Description
Set in AD 57, much of Britannia has been under Roman occupation for over ten years, with key areas in the south and east administered as vassal states, where the tribes pay costly tithes to the Emperor in return for the right to continue living on their own lands. On the sacred isle of Mona, Breaca — long hailed as Boudica, the Bringer of Victory — now knows for certain that her lover, Caradoc — betrayed, captured and kept hostage in Rome — will never return to her. She decides to leave Mona, where she and her warriors have been waging a guerrilla war, and to take the fight to the Eceni heartland where it is needed most. With her are her children, Cunomar and Grainne, and her best friend from childhood, ex-lover and dreamer, Airmid. But the once-proud Eceni are a downtrodden and defeated people who are forbidden, on pain of death, to worship their old gods, and now scrape out a living from the once-fertile land. Across the sea in Hibernia, Breaca's half-brother Ban is struggling to make peace with his fractured past. Soon, provoked by Roman aggression, he sails to Britain to protect Mona. From there he goes to Camulodinum and, reunited with his sister Breaca, they will face down the might of Rome in the bloodiest revolt the western world has ever known.