Martin J P Davies is a retired English teacher. He won essay prizes at ages eleven and eighteen, the age group he was to teach. He read BA Hons English and later PhD at Leicester University, MA Ed at Sussex, and Cert Ed at Bath. He wrote a series of one-act plays, winning local prizes and two national awards for ‘Moonset over Zeron’. His thesis on Hardy is published by Archeopress.
During adolescence, with all its pains and joys, Matthew and Emma meet just once. Higher education, careers, and some adult traumas lead them on very different paths – except for one sad encounter – until circumstance and providence bring them both to a fateful moment of meeting at the Roman fort of Vindolanda near Hadrian’s Wall, not far from where Matthew almost died some years previously. Meanwhile at Vindolanda, the secret correspondence between a legionary standard-bearer and a lady of rank remains hidden deep in the charred earth beneath the Roman fort awaiting the archaeologist’s trowel …
