From AudioFile Historical fiction by a master storyteller immerses the listener in the time when Rome ruled Britain, and occupying legions and local tribes led tenuous and volatile lives. Charlie Simpson provides an outstanding fully voiced narration of this story of friendship and family. Marcus Aquila, on his first centurion command, learns about the harshness of battle. His adventurous journey to learn the fate of his father’s Ninth Legion and its insignia, the Eagle, brings excitement and danger. Characters of varying backgrounds and classes are enhanced by Simpson’s vocal variations. The abridgment suffers some obvious gaps; however, of a printed booklet gives good historical background. L.D.H. (c) AudioFile 2007, Portland, Maine– Copyright (c) AudioFile, Portland, Maine Product Description This is a story set in Roman Britain. Marcus Flavius Aquila, a young centurion is forced into retirement after a wound in his first major engagement against a rebel British tribe. It allows him the freedom to embark upon a dangerous mission to find out what happened to the Ninth Legion which, years before, disappeared in the savage lands of the Picts. Will he find out what happened to the men, led by his father, who never returned? And will he recover the Eagle, the symbol of Roman dominance and power? Review “Sutcliff has a genius for the re-creation of an historical period.” –Horn Book Reflections”An unusual blend of stirring action and poetic symbolism. Authentic in background, skillful in plot, and perceptive in characterization.” –Booklist”Imaginatively conceived.” –The New Yorker”Decades later, I can still hear echoes of The Eagle of the Ninth in my head: the chink of mail, the tired beat of the legionaries’ feet.” –The Independent”What a splendid story it is, compulsive reading!” –Junior Bookshelf About the Author Rosemary Sutcliff (1920-1992) wrote dozens of books for young readers, including her award-winning Roman Britain trilogy, The Eagle of the Ninth, The Silver Branch, and The Lantern Bearers, which won the Carnegie Medal. The Eagle of the Ninth is now a major motion picture, The Eagle, directed by Kevin MacDonald and starring Channing Tatum. Born in Surrey, Sutcliff spent her childhood in Malta and on various other naval bases where her father was stationed. At a young age, she contracted Still’s Disease, which confined her to a wheelchair for most of her life. Shortly before her death, she was named Commander of the British Empire (CBE) one of Britain’s most prestigious honors. She died in West Sussex, England, in 1992. Excerpt. (c) Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. IFrontier FortFrom the Fosseway westward to Isca Dumnoniorum the road was simply a British trackway, broadened and roughly metalled, strengthened by corduroys of logs in the softest places, but otherwise unchanged from its old estate, as it wound among the hills, thrusting farther and farther into the wilderness.It was a busy road and saw many travellers: traders with bronze weapons and raw yellow amber in their ponies’ packs; country folk driving shaggy cattle or lean pigs from village to village; sometimes a band of tawny-haired tribesmen from farther west; strolling harpers and quack-oculists too, or a light-stepping hunter with huge wolf-hounds at his heel; and from time to time a commissariat wagon going up and down to supply the Roman frontier post. The road saw them all, and the cohorts of the Eagles for whom all other travellers must make way.There was a cohort of leather-clad auxiliaries on the road today, swinging along at the steady Legion’s pace that had brought them down from Isca Silurium at twenty miles a day; the new garrison coming to relieve the old one at Isca Dumnoniorum. On they went, following the road that now ran out on a causeway between sodden marsh and empty sky, now plunged into deep boar-hunted forest, or lifted over bleak uplands where nothing grew save furze and thorn-scrub. O