Fighting Fit (7 page)

I looked up to see my mistress absently sliding her gold bangle back and forth on her wrist.

Quintus must know how vulnerable Aurelia is, I thought. And he’s deliberately taking advantage. If you ask me Quintus has way too much influence in this house.

I accidentally blurted my thoughts aloud. “Wouldn’t you rather meet this Lucretius guy before the banquet?” I would hate to meet my future husband, plus an unknown brother, in front of important Roman senators and whoever.

“Quintus sent word to say they’ll both be at the amphitheatre tomorrow,” she said.

I gasped. “You’re actually going to the Games?”

Aurelia looked queasy. “My brother says it’s my duty as a Roman citizen. I was going to ask if you and Reuben would come and keep me company?”

Reuben was well in with the other house slaves by this time, and he’d told me horrific stories of the mistreatment of slaves. Reuben and I must be the only slaves in captivity whose mistress actually ASKED them if they’d like to do something! So of course I said yes.

But I wasn’t just going for Aurelia’s sake. My reasons were mostly personal. On the same poster that featured the gladiatrix, there had been another name in tiny print. Flammia, the Fire-eating Dwarf. If Flammia was performing, chances were the lanista’s other recruits weren’t far away. And that meant I’d found Orlando!

Chapter Six

N
ext morning I felt incredibly jittery. Seeing humans hack each other to death is not a thing I’d ever hoped to have to see. Plus I wasn’t sure how Reuben would hold up under the strain. On his first ever Earth mission, my pure angel buddy saved a dancing bear that was practically being beaten to death. This experience made him incredibly ill.

Reuben insisted I had nothing to worry about. “I’m not saying I’ll actually
enjo
y it,” he added hastily, “but I’ll handle it, same as you.”

Because of lack of space, as well as reasons of decorum, he had to travel to the Games in a separate litter. This particular day, traffic was even worse than usual and there seemed to be some big ceremony going on at the Temple of Vesta.

At one point our bearers had to stop for what felt like
aeons
to let a procession cross the Via Sacra. We obviously weren’t going anywhere, so I peeped round the curtain to see what was going on.

All the devotees of Vesta were girls and women. They wore dazzling white
stolas
and wreaths of white roses in their hair, and carried small offerings for the goddess. As I watched them making their way towards the Temple of Vesta, chanting and swaying to the hypnotic beat of a drum, I felt a tingle go down my spine. Vesta’s temple was a genuinely sacred place, no doubt about it.

“Which goddess is Vesta again?” I asked my mistress. The Romans had so many gods and goddesses, it was hard to keep track.

Aurelia explained that Vesta was a particularly important goddess to Romans. “She’s the goddess of the hearth. Her temple is regarded as the hearth of Rome.”

“Is that where those girls tend the sacred flame?”

My mistress nodded. “It’s seen as a great honour to serve the goddess in this way. Vestal virgins are chosen when they’re only nine or ten years old. They’re taken to live in the Palace of the Vestals, where they undergo years of training. You sometimes see them being carried through the city. They wear white veils to show they are the brides of Rome. I used to dream about becoming one myself.”

“Can’t they ever get married for real?”

She nodded. “They can, in theory, when their period of service is finished. But in practice they rarely do.” Aurelia looked wistful. “I used to think it would be wonderful to be a Vestal then I found out what happens if you let the flame go out.”

“What happens?” I said, not sure if I wanted to hear.

“You’re stripped and beaten,” she said sombrely. “The flame is supposed to be the spirit of Rome. If it goes out, Rome itself will fall.” She made an irritated noise. “I could walk to the amphitheatre faster than this! Can’t the bearers take a shortcut!”

She seemed unusually stressed, but I just assumed that my soft-hearted mistress was dreading sitting through so much violence.

Our bearers dropped us off outside the amphitheatre. To our surprise, Aurelia gave me and Reuben our tickets, actually little clay counters, and told us to go ahead. “I’ll find you inside,” she said firmly. Before we could follow her, she’d vanished into the crowd.

Reuben and I stared at each other. “That little minx just gave us the slip!” he said. “Do you think she’s gone off to see this guy?” I’d told him my suspicion that someone had smuggled a note to Aurelia at the baths.

“You can’t exactly blame her,” I said. “She’s going to be married off to some wrinkly old senator any day now.”

Reuben looked uneasy. “I still don’t think Aurelia should be meeting someone on the sly. She’ll get into big trouble if she’s found out.”

“I’m sure it’s just a harmless flirtation,” I said. “Aurelia’s not the type to take silly risks.”

Reuben shook his head. “You know her better than I do.”

Not that well, I thought wistfully. I’d genuinely believed we were friends. Well, as friendly as a mistress and her slave can be. Yet Aurelia hadn’t breathed a word about this exciting new crush.

Reubs and I fought our way into the entrance of the amphitheatre. It was seething with fast-food and souvenir vendors.

“Sorry, man,” Reuben told one guy. “Your little gladiator lamps are cool but we’re really just passing through.”

“Why not just come out and tell him you’re an angel?” I teased.

“You think I should?” he said anxiously.

“I was
joking
, Reuben!”

We showed our tickets and a slave took us down a long corridor to the VIP enclosures. We emerged, blinking, into the sunlight and the noise of the amphitheatre.

I almost bolted when I saw how many people were inside. There must have been fifty-thousand Romans crammed in there, at least. A blood-red awning had been unfurled over the arena to protect them from the sun. The fabric rippled in the breeze, sending waves of coloured light over the sand. Fast-food vendors went up and down the rows of seats. Officials with banners reeled off the names of which gladiator would be fighting who. Bookies were taking bets. The place was in a state of total uproar.

Our seats were right at the front where a wooden barrier separated us from the arena. At either end of the massive circus ring were pairs of ominous-looking gates.

I found myself imagining the scene on the other side. Terrified prisoners of war, trained fighters in armour, bewildered slaves; all praying frantically to their gods to help them survive this savage entertainment.

Aurelia came hurrying towards us, looking slightly pink. “Sorry, I was going to buy us some stuffed dates, but the queues were impossible.”

Yeah, we believe you, I thought.

People had started to crane forward, watching the gates with avid expressions.

My palms went clammy. Something was going to happen.

A herald in a white tunic ran into the arena blowing terrific blasts on a horn. The musicians struck up and the amphitheatre filled with military music.

The gates burst open, and the crowd roared with excitement as the gladiators came marching out. They might be outcasts in the world outside, but here, in the arena, they were kings and they knew it. They looked amazing, in their swirly purple cloaks and gleaming helmets with nodding peacock plumes.

The gladiators’ armour and weapons varied according to their fighting style. The crowd’s favourite was the retiarius, the Fisherman. When he strode out with his giant fishing net and trident all the girls and women screamed, like fans at a concert. The two girl fighters, their faces hidden by strange bronze masks, also raised a big cheer.

The gladiators marched into the middle of the arena then they formed a double line, standing back to back, raised their clenched fists and shouted, “We who are about to die, salute you!”

My hair practically stood on end. “How can anyone be that brave?” I whispered to Reuben.

“It’s the training,” he explained. “Even in his death throes, a gladiator will try not to make a sound.”

“Are you absolutely sure you can cope with this?” I asked anxiously.

“I told you, I’ll be OK,” he said calmly. “Anyway we’re not alone.”

For a minute, I thought he was quoting his own lyrics, then I realised Reuben meant it literally. Every row of seats had at least one Earth angel in Roman costume. If I hadn’t been so preoccupied, I’d have noticed the tingly cosmic vibes.

“I can’t believe there’s so many!” I whispered.

“Yeah, and I have a feeling we’re going to need every one of them,” he said grimly.

To my relief, the first part of the programme was quite tame: there was an elephant who wrote numbers in the sand with his trunk, with a bit of prompting from his minder, followed by a team of dwarves, who did incredible acrobatics.

Suddenly Flammia rode into the ring standing in a tiny chariot pulled by a Shetland pony, and brandishing a burning torch. The crowd adored this pocket-sized fire-eating barbarian. At the end of his act he rode out in a blazing chariot, like a miniature fire god, yelling with triumph.

Next they had warm-up fights between pairs of trainee gladiators. As each pair ran on, bravely waving their wooden swords, I felt a rush of hope. Surely this one had to be Orlando. But it never was.

The crowd was getting restless. “It’s time they cut some throats around here!” yelled someone.

“Keep the action going!” someone else bellowed. ‘We want real swords and real blood, not this kids’ stuff!”

People started to boo and hiss. It was the first time I really understood why our teachers constantly go on about evolution. In my century, you’d never get fifty-thousand humans howling with excitement, purely because they wanted to see blood spouting from other people’s internal organs.

A rotten apple whizzed past my ear, followed by a flying egg. Frustrated Romans were pelting the recruits with any missile that came to hand. The trainee gladiators quickly ran off. Shortly afterwards another gate burst open. Twenty or thirty terrified men were forcibly dragged and prodded into the arena by burly amphitheatre officials.

I remembered that the Roman authorities regularly used the Games to dispose of unwanted troublemakers. These guys were probably all convicted criminals. They could handle themselves in a street brawl, but had absolutely no experience of this kind of fighting. They’d been given weapons but no armour or protective padding. But this was never intended to be a fair fight. The audience wanted to see blood flow and now they were going to get it.

I won’t go into details. No human should have to see the suffering we saw that day. Anyway, Reuben says it’s always better to light one candle than to curse the dark, so I’m going to tell you about the angels instead.

When the killings began, the Earth angels totally disappeared from the stands. It felt like lights were literally going out all around the amphitheatre. For a few chilling seconds, I saw this terrible place in all its gory blood-soaked darkness.

Then all the lights came back on, only now they were
inside
the arena.

To some humans, love is just a word. You love your cat. You love chocolate. But to angels love means something different, something deeper. To us, love is a power: a totally impersonal force that recreates the cosmos every single day. Think about it. Every moment love is creating brand new birds, and stars and blades of grass and amazed new humans to enjoy them. You don’t have to ‘deserve’ this love. It’s just there for free. And no-one is allowed to die alone.

What we witnessed that day in the arena was desperate, but it was also incredibly inspiring. During their last agonised moments on Earth, dying humans were shown pure love by unknown angels. And you know what? It gave me new courage. Those angels reminded me who I really was. I wasn’t really a part of this human drama. I was just an angel passing through.

But that was no reason not to help.

Reuben and I had joined in with our Roman colleagues, beaming loving vibes. For obvious reasons this took all our concentration. Suddenly I thought to check on Aurelia. She’d gone as white as a sheet. She was clutching her bulla as if she was terrified to let it go, whispering something over and over.

But all nightmares end eventually, even this one. The mutilated bodies were dragged out of the arena. Slaves raked fresh sand over the bloodstains. But they couldn’t hide the smell. It simmered in the steamy summer air like something from a Hell dimension.

I don’t know what made me look behind then. It’s as if I knew Orlando would be there. He was talking to the lanista, looking tired and pale. I went weak with relief. He was here, and he was OK!

Aurelia was trying to pull herself together. “Mella, your gladiatrix is on next,” she said bravely.

Star had been paired with Juno, the only other girl fighter on the programme. Probably Star and Juno ate the same rations at the same table, slept in the same room and borrowed each other’s perfume and hairpins. Now they had to try to kill each other or they didn’t get paid.