‘So you never went out?’
‘Hardly ever. Just for some festivals and processions.’
‘What did you do all day?’
‘The same thing I do here in Londinium. I weave cloth.’
‘Don’t you go to school?’
‘Girls don’t go to school. My father taught me enough letters to get by. My mother taught me to weave. And some other special skills,’ she added mysteriously.
I imagined Lollia as a toddler sitting at a little loom, and my heart melted for her.
‘Why did you leave Lepcis Magna?’ I asked.
Lollia looked at me wide-eyed. ‘Because of the plague,’ she whispered. ‘The great plague of Carthage.’
32
Zombie Apocalypse
‘Plague?’ I cried, my voice louder than intended. ‘Like a contagious plague?’
People around me shrank back and Lollia hissed, ‘Shhh!’ She and Plecta both made the sign against evil by poking their right thumb between the first two fingers of their right fist. ‘Of course the plague was contagious,’ she whispered. ‘Don’t you have plagues where you come from?’ Her breath in my ear made me shiver.
‘No,’ I murmured. ‘What happened?’
‘It was horrible. People had blood coming from their noses and ears and even their eyes.’
I stared at her in shock. She must have taken my shock for interest because she told me more.
‘The sick people were so thirsty that they could never drink enough.’ Her voice was still low. ‘It was as if all the water in the world could not satisfy them. The wells and fountains were full of dead bodies. Then there were pits full of corpses. The priests sprinkled white powder on them and burned them.’
‘It sounds like the zombie apocalypse,’ I muttered to myself in English. But of course the word apocalypse is Greek, and she looked up sharply.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘It was like the apocalypse. First my mother died, then my two sisters. Then grandparents, uncles, aunts. It seemed like the end of the world. But somehow my father and I survived.’
We had reached the amphitheatre and were in a queue of people shuffling towards the entrance.
‘How?’ I said. ‘How did you survive and not the others?’
‘My lucky knife,’ she said. ‘Pater gave it to me for my ninth birthday, three days before the plague struck. I didn’t realise until later. Now I will never take it off.’
‘Why did you come to Londinium?’ I asked.
‘Because it’s as far as we could get from Lepcis Magna, where all those terrible things happened.’
‘Was the voyage hard?’ I asked.
‘You must know the answer,’ she said. ‘But yes. It was cold and wet. Even the ship was crying.’
‘The ship cried?’
‘Yes. She was always groaning and squeaking. We had to sleep in a shack called a cabin, like a wooden hut on deck.’
‘Tell him about the sea-monster,’ said Plecta.
Lollia said, ‘Once we saw a sea-monster. The sailors called it Leviathan.’
‘Were you with them?’ I asked Plecta. ‘I thought everybody in Lepcis Magna died.’
Lollia put her arm around Plecta. ‘We stopped at many ports along the way, and Pater bought Plecta at the slave market of Massilia. I had come down with a fever and he wanted a girl or woman to nurse me.’
‘How long were you on the ship?’ I asked.
‘Almost three months.’
I couldn’t imagine that. I think the longest journey I have ever taken is ten hours.
‘Look, mistress!’ cried Plecta. ‘We are here!’
Sure enough we were going through an arch into Londinium’s fine stone amphitheatre.
I was about to see real Roman gladiator games.
33
White Teeth
If I tell you which football team I support, will you promise not to hate me?
I’ll give you a clue. It’s not Arsenal, Spurs or Chelsea.
It’s Fulham.
My dad supported Fulham. About a month before he and Mum died in that car crash he took me to a match. So you can’t blame me for supporting them. It was practically my dad’s dying wish.
Going to Londinium’s amphitheatre was a bit like attending a match at Fulham.
Apart from a few families, the crowd was mainly men.
But instead of thermos flasks, the punters clutched leather wine-skins.
And instead of coolers, they had shoulder bags in woven wool or leather. (I could see something like a baguette sticking out of one.)
Some people even brought their own cushions, like today. The one thing they didn’t need was a ticket. Entry was free as long as there were still seats. And we were among the last to get them. We managed to find three together, though they were quite high up and the sun was in our eyes. I heard something like organ music, though I couldn’t tell where it was coming from. And I kept catching whiffs of incense.
Then I noticed that the people in nearby seats were staring at me. Did something about me betray the fact I came from the future?
‘Why is everyone staring at me?’ I asked Lollia.
She and Plecta exchanged a glance and then started giggling. Let me tell you: girls giggling is the same in the third century AD as it is today.
‘Don’t you know?’ said Lollia. She looked at Plecta and they both covered their mouths.
My pride was stung. ‘It is because I look strange?’
‘Not at all!’ said Lollia. ‘It’s because you’re beautiful!’
‘I’m beautiful?’ I stared at her, and the two girls both gave the single downward nod for yes.
‘Your skin,’ said Lollia. ‘It is so smooth and clear.’ She reached out and stroked my cheek with the back of her forefinger.
It made me shiver, but in a good way.
‘Also your hair is so shiny.’ She ran her fingers through my hair, which was still slightly damp from the rain shower that had washed me clean.
‘Your eyes are very bright,’ added Plecta shyly.
‘And your teeth,’ said Lollia. ‘Show us your teeth!’
Feeling a bit self-conscious, I opened my mouth so they could look inside. That’s when I had a flash of déjà vu that took me back to my headteacher’s office at the start of this adventure.
‘Oh!’ they cried, and Lollia’s eyes actually filled with tears. ‘They are perfect!’ she said, and clasped her hands over her heart. ‘How I wish I had teeth like yours.’
‘How do you make them so perfect?’ asked Plecta shyly.
I considered saying, ‘My grandmother makes me brush twice a day and floss before bed.’ Instead I shrugged. ‘Just lucky, I guess.’
Plecta whispered into Lollia’s ear, but not so quietly that I couldn’t hear. ‘Alexandros is like Eros, the god of love.’
‘Yes!’ breathed Lollia, and clapped her hands.
I sat up straighter and tried not to look smug. I wondered what the kids in my class would say if they knew I was a love god in Roman London.
Then I had a thought. ‘Wait!’ I said. ‘Isn’t Eros the same as Cupid? That naked baby with the wings and arrows?’
‘Look!’ Without answering my question, Lollia gripped my arm and pointed to the arena. ‘I think the show is about to start.’
Down on the yellowish-grey sand of the arena, a man in a cream tunic with two vertical red stripes had come out. Behind him was a man in a short red tunic with a strange-looking trumpet. He brought the horn to his lips and blew a fanfare of five or six rising notes. The murmuring audience fell silent but a moment later erupted into cheers as some men started to come out onto the sand.
They were gladiators! Real. Live. Gladiators.
At first I was excited. But pretty soon after that I felt disappointed.
They weren’t muscular and buff. Most of them were stocky, even fat.
None of them looked like Russell Crowe in the classic film Gladiator. In fact, one of them reminded me of Bob from Croydon who had fix
ed our boiler the previous winter. He held his helmet under one arm.
‘Those are the gladiators?’ I said to Lollia.
‘I don’t know,’ she said, without taking her eyes off the men. ‘I’ve never seen one before.’
I turned around and saw a fluffy-bearded teenager in a cream-coloured blanket behind us. ‘Excuse me,’ I said in Latin, ‘are those the gladiators?’
He gave a curt downward nod for yes. ‘Ita vero.’
Then the whole arena gasped and I turned back to see a blond boy wearing what looked like a baby’s nappy and padded shin-guards. He held a tall trident in one hand and a net in the other and he looked familiar.
When I was in Year Five I did a project on different types of gladiators. This one looked like a retiarius, the net man, except he didn’t have a shoulder guard.
Lollia said, ‘Look at that one. He’s beautiful.’
‘I think he’s called a retiarius,’ I said. ‘They fight with net and trident.’
‘Find out his name,’ commanded Lollia. ‘Ask that youth behind us.’
I turned back to the fluffy-bearded teenager sitting behind us. I realised his blanket was a toga. It was the first toga I had seen up close. ‘Excuse me,’ I said in Latin again, ‘do you know his name?’
‘The retiarius?’ said Fluffy Beard. ‘His name is Dionysus but they are calling him Dinu.’
Already the crowd was chanting, ‘Dinu! Dinu! Dinu!’
Dinu?
My head whipped around and I squinted down at the retiarius with the floppy blond hair.
No wonder he looked familiar.
Dionysus the retiarius was Dinu Balan, my arch-flipping-nemesis.
34
Parental Advisory
Dinu Balan wasn’t a body floating in the Thames. He was a gladiator fighting in London’s arena.
I literally pinched myself to make sure I wasn’t dreaming. How could Dinu have become a gladiator in less than twenty-four hours? It was impossible.
Or was it?
Maybe someone had fished him out of the river and, like me, he had tried to think of a way to earn money for clothes and shoes. His obvious big strengths were that he was – well, big and strong.
So here he was, armed with a fishing net and a giant fork.
‘Furcifer!’ I muttered between clenched teeth.
‘He’s called Dionysus!’ breathed Lollia. ‘Just like the god I worship.’ She gripped Plecta’s hands. ‘Isn’t he beautiful?’
Without taking her eyes from him, Plecta gave the single downward nod for yes.
A minute ago they’d called me beautiful. Now they were gazing at him as if he were a god.
‘Double furcifer!’ I muttered. I had to regain control of this situation. Fast. I couldn’t have them crushing on Dinu.
‘I know him!’ I said. ‘I know that retiarius.’
Both girls looked at me.
‘You know him?’ squeaked Lollia.
‘Better than that,’ I said. ‘I own him. He’s my slave. Remember? I lost him when we were washed ashore.’
Lollia’s eyes grew wide. ‘That beautiful boy is your slave?’
I ground my teeth.
‘Where are they going?’ asked Plecta, as the gladiators all marched out again.
The man with the striped tunic came into the centre of the arena and held up both hands.
‘Today, if great Jupiter is favourable,’ he said in clear slow Latin, ‘we will execute criminals, pit beasts against each other and celebrate his festival with combat of gladiators.’
Everyone buzzed and some did a kind of applause with cupped hands that Lollia called ‘roof-tiles’.
‘But first,’ he said, ‘the sacrifice of a goat.’
A man with a toga draped over his head came out. He was followed by a goat with a fat red ribbon around its middle. Then came four young men wearing linen kilts and nothing else. One held a flat silver bowl, one a knife, one a jug and the fourth one trilled on a wooden flute.
The flute-player stopped long enough for the priest to ask the goat if it submitted to sacrifice. He sprinkled water from the jug onto its head and it gave the downward nod yes.
The flutes started up again and then, quick as lightning, the young man with the knife cut the goat’s throat and the other youth caught the blood in his bowl. The crowd cheered. Although we were high up, I had to look away.
The girls acted as if they had seen this sort of thing every day of their lives; they were busy whispering about a woman with a tasselled parasol and two dark-skinned bodyguards sitting three rows down.
The beast fight that came next made the sacrifice of the goat seem like an old ladies’ tea party.
It was awful. They made a skinny bull fight a scruffy bear. The two animals were so old and tired that neither of them could kill the other. In the end the referee awarded the victory to the bear and put something like a Christmas wreath on his head. Two men in masks came out and cut the bull’s throat. It was horrible but the people loved it. They cheered when the bull finally stopped twitching. Musicians led the staggering bear out of the arena.
Then came an announcement about criminals, and some men were paraded with forked branches on their necks and their hands bound to the straight part of the branch behind them. It looked really uncomfortable and I guessed it was the ancient version of handcuffs.
‘Who are they?’ I asked Lollia.
‘Furciferi,’ she said, using the Latin word. Crooks. And at last I understood what the word meant: someone who deserves to wear a crooked branch.
‘What will they do with them?’ I asked in Greek.
‘I don’t know.’
‘They’ll torture them,’ said the fluffy-bearded teenager behind us. I should have guessed he was educated enough to know Greek.
I made a mental note to keep my voice down.
Then I immediately forgot the mental note as some men with hot pokers began to torture the handcuffed men.
I’m not even going to hint at what they did. It’s too awful. Lollia and Plecta screamed and covered their eyes, but tons of people around us were laughing and cheering. Presently Lollia, who had been peeking through her fingers, took her hands from her face and watched.
‘Do you like this?’ I whispered in her ear.
‘It’s horrible but also exciting,’ she said, her eyes fixed on the arena.
Plecta still had her palla over her face and now her fingers were in her ears to drown out the screams. I didn’t need to ask what she thought.
At last it was over and the master of ceremonies – or whatever he was called – announced that it was finally time for the gladiatorial combats.
Everyone buzzed and some people did the ‘roof-tile’ clapping.
To my astonishment, Dinu was the first gladiator to come out onto the sand. When he was joined by Bob the Boiler-Man, I guessed they were like the support band at a rock concert, warming up the crowd for the main event.
I felt a tap on my shoulder and turned to see Fluffy Beard. He leaned forward and said in Greek, ‘Did I hear you say you own him?’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘He’s my property.’
‘Then you should redeem him.’
‘Oh yes!’ cried Lollia, clutching my left arm. ‘You must redeem him!’
‘I don’t know how,’ I said.
‘I do,’ said Fluffy Beard, and stretched out his hand. ‘I am Aelius Claudius Epapras,’ he added. ‘Lawyer.’
I shook his hand and said, ‘Excuse me, but you don’t look old enough to be a lawyer.’
Epapras sat up straight and said with great dignity, ‘I am almost eighteen and I have already won four cases.’
‘Please help us redeem him?’ pleaded Lollia.
‘If he survives!’ gasped Plecta. ‘Look!’
We all turned back to the arena. Bob the Boiler-Man had put on his helmet and was facing off with Dinu.
In my school project about gladiators, I had written that the retiarius is always paired with a secutor. I
was pleased to see I had got it right. Bob was wearing a smooth bullet-shaped helmet with tiny round eyeholes. He had a big shield and a wide belt above his nappy. And he brandished a double-edged gladius, the short but deadly sword from which gladiators get their name.
Dinu on the other hand was dressed in nothing but his big nappy and leg padding. His net looked like a lady’s shawl and his long, thin trident looked about as strong as a toothpick.
‘Oh no!’ cried Lollia, gripping my hand so hard it hurt. ‘Dinu is doomed.’
35
Bob the Boiler-Man
Dinu the Retiarius and Bob the Boiler-Man were terrible gladiators.
For a long time they just circled each other. The crowd jeered. It was starting to get ugly, with a few people throwing rotten cabbages, when Dinu tripped on his own net and almost fell. At this, Bob the Boiler-Man lunged. But Dinu managed to stay upright by swinging out with his trident, which just clipped Bob’s helmet.
The crowd cheered as Bob staggered back. I’m guessing the blow to his helmet was making his head ring like a bell.
Then Dinu gave a half-hearted jab in Bob’s direction, and by some miracle he actually made contact with Bob’s thigh. Worse, he made Bob bleed. It didn’t look too bad from twelve rows up, but I’m guessing it really stung. Now Bob was swinging wildly with his sword and I realised that Dinu’s blow to his helmet had turned it slightly and Bob couldn’t see! Then Dinu got tangled in his net again and this time he fell down.
The crowd loved it. They were jeering and laughing and calling out and some of them were making the bee sound.
As I watched Dinu desperately try to get free of the net while Bob swung blindly in the wrong direction, I felt a strange mix of emotions.
On the one hand, I wanted Dinu to beat the guy to a pulp, because Dinu was from Wandsworth Academy and also from my century.
The Time Travel Diaries Page 10