by Chris Blake
Isis stuck her nose in the air. “Fight? But I’m a princess.”
Josephus pointed at the men in the courtyard. “Not any more you’re not. Everyone here is a prisoner or a slave. Where have you come from anyway?”
“Egypt,” Tom said, pointing at Isis. “And Britain,” he added, gesturing to himself.
Josephus shrugged. “The Roman Army doesn’t usually send child prisoners to fight,” he said. “But then, they’re so cruel, nothing they do surprises me these days.”
Tom gulped. “Cruel?”
Isis was offended. “Prisoner? I’m a prisoner? I insist you free me right now!”
“You shouldn’t even be here,” Josephus said, prodding Isis in the shoulder. “No girls. No cats. Don’t worry, the soldiers will throw you out as soon as they see you.”
Isis tossed her plaits and balled her fists. “We’re on a very important mission. We must stay here together.”
“Please help us,” Tom begged Josephus. “We really can’t be separated.”
“I suppose I don’t owe the Romans anything,” Josephus said with a shrug. “OK, I’ll help. First, we must disguise Princess Bossyboots here as a boy.”
“A boy!?” Isis shrieked in disgust.
“Shhhh!” Tom and Josephus both hissed.
Josephus pushed the three travellers into a shadowy alcove and started to wipe off the kohl from Isis’s eyes with a rag.
“Get off me! You smell of rotten vegetables,” Isis cried, batting him away.
“Just keep still, Princess Bossyboots,” Tom said. He grinned as he tied back her long hair out of sight.
Josephus ducked into a nearby cupboard and emerged with rattling chains. “Sorry. I have to put chains on you, like the others, otherwise the guards will think you’re trying to escape.” He shackled them both at the wrists and ankles and pushed them, clanking, down the colonnade.
“What about my cat, Cleo?” Isis asked.
“Animals aren’t allowed in the training ground. She’ll get killed if she stays here,” said Josephus. “She can stay in my quarters, where the other animals are kept. Don’t worry, I’ll look after her.”
He steered Tom and Isis into a noisy room with a barred door. Tom saw that it was packed with chained prisoners, both young and old, chattering away in a variety of languages he’d never heard before. Some had pale skin, some had dark skin. Everyone wore different clothes. Clearly they came from all over the world. They were shovelling food into their mouths with their shackled hands.
“You’re lucky – you’re in time for breakfast. Try to blend in,” Josephus said, looking doubtfully at Isis, as he carried Cleo off in his arms.
Isis and Tom sat on the stone floor in silence, taking in their surroundings with wide eyes. Tom helped himself to a piece of bread.
“I hope Cleo’s all right,” Isis whispered to Tom. “At least she can cuddle up to the other animals.”
Just then a roar echoed around the barracks that made Tom shudder.
“Oh no! What was that? It didn’t sound very cuddly,” Isis whimpered.
One of the other prisoners leaned over. “That’s the wild animals,” he said glumly. “Sounded like a lion. Sometimes it’s tigers, bears… anything that can tear your toenails off with its teeth.” He stroked his stubbly chin thoughtfully. “I still can’t decide which is worse.”
“What do you mean?” Tom asked, gulping.
The prisoner shrugged. “Being killed by a gladiator’s sword or eaten by lions. What’s the better way to die?”
“I don’t even want to think about it, thanks!” said Tom.
The prisoner looked grim-faced. “Well, you should. Because none of us will make it out of here alive.”
“We need a plan. We’ve got to find the amulet and leave this place before we have to fight anyone,” Tom said.
Isis held up her hands and rattled her chains. “We can’t exactly go for a stroll, can we, Professor Smartypants?” she said.
Tom scratched his head and tried to remember everything he knew about gladiators. “Look,” he said, “gladiators fight with swords and shields, or daggers and spears. They’ll make us practise so they can’t keep us locked up forever. At least the food is OK.”
Isis peered down at the other prisoners’ plates and snorted. “Pah! Oats and beans? These Romans haven’t got a clue. Our Egyptian fighters were tough and lean. They fought with their hands and feet, not wobbling around with a sword and a belly full of porridge!”
Tom shrugged. “So, any thoughts on where the amulet might be, oh warrior princess?”
“I’ve no idea,” Isis said. “But I do have something that might help us. Look!” She waved her hand in front of Tom’s face.
“I know, I know,” said Tom. “You’re not a mummy any more. But how does that help us?”
“No, silly. My ring,” said Isis, pointing to the gold ring on her finger. It was in the shape of a scarab beetle, and on it was a hierogylph of a woman on a throne.
“That’s who I’m named after – the goddess Isis,” explained Isis. “She’s the goddess of magic and children, and protector of the dead. I wore this ring all throughout my life. I was even buried in it.”
Tom studied the ring closely. “Cool! I’ve never seen a ring like that before,” he said.
“Finally!” Isis harrumphed. “Something Professor Know-It-All doesn’t know about.”
“Well, go on then,” said Tom. “We’re both kids, and you’re dead. Let’s face it – we could certainly do with some help!”
Frowning in concentration, Isis said, “Oh, magical scarab. Oh, lovely goddess Isis. Will you please, please, pretty-please help me find my amulet?”
Suddenly a whirring noise, like flapping insect wings, came from the scarab. Silvery letters started to float out of the ring and into the air:
If you’re in a sticky spot,
Don’t be glum! Panic not!
Cheerful is the one you need to find.
Triumphant after thirteen fights,
The middle of his shield so bright,
Seek the treasure there, don’t be blind.
“It’s a riddle!” Tom said, after reading the words. His eyes narrowed as he pondered the clues. “This has got to be about one of the gladiators, if it mentions fighting and a shield. But which one?”
Isis looked at her ring. “Do you think we’re searching for someone who’s sticky?” she asked, wrinkling her nose. “Yuck! Maybe it’s someone who doesn’t wash their hands after eating. A gladiator called Stickius Smellius.”
Just then, a tall, burly, bald man carrying a whip opened the door to the prison cell with a crash. The other prisoners held their chains up for him to unlock. When it was Tom and Isis’s turn, the man raised his eyebrow.
“Children?” he said. “We’ve never had children before.” His stern face cracked into a greedy grin. “Why, the crowd are going to go crazy for children fighting in the arena! Imagine that!”
The man ushered Tom, Isis and the rest of the prisoners into the training-ground courtyard. The sun blazed down on the stone buildings. The burning heat bounced up off the sandy ground.
When they were all assembled, he shouted, “My name is Rufus. I’m here to train you as gladiators. I’ll put you into five groups where you will learn different ways of fighting. You will need to become fearsome warriors and the fittest of athletes.”
Isis clapped her hands together and turned to Tom. “I’m just brilliant at athletics! And archery! And you should see me on a horse.”
Tom groaned. “Is there anything you can’t do?”
Rufus started to hand out weapons, shields and armour to the small groups of prisoners. Tom was put in the scissores group.
He thought about what he could do with scissors. They were fine for cutting paper, but as a weapon they’d be pretty useless. Surely gladiators didn’t fight with scissors?
But the weapon Rufus thrusted into Tom’s hand was made up of two short, sharp swords fixed together at the hil
t. They didn’t look anything like ordinary scissors.
Rufus showed Tom how he was meant to capture his enemy between the blades.
He practised using the scissors on a straw dummy shaped like a man. Cut, cut, cut!” Tom shouted gleefully to the other prisoners.
They looked at him with sour faces.
“Oh, come on, guys!” Tom said. “This is fun!”
After only ten minutes though, he found his arms had started to tremble under the weight of the clumsy blades. The blistering heat was tiring him.
Wondering how Isis was getting on, he looked over to her group. As one of the sagittariuses, she was shooting arrows with a bow from the saddle of a chestnut-coloured horse. Tom wondered if she was struggling like him.
“Yoohoo, Tom!” Isis shouted over to him. “Look at me!” She pinged off her practice arrows one after another, and hit the target every time. Each time she shot an arrow, she flashed Tom a triumphant look.
During a rest break, Tom and Isis sat together briefly.
“Any more ideas about the riddle, then?” Isis asked, gobbling down some dried apricots.
Tom swigged from a jug full of horrible warm water. “Yes,” he said. “Triumphant in thirteen fights means we’re looking for a really experienced gladiator. If he’s won that many battles he must be a kind of hero.”
Before they could discuss the riddle further, Rufus put the trainees into new groups. Tom and Isis were in the retiarius group, where they fought with nets and tridents. Whenever they could fight each other, they did. It was their only chance to talk – and make sure they didn’t get hurt.
“It’s obvious the amulet is the treasure in his shield,” Tom said, whizzing a net around his head.
“But who is this hero?” Isis asked, dodging out of the way.
“And what’s there to be cheerful about?” Tom asked.
At lunchtime, most of the prisoners rested. Tom would have liked to take a nap, but Isis was worried about Cleo.
“My little fluffpot will be missing me,” she said. “I need to give her a cuddle.” So Isis and Tom slipped away to find Josephus.
The musty smell of animals led them down to the gloomy basement beneath the barracks. There they found Josephus filling troughs with water.
“So this is where the roaring was coming from!” Tom said.
From inside the cages came growling and snapping.
Josephus chuckled. “Come and meet Cleo’s new neighbours,” he said.
Tom gulped as he saw enormous, shaggy-maned lions prowling around one cage. Their teeth were like daggers. Directly opposite, a tail swished in the gloom. Tom peered to get a closer look, then yelped as he made out the wide, muscular body of an alligator crawling out of a small pond within the cage. It snapped its jaws full of razor-sharp teeth.
“The Roman Army brings back all sorts of exotic animals from their foreign campaigns,” Josephus explained. “They use them to fight against each other and against the gladiators.”
“Cleo! Cleopatra!” Isis shouted. “What have these horrible animals done to you?”
Mewing and the padding of small paws echoed off the walls as Cleo scampered over to Isis.
“My fluffy love!” Isis scooped up her cat into her arms. “I thought you’d been eaten!” She stroked Cleo’s stripy fur. Cleo purred happily.
“Mind out!” Josephus shouted, pushing past Tom. He was carrying a large bucket full of smelly, slippery meat. As he pulled out what looked like the leg of a cow, the lions started to fling their heavy bodies against the bars, snarling and clawing at the meat. The alligator snapped its jaws and thrashed its tail against the pen.
“They’re hungry, all right!” Josephus said.
Cleo jumped down from Isis’s arms.
“Cleo, no!” Isis shouted.
Tom almost couldn’t bear to look as Cleo walked over to the cages and started to hiss at the dangerous beasts. She swiped at the lions and alligator with her own sharp little claws. But instead of tearing the cat to pieces, the wild animals backed into the shadowy corners of their cages, whimpering and shaking.
“Why! That’s the strangest thing I’ve ever seen,” Josephus said, scratching his head. “How can a little cat like that scare wild beasts? Those creatures would normally snap her up!”
“They’re frightened of you, Cleo! They must know you’re royal!” Isis beamed. “That’s my girl! Top cat!”
“I don’t think they know she’s royal,” Tom whispered to Isis. “They must know she’s undead.”
Cleo haughtily stuck her tail in the air and started hungrily scoffing a chunk of meat.
Isis breathed a sigh of relief. “Oh well, I certainly don’t need to worry about you down here,” she said, stroking Cleo under her chin.
Josephus turned to Isis with a raised eyebrow. There was something about his expression that made Isis gulp.
“Cleo’s all right,” he said. “But how will the two of you fare when it’s time to fight in the arena?”
“Ow! My legs are killing me!” Tom said, as they shuffled back into the prisoner quarters.
Isis stretched her back and groaned. “I don’t think I was this stiff after five thousand years of being trapped in a statue.” She straightened out, holding her nose. “And it stinks like a camel’s bed in here.”
“Are you sure it’s not you?” Tom asked. “You are quite old.”
“Ha ha, very funny!”
The door clanged open, flooding the prisoners’ room with a sudden blinding shaft of light that made Tom squint.
Rufus burst in.“Greetings, gladiators!” he cried. “I have exciting news for you.”
Nobody seemed excited. At all. Tom looked around at the tired, dirty faces of the other prisoners. Everyone was covered in cuts and bright purple bruises.
Rufus pointed his coiled-up whip at the prisoners. “Atillius has just announced that there will be a grand show in two days’ time. Which means you will get your first fight.”
The prisoners all started to grumble.
Rufus cracked the whip. “Hey! Stop whinging, you ungrateful donkeys! Atillius is spending a fortune to make this show bigger and better than ever.” He folded his meaty arms and glared at the prisoners. “Guess who has agreed to fight? None other than Hilarus! You lot will be the warm-up acts before his fight!”
Each and every prisoner started to groan in despair. Some even broke into great sobs.
Isis elbowed the man next to her in the ribs. “Who’s Hilary?” she asked him.
The man moved away from her, rubbing his side. “How can you not have heard of Hilarus?” he asked. “He’s the most famous gladiator in the Roman Empire. He’s won thirteen fights in a row. Huge crowds will be coming to see him.”
“So why’s everyone moaning?” Isis sniffed.
The man chuckled bitterly and shook his head at her. “In the arena, they fight to the death.”
Tom and Isis exchanged nervous glances. Gladiator training was tough, but at least nobody had been trying to kill them!
“We’ve got to find the amulet soon,” Isis whispered to Tom in alarm. “Or else we’ll end up in the arena.”
Rufus cracked his whip until the grim chatter stopped.
“You should be thankful! This is the most excitement you mangy lot will ever see!” he shouted. “There’s going to be parades, musicians, spectacles… animals too.”
The door clanged as Josephus walked in. Everybody turned around as he strode to the front.
“Er, perhaps not the animals,” he said to Rufus, wringing his hands.
Rufus’s tanned face wrinkled into an almighty frown. “But Atillius definitely wants to include them in a fight.”
Josephus shook his head. “Sorry. There’s something wrong with them. They’re acting all timid like mice; it’s as though they’ve seen a ghost. I’ve tried stoking them up. I even threatened to turn the alligator into a pair of sandals. But they’ve lost their bite!” He shrugged. “They would make a truly poor show, I’m afraid.”
“Well, Atillius will just have to leave them out,” Rufus said.
Meanwhile, the prisoners had started to panic.
“I’m going to grab the heavy, shiny armour!” one yelled. “A sword won’t get through that.”
“Are you mad?” cried another. “Swords cut through everything. The only hope of escape is dodging the blows with fancy footwork.”
Tom, who had been listening carefully to all Rufus said, couldn’t wait to pull Isis to one side. He felt like his heart would burst if he didn’t get the words out.
“Hey, remember the riddle said cheerful is the one you need to find?” he whispered. “Well, I’ve worked it out. Guess what the Latin for cheerful is!”
Isis shook her head.
“Hilarus!”
“The other prisoners say he’s undefeated in thirteen fights,” Isis said.
“Exactly!” Tom beamed at Isis and gave her the thumbs up. “He’s our man.”
“So if the amulet is in his shield, we’ve got to get close to him in the arena,” Isis said. “Which means—”
“We’ll have to fight the most fearsome gladiator in the whole of the Roman Empire,” Tom finished. He swallowed hard and felt his spine tingle with dread. If they could get their hands on the amulet, they’d be whisked back to the safety of Tom’s bedroom. But how on earth were they going to get close enough to Hilarus’s shield without getting hurt?
Suddenly, the ground started to rumble beneath them.
Isis gasped. “What’s happening?”
“I think it’s an earthquake,” Tom said, feeling tremors under his feet. “Quick – take cover!”
As the two of them scrambled into a corner, the stone floor cracked, then opened up. Anubis’s jackal head burst out of the ground. It was almost the full height of the room. His fierce eyes glared at them in an alarming shade of red.
The other prisoners continued to talk about the gladiatorial show, unaware of the terrifying Egyptian god in the room.
Anubis sneered at Tom and Isis as they huddled together.