Two souls bound together but lost in time. Until now.
Duro of the Iceni tribe escaped life as an enslaved gladiator and is now finally home in Britannia with one thing on his mind: vengeance. For 20 years he has sought the Roman legionary who destroyed his family. What he didn’t expect was Gisel: a fierce Germanic woman with long white-blonde hair, forced into slavery by the Romans. Hypnotised by her spirit and her beauty, Duro frees Gisel and slowly tries to win her trust as they work together to complete his quest.
Mackenna Jackson returns to Bath with a broken heart, thanks to rockstar Blue Daniels. Luckily she can still count on Blue’s former bandmate Jonah Miller as a listening ear. But Jonah has secretly been fighting stronger feelings, drawn to Mac’s quiet confidence and gorgeous white-blonde hair. As they explore the area, memories they can’t quite explain flood them both.
Is the spark between Mac and Jonah in fact a sign of something much deeper – a love enduring through millennia – or can it all be an illusion?
[The hero returning home to Britannia in AD 80 after nineteen years as a Roman slave]
Iceni lands (north-east Norfolk), late May AD 80
Duro couldn’t believe he was actually riding across the flat landscape of his ancestral tribe, the Iceni, at last. It seemed unreal that he was finally here. He had dreamed about it for so long, he didn’t trust his senses when they told him he wasn’t asleep. He shivered in the bracing wind, but he didn’t mind the cold. After so many years living under the hot Campanian sun in Pompeii, he relished the cool air caressing his face. Had longed for it during unbearable, stifling nights in the gladiator barracks room he’d shared with his friend Raedwald. Even the drizzle of fine raindrops couldn’t dampen his spirits.
He was almost home.
Soon, the settlement came into view. Lazy drifts of smoke rose into the air, trickling through the tall, conical thatched roofs of the collection of roundhouses. He headed along a rough track towards the enclosure. A ditch and a wattle fence encircled the cluster of buildings, vegetable plots and animal pens. There were sounds of activity, and familiar cooking scents wafted on the breeze towards him. He took a deep breath and smiled when he recognised it for what it was – the smell of home.
The main gate stood open, and a couple of dogs came running, barking to alert the inhabitants to his presence. Someone had already spotted him and he wasn’t surprised to find a group of people waiting for him outside the largest of the roundhouses. As he dismounted, he scanned the men standing before him, their expressions ranging from wary to outright hostile. Dressed in baggy woollen trousers and colourful long-sleeved tunics, there were about a dozen of them, from callow youths to middle-aged men. The one standing in the centre looked familiar, and Duro fixed his gaze on him and smiled.
‘Commios?’ he guessed, seeing some of his own features reflected in the face before him.
He received only a scowl in return until a woman gasped and rushed out from behind the men. Her multicoloured tunic flapped around her spare frame, and long grey plaits whirled as she threw herself at him. ‘Durobelinos, by all the gods! Is it really you?’
‘Maerica!’ He caught her around the waist and swung her in a circle, laughing. She was older, and somehow faded and frail, but he’d recognise her anywhere. She’d been his mother’s best friend and had often helped to look after Duro and his siblings. She had always been kind.
‘Durobelinos? My . . . brother?’ Commios had taken a tentative step forward and was peering at him as if he couldn’t believe his eyes. ‘I . . . We thought you long dead.’
Duro put the old lady down gently and turned back to the others, who had now been joined by several more women and a few curious children. ‘No, as you can see, I am alive and well. I’ve spent many years as a Roman slave, but I am a freedman at last. I have come to see how you all fare.’
‘And to take over as chieftain?’
Duro raised his brows at his brother’s belligerent question. It would seem his homecoming wasn’t welcomed by everyone, but then he hadn’t expected it to be easy. ‘Not necessarily,’ he said, keeping his tone even. ‘But I do now own the land you are farming and inhabiting.’
He had paid the relatively cheap sum of three thousand silver denarii for the large tract of land just a few weeks ago. Following the unsuccessful Boudican revolt some twenty years ago, much of the Iceni territory was now under Roman control. It was supremely satisfying to have bought back even a fraction.
‘What do you mean?’ One of the other men moved forward to stand next to Commios. ‘This is our land. We pay rent to the Romans fair and square.’
As punishment for taking part in Queen Boudica’s rebellion, Iceni tribesmen had had ownership of their ancestral lands taken away from them by the Roman conquerors. They had been allowed to go back and live there, on condition that they pay rent and taxes to their overlords.
‘You did, but now they have sold it to me outright, so apart from the taxes we are all burdened with, you won’t be paying them in future,’ he told them.
His statement was greeted with a glare of downright mistrust from his brother, and silence from everyone else. Commios appeared to be the designated chieftain of this settlement. His resentment of someone barging in was understandable, especially since Duro, being the eldest, had the right to demand to take over. Never mind the fact that the land was his by purchase. That was not his intention, though. At least, not immediately. He’d come prepared to tread softly.
He held up his hands in a peace gesture. ‘Look, I am not here to take charge. I only sought to relieve you all of the burden of the Roman yoke. Wouldn’t you rather the land was owned by one of us than by the usurpers? I’m not expecting anyone to pay me rent, but I would be grateful for a place to stay and a portion of the produce. I will, of course, do my fair share of the work while I’m here.’
‘What do you mean, while you’re here? You’re not staying then?’ Was that relief in Commios’s voice? It saddened Duro that his little brother wasn’t as happy to see him alive as he himself was to find at least one relative intact.
‘Not immediately, no,’ he replied. ‘I have had many years to think about the fate that befell our family. I seek revenge. I was forced to watch when a Roman cur disrespected our mother and sister, and I remember him well.’ Disrespect was an understatement, but the others all knew what he meant and there was no point spelling it out. ‘I heard his name and know which legion he was part of. I have sworn an oath to the gods that if he is still alive, I will find him and make him pay for his misdeeds.’ He paused to take a deep breath, tamping down the emotions swirling inside him as they always did when he thought about what had happened.
He turned to Maerica and resolutely changed the subject. ‘Would you happen to have any of your famous stew in the pot? I’m fair famished.’
‘Of course! What am I thinking?’ Maerica tugged on his sleeve. ‘Come inside, do, and I’ll serve you in a trice.’
‘Thank you.’ He smiled at her. It was nice that someone was happy to see him. Hopefully he’d win the others over gradually, and Commios would simmer down once he realised Duro wasn’t here to oust him from his position as chief. He just had to persuade him that was the truth.
Christina Courtenay writes historical romance, time slip/dual time and time travel stories, and lives in Herefordshire (near the Welsh border) in the UK. Although born in England, she has a Swedish mother and was brought up in Sweden – hence her abiding interest in the Vikings. Christina is a Vice President and former Chair and of the UK’s Romantic Novelists’ Association and has won several awards, including the RoNA for Best Historical Romantic Novel twice with Highland Storms (2012) and The Gilded Fan (2014) and the RNA Fantasy Romantic Novel of the year 2021 with Echoes of the Runes. SHADOWS IN THE SPRING (dual time historical romance published by Headline Review 24th April 2025) is her latest novel. Christina is a keen amateur genealogist and loves history and archaeology (the armchair variety).
