An abandoned boy, a grieving prince, and a reclusive sorcerer find themselves caught in a web of peril and mystery...
Domi, a young thief abandoned on the street at birth, just wants to save his dying foster mother. But first, he must survive the m...
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Domi was a man on a mission, industrious and efficient, as he waded into the marketplace throng and began relieving the unsuspecting people of their trinkets and coins.
"Here," he said in a murmur, passing an ivory comb, a silver ring, and a few bronzes along to an older boy with a rolled-up sleeve.
The snatcher tucked the goods away in his cuff, tipped an imaginary hat, slipped between two carts laden with painted terracotta vases, and vanished.
Domi did likewise.
Half of the eve's earnings made their way back home to his ma's stash at the wine bar and the other half to his own stash at the mill. The city watch only searched him once more.
An hour after Dimming, the evening Rain ceased, and the crowd thinned. Domi whistled the tune to the jaunty satirical song, "Penna Igneae's Wings Caught Fire," as he eyed the enormous forum clock that towered over the marketplace.
As he spotted the time, he broke off the song with a sigh. He needed to stop early today. The law required everyone to attend the annual New Year's Observance in two hours, from the lowest Pyrrhaeus to the highest Promethides. Most people would go home to change into finer clothes, and Domi would too if time allowed.
First, he visited the mill underneath the city's bathhouse for the third time that eve to drop off his acquired loot. The last visit was always his favorite, because he collected the day's earnings while there.
He ignored the cryptic chicken scratch on the sign over the bathhouse's main door and the attendant shouting "no Pullati" as he neared. Domi rolled his eyes. "I know, I know. I'm too filthy to even be allowed to bathe, right?"
The woman sniffed and waved a hand for Domi to go away. Whatever. The city's dunces could waste their fancy coin on water all they wanted. It didn't matter. Pullati enjoyed hot baths for free.
Domi entered the walled courtyard at the rear of the bathhouse, shrugged into a narrow grotto past two servants delivering wood, and descended the rough-hewn service stairs. Winding down into the thermal complex's tunnels, he passed boilers and terracotta pipes, which transported warm water to the baths above. Soon, he meandered into the subterranean chamber where used water from the baths drained.
Several of the city's Pullati waded in front of the waterwheel in various states of undress, scrubbing with bars of homemade soap. Two kids from the snatcher gang hung out with the adults. One wrung out clothes and washed her hair and feet, and the other emptied their pockets into grain bins with furtive glances at the few outsiders. Some bins were filled with barley flour, and others... were not.
Domi glanced up at the wheel behind them and smirked. It turned under a steady flow of water draining from the public baths above, but unlike upstairs, this water cost nothing. Better yet, the presence of "filthy Pullati" inspired most people to pick up their weekly grain rations elsewhere. Sometimes prejudice offered a gift: No better place existed in all of Urbs Hostiae for Pullati business.
