Yet the two young people had never actually declared their feelings for each other. They'd simply grown together like two trees whose roots intertwine beneath the earth, whose branches entangle above, whose combined fragrance rises to the sky. Their need to see each other had become absolute, they would have chosen death over a single day's separation.
Teresa was sixteen and Luigi was seventeen when a gang of outlaws established themselves in the nearby mountains and became the talk of the region.
Bandits had never truly been eliminated from the area around Rome. Sometimes they'd lack a leader, but whenever a strong leader emerged, he rarely had trouble finding followers.
