Poison at the Cavalry Waystation
A Medical Thriller of Ancient Rome

About this book:

On the lawless northern fringe of the Roman Empire, the cavalry horses of Ad Horrea are dying—no fever, no cough, just a silent, creeping paralysis of the gut and blood. When Nikandros of Larissa, a sharp-tongued Greek *hippiatros* with a satchel of Alexandria’s rarest pharmacopeia, arrives to investigate, he finds a fortress simmering with mutiny, Germanic auxiliaries, and a commander desperate enough to hang the messenger. But the poison isn't in the grain. It's in the salt, measured out by a steady hand, and the trail leads straight from the stable yard to the quartermaster's ledger—and into a conspiracy that could hand the frontier to the enemy.

Blending the forensic rigor of a medical procedural with the grit of a frontier western, *Poison at the Cavalry Waystation* immerses you in a world where a horse’s pulse is the only honest witness, and the line between medicine and murder is drawn in hellebore root. Nikandros reads a stable like a crime scene, diagnosing toxins by the shiver of a flank and the gray of a gum, but his science is a foreign religion to the legionaries who would rather blame the gods. As the sickness spreads to the men who rode those mounts, the doctor must navigate a labyrinth of tribal hatreds, corrupted supply lines, and a decurion’s crumbling honor to synthesize an antidote before the next patrol rides out—never to return.

Perfect for fans of Lindsey Davis, Steven Saylor, and C.J. Sansom, this is historical thriller at its most visceral: the smell of wet straw and hot iron, the weight of a lance in a Germanic fist, the bitter taste of a toxin that kills by inches. Nikandros is a hero for the ages—cynical, compassionate, and armed only with knowledge that Rome has forgotten. The Via Augusta has never been this dangerous, and the cure is hidden in the dust.