Read Laughing Wolf for Free Online Page B

smirked, leaning forward to press the disconnect button.
    â€œYou don’t understand!” Felix said sternly. “I’m saying this same plague struck two thousand years ago!”
    At this news Angstrom flinched, while the doctor sat up straight in his chair.
    â€œIt will become clearer if I read to you,” Felix explained, opening the Historiae to the page with the bookmark. Angstrom and the doctor leaned forward in their seats.
    â€œâ€˜Two days after the death of Spartacus,” he read, “a plague broke out near the town of Panarium, a small but prosperous farming centre. Without warning, people in the town fell ill. Spots erupted on their faces, their necks grew swollen, and their fingertips turned red, as if they’d been immersed in blood. Its victims also lapsed into a sleep so deep that no amount of shaking would possibly rouse them.’” Felix paused for breath and addressed Angstrom directly. “Notice the symptoms. Facial spots, red fingertips, coma …”
    â€œAre you a doctor?” Angstrom asked.
    â€œNo.”
    â€œThen you have no right to jump to conclusions. In fact —”
    â€œâ€˜For a month,” Felix went on reading, to prevent himself from being cut off, “the plague rampaged like a conquering army. Rich and poor fell ill, Roman and non-Roman, slave and master, honest folk and criminals. Offerings were delivered to the gods, but still the plague continued, drawing strength from every victim it claimed. Hearing of this sickness, officials in Rome grew worried. If the plague reached the capital, it would kill people by the tens of thousands. Rome’s foes might attack it in its weakened state, and slaves might remember Spartacus and continue his rebellion. The fate of the empire seemed to hang in the balance.’”
    â€œSlaves, war, invasion!” Angstrom growled, his 3D image recoiling in horror. “I think you’ve tried our patience enough!”
    â€œI’m getting to the important part —”
    â€œFinish quickly,” the doctor broke in. “This talk of the past is most unpleasant.”
    â€œâ€˜In the third week of the crisis,’” Felix pressed on, “‘The plague struck the capital. Within days three thousand Romans lay dying. As officials struggled to halt the disease, and citizens prepared to flee the city, a farmer from Panarium made the strangest claim. Some months before the plague had started, his entire crop had failed. His fields had produced, not wheat and barley, but an ungainly flower called lupus ridens , so named because its petals resembled a laughing wolf. His neighbours had assumed he had offended the gods and refused to provide his household with grain. In desperation, the farmer had fed his family this flower, whose bulb, though bitter, was highly nutritious. The results were startling. Whereas every neighbour had fallen ill, the farmer was in perfect health. Far from being a curse, the lupus ridens was a blessing.’”
    â€œWhat barbarians!” Angstrom snorted, “To believe in gods …!”
    â€œâ€˜Hearing this tale,’” Felix concluded, “‘the senator Gaius Julius Caesar bought the flowers from the farmer and distributed bulbs throughout Italy. Within weeks of eating the lupus ridens , citizens were delivered from the brink of death: they awoke from their sleep, their spots disappeared and their red fingertips regained their normal colour. And thus it was that a simple flower saved the empire in its hour of need.’”
    Felix closed the book. “So you see,” he concluded, “this plague does have a cure. We only have to find this lupus ridens and —”
    â€œEnough!” Angstrom cried. “How dare you mention … fairy tales! If you’d undergone ERR, you’d be thinking with your head and not your emotions!”
    â€œThis is no fairy tale!” Felix said hotly.