This is the first of a trilogy of historical novels set during the so called "Dark Ages" around the time of and after the collapse of the Western Roman Empire. A Roman youth Marcus is sent on a mission to the eastern Roman Emperor Honorius at the time when Alaric's Visigoths are threatening the sack of Rome (410 AD). The narrative vehicle of this novel, one which seems to have not gone down well with some readers if Amazon reviews are anything to go by, is as if it were an early Medieval chronicle, being told by the tutor of the future Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II, to his young charge, with interpolations by other scholars in later centuries. This is quite an erudite literary conceit, which I can appreciate, but which will not appeal to all readers and which does result in a novel that gets bogged down by digressions and with a narrative studded with highly improbable incidents, as was the case with a lot of Medieval literature, where the boundary between history and fantasy/legend was often blurred, not generally for any sinister reasons, but due to the prevailing Medieval worldview. Overall, I enjoyed it, and will probably read the sequels (which concern King Arthur and then Charlemagne). ( )