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I didn't like this when I was younger, and reading it now, I have no idea why. It's the usual fare for Rosemary Sutcliff: a well researched story set in post-Roman Britain, drawing on real sources -- Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia, mostly, but perhaps also Wace and Layamon's Bruts. It concerns the parts pre-Arthur -- Hengist and Horsa, Vortigern and Ambrosius... It begins just as the Romans leave Britain for the last time, and covers a period of pushing back against the Saxons and their kind. T
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This was... well, this was a depressing one. Rome's final retreat from Britain, as narrated by Aquila, Rome's last (deserting) officer in Britain, as he tries to find things to live for after being enslaved, having his father killed and his home ruined, escaping, finding that his sister is happy with her new Saxon husband, and so on and so forth. Eventually he throws in his lot with Ambrosius and (the future king) Artos, and he takes his turn to try to "hold back the dark for one more night." (I
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