（外文电子版资料）Up the Wall.docVIP

UP THE WALL Esther M. Friesner Reading a story like this makes one want to toss out all the old history texts and let the fantasy and SF writing community have a go at redoing them for the secondary-school market. Guaranteed youd have more students interested in history, and that they wouldnt be bored. Roman history is particularly fascinating, but all too often shrunken and curdled into an endless litany of Latin names and places and dates. The history thats fun to read is history that lives and breathes. Up the Wall doesnt merely breathe, it fairly vibrates with life. Whether it would be allowed in history texts, its contextual accuracy notwithstanding, is another matter entirely. Most such weighty tomes have perforce had all the life sucked out of them by review committees, whose sole task in life it is to reduce all textbooks to the literary level of vanilla pudding. Up the Wall adds some spice. It also leaves you wondering who youd really like to have standing alongside you in a crisis. A GUST OF NORTHCOUNTRY air swept over the undulating hump of Hadrians Wall, still bearing with it the chill of the sea. The northcountry was the hard countryeven the starveling sheep had the grim air of failed philosophers but worse land yet lay north of the wall, in wild Caledonia, if the word of tribal Celts and travelers could be believed. Two figures in the full finery of the Roman legions paced the earthworks as dusk came on. The last rays of the setting sun struck gold from the breast of the eagle standard jammed into the soil between them. In looks, in bearing, in the solemn silence folded in wings around them, they carried a taste of eternity. It all would have been very heroic and poetical if the shorter man had not reached up under his tunic and pteruges, undone his bracae, and taken a long, reflective pee in the direction of Orkney. His comrade affected not to notice. Rather by way of distraction than conversation, the taller fellow broke silence almost simulta