Ovid

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I'd been at a party on the Caelian the night before. My tongue tasted like a gladiator's jockstrap, my head was pounding like Vulcan's smithy, and if you'd held up a hand and asked me how many fingers you'd got I'd've been hard put to give a definite answer without using an abacus. My usual morning condition, in other words, and hardly the best state for a first meeting with a tough cookie like the Lady Rufia Perilla.

You know the type: six feet tall, four across the shoulders, hair like wire and biceps like rocks. A cross between Penthesilea the Amazon Queen and Medusa the Gorgon before Perseus shortened her by a head, with a look and a voice that can wither a man's balls at thirty yards.

Only the woman striding towards me across the marble hall floor trailing my slave Bathyllus behind her like an arena cat's leavings wasn't like that at all. Far from it. This particular tough cookie was a stunner.

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