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EMPEROR: THE FIELD OF SWORDS
A Delacorte Press Book / March 2005

Published by
Bantam Dell
A Division of Random House, Inc.
New York, New York

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved
Copyright (c) 2005 by Conn Iggulden

Delacorte Press is a registered trademark of Random House, Inc., and the colophon is a trademark of Random House, Inc.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Iggulden, Conn.
Emperor : the field of swords / Conn Iggulden
p. cm.-(The Emperor series)
eISBN 0-440-33527-2
1. Caesar, Julius-Fiction. 2. Romans-Great Britain-Fiction. 3. Romans-France-Fiction. 4. Generals-Fiction. 5. Great Britain-History-Roman period, 55 B.C.-449 A.D.-Fiction. 6. Gaul-History-Gallic Wars, 58-51 B.C.-Fiction. 7. Biographical fiction. 8. Historical fiction. 9. War stories.

PR6109.G47 E466 2005
823/.92 22
2004058248

www.bantamdell.com

v1.0

BY CONN IGGULDEN
Emperor: The Gates of Rome
Emperor: The Death of Kings
Emperor: The Field of Swords

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Part of the pleasure of writing a series of four books is being able to thank all those who need thanking before the story ends. Susan Watt is one of those-a great lady whose expertise and energy made the rough run smooth.
In addition, I would like to thank Toni and Italo D'Urso, who let me use the old Amstrad computer in their corridor for years and years without a word of complaint. Eventually, out of good manners, I married their daughter. I owe them.

To my daughter, Mia, and my wife, Ella

CHAPTER 1

Julius stood by the open window, gazing out over Spanish hills. The setting sun splashed gold along a distant crest so that it seemed to hang in the air unsupported, a vein of light in the distance. Behind him, the murmur of conversation rose and fell without interrupting his thoughts. He could smell honeysuckle on the breeze, and the touch of it in his nostrils made his own rank sweat even more pungent as the delicate fragrance shifted in the air and was gone.
It had been a long day. When he pressed a hand against his eyes, he could feel a surge of exhaustion rise in him like dark water. The voices in the campaign room mingled with the creak of chairs and the rustle of maps. How many hundreds of evenings had he spent on the upper floor of the fort with those men? The routine had become a comfort for them all at the end of a day, and even when there was nothing to discuss, they still gathered in the campaign rooms to drink and talk. It kept Rome alive in their minds and at times they could almost forget that they had not seen their home for more than four years.
At first, Julius had embraced the problems of the regions and hardly thought of Rome for months at a time. The days had flown as he rose and slept with the sun and the Tenth made towns in the wilderness. On the coast, Valentia had been transformed with lime and wood and paint until it was almost a new city veneered over the old. They had laid roads to chain the land and bridges that opened the wild hills to settlers. Julius had worked with a frenetic, twitching energy in those first years, using exhaustion like a drug to force away his memories. Then he would sleep and Cornelia would come to him. Those were the nights when he would leave his sweat-soaked bed and ride out to the watch posts, appearing out of the darkness unannounced until the Tenth were as nervous and tired as he was himself.