The Mark of the Horselord

Phaedrus the slave knows little other than the brotherly companionship of the Gladiator's School, but even so he can stifle sentiment and kill his own best friend in an ordered fight to the death before a blood-lusting Roman crowd. By this deed he earns his freedom, which he promptly swaps for another kind of servitude. His physical likeness to the fugitive, blinded Horse Lord. Midir is seized upon by Gaelic desperadoes to overthrew the reigning She-Vixen Monarch, whereby Phaedrus becomes trapped in a sequence of events that lead to another kind of mortal danger and a different kind of desperate companionship. The descriptions are lengthy and vivid, the ton is authoritative and heroic and the plot gradually, smoothly unfolds like scenes on a tapestry of ancient working. School libraries should stock such a book if only for that once-in-a-while reader who wants to and can, savour that special writing magic which is Rosemary Sutcliff's hallmark.