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duskpetersonSo, as some of you know, (1) Megan Whalen Turner loves the books of Rosemary Sutcliff, and (2) Ms. Turner sometimes includes implicit references to books she loves in her own novels. So I thought you folks might appreciate the beginning of Rosemary Sutcliff's Frontier Wolf, which I've just been rereading. The protagonist is under arrest for horribly disobeying orders.
o--o--o
The orderly set down the platter of cold meat and bread and the cup of wine on the end of the clothes chest, cast one half-contemptuous, half-sympathetic glance at the slight dark young man who sat hunched on the edge of the narrow cot with his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands, and went out, shutting the door behind him.
He was glad he was not Centurion Alexios Flavius Aquila.
And Centurion Alexios Flavius Aquila went on sitting with his head in his hands, staring at the floor but not seeing it. He felt dazed, as though he had taken a blow between the eyes; as though the past few days were all part of some monstrous nightmare from which he might wake up if only he knew how, to find himself back in his own quarters at Abusina. But the nightmare went on and on, and there was no waking up from it. . . .
The door opened again; but lost in his own private nightmare, Alexios did not know that someone else had come in, until the voice of Tribune Tetricus above him said, "Stand up!"
The orderly set down the platter of cold meat and bread and the cup of wine on the end of the clothes chest, cast one half-contemptuous, half-sympathetic glance at the slight dark young man who sat hunched on the edge of the narrow cot with his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands, and went out, shutting the door behind him.
He was glad he was not Centurion Alexios Flavius Aquila.
And Centurion Alexios Flavius Aquila went on sitting with his head in his hands, staring at the floor but not seeing it. He felt dazed, as though he had taken a blow between the eyes; as though the past few days were all part of some monstrous nightmare from which he might wake up if only he knew how, to find himself back in his own quarters at Abusina. But the nightmare went on and on, and there was no waking up from it. . . .
The door opened again; but lost in his own private nightmare, Alexios did not know that someone else had come in, until the voice of Tribune Tetricus above him said, "Stand up!"
