{"product_id":"the-ditch-makers-claim-cornelis-van-houte-9798255043927","title":"The Ditch-Maker's Claim: A Novel of Aquincum, 168 AD","description":"THE DITCH-MAKER'S CLAIM \u003ci\u003eA Novel of Aquincum, 168 AD\u003c\/i\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eRome, 168 AD. The Antonine Plague is killing soldiers faster than the legions can replace them. In the garrison town of Aquincum - a frontier fortress on the Danube, present-day Budapest - the military treasury is overwhelmed, understaffed, and processing the pension claims of the dead at a pace that serves the institution rather than the families waiting outside its doors. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eCornelius Aemilius Fossatus, iurisconsultus, has come north from Rome for four days to resolve a grain contract. He intends to leave on schedule. He does not. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eIn a treasury corridor he walks past a woman at a wall. He walks three paces. He stops. Tafat, daughter of a Numidian cavalry decurion who died of the plague nineteen days earlier, has been refused four times in four visits. Each refusal was technically correct. None of them were right. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eWhat follows is twelve days of bureaucratic combat - meticulous, legally precise, and quietly relentless - as Fossatus dismantles the classification problem blocking the claim of a soldier who gave Rome twenty-two years and one hundred and forty-three days. But the pension dispute is only the surface. Buried in the treasury records is a pattern that has nothing to do with Tafat's father and everything to do with sixty-four families who will never know they were robbed. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Ditch-Maker's Claim\u003c\/i\u003e is the first novel in the Ditch-Maker series: a story about two people who find each other through the mechanism of the law, and about what happens when the person who is right is not the person the system was built for.\u003cbr\u003eHistorically grounded. Legally precise. Human. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/b\u003e Cornelis Van Houte\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-13:\u003c\/b\u003e 9798255043927\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e Independently Published\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eLanguage:\u003c\/b\u003e English\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 04\/05\/2026\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 354\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eFormat:\u003c\/b\u003e Paperback\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 1.04lbs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSize:\u003c\/b\u003e 9.00h x 6.00w x 0.74d","brand":"Cornelis Van Houte","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":50665390244095,"sku":"9798255043927","price":24.98,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"url":"https:\/\/www.whiterainbookhouse.com\/products\/the-ditch-makers-claim-cornelis-van-houte-9798255043927","provider":"WR Book House","version":"1.0","type":"link"}