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Chapters (76)
  1. Title Page
  2. Copyright Page
  3. I
  4. II
  5. III
  6. I - INVADER AD 43-70
  7. I
  8. II
  9. III
  10. IV
  11. V
  12. VI
  13. VII
  14. VIII
  15. IX
  16. X
  17. XI
  18. XII
  19. XIII
  20. XIV
  21. XV
  22. XVI
  23. XVII
  24. XVIII
  25. XIX
  26. XX
  27. XXI
  28. XXII
  29. XXIII
  30. XXIV
  31. XXV
  32. XXVI
  33. II - BUILDER AD 122-138
  34. I
  35. II
  36. III
  37. IV
  38. V
  39. VI
  40. VII
  41. VIII
  42. IX
  43. X
  44. XI
  45. XII
  46. XIII
  47. XIV
  48. XV
  49. XVI
  50. XVII
  51. XVIII
  52. XIX
  53. XX
  54. XXI
  55. III - EMPEROR AD 314—337
  56. I
  57. II
  58. III
  59. IV
  60. V
  61. VI
  62. VII
  63. VIII
  64. IX
  65. X
  66. XI
  67. XII
  68. XIII
  69. XIV
  70. XV
  71. EPILOGUE
  72. I
  73. II
  74. III
  75. IV
  76. Afterword

She tried to leave her business affairs in order for the benefit of her bereft, helpless husband. Her children were both in their early twenties, they had grown into proud, strong, well-educated Roman women, and she had few concerns about them. Fifty wasn’t a terribly young age to die, she told her daughters. Besides she felt her years had been crowded enough for two lifetimes.

But she had one last piece of unfinished business.

XXVI

XXVI

Though always favoured by his commander Vespasian, and despite his little bit of notoriety following his time in Britain, Marcus Allius had never risen higher than centurion - nor, if truth be told, had he ever wanted to. He retired from the army as early as he could on a fat veteran’s pension, and bought himself a compact little vineyard a day’s ride from his native Rome. Just as he had always been a competent but never great soldier, so he proved a prosperous but never rich vintner. He raised a strong son who followed his father into the army.

Aged fifty-five, over a quarter of a century after his British adventure and as healthy as he had ever been, Marcus looked forward to a long retirement.

Then, one day, a slave sought him out bearing a letter.

The note was from one Agrippina, British-born but resident in Rome. She had been present at the Roman landing at Rutupiae too, she wrote, and her letter concerned ‘unfinished business’.

She had been able to consult Vespasian’s official biographer to find out which legion had been the first to land in Britain, that dark night in Rutupiae thirty years before, and which century had landed first, and which man of that century had been the first to set foot on British soil, whose name she thought she had heard. Agrippina summarised the steps she had taken to ensure that she and she alone took full responsibility for the crime that was about to take place - but she would already be dead by the time Marcus Allius opened the letter.

Marcus looked up at the slave, to ask, ‘What crime?’

The blade in the slave’s hand was the last thing he saw.

II - BUILDER AD 122-138

II

004

BUILDER AD 122-138

I

I

Brigonius agreed to meet the women from Rome outside the town of Durovernum Cantiacorum, on the road leading east towards Rutupiae at the coast.

For a Brigantian it was a long way from home. But Brigonius reached the rendezvous early in the morning, well before the appointed hour, and had to wait. He found a milestone to sit on, set his battered old wide-brimmed hat on his head to keep out the sun, and let his horse chew on the tough, dirty grass at the roadside. As the day wore on he grew hot, his face itching under a beard still new enough to be a novelty. He was twenty-two years old.