A Man at Arms : W.W. Norton and Company : 9780393540970 : 0393540979 : 02 Apr 2021 : "From the bestselling author of Gates of Fire comes an historical epic about the early years of the Roman Empire. A Man at Arms is a Western set in Jerusalem and the Sinai desert in the first century AD, a few years after the crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth. The villains are the Romans. They're in pursuit of a courier bearing an incendiary letter from Paul the Apostle. For agents of Rome, this letter represents an existential threat that will propagate a new faith and a new form of resistance among those who suffer under the heel of the Roman Empire. The Romans hire a mercenary named Telamon, formerly of the Roman Tenth Legion, to interdict and destroy the letter. Telamon only fights for money. He's been guaranteed a rich reward, but he must not fail because the punishment for failure is death by crucifixion"--