Roma

They saw many terrible things. Like the Pontifex Maximus, others had decided to greet the Gauls fearlessly, seated like statues before their houses. Some, like the Pontifex Maximus, had been beheaded. Others had been strangled or stabbed to death. Some had been hanged from trees.

There seemed to be a surprising number of Romans in the city who, like Pinaria, had intended to flee but had failed to do so before the Gauls arrived. The city became a killing field; the Gauls were the hunters, the Romans the prey. Men were slaughtered and women and children were raped while Pinaria watched.

Shops were looted. Buildings were set on fire. The Gauls gawked at the opulent houses on the Palatine, and gawked even more at the crude Hut of Romulus, preserved as a rustic monument in the midst of the city’s finest dwellings. Could such unfeeling, half-human creatures understand what the sacred hut represented? While Pinaria watched from the shadows, a group of drunken Gauls stood in a circle around the hut and urinated on it, whooping and making a contest of their desecration. No other sight that day offended Pinaria as deeply, or made her feel more desperately that the history of Roma was finished forever.

The dreadful day seemed endless. At last, passing below the Tarpeian Rock, Pinaria and Pe

Looking up, they saw tiny figures peering over the rock. The figures beckoned to them, then frantically pointed.

“Gauls! Very near you, just behind that building! Run! Hurry! If you can get to the path that winds up the Capitoline—”

Pinaria was too frightened to think, too weary to move. It was Pe

They came to the path which would take them to the top of Capitoline, the same route by which every triumphal procession reached the Temple of Jupiter. Drained by grief, immobilized by terror, Pinaria had reached the end of her endurance, yet, with Pe

With its steep slopes, the Capitoline had always presented one of the most naturally defensible positions among the Seven Hills. Over the generations, an accretion of monuments and buildings linked by walls and ramparts had essentially made it into a fortress. The defenders at the top had only to fill a few openings and passageways with rubble to secure the perimeter. They were doing so even as Pe

A narrow gap still remained amid the stones and bits of timber that were being hastily piled up to block the passage. A man stood in the breach, waving frantically. “The Gauls are right behind you!” he cried. Another Roman appeared atop the barrier, raised a bow, and let fly an arrow that very nearly parted Pinaria’s scalp. The buzzing of the arrow was followed by a scream, so close behind her that Pinaria flinched. The pursuers were very near, practically breathing on her neck.

Pe

More arrows whizzed through the air, even as men rushed to fill in the breach. The archer gave a whoop of triumph. “They’re retreating! I got one in the eye, and another in the shoulder. Even giants turn tail and run if you show them who’s in charge.”

The archer jumped down from the barricade, rattling his armor. He removed his helmet to reveal a clean-shaven face, bright green eyes, and a shock of black hair. He squared his broad shoulders and stood stiffly erect. “Gaius Fabius Dorso,” he a

“My name is Pinaria,” she said, trying to steady her voice.

“What’s this?” Dorso peered at her shoulder. The fabric of her gown had been torn. The pale flesh was marred by a scrape and bright red speckles of blood. He averted his eyes, conscious of the sanctity of her body. “How did such a thing happen? The slave must have treated you very carelessly! If he needs to be punished—”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” said Pinaria. “The wound is nothing, and the slave saved my life.”

She covered the exposed scrape with her hand and winced, suddenly aware of the pain. She looked at Pe

“If you truly had wings, you could fly away from here,” said Pinaria. “If only…”

She stood behind a rampart on the Capitoline, overlooking the Forum and the hills that surrounded it. Many days had passed since the coming of the Gauls. The sight of Roma occupied by savages—horrifying and bizarre at first, almost beyond comprehension—had now become commonplace. Rarely now did the beleaguered Romans atop the Capitoline hear the screams of some hapless citizen being rousted from a hiding place by the Gauls to be tortured and raped. Most of those in hiding had been discovered in the very first days of the occupation; a lucky few had made their way to the Capitoline. Nonetheless, the Gauls’ assaults upon the city itself continued, day after day. After a house was ransacked, the Gauls often set it on fire, apparently for no reason other than to delight in its destruction or to infuriate the Romans watching from the Capitoline. On this day, from all over the city, great plumes of smoke rose into the air. High above the hills, the smoke coalesced into a grey miasma that obscured the midsummer sun and turned midday into twilight.

The handful of defenders atop the Capitoline—Gaius Fabius Dorso insisted that they think of themselves thus, and not as captives, for they were Romans and stood upon Roman soil—had, for the time being, enough to eat and drink. In the first days of the occupation, they stayed busy strengthening their defenses. They erected pickets, dug trenches, and even chipped away some of the hillsides to make them even steeper. So long as they kept watch day and night, their position was virtually impregnable. And yet, despair was always near. The sight of their beloved city being demolished house by house, the loss of all contact with those who had fled, the fear that the gods had abandoned them—these anxieties preyed on their waking thoughts and colored their nightmares.

If only one had wings; if only one could fly away…

Beside her, Pe