Jail Bait

Начало книги

No one could say for certain quite how it started. Some blamed that pot-bellied quarrymaster, home from Numidia. Others suggested it was the legacy of two Lebanese flautists passing through on their way to Iberia. Who could say? But like the first blue wisp of a heath fire, it passed virtually unnoticed, for the citizens of Rome had more pressing things on their minds.

The first two weeks of May had been treacherously hot. A vicious reminder of why so few festivals were scheduled in a month set aside not for rejoicing, but for restraint. For purification rites rather than revelry. Some years the problem was cold, scorching the vines and wizening the buds. Other years rain, inducing the blight and the mildew and worms in the cattle. In fact, so grim were May’s auspices, marriages were rarely contracted and, as crops in the countryside shrivelled, cityfolk discovered that, virtually overnight, Rome was transformed from a glamorous metropolis into a stinking, fly-riddled furnace.

Читать дальше →