The Fullness Of Time

In the three centuries between the death of Alexander the Great and that of Cleopatra, the last Queen of Egypt, the land of the Pharaohs was ruled by the Ptolemaic dynasty, descendants of one of Alexander's generals. Our story begins with a daughter of this dynasty and her pest of a brother in the Royal Palace of Alexandria, when the legacy of the great conqueror reaches them in an unexpected way.

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We return to Alexandria in the reign of the Roman emperor Hadrian. Egypt has been a Roman province for a century and a half and the city's aristocracy of wealthy Greek landowners have close ties with their new overlords across the Middle Sea. One more knot is about to be tied between them, but this feisty scholar of the Serapeum is adamant she will do it her own way.

Available 2021

The Roman province of Cilicia is about to welcome a new proconsul, coming by way of Corinth on a leisurely sail down the coasts of the Middle Sea. There is a king in Cilicia too, powerless and failing, and anxious about safeguarding the future of his only daughter against the predatory ploys of the Empire. The daughter, for her part, would rather think only of her plants and flowers, and the anthology of their uses.

On the eastern fringes of the Roman Empire, the Sasanian dynasty has replaced the Parthians in the role of arch-rivals to the power in the west. A brother and sister from the ancient Greek kingdom of Bactria, further east, have joined the inner circle of the Sasanian Crown Prince and risen in the ranks of the new dynasty, as a military campaign prepares to challenge the western neighbours.

The Empire of Rome is no more and, west of the Alpis Graia, the Kingdom of the Burgundians now holds sway. The real action is happening to its north, where the Franks, erstwhile allies, are making menacing moves. On the slopes above the old Roman settlement of Bergintrum, an outpost watches over the mountain pass, and the young lady of this lonely fastness prepares for welcome and unwelcome visitors.

The Kingdoms of the Franks, fractured amongst the descendants of Charles the Great Emperor, extend from the borders of Denmark to the Alps and Pyrenees. Yet this has not prevented the arrival of new settlers from Danish lands on the shores of the Bay of the River Seine, leaving the old Frankish and Gallo-Roman families split on whether they are an opportunity or a threat.