Rome, in the 6th Century AD, was a terrifying place to live and no one travelled there unless they had to. For John, the Lord Chamberlain exiled to Greece by the Emperor, it was even more perilous. When word got back to the Emperor, John would be executed for disobeying orders to remain in exile, and in danger of forfeiting his life as a Mithran convert.
You might have passed by the pool without noticing it below the stone bridge where Black Creek cuts under the paved footpath leading through Pinewoods Park to High Street. When we were kids we called it "Bottomless Pool.” We were sure it was haunted.
The year is 548. Under Emperor Justinian, the Roman capitol is now in the Byzantine city of Constantinople. Due to politics and the hatred for him by Empress Theodora, the emperor's Lord Chamberlain, John, is exiled to Greece. John's family once owned a farm near the town of Megara and now he's bought an estate in the region. But, when he and his wife Cornelia arrive they find much has changed in the intervening years.
Some years ago, we learned that a copy of Two For Joy, our protagonist's second novel length adventure, had gone missing from a library out west. We have never been certain whether to consider the event a left-handed compliment from someone who could not bear to part with the book or an act intended to protest against the Michaelites' belief in the Quadrinity rather than the Trinity.
Halloween evening. We've had no trick-or-treaters nor will we, up here on the side of the mountain. That hasn't been the case in the past. At one house we'd get a hundred or more costumed beggars.
