The ancient towns of Roman Britain are still there, but they all have English names now. What follows is a guide to phonetic pronunciation of Roman place names, with their modern equivalents. They are numbered to correspond to the map provided.
1
Londinium
[Lon-dinny-um]
London
2
Verulamium
[Verr-you-lame-eeyum]
St. Albans
3
Alchester
4
Glevum
[Glev-vum]
Gloucester
5
Aquae Sulis
[Ack-way Soo-liss]
Bath
6
Lindinis
[Linn-dinnis]
Ilchester
7
Sorviodunum
[Sorr-vee-yode-inum]
Old Sarum
8
Venta Belgarum
[Venta Bell-gah-rum]
Winchester
9
Noviomagus
[Novvy-oh-maggus]
Chichester
10
Durnovaria
[Durr-no-varr-eya]
Dorchester
11
Isca Dumnoniorum
[Isska Dumb-nonny-orum] Exeter
12
The Colony
13
Camulodunum
[Ca-moo-loadin-um]
Colchester
14
Lindum
[Lin-dum]
Lincoln
15
Eboracum
[Eh-borra-cum]
York
16
Mamucium
[Mah-moochy-um]
Manchester
17
Dolocauthi
[Dolla-cow-thee]
Welsh Gold Mines
18
Durovernum
[Doo-rove-err-num]
Canterbury
19
Regulbium
[Re-goolby-um]
Reculver
20
Rutupiae
[Roo-too-pee-ay]
Richborough
21
Dubris
[Doo-briss]
Dover
22
Lemanis
[Leh-mann-iss]
Lympne
23
Anderita
[An-der-reeta]
Pevensey
The Legend of the Skystone
Out of the night sky there will fall a stone
That hides a maiden born of murky deeps,
A maid whose fire-fed, female mysteries
Shall give life to a lambent, gleaming blade,
A blazing, shining sword whose potency
Breeds warriors. More than that,
This weapon will contain a woman's wiles
And draw dire deeds of men; shall name an age;
Shall crown a king, called of a mountain clan
Who dream of being spawned from dragon's seed;
Fell, forceful men, heroic, proud and strong,
With greatness in their souls.
This king, this monarch, mighty beyond ken,
Fashioned of glory, singing a song of swords,
Misting with magic madness mortal men,
Shall sire a legend, yet leave none to lead
His host to triumph after he be lost.
But death shall ne'er demean his destiny who,
Dying not, shall ever live and wait to be recalled.
PROLOGUE: 387 A.D.
The tribune recognized the first signs from more than a mile away, just as the road dropped down from the ridge to enter the trees: a whirlpool of hawks and carrion-eaters, spiraling above the treetops of the forest ahead of him. With a harsh command to his centurion to pick up the pace of his men, the officer kicked his horse forward, uncaring that he was leaving his infantry escort far behind. The swirling birds meant death; their numbers meant that they were above a clearing in the forest; and their continuing flight meant that they were afraid to land. Probably wolves. The tribune lowered the face-protector of his helmet to guard himself from whipping twigs and took his horse into the trees at a full gallop, sensing that all danger of ambush or opposition was long gone.
He heard wolves fighting among themselves while he was still far distant from them, and he kicked his horse to even greater speed, shouting at the top of his voice and making the maximum possible noise to distract them from their grisly feast. He had little doubt about what they were eating.
As he burst into the clearing, the wolves crowded together, bellies low to the ground, snarling and slavering as they faced the newcomer. He put his horse at them without hesitation, drawing his short-sword and slashing at them, his horse using its hooves in its own battle. The snarling fury of the pack quickly became a crescendo of yelps of pain and fear as horse and rider laid about them, and soon one, and then all of the lean, grey scavengers broke off the fight and fled to the protection of the bushes that surrounded the clearing.
When they had gone, out of sight among the bushes and safely beyond his reach, the tribune looked around at the scene he had ridden into. The clearing was dominated by one massive, ancient oak tree that had an arrangement of ropes and pulleys strung across one of its huge branches. One of these ropes reached to a ring fastened to a heavy stake that had been driven deep into the ground. The condition of the ground around the stake — the grass trodden flat and dead and scattered haphazardly with piles of human excrement — showed that someone had been confined there for many days. The bodies of three men, one of them absolutely naked, sprawled on the dusty, blood-spattered ground. Flies swarmed everywhere, attracted, like the birds and the wolves, by the smell of sun-warmed blood. The two clothed bodies had both been badly bitten about the face by the wolves, particularly the younger of the two, a blond man whose neck and throat had been slashed by a sword almost deeply enough to decapitate him.
The naked man lay face down, his left arm extended and ripped open on the underside, close to the shoulder, where one of the wolves had been chewing at it. There was another clear set of tooth-marks on the body's right thigh, although the bite had not been ripped away. The only blood visible on this corpse was pooled beneath it.
Incongruously, a rolled parchment scroll lay pinned beneath the outstretched arm of the naked body, and the tribune idly wondered what it contained. He threw his leg over his horse's neck and slid easily to the ground, where he collected the scroll, carefully making sure no blood touched it. That done, he rolled the corpse easily onto its back and gazed at the massive, eloquently fatal stab wound in the centre of its chest, just below the peak of the rib-cage. He snorted through his nostrils, then prised open the seal on the rolled parchment and began to read, whispering the words to himself to clarify the sense of them as he deciphered the densely packed characters. After the first few sentences, he stiffened and lifted his eyes to look at the dead man at his feet, then squatted, picked up the corpse's wrist and felt for a pulse. There was none. He dropped the hand, stood erect again and continued to read.
The sound of his men approaching at a dead run brought the tribune's head up. As they broke from the tree-lined path and drew up in two ranks facing him, he ordered them to spread out and chase away the wolves hiding in the undergrowth, offering a silver denarius for any wolf killed. The soldiers scattered enthusiastically to the chase, their centurion with them. The tribune watched them until they were out of sight, then returned to his interrupted reading, his lips once again moving almost soundlessly as he worked his way through the document. When he reached the end, he made a clicking sound with his tongue, glanced again at the naked corpse and then read through the entire scroll a second time, scanning the words more quickly this time, his face expressionless until he reached the end again, when his brow creased in a slight frown. He folded the scroll carefully several times, creasing the edges sharply to reduce the bulk of the packet thus formed, and tucked it securely beneath his cuirass. By the time his men returned to the clearing, he had remounted his horse and was deep in thought.