Nobilitas: A Novel of Ancient Rome

After the withdrawal of large numbers of Roman troops in AD 407, the future of the mist-wreathed island of Britannia is uncertain. Threatened from within by inter-tribal conflict and from without by Saxon invaders, the remaining remnants of the legions face a dilemma: to stay on the island where they grew up and where many have raised families, or accept the will of Rome and take ship to the continent, perhaps never to return.

For Mannius, a trained surgeon and veteran of the legions, the choice is simple: Britain is his homeland and even the prospect of a warmer climate and greater riches practising his craft in a securer part of the empire is not temptation enough to lure him away. However, when his uncle, the governor, is murdered, Mannius realises that the threat to his survival may not only come from the Saxon hoards, and that a great weight of responsibility has landed on his unwilling shoulders: the future of an entire people.