Author Description

"My name is Apollonius Gaius Caspius. I am forty years old and a legionary. Not just any legionary, but one of the best, born to fight and raised in hatred. My father was a wealthy Roman merchant. He was my first enemy, always. The anger with which I fight is his legacy: he generated it when he generated me, and he never stopped feeding it, even when he died. In dreams, I still hear his contemptuous voice shouting my other name. My other name is Spurius, the Bastard. That's what they call me in Rome because my mother was Greek, from a remote colony in the South. From her, I learned two languages and two ways of seeing things. Perhaps even two ways of loving. I've had two names, two languages, two homelands, two souls, even two wives. But when my daughter was kidnapped, I had only one path ahead, leading to war. There is only one heart, and it allows no escape."