Mary's Bookcase : Have a sneak-peek between the covers of Roman Equestrian I: Venator by A. M. Swink

Roman Equestrian I: Venator
By A. M. Swink

Publication Date: July 16th, 2024

Publisher: Historium Press

Page: 464 Pages

Genre: Historical Romance

Britannia, AD 59. Decimus is a long-serving senior centurion who dreams of retirement in Rome. Luciana is a Cornovii princess devoted to the freedom and survival of her tribe. Connected only by a passion for horsemanship, the pair could not be more ill-matched. After a deadly conflict thrusts these enemies together, each is determined to fight their desires and triumph over the other. Who will ultimately control the other’s heart?

But Decimus and Luciana are not the only ones on the hunt for supremacy; a desperate struggle over the province is beginning to simmer to a boil. There are whispers of mysterious Druids fomenting unrest among the western British tribes, whose inter-tribal divisions threaten to subsume them. The future of the Roman legions in the province is suddenly thrown into doubt as casualties begin to mount. Decimus and Luciana find themselves entangled within a web of characters, Briton and Roman, playing with Britannia’s destiny to serve their own ends.

The hunt for power is on, where only one side can emerge triumphant. But just who among these hunters will end up hunted?

Excerpt

Cassia watched the water of the Sabrina rippling before her. She stood on the bank, fists clenched, concentrating on the spot where the river had swallowed her angry offering.

‘Are you happy now?! Are you happy?! I don’t want it anymore!’ Angry tears flowed down the rivulets they’d carved into her painted cheeks. ‘Not at your price!’

She panted, staring bleakly up into the silent trees looming on the opposite bank. She’d wandered downriver for quite a stretch, making sure she was far enough away from the vicus and its shallow wharves for nobody to see or hear her. The relative seclusion of the overgrown bank she’d chosen received and deadened her cries.

Cassia clutched at the palla wrapped about her head and sank down into the stiff, broken reeds. She watched the water burble past her feet, offering no acknowledgement of her presence or, indeed, her gift.

Her fingers numbly curled around the thick rushes and snatched them up from the earth. With an anguished shriek, she threw the reeds into the water as well and watched them swirl away with the current. ‘And don’t expect any sort of dedication, either! You can’t bring him back, so you’re lucky that’s all you get!’

A wood pigeon cooed from the shadows of the treeline. Cassia looked up, shoulders heaving, searching the cloudy sky. She didn’t know what British deities might have attached themselves to this river; she knew that the natives both here and in Germania felt the need to sacrifice items of high value to their bodies of water, so there must be something here. When it came to Roman gods, she wasn’t sure if they could even hear her at all in this heathen wasteland. If the Fates could hear her now, she was sure they’d be cackling.

She sighed and dropped her head into her hands. Her palla slipped from around her shoulders and collapsed in the reeds behind her. Ultimately, it didn’t matter if any gods, British or Roman, heard her or not. Cato wasn’t coming back. He was gone. Forever. Her only brother, her only sibling, the only person who shared a bond forged from the very beginning of their respective lives with her.

Her only family, gone.

She drew her knees up against her chest and furiously wiped her tears against the cotton folds of her toga. A pang of remorse tore through her as she rested her quivering chin upon her knees and studied the muddy brown currents. It had been foolhardy of her to throw it in the river; it wasn’t going to change anything for Cato, and it might have successfully…

No. It was too late. It belonged to the barbarian river gods now. Best not to think about it.

She sniffed, considering her bleak fate. She was all alone in this world now. Her sole remaining bond was with Decimus, a man so insensitive to love he’d failed to see in the last twenty years how deeply she’d always cared for him.

‘You could at least give me that much,’ she mumbled to the river. ‘If you can’t give me back Cato, at least let me have Decimus. And I don’t mean physically, either.’

She scowled, folding further into herself. She had been his very first, the person who’d initiated him into the world of sexual fulfilment. It was just her luck that he’d learned to treat it as coldly and clinically as she herself had been forced to.

‘It never meant nothing to me,’ she whispered into her tunic. ‘Never with him. Not ever.’

And Cassia had bedded Decimus plenty since that first time. A grim smile pulled at the corners of her mouth as she remembered following him to the Rhenus valley, setting herself up as Charis’s star attraction in the canaba of army followers. She’d witnessed her dear friend take his first steps into battle and celebrated gleefully upon his safe return. He’d come to her after being blooded from his first successful hunt, still brimming with manly pride. She’d oiled his sore chest after his promotion to the centurionate and its attendant rites, and again after he’d withstood the initiation into his mysterious cult of Mithras. She’d laughed with him over the ineptitude of his fellow legionaries and delighted in his wry impressions of the officers. She’d succoured him in loss. She’d dutifully brought and fed broth to him on his sickbed. He’d shared his confidences with her and they had mutually commiserated over the state of German food, sweltering German summers, and the horrific guttural tongue of the savage Germanic peoples. Then, she’d had to swiftly return to Rome to attend to family matters…

…And when she’d reunited with Decimus two years later, it was in a place somehow even worse than Germania: Manduessedum.

She drew in a shuddering sigh, casting her mind back over the years to when she’d first sighted the centurion in Britannia. He’d changed, oh, how he’d changed! Gone was the gentle light with which he’d always spoken to her; gone was his charm and sense of humour; gone was his companionable chatter. He was cold. He was brusque. He was disfigured with horrific scars he’d earned in the invasion. Even on the rare occasion when he’d felt the need to visit her bed, his loveless lovemaking had become crueller. And, worst of all, he remained emotionally closed to her. Her, his dearest friend!

Cassia sniffed, mouth curled down into its customary pout. Britannia had stripped Decimus of any remaining vestiges of youth and happiness. And she hated the place for it.

Perhaps this dreaded isle was cursed. It had certainly brought her nothing but misery.

‘Give him back,’ she intoned to whatever water spirits might be listening, ‘whoever you are, whatever you are called, preserve us and tolerate us both on your shores for just six seasons more, then I promise we will leave and never trouble you again. Let us leave and release your hold upon him. Give me back the Decimus you took.’

She lurched slowly onto her feet, brushing the reeds from her toga. Charis’s business would be heating up shortly and Cassia would catch it from the madam if she wasn’t ready to ply her services at the moment when every other younger, prettier prostitute was already occupied. She set her narrow shoulders and readjusted the drape of her toga over her tunic.

Before leaving, she leant over the bank and peered into the water. Her reflection rearranged itself into her brother’s freckled face and she choked on her grief once more.

‘It’s the least you can do for me now!’

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A. M. Swink

A native of Dayton, Ohio, A.M. Swink grew up obsessed with two things: books and horses. After a childhood of reading, writing, showing, and riding, she moved to Lexington, Kentucky to complete a degree in equine science and management and a degree in English literary studies. She now works in Lexington as a college professor of reading and writing. In her spare time, she has travelled extensively around the UK and Ireland, exploring ancient sites and artefacts, as well as tracing her own ancestry. She is proud to be descended from County Cork’s Callaghan clan.

When not writing, she can be found collecting and showing model horses or enjoying her favourite British comedy programmes.

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