Fighting Fit

by Annie Dalton

  “Aurelia’s running away. I think she’s going to this guy. We’ve got to follow her.”

  We slipped out of the slaves’ entrance and raced along the dark street. “This is terrible!” I panted out. “You heard what Dorcas said. Anyone who gets in Titus’s way ends up seriously dead. If he finds out about her boyfriend, Aurelia could be next.”

  “We don’t know she’s got a boyfriend yet,” Reuben said breathlessly. “This might not be what you think.”

  “Why else would a nice Roman girl be out in the streets at night? She’s hardly likely to be going clubbing!”

  “There she is!” said Reuben suddenly.

  Aurelia had stopped to peer at a piece of papyrus in the moonlight. We silently caught her up. “Right at the crossroads,” she murmured. “Take the third on the right by the olive mill. Go to the old aqueduct and wait.”

  And she was off again.

  When we reached the aqueduct, someone stepped out of the shadows. With a flicker of alarm, I saw other figures silently following behind him. I heard someone whisper, “Bless you little sister,” then they all set off together down the street.

  “This isn’t about some boyfriend is it?” I whispered to Reubs.

  “Doesn’t look like it,” he agreed.

  Other anonymous humans joined them as they hurried along. It went on like this, a growing crowd of men and women, all stealthily and silently heading for the same unknown destination.

  Now and then one would stop and listen intently, to see if they were being followed, then they’d hurry on.

  Finally we reached open ground. There had been houses here once, but they had crumbled into rubble years ago. We trailed Aurelia and her companions through the moonlit ruins until we came to an overgrown fig tree. The gnarled branches partly concealed a low archway, which had once been part of a temple. Everyone silently filed inside.

  When we were quite sure the coast was clear, we followed.

  On the other side of the arch, a flight of steep stone steps disappeared down into the dark. On every sixth or seventh step, someone had placed a lighted clay lamp.

  Helix might be up for it, but Mel Beeby wasn’t too keen to go exploring some crumbly old crypt in the dark, so I quickly helped myself to a lamp.

  It’s lucky I did. At the bottom we found ourselves in a low stone tunnel with dozens of other tunnels going off. It was a total labyrinth.

  “Now what do we do?” My voice echoed spookily around the tunnel.

  Reuben pointed at the wall. “We could try following the fish.”

  By the flickering flame of my lamp, I saw a crudely painted fish daubed on the tunnel wall.

  “That’s like the one I saw on Aurelia’s letter,” I said in amazement.

  As we crept along the corridor we soon noticed that the fish symbol reappeared wherever the tunnel branched off.

  “What’s that sound!” my buddy asked.

  I strained my ears. “No idea.” It sounded like the blurred murmuring of bees.

  The tunnel went on and on. Sometimes the bee-like murmuring seemed quite close then it would fade again. Each time it grew louder, the back of my neck went strangely tingly.

  All at once I smelled incense. Not the stuff Romans used in temples. This was musky and sweet like burning pine cones. T

  Did it sound like bees or was it more like the ebb and flow of waves? Whatever, it was giving me serious goose bumps. Suddenly I realised the murmuring had words. It wasn’t Latin. It was unlike any language I’d ever heard.

  Next minute the tunnel opened out into an underground chamber. I glimpsed more wall paintings, strange and richly coloured. Then I saw the rapt lamp-lit faces of hundreds of humans.

  My heart jumped into my mouth. I’d seen people in this state on TV: eyes closed, hands raised, chanting, swaying. And if it wasn’t drugs, a fake guru was always involved. I scanned the ecstatic faces, anxiously, until I found Aurelia. To my dismay she was swaying and chanting along with everyone else.

  “This is SO much worse than I thought!” I gasped.

  I grabbed Reuben’s hand and dragged him out.

  “What are you so upset about?” he asked in a grumpy voice. “The chanting was cool. The total opposite of that arena.”

  “Look, I’m not being horrible, Reuben, but you haven’t been to Earth that often, so you’ve probably never heard of religious cults? Well, what we just saw in there, that’s a cult. I don’t know how Aurelia got sucked into it. Maybe they had a secret chapter in Ancient Britain or something. But trust me, she’s in danger. We’re in way over our heads now. We’ve got to tell Orlando.”

  “You’re the expert,” he sighed.

  “Plus this incense is making my nose run,” I said. “Let’s wait outside.”

  Next day, using the excuse of taking Aurelia’s wine-stained stola to the fullers, (a kind of Roman dry cleaners) Reuben and I hired a litter to take us to the ludus.

  The gladiator school was basically like a Roman boot camp, with high walls set with metal spikes and broken pottery, and prowling heavies everywhere. Few people actually wanted to be gladiators, so to stop his protegees escaping, Festus Brutus had them watched twenty-four seven.

  We found Orlando and the lanista behind the barracks, drilling a sullen group of human recruits in a make-shift arena.

  Everyone but Orlando and Festus had thick protective padding tied around their arms and legs. The recruits were supposed to charge at straw men, with wooden swords, and pretend to disembowel them. Under Festus’s scowling gaze, Orlando made them charge again and again, until he was satisfied with their technique.

  “Orlando is something else,” grinned Reuben. “He’s been here two weeks and he’s already like Festus Brutus’s right-hand man.”

  “I don’t know how he does it,” I agreed.

  We waited till the end of the session then we told Orlando we needed a private word.

  He didn’t seem very pleased to see us. “You’d better have a really good reason for coming here like this. It’s taken days to get Festus Brutus to trust me. If he sees you guys, he’ll go up the wall.”

  “We have got a good reason,” I said urgently. “Aurelia’s joined a dangerous cult.”

  Orlando didn’t react at all how I’d expected. In fact he laughed with pure relief. “You followed her to the catacombs, right?”

  I stared at him in consternation. “You know about that place?”

  “Of course!” he said. “It’s the only place Christians can meet in safety. Practising the Christian faith is illegal in Nero’s time.”

  My mouth dropped open. “Those people were Christians?”

  “They can only meet in secret. That’s why they use secret symbols, like the fish, so only insiders understand what’s being passed on.”

  My cheeks burned with embarrassment. You are SO ignorant, Mel Beeby! I scolded myself. Kindergarten angels know more than you.

  Reuben looked worried. “What would happen if they were found out?”

  Orlando quickly glanced away. “They’d be put to death.”

  “Are you serious?” I gasped. “That girl is in enough trouble as it is! We just found out her brother is marrying her off to this evil secret police chief.”

  Orlando nodded. “The Knife.”

  He already knew, I realised. That’s why he’d wanted me to take care of her.

  I suddenly remembered something. “Um, how’s Star?”

  Orlando’s expression softened. “She’s making a good recovery. Festus Brutus took her into his own home, so she can be cared for properly.”

  Well, he wouldn’t want to lose his investment, I thought darkly.

  All the way home, I thought about how I’d underestimated Aurelia. “A sweet harmless rich girl”, I’d called her. My prejudice had blinded me to obvious clues; her hatred of all forms of cruelty, her kindness to people worse off than herself, her talk of souls.

  I waited until bedtime, when Aurelia and I were alone together in her room, and then I told
her that Reubs and me knew her secret and would do everything in our power to protect her.

  My mistress jumped up in terror, knocking over the jar of almond oil, and spilling the sweet-scented oil everywhere. “You’ve been spying on me! I trusted you and you betrayed me.”

  “You still can trust me, I swear! Reuben and I only followed you because we were so worried about you.” I explained how we’d decided she had a secret sweetheart.

  Aurelia must have sensed that my words were totally from the heart, because she looked deep into my eyes and it was a total replay of our first meeting at the slave market. It was like she actually knew who I was, but at the same time she didn’t.

  She sat down without a word, and I continued brushing her hair. “Your mum was a Christian too, wasn’t she?” I said softly.

  “She gave me this.” Aurelia took off her bulla. “Look at the back.” On the reverse of her charm was a tiny mother of pearl cross.

  My eyes filled with tears. Aurelia had picked a really lonely way to be true to herself, I thought. Then I thought, but she’s not alone any more.

  I caught Aurelia watching me in the polished bronze mirror. “I never knew there were friends like you,” she said softly. “One day I’ll give you your freedom.”

  My freedom wasn’t in her hands, but Aurelia wasn’t to know that.

  We talked into the night, and as I blew out the lamp, I think we both felt happier than we’d been for days.

  We didn’t know that every word of our conversation had been overheard by Aurelia’s brother, adviser to the Emperor Nero and faithful servant to the Powers of Darkness.

  Chapter Eight

  I woke to find lamplight flickering confusingly in my eyes.

  Dorcas was shaking me. “Get dressed!” she said in a fierce whisper. “Leave this house and take Aurelia Flavia with you.”

  Aurelia rubbed her eyes drowsily. “Is there a fire?”

  “You’ve been betrayed, little mistress,” Dorcas told her. “Your brother has found out you follow the teacher from Nazareth.”

  We jumped up and began to fling on our clothes.

  “Why are you helping me, Dorcas?” Aurelia said from inside her tunic. “You still follow the old gods.”

  “I follow my heart,” said Dorcas in a low voice. “Some people say a teacher who says such things must be insane. But I say his is a better madness than Nero’s.”

  Aurelia was still frantically getting dressed when we heard the sound of tramping feet. The Praetorian Guard, Nero’s police, had come to arrest us.

  Reuben came running as soon as he heard the commotion, so they arrested him too.

  Aurelia’s father watched it all from the door of his study. “I showed her nothing but kindness and this is how she repaid me,” he said in disgust.

  “I love you, Pater,” Aurelia called desperately. “I always loved you!”

  I heard desolate howls from Minerva’s kennel as we were led away.

  The guards marched us through the early morning streets.

  Aurelia was looking around her, wide-eyed, as if she had suddenly realised how beautiful her world was. The sun was rising and birds sang joyfully from hidden gardens. The air was full of mingled scents; roses from the flower market, eye-watering fumes from the street of the leather workers, heady incense from a shrine.

  I was trying hard not to think about what would happen when we stopped marching and reached our destination. I just put one foot in front of the other; left right, left right.

  People kept calling out to know why we’d been arrested.

  “We bagged us a few more Christians!” a guard shouted back cheerfully.

  The mood immediately darkened. “Filthy vermin,” a woman screamed. One man spat in our faces. “You’re going to die today, Christian scum!”

  Outside a semi-derelict apartment block, people pelted us with rotting fruit, and someone started throwing stones. Everyone despised us, the guards included.

  “I don’t understand people like you,” a guard said contemptuously to Aurelia. “We’ve got perfectly good Roman gods and goddesses. But you have to have your own special god, it makes me sick.”

  “Why do you care which god she worships, man?” Reuben asked. “She’s not dissing yours, is she?”

  “Reuben!” I hissed. “You’re not meant to hold philosophical discussions with the guards.”

  The guard was still ranting. “All Christians are in league with the barbarian hordes. You want to burn Rome down around our ears.”

  When we reached the amphitheatre, crowds of Romans were already queuing to go in. We were taken to a row of cells and a guard booted us in through a door. I just had time to see the gruesome straw on the floor, then the door slammed behind us and we were plunged into total darkness.

  We’ll be fine, I told myself. Any time now, that door will open and Orlando will walk in.

  But when we finally heard the bolts being dragged back, hours later, a security guy stood in the doorway grinning unpleasantly. “Let’s be having you!” he said. “Mustn’t keep those hungry pussy cats waiting.”

  “No,” said his mate with a leer, “we’ve been starving them specially.”

  Other Christians were being dragged from neighbouring cells. We were chained together like dangerous criminals and kicked and prodded along a low gloomy tunnel.

  We stumbled along, our eyes fixed on the white blaze of sunlight at the far end. Fifty-thousand brutal voices surged to meet us, all chanting the same word over and over. “Kill! Kill! Kill!”

  Aurelia suddenly missed her footing but Reuben and I quickly steadied her. “I know it doesn’t seem like it, but we’re going to be OK,” I told her.

  My mistress’s voice trembled, but her face was calm. “Other martyrs have died for their faith,” she said bravely. “And I know I will soon be reunited with my mother in Heaven.”

  When the crowd saw us emerge, blinking and confused in the pitiless midday sun, they howled with excitement. I was still clinging to the hope that Orlando would stage some fabulous last-minute rescue. If so, he was leaving it desperately late. I stared wildly around the amphitheatre. Where are all the angels? I wondered.

  Two gates flew open and thirty or more lions exploded into the arena. I assumed they were lions. I just heard furious roars and saw a blur of gold. Then my world suddenly went into slow-mo, and everything was in nightmare close-up; wild yellow eyes with tawny flecks, fleshy crimson tongues, bared fangs drooling saliva.

  When I smelled their hot breath on my face, I squeezed my eyes shut and flung my arms around Aurelia. It was the only way I could think of to protect her; some crazy idea that I could at least slow the ravenous beasts down. In that moment I relived every piece of wildlife film footage featuring lions and helpless baby animals that I’d ever seen on TV. I didn’t just see it. I was getting Dolby surround sound. The juicy ripping of muscle. The splintering of bone…

  But the seconds ticked by and there was no ripping or splintering.

  The crowd had gone oddly silent. Even the lions had gone quiet. Their roaring had been replaced by a bizarre rumbling, like the throbbing engines of a very old bus. Amazed laughter rippled round the amphitheatre.

  I opened my eyes and found myself looking at a scene from a particularly magical dream.

  Reuben was standing in the centre of a circle of lions, completely unharmed. The beasts gazed back at him with adoring expressions. The rumbling was the purring of thirty blissed-out lions.

  Aurelia’s eyes were full of awe. “It’s a miracle!” she breathed.

  When will you learn, Mel Beeby? I asked myself. We don’t need angels to help us. We ARE the angels!

  And at that moment the audience went wild. All around the amphitheatre, Romans jumped to their feet: slaves, citizens, senators, men, women and children. All because of a honey-coloured angel-boy with dreads.

  They love him, I thought tearfully. They absolutely love him even though they think he’s a Christian!

  A worrying t
hought occurred to me. Shouldn’t all these people have their thumbs UP? But every where I looked, people were jabbing their thumbs in a sharp, unmistakably downward direction. They still want us to die! I thought in despair. Then my heart gave a leap as I heard what everyone was yelling.

  “FREE THEM! FREE THEM!!”

  It turned out that those Hollywood movies had it totally wrong. In Roman times, the thumbs-up gesture actually meant, “Stab him in the jugular!”

  An official in a toga approached the barrier, keeping as far away as possible from the lions. “Hey, you kids! Get over here,” he called. “His Imperial Majesty wants to meet you.”

  The Emperor Nero had seen the whole thing!

  Normally I’d have panicked at the prospect of meeting a real live emperor, particularly one as cruel and decadent as Nero, but we’d just survived wild lions so by this time we were up for anything.

  We were marched into the Emperor’s presence between hefty Praetorian guards.

  Considering he was the head of the biggest empire the ancient world had ever known, Nero wasn’t that impressive. He had practically no chin and his eyes were such a pale blue, that you could hardly detect the colour. He was wearing what appeared to be a squalid old dressing-gown spattered with crusty splodges of food. But though he might not have the looks or the gorgeous robes, Nero had the imperial attitude all right.

  His gaze flickered over me and Aurelia, as if we were little dung beetles, unworthy of his attention. Then he saw Reuben, and a greedy glitter lit up his eyes.

  “We live in wondrous times,” he said, “so wondrous that the mighty Nero is willing to make a bargain with a Christian slave boy. Teach me how to make lions love me, and I’ll let you and your little girlfriends go free.”

  I immediately knew where Nero was coming from. He’d just witnessed a despised slave performing a feat that no ordinary human could possibly have done, not even an all-powerful emperor. Now he was desperate to have this magical gift for himself. If Nero could get wild lions to worship him, his people would think he was some kind of god!