Book description
The Roman Empire faces the barbarian horde. 612 AD. Decadent, desperate
Athens is the Roman Empire's most vulnerable city. Aelric - senator of
the Roman Empire, fresh from a bloodbath in Egypt that may or may not be
regarded in Constantinople as his fault - is forced to divert the
Imperial galley to Athens for reasons the Emperor has neglected to share
with him. He finds a demoralized and corrupt provincial city threatened
by an army rumoured to contain twenty million starving barbarians. Not
to mention an explosive religious dispute, an unexplained corpse, and
hints of something worse than murder. Is he on a high level mission to
save the Empire? Or has he been set up to fail? Or is the truth even
worse than he can at first imagine? He will have to call upon all his
formidable intellect and lethal ingenuity to survive his enemies inside
and outside the city walls . . .
'Blake's plotting is as brilliantly devious as the mind of his
sardonic and very earthy hero. This is a story of villainy that reels
you in from its prosaic opening through a series of death-defying
thrills and spills.'
Richard Blake is a historian, broadcaster and university lecturer. He
lives in Kent with his wife and daughter.
