9 AD e. Jesus Christ has already been born, but few have heard of him yet... The Roman Empire stretched from Britain to the Black Sea. Germany, a newly minted province, serves as the scene of a clash between civilization and barbarism. The Germanic tribes, mired in mutual enmity, are forced to sort out their relations not by force of arms, but in Roman courts. The legate of the Seventeenth Legion, Lucius Demetrius Celeste, the elder brother of the young Roman patrician Gaius, dies at the hands of unknown assassins. Now Guy has to go on a dangerous journey to find and punish the murderers of Lucius, and at the same time find out why a figurine of a small bird made of silver metal was clutched in his brother’s fingers at the moment of death... Beware, barbarians! The Seventeenth Legion has a new legate.