Gaius Valerius Verrens has been disgraced. Dishonoured and banished. To return to Rome would be to face certain death. Such a punishment would break a lesser man, but Valerius knows his only hope of survival and the restoration of his family's fortunes lies with his friend Titus, son of the newly crowned Emperor Vespasian, and now commander of the Arny of Judaea. And so the former military tribune journeys east and into the heart of a brutal and savage rebellion.