by Annie Dalton
“As I was saying,” he went on humorously, “hopefully, you all know a little more about Nero’s Rome than you did before. But there are things we can’t prepare you for, and if it’s your first visit to this era, you can expect a certain amount of culture shock.”
Michael gave us the usual warnings about keeping our eyes peeled for PODS. “As you know, the Opposition constantly bombards Earth with negative thoughts and energy. Even professional celestial agents can find themselves adversely affected. Once you leave the safety of Heaven, it’s easy to lose focus. So you must keep reminding each other why you are there, and what you came to do. Try to remember that, no matter how it seems, you’re always connected with your heavenly source. Good luck.”
That was it - we’d officially graduated from our Ancient Roman Class! Tonight we’d be in the decadent world of Nero’s Empire. I heard a sudden clatter as two Roman hairpins dropped to the floor and I suddenly felt like I was going to pass out with nerves.
I’m not ready! I thought. It was like those exam dreams I used to have on Earth. That paralysing terror when you know you just haven’t put in the hours. I fiddled frantically with another slipping hairpin. I couldn’t even control my own hair! As I grovelled on the floor collecting hairpins, a new worry occurred to me.
“They forgot to tell me what I’m supposed to be called,” I panicked. “It’ll be some weird name and I won’t be able to remember it.”
“Your name is Mella,” said a familiar voice.
Michael crouched down beside me on the floor. He touched my little bee charm with a fingertip and I felt angelic volts shimmer through every cell. “It’s Latin for ‘Honey’,” he told me. “So you see, you chose the right charm quite by instinct.”
“I did?” I whispered.
Isn’t that incredible? When I chose that bee design, I had NO idea my Roman name was going to be “Honey”!!
Suddenly I didn’t give a hoot about my hair. How can you fail when your charm has been personally touched by an archangel?
Chapter Four
In Departures, no-one turned a hair at our Roman costumes. It’s always mad down there, even in the early hours. Celestial agents milled around making last-minute calls. One girl was sitting in the lotus position beside her backpack, meditating while she waited. A group of trainees were playing a noisy card game, just inches away from her but she was oblivious.
Our portal needed some last-minute TLC, but eventually we all squeezed inside.
Al, my fave maintenance guy, closed the door with a thunk. Michael gave us a reassuring smile through the glass. This was huge for Orlando, and Michael obviously wanted him to know he had the Agency’s blessing.
The last moments before take-off always make me nervous.
I wish Lollie was here, I thought. It felt super-weird going without her.
Reuben must have read my mind. In a husky, not entirely in-tune voice, he started to sing our private theme tune. It goes, “You’re not alone. You’re not alone.” One by one everyone joined in. Some of the more musical guys even put in harmonies. We were still singing as our time portal lit up and we blasted through the invisible barrier that divides the timeless angelic fields from the unpredictable world of human history.
En route, Orlando filled us in on a few essential details. “We’re going to Ostia, a Roman port, a few miles from the capital. I did tell you we’d be posing as slaves?” he added anxiously.
He hadn’t, but by this time Orlando could have told us we were walking into a fiery furnace and we’d have followed him like lambs. That’s the kind of angel he is.
Reuben patted my shoulder. “May the gods protect you, my little honey bunny,” he whispered in fluent Latin.
“You too, Sweetpea,” I answered equally fluently. Being able to understand every language going is one of the cooler perks of being an angel.
I noticed my buddy scratching absently at the collar of his rough woollen tunic. I fingered the fine white cotton of my stola. How come I’m the only one on this mission wearing good clothes? I wondered. But there was no time to puzzle about this. Outside the portal, the colours had grown unbearably intense. We were coming in to land.
Seconds later I stepped out into a crowded Roman market place. I could smell fish and sewage and something that might be incense. Hungry white seagulls wheeled over my head screaming.
Hello seagulls, I thought lovingly. Hello icky smells. Once again, I was back on my favourite planet. I don’t know about you, but when I feel happy, I immediately have to tell someone!
“I think there’s still a part of me that really misses being human,” I burbled. “Like, here we are in a totally unknown sea port, in a totally unfamiliar century, but something inside says, ‘I’m home!’”
“Shut up and move your angel butt, NOW!” Reuben ordered and he practically threw me into a very smelly doorway.
A shaven-headed guy in a tunic came striding past with a big stick, whacking anyone in his path. “Make way, scum!” he bellowed, only in Latin obviously. People hastily scattered as a curtained litter carried by two extremely muscular male bearers came swaying into view. A warm salt breeze was blowing off the sea. It lifted up a corner of the curtain, revealing the super-sized middle-aged Roman inside, lounging on his piles of cushions. He glared at us and twitched the curtain closed.
I felt a little bit shaky. I’d been in Nero’s time for less than sixty seconds and I’d almost got my skull bashed in already! “Thanks Reubs,” I said gratefully.
He looked distinctly traumatised. “That human saw us,” he said. “That feels so weird.”
When you’re invisible, you have time to adjust to being back in the material world. But if humans can SEE you, it’s full-on right away.
I’ve been to a few eras now, but I’ve got to say, Ancient Rome was different from the start. It wasn’t any one thing that blew me away. It wasn’t the towering public buildings of stone and marble, or the grimy Roman flats, where poor people lived packed like sardines. It wasn’t the spicy whiffs of unfamiliar hot snacks, or the babble of voices talking Latin and other ancient languages that had been totally forgotten by my time - it was everything. Everything was different. Even the sunlight on my skin seemed clearer, brighter. To me it felt like the world was still new. As if all its colours hadn’t totally dried yet.
I love those first moments of a mission when you’re still sussing out humans, wondering who you’ll actually get to know, and who’ll be like, cosmic extras. Take that girl sitting at a table outside a bar called The Shower of Gold.
She’s got an unusual face, I thought. She was paler than the olive-skinned locals I’d seen so far. That probably meant she was wealthy enough to stay in the shade while slaves did her dirty work. The tiny rubies at her earlobes were another giveaway. She’s probably been treated like a princess her whole life, I thought. You can just tell nothing bad has ever happened to her.
Tough-looking slaves stood by with cudgels, keeping a wary watch on the family’s luggage. The girl was fussing over a fluffy little dog in her lap. It was so fluffy that you couldn’t seel where its eyes were. “Minerva’s been stung, Pater,” the girl said to her dad.
Minerva, I thought. Now that’s weird. On a recent mission to Victorian times we’d met a fake medium who called herself Minerva. I’m not sure I’d have named that puppy after the Roman goddess of wisdom myself. Goddess of fluff maybe.
“Her paw is badly swollen,” the girl persisted. “She whimpers when I touch it.”
Her father didn’t answer. He was gazing confusedly around at the buildings, as if he feared this was all a strange dream from which he might wake any moment.
At that moment I heard Orlando calling to us on a wavelength used only by angels. Mel, Reuben. Get over here now!
We hurried through the crowded forum following Orlando’s vibes.
Suddenly a gap appeared in the crowd and I saw the slave market. The slaves in the slave market at Ostia were mostly barbarians, white-skinned tribes-peopl
e. They peered out fearfully through matted hair, shivering in their filthy rags.
We nervously joined Orlando and the others.
I don’t know if you can imagine standing that close to half-naked humans who’d been cooped up in slave ships for weeks. They absolutely stank though this was hardly their fault. But it wasn’t just the smell that made me feel ill. The air was thick with human fear and hatred; the kind of vibes that make it hard for an angel to breathe.
The dealer was chalking prices on crude wooden tags. He’d glance along the line of slaves, do a quick calculation, scribble a price and matter-of-factly hang the clumsy tag round someone’s neck.
In the forum a shoe mender went on cheerfully mending a broken buckle, whistling under his breath. The fishmonger roared out the price of his freshly-caught squid, and the owner of The Shower of Gold came out to place olives and fresh bread in front of the girl and her father. It didn’t seem to trouble them that just a few metres away, dozens of their fellow humans stood shivering with price tags round their necks.
I’m not going to pretend I know how it feels to be a slave. This was my first ever glimpse of slavery. But when I looked into the eyes of these sullen men, women and children, I felt deeply ashamed for humankind.
I was standing beside a hairy little barbarian, who was covered with tribal tattoos. His hair and beard were grey and his face was lined with age. But he was only about as tall as the average six-year-old. “We’ll get a good price for you,” the dealer told him approvingly. “You dwarves are worth big bucks. Can you juggle?”
The man pressed his lips together. “No juggle.”
The dealer sighed. “Give me a break, sunshine. Even boneheaded barbarians can juggle a few oranges.”
“I am not Sunshine. I am Flammia,” the man said with dignity. “I swallow fire.”
The slave dealer broke into a delighted grin. “Well well, a fire-eating dwarf. Some days you just know Jupiter is on your side!”
Still grinning, the dealer moved on and suddenly stopped in front of me.
I felt downright naked as he looked me up and down like I was a calf in the livestock market. He immediately registered my bulla.
“Hmmm, freeborn,” he muttered. “Tall for a girl. Nicely turned-out though. Quite pretty. Make someone a good ornatrix. Could get seven sestercii if I’m lucky.” He scribbled a Roman numeral on a wooden tag and hung it round my neck. For the first time he noticed I wasn’t shackled. He clicked his tongue. “Now how did that happen,” he grumbled and hurriedly found some rusty old shackles.
“Please don’t,” Orlando said at once. “She won’t try to escape.”
I was SO touched. It’s like, even though we weren’t real slaves, Orlando couldn’t bear to see me in chains.
The man gave a derisive laugh. “A slave’s promise, now that’s really worth having!”
“None of my friends are chained,” Orlando pointed out. “We’re here of our own free will.”
The dealer shook his head. “I hate to hurt your sensitive feelings, sunshine,” he sighed, “but I’d prefer a little bit of insurance.”
He went hurrying along the line of angel trainees, hanging inflated prices round their necks and securing them with chains. “Don’t know where you beauties came from,” I heard him saying. “But you’ve been well cared for, I’ll say that. I’ll get a fortune for you.”
“This is sick,” Reuben whispered.
“Isn’t it?” I said. “What a way to run an empire!” I was totally off the Romans by now.
“Be fair,” said a trainee, “they’ve got incredible ideals.”
“Ooh, absolutely, plus they invented central heating!” I said sarcastically. “I’m sorry, a civilisation built on human misery sucks.”
Just then an alarming looking guy came limping up to the dealer. He’d lost the better part of one ear, he wore an eye-patch over one eye and he had horrific scars on his legs. To judge from the limp, one of them was still giving him trouble. I decided he must be an old Roman legionary who’d received his injuries fighting barbarians in some distant corner of the empire.
Whatever, he must have been a good customer because the dealer was instantly all over him. “Festus Brutus, good morning! How have the gods been treating you?” And he went into a spiel about this special purchase deal he could give him.
“That guy must be a lanista,” whispered Reuben.
“Probably, but I don’t know what that means,” I hissed back. It must be something they’d covered while I was perfecting my plaiting skills.
“It’s Roman slang for ‘butcher’,” Reuben explained. “He’s on the lookout for raw recruits he can train up for the arena.”
I gasped. Suddenly everything made sense. That’s why Orlando had picked me for his task force! This butcher person was going to buy us for his ludus and turn us into trained gladiators! OK, so this might be a bit of a challenge, but if Orlando thought I could handle it, I was up for it, no question. Admittedly, you don’t tend to hear about girl gladiators, but like Lola says, if you relied on history books for your info, you’d think girls didn’t even exist in some time periods!
I shut my eyes and beamed a grateful message to my soul-mate. I owe you, Lollie! All that fitness training you made me do, all that martial arts - it’s finally coming together!
Next minute, it all fell apart.
The girl with the lapdog had left the bar to wander around the slave market. Now she was heading purposefully in my direction. Keep walking, I prayed. Pick someone else.
The girl walked right up to me, looking intently into my face, almost as if she knew me from somewhere.
I felt telltale angelic tingles shimmer through my bones.
Don’t do this, I pleaded silently. I’m sure you’re a really sweet human but I can’t be your personal angel, OK? I’m on a v. dangerous cosmic mission.
The girl was a year or so older than me, but not so tall. Up close I could see that her eyes were grey and when she smiled a dimple appeared in her cheek. My Nan would have said that’s where she’d been touched by an angel. I had to admit there was something appealing about her and in another time, or another place, I’d have been delighted to get to know her. Just not here and not now.
“This must be horrible for you,” she said quietly. “I’ve always thought it strange that a country which thinks itself civilised, should be dependent on slave labour. My name is Aurelia Flavia, by the way.”
“You don’t introduce yourself to slaves!” Her father had caught her up. But there was no real energy to his words. It was like he was going through the motions. “She probably doesn’t even speak Latin!” he added in a tired voice.
I unfocused my eyes, willing them both to go away.
Aurelia ignored his interruption. “We’ve been living in Britain for years,” she explained. “My father thinks I’ve gone tribal!”
I was genuinely shocked to hear her mention my country.
Aurelia saw it. “She understood, Pater! You can see how intelligent she is. Her soul shines out of her eyes.”
Her father gave a heavy sigh. “Souls,” he muttered. “Just like your mother. She was always going on about souls.”
“Please, may we buy her?” Aurelia pleaded. “You agreed I needed an ornatrix, and she does her own hair so beautifully.”
A distressing thought flitted into my head and once it was there, it refused to go away.
He wouldn’t, I thought. Orlando would never do that to me. But I had a horrible feeling that he had. Was that why I didn’t need gladiator training? Was that why I’d got the deluxe Roman makeover treatment, while the others had to make do with hessian? I’d even got my own personal Roman name…
“Your hairstyle is so pretty!” Aurelia was prattling. “My hair is impossible. Every slave I have just despairs.”
I wanted to howl with disappointment. Festus Brutus was prowling down the rows of slaves, checking us out for gladiator potential. If Aurelia kept chatting to me about hairstyles, he wo
uldn’t think “Feisty fighting girl”, he’d think “Personal maid”.
Go with Aurelia, Mel! I heard Orlando’s voice as clearly as if he’d spoken aloud. She needs you. It’s why I brought you
I was like: You brought me to Rome so I could be some rich girl’s hairdresser! I was so upset that I only just stopped myself from stamping my foot. All my fantasies crumbled into dust. To think I’d imagined us fighting side by side. A bimbo, that’s all I was to him. A joke. I wanted to crawl into a hole and never come out.
Bottle it up, I scolded myself. Swallow it down. Whatever. Don’t let Orlando see you cry.
Next minute the universe supplied an unexpected distraction. Our teachers are constantly telling us that the Agency works in mysterious ways. Like, one tiny thing can change the whole course of human history. Even a silly fluff-ball of a pooch.
While I struggled to control my emotions, Minerva had noticed Reuben. My angel buddy has a magical affinity with all furry or feathered creatures. Birds, bees, dancing bears, universally adore him. With a weird whimpering sound, the little dog jumped out of Aurelia’s arms and went wriggling up to Reuben, holding up her injured paw.
Completely disregarding his chains, Reuben stooped down and began to pet her, talking so softly that no human would ever dream he was speaking in the very ancient language we use for communicating with birds and animals. I’m not as fluent as my buddy but I got the gist. “Did the wasp sting you?” he was saying. “Do you want me to take the hurt away?”
Reuben touched her paw with a gentle finger. I saw an arrow of glowing pink light beam from his heart into Minerva. By the time Reubs straightened up, her limp had totally gone.
I don’t know what Aurelia saw, but she looked amazed. “I want to buy that boy too,” she told her father. “Minerva needs a kennel slave and he’s obviously wonderful with animals.”
“I’m also wonderful with plants,” Reuben said shamelessly. “Give me a free hand in the garden and you’ll think you’re living in paradise.”
