The Silver Branch

The Silver Branch
First edition cover
Publication	1957
Length	Novel
Audience	Young adult
Illustrations	Charles Keeping
Historical era	Roman
Series	The Dolphin Ring
← Previous	The Eagle of the Ninth
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The Silver Branch is a young adult novel published in 1957 by Oxford University Press, with illustrations by Charles Keeping. It follows a Roman army surgeon and an officer who discover a plot to overthrow the emperor Carausius and join an underground resistance after his assassination.

It is the second novel about the Flavius Aquila family chronologically and the third in publication order.

Plot

Justin, a young Roman Army surgeon who has just finished his apprenticeship, is assigned to the Second Legion in Britannia, a province whose breakaway native emperor Carausius has only just been brought back into the imperial fold by the western emperors Maximian and Constantius. On arriving at the Saxon Shore fort of Rutupiae, he encounters Flavius, a junior centurion, and they quickly discover that they are distant cousins. Justin is introduced to Carausius and to his Finance Minister Allectus, to whom he takes a dislike (1). Justin and Flavius see Allectus in the shop of Serapion, a perfume seller, whose insinuations that Allectus favours more lenient taxes than Carausius Allectus does not deny.

Flavius takes Justin to visit their family farm on the South Downs, where he shares his theory that the grant of land from the Senate generations ago had something to do with the vanished Ninth Legion and an unexplained adventure in Caledonia (2). On the road back to Rutupiae, they meet Carausius, who brings them to his house, where they meet his Fool, Cullen, an eccentric slave who calls himself Carausius's hound and carries a curious musical instrument called a Silver Branch (3).

In spring, while hunting in the marshes, they see a Saxon messenger meet with Allectus (4). They capture the Saxon and rush to denounce Allectus to Carausius, but the prisoner is found poisoned and without further evidence, Carausius banishes them to service on the Wall (5). They are both reassigned to the fort of Magnis, where Flavius endears himself to one of his men, Manlius, by saving him from a breaking catapult and Justin befriends an injured Dalriad hunter named Evicatos of the Spear (6). Evicatos repays Justin's doctoring by warning him of Allectus's conspiracies with the Picts, and offers to carry a message to Carausius, but they are detected by Posides, Flavius's malcontented second-in-command (7). Manlius warns them of their betrayal and smuggles them out of Magnis with Evicatos, but they learn on their way south that Carausius has been assassinated and Allectus is now emperor of Britain (8).

Justin and Flavian resolve to cross to Gaul to rejoin the army under Constantius. They stop in Calleva to take leave of their great aunt, Honoria, then seek passage from Portus Adurni, where they are picked up by Paulinus, the leader of a resistance ring (9). Paulinus asks them to stay as his operatives, but they refuse, before changing their minds at the last minute (10). In spring, during a visit from Allectus, they recruit a centurion named Anthonius, who is followed by Serapion back to Paulinus's house (11). While the others escape across the roofs, Paulinus allows himself to be cut down by Allectus's Saxon Guard. The remaining agents under Justin and Flavius relocate their headquarters to the farm on the South Downs (12).

Justin and Flavius gradually recruit resistance fighters in anticipation of an invasion by Constantius, and in Calleva they discover Cullen with a message for them from Carausius, being chased by Saxons (13). Hiding him in Great Aunt Honoria's hypocaust, they uncover the battered remains of the eagle standard of the Ninth Legion. Returning to their own "legion" with their new emblem, they find Evicatos newly joined and Constantius's fleet offshore (14). The Lost Legion marches into the camp of Asklepiodotus of the western force as volunteers and are vouched for by Justin's old commanding officer (15).

Asklepiodotus defeats Allectus's mercenaries just outside Calleva, and the retreating Saxons move to sack the town (16). The Lost Legion ride in to defend the basilica, where most of the townspeople have taken refuge. The Saxons attack the basilica, and Evicatos is killed defending Cullen, but the Saxons are driven off, not before the entire town is on fire. The eagle of the Ninth is lost in the burning basilica (17).

In Londinium, Allectus and Serapion are executed by Constantius. Britain is folded back into the western empire, to be fortified against the Saxons. The Lost Legion is disbanded, but Justin and Flavius choose to rejoin the army under Constantius. Cullen informs them that, by Carausius's instruction, he is now their hound (18).

Chronology

The Carausian Revolt lasted from 286 to 296 CE. Allectus overthrew Carausius in 293 and was defeated by Constantius's forces in 296. The Silver Branch agrees with the dates of Carausius's reign but shortens Allectus's to 295.

• 286: Seven years before Carausius's death: defeated Bassanius and became emperor of Britain
• 292, spring: Three months before ch.1: Justin posted to Britain from Judea
• 292, Autumn: ch 1, Justin arrives at Rutupiae
• 292, Autumn-winter: ch.2.
• 292, Just after Saturnalia (late December): ch.2, five days on the farm, ch.3
• 293, March: ch.4-6? Rutupiae and Magnis
• 293, Autumn: ch. 7
• 293, Samhain (Hallowe'en): ch.8. Carausius killed six nights earlier.
• 293, Winter: ch.9, Calleva and Portus Adurni; ch.10, five days in the ruined theatre
• 294, Winter, spring, summer-July: ch.11, 12
• 294-5, Summer, autumn, winter, spring: ch.13
• 295, June: ch.13-17
• 295, July: ch. 18

Characters

Justin's family

• Tiberius Lucius Justinianus, junior surgeon; a very ugly young man of sickly constitution; shy, stuttering; claustrophobic (ch.10)
• Marcelus Flavius Aquila, centurion; "a stocky, red-haired young man with a thin, merry face and fly-away eyebrows, who seemed friendly." Raised at Calleva by Great Aunt Honoria after his parents' death from pestilence.
• Great Aunt Honoria. "A thin old woman with a proud beak of a nose and very bright eyes, brown and wrinkled as a walnut and painted like a dancing-girl – save that no dancing-girl ever put the paint on so badly." Survives the basilica of Calleva and moves to Aquae Sulis after her house burns down.
• Justin's mother, a beautiful woman whom he resembles
• Justin's father, an officer whom he believes he disappoints
• Volumnia, Honoria's servant. "An immmensely fat woman with a saffron-coloured mantle drawn forward over her grey hair". "Where Volumnia is, there Aunt Honoria is also."
• Justin's mother's nurse, "the best thing in my childhood, but she's d-dead now."
• Flavia, Justin's grandmother. Possessor of a cosmetic box with the Flavius dolphin crest.
• Justin's grandfather; "an extremely plain man" whom Honoria never liked. Probably the grandfather who settled in Nicaea.

The empire

• Maximian, emperor
• Constantius, called Chlorus ("the Green"), son of Maximian;  in Gaul defending the German frontier; "despite his whey face he's the best soldier in this tired old Empire" (ch.9)
• Marcus Aurelius Carausius (Curoi), "the little emperor" of Britain; a Romano-Hibernian from Laighin; once a Scaldis river-pilot; named himself emperor in the North in 286; was accomodated by Maximian. Killed by Allectus in October 293.
  • Nestor, Carausius's horse; a roan stallion
• Diocletian, emperor
• Allectus, Carausius's finance minister and usurper. Captured at Calleva and executed at Londinium.
• Carus, emperor under whom Carausius served in the Persian War

Rutupiae

• Vinicius, senior surgeon at Rutupiae; short-tempered
• Arcadius, captain of the Caleope, a three-bank galley. A sword-cut on the cheek from the arena.
• Dexion, centurion of marines. Melancholy; wins at dice.
• Serapion, shopkeeper. Half-British, half-Egyptian; sells nightshade to Allectus and tracks Anthonius to Paulinus. Executed with Allectus.
• A Saxon, Allectus's contact. Speaks some Latin. Held in number five cell; killed by nightshade in his dinner broth.
• The Sea Witch, ship of the Saxon messenger
• Mutius Urbanus, commandant of Rutupiae; "a thin, stooping man with a long, grey face a little like a tired old horse's; but his eyes were shrewdly alert"
• Vipsanius, a tribune; sent to fetch the Saxon

South Downs & the Weald

• Servius, steward of the Flavius farm. An optio under Flavius's father.
• Cutha, Servius's wife
• Kyndylan, their son; "with his broad pleasant face half lost in a fuzz of golden beard"; joins the Lost Legion and injures his arm on the Londinium road. Survives Calleva.
• Free men and women, their farm-hands
• Buic, the old shepherd; possessor of a wall-eyed sheep-dog; speaks British; knew Flavius's grandfather
• Flann, the ploughman on the Flavius farm
• Tuan; shoesmith of the Flavius farm; old
• Goban, a smith in the forest of Anderida
• The decurion of Carausius's escort

• Cullen, Curoi/Carausius's slave. A fool, called his hound; carries a musical instrument called a Silver Branch; wears a dog's tail as part of his motley. From Laighin, owned by Carausius for seven years. Held prisoner after Carausius's death; carried at letter to Flavius and Justin whom he found at Calleva after two years. Became the standard-bearer of the Lost Legion; survived Calleva; was instructed by Curoi to follow Justin and Flavius after his death.

Magnis on the Wall

• Posides, senior centurion of the 8th Cohort of the 2nd Augustan. "A big man with a little, crumpled, bitter face." Betrays Justin and Evicatos.
• The Picts (the Painted People), tribe beyond the wall
• Manlius, "one of the hardest cases in all Magnis". Leg broken by no.3 catapult, rescued by Flavius and Justin. Has a woman who lives in the street of the Golden Grasshopper. Warns Justin about his arrest.
• Evicatos of the Spear, an exiled Dalriad. "a man much taller than was usual with [Picts], with a mane of hair as thick and proudly tawny as a lion's, and eyes in his head like a pretty girl's." Wears warrior tattoos and a wolfskin loincloth. Bitten in the shoulder by a wolf. Exile at 16 for murder; living among the Picts for 15 years. Fought for Carausius 7 years since. Joined the Lost Legion; killed in the basilica defending Cullen.
• Quintus Bassanius, former governor of Britain; killed by Carausius 7 years since
• Sylvanus Varus, standard-bearer of the 5th Tungrian Cohort, 2nd Augustan. Raised an altar "To the Fates, that they may be kind" in Valentia, perhaps 150 years before Justin's time
• Sextus, optio of the 8th; owner of a red and black fighting cock
• Manlius's wife; hides Evicatos and supplies Justin and Flavius in their escape
• Cuscrid, a smith in Magnis, with whom Evicatos left his hounds

Portus Adurni

• Phaedrus of the Berenice;  "little slim sea-captain with a blue faience drop in one ear"; agent of Paulinus who first spots Flavius and Justin; warns Paulinus of the government raid
• A Marine; talked sedition in the Dolphin and evacuated to Gaul on the Berenice by Paulinus
• Paulinus, a tax-gatherer; the resistance leader of Portus Adurni; a small paunchy man; former under-secretary to Carausius, early in his reign. Fan of Euripides. Killed by the Saxons when his house is compromised.
• Crispinius, Flavius's fictional bald kinsman in the Portus Adurni wine trade
• Ulpius, barkeep of the Dolphin; agent of Paulinus
• Myron, free servant of Paulinus; "a boy with a sharply eager face and two front teeth missing, who introduced himself as 'Myron that saw to everything',"; recruited by Paulinus when trying to steal his purse. Goes to the farm with Flavius and Justin; attaches himself to Anthonius, from whom he is "seldom willingly apart"; survives Calleva
• Cerdic the boat-builder; agent of Paulinus with whom Justin and Flavius lodge
• A government clerk of the Corn Office at Regnum; agent of Paulinus
• An old woman who sold flowers outside the temple of Mars Toutate at Clausentium; agent of Paulinus
• Saxon and Frankish mercenaries, hired by Allectus in June
• Anthonius, centurion at Portus Adurni; "a dark, raw-boned lad with a jutting galley-prow of a nose, and a wide, uncompromising mouth", "a pockmarked forehead", "rough, dark hair" (ch.15); asks Justin for evacuation, is followed by Serapion; joins the resistance after Paulinus's death. A Christian. Survives Calleva.

Constantius's forces

• The Lost Legion, assorted malcontents; take the rediscovered Eagle of the Ninth for their standard; defend the basilica of Calleva; disbanded at Londinium.
  • Justin, Flavius, Cullen, Anthonius, Myron, etc.
  • Pandarus, a freed gladiator; "a gaunt and tattered creature"; discovered by Justin at Venta; thrill seeker; wears a rose; killed in the basilica.
• Asklepiodotus, Praetorian prefect to Constantius; "a large pink and gold man", "a very large man, tall and stooping and beginning to be fat, with an air of gentle sloth about him which they learned later was deceptive." Does not understand seasickness.
• Fulvius Licinius, commander of the 3rd Cohort of the Fretencis [sic] at Beersheba; knew Justin's father; knew Carausius at Scaldis; later Primus Pilus to Asklepiodotus in Britain. Lean and brown.
• The Thirtieth Ulpia Victrix, "a Lower Rhenus Legion that had come under Carausius's influence at one time"; had a rough channel crossing.
• Vexhilation [sic] of the Parthica, "A Gaulish legion that had followed the little Emperor in the early days"; with a centaur badge
• Legate of the Ulpia Victrix, "still faintly green"
• 7th Claudian Legion, part of Constantius's Londinium procession

Calleva

• Allectus's defence force, >12,000 mercenaries and marines, 6-7 cohorts. Defeated by Asklepiodotus's Western Force at Calleva and Constantius's Eastern Force at Londinium.
• 1800 Callevans, free and slave, in the basilica: "a stout wine-shop woman; a slave from the dyeworks"
• A tall man who knows Flavius, survives the siege and organises the bucket chain
• Balbus, chief physician of Calleva, panicked in the basilica
• A fair girl "like a white flower, who looked like she had never seen blood before", who assists Justin with an injured Otter's Ford farmer
• Conal of the Victories, Irish legend compared to blood-soaked Evicatos

Places

Southern Britain

• Rutupiae (Richborough), harbour and Roman fort on the Saxon Shore; Carausius's headquarters.
  • Tanatis (Thanet), island opposite Rutupiae, marsh hunting ground
  • Abandoned fishing village at the southernmost point of the Rutupiae mainland, where Allectus meets the Saxon
• the Metaris (the Wash), northeastern end of the line of Saxon shore forts
• the Great Harbour, Portus Magnus (Portsmouth-Southampton), southwestern end of the Saxon shore
• Calleva (Silchester), home of Honoria and Flavius; overrun by Saxons fleeing Asklepiodotus. Basilica and most of the town burned down, including Honoria's house.
  • The Spinaii forest, outside Calleva
  • The temple of Sul Minerva, in whose gardens the Lost Legion leave their horses
  • The Forum and basilica, where the citizens shelter form the Saxons, defended by the Lost Legion, burned by the Saxons
  • The Silver Garland, a wine-shop raided by the Saxons
• Flavius farm on the south Downs; 10-12 miles from Portus Adurni; becomes the HQ of Flavius and Justin's spy ring
• Aquae Sulis (Bath), where Honoria goes in midwinter
• Venta (Winchester), near Calleva; Justin meets Pandarus at the arena there
• Limanis [Portus Lemanis] (Lympne), where they change horses en route to Rutupiae, site of a lighthouse
• The forest of Anderida (the Weald), skirted by the road
  • A smithy a couple of miles beyond Limanis and 15 from Rutupiae, where they meet Carausius
  • Carausius's house, 5 miles from the smithy, on a cliff edge above the sea
• Dubris (Dover), site of a lighthouse
• Portus Adurni (Portchester), fort town on the Portus Magnus; where Justin and Flavius seek transport to Gaul; Paulinus's HQ
  • The Dolphin, wine-shop in Adurni
  • The tax-gatherer's house, on a blind alley in Adurni, with a courtyard with a well and "the best little apple tree in the Empire"
  • The ruined theatre; connected to his house; a bolt-hole; also occupied by squatters' bothies
  • The Temple of Jupiter in Portus Adurni, where Allectus addresses the crowd and Anthonius confronts the Barbarian Guard
  • The Sparrow's Way, rooftop escape rout from Paulinus's house, used during the raid
• Clausentium [Clausentum] (Bitterne), in Paulinus's sphere of operations
• Londinium, Allectus's seat of government; site of his defeat and Constantius's marching-camp
  • Constantius's marching camp, outside Londinium's walls
• Vectis (Isle of Wight); island in sight of which they camp en route to the farm; sight of a lighthouse; naval station with a fleet
• Otter's Ford, farm burned by mercenaries; three brothers join the Lost Legion
• Asklepiodotus's camp, on the shore west of Flavius's farm; two miles west of the Regnum road to Londinium; also near the Venta and Calleva road
• Regnum road: a day's march over the Chalk and into the forest of Anderida, then out onto the North Chalk a day from Londinium (= "ancient track from Durovernum under the scarp of the North Chalk"?)
• Venta and Calleva road: forty miles of wooded downland to Calleva from the coast, then open forest and cornland of the Thamesis valley
• Durovernum-Calleva crossroad, in a "shallow downland pass" 15 miles from Venta. Site of Allectus's camp; Asklepiodotus's 3rd night's camp a couple of miles away, 6 miles from the Calleva road. Thorn trees positioned across the mouth of the pass by Asklep.

Northern Britain

• Magnis (Carvoran), a wall fort. HQ of the 8th Cohort of the 2nd Augustan Legion.
  • The Vallum; former frontier ditch behind the wall and highway; now the site of Magnis's lower town
  • The altar of the Fates; raised in Valentia 100-200 years ago by a soldier of the 2nd, where Evicatos tells of Allectus's plotting with the Picts
  • The street of the Golden Grasshopper; named for the wine-shop at the corner; the alley where Manlius's wife lives and hides Evicatos
• Luguvalium (Carlisle), fort southwest of Magnis
• the Great Sands (Solway estuary?), Carausius landed and defeated Bassanius "among the mountains," between there and Luguvalium
• Eburacum (York), legionary HQ
• Albu (Scotland), beyond the wall; the former province of Valentia
• Vindobala, Aesica, Chilurnium [Cilurnum]; lower towns along the wall
• The Red Burn, a river with a pool and three standing stones where Evicatos meets Justin and Flavius
• A farm south of the wall, where they spend Samhain

Overseas

• Beersheba, Judea, a single cohort fort; where Justin spent his year as Surgeon's Cub
• Alexandria, Egypt, site on a very big lighthouse
• Gaul
  • Scaldis river (Scheldt, Escaut, Schelde), where Carausius was a pilot
  • the German frontier, where Constantius is fighting
  • Nicaea (Nice), southern Gaul, where Justin's British grandfather retired
  • Gesoriacum (Boulogne-sur-Mer), lighthouse southeast of Carausius's house, out of his control since the previous winter

• Hibernia, Erin (Ireland)
  • Tara, seat of the high king of Erin
  • Laighin (Leinster), home of Carausius and Cullen

Genealogy

"Nobody sneezed in the family for two hundred years that our Aunt Honoria doesn't remember all about it." (1)

Justin, Flavius, and Great Aunt Honoria are descendants of Marcus Flavius Aquila from The Eagle of the Ninth, but their exact relationships are not precisely explained. Marcus's British wife Cottia is not mentioned by name, but Flavius's red hair nods to her.

Justin is said to be the grandson of a British-born soldier who retired in Nicaea; and of Flavia, of the South Downs family, who married an ugly man disliked by Honoria. The simplest arrangement of the stated facts is that they were married to each other and were the parents of Justin's father, and that Flavia was the sister of Flavius's paternal grandfather and Honoria. There is however nothing in the text to confirm this – the Nicaean and Flavia's husband might be separate grandfathers; both Flavia or the Nicaean might be either a maternal or paternal grandparent; Flavia, Honoria, and the elder Flavius could be cousins or in-laws.

Justin, Tiberius Lucius Justinianus, has a second praenomen (first name) instead of a family nomen, and his father and grandfather(s) are not named in the text, but Flavius recognises the family cognomen "Justinianus", commenting that their (paternal) lines have intermarried more than once (1). Honoria does not have the feminine form of the Flavius family name, but given the other Flavia and Sutcliff's erratic approach to Roman masculine names, this is probably not a clue to her intent.

Flavius's parents are said to have died of pestilence when he was a child, and he was raised by Honoria (and Volumnia) in Calleva. Justin's mother also died when he was a child, and he does not remember her well (1).

The timeframe of The Silver Branch and the next dolphin ring story Frontier Wolf, set 341-343 CE, make it possible that Flavius, the ringbearer in Silver Branch, is the unnamed father or the grandfather of Alexios, the ringbearer in Frontier Wolf. The Silver Branch makes no mention, positive or negative, of siblings or cousins who could inherit the ring from Flavius, and he has no love interest in the story. The emperors Maximian and Constantius are the great-grandfather and grandfather of the emperor Constans, who appears in Frontier Wolf.

Historical and literary background

Historical basis

Sutcliff's Historical Note explains,

"Marcus Aurelius Carausius was a real person; so were Allectus the Traitor and the Legate Asklepiodotus; and so of course was the Caesar Constantius, whose son Constantine was the first Christian Emperor of Rome. For the rest: the body of Saxon warrior buried with his weapons was found in one of the ditches of Richborough Castle, which was Rutupiae in the days of the Eagles. The Basilica at Calleva was burned down towards the end of the Roman occupation and later roughly rebuilt, and the Eagle which I have already written about in another story was discovered during excavations in the ruins of one of the courtrooms behind the Main Hall. At Calleva also — Silchester as it is now — there was found a stone with a man’s name carved on it in the script of ancient Irish; and the name was Evicatos, or Ebicatos, which means ‘Spear Man’."

The last refers to the Silchester Ogham stone. Its date is uncertain, and it is not included in the Roman Inscriptions of Britain catalogue.

The altar of Sylvanus Varus near Magnis is not apparently based on an archaeological find.

Literary references

Paulinus is an amateur of the Greek tragedian Euripides, whose Hippolytus he lends to Justin in chapter 10. Sutcliff's 1982 article "Kim" (Children's Literature in Education, Vol. 13 No. 4) mentions that Gilbert Murray's translation of Hippolytus was among the selection of favourite books she kept on her bedroom windowsill.

Anthonius quotes John 15:13, "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends", in chapter 12.

Sutcliff said when commenting on the writing of Rudyard Kipling that the three Roman Britain stories in his Puck of Pook's Hill (1906) were the earliest inspiration for her own. In "On the Great Wall", young centurion Parnesius is sent to a degenerate Hadrian's Wall frontier fort under the apparent displeasure of his emperor-general. While there, his tattooed Pict hunting guide Allo takes Parnesius and his friend Pertinax out into the heather to reveal a secret Saxon fleet landing. Parnesius refers to an altar he once built to Sylvan Pan, like that built by Sylvanus Varus at which Evicatos reveals Allectus's plots with the Saxons to Justin and Flavius (7). A sentiment expressed by Pertinax in "The Winged Hats", ‘“In War it is as it is in Love [...] Whether she be good or bad, one gives one’s best once, to one only. That given, there remains no second worth giving or taking” is perhaps modified in The Silver Branch to:

"What happens if we refuse? If we say that we served the Emperor Carausius with our whole hearts, and have not the same service to give again?" and "There was no disloyalty to Carausius in that, for they knew, both of them, that a man may give his service more than once without breaking faith, but only once for the first time." (18)

Publication history

In English:

1. London : Oxford University Press, 1957. 215 pp. Illus. Charles Keeping.
   • London : Oxford University Press, 1959.
   • London : Oxford University Press, 1963.
   • G.B. : Oxford University Press, 1970.
   • Oxford University Press, 1973.
   • Oxford : Oxford University Press, 1979.
2. New York : H.Z. Walck, 1958. 215 pp. Illus. Charles Keeping.
   • New York : H.Z. Walck, 1959.
3. Oxford : Oxford University Press, 1966. 179 pp. Illus. Charles Keeping.
   • Oxford : Oxford University Press, 1998. 179 pp.
4. New York : Dell, 1966.
5. Harmondsworth, Eng. : Puffin Books, 1980. 236 pp. Illus. Charles Keeping.
6. New York : Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1993. 231 pp.
7. Oxford : Oxford University Press, 2000. 246 pp.
8. Oxford : Oxford University Press, 2001. 256 pp.
9. Oxford : Oxford University Press, 2007. 248 pp.
   • Oxford : Oxford University Press, 2012. Boxed set. Illus. Charles Keeping.
10. London : Folio Society, 2009. Introduction Julia Eccleshare; illus. Roman Pisarev. 193 pp.
11. New York : Square Fish, 2010. 175 pp.
12. Oxford University Press, 2011. 175 pp. The Eagle (2011 film) tie-in edition.
13. London : Slightly Foxed Cubs, 2019.

Collected editions:

1. Three Legions
   1. Oxford : Oxford University Press, 1980.
   2. Harmondsworth : Puffin in association with Oxford University Press, 1985.
   3. Markham, Ont. : Penguin Books Canada, 1985.
   4. London : Puffin, 1996.
2. The Eagle of the Ninth Chronicles. Oxford : Oxford University Press, 2010.

In translation:

1. Der silberne Zweig. German by Ilse Wodtke. Stuttgart : Union Verlag, 1965.
   • München : Deutscher Taschenbuch-Verlag, 1972.
   • München : Deutscher Taschenbuch-Verlag, 1974.
   • München : Deutscher Taschenbuch-Verlag, 1978.
   • München : Deutscher Taschenbuch-Verlag, 1979.
   • München : Deutscher Taschenbuch-Verlag, 1981.
   • München : Deutscher Taschenbuch-Verlag, 1983.
   • München : Deutscher Taschenbuch-Verlag, 1984.
   • München : Deutscher Taschenbuch-Verlag, 1986.
   • München : Deutscher Taschenbuch-Verlag, 1988.
   • München : Deutscher Taschenbuch-Verlag, 1993.
2. De silveren tak. Dutch by Ruth Wolf. Illus. Charles Keeping. Den Haag : Leopold, 1966.
   • Den Haag : Leopold, 1982.
3. Serebri︠a︡nai︠a︡ vetka. Russian by N. Rakhmanovoĭ, A. Staviskoĭ. Moskva : Azbuka, 2000.
   • Sankt-Peterburg : Azbuka, 2011.
4. Der silberne Zweig. German by Astrid von dem Borne. Stuttgart : Verl. Freies Geistesleben, 2005.
   • München : Deutscher Taschenbuch-Verlag, 2011.
5. Gin no eda. Japanese by Yōko Inokuma. Tōkyō : Iwanami Shoten, 2007.
6. El usurpador del imperio. Spanish by Francisco García Lorenzana. Barcelona : Plataforma, 2009.
7. L'honneur du centurion. French by Philippe Morgaut. Paris : Gallimard jeunesse, 2011.
8. Srebrna gałąź. Polish by Dariusz Kopociński. Illus. Charles Keeping. Warszawa : Wydawnictwo Telbit, 2011.
9. La vendetta dell'imperatore. Italian by Giana Guidoni. Milano : Mondadori, 2012.