Inspired by a little-known historical fact—that American slaves fought alongside the British in the Revolutionary War—this epic novel tells of a Mount Vernon slave who joins a Loyalist black regiment charged with defeating his former master on the battlefield. The year is 1773. A new slave arriv...
Nor did I mention that when Astylos won the diaulos, our Styges was less than a man’s height behind him, placing third, nor that another Plataean was in the final heat. This was the best performance by Plataeans in the games for many years, and only the endless work of keeping Polypeithes alive a...
The very first hint of light spread from a vague grey to the merest hint of pink, like the touch of colour on a pretty girl’s face before she kisses you. The three Turkish galleys had rowed all night to close the distance, and now they were at ramming speed, and the froth at their prows was tinte...
Satyrus waited, looking for a signal, a wave, an invitation – anything to suggest that his uncle had a plan. Next to him, on his own deck, Abraham Ben Zion shook his head. ‘Where did a pissant tyrant like Eumeles get so many ships?’ Satyrus didn’t turn his head. He was still waiting for the signa...
Except, as you know if you’ve been listening, there was no siege and we never had a chance to take the city. Five thousand men against a city with a hundred thousand citizens? And the aftermath of my great deed was bitter; most of the companions, the Englishmen and Germans...
Quite a crowd for an old man’s ravings. But this is the best of tales since Troy – with sorrow and joy, men and women, heroes and traitors and men, like Themistocles, who were both. May you never see such times, thugater. The first night, I told you...
He was in a fever, and he came and went from full consciousness, and he was hot and miserable, and despite all that, Apollodorus had taken command and was moving them – fast – across the valleys of western Asia, going due east on the Zeugma road.A lifetime of riding left Satyrus capable of stayin...
George Part Six: Chios Mytilini, Lesvos It was the English ship that had brought the warning and sounded the alarm. By the time the sun was high in the sky, Tom Swan had worked himself into a state of exhaustion. Working side by side with all the oarsmen, the mercenaries, the sailors and a hundr...
The sun was rising on a new day, and Kineas was already hot and sticky. He wore only his tunic, pulled on hastily when he heard that there was a scout coming in. Coenus was covered in dust, his usual foppishness ruined, his face a comic mask where runnels of sweat had carved lines across the coat...
George Part Five: Rhodes The Conqueror’s Ring The coast of the Morea rolled by, an endless succession of small, excellent harbours cut into tawny rock by the ancient gods of the sea. The Blessed Saint John cut the water like the slim predator she was, and her oarsmen grunted softly as they pulle...
He sent the squadrons off, one each day, while he continued to wrangle with the hipparch of Pantecapaeum and wrote detailed orders for the city allies. Leucon took the elite first troop on the day after the festival. They were ready, still hard from the visit to the Sakje, and eager for it. Kine...
Is the tale so good? Or the opposite – so dull that you need supporters to get you through it? You are not the first young woman I have known, honey. Don’t let the power of your sex go to your head, or you’ll be one of those ambitious harridans who haunt our tragedies. Don’t give your love to eve...
The sun reflected on the clouds and down on the darkening sea, a sheet of bronze over a sea of blood.Arete and Atlantae were not the only ships crewed by heroes – this was evidenced by the fact that the titanic enemy tenner had got her fires out, off to windward, and the column of smoke was carri...