Douglas Parker sat at a table in an outdoor cafe in the Piazza di Spagna. He sipped his cappuccino and watched a swarthy workman wrestle a huge azalea bush into an old wooden barrow and wipe his hands on his leather apron. Now he was in Rome, in a cosmopolitan metropolis completely foreign to everything he had ever seen and every place he had been in his sixty years. Was it only four days ago that they had left behind the heat and dust and odours of Kenya? Four days since they bade goodbye to Michael and Dorian and Julianne? Four days since, they had arrived in Rome with its noise and traffic congestion and odours, heavenly odours of pasta sauces, sausage and garlic, and bread baking in ovens at the rear of shops? He glanced at his watch and wondered how much longer Margaret would take to complete her shopping, all those gifts for the family and a few friends back home. He drained his cup and drew a guidebook from his pocket.

They had arrived in Rome at sunset. By the time they had cleared customs, night had settled over the Eternal City. The taxi had deposited them at the Columbus Hotel on the Via del Conciliazone, an imposing edifice of at least fifty years, quite new by Roman standards. The shabby baroque furniture in the lobby and their room bespoke of other, kinder days.

Margaret had perched on the bed and gazed up at the intricate moldings around the high ceiling. The room seemed cold in character as well as temperature and she reached over to touch the radiator below the window. It was stone cold.

"It isn't the Ritz, is it," Doug murmured as he came out of the bathroom drying his hands on a towel.

"No. But what do you expect for a quarter of a million lira?"

They had rested the following morning, and after a leisurely breakfast in the hotel dining room, they had made two decisions: to find a restaurant with a more reasonable fare, and to take a bus tour of the city that afternoon.

The bus, in fact was a van, large enough to accommodate six people as well as a driver and tour guide. Two German couples who spoke no English had settled into the front seats. "This is great," Doug muttered as Renaldo, the tour guide, had pointed out various landmarks along the way, most of the time in German, because it took too long to repeat the information in English. The van driver, Michel, had sped up the Via del Conziliazone toward the Vatican City, careened right with such alacrity that Doug whispered "I bet this fellow's descended from a charioteer."

Margaret had smiled grimly. "I hope we get out of here alive!"

The tour had led north into an elegant residential area and paused at a point in Monte Mario to look south and eastward across a dusky panorama of domes and rooftops, St. Peter's Basilica, the Vittorio Emanuel monument, the Coliseum and glimpses of the winding course of the Tiber River. The van had descended through green avenues of cypress to cross the river and made a wide circuitous route through the Borghese Park. Doug consulted his guidebook and said quietly to Margaret, "This was once a malarial swamp. Some fellow named Hawthorne described it as a place where 'fevers walk arm in arm and death awaits'."

Margaret looked at the page. "Hawthorne ... I think he was an American, a novelist ... Well, it isn't a swamp now ... Look. ... There's a family having a picnic."

The van had entered a busy street and they learned that they were now about to enter the old city through Porto del Popola, 'the gate of the people, the route of conquerors and kings', Renaldo explained. Because the traffic had grown considerably, their guide now had time to repeat himself in English, and he pointed out the features of the huge piazza, the obelisk, the fountains, as Michel had forced an entry into the melee of cars, trucks, bicycles, scooters and pedestrians on the Via del Corso. White-gloved policemen stood at the intersections to enforce the system of traffic lights amid honking horns. They shouted Italian obscenities at recalcitrant drivers emphasizing the words with white-fingered gestures. By the time they had traversed the Piazza Venezia and viewed the Vittorio Emanuel monument which Roman citizenry dubbed "the typewriter" or "the wedding cake" because of its garish facade, Doug was chuckling. He leaned toward Margaret and said, "I like this Hawthorne's sense of humour. When he saw this place he bemoaned the sight and sighed 'Even the ruins are ruined'!"

Renaldo was now pointing south to the Coliseum. After another hair-raising escape from a collision, Michel had stopped at the entrance and Renaldo led his white-faced group through one of many arches into the arena. As Doug listened to the German explanation he looked about and decided that here, before him stood a perfect ruin. Some of it was still intact. They climbed several rows of seats to gain a perspective of the many ringed tiers, once, accommodating thousands upon thousands of spectators. The floor had disappeared, but below stood the supporting pillars and evidence of the cells where the hapless gladiators or prisoners had awaited their fate. Margaret took his arm and shivered as the shadows fell across the crumbling walls. "You can almost hear the cries, the clamour.."

Renaldo came alongside. "A huge building, yes? Everything else is small. The engineers, the builders, they make a perfect job. They even make a canvas covering to shield the crowd from the sun." He pointed toward the centre of the arena. "And they make a wooden floor so tight to flood with water so they can enact sea battles with ships."

Doug raised his eyebrows. "Really!"

Renaldo nodded. "Yes, but mostly we remember this place for the fights. Here, men were thrown to the lions in the morning, and to the bloodthirsty crowd in the afternoon. The gladiators ... Their combats ended in death. The emperor chose but it was the roar of the crowd that made him turn his thumb to the ground ..."

Doug nodded. "Two thousand years have passed but the gruesome history remains."

Margaret asked. "How many Christians were murdered here? ... And does their blood still cry out for vengeance?"

Renaldo stared at her briefly and said, "Many years ago, the church sanctified this ground because of the blood of the martyrs." He turned and clapped his hands. "Shall we go on?"

Michel was waiting to take them on beyond the Baths of Caracalla where they had turned onto the narrow Appian Way and jolted very slowly over the ancient stones, the road where Caesars' armies marched toward the sea and set forth to conquer distant peoples.

They came to the catacombs. Renaldo had herded them toward a yawning stairway and they had descended into a labyrinth of tunnels and shafts where the bones of saints had once been interred. Many of these bones now, reposed in museums, and below the altars of churches and cathedrals. Margaret plucked Doug's sleeve in the dim light and confining space. "I'll wait for you at the top of the stairs," she said, and fled.

He came to her some time later and they returned to the city along a broad thoroughfare. "Well, that was interesting," he said. "Interesting but gruesome, skulls and bones, but they have to use their imaginations to identify the saints. No one kept dental records then." The bus slowed momentarily as the traffic increased.

"The site of the Circus Maximus," Renaldo had said as they whizzed past an empty field.

His tour group stared with glazed eyes at the long green mound where in...