Description
Two-Eight-Six runs as two parallel narratives, with the late Roman navy in Britain its centrepiece.
As several years from now, in a Europe on the brink of meltdown, a pair of Newcastle lawyers escape for their annual trip to Italy’s fabled road-race: the ‘Mille Miglia’. William Cariss, MEP & naval reservist, with his friend Michael Triton – driving car ‘286’. For old time’s sake & a bit of harmless fun, but why Bill keeps disappearing during the race won’t emerge until after the finish. As they struggle back to England through a world whose computers are down, its infrastructure failing, that struggle is only the start of it. Prelude to finding a Home Secretary’s minder or the Carabinieri are not the only ones who harbour old grudges – want to dig up the past.
Another time, another era – soon strangely familiar: AD 286. As a junior military tribune his admiral nicknames ‘Triton’ gets drawn into an entire continent of social unrest. Monetary collapse & political crises, inflation & taxation. The flight of refugees and raiders from the sea, forced march of armies. And that mentor he so admires, Mauseus Carausius, the Belgic river pilot who defies an empire, commands whole fleets and legions. The usurper who, if only for a moment, transforms their Britannia into an island of refuge in a rising sea of dangers, stands condemned as ‘The Pirate’.
Asymmetric & awful – 286. The number that binds them across two separate eras. Future or past, it amounts to the same. Two men against Europe, one woman between them. What calculation save them?
