”The what?”
”Main sewer of Rome. Just how much reading did you finish?”
”-Uh-…” She took, advantage of a switch in traffic flow to cross the paving stones. Malcolm, caught in a crunch of people, had to resort to wading across at street level just to keep up with her.
”Hsst! Slow down!”
She glanced back and slowed down for all of three minutes, then the lure of more delightful sights down the street caused another lapse. She drew ahead again, paying no attention to Malcolm struggling along with their luggage. Malcolm held his temper and followed, wondering how long it would take her to admit she was in trouble:
She negotiated the dogleg around the end of the Circus just fine, despite the inattention she paid to the directions he’d given her. Malcolm didn’t begrudge her the awed stare at the immense arena’s facade. A single-story building ran around the outside, crammed with shops selling everything from baskets to hot sausages. Shopkeepers on the mezzanine above. Entrances near each led directly into the arena-level seats behind the podium wall. Stairs led upward to the second and third tiers where the one bleachers of the center sections gave way to bleachers rounding the semicircular end High overhead, three stories up, rose the colonnade and wooden arches which surmounted the end of the arena.
Margo walked with her neck cricked, staring upward and bumping into Romans who grinned and nudged one another.
”Barbarian’s new to town.”
”Wonder what gods-forsaken corner that rube’s from?”