Rome 549 AD. Forced to flee the city, merchant Nicander and legionary Marius escape to a new life in Constantinople. Determined to make their fortune, they plot a number of outrageous money-making schemes, until they chance upon their greatest idea yet. Armed with an audacious plan to steal precious silk seeds from the faraway land of Seres, Nicander and Marius must embark upon a terrifying and treacherous journey across unknown realms. But first they must deceive the powerful ruler Justinian and the rest of his formidable Byzantine Empire in order to begin their voyage into the unknown. In an adventurous tale of mischief and deception, Nicander and Marius face danger of the highest order, where nothing in the land of the Roman Empire is quite what it seems.