Enemies of the Empire

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‘A civic banquet in your honour, Excellence? Here in Venta? Tonight?’ I stared at my wealthy patron in dismay.

I had never wanted to come to this remote tribal civitas in the first place. Two days of jogging and jolting in a heavy carriage along military roads is a punishing experience for ageing bones (and at fifty my bones are already far more aged than most) even when every hoofbeat does not take you nearer to the wild, forested outskirts of the Empire, where not only are there the usual hazards of brigands, wolves and bears, but there is always the entertaining possibility of a rebel ambush and a disaffected Silurian sword through your vitals.

Besides, I had left a wife and slaves at home, to say nothing of a new and lucrative commission for a memorial pavement for a fountain at the baths, bequeathed in his own honour under the will of a recently departed wealthy local citizen and councillor. But when His Excellence Marcus Aurelius Septimus — personal representative of the absent governor and my personal patron and protector — invites you to attend him on an official visit to the border legion at Isca, on the western frontier of the province, to say ‘I’m sorry, I’d prefer to stay at home’ is really not a possibility.

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