“On the morning of November 4, a lone courier, carrying packets stuffed with letters, bolted from the still burning capital. For several days, he rode eastward through the granite hills and gray-green valleys of Alentejo and Extremadura in Spain before turning north at the dry windswept plateau of Castile.”
“At first light on Sunday the ship was loaded, along with the galley slaves, with all sorts of precious cargo, half of which were luxury goods that the rich of Judaea craved, their wives especially: oils, paints, and balms with which it was the latest fad to daub the body in Italia; caskets of jewels; small mirrors; little jars.”
“My father ran a gas farm in the Brosian hill country. At the start of each season, a military airship would hover over the fueling circle, which was the signal for my father to wheel a cramble pole out to the middle of the circle.”
