Praise for

‘Makes you feel as though you are there’

BETTANY HUGHES, THE TIMES

‘Harry Sidebottom’s epic tale starts with a chilling assassination and goes on, and up, from there’

MARY BEARD

‘An amazing story of bloodlust, ruthless ambition and revenge’

KATE SAUNDERS, THE TIMES

‘An extraordinarily vivid take on the ancient world. Think of The Killing crossed with Andy McNab crossed with Mary Beard, and you’re there’

DAVID SEXTON, EVENING STANDARD

‘Ancient Rome has long been a favourite destination for writers of historical military fiction. Much the best of them is Harry Sidebottom’

SUNDAY TIMES

‘Swashbuckling as well as bloody, yet curiously plausible . . . a real gift for summoning up a sense of place’

TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT

‘The best sort of red-blooded historical fiction – solidly based on a profound understanding of what it meant to be alive in a particular time and place’

ANDREW TAYLOR

‘Absorbing, rich in detail and brilliant’

THE TIMES

‘Sidebottom’s prose blazes with searing scholarship’

THE TIMES

‘Superior fiction, with depth, authenticity and a sense of place’

TLS

‘A storming triumph . . . wonderful fight scenes, deft literary touches and salty dialogue’

THE DAILY TELEGRAPH

‘He has the touch of an exceptionally gifted storyteller, drawing on prodigious learning’

TIMOTHY SEVERIN

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Epilogue

Historical Afterword

Acknowledgements

About the Author

Letter from Author

Copyright

To Michael Dunne
16th December 1958–17th August 2017

Chapter 1

CHAPTER 1

The Castle of Silence

NO ONE HAD EVER RETURNED from the Castle of Silence.

The dark tower, with its tall outer wall, was set on a narrow crag, high in the Elburz Mountains. The remote fortress-prison was impregnable. A prisoner who passed through its gates was never heard of again. Even to mention his name was a capital crime. The Greeks called it the Place of Forgetting.

Barbad the eunuch studied the horrible scene. At first, in the foothills, they had journeyed up through forests of beech and oak. Deer had grazed in the glades. The convoy had shared the road with shepherds driving their flocks to the upper pastures in the spring sunshine. Now they were in a different world. The only trees were stunted junipers, the only living creatures the buzzards that rode the chill winds that scoured the jagged grey precipices. In the distance, the highest peaks were still capped with snow.