Chapter 28A baby was crying, shrill even through her helmet.
The marketplace should have been filled with vendors selling wine and dried figs, smiths hammering at the forge to make horseshoes. Instead, it was crowded with armoured warriors, their eyes on the ironbound gate. It stood fast, the crossbar firm. Yet none was foolish enough to believe it would last against the onslaught of an enemy battering ram.
Not a word, no snatch of song. Just days ago, jubilation had filled every heart, ready for a short and victorious war. Now the Latins hoped merely to die with dignity.
But still the baby shrieked, the thin cry echoing across the marketplace.
Lavinia glanced up. The sound came from one of the apartments clustered around the city centre. The windows were boarded, but she knew peasants
