The Mask of Command

by Ian Ross Book 4 in the Twilight of Empire series.

First published 2017

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4.5(728)

AD 317–318. Six years after the struggle for Rome, the uneasy division of imperial power is failing again. Aurelius Castus is sent to take command on the Rhine after murder and rebellion destabilise the western frontier. The promotion gives him wider authority, but it also leaves him responsible for a region where military rivalry, local loyalties and imperial politics are difficult to separate.

Two boys become central to the crisis: Crispus, Constantine’s eldest son and newly appointed Caesar, and Castus’s own son Sabinus. Protecting them forces Castus to confront conspiracies that reach beyond the frontier and to judge commanders whose allegiance cannot be taken for granted. Ross turns the responsibilities of senior command into the novel’s central tension, showing how the future of Constantine’s dynasty and Castus’s family can depend on decisions made amid incomplete information and divided loyalties.