War At The Edge Of The World
Ian Ross
Head Of Zeus 2015 387 Pages
The long twilight of the
Roman Empire during the period of late antiquity continues to exert a peculiar
fascination on historians, novelists - and the reading public.
Ian James Ross is the latest
entrant in this field, with his military adventure War At The Edge Of The
World set in Roman Britain during the twilight of the Tetrarchy (305 AD)
and before the rise of the Emperor Constantine. The Tetrarchy was the reform
inaugurated by the Emperor Diocletian in which the Roman Empire was divided
into Eastern and Western provinces for administrative convenience, each ruled
by an Emperor assisted by a junior colleague. This system of four co-emperors held good for over twenty years before eventually breaking down.
This action-packed,
blood-spattered novel opens in June 298 AD at the battle of Oxsa in Central
Armenia against the massed forces of the Persian emperor Narses. After his
centurion’s chest is sheared through by a Persian Cataphract’s lance, a tough young legionary of the reserve cohort
of the elite Legio II Herculia steps into the breach and manages to hold
the line. A stolid Pannonian peasant soldier from the Danube, Legionary
Aurelius Castus is later knocked unconscious in the melee – and eventually recovers
to find himself awarded a golden torc for bravery and promotion to the rank of Centurion by the emperor Caesar Galerius himself, in
the aftermath of the Roman victory.
Seven years later, Centurion
“Knucklehead”, an “ugly slab-faced brute” of an officer, is marking time with Legio
VI Victrix in the provincial city of Eboracum (modern-day York). Stuck in the mud and chilly drizzle of this British backwater, the stoic and gritty Castus believes his glory days are
long over. Then comes the fateful order to lead an honour guard escorting a
Roman envoy Marcellinus on a diplomatic mission to the restive Pictish tribes
north of Hadrian’s Wall...
The king of the Picts has previously
died in murky circumstances and several delegates to the diplomatic parley are
poisoned. The Romans are blamed for this and heavily outnumbered, end up
fighting desperately for their lives. Taken prisoner, Centurion Castus comes to
realize that he has not just fallen victim to Pictish tribal politics, BUT also
that someone on the Roman side is deliberately fomenting unrest among the Picts
– however, to what end?
Author Ian Ross studied
painting before taking up writing fiction and this shows in the vivid word
pictures of details like armour, weapons and clothing. However, the descriptive
world-building does not overpower the smooth flow of the military action of
which there is plenty. Apparently, Ross had been researching the later Roman
Empire and its Army for over a decade while working variously as a bookseller,
tutor and university lecturer. This is well reflected in the accuracy of detail
applied to the craftsmanship of the storytelling. The plot is intelligible but
not simplistic; the narrative atmospheric but not over-the-top.
Castus is assisted in
escaping captivity - after several torrid sexual encounters - by a Pictish queen, Cunomagla seeking to
secure the ascension of her illegitimate son. A tense flight through a nightmare
world of burned farms and towns, with gory corpses of the slain clogging the despoiled
countryside, follows...
Initially an unwilling
participant in politics, Centurion Aurelius Castus matures as both participant and
protagonist. He learns the hard way to keep his head down, while using a developing
tactical sense to the best advantage as the resurgent Roman legions under the
future emperor Constantine return to wreak bloody vengeance on the fractious Picts.
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