In 9 CE, Jesus Christ has already been born, but few people have heard of Him yet… The Roman Empire stretches from Britain to the Black Sea. Germany, freshly minted as a province, becomes the setting where civilization clashes with barbarism. Germanic tribes, mired in mutual hostility, are forced to settle their scores not with weapons, but in Roman courts. From the hands of unknown killers, Lucius Demetrius Caelestinus, the legate of the Seventeenth Legion, is killed—older brother of the young Roman patrician Gaius. Now Gaius must embark on a dangerous journey to find and punish Lucius’s killers, and at the same time learn why, at the moment of his brother’s death, a small silver-metal bird figurine is clenched in his fingers… Beware, barbarians! A new legate has appeared in the Seventeenth Legion.