Fighting Fit (6 page)

Then I noticed Aurelia furtively wiping her eyes, so I tactfully slipped off to find Reuben.

Reubs and I had our supper in the slave quarters. The food was actually not bad; a kind of Roman sausage, followed by small deep-fried pastries, dipped in honey. Reuben isn’t big on Earth food though, so he sneakily fed most of his sausage to Minerva, who was now his faithful shadow.

The other slaves stared at us quite openly while we were eating. But suspicious slaves were the least of my worries. For absolutely no reason, I was deeply depressed.

Reuben put his arm round me. “You forgot your protection procedure didn’t you?” he murmured.

“Might have done,” I admitted.

“Well, do it now. This house is seriously toxic.”

It was a relief to know these weren’t just my personal bad feelings. But where were they coming from?

“You think there are PODS, here in this house?” I asked nervously.

“Something just doesn’t feel right. You should stay with Aurelia tonight.”

That was easy to arrange. When I told my mistress I was too scared to sleep by myself, she immediately offered to let me sleep on a couch in her room.

“Won’t the other slaves think it’s strange?”

“Of course not,” she laughed. “I’ll just say you’re my personal bodyguard!”

As Aurelia’s ornatrix
,
I had to unpack her clothes and put them away in the cedar-wood closets in her room. Then I carefully set out all her little perfume bottles, tweezers, brush, comb, pretty hairpins and so forth on her dressing table. Before she went to bed, I had to help her remove her jewellery and lock it in a special casket. You couldn’t be too careful in Roman times, even in a house full of watchful slaves.

When I went to take off her bulla, Aurelia suddenly jerked away. “Leave it on please, Mella. I never take it off.”

“I didn’t know, sorry,” I said apologetically. I could tell I’d genuinely distressed her. Romans are SO superstitious, I thought.

I helped Aurelia into her night-gown then brushed her hair until it was silky. “Your hair isn’t
so
bad,” I comforted her. “It’s out of condition that’s all. Perhaps we can buy some almond oil tomorrow. That’s what Lola uses.”

“Is Lola your friend?” Aurelia asked.

“She’s more like my spiritual twin,” I said truthfully.

My mistress looked wistful. “So you actually found your twin, Mella?”

Oh yeah, I thought, and I felt a happy tingle of angelic electricity.
I suppose I did!

Two slaves came in, lugging a small couch. They solemnly positioned it to form a solid barrier between my mistress’s bed and the door. They bowed to Aurelia and backed out, looking faintly puzzled. I heard one mutter, “Isn’t she a bit
small
for a bodyguard.”

“Size is irrelevant with Carthaginians,” hissed his companion. “All Carthaginian girls carry knives, it’s a known fact.”

Aurelia was asleep minutes after we blew out the lamp.

I lay awake going over the events of the past few hours. I still had no idea why I was posing as a slave in Ancient Rome. But the Agency had gone to a great deal of trouble to establish my cover. This meant that Aurelia Flavia was important to them for some reason. I decided I was honoured that Orlando trusted me to take care of her.

I won’t let you down, I swear, I told him silently.

Next minute, my mouth went dry with fear. Unsteady footsteps were coming towards our room. The door opened very softly and someone came in, stumbling in the dark. My heart gave a massive thump as I felt the intruder lean over me and peer into my face. I could smell his breath, a suffocating mixture of garlic, fish and alcohol.

This isn’t a burglar! I thought in a panic. This is deeply creepy!!

“Pollux!” he swore in disgust. “It’s only her slave.”

For Aurelia’s sake, I had to control my terror. I made my breathing deep and regular. I’m just a slave girl, I told myself, not even worth bothering with. I’m a tired slave girl dreaming whatever Roman slave girls dream about.

It worked. After some minutes, whoever it was stumbled away.

I lay there still trembling in the dark. I was almost positive the intruder wasn’t PODS. But from the vibes, he wasn’t totally human either. There was no way I’d be able to fall asleep now. I clutched my bee charm like a talisman, jumping out of my skin at every tiny household creak. I remembered Aurelia saying, “He may have been poisoned.”

“That girl needs you,” Orlando had said. And now I know why.

Chapter Five

T
wo weeks later, I was still so worried about keeping Aurelia safe, that I had developed major angelic insomnia.

At night, that is. In the day, I only had to sit down in the sunshine to shell a few peas to find myself dropping off! One afternoon I actually dozed off at the baths.

Unlike other rich Romans, who took hordes of slaves everywhere they went - one to unbuckle your sandals, one to help you into your litter, a third to run ahead clearing the rabble out of your way - Aurelia Flavia preferred a more democratic approach. On our daily visits to the baths we took it in turns to guard our possessions. I’d watch them while she bathed and had her massage, then she’d do the same for me.

Apart from the constant risk of robbery, the atmosphere was wonderfully relaxing. I tucked my feet under me, leaned my head against the tiled wall and settled down happily to wait.

I was now a complete convert to Roman-style bathing. It was like the ultimate spa experience. First you washed off the dust from the street, then you were slathered in scented oil and massaged vigorously by a trained masseuse. Then all the oil was scraped off with a little gadget called a “strigil”. After that you went through warm pools and sweltering steam rooms and icy plunge pools, until every last speck of dirt had been extracted from your pores. By the time you floated back on to the street, you were so clean you could hardly speak!

I watched dreamily as half-naked girls and women wandered to and fro between the steam rooms and the plunge pool. The humid air was full of soothing scents, jasmine, rose and sandalwood oils, perfumed creams and Roman shampoo. The sounds were soothing too. The whoosh of steam, the swoosh and bubble of water, the murmur of voices.

I felt safe in this scented female world. Safe enough to risk a teeny little snooze…

My eyes flew open in terror! I’d felt someone brush past. A pale blue robe was disappearing around the corner. Aurelia’s jewellery! I panicked. But to my huge relief, my mistress’s possessions seemed undisturbed.

It was mid-afternoon by the time we went back out on to the street. After the languid atmosphere of the baths, the heat and noise outside seemed tremendous. A new temple was going up across the road and the air was thick with dust. Armies of sweating slaves wearing unbelievably filthy rags, wrestled massive blocks of stone into place, as an overseer bellowed instructions.

While we looked around for our litter bearers, a guy tried to get us to buy a carpet. “For such pretty ladies, very special price.”

Another guy was trying to sell us a jar of rejuvenating oil!

“Cheeky thing!” I fumed. “I’ll rejuvenate
him
if he tries that again!”

“Do you know where they get that stuff?” Aurelia grinned. From the glint in her eye, I knew this was going to be gross. “It comes from the gladiator schools. The masseurs save all the dirty oil they scrape off the gladiators and sell it on!”

I stared at her, open-mouthed. “Who in the world would buy dirty massage oil?”

“Deluded old women, mainly,” she said giggling. “They believe gladiator sweat will keep them eternally young!”

“Euw,” I said faintly. “Bottled gladiator sweat! That is so icky!!”

We eventually spotted our bearers squatting by the roadside. They’d been waiting patiently for us in the broiling heat for hours. Most upper-class Romans didn’t even register a bearer as a human being. But Aurelia was not like most Romans. “They look half-starved,” she said in a low voice. “Give them a few denarii to buy food, Mella. We’ll wait here.”

While we were waiting, I spotted a poster advertising the next day’s Games. I was startled to see a girl gladiator amongst the attractions. So girls really do fight in the arena I thought wistfully. This gladiatrix, as girl gladiators were called, was known as Star. Someone had added a drawing of her in a tiny leather skirt and boots, wielding a short curved sword. Her face was hidden behind a spooky metal mask.

“Have you heard about this girl?” I asked Aurelia.

I turned in time to see her furtively examining a scrap of papyrus. I just glimpsed a childish drawing of a fish and what might have been a street name, then she hurriedly slipped it inside her stola, looking flustered. “Did you say something, Mella?” she said in an innocent voice.

Don’t say Aurelia’s got a new love interest already, I thought. She’s only been in Rome a couple of weeks! How did that happen?

It turned out that my mistress knew all about the gladiator girl. She’d got the local gossip from her masseuse at the baths. Star herself had only arrived in Rome a few weeks ago, but she was already a bit of a celeb.

“You’d have to be really special to be a girl gladiator,” I sighed enviously. I couldn’t imagine that kind of courage.

Aurelia shook her head. “Gladiatrix are really just novelty acts. Like dwarves and exotic beasts. No-one takes them seriously as fighters.”

“They’re taking this one seriously,” I pointed out. “It says here she’s mastered three different fighting styles.”

Aurelia shook her head. “It doesn’t matter if she masters three thousand. Romans admire gladiators in the ring, but they fear and despise them in real life. This girl will be an outcast all her days. When she dies, her body will be thrown in a pit with the corpses of criminals and suicides.”

“That’s terrible!” I gasped.

“I know. We Romans are a terrible people.” Aurelia looked upset. Her hand strayed to her bulla. “Mella, do you believe—” she began.

At that moment we heard a polite cough. Our bearers had hastily devoured their hard-boiled eggs and lentil porridge and were ready to take us home.

As we swayed and jolted through the city, tremendous waves of sound washed over us: chanting from the temples on the Via Sacra, and the tramp of hobnailed sandals as the Praetorian guard marched through the narrow streets, grimly maintaining Rome’s precarious law and order.

Occasional bursts of sexy music pierced the din, as we passed bars featuring saucy barbarian dancing girls. But behind our drawn curtains, Aurelia and I were in our own intimate little world. “So who’s coming to this big banquet again?” I asked with interest. “Your brother, Quintus. Titus whatever his name is, the guy who wants to marry you. And who else?”

. “A great many important Roman citizens and their wives,” she said wearily.” I won’t know what to say to them.” She looked embarrassed. “Actually I needed to talk to you about that, Mella. I’m afraid you won’t be able to recline with us. Quintus has rather strong opinions about the status of slaves. If it was up to me—”

“Don’t worry about it,” I told her. “I’m not used to eating lying down. I’d probably choke and humiliate myself.”

“I may humiliate myself, too,” Aurelia said with a sigh. “My brother has told Dorcas to prepare some extremely strange dishes.”

My mistress seemed to find her life in Rome as bewildering as I did. I’d at least had a two-day intensive at the Agency whereas she’d spent most of her life as a foreigner amongst hostile British tribes. In normal circumstances, her parents would have helped Aurelia learn the ropes. Unfortunately her mum was dead, and her dad seemed to be having some kind of breakdown.

We’d see him first thing in the morning, making offerings to the household spirits at the family shrine. Then he’d disappear into his library and stay there reading his scrolls, until a slave took him his evening meal. Just once I saw him in the garden, staring at his dead wife’s quince tree with a haunted expression. He wants to die too, I realised with a pang, then he can be reunited with her on the Plains of Asphodel.

I think his son was also a major disappointment to him. Quintus Flavius still hadn’t shown up at the house, so Aurelia’s father sent a messenger to Nero’s palace. Quintus eventually replied, sending his respects to his father along with a note to Aurelia, welcoming his sister to the Eternal City, hinting that her admirer was longing to meet her. But it seemed like he couldn’t actually be bothered to drop in to say “hi” in person.

Then out of the blue he’d suddenly sent instructions for a huge banquet to be prepared in their honour. At first, I thought he just wanted to welcome his father and sister home, in true lavish Roman style - which was nice, if a bit late in the day.

Then Quintus sent another message to Aurelia, saying she’d better buy herself a new dress, because he was bringing her future husband to meet her.

The whole thing made me deeply uneasy. All Aurelia knew about this Titus Lucretius guy was that he was one of Nero’s closest advisers. Even her father hadn’t met him, which seemed
really
disrespectful. I mean, officially her dad was still head of the household.