Produce and Chickens

Aside from the agora, Alexandria’s central marketplace, Miriam could go to her local plaza for daily items such as produce and chickens. In The Deadliest Lie, she ventured out early to get the fruits and herbs to make her father’s favorite salad. With that salad to allay his defenses, she hoped to prod him with questions about the family finances:

As I approached the plaza, the rising sun splashed color on the rectangles of silver and slate, and the long shadows resolved into familiar sights. Skirting eddies of trash whirling with the wind, I spied a hunchbacked beggar wading through heaps of stagnant garbage in a rubbish-strewn alley. I caught the pungent scent of tethered animals before I saw them switching their tails against the swarms of hovering flies.

If in fact they’d lost their family fortune, Miriam figured even her father could have stolen the alchemical scrolls she’d hidden in her cubby in the family library. They’d fetch a tidy sum on the black market, but they were dangerous. In the Roman Empire, their possession was a capital offense. But if not her father, then who could have taken them? To find out more, click here.