The Mongoliad: Book Two

Начало книги

Rome was not the first city Ferenc had ever seen. As a child, he had lived in Buda, where the clustered buildings were strewn like squat boulders along the banks of the slow-moving Danube. His memories, though, were but vague shapes in a fog compared to the reality laid out before his eyes.

Rome lay below them, wrapping itself around the River Tiber like a jealous lover. The light was strange here too. It was brighter and brisker than his memories of Buda, as if the sky over the city had cracked open and scattered celestial sparks upon the peaked rooftops, creating a dazzling spray of illumination.

Ferenc glanced at the priest slumped on the horse next to him. He was draped over his horse’s neck, his knuckles intertwined in the animal’s mane so tightly they were white. The light from the city was reflected in his eyes, making him look almost blind. A ropy strand of spit quivered in his tangled beard.

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