Jenny: A Line of Poetry

"Those fifty bridal chambers, hope of a line so flourishing; those doorways high and proud, adorned with takings of barbaric gold, were all brought low: the fire had them, or the Greeks."

The Guttersnipe stopped, raising her head from the manuscript. "I wonder why you like this," she told Master Lucius. "You are not painted in the most flattering light."

The other continued going over the sheets of vellum that spread away on the tabletop before him. "Hmm?" he murmured without looking round. "Am I in there? Fancy that..."

She wondered, too, if he had heard a line of what she had been reading. She admitted, it was all very magnificent in a deeply tragic way, Aeneas' retelling of Troy's final sacking. And to think, without it, she would not be here, Master Lucius would not be here; nor her Lord Ambrosius, nor Artos, nor a great many things that Aeneas had put in motion. All because of some one city far, far away, long ago, and pure human jealousy. Odd, how things worked like that.

Suddenly Master Lucius said, in that thin, bird-like tone he had, "Guttersnipe, I'm going to need you to take Firefly down the Wear and have a look into the felter's. The two-year-olds are all in need of blankets and they will be shipped up north soon."

She eyed the manuscript. The end of the passage was so close. She knew nothing in the world could convince Master Lucius to let her take the precious manuscript with her, and she knew that if anything in the way of harm came to it, she could never forgive herself. So she stifled a sigh and left off, gathering her mantle to rise. She left him in the sunshine checking figures, the grooves of his stylus deep and dark in the wax tablets. She fetched her riding shoes, putting away her soft indoor sandals, and went out into the blowy summer light to tack up little Firefly.