Her palms are damp and her feet hurt. When she thinks of the younger children darting down the corridors right now, on their way to Third Meal, a long ache runs through her like a blade. Mrs. Flowers gestures at the measureless shelves. “Each of these books, child, is a door, a gateway to another place and time. You have your whole life in front of you, and for all of it, you’ll have this. It will be enough, don’t you think?”

EIGHT

ROUND AND ROUND

Cloud Cuckoo Land by Antonius Diogenes, Folio Θ

… north, north, for weeks the miller and his son rode me north. Cramps gnawed my muscles and cracks splintered my hooves, and I longed to rest and eat some bread, maybe a slice of lamb or two, some nice fish soup and a cup of wine, but no sooner had we arrived at their craggy, frozen farm than the miller brought me to the millhouse and harnessed me to the wheel.

I plodded in endless circles turning the stone, grinding wheat and barley for every farmer, it seemed, in the whole wretched, frigid country, and if I slowed for even a step, the miller’s son was sure to take his stick from the corner and whack me on the hind legs. When at last they turned me out to pasture, ice rained from the sky and the wind blew with a frosty rage, and the horses were not pleased to share what little wisps of grass they had. Worse, they suspected me of seducing their wives, though I had no interest! There could be no roses here for months.

I watched birds flit overhead, on their way to greener places, and longing flared inside my ribs. Why were the gods so cruel? Had I not suffered enough for my curiosities? All I ever did in that brutish valley was grind the wheel, round and round, round and round, turn-sick and dizzy, until I felt I was drilling down to the underworld, and would soon stand to my belly in the boiling waters of Acheron, the river of pain, and look Hades in the face…

THE ROAD TO CONSTANTINOPLE

JANUARY–APRIL 1453

Omeir

It is 140 miles from the testing ground in Edirne to the Queen of Cities and they bring the cannon there at a pace slower than a man can crawl. The train of oxen pulling it runs to thirty pairs, each harnessed to a jointed pole in the middle, a train so long and with so many potential points of failure that it comes to a halt dozens of times a day. Behind and in front of them, other oxen pull culverins and catapults and arquebuses, perhaps thirty artillery pieces in all, while still others pull wagons of powder or stone balls, some so large Omeir could not wrap his arms around them.