Far away, somewhere, and ages ago, there were two farms bordering on each other.
Both had been part of a Roman estate with a spacious and sumptuous villa, but as the times of the Empire were fading from living memory the surviving structures of the main buildings had become split up between two feuding families.
Thus says the opening of an age-old tale of two unfortunate lovers, separated by a physical wall as well as by the social divide between their families. The story of Romeo and Juliet is a Renaissance example of this genre and generally known, but its roots lie in pre-classical times, when Pyramus and Thisbe met with the same unfavourable circumstances for their budding romance in ancient Babylonia.
I wrote this short story in the same vein, but took the liberty to alter the storyline considerably in a rather ironic way. As a background I chose an early medieval setting, a time when the Western Roman Empire had ceased to exist, but before Christianity could stymie the natural impulse of female sexuality.
I hope you'll enjoy the result.
