawud ibn Musa very carefully blackmailed Vaccaro into arranging a meeting between them and Crocetti.