Under the Eagle

In AD 42, Quintus Licinius Cato arrives on the Rhine frontier as a new recruit to the Second Legion, among the hardest units in the Roman army. He is a bookish young man with imperial connections, and he is promoted a rank above the other recruits. They resent him for it, which makes camp life harder.

Cato is second-in-command to Macro, the centurion who leads their century. Macro is fearless and scarred from battle, and he has to turn a reluctant newcomer into a soldier.

Then the legion is ordered to join Emperor Claudius's invasion of Britain. Cato and Macro are given a separate task: to find a Roman pay chest that has gone missing.

The search pulls them into a conspiracy aimed at the Emperor himself. This is a military historical novel and the first book in the Eagles of the Empire series, which tracks Cato and Macro as a pair through many corners of the Roman world. The question at the start is whether a man the ranks despise can earn their trust before the plot reaches Claudius.