The narrator of James Hynes’s novel is an orphaned slave boy who does not know his age, his origins or even his name. He lives in the crumbling city of Carthago Nova (now Cartagena in Spain) during the last days of the Roman empire. His world is confined to his place of forced labour, which is “a cramped, smoky kitchen and a narrow garden ten paces across”.
The kitchen is part of Helicon, a brothel and tavern. Here, the boy sleeps in a corner “among the cockroaches and mouse pellets”. He is fascinated by birds and so calls himself Sparrow, a name that allows him to enter an imaginative world where he can forget his fear and pain and fly high above the confines of his troubled existence.
