Two young people escape enslavement together and run. One is the daughter of a celtic tribe leader and the other is the slave of Sextus Julius Frontius, Roman governor of Britain.

The two run, not really sure where they are running to, and meet a range of people on their journey: shepherds who feed them; young drunken men who have to be fooled and a couple who hunt, eat and wear beavers. At last they come to the sea only to be met by Frontius.

Olwen is taken away, Quintus remains a slave but having been free no longer wants to be. And so he slips past the guard and heads for the sea where he sets off swimming.

This book reminded me of The Vaster Wilds by Lauren Groff. It's another journey across land by an enslaved person from a writer who is known, and who I love, for his depictions of the landscape and animals. Like Groff, Pears' characters are there to be put back into history those who have been ignored. By bring people from two different cultures together, Pears can explain the bumps in the land and the behaviours of animals but it does become a bit lecture-y at times.

I didn't feel that this book was as good as his West Country trilogy - it feels more like a young adult book - and whilst it combines all of the things that Pears writes so well about, for me, it misses the mark. ( )

Proud chieftan's daughter Olwen is made part of a peace settlement with the invading Roman forces. However Olwen has other thoughts and escapes from the camp taking slave Quintus with her. Quintus is from the other side of the empire and has an ear for languages, the two try to flee across Wales learning to survive in the countryside and reach the sea in the hope of finding passage abroad. But Olwen has unleashed the might of Roman revenge on herself and her people.
This is a quite short novel which packs a real punch. The story of the two escapees come lovers is simple enough but woven around this tale are two huge themes. The first one is the inheritance of the Welsh and the Celtic myths of their homeland which are presented as the story of Olwen's forebears and incorporate druidic culture. The second is the love of the Welsh countryside, described in detail and woven around the narrative. ( )

I really wanted to like this book, but alas it was not to be. The story is set in the period when Rome has invaded Britannia and is steadily pushing west bringing more tribes to heel by force or diplomacy. It follows a celtic princess who is married off to the Roman governor as part of a peace deal, she however has other ideas. Instead on her wedding night she flees the camp taking with her a slave translator. We then follow their journey across country to the river Severn and across into Wales. And that is pretty much it. There are a few nice descriptions of landscape but otherwise the journey is rather pointless and by the time we reached the end I was very glad to see the back of the two fugitives.

There is a reason why I am always nervous of historical-fiction, the somewhat flagrant disregard for basic facts, this book was no exception. Take for example our meeting with a lone druid and his apprentice who have a Totem pole! So we have imported indigenous North American practices into Gloucestershire where there is not a shred of evidence the native Britons has anything even equivalent. The town our interpreting slave came from didn't get subsumed into the Roman Empire until the following century and were hostile to Rome at the time, and the Roman governor never visited being too busy playing politics in Europe. Basic fact checking would have resolved these and many other issues.

An interesting premise poorly executed. ( )