Rome was mud and smoky skies; the rank smell of the Tiber and the exotically spiced cooking fires of a hundred different nationalities. Rome was white marble and gilding and heady perfumes; the blare of trumpets and the shrieking of market-women and the eternal, sub-aural hum of more people, speaking more languages than Gaius had ever imagined existed, crammed together on seven hills whose contours had long ago disappeared beneath this encrustation if humanity. Rome was the pulsing heart of the world.

"


Death
After suffering declining health for years Bradley died at Alta Bates Medical Center in Berkeley on September 25 1999 four days after suffering a debilitating heart attack. The story had previously appeared in the fanzine Spacewarp Vol. After her divorce Bradley married numismatist Walter H.

Many critics have noted a feminist perspective in her writing. Her first child David R. Marion Eleanor Zimmer Bradley (June 3 1930 – September 25 1999) was an American author of fantasy novels such as The Mists of Avalon and the Darkover series.