Mystery Fiction General Nicholas Flimby and Marcus Townsend, are friends when Marcus telephones Nicholas about a snippet of news in the paper regarding a sword found on a farm near the River Taw in Devon. this triggers a long forgotten memory about Nicholas' father who was present at the raising of a Viking ship many years before and a sword that was found near the Viking ship together with his friend, Professor Andrew Philpott who had just died and left all his estate to Marcus' University. This sets Nicholas and Marcus on a journey back through time when Nicholas finds the name of a Roman centurion, Paulus, amongst the dead professor's papers at the time of the Boudicca rebellion when the Iceni razed Colchester to the ground after she had been savagely whipped and her two daughters brutally raped and, where she virtually wipes out the Roman infantry. Nicholas discovers the story of Paulus, who the Romans tried to erase from history and how he became a gladiator right under the Romans noses.