 
         THE GREEN BRONZE MIRROR

by Lynne Ellison

Smashwords edition

Copyright Lynne Newark 2010

Illustrations and cover art by Philip Smiley

Copyright  Lynne Newark 1966, 2009, 2010

Illustrations and cover art Copyright  Philip Smiley 2009, 2010

Author's website <http://www.filedby.com/author/lynne_ellison/3820272/>

 "It was an old mirror"

I

THE SEA ROLLED MAJESTICALLY ON TO THE BROAD, FLAT sands, and the breeze blew a sharp salty tang into Karen's face. She felt a burst of energy drive through her, and started to run through the shallows with the wind behind her. The cold water splashed her bare legs and made dark splotches on her shorts, but she didn't care. How could she bother with boring things like wet shorts when she was on holiday by the sea with nobody else at all on the beach, except a few people collecting shells half a mile away?

She ran faster and looked down, seeing her own bare feet striking the clear, rippled water and sending silver drops to right and left.

At last she slowed to a walk and looked about her. She was down at the far end of the bay now, where the picnickers rarely came, and the dunes, crowned with long grass like tufts of hair, rose on her right. She went towards them and struggled up the soft, dry sand, and lay on her stomach to see over the top.

Inland the ground was flat, rising gradually to hills in the distance. Tiny, white-walled farms stood out clearly in the early-morning light. Grey, twisted roads wound between them, and here and there were areas of dotted woodland. Away on the headland rose the ruins of an old Norman castle.

Karen snuggled deeper into the sand and watched the postman ride past on the road below, steadily pedalling his old red bicycle. In her imagination he turned into a Turkish troop-train, and she was Lawrence of Arabia waiting to blow him up. Behind her lay the wild tribesmen of the desert,

their Arab horses tethered at the bottom of the dune this was a dangerous venture. Just a little bit farther ... now! Boom! The wrecked train

heeled on to its side and she raised her arm to start the charge.

'Karen! Kaa-ren!' Her sister came running along the seashore, yelling at the top of her voice. She flung herself down on the dune, panting.

Anne was ten, five years younger than Karen. She had light brown hair in two short plaits and a freckled snub nose. She was a pleasant child, and Karen was fond of her, but like most younger sisters she could be irritating when she was not wanted.

She was not particularly wanted now.

'You spoiled my daydream,' said Karen with mock sorrow.

'Oh dear! Was it a nice one?' Anne laughed. 'So this is where you were. I've been looking all over for you. What are you doing down here by yourself?'

'Just running about. I like being by myself. When will you learn that?'

Anne ignored the last remark. 'I'm going to the shops to get a postcard for Gran. Coming?'

'No thanks. I hate those ghastly little trinket-places. It's so much nicer here-good and lonely.'

'I'd rather be with people. It's nine-thirty, you know. Mum'll be wondering where you are.'

'Is it really? I still don't think I'll go back yet, though. Goodbye.'

Anne ran off, dismissed.

There was no point in continuing the daydream now. The postman, alias Turkish troop-train, had long since vanished. Karen got up and stretched. The hair blew into her eyes and she turned round so that it trailed behind. It was too long, she thought; it needed cutting.

She went slowly down to the sea again, and finding a piece of wood brought in by the tide, she drew a horse in the firm wet sand; a good horse, because she'd been drawing them a long time, galloping along the ground with its legs in an interesting position. The position was correct, though; she had studied photographs and knew just how a horse's legs behaved when it galloped.

There was a sort of science in it.

Looking at the horse-drawing, she felt an itch to gallop herself, and turned to go farther along the beach.

About a hundred yards away she saw that there was a large section of sand cut off from the rest by a deep channel. Along this the sea water flowed fast, pushed through by the current from the other side of the bay.

Smiling to herself and wondering which would be the best place to cross, Karen walked along one bank, but as the channel didn't seem to get any shallower she waded in. The water soon came up to the hem of her shorts, and she had vague ideas of turning back, but it came no higher so she continued. The current pushed hard at her legs, and the water didn't look or smell too nice. She thought of sewage, especially as it was a pale yellow colour; then decided that as she was two-thirds of the way across it was silly to go back.

Although the other bank shelved steeply and smoothly, she scrambled up easily enough, and now the whole island was hers!

It was wide and flat, marvellously lonely and beautiful in its solitude, and well suited to the mood she was in. There was absolutely nothing on it except a few gulls standing by the distant gleam of sea. The sky overhead was a sweep of wind-driven clouds, accenting the loneliness, and high up a lapwing mewed plaintively.

Karen's feet sank slightly into the sand, leaving wet puddles when she moved them; it was not as hard as it looked. Hoping there was no chance of its being quicksand, she started to run. The brisk sea air seemed to give her boundless energy, and she sped on, leaving silvery tracks behind her that gradually filled with water, and then sand again. The gulls standing by the sea saw her from a long distance, and flapped heavily away. When she reached their former stance, all that was left were a few triangular prints and some bird droppings.

But there was something else, Karen soon realized, something almost buried in the sand. It was a greenish colour, and looked like the handle of some object. Karen stooped and touched it out of curiosity. It seemed to be made of metal, and she knelt down to dig it out of the sand.

It was an old mirror- a flat disc of metal about six inches across, set on to a decorated handle. The whole surface was covered in grit, and the handle was eroded, as though it had been there a very long time. Karen stared and wondered and then went and washed the object in the sea. Under the sand and the dirt the metal turned out to be bronze, a beautiful green, presumably owing to age. Strangely, the flat mirror part was completely smooth and untouched, whereas the handle was pitted and partially eaten away, although the design of delicately twining leaves was still visible.

Karen wondered who had dropped it, and then the idea came to her that it might be an ancient relic-Norman, Saxon, or perhaps even Roman. Suppose she had found something of real historical interest!

'I wonder if I could still see myself in it?' she said aloud, and took out her handkerchief to rub it. It took time, but gradually she worked up a shine on the metal, and as she did so a curious tingling came to her from the mirror, almost as if the metal were coming to life. Karen distinctly felt it vibrate and examined her tingling hand, but there was no mark on the skin. She glanced into the mirror, slowly.

II

SHE WAS LYING ON A GRASSY SLOPE WITH THE SUN WARMING her cheek. Her head ached violently, and she sat up slowly, trying to think what had happened. When she looked down she saw that she was still clutching the mirror, and that reminded her. She'd found it on the island, and looked into it. Yes, that was right, she thought; the last thing she'd done was look into the mirror, and she couldn't remember anything after that, just a second of time and she was here but where was here?

Karen jumped quickly to her feet and looked for the village, but it was nowhere in sight. Could she have got somewhere else without knowing it? No! She recognized the shape of the headland, although there seemed to be something missing. After a minute's reflection she realized that the old Norman castle had disappeared.

She scratched her head, puzzled. The very shape of the beach was different. Surely it had been broader than that? Where were the island and the dunes? The heath swept right down to the thin, half-moon curve of white sand, with no dunes anywhere.

Karen was completely mystified She wondered if she was dreaming and pinched herself, but the sun shone down brightly still, and the little brown bees buzzed to and fro among the furze and harebells. If it was a dream, it was a very real one.

She cast her mind back to the island, hoping to remember something that might help, and then it came to her that it had been a wild and windy day when she had found the mirror, and it certainly wasn't that now.

Could the mirror have anything to do with it, she wondered, and glanced at it as it lay on the ground. 'What have you done to me, you stupid thing?' she cried in a sudden fit of temper; then picked it up roughly, and flung it away as hard as she could.

She never saw where it landed, because just then she heard a tramping of feet, looked to see who it was, and stared, incredulous.

Marching steadily down a track that led to the beach came ten men with an officer leading them. It was their clothes that made Karen stare. They wore tunics coming half way to their knees, intricately bound leather sandals, metal armour around their bodies, and helmets gleaming in the sun.

Each man carried a heavy six-foot spear and an oblong shield, and the officer's helmet was crowned with a short plume of horsehair.

Karen dropped to the ground among the furze bushes and tried to figure out what they could be. She could have sworn that they were Romans, exactly like the ones pictured in 'Roman Britain' which she read in school last term, but the idea was so impossible that she tried to dismiss it. How could there be Romans in this day and age? Unless... unless the mirror had taken her back-about two thousand years. But that was preposterous. Perhaps the men were just part of some sort of advertising gimmick. Still, that didn't explain the disappearance of the castle. Maybe the men would explain that to her. She'd ask them.

She stood up and faced them resolutely, waiting for them to come level with her.

The officer saw her first.

'Halt!' he bellowed, and beckoned imperiously to Karen. 'Come here!'

Karen stood before him, feeling rather foolish in her shorts and striped T-shirt. What if they really were Romans? And if they were, how on earth had she been able to understand what he said?

'Who are you and what are you doing here?' asked the officer, in a tone which implied that he wanted a prompt and businesslike answer.

'N-nothing,' said Karen, trying to think what to say. 'Only taking a walk.'

Golly! she thought. I think they must be real Romans. She wondered with a growing sense of panic how she could explain that she was from the twentieth century. The man stared at her suspiciously from under thick black brows. 'Only taking a walk, are you? Where are you from?'

Karen shut her mouth defiantly. 'I won't tell you!' This was the easiest way of getting out of it.

'Oh? And why not? You wouldn't be a runaway slave, would you? If you were, you'd not tell me, naturally. But there are ways and means.'

Karen's eyes widened. 'I'm not, really! I swear it!'

'Then you'll be a sensible girl and tell me where you live!' he snapped. 'And if you can't, you'll be coming back to the fort with me.'

Karen still said nothing; she could think of nothing. The silence became more and more unbearable, until mercifully one of the soldiers spoke.

'Excuse me, sir-there was a trading-ship called in not half an hour ago. She's probably given them the slip and walked off, if you ask me- the cheeky little-'

'That's enough, Calvus' The officer turned to Karen. 'Well? Is he right or isn't he? I'm inclined to believe him myself. You know what happens to runaway slaves? You could be crucified.'

She stared in horror, eyes beginning to swim with tears of desperation. 'But I'm not a slave!'

'Now don't start that again; I'm not a fool. However, I'm a kind man- when I want to be. Officially you're the property of the state, but I can soon fix that with the commander. You'll come and live with me in the fort!'

Karen, almost struck dumb, opened her mouth to protest, then thought better of it and turned to run. She had only gone a few steps when something hurled her to the ground with an agonizing thud. One of the soldiers had thrown his spear, shaft first, in such a way as to knock her down but cause her no injury, beyond a bruise. The officer ran after her and jerked her roughly to her feet.

'You ought to be grateful,' he shouted. 'I could hand you over to the authorities. You'd not get off lightly then, you know. Now, come on with you. Quick march, men!'

Karen tried to hang back, and nearly asked if she could look for the mirror, but then decided not to. She probably wouldn't be allowed, and anyway, she thought bitterly, what was the use? She was in a big enough mess as it was, without looking into the rotten thing again and landing somewhere in the Ice Age!

In the fort the decurion, Duillius Rufus, had a very comfortable couple of rooms which he shared with another man of the same rank, Veturius Grassus. Veturius had an old male slave to serve him, but Duillius's servant had died recently so he was glad of Karen. When they arrived at the fort he left her in the charge of the old slave, and told him to get her what he called 'some proper clothes.'

The man eyed her disapprovingly. 'You are dressed oddly,' he said, pursing his lips, 'Who are you, anyway?'

Karen sighed 'You wouldn't believe me if I told you. But my name's Karen; what's yours?'

The man said he was called Davus, if it meant anything to her, and then stumped off in the direction of the buildings, telling her to follow.

He went around the back of the barracks-house, and Karen looked about with interest. So this was a real Roman fort! She had once gone round the ruins of one, on a dreary school-organized tour, but the real thing was far more interesting.

It was neatly and geometrically divided into square blocks, and the larger buildings were made of the local grey stone. The roofs were tiled in the Roman manner, looking like corrugated brick. The biggest building was the granary; it was made without windows, but Davus said that the floor was supported on stone piles, to let air in to ventilate the corn. Apparently this was also the place where the soldiers arranged to meet their girls.

Suddenly a thought struck Karen. If these people really were Romans, then they must be speaking Latin, yet she understood them perfectly, and the odd thing was that she heard them as though they were speaking English. She felt that she couldn't very well ask Davus outright about this; she didn't want to be thought insane. The Romans used to send mad slaves to the salt-mines, or so she'd heard. She silently worked out how to phrase her question.

'When did you learn to speak Latin, Davus? You're not a Roman, are you?'

Davus shook his head. 'I'm a Greek,' he said, and the words were slightly blurred. 'Don't ask me where I learned this accursed language. Everyone learns it now- it's the language of the conqueror.'

Karen realized that she had reminded him of his slavery, and tried to undo it. 'I'm sorry, Davus. I didn't mean to make you remember.' He looked round and smiled vaguely. 'It doesn't matter now. I'm an old man- fifty, sixty, I don't really know. In here.'

He dived into a low doorway and hurried along a passage thick with the smell of cooking. The air hung heavy, and Karen was glad when they came out in a spacious kitchen lighted by a row of windows near the ceiling.

A huge fire was roaring in the hearth, and a whole ox's body rotated slowly on a spit, turned by a sweating slave-boy. A small, thin woman with iron-grey hair was chopping vegetables and when she saw Davus she smiled and stopped her work.

"Well, now,' she said in a bright, chirpy voice, 'What can I do for you, eh?' She cocked her head on one side; she was like a little bird with bright eyes.

'This young lady wants some clothes, Cordella,' explained Davus.

'This is a girl?' Cordella inspected Karen more closely. 'I took you for a boy!' My dear, where did you get those extraordinary garments?' She gave Karen no time to explain, but went on. 'They're indecent! Come with me.' She led off down another passageway- the whole building was a maze of passages, Karen soon noticed- and into a square room with a bed in the corner and a few smaller articles of furniture. Opening a large brass-bound chest, she rummaged around inside, and extracted a dress of brownish woollen material.

'Try this for size,' she ordered, and Karen removed her shorts and shirt, and dropped the dress over her head. Cordella shook hers. 'Extraordinary underclothes!' she muttered. 'You're an odd child altogether, I swear.' Karen reddened slightly and tied the belt; at last something pleased Cordella, for she smiled and nodded.

Karen asked whether there was a mirror anywhere. Cordella produced one and held it up at the far end of the room so that Karen could see most of herself in it. She had to admit that she looked very nice. The rather dullish brown set off her dark brown hair, and the simple lines of the dress suited her. The length was right too: just down to the knee.

'By the way,' remarked Cordella on the way back to the kitchens, 'I suppose you are a slave?'

Karen decided that she might as well say yes and not start an explanation that would only make matters worse. 'I'm the new slave of the decurion.'

'Which one, dear?'

'Er ... Duillius Rufus.'

'Oh yes? He's not a bad man, but if I were you, dearie, I'd do my work well. He's very particular. That's a piece of good advice for you.'

Karen thanked her.

'Oh, and there's another thing,' Cordella went on. 'You needn't worry about anything else; that man's got no use for girls except as house-cleaners. With most of the legionaries it's another matter- lawless disreputable thugs with no respect for anyone but their officers, let alone a girl. So I've warned you, if you needed it.'

Karen nodded dumbly. It's all real, she thought. They're real Romans in a real fort, really speaking Latin, and I've gone and got myself back amongst them as a slave, and who knows what'll happen to me? I wish it were all a dream. I wonder why it sounds like English when they speak. Still, it's as well it does, because I was never much good at Latin. What year can it be? I must find out if Rome's an empire now.'

'Who's emperor now?' she asked Davus when they were walking back along the main street. She'd look a fool if it was still a Republic, but when she thought back Britain hadn't been Romanized till after the last dictator, Julius Caesar, so they were bound to have an emperor.

Davus stared, his grey brows raised incredulously. 'Where have you been, not to know that?' he said, and Karen felt a country bumpkin. 'Nero, of course- may the gods bless his soul.' The last words were spoken in a tone which implied that the gods had better, because nobody else would.

Karen's eyes widened. 'Nero!' she said in a tone of horror; she'd read a good deal about Nero and his deeds. '

Why do you speak of him in that tone?' inquired Davus, and Karen covered her confusion by saying she'd thought it was someone else.

'How old is he now?' was her next question.

After a thought Davus said twenty-five. There had been a great celebration on the occasion of the emperor's birthday and he still had the scar on his ribs where a drunken soldier had attacked him and tried to carve Nero's name with his dagger. Karen did some quick reckoning. In her Latin lessons at school she had done some Roman history, and the date A.D. 54 stuck in her mind as being the year in which Nero had ascended the throne at sixteen years of age. So if he was twenty-five now, that meant he had been emperor for nine years, and the date should now be A.D. 63. Furthermore, judging by the flowers that were out at the moment, it was safe to assume that it was still late spring, about the time of school half-term.

She had no time for further reflection for Davus put her to work as soon as they returned to the decurions' rooms, and the men came in themselves an hour later. Cordella cooked the officers' meals in her kitchen, and Karen's job was to fetch and carry the trays. She lost her way twice, and had to ask a couple of leering soldiers, one of whom slapped her bottom, but at last she found the right doorway.

Coming back with the tray of faintly steaming plates, she again met the soldier who had slapped her behind- she recognized him as Calvus, of Duillius's ten- and he tried rather meanly to trip her up. When she told him what she thought of him, the lazy smile left his fat face and he ordered her not to speak to him like that because she was only a slave-girl.

Karen stared hotly, colour rising to her cheeks, and then stamped on his foot really hard with her sandal before she hurried away as fast as she dared with the wobbling plates. Hearing him bellow with pain and start to hobble after her, she was horribly frightened, but in spite of her fear she very much wanted to giggle, because it was like an old comedy film. After that Calvus treated her with more respect.

Apparently Cordella cooked only for the officers, who had better fare than the legionaries' food which was cooked in a larger communal canteen. Tonight Cordella had done them proud with chicken and white sauce, though Karen couldn't help wondering if they would have liked potatoes with it. She herself, like the rest of the slaves, ate the stew which was on the soldiers' menu and was hungry enough to enjoy it.

That evening old Davus polished the armour, and Karen washed the dirty clothes, while Duillius wrote a long letter to his sister in Capua, and Veturius went out. Later, Karen slept on a couple of old blankets in the corner, wondering miserably if she would ever see the twentieth century again, and cursing the green bronze mirror.
III

DURING THE NEXT WEEK KAREN SETTLED INTO HER NEW life, although she found it depressing having to work all the time. She could never reconcile herself to behaving with the proper servility, and anyone seeing her going about the camp would not have taken her for a slave.

Duillius was amused at her attitude, but made no attempt to change her nature. As far as he was concerned, she did no harm to anyone; besides, he never really thought of slaves as being human. If she did not come up to his required standard he would sell her. It was as simple as that. This state of things did not last however. One afternoon Duillius Rufus came in scratching his head and staring at a letter he had just opened. Karen was washing clothes on the doorstep and moved aside to let him pass. Wondering what the letter was about, she kept her ears open in case he said anything important to Veturius, who was lying on the bed.

Sure enough: 'I've been to headquarters, Veturius. Just look at this.'

There was a silence while Veturius read the letter, and Karen waited agog on the step. A woman passing winked at her as she saw her so obviously listening, and she guiltily fell to squeezing and thumping the sweaty tunics again, although still listening. It was so hard to get anything clean without soap. She wished that Veturius would hurry.

At last he spoke: 'Hmmm! When'll you be going, then?

'Three days.'

'That all? You'll have to get a move on. I'll tell Davus to help you.'

'Thanks. What I must get is a good strong British slave to come with me.'

'You know, I thought it wouldn't be long before the Welsh made trouble again. If they think they can follow Boadicea's example they're wrong!'

'About two years ago, wasn't it? Well, no matter. You know that cock-fight on tonight? People are saying ...'

Karen went to rinse the clothes. So Duillius was being sent somewhere else, was he? To Wales. Huh! She hoped he'd like it there. And meanwhile, what would be done with her?

When she had returned and settled down to scrubbing the step- Duillius was particular- the decurion himself came out.

Karen tugged the hem of his tunic. 'Oh, sir--'

'What do you want, girl?'

'Well, I couldn't help overhearing you just now, and-' He frowned and looked at her very hard.

'I couldn't. I was washing your clothes ...on the step. She just stopped herself from applying an uncomplimentary adjective to her master's garments. 'Anyway, I heard you were being sent to Wales. Please, what are you going to do with me?'

He looked at her in some surprise. He could really be very supercilious at times.

'What! You didn't think you were coming, did you?'

She gazed at him, speechless.

'I can't take a girl with me. It's impossible. You'd only be a hindrance. There's an auction the day after the next fort up the coast. I'll buy a man there and sell you. Now, I've no more time to waste. Get out of my way.'

Karen moved slowly, her mind a blank except for one word. Sold!

The day of the auction came all too soon, and Karen went to say goodbye to CordelIa, who patted her arm comfortingly.

'I'm so sorry you're going, dearie,' she said, 'I've taken quite a liking to you, I must confess. Now, don't you worry. Just take things as they come, like.' She watched Karen mysteriously for a minute, and beckoned. 'Come on. I've a mind to give you another present.'

Karen followed her to the little room she had visited before. The present was another dress, this time bleached white, with a border of Greek design.

'It'll fit,' said Cordella. 'It's another of my old ones, same as the brown. It used to be my favourite. Like it?'

Karen smiled through her melancholy and gathered the dress to her. 'Yes,' she said. Oh, thank you, Cordella!' She sighed again. 'I must go. The decurion'll be searching for me.' She couldn't bring herself to call him 'my master.' Not yet.

The only other goodbye was to old Davus. He gave her a parting hug; then she hastily wiped a tear from her eye and reluctantly followed the waiting decurion on foot, while he rode a grey cob. He had wanted to tie her hands, but had refrained when she had promised not to run away; she was prepared to promise anything, if only he wouldn't humiliate her like that. She looked back once and waved to Davus.

It was a journey of five miles to the next fort, along a dreary cart-track, and the day was hot. Soon Karen was streaming with sweat; it made great dark patches on the dress, especially under the arms,and added to her misery. She lagged farther and farther behind, until Duillius reined in the stolid grey and impatiently helped her up behind him. Shyly, she held on to his waist.

Once she was on the horse's back the slight breeze fanned Karen's hot face; she began to feel better, and looked around her.

The green downs swept to the sea in gentle curves, at this time of year covered in flowers. Insects buzzed among them, and high up a lark warbled sweetly. Karen noticed the absence of walls dividing fields from one another; to one who was used to cosy farms everywhere, it made the scene look wild and untamed. It didn't look like England- dear, peaceful England- but then, this was Roman Britain.

Karen knew how to ride, so she was in no danger of falling off, and soon she began to feel drowsy. The sun's heat and the buzzing flies added to her sleepiness, and besides, the view of the straight cart-track, with its uniform stripe of scrubby grass down the middle was always the same, so there was nothing to divert her. When she asked Duillius if it was much farther, he said in a tone of impatience that they had come about half-way, and Karen once more settled into boredom.

After another half hour the fort came into sight. It had much the same appearance as the other except that it was larger- a cluster of stone buildings strongly protected with a rampart and ditch. The guard at the gateway asked their business, and when the decurion told him, he waved them on and told them where to find the scene of the auction.

The area was crowded with people, soldiers, merchants, dealers- all waiting to buy or sell- and, of course, slaves. They were lined up along the far wall; some to be sold in groups, some singly, under the eye of a watchful slave-master who carried a vicious whip coiled in his hand. Duillius left Karen at the end of this queue and went to see the auction-master.

The slave-master eyed her sullenly and she felt very uncomfortable.

'I wonder if we're allowed to talk,' she thought, and resolved to try. She stole a glance at the slaves next to her, but they didn't look as if they would respond to friendliness. They all had an air of complete hopelessness and misery, as if nothing in the world mattered at all. However, just at that moment, another one was joined to the line, and Karen turned to him. She guessed him to be seventeen or eighteen, and she thought him rather nice-looking, though very tired. He had dark hair down to the nape of his neck, a high forehead, brown eyes, and a straight well-shaped nose.

His hair was in a tangle over his brow and, smiling faintly, he pushed it out of his eyes when he saw Karen watching him. As he did so, she noticed a brand on his arm, in the rough shape of an eagle. It was quite recent, being still red and peeling. Karen immediately felt very sorry for the slave; she thought how awful it would be to be branded.

'Did it hurt?' she asked.

'What? Oh, the brand; Yes. It was only done a month ago, to show I was army property.' He sighed. 'Now I suppose my new owner- whoever it'll be- will cross it out and do another. I'm not looking forward to that!'

'Oh dear, I'm sorry for you, though it won't help. Perhaps whoever buys you will only cross it out and not do another. I hope they won't brand me!'

'They don't do it to women nearly as much, so you needn't worry. You're a funny girl; one wouldn't take you for a slave. What's your name? I'm Kleon.'

'Mine's Karen. Are you a Greek?'

'I was, originally. I've travelled a good way; with the army, you know.'

But recently they found that one or two of us had slipped off, so they branded the rest to make it more difficult if we did get any notions of freedom--' He broke off suddenly. 'Quiet, I think they're starting.'

The auctioneer stood on top of a platform, and as he called out the particulars of each group they were made to stand in a cleared space in front of the buyers, and the bidding started.

'' ... female slave, fifteen years, property of Duillius Rufus, decurion of the sixth cohort of the ..."

As the line moved slowly on, Karen became more and more nervous.

'I do hope someone nice'll buy me', she said to herself. I should hate to go to one of those hatchet-faced merchants. At last the sad group in front of her had gone, and she heard the auctioneer call out her lot number before the slave-master thrust her into the cleared circle.

She stared around at the ring of men, like a trapped animal. They seemed to be all eyes, critical, examining eyes that bored right through her.

' ... female slave, fifteen years, property of Duillius Rufus, decurion of the sixth cohort of the ...'

Property! Of Duillius Rufus! For a moment Karen was furious, but she knew her anger was of little use; after all, when she reflected on it, she was his property- personal property, like a piece of furniture. It was funny to think she belonged to someone else, but after all it was only in body. These

calculating old men could not buy her soul for all their money. She raised her head, self-assured.

Several people had already bid, but the auctioneer was trying to push the price up.

'Twelve hundred sesterces,' said one of the watching legionaries at last; then there was a silence. Karen looked for the man who had said it; he might well be the one to take her, but he was hidden behind a great fat merchant in long robes.

Sure enough, the auctioneer asked in vain for more bids and the hammer fell. Karen's hands were tied behind her back and she was told to sit down at the back of the platform. She did so with rather a bump and consequently grazed her knuckles on the rough stone. She was then so uncomfortable that she wriggled about until she was able to bring both bound hands underneath herself and round in front of her. She only achieved this after a great struggle that was witnessed with interest by one of the sad-faced group sitting to her.

'That's a good idea' he said, and did the same, though it was easier for him because his arms were longer. When the slave-master came round and saw them sitting there with their hands demurely in their laps, he stared suspiciously and frowned, scratching his head. Karen tried not to laugh.

Although she looked out for Kleon, Karen did not manage to see him before the legionary who had bought her came to fetch her away, and she was dragged off down the street clutching the brown dress in a bundle.

After a while her new owner said, 'You'll be wondering why I bought you?'

'Not particularly.' She was determined not to care. He looked at her curiously.

'Pretty little so-and-so, aren't you? But that's not the reason I paid twelve hundred for you. You're my surety- an investment, you might say. You can work in the kitchens until the ship leaves.'

'Ship?'

'For Rome. We're going back at last, and it can't be too soon for me, I can tell you 'That's what I mean about your being an investment. I've put my money in you and I'll get it back with interest in Rome. You're coming back to the city with me.'
IV

IT WAS ONLY THE THIRD COHORT THAT WAS GOING, although that was six hundred men. They were squeezed into eight troop-ships with two faster war-vessels to guard them.

It was a miserable wet morning when they embarked, with mist obscuring everything, and drizzle pocking the waves. Everyone got very wet and cross before they were on board and in the dry.

Karen was put in the cook's charge and told that she was to help him with the meals. Several of the other soldiers had slaves, so there were several girls on the ship. With the work divided among them it was easier. The male slaves were set to the oars.

Karen was appalled at the terrible life these galley-slaves led. She had read one or two novels about Rome, in which the Roman ship-system had been described, but the real thing was so much worse. The rowers underneath the deck were at least dry, but the air in the belly of the ship sometimes became almost unbreathable, especially if the hatches were closed. Walking about the ship, she could see them through the square hatchway, heaving and straining at the oars, their bodies covered in sweat. They were treated exactly like savage dogs, chained and beaten, with their food thrown so that they had to fight to get any; and savage dogs they became.

On the first day out, the cook,- who was a hasty, fat, man with a red face- flew into a temper with Karen because she dropped a saucepan of beans on his newly washed floor. He stamped and fumed, to Karen's secret amusement, and finally said that for the rest of the trip she could feed the rowers as an extra chore.

Karen was not unduly upset at the task; instead she resolved to give it to them individually so that at least they would have a fair share. Then she climbed down the ladder for the first time and started along the gangway, saddened to see them all slumped in misery over the oars. The first man looked up in some surprise as she thrust a lump of stale bread and a little meat into his hand. They were all puzzled by her attitude, but as some who had never managed to grab much before now got a proper share, they were

grateful. Looking at their sad, bearded faces, with the eyes dead, like stones, Karen wondered how people could reduce their fellow men to a state like this.

As well as feeding the slaves, she had to help distribute the legionaries' food. They were fed in three shifts, at several long tables in one of the cabins. On the whole, the food was good, for one of the girls was imaginative at cooking and so managed to vary the menu now and again.

Karen didn't mind feeding the rowers below deck, although it made her feel depressed, but she hated dishing out soup and fish to the legionaries. They used to make passes at her, and comment on her figure as though she were a statue. It was like going on show every mealtime. The only one who never made remarks was Marius, the man who had bought her in the first place. One drunken soldier actually seized her round the waist on one occasion as she passed; but she managed to throw him off, furious, before he could kiss her.

Two days went by with cooking in the hot little galley, cleaning, and tidying up. No sooner had one meal been finished with and cleared up after, than it seemed to be time to start on another. However, Karen still found time to take some interest in the journey.

They disembarked on the French coast, somewhere near Boulogne, she reckoned, and they walked from there to the Mediterranean more or less due south by the regular trade and military route via Lugdunum, which she knew became Lyon in later history. The soldiers marched ahead in a long column, and the slaves travelled behind with the baggage-waggons.

They had only been on the road for one day when Karen suffered a mishap. It was a silly little accident. She had been riding on the tailboard of a cart and when they halted for the night, she had jumped down and put her foot in a rut, falling and twisting her ankle agonizingly. The driver of the next waggon pulled up his mules to avoid trampling her, and hauled her out of the way. She sat miserably propped up under a tree, nursing her ankle, and the other girls brought her something to eat. Later that evening Marius wandered over and inspected her ankle, now badly swollen. She gave him a withering look when he asked if she could manage to walk.

'I'll arrange for you to ride in a cart then,' he said.

He kept his word, and for the next week she lay flat on her back in the creaking cart, surrounded by boxes and sacks, with only the sky to look at unless she tortured her ankle by sitting up; and then she could only see the long trail of carts following, pulled by mule-teams, and the slaves walking by the side. At intervals soldiers rode alongside, to see that no slave ran off into the woods and fields by the well-paved highway. One of them was friendly, and talked to Karen if he were riding near her waggon.

The first few days after she was on her feet again tired Karen hopelessly, but she gradually became hardened to it and needed fewer rides on the cart.

She was content now to go along with events and see what would happen to her. From what Marius had said about being his surety, she knew that he meant to sell her at a profitable price in Rome. She gathered from the other girls that this was quite a common practice- a sort of guard against losing money, which was much easier to lose than a slave-girl.

As they neared the south of France the country became less wild and forested. Quite a number of soldiers lived in the country round about, for this was the Provincia- modern Provence- which had long been Romanized. As the train progressed, the soldiers gradually dropped off along with their possessions, amongst them the owner of one of Karen's friends among the girls; the parting was sudden because the girl had not known she was to go until the last minute, and Karen missed her for a while.

The road lay long, straight and white ahead of them, bordered by rows of shady trees and great farming-estates, or latifundia. As the really scorching heat had not yet set in, the flowers by the road were fresh and pretty. The sounds of the mules' jingling harness, the measured tramp of the legionaries and the creaking of the wooden wheels were in Karen's ears all day long.

When they reached Massilia- the modern Marseilles- Karen felt quite a thrill of fascination for the Mediterranean, and even as they trailed wearily towards the barracks near the harbour, her heart gave a leap as she caught a glimpse of glittering blue sea between the narrow houses. She had been to Spain and Italy on various tours, and there was a definite atmosphere- every time one arrived- of bustle, hot sun, and dust. Here now, two thousand years in the past, it was present again; and the range of smells was the same- grease, salt water, fish, and various odours, probably from the houses. It was vastly different from an English harbour-smell.

It was mid-afternoon, and the soldiers were not due to start out again until the following day; so they were to stay in barracks. In actual fact most of them scattered, vanished in the maze of streets, intent on 'having some fun' while the opportunity presented itself.

Karen and three other slave-girls were sick of marching down endless empty roads; so, finding themselves unsupervised, they slipped off as well to see the town. There seemed no harm in it, although Neanthe, the eldest, prophesied a beating.

'Nonsense,' said Vitria, a vivacious little blonde. 'Nobody told _us_ to go anywhere in particular, so what can they say?'

Karen noticed that their self-confidence had improved during the journey; at the beginning they would never have dared to speak like that. It was because they were following her own example, but she knew that they would hide behind her at the first sign of trouble, so it was up to her to take the blame.

The town was full of people, jostling and swearing at each other, and the girls were pushed from pillar to post. Finally they came out in the market-place, crammed with stalls, and wandered to and fro, trying to see everything.

There were fruit-stalls, piled high with oranges and lemons, with great bowls of black and green olives at the front: there were meat-stalls, with gory hunks hanging from the framework and attracting flies: fish stalls- Karen loved looking at the interesting and colourful species, but she could never feel sorry for the fish; they looked so stupid- :clothes-stalls: and many more.

'Hungry, dear?' bellowed the great, jolly woman who presided, goddess-like, over the fruit, and she threw Karen an apple.

The girls took a bite each in turn until it was finished, and Karen presented the core to a donkey drooping under panniers of washing.

The four truants were so engrossed in walking round the market that they failed to notice the lengthening shadows, or the area gradually emptying, until the fruit-woman said to Karen 'Hadn't you better be going, dearie? Your parents'll be wondrin' where you are.'

They will indeed, Karen thought sadly for a moment, then she said 'Neanthe! It's late- we'd better go. They'll be looking for us if we're not careful!'

Neanthe clapped a hand to her mouth and her eyes widened. 'I said we'd get a beating,' she said. 'Come on!'

They ran back as fast as possible, scattering hens, dogs and children in all directions, but they soon lost themselves in the tangle of narrow, winding streets. However, there was a group of soldiers not far away who seemed to be going back to barracks, and Vitria suggested following them.

'Let's hope they don't see us,' Karen said, but unfortunately one of them turned round at the wrong moment and did.

'Hey, you!' he bellowed. 'What d'you think you're doing, creeping behind like that? Don't think I didn't know you were following us all along.'

Feeling sheepish, the four girls ran to catch up. The man looked at them sternly.

'You'll get into trouble, you will,' he said, and Karen hated him for stating the obvious. 'Your owners have been searching for you all over. Off to see the sights, were you?'

Karen nodded dumbly. She'd be sure to get a beating now. Marius did beat her, and it was both humiliating and painful, but at least he didn't try to undress her for it or break the skin. Still, it was shaming for Karen, who inwardly considered herself free, and she was very depressed next morning.

The excitement of setting out for Rome again soon diverted her, however. The men lined up on the quay in their hundreds, some grumbling at having to stand for hours in the hot sun waiting to get on the ships, others telling them to stop moaning and remember how glad they had been to get out of rain-washed old Britain. Far better now to stop grumbling and enjoy a bit of sun when they got it.

They were taking ship for Ostia, Rome's seaport at the mouth of the Tiber. The weather on the trip was very hot, and the air in the cooks' galley oppressive, so Karen used to slip out on deck whenever she could, and watch the coastline moving past, for the convoy kept in sight of land all the time.

She found on arrival that Ostia was a busy port, full of foreign merchants selling all sorts of outlandish things from all corners of the empire, and arranging transport for their cargo up the river to Rome. The soldiers, however, had no transport; they just kept on marching through country that was wooded in parts and hilly, and occasionally relieved with gay market gardens visible from the road. By the time they arrived in Rome it was the middle of July and really hot. When they were finally inside the great city Marius fixed himself up with a room at an inn. It was an old, crumbling place called 'The Three Birds', with a thin, hawk-like innkeeper, who suspiciously demanded to see Marius's money, then grudgingly showed them up to a dingy back room, and said a meal would be served in half an hour.

Marius dumped his pack on the one bed and sat down with a sigh. 'Well!' he said. 'Here we are, back in good old Rome at last. Ever seen it before? No? What d'you think of it?'

'It's hot and noisy,' said Karen. 'And dusty, so I didn't see much. But the buildings are so ...white and high. Until you get into the back streets, of course. I think sometime all these houses will just collapse.' She looked around the dismal room. 'Couldn't you afford any place better than this? I know you've got _some_ money on you. And this is hardly luxury, is it? Except for the fleas maybe.'

Marius laughed. 'Cleaned meself out buying you,' he said, and laughed again. 'Anyway, what do you expect? Anybody'd think you were the Empress Poppaea herself, the way you talk! You needn't worry, though; you've only got one night to sit out here. I'm taking you to the market

tomorrow; we'll see if I can sell you for more than I paid in the first place. Then I'm off down south to visit my parents.'

'Oh. Where do they live?' 'Along the Appian Way for twenty miles, turn left along another smaller road, and ten miles up there you come to the estate of Marcus Banco. Dad's a freeholder on his land.'

'Freeholding's not supposed to be a very profitable business, is it?'

'Well, that's what I keep telling Dad, and Mum tells him too. "Go to Rome," she says; "you'll make a better living there, like." But he won't. Dad's a real country-lover. Me, I think he's mad. Give me the city any day! You don't seem to be a bad kid. I might almost keep you for myself; still, you'll fetch a good price, I don't doubt.' He looked her up and down appreciatively. 'Not bad,' he said. 'Still, you can sleep on a blanket in the corner, if you'd rather.'

Karen nearly drew herself up to a formidable height and said she would most certainly prefer to sleep in the corner, but then she thought that if she spoke like that, with chilly emphasis on the 'certainly' he would take it as a personal affront when she really had nothing against him. So she just blushed slightly and said that she would sleep alone.

'Pity.' he said. 'Still, this flea-bitten bed ain't even big enough for one, let alone two.' A bell tinkled downstairs, which apparently meant that the meal was ready, so they went down.

The main room of the inn was already crowded, but they managed to find a table against the wall where there was room for two on the narrow bench. Marius ordered cold ham, bread, arid wine. Sitting at a table nearby was a group of very rowdy revellers, roaring bawdy jokes at each other and repeatedly calling for more wine. As the room filled and the air thickened, they became progressively drunker and there looked like being a noisy brawl. Anxious to escape, Karen finished her meal quickly and said that she would go upstairs. Marius nodded.

As she threaded her way past the tables, one of the revellers, a great red-faced man seized her and pulled her on to his knee. She fought to get away, but he held her in a grip like iron and started to run his hand round her waist, laughing into her face as his comrades egged him on.

'Let-me--go!' she gasped, and reached out to scratch his face as a last resort. He grabbed her hand just in time and held it back.

'Now then, darlin',' he roared, 'what d'ya want to leave a nice feller like me for, eh?' By now everyone in the tavern was looking, attracted by the noise, and the landlord hovered anxiously in the background.

It was Marius who took action. He rose quietly to his feet and said 'Leave her alone,' in a steady voice.

The big man stared at him for a moment; nobody else in the room made a sound, but some began to edge towards the door, not wanting to be involved in a fight. Then the man grinned and started to pull Karen even closer to him.

Marius said nothing; just stepped forward and knocked the troublemaker right off his stool and on to the floor with a single crashing blow on the jaw. As he fell, his grip slackened on Karen and she slipped out of the way, then someone caught her by the elbows and pulled her backwards to safety. Marius was now busy defending himself against three of the revellers, with a bystander helping him, though the drunkards were at a disadvantage because they couldn't see straight, and kept lashing out at Marius or each other and missing ludicrously. In addition, the landlord soon appeared from the kitchen with a couple of hefty slaves, and the five revellers were thrown out amid derisive jeers from the rest. The tables were put back, and the broken crockery cleared away; soon order reigned again, and Karen went on upstairs.

She heaved a sigh of relief- that had been a close shave. For a minute she had thought the landlord would throw Marius and herself out too, but fortunately Marius had argued successfully in their favour and he had decided to let them stay.

She lay down on the blanket with the brown dress as a pillow. It was convenient having two dresses, she reflected; one would have presented difficulties where washing was concerned. She could hardly have sat round naked waiting for it to dry, so she would just have had to wear the same one, and a nice state that would have been in by now.

It was rather a long time since Karen had bathed. The last occasion had been when the whole cohort and its attendants had been organized to wash in the sea, and that was over a week ago. She was now feeling distinctly itchy again, and she had a deadly fear of getting lice, but still, there was nothing to be done about it. Most people here had lice, it seemed. Perhaps tomorrow she would be bought and her new owner would give her a bath. She hoped so.

The noise from below was not conducive to sleep, so she lay awake thinking about her parents and her home in the twentieth century, and her life there which had been so abruptly ended by that mirror. She could think of no rational explanation for it, so she was forced to conclude that it was magic. After a while she stopped thinking on these lines because it only led to more hopeless puzzles and worry; instead she listened to the sounds coming up from the floor below. The clink of tankards, snatches of conversation, and the sound of people tramping to and fro half hypnotized her, so that they all merged into a gentle wave of sound that gradually sent her off to sleep. She did not even hear Marius when he came banging in much later, having had a long conversation with another soldier, for, seeing her asleep, he climbed quite quietly into bed.

V

'WELL,' SAID MARIUS, 'YOU'VE GOT TO ADMIT THAT she's pretty.'

The merchant stroked his beard and looked Karen up and down depreciatingly. 'Pretty, yes,' he said, 'but hardly unusual. And it's the unusual they want, nowadays. I _know._ Still, I'll take her. With her hair brushed she might almost merit a block of her own. How much do you want for her?

'I paid twelve hundred sesterces,' Marius said, 'so I'll want at least fifteen hundred.'

'Fifteen hundred sesterces!' The merchant looked horrified. 'My dear fellow, what do you think I am? I can't possibly give you that price for an untried slave-girl when I don't even know what she can do ...'

Now Karen liked Marius, because he had stood up for her in the tavern last night, and she determined to get herself sold for as good a price as possible.

'I can write,' she said helpfully.

The merchant flung up his hands, and his manner changed instantly. Now he wanted Karen, because there were not many slaves- especially girls- who could write.

'You never told me that!' he said to Marius, accusingly.

'She never told me.'

'I'll give you sixteen hundred for her.'

'Done!' They shook hands, and Marius stowed the money away in his tunic.

He walked over to Karen before leaving, and whispered, 'Thanks, kid. Can you really write?'

'Yes,' she said, and he looked surprised.

'Well! It's just as well you can. I hate to think what sort of temper the merchant'd be in if he found you couldn't!'

He walked off jauntily, and was soon lost to sight among the milling crowds.

'Now,' said the merchant, turning to Karen, 'It's the fourth hour already, or not so long before it. We'd better get you fixed up.' He led her over to a large canvas tent which had been temporarily erected in the square. Inside were rows of women slaves standing patiently.

'Who's got the comb?' he asked, and when it was produced he looked at it quizzically, knocked some of the fluff and hairs out of it on a tent-pole, and handed the object to Karen.

'Spruce yourself up a bit, my dear,' he said. 'That's not a bad dress you're wearing-no, not bad at all. You might as well keep that on. It'll save me digging out my best draperies for you.'

Karen dragged the little bone comb through her hair. It was a struggle, and she lost her temper with its pulling, but she managed to make the hair curl up slightly at the ends. She tossed it back off her face.

'There!' she said. 'Is that better?'

The women smiled and murmured to one another. One of them reached out and stroked Karen's hair gently, running a strand through her fingers. 'It's very pretty,' she said, 'You'll have to be careful, or the merchant will keep you for himself.'

They giggled, and the merchant roared at them to be quiet. 'Come on,' he ordered.

Each dealer had his own square in the market, and these were arranged with a space between so that prospective buyers could walk up and down and view everything on display.

Karen was shown a little marble block about two feet high and told to stand on it.

She suddenly lost her temper at this and blazed out in rebellion. 'What? Just like a bit of old furniture for everyone to stare at? I won't! You can't make me!'

'Oh yes, we can,' said the merchant smoothly, and he beckoned to his assistant, who came up grinning.

'Being difficult, are you?' he said, and coolly twisted her arm.

'Ouch! Stop it, you--'

'Get up, then, like the boss says.'

Karen climbed up, feeling stupid for giving in so easily, but her arm ached, and what was the use of objecting? The assistant clipped a pair of ankle-rings around her feet and ran the chains through a hole in the block.

'There you are, my beauty,' he said, 'Cheer up. You can sit down if you like. I don't suppose it'll be long before the boss gets a buyer for you.'

Karen sighed and remained standing. She rested on one foot and surveyed the scene.

The market was packed full of slaves; it was a particularly good day from the merchants' point of view. There were Britons and blond Germans, dark or brown-haired Greeks, sallow-complexioned Spaniards; Moors, Jews, Negroes in dozens, and even a few Oriental slaves; frail girls like lilies with polished black hair and slanting mysterious eyes.

Karen sighed again. Now she was one of them and would probably be bought to serve in some great household. Perhaps she would have to look after children-horrid spoilt little Roman children. Perhaps when her buyer found she could write she would be set to work copying out endless manuscripts. That was a dreary prospect! What she really wanted to do was be allowed to help in the stables, but they'd never let her do that. No, she'd most likely have to clean pots or weave. It might be fun to try weaving. She speculated on it for a while, but knew that the novelty would soon wear off if she had to do it all day. She watched the milling throng of people, picking out this one and that, trying to guess what sort of character each had.

That little fat man, now. She guessed he would be hasty, rather particular-little fat men often were, specially if they had red faces. She was sure he would be a magistrate. She could picture him sitting in the halls of the Basilica, dealing out death by crucifixion and life sentences in the galleys.

Then she noticed a young man standing in the portico of one of the magnificent buildings that were scattered around the edge of the market, and took a closer look at him. He was dressed in a toga of pure white, and was engaged in conversation with two friends. His hair was curled delicately over his forehead, and she could see the make-up on his cheeks. As he talked, his hands gestured elegantly; he had obviously been learning the art of witty conversation, although it didn't look as if he had much wit of his own, because the other men's laughs were obviously faked. They were probably trying to get into his good books and bleed him of a little money at the same time.

Karen smiled to herself. What a fop! The word described him exactly. She could imagine what it would be like belonging to him. She'd have to do everything for him. Bath him, dress him, read to him, sing to him- that was a laugh; back at school in the twentieth century the music mistress despaired of Karen's ever being able to sing. But perhaps he would have special people to sing to him. He'd lie around all day on scented cushions, and she would do nothing except press fruit into his mouth. Good and hard, too! There was a chance it might throttle him.

Her attention was diverted by the arrival of a thin, angular man with a snow-white beard. What was he saying to the merchant. He was Zenocrates, steward of the house of Lucius Domitius Caecina, and the Lady Julia was looking for a likely girl to work in the house. Had the merchant anything that would interest her?

Karen kept an eye on them, wondering if the merchant would suggest her, and, sure enough, he was coming in her direction, past the groups of Africans, and cursing a child that bowled its hoop against his legs.

The man with the white beard walked all round the block.

'Hmm,' he said, 'What is there to recommend her? What can she do?'

The merchant smiled and folded his arms.

'She can write,' he replied, with calculating pride in his voice.

Zenocrates raised his eyebrows.

'Can she, indeed? Write your name on here, girl' He gave her a tablet of wax and a stylus. Karen wrote her name in capitals and handed it back. The steward seemed satisfied; he told the merchant to keep Karen aside, and he would ask the Lady Julia what she thought.

'Well, well,' said the merchant, when the other had gone, 'The Lady Julia Caecina herself! She'll pay anything I care to ask: you're a lucky girl for me, I do declare. You can sit in the shop until tbey come for you.'

The House of Caecina was perched on the slopes of the Viminal Hill. It was a huge place; one of the great city mansions, built to the ground plan of a rectangle, with two courtyards down the centre, open to the sky. The first was the atrium, where Lucius received his guests, and the second was a small garden, with flowering shrubs and fountains and little statues. Around these courts were colonnades of pillars, and behind these were the rooms.

Karen was not brought into the house by the main entrance, however. The under-steward sent to fetch her took her in by one of the many side-doors and she was hurried along passageway after passageway, until they came out into the atrium. There she was told to wait.

'What for?' she asked.

'Shhh!' said the man, 'The Lady Julia wants to see you. Stay here.'

The Lady Julia was some time in coming, so Karen explored the place.

If she looked up she could see the edges of the roof sloping in on all four sides, and the evening sky above. Holding the roof up were long rows of stately, slender, white pillars, throwing long shadows across the floor.

She looked at her feet. The sandals she had been wearing when she had found the mirror were almost worn through, and one of the straps needed mending. Originally they had been white, but they were hardly that now, covered in dust and dirt, like her feet. The dirt was right down her toenails, which gave some idea of the condition of the rest of her.

She studied the floor. It was made of tiny mosaic pieces, beautifully set to make a picture. Around the oblong pond sunk in the centre of the room was a wide border of leaping dolphins, with another border of dolphins going the other way round the outer edge of the floor. The rest was taken up with pictures of Neptune and his nymphs and tritons, all in a gay procession with clouds and frothing seas in the background. The main colour was blue-grey,

and the people were a lifelike and healthy pink. The backs of the dolphins gleamed navy blue, looking even darker than they really were against the pale yellow basic of the border!

As she admired these, Karen heard a rustling of silk, and looked up from her scrutiny of the floor to see a young woman, who seemed to be in her early twenties, standing in the shade of the pillars, watching her. The woman came forward into the light and beckoned, and as Karen approached, she took a good look at her prospective owner.

The most striking feature was the hair; it was built up around the face in a mass of tiny curls, and Karen could see that its light blonde colour was owing to dye. The woman's face was a perfect oval, but it was plastered with make-up and her eyes were shadowed with blue paint. Large gold earrings swung from her ears; and she had gold rings for her fingers, necklaces, and bangles as well. Her loose dress of rose-pink silk fell to her ankles, and as she came nearer Karen was engulfed in a wave of scent.

'So you're the girl who can read and write, are you?' said the woman languidly. 'How unusual.' Her voice was quiet and purring; she was sleek like a cat, too. Suddenly she sniffed.

'Girl, when did you last wash?'

'A .. about a week ago.'

'Disgusting! You must bath at once. Tiro!' She beckoned to a passing slave-boy. 'Take this girl to the bathroom. And find her some clean clothes. By the way, girl, what is your name?'

'Karen.'

'Karen? Some barbarian name, no doubt. Still, I like it. I don't think I'll change it, or not yet, at any rate.' Go along, then, Karen, or whatever you said your name was. Doubtless I shall forget in a day or two!' She swept off, and the cloud of scent left behind gradually dispersed.

'Come on, then,' said the boy Tiro, and he set off at a fast walk, while Karen trotted to keep up. As they went, she asked him if the Lady Julia often changed her slaves' names.

'Oh, yes,' he replied with a laugh. 'Hardly anyone comes here without her changing his name. I used to be Mikkos once, but she thought Tiro was better. One gets used to it, but it does confuse her husband. He's long since given up calling us anything, he just beckons or says, "You!" '

Soon they came to the slaves' and servants' bathroom, and Karen was delighted to see that it was very attractive, with bands of painted fish around the walls, and the large sunken bath faced with polished stone. It was full of hot water, steaming thickly; and through the next doorway Karen could see a cold plunge-bath.

'Here you are,' said Tiro. 'Get in.' There was a pause. 'Well?' he went on. 'What are you waiting for?'

'I'm waiting for you to leave,' said Karen with some dignity, and Tiro laughed pleasantly.

'I'm sorry,' he said. 'I'd forgotten. All right then; I'll go and get you some clothes and a towel. If you're not out by the time I get back I'll not look, out of respect for your modesty. Anyway, the water's very murky. It's the heat.'

He loped off, and Karen left her clothes in a pile and lowered herself into the water. The flowing warmth caressed her tired body, and she floated on the surface with her hair rippling up and down on tiny waves she made herself. After a while she turned over and swam around the bath; it was just big enough to permit swimming three strokes each way. Then she lay back again, feeling the dirt rolling off her. There was an assortment of sponges and brushes by the side, and she scrubbed her feet and nails.

That's better, she thought; I wish we had this sort of bath at home. It's much more fun. I hope Tiro'll bring me a decent dress. I'd better get my hair dry before he comes.

The sound of sandalled feet approaching heralded Tiro's return. He had a white linen dress on one arm and a towel on the other. He put them next to her other clothes, and beckoned Karen out, turning to the wall.

Karen climbed out on hands and knees, and enveloped herself in the soft folds of the towel. It was not long before she was dry and had slipped on the white dress.

'You can turn round,' she said, arranging the folds of it under the narrow scarlet tie-belt.

Tiro whistled. 'Some difference,' he said, and swept her a half-mocking bow. He told her to bring her old clothes, and led the way down the corridor and turned left; this brought them to the kitchen.

The kitchen was full of people all bustling about, for it was time for the evening meal. A delicious smell of cooking fish, mixed with aromatic herbs, pervaded the place, and Karen sniffed appreciatively. The cook pushed her out of the way.

'Don't just stand there sniffing like a retriever dog,' he fumed. 'Get me the biggest pot on the shelf. And hurry ... my precious sauce is boiling over. How could you let my fish sauce spoil? And the family will want it in a minute! Hurry up, girl. Haven't you the wit to find that pot?'

'This one?' said Karen, lugging it off the shelf. It was huge and squat, made of earthenware and very heavy. Unfortunately, Karen didn't know just how heavy it was, and when the full weight came down on to her she dropped it straight on the floor. There was a splintering crash, and pieces of red earthenware rolled in all directions like dropped coins. Karen was suddenly afraid of what she had done. 'Good gracious! I ... I'm awfully sorry. I'll clear it up immediately--'

The cook was furious. His face was as red as a boiled lobster, and he breathed through flaring nostrils with his mouth clamped shut. 'You- you _stupid_ girl!' He stamped his foot at her. 'Get out! Just get out of here!'

Tiro grabbed Karen's arm. 'Come on,' he said. 'Don't wait to be asked twice.'

They fled.

Tiro took her off to a small room behind the kitchen, which had racks piled high with clean clothes all round the walls.

'This is the laundry-room,' he said. 'You can leave those filthy objects you call dresses here. Sooner or later they'll get washed. Once a week we come to get our clean things and leave the dirty ones. The Lady Julia can't stand for us to be in dirty tunics. Actually, all the clothes are communal, which makes it simpler. You just dig out something that fits you when you need it.'

'Oh.' This all sounded very impressive and well worked out.

A bell rang. This meant that the slaves' meal was ready as well as the family's, so they went to have it in the kitchen.

VI

THE NEXT DAY KAREN WAS SUMMONED TO THE LADY Julia's bedroom, where she found her mistress sitting at the polished ebony dressing-table, with two girls brushing her long fleecy hair. When she saw Karen Julia signed to the girls to stop.

'Well,' she said with her slow smile 'you look more presentable now. We must find a job for you, must we not? Let me see ... are you any use with children?'

'I used to baby-sit for a neighbour. And I had a younger sister.'

'Baby-sit?'

'Yes ... stay in with the children while the parents went out.'

'Didn't they have slaves for that?'

'Goodness, no. We didn't have slaves at all. They used to pay me two shillings an hour. Something like that.'

'Well, well. I shall never get used to the strange customs some people do have. You haven't been trained as a nursemaid, have you? No matter. From now on your duties are to amuse my little Gaius and Lucilla; keep them clean and out of mischief and put them to bed. They're in the garden at the moment, I should imagine.' She waved a hand imperiously. 'You are dismissed.' The two girls continued with brushing her hair.

Karen wandered about for quite a time, trying to find the garden, and eventually Tiro told her where to go. It was another open square like the atrium, but larger, and the floor was earth instead of tiles. It was a pretty place, a tiny miniature park, with small trees and shrubs, and a circular pond in the centre. All around were colonnades of the same white pillars that held up the atrium.

Karen heard the sound of children laughing from somewhere in the middle, and pushed through the flowering bushes until she came out in an open space of grass where a little boy and girl, both about seven years old, were playing with a ball.

When they saw Karen they stopped and stared curiously. The boy was the first to speak.

'What do _you_ want?'

This was not a good start, and Karen felt a sinking sensation. What did _she_ want? Pompous little so-and-so. Perhaps she'd work it out of him. She forced herself to smile.

'I'm your new nurse.' she said, 'I'm supposed to keep you amused.' The boy tossed his head and said, 'Huh!' but the girl smiled back and said, 'Come and play, then.'

Karen started to toss the ball to and fro with them.

'You do play in a funny way,' said Lucilla. 'Can't you catch with your left hand like we do?

'No,' said Karen, 'we never played that way. It doesn't make much difference, really.'

'You're stupid,' said Gaius vindictively, and Karen ignored him. He was only trying to be nasty deliberately.

The rest of the morning passed quite quickly, between chatter and games, and then Karen had to take the children in to clean up ready for lunch. Lucilla was a nice child, obedient and sunny, but Gaius already imitated the ways of his imperious mother. He refused to let Karen wipe his face once in the bathroom, so she asked him if he would rather do it himself.

'No!' he said. 'I'm not supposed to do it myself. You must fetch another attendant to do it.'

Attendant. He'd have picked that up from his mother, Karen thought. So he thought he was going to send her off on a wild goose chase to find someone to wipe his dirty face for him, did he? Well, he'd got another thought coming.

However, she kept a rein on her temper for the moment; there was no sense in fighting without trying to reason first. 'Why won't you let me do it, without dragging other people from their work?'

'Because you're stupid.' He stamped his foot, the perfect picture of the moody child.

'Oh, Gaius,' said Lucilla, 'don't be silly.' She took Karen's hand. 'Don't mind him. He's often like that, but it's because nobody ever told him he was naughty. He is naughty, isn't he?'

'Yes,' said Karen firmly. 'He most certainly is. And what's more, someone's going to tell him so right now.' She turned to Gaius.

'Stop stamping your foot like that! And get your face washed this minute, before I get really angry.'

Gaius started with 'I want an attendant' again, but that was as far as he got. Karen seized him and wiped his face forcibly with the damp cloth, and then rubbed it dry with the towel. He was temporarily obliterated beneath water and towel, and Karen had to grip him very tightly to stop him thrashing about and upsetting everything in reach. When he came up again he was surprisingly silent. He breathed stertorously through an open mouth, and regarded Karen with some awe; for the rest of the day he was very obedient, and no more was said about it.

At last, when she had finally got them into bed, Karen was free to go there herself. As she was going along to the slaves' quarters, yawning, she met Tiro.

'Hullo.' he said grinning, 'How did you make out as nursemaid?'

'Not bad. That Gaius is a little devil, isn't he?'

'You can say that again! Everyone's heard how you put him in his place. Jolly good for you! Let's hope you keep him there.'

They had a few more clashes, but after the first ones Gaius improved. It took time, but gradually Karen could see that he was beginning to like her. One night he asked her to tell him a story, and she told both children the one about the Sleeping Beauty. They had never heard it, because strictly speaking it had not been written yet, but they enjoyed it immensely, and after that they were clamouring for a fairy story every night.

Another time Gaius actually pulled Karen's face down to his and kissed her goodnight. Lucilla always did, but it was a sign of progress for Gaius to do so. And one day he took her by the hand and whispered in her ear, 'I'll show you the puppies if you like,' and took her round the back of the house to the stables, where a handsome hound bitch was sprawled in the straw with a litter of two-weeks-old puppies. Karen shared Gaius's delight in them, and he showed her which one he was going to have.

'I think Lucilla wants one, too,' he said. 'You can share mine.'

Karen thanked him gravely, thinking how much he had changed, and then they both laughed, and rolled the puppies on their backs for the fun of seeing them sprawl in the soft hay.

He's not a bad kid when you know him, Karen decided.

The others told her that he was a positively reformed character since her arrival, and urged her to keep up the good work. He had only been like that because the previous nurses had been slavish-natured women who ministered to his every whim. He had soon found that if he threatened to tell his mother when he did not have things exactly his own way, they would tremble with apprehension and do anything he wanted.

Karen had quickly cured him of this. 'All right,' she used to say, 'go and tell your mother. Perhaps she'll give you another sweet,' or whatever it was he wanted. Gaius knew as well as she did that Julia would never be bothered with his petty complaints, even if she had time for them, and so this floored him. Sometimes Karen thought that the Lady Julia ought to take more interest in her children than occasionally inquiring about their progress, but it was not her place to say so. Besides, for all Julia's casualness, little Lucilla loved her faithfully from a distance.

On the days when the children went out visiting, Karen was given other jobs to do, such as dusting or going down to the market with the under-steward. She had stopped herself thinking about the twentieth century, and instead used to wonder what had become of Kleon. She had several friends now among the other slaves, Tiro being the first. The rest were Rhoda, who was sixteen, black-haired, and one of Julia's personal attendants, Anicetus, a serious man of Jewish descent, who worked in the stables, and Gallus, a very good-looking Gaul, the personal pride of Lucius Domitius himself. Whenever a party or a dinner was being held, it was certain that poor Gallus would be there, dressed to show off his good looks to advantage. He was a sort of Roman symbol of the 'keeping-up-with-the-Joneses', and Karen liked him though others were jealous.

There was also Volumnia, whose task was to keep the women slaves in order and make sure that they weren't hanging around the men's dormitory in the evening. Last thing at night she counted heads in the female dormitory and locked the door. She was no friend of Karen's, or anyone else for that matter. She was tall and straight as a ramrod, with an iron temperament to match. She was continually creeping around the house, in order to catch any gossipers unawares.

'Tomorrow we're going to see the chariot-racing in the Circus Maximus,' said Gaius one evening, 'I want the Reds to win, but I bet the Greens will.'

'Why?' asked Karen, tucking the coverlet over him.

'Please don't tuck it in. It's so hot at night. Because the emperor backs the Greens. 'Does that mean they'll win?'

Gaius nodded, and she did not question him further. She had almost forgotten about Nero until Gaius brought up the subject. Yes, the Greens probably would win, or if they didn't the other teams would pay for it.

'There's another bit of news for you,' said Gaius, 'but I'm not going to tell you till you tell me a story! A nice new one. One with some magic in it. I like magic.'

'So do I,' Lucilla giggled. 'Poor Karen. I bet you're dying to hear the other news. I'll tell you before, if you promise to tell a story after.'

'Promise.'

'Zenocrates is taking Hanno to the market tomorrow to sell him and buy a new slave! So there'll be a different one for you to make friends with.'

'I don't know why you're so excited about it, Lucilla,' scoffed Gaius, secretly put out at not having imparted the news himself. 'After all, mother's always wanting the slaves changed.'

Lucilla fell silent, dampened. She was talkative and animated, but easily discouraged by an attitude of scorn, so Karen tried to start her off again.

'How long does your mother keep her slaves usually?'

'Oh, it depends how soon she gets tired of them! But don't worry, she won't get rid of you. She likes you, I heard her say so _._ Now tell me the story ... '

'All right. Umm ....Once upon a time there was an old couple who had no children and one day ....'

Her voice droned on, telling the story of Tom Thumb, and the children listened through to the end in silence; but Karen's mind was not on it. She was thinking about the new slave.

When the tale was ended, Lucilla said, 'That was a lovely story. I should like to see a little man as small as my thumb. Goodnight, Karen. Leave the door open a bit; I like to see the light come through.'

Karen smiled as she pushed the door almost to. Being a slave had its compensations.

She walked slowly along the passage-ways, towards the kitchen quarters where she called in at the scullery and helped Tiro and the scullery-boy with the washing-up. Then she continued to the back of the house where the women slaves' dormitory was.

This was a long, narrow room with straw pallets down the length of the floor; in winter the slaves had a blanket each but in summer there was no need. Indeed, in the hot months the very thought of a blanket was sickening, although the window at the far end of the room was always kept wide open.

Karen slipped off her dress and went over to the window in the short linen shift she wore underneath. A black girl with short frizzy hair joined her. Karen sighed.

'Another hot night,' she said, and the black girl agreed, stretching herself until the bones in her shoulders cracked. Outside in the dusk, the swifts were just visible, swooping over the city, and bats flittered in and out of Karen's view. She rested her elbows on the casement, reluctant to turn back into the warm stuffiness of the dormitory.

The Vicus Longus came straight between the Viminal hill where the House of Caecina stood, and the Quirinal next to it. In the distance Karen could vaguely see a gap in the roofs which was the Forum, and the Circus Maximus beyond. Since the house stood near the top of the hill, there was a good view of nearly the whole of the city, from the elegant mansions on the Quirinal opposite to the towering jumble of tenements down by the river.

'At night Rome was not quiet'

At night Rome was not quiet. Anyone wishing to take carts through the city had to do so then, and the clopping of endless hoofs and the slow rumbling of waggons floated up to Karen, not very loud at that distance, but she could imagine what it would be like in the ground floors of the tenements, for they bordered right on to the narrow streets.

A soft step sounded on the floor outside and Volumnia's forbidding shadow was thrown across the room. 'Come to bed, you two!' she snapped. 'You'll not get up in the morning, else.'

'Mmm,' said Karen absently, then straightened up, yawned, and sat down on her mattress. 'Goodnight,' she whispered to the black girl, not Volumnia.

She slept eventually, and dreamed that the new slave was Anne and that they ran away together. Finally they were caught and crucified, but they felt no pain at all, not even when the nails were driven in, and all the people watching were amazed. The expressions on their faces were ludicrous, and she smiled in her sleep.

VII

'POOR OLD HANNO,' SAID RHODA THE NEXT MORNING. 'WE must say goodbye to him before he goes.'

The two girls were tidying up the dormitory before going to their breakfast. Like all the slaves, they always got up much earlier than the family.

Over the light meal of bread and a mug of wine, Karen asked Hanno if he was sorry to go.

'Not particularly,' he said. He was a red-head from southern Gaul who never said much. Karen could hardly say she would miss him, because she had hardly ever seen him. He was one of the Lady Julia's six litter-bearers, but his red curls did not match the dark hair of the others, and Julia thought him a sour-faced lump, so she was selling him. She had only bought him in the first place because of his rather splendid physique which had temporarily taken her fancy. Zenocrates, the head steward, had been advised to get a slave with dark hair this time.

Later Karen saw Rhoda waiting in the atrium, a basket on each arm.

'Oh, are you going with Zenocrates?' she asked.

Rhoda nodded. 'Yes, worse luck,' she said. 'We're going on to the food market after buying the new slave. I wish I weren't going, though; I've far too many other things to get on with.'

This was a chance for Karen to see a little of Rome, and it was a chance that did not come often. She seized it. 'I'll go for you.'

Rhoda was delighted. 'Will you? Oh, you are a pal! Come and tell me about the new slave when you get back.' She thrust the baskets at Karen.

Zenocrates soon appeared, his beard as snow-white as ever. He frowned when he saw Karen. 'I thought I told Rhoda to go?'

'I'm to go instead. The Lady Julia sent for her,' she said on the spur of the moment; then hoped he would not check up on her story.

'Well, no matter. Come along, girl, I haven't all day.'

It was a long walk to the slave market, around all the network of streets, but Zenocrates seemed certain of the way, striding ahead like an angular crow. Sure enough, they finally came out behind a large, marble-faced building into the noise and bustle of the open square.

'Now,' said Zenocrates, 'the question is, where to look?' He set off, up and down the rows, tugging his beard. 'I never ask the merchants, you know,' he remarked conversationally. 'They start rubbing their hands together and telling lies, and once they're started I know from experience they never stop!'

Karen followed him slowly round the lines of slaves. She looked at them all, sympathizing with the ones who watched prospective buyers with anxious faces; sorry for those who had concealed all behind a blank, uncaring expression.

She heard a voice behind her. 'I don't like that brand. We'll have to do something to disguise it. It's very unsightly for a house-slave.'

Karen turned round, and saw a tall, balding man in a senator's purple-bordered toga. He was speaking to the same merchant who had sold Karen, and had his back to her. The merchant was gesticulating at a slave on a block. The slave's face was hidden from her by the merchant, but Karen was reminded of something by the senator's words, and moved so that she could see.

To her immense surprise it was Kleon, the boy she had met at the auction in Britain, the one who had been friendly. He was looking more tired and haggard than ever, and he was watching the senator arguing about him so that he did not see Karen.

She wondered how he had got here. Perhaps he had been bought by a soldier returning to Rome too. Why, he might have been on the same convoy the whole time. As she realized now that the senator was thinking of buying him, she felt her skin prickle with suspense, for the man looked irritable and harsh, and she wished she could do something to ensure Kleon's getting a decent master. It came to her how awful slavery could be, and how lucky she had really been. Was she now to watch a friend being sold without being able to do a thing about it? She listened, feeling sick.

'Well, have you anything else?' the senator was asking.

The merchant stroked his chin, lost in thought. He slowly shook his head. 'Not in this line,' he said. 'Not at the moment. You see, we haven't had any new stock in for a while.'

'Then I'll go somewhere else,' said the senator shortly. 'Good day to you.'

Karen breathed out; then all at once she had a brainwave.

The House of Caecina wasn't a bad place. Could she possibly persuade Zenocrates to buy Kleon? He wouldn't be too out of place as a litter-slave, surely? What did one look for in a litter-slave?

She tapped the merchant's arm. 'Don't sell him for a minute' she said. 'We were looking for a ... a new slave, and he looks about right. I'll fetch the steward in a second- don't sell him till I get back.'

The merchant smiled patronizingly. 'Don't get so worried, dear,' he said. 'I'll wait here.' He did not seem to have recognized her. She had thought he might, but no. Hundreds of slaves passed through his hands every week; he would hardly remember them, unless he had got an exceptionally good or bad price.

Karen ran through the market as fast as she could, crowding past the rows of slaves. Finally, gasping and breathless, she found Zenocrates looking over a group of Spaniards. She stopped and straightened her dress and hair. She must not reveal that she knew Kleon, or the old man would know she had only picked him because of that.

'Where have you been?' he demanded.

'I'm sorry-I got left behind. Have you found anything?'

'Nothing to satisfy the Lady Julia,' he said gloomily.

'Come over here then, sir,' she suggested. 'I noticed one that looks likely. Do come and see him!

'Oh, very well. I hope it's worth my while, that's all! Where is he?'

'Here,' said Karen 'What do- do you think?' She stammered in her excitement and hardly dared look at Kleon. When she did, however, he recognized her and his face lit up.

She pressed a finger to her lips, telling him to be cautious, and he quickly shifted his features back into an emotionless mask.

The merchant had meanwhile come bustling up. He bowed to Zenocrates. 'Aha! The steward of the House of Caecina, is it not? Would you be interested in this slave?'

'Yes,' said Zenocrates absently, walking round to view Kleon from the back. He reached out and felt his arm, pinching the muscles.

'Yes,' he said again. 'Would he be suitable for a litter-bearer?'

Kleon's eyebrows rose a fraction, and Karen could see he was mulling over the possibilities of this. She had not thought that he might not like the idea of carrying the Lady Julia round. She looked at him anxiously, but he lightly shrugged his shoulders to show that he didn't really care one way or another.

'Hmm...' Zenocrates said finally 'reasonably strong. Not bad looking, either, apart from the thinness..' He ran a hand down Kleon's leg and Kleon stiffened slightly. This brought Zenocrates out of his reverie.

'How much do you want for him?'

They started haggling and Karen waited impatiently, fidgeting on one foot. Eventually they came to an agreement, and the bag of sesterces changed hands.

'I'll give you a bit of rope to tie his hands with,' the merchant offered.

'Please don't tie him up,' begged Karen. 'I was hoping he could help me with my baskets.'

'Oh, very well. Come on, you. We'll visit the food-market before we go back to the house. Bring the baskets, Karen.' Zenocrates stalked ahead, peering around the fruit stalls, and Karen went behind with Kleon.

'I've been thinking about you actually,' she said shyly. 'And when I saw you standing there....'

'So have I,' he said, and slipped his hand quietly in hers. She squeezed it in return. Suddenly she felt overwhelmingly happy.

The baskets were soon filled with fruit, vegetables and fish, and Kleon carried one, which helped because they were heavy. Then the trio went slowly back to the house on the Viminal Hill.

Outside the side-door, Zenocrates winked at them. 'Now I know why you were so anxious for me to buy this one,' he said. 'Where did you meet him?'

Karen stared. 'How did you know I knew him?'

'My dear child, it is my business to know everything, especially about people. You'd better take him along to the bathroom.' He nodded at Kleon. 'And you'd better prove a good buy.'

Kleon was not as modest as Karen had been. He undressed in front of her and dived unabashed into the water.

'Kleon!' she said.

He grinned at her. 'Don't be so horrified,' he said. 'What's so wrong with undressing? I don't want to bath with my clothes on.'

She laughed then. 'You're right, there's nothing wrong really, but where I come from it's not exactly done.'

She watched him swimming round the bath, turning over and over in the warm water. 'I'll go and get you a clean tunic,' she said.

She debated between a white one with a blue border, and a saffron-yellow one. Finally she chose white because it went better with his dark hair.

'You look nice in that,' she said, when he had got it on, 'I picked it' to go with your hair.'

'You're a funny kid,' he said, 'and rather sweet, too.'

She laughed. 'You have a face as sad as a horse, somehow. But don't be offended. I like horses.'

'So you like me?'

'I suppose so.' He was standing close to her now and she could smell the herbs that the tunic had been stored in. He took her by the shoulders, and kissed her ever so lightly on the lips. She put her arms round his neck and closed her eyes.

They broke apart at last and smiled at each other. 'You're a fast worker!' said Karen. 'The Lady Julia'd better not catch us at it- or Volumnia.' She grinned at the thought.

Kleon glanced round. He had yet to find out who Volumnia was. 'Does Julia ever come in here?'

'No. She spends all her time going out to dinner parties and making up for them. You'll never guess what I have to do - I look after the children. Do I look like a nursemaid?'

'No. You look like a ... I don't know. Not like a nursemaid, though. Heaven forbid! Huge, motherly and buxom. It doesn't describe you.'

'I'm very glad to hear it, but do hurry up. I expect Zenocrates will tell you what to do. Oh, Kleon, I do hope you'll like it here.'

'I don't see why I shouldn't, actually. Do they beat you much?'

'Beat us? No, not much, as far as I know. This isn't a bad place at all. Anyway, let's go.'

She started to show him where the main rooms were, and they were just crossing the atrium when the bell for the midday meal rang, so she took him to the kitchen. There she found Rhoda, Anicetus and Tiro all sitting around the table and waiting to be introduced.

She greeted them, and gave Rhoda a long look, trying to tell her without words just how nice Kleon was. She only said: 'This is Kleon,' but her face said a good deal to the understanding Rhoda.

Kleon smiled back at them and made a mental note of their names. They seemed nice people, but then, they were Karen's friends. At first Karen hardly saw Kleon except occasionally at mealtimes, because he worked outside and there were separate rooms for the outdoor slaves. However, after a few days Julia sent for him and he was told to wait at table instead of carrying the litter. Julia changed her slaves' tasks almost as often as she changed their names; if they were badly-behaved they were given the menial tasks or sent to work on Lucius' estate.

Karen and Kleon were pleased at the promotion, because now they had more opportunity of seeing each other. One afternoon Karen went to the laundry-room and found him dropping a dirty tunic into the bin. The laundry-room was a favourite place for gossiping instead of working, and she asked him what had happened to him since they had met in Britain.

He was silent for a minute.

'I was bought by a legionary from up the coast- didn't a legionary buy you, too?'

Karen nodded. 'Well, this man that took me was going back to Italy on leave in about five days or something, and until the five days were up I had a beastly time of it. I was everyone's dogsbody and he himself was a perfect brute-a decurion, I think.'

'He wasn't called Duillius Rufus by any chance?'

'No- Marcus someone, I think. Why?'

'Doesn't matter. Go on.'

'The number of kicks, threats and beatings I got in those five days wouldn't bear going over. I don't know why the man didn't like me. Enough that he didn't! I tried to work well enough for him, but there was no pleasing the so-and-so; I think he was one of the old school, you know: grind 'em down till they fear you, that's the only way to get any work out of 'em. Anyway, at last the time came, and he got a passage across to Gaul on a merchant-ship. I, of course, was put to the oars.'

'Oh, how awful!'

'I, of course, was put to the oars.'

'It was. I've worked hard, but never as hard as that, although it was only for two days. We had to row all day and night because there was a wind against us most of the way. Then the merchant who owned the ship wanted to buy me, to row permanently. That was the last straw and I went for him, meaning to kill him, I suppose. Only two days' rowing, too, and I couldn't stand any more. You should have seen the other poor wretches, Karen. They never even spoke to each other. My attack on the merchant had one good result, though, because he didn't want to buy me after that! But they beat me for it, for half an hour with a knotted whip. Look.' He turned around and shrugged the thin, loose undertunic off his shoulders.

All down the length of his back were scars of the lash, striped across from side to side. Karen was horrified. She ran a finger gently down his spine and he flinched.

'Some of it's gone septic,' she said. 'Why didn't you tell me? I could have seen to it in the bathroom. Funny I never noticed; didn't you want me to know or something?' He smiled. 'I just didn't tell you. Besides, it only hurts in a few places, and when I stretch my back. The scabs are nearly gone. Please don't press it; that makes it sting.'

'I'd better bathe it in the morning.'

'Yes, you had,' said Rhoda, coming in at the door with a bundle of washing.

'Rhoda! I didn't know you'd been listening.'

'I'm sorry. But I heard Kleon telling you what happened to him and I got interested. Poor Kleon! What a ghastly time you've had. I'm glad I'm not a man. Do go on.'

'There's not an awful lot more. The legionary took me down across Gaul. He rode a mule, but I walked all the way. Did that mule walk fast? I was worn out by the time we reached his home. He lived on one of the farming-estates, or rather his parents did.'

'That's funny. So did Marius.'

'Not so funny; nearly all the soldiers do, unless they move to the city. He hired me out to the owner of the latifundia, to work on the land. Do you know what that's like?'

'No.'

'It's just like being cattle. I used to drag the plough, all day, up and down the fields. Plod, plod, one foot in front of the other, and red dust all over. And the man behind the plough had a long whip. They know where to cut you, in all the humiliating and painful places. It hurts if they cut you round the back of the knees. Makes you plunge at it.'

Karen sat in silence for a minute. 'And then you were taken to Rome?'

'Yes, a dealer bought me. It was better then, because although I was only in his hands for five days or- so he fed me well so that I would look better in the market. Nobody'll buy a slave who looks like a jaded horse. I must say I did look better, though. If you'd seen me on the latifundia you wouldn't have recognized me. I kept thinking about you, actually.'

She reached to take his hand and it moved to meet hers at the same time. When they held hands it was a bond between them for thoughts to run across, thoughts that did not need voicing, only sharing.

'Everything's all right now,' she said.

VIII

KAREN WAS CAREFUL TO GIVE GAIUS AND LUCILLA NO hint of what she felt for Kleon, but most of the slaves knew. She was sure, though, that they could be trusted to say nothing to Volumnia.

A week after Kleon's arrival, the family went to the Amphitheatre. Apparently some rich man who had been appointed as an important magistrate was giving games to celebrate the occasion, and it was rumoured over Rome that they would be worth seeing. When she went to the market, Karen saw advertisements scrawled on every wall she passed, and the name of the man who had written the advertisement in small letters at the bottom- presumably as a small advertisement for himself.

The children were full of it.

'I can't wait till we go,' Gaius kept saying, and he was always trying to get Lucilla and Karen to play gladiators. 'I like the retiarii best, don't you, Lucilla?'

'No, I like it when they have elephants. They do so bellow! It's frightening, but we're safe up on the seats, and we can see everything too.'

Karen concealed her revulsion. It did not seem to mean much to them in terms of real life; they would not associate it with themselves.

'Are you all going?' she asked.

'Oh, yes! Father likes the shows, and Mother loves them. Sometimes she gets really carried away. Wait till you see her.'

'Me?'

'Yes, you're coming too. Mother said you'd better 'cos we need a nurse to keep an eye on us. So is Gallus.'

'Are they taking him? It's hardly a dinner party.'

'Father just likes to show him off to everyone there, that's all.'

'Oh. What do you want to play right now?'

'Gladiators!' they shouted in unison, and Karen sighed resignedly. There was no stopping them, but it wasn't a very nice game for children. Still, they might as well play it if they wanted to. They would think it very odd if she tried to stop them.

The day of the shows soon arrived. At the fourth hour the family was up and breakfasted, and when the Lady Julia finally arrived- late as usual- they were ready.

Karen and Gallus had a huge hamper of picnic food slung between them that made them stagger with its weight. Karen had thought that they would go to the Colosseum, and it was some time before she realized that it had not yet been built. The Amphitheatre was smaller, and partly constructed of wood, but it still seated masses of people.

They went in by one of the many doors around the outside of the circular building, the tickets having been bought previously.

Inside, the noise was deafening. It seemed as though everyone was shouting at the top of their voice, and the babble of talk filled the Amphitheatre to the brim. In the seats nearest to the high wall that ran around the pit-like arena, sat the important families of Rome, the high-born, the senators, and the very rich. The family of Caecina was in this category. Gallus spread cushions for them, and Karen sat farthest in, next to the children, then Julia and Lucius, and Gallus sat at the end of the row with the basket at his feet.

No sooner were they settled than Julia began to nibble at sweets and complain that the shows never started on time. Karen thought how pampered she must be if a two-minute wait irked her so much.

Gaius fidgeted in his place. 'I wish they'd hurry up,' he said. 'I suppose we're waiting for the emperor.'

'Will he come here?' said Karen excitedly. Perhaps she'd see Nero in the flesh!

'Of course,' Gaius replied. 'Oh, look! There are the vestal Virgins, in the white veils. The emperor'll be here soon.'

The Imperial box was on the other side of the arena, opposite Karen and a little to the left. The Vestal Virgins filed into their. places, and five minutes later the emperor himself walked into the Imperial box.

Everyone rose to their feet and acclaimed Nero with a great, deafening shout. He turned to right and left, acknowledging it, and Karen caught a glimpse of his face.

It was a very fat face, especially around the jaw, and rather pale. His chinline sagged like a wet sack, and he had a great bull-neck divided from his head by a curled beard. The eyes were very small, and even at that distance Karen could see the cruelty clearly marked. He was wearing a purple toga with a gold border, and a laurel-wreath on his hair. Karen thought secretly that he was nothing but a sadistic, greasy pig.

He finally sat down, and there was a rumbling noise as everyone else did likewise and made themselves comfortable. Then Nero raised his hand as a signal for the spectacle to begin.

Karen leaned forward. Now she would see the famous Roman shows, whether she wanted to or not.

First there was a long procession which went once round the arena, a procession of musicians, gladiators marching three abreast, four- and six-horse chariots; wild animals in cages, tame performing animals, and dancing-girls who were dressed in brief bikini-like garments, or thin gauze dresses.

There were also groups of prisoners, convicts or Jewish rebels who shuffled miserably along with their feet in chains. The crowd booed, and threw things at them, and Karen thought how pitiful they were. She wondered what was to happen to them.

When the procession had finished, it was the turn of the gladiators. They marched in again and saluted the emperor, twenty pairs of them. Some were heavily armed with short swords and cumbersome shields, some were hardly protected at all but had long curved knives, and the rest had tridents and nets. These last were the retiarii, which Gaius liked so much.

The fighting commenced, each man being paired off with a pre-arranged opponent. Karen watched in horror as one man after another went down under ghastly wounds. There was blood everywhere, and as the wounded gladiators moved about, they became coated with it. The sand underfoot was quickly stained a nasty brown colour.

The crowd roared and Karen shut her eyes. She thought it horrible, and the worst part was the way the spectators enjoyed it all.

Gaius touched her arm and looked up in puzzlement. 'Aren't you enjoying it?' he asked. 'Oooh, look! Right through the leg!'

Karen didn't want to, but she felt compelled to look. The man was twisting to and fro, enmeshed in the net of a retiarius, who jabbed at the writhing body until the jerking grew still. Karen pressed against the back of the seat, and dug her nails into the wood. The young woman next to her was leaning forward, however, eyes gleaming, anxious to miss no detail.

There was one particularly good pair upon which the eyes of the spectators had focused, a retiarius and a Samnite, as the sword-men were called. The retiarius was partially disabled by a deep, gory cut above the elbow and could not use his net. The Samnite soon had him spreadeagled on the ground. He placed his mailed sandal on the retiarius's neck, poised the sword above his heart, and looked at the emperor.

It was a dramatic moment. The sword gleamed in the yellow sunlight, and the man stood like a statue above the prone retiarius. The Samnite's helmet had long since come off; his hair gleamed golden brown and his slim, muscular thighs were streaked with sweat. After a moment of indecision the emperor looked at the mob who were furiously waving their handkerchiefs, raising their thumbs and shouting 'Let him go.' Slowly the emperor raised his thumb as a signal that the life of the retiarius was to be spared and Karen watched thankfully as he was carried off on a stretcher. Meanwhile the Samnite stayed in the ring with a half smile on his lips and a frown on his forehead, while the ladies blew kisses and threw roses and lace handkerchiefs, and the crowd cheered, ignoring the other fighters.

The Lady Julia was beaming; she stood up and waved to the Samnite, although he did not see. Lucius looked bored; probably jealous, Karen thought. She wondered what the Samnite was thinking. Actually he was musing on the fact that half an hour earlier he had been prepared to meet death, and now, by virtue of a few lucky sword-strokes he was the darling of the whole great city of Rome and spared for another day.

The heat in the Amphitheatre was terrific, although it was late September. The Lady Julia had brought her parasol, and so had most of the other rich ladies so that the first few tiers of seats were dotted with bright circles.

Everyone waited with anticipation for the next item. It was a novelty- a battle between blue-painted Britons in three-horse chariots; a contest in which the naked drivers manoeuvred their clumsy vehicles cleverly, so that the blue-painted warriors could get at each other.

There were three chariots, small and round, made of wood and wicker straps, pulled by stocky dun horses. The wheels had long curved blades attached to them, blades that flashed viciously as the wheels spun round; Karen didn't like to think what would happen to the horses, should they be caught by the spinning metal.

She soon saw, though. One of the chariots shot past another, and the driver pulled in slightly. There was a scream from the offside horse and it dropped to its knees; the chariot went right on over it, the shaft-pole doubling up like matchwood. The other two horses were dragged round and half strangled in the harness before the chariot heeled on to its side. The two men were thrown over the front; the driver lay still and the warrior was dispatched by a kick from the frantic horses. Karen watched, transfixed with horror, as the two remaining chariots closed in. The driver of one was speared through the chest, but the warrior took a clear leap into the back of his opponent's car and hacked his head off.

The body fell back into the dust, and the victorious Briton drove the terrified horses round the arena, his right arm raised in triumph.

The din was tremendous. The sound bruised Karen's ears- a great shrieking that smacked of utter savagery. Suddenly she felt an urge to shout with them and scream herself hoarse, and she added her voice to the multitude, although it was lost in the tide.

There was an hour's interval for lunch, and Gallus unpacked the hamper. It seemed as if the family's cook had thought of everything- rolls, eggs,

cheese, fruit, cakes, sweets, chicken, ham, shrimps; there was nothing lacking until they found that he had forgotten wine, the very thing they were all needing most, so thirsty were they with the heat and excitement.

'Really!' stormed Julia, in a temper, 'the inefficiency of that man! My dear Lucius, we shall have to replace him.'

'I really don't think we shall have to do that,' he replied quietly. He never spoke much, and Karen saw him rarely, so she had hardly ever heard his voice before. It was hard and smooth, like the rest of him.

 " _The driver of one was speared through the chest, but the warrior took a clear leap into the back of his opponent's car and hacked his head off."_

People's voices were often like the rest of them, she reflected.

'Karen, where are you?' Julia called petulantly. 'Go with Gallus and get us some wine from the merchants in the entrance. What, Gallus? Really, this noise- oh, Spanish wine, I should think, if they have it, shouldn't you, Lucius I said, shouldn't you think Spanish wine, Lucius? Oh, never mind. And hurry up, you two. I'm dying of thirst, positively dying!'

'She can die, for all I care,' muttered Gallus as they threaded their way back along to the entrance arches.

Karen giggled. 'You are funny,' she said, and then thought of what they had seen. 'Did you enjoy that?'

He stared at her with disgust in his eyes. 'Enjoy it? Don't say.'

'No, I hated it too. Why do they do it?'

He shrugged. 'They're so sated with the pleasures their money buys them that nothing else pleases them. By the way, if you thought this morning's entertainment was bad, you're going to hate this afternoon's. Those prisoners you saw in the procession will be fed to the lions.'

Karen shuddered. She had heard about people being thrown to specially hungry lions; now, faced with the prospect of actually seeing it, she felt sick and frightened. There seemed to be no way of escaping, however, and she knew she would have to pretend afterwards that she had enjoyed it. If only she had pleaded a headache or something before they came! No, that would do no good; the Lady Julia would certainly not let her go home now. She determined just to look at other people around her instead of at the arena.

The entrance arches were crowded with people buying and selling refreshments, each hawker trying to shout louder than the last. Gallus and Karen disengaged themselves with difficulty from the clutches of a huge man determined to sell them some oranges, and bought two earthenware jars of wine from an elderly Greek.

They went back to their seats as quickly as possible in the milling crowds, but of course they were not quick enough for Julia. Still, even she was pacified when a glass of wine had revived her.

Another fanfare announced that the shows were about to recommence. All round the arena gates slid open, and the Jewish prisoners were pushed through. They were a pathetic sight, some of them lame, with ulcers and boils, all dressed in filthy tatters of clothing. From the other side twenty lions and a few tigers came in, and there was a murmur from the crowd.

The animals were in beautiful condition, but their bellies were shrunken and lean, indicating that they had been previously starved to make them savage. Now they loped into the sunlight and switched their tails angrily, and a low growl came up from the ring.

A lioness struck first. She picked out a young boy standing near an older woman, and ran at him, knocking him over. The woman screamed and ran away, but another lion bounded after her and threw her to the ground. The crowd laughed. This had sparked off the rest of the animals, and similar scenes were being enacted elsewhere. The frightened people had bunched together, and one or two men were trying to fight the lions, but without

much success. An angry lion tore a man's arm off at the elbow, and ran about the arena carrying the grisly trophy in his mouth.

Karen recoiled in horror and tried to stop her ears to the dreadful sounds coming up from the arena. She looked at the couple on her left.

The girl was on the edge of her seat, a smile of sadistic pleasure on her face, and the boy had moved close to her and his arm had crept around her waist. She snuggled close to him and let him fondle her while below lives were being thrown away. Karen turned aside, disgusted.

Later on there were animal turns, and Karen suffered as much as the beasts because she loved animals. Antelope, ostriches, wild boar and wild cattle, all were sent in to kill or be killed, and when the crowd had watched their fill ten leopards joined them. They made short work of the vainly fleeing antelope, while the wild boar turned on the ostriches and the bulls defended themselves bravely against the rest.

Archers then ran in, and began to shoot down the remaining animals. There was one standing at the front who, after taking careful aim, shot one of the bulls through the head, killing it instantly. The crowd applauded, and the archer started on a wild boar.

There were similar shows throughout the rest of the afternoon, but finally, as the shadows began to lengthen across the sand, people began to leave.

Julia yawned. 'Well, well,' she said, 'I must say I thought the games were quite good today, don't you agree, Lucius?'

'Not bad,' he drawled. 'I don't know about you, but I'm ready for a meal. We'll go home.'

All the way back Gaius never stopped talking about the show, going over every grisly detail until Karen thought she would scream, though Lucius seemed to like hearing his son talk that way. Lucilla, however, was very quiet. She held tightly to Karen's hand and spoke little, in a small voice.

'You didn't like that, did you, Karen?'

Karen thought she might as well be honest. 'No,' she confessed, 'I didn't.'

'Why not?' 'I don't know- well, yes I do. It's because it was so cruel, and I hate cruelty.'

'Was it cruel?'

Karen stared and wondered what to say. How on earth could Lucilla fail to see how inhumanly cruel the games were? 'Well- those animals, for instance. You like animals, don't you?'

Lucilla nodded.

'The deer had no defence against the leopards- their antlers aren't much use against claws. They've no escape. 'They just run round and round until they drop dead from exhaustion, terror or loss of blood. It's a horrible thing to happen to a lot of harmless little deer. And those Jews; that's a hundred times worse, there's no word to describe it. Did you see the couple next to me?'

'No. What were they doing?'

'They were disgusting, the way they carried on. That girl was completely carried away. She just sat and screamed in ecstasy. The Jews didn't deserve to die in that way. It's a terrible thing, to die. You wouldn't like to, would you?'

'I don't know. I suppose not, if you say so.'

'I don't _say_ so! I mean, I'd have thought of course you wouldn't. Just think of death- of being cut off from everything, life and sun and joy. It's only a few people whose lives are so miserable they welcome release.'

'Oh.' Lucilla was silent again, pondering on this.

Karen could see that she didn't understand. The reason was that death and agony really meant nothing to her because she was too young and neither had ever touched her. And as she grew up her conscience would not bother her because she had been brought up to a life that lacked sympathy and feeling for those beneath her.

IX

ABOUT THIS TIME KAREN FIRST BEGAN TO NOTICE THAT Rhoda used to slip off for an hour, regularly each week. She only noticed because twice she had wanted Rhoda's help with something, and both times she was nowhere to be found. As she was usually about and willing to help, Karen thought this odd and after that half kept an eye on her. It was not long before she realized that Rhoda had a rendezvous, but with whom she had no idea. She didn't like to ask her, but after a month she was so curious that she had to find out and decided to follow Rhoda to see where she went.

She was lucky in that the next time she had no particular jobs to get on with, the children being out for the day, so she hung around the kitchen, and when Rhoda, who was helping the cook, remarked that she would go and dust in the atrium; Karen followed.

As she had thought, Rhoda went nowhere near the atrium. She sneaked around the corridors and out of a side-door, Karen not far behind.

Once out of the house, Rhoda turned left along the narrow lane between the house-wall and the outer one. The shadow was deep, and for a minute Karen thought she had lost her, but she soon saw her talking to a man in the doorway.

She wondered if it was a romance, but it looked more like a business meeting, or the man turned away almost as soon as he saw Rhoda, and she followed him out of the gate.

Karen had doubts as to whether she ought to go after them. It seemed a bit mean, but still, she was very curious. Perhaps she could go just a little way.

However, they didn't go far, just threading their way through the maze of tenements and streets at the bottom of the Viminal Hill, and then into a shop that stood on the corner. It was only two storeys high, dwarfed by the soaring tenements. As they were going in, Karen ran forward and caught Rhoda's arm. She whipped round as if she had been stung by a snake, and relaxed slightly as she saw who it was.

'Karen!' she said, 'What are you doing here?'

'Well ... oh, Rhoda, don't be mad about it, but I followed you. I had to see where you went.'

Rhoda took her hand and pulled her inside the shop. 'You'd better come in here,' she said. 'People will see you.' This all seemed very mysterious. Why on earth shouldn't people see them? She demanded an explanation.

Rhoda bit her lip. 'Oh, all right. Since you're here, you'd better know what we're up to, I suppose. I'm sorry, Karen. I should have told you before, but I didn't know whether I ought to. It's very dangerous, or it could be.'

'But, Rhoda, what's dangerous? What is this thing? I won't tell anyone else, I promise.'

Rhoda sighed. 'First,' she said, 'I want you to tell me something. Do you believe in Jupiter and all the Roman gods? Or do you believe in Isis? It's very important.'

Karen stared. Jupiter and all that bunch? What did Rhoda take her for? 'Of course not! Well, how could I? They're not real, they're just images and myths. I believe in .. .' -light began to dawn-' ... in God, one God. And Christ. I'm a--'

Rhoda's expression changed to one of joy and relief. 'Oh! You're a _Christian!_ One of us-- oh, why didn't you tell me?'

Karen said nothing for a minute. Suddenly everything clicked into place- Rhoda was a Christian. Of course, Christianity was still a new religion at the moment. The date was only about A.D. 63, after all. It seemed funny; ancient Christian was meeting modern Christian; now their religion would bind them together.

'I didn't tell you,' she said slowly, 'because I didn't think you'd understand. And you didn't think I would. It's the same reason. Rhoda smiled, tossed back her long black hair; and took Karen's hand. 'Come upstairs,' she said, 'and join in our service. I'll introduce you when everyone's here.'

They went up the narrow, dusty stairway, and came out in an upper room. It was long and passage-like; there were some chairs and a bed, and that was all the furniture. About ten people were sitting on the chairs and talking amongst themselves.

Rhoda clapped her hands together to gain attention. 'Hello, everybody,' she said 'We've got a new recruit. This is Karen.'

Everyone crowded round, and Rhoda started on a list of names. One or two stuck in Karen's mind. There was Thrasyllus, a small, white-haired old man who seemed to be the leader: a thin stringy boy called Myros: and a plump kindly woman who looked as though she would laugh at anything, although really she took her religion very seriously; her name was Pyrea.

'We are not quite all here yet,' said Thrasyllus. 'There are only two missing now. I hope they have not been found out.'

'Why shouldn't they be?' Karen asked, butting in out of curiosity, 'You all seem to think Christianity is such a dangerous thing!'

The others looked grave.

'It is dangerous, dearie,' said Pyrea. 'You see, if the Romans need a scapegoat for anything, we are their first choice. We are persecuted, here in the city. We have to be very careful.'

'Oh, I see,' said Karen. She hadn't thought of it like that. 'I hope the other two are all right.'

'I think they- oh, they're here,' said Rhoda, as two rather dishevelled men came up, dressed in the short red tunics and knee-boots of the army.

'Ah,' said Thrasyllus, 'Marcus and Quintus. We thought something had happened to you, brothers.'

'Something nearly did,' grunted the first. 'We nearly got confined to barracks for being involved in a brawl last night. Thank you for not beginning the service.'

Thrasyllus inclined his head. 'Let us pray now to the Lord,' he said, and took his place at the end of the room. Everyone knelt, and Thrasyllus prayed for guidance in their work, and told a story about the Christ. Afterwards they sat down and talked about their work.

Karen had never been very religious herself; her family rarely went to church and she hadn't really given much thought to Christianity; now she felt a deeper sense of it. The simple faith of this handful- from all walks of life, both slave and free- touched her.

She felt a unity with them because of Christianity.

Finding that she was the main point of interest, because they welcomed another lamb to the fold, she questioned them about their meetings. 'How do you get converts in the first place, if you have to keep it so secret?'

'Well,' said Thrasyllus, 'it's difficult, certainly. But we do get them. Usually we tell our closest friends, who won't give us away, and they tell their friends, and it works that way. Occasionally people find out by chance, as you did; and Quintus here. He stumbled on a meeting, and was about to report us, but we told him about the Christ and he found Truth that way.'

'I see. And you make no difference between high-born and low-born?'

He smiled. 'No. We are all brethren, and our faith unites us.' The thin boy, Myros, cut in. 'You said you were a Christian before you came to us. How did you get converted?'

Karen opened her mouth and shut it again. All the old difficulties were cropping up again.

'I ... I was born a Christian; brought up to it. Where I come from we're all Christians. Please don't ask me where my home is, because I can't explain. It's very hard, trying to tell you, but we're all believers there.'

The others looked puzzled; they only half understood. But they saw how awkward Karen became if she was asked about it, so they refrained from questioning her. Thrasyllus, however, meditated on what she had said, stroking his lips with one finger, a habit of his.

At length he said, 'Your life is your own, sister, to publicize or make secret. But touching on what you have said- about your all being Christians, this encourages me. Perhaps some-time it will be like that everywhere.'

Karen laid a hand on his arm. 'It will be,' she said sincerely, 'believe me. One day the whole world will be converted to our way of thinking. But only if people like you keep trying to establish groups here and there.'

Thrasyllus stood in thought. 'A drop of rain is small,' he said, 'but many drops make a flood which can wash out cities.'

Everyone smiled, a little sadly, and Karen knew it was because when that day came, they would be long dead. Come to think of it, so would she.

They fell to talking again, and eventually Rhoda said that they ought to be making tracks for the house, or they would be missed.

'See you next week, then,' said Pyrea. Karen stopped. It was more difficult for her to get away, she explained, since it was not every week the children went out.

'Never mind,' said Rhoda, 'We'll think of something.'

Back at the house, they had not been missed. The House of Caecina had many slaves.

Karen now was struck with an idea which she later confided to Rhoda. Why not ask Kleon if he would be a Christian too? If he didn't want to be, at least he wouldn't tell anyone that they were. Rhoda thought it a good idea, but she said that if they were all three members, only two would have to go at a time, because where two could slip off, three would be more easily missed. Still, they could take it in turns to stay at home.

'All right,' said Karen, 'I'll ask him when he goes to the dormitory.'

'All right, then. But don't let the others hear. Watch it! Zenocrates is coming.'

Zenocrates was angry. 'Where have you girls been?' he thundered. 'I've been looking for you all over. You can both go and get on with your work, whatever it is. It's nearly lunch-time.'

Karen could hardly wait for the day to be over so that she could ask Kleon about joining, but the Lady Julia kept him busy all day because she was entertaining friends, so he was not available until evening.

She went off to the door of the men's dormitory as soon as possible and leaned in the shadows, waiting for him. He was not long in coming. He pulled her inside the door and hugged her. 'Don't let the battleaxe catch you.'

Karen giggled. She could imagine the ominous tread echoing down the corridor. 'You despicable girl! Get back to your dormitory this minute.' Volumnia would probably seize on it as an excuse for a beating, if half Rhoda's tales of past injustices were to be believed. It had been warm.

outside too, and an excess of heat always made her irritable.

'Kleon,' she said, 'I've got something to tell you before the others come up.'

'They'll be ages yet,' he replied with a laugh. 'They're in the bathroom. I got there first. What's up?'

'I want to tell you I'm a Christian.' Now it was out.

He started, and stared. 'A _Christian?_ What on earth do you mean?'

'I've joined a secret group of people who worship Christ. It's a new religion. We're trying to make converts, you see, and actually I was thinking.

'You want me to join?'

'Well ... yes.'

He sighed, and looked down. 'I don't know,' he said, 'A new religion sounds a dangerous business in Rome. And what do you get out of it?'

'Get out of it? What do you get out of any religion?'

'I don't have a religion. I don't believe that anything's any good. I don't believe in gods.'

Karen was aghast. 'No religion? But you must believe in this- it's the true one. The Christ really came. You can meet people who really saw, him, if you look for them. He worked miracles and things- haven't you ever heard of him?'

'No. When was this Christ person of yours alive?'

'About ... well, he was born about sixty years ago. I don't know

the exact dates.'

'As recently as that? That sounds interesting. Tell me more.'

'I'll try, but if you came to the meeting next week, Thrasyllus would do it better. We don't give sacrifices, to start with. When Christ came to earth from heaven he preached that we must all be like brothers and love each other. He was a very good man, he never hurt anyone even when they crucified him--'

'Did they do that? But why, if he was so good?'

'I'm coming to that. It was the Jewish priests, really. The people had been told that a Messiah would come; but when he did he was born a carpenter, not the king they were expecting. The people loved him but the priests hated him. I expect he upset their apple-cart. So they said he was a blasphemer and got the Romans to crucify him. He could have blasted them off the face of the earth to escape it, but he wouldn't, because he loved them too much. When he died the sky went dark, because he was the Son of God. And then the people were afraid, but it was too late...'

The other slaves were coming upstairs now, so Karen dropped her voice and told him about the rest in whispers. 'So please come to the next meeting,' she finished up.

She could see Kleon frown in the fast-fading light, and heard him give a long, thoughtful sigh.

'I don't know. What you've told me, it sounds sort of true. It's a wonderful story. I must say it seems a good sort of religion to join.'

'It is,' said Karen. 'One day it'll be the whole world's religion. It will outlive the Caesars.'

'All right,' he said. 'I'll come.' He sat down on his mattress, and although it was now too dark to see, she sensed him smiling.

Kleon did visit the Christians and was converted, and with his conversion Karen saw a great change take place in him. He seemed to have more purpose in life, and it made him happier and more confident, so that he became a very different person from the rather down-trodden slave she'd met in Britain.

The winter was short and mild, and it was not long before the spring flowers bloomed in the garden, and the nesting swallows twittered beneath the eaves. During these months life for Karen was not too hard; indeed it was almost happy now that she no longer thought or worried about the twentieth century. Time just went quickly, what with meetings and Kleon and the children, and she was content to let life take its course.

X

THE SUMMER HAD COME, AND IT WAS EXCEPTIONALLY HOT all through June. The Lady Julia wanted a new mural for her bathroom, and she was looking around for a suitable artist to do it.

It was a long time since Karen had done any painting, but she could feel the urge coming on. At home she was always having crazes for things, drawing or reading or making objects, and now secretly she very much wanted to be allowed to do that bathroom wall. Finally she plucked up courage and went to see Julia after breakfast.

'Excuse me asking, madam,' she said- Julia liked them to call her 'madam' - 'have you found anyone to do that wall yet?'

Julia looked puzzled. 'No,' she said. 'Nobody whose work I really like. Why?'

'Well, I was thinking that I- I might be able to do it myself ...'

Julia raised her eyebrows. 'Really?' she said, 'Well, well. You didn't tell me you were artistically gifted.'

Karen didn't know what to reply to this. She hoped that Julia would at least let her try. 'I think I could do it,' she said. 'Couldn't I just have a go? I could always paint it over if you didn't like it.'

Julia debated. It would be so much easier if this girl did the job. Artists' fees were quite ridiculous. Karen might as well make an attempt at the decoration.

'Very well,' she said. 'You can start today. I'll give you some

money for the painting implements. Here you are- you can get them in the craftsmen's quarter. And take Lucilla with you. She's been bothering me all morning.'

Lucilla skipped along by Karen's side.

'Are you really going to paint mother's bathroom? What are you going to do it with? Fishes?'

'No- Heaven forbid! Blue horses.'

'Blue what?'

'Blue horses. You heard me. Galloping around the walls. It'll be nice.'

Privately Karen had worked this out days ago. It was a special idea she'd had which needed giving rein to. The background would be pale blue, and the horses cobalt, with dark, whiskery manes.

Down among the shops it was difficult to know where to go, but Lucilla knew how to find the craftsmen's quarter, and they were soon there.

The paints were all colours, made from all sorts of ingredients, too. Some were made from coloured rocks, finely powdered, some were root dyes, and some were made from flowers. They varied greatly in price, according to the ingredients, but the blues were not very expensive. They were sold in little pots, and the shop also had brushes of animal hairs.

Karen could have spent all day looking around, but she hadn't got all day, and turned back. Once at the house, she went first to the kitchen to get a lump of charcoal from the fire. She needed this for drawing in the basic design.

She then proceeded to the bathroom, and surveyed the walls. The room was not very large, and rectangular. The walls had a border about two-thirds of the way up; above this they were plain white, and below the plaster was greyish. Fortunately the floor tiles were grey-blue; the colour-scheme Karen had in mind would go very well.

She didn't bother planning it out to the last detail beforehand. She had always heard it said that she should, but that was such a bother, and she was not one for bothering with trivial things that seemed to her unnecessary.

She smiled to herself. Four walls just for her to decorate! For a moment she was filled with the delicious anticipation of a three-year-old who has long wanted to draw on the wall and is about to realize the dream with a packet of wax crayons. Oh, it would be a beautiful frieze!

'Three horses on the long walls, and two on the end ones,' she said aloud. 'Right, let's get started.'

She used the thin end of the charcoal, at first drawing hesitantly with light strokes, but she soon found that the knowledge came back to her and continued firmly and surely. The first horse took shape, with a small tapering head and slim bounding legs. His round neck was arched in a beautiful curve, and his bushy tail streamed out behind.

The second horse's head was up, and his legs stretched out as he leapt forward, and the third had all his weight on one back leg, with the hoofs ready to pound down into the turf- only there wasn't any turf.

They were not like real horses, but much more attractive. They were fairy steeds, galloping on air, and Karen was sure the Lady Julia would like them. They had such nice eyes. Horses' eyes were a lovely shape.

It was very difficult to think of ten different positions to draw, so one or two had to be repeated with modifications. Finally she felt ready to paint. The background needed a lot of colour; she had bought several jars of light blue, and these she mixed with yellow, making an interesting pale greeny-blue.

She began on the background, which was all to be the same colour, and there was a nice big brush to do it with. She used it with large, criss-crossing strokes, going carefully around each horse. It took her until dinner-time to fill in the background of one wall, but the colour glowed and she was well pleased with herself.

'Phew!' said Rhoda over the salad. 'You stink of oil.' What have you been up to?'

'Painting the Lady Julia's bathroom,' Karen said. She had to repeat it before they would believe her.

In the afternoon the Lady Julia wandered up to see how the frieze was going. She inspected the wall languidly; Karen had just painted the horses in, and their tails were fine as silk.

Julia's face never showed much expression, except when she raised her eyebrows, but now she looked definitely surprised and admiring. She stared critically, and Karen waited anxiously, having some last-minute doubts as to whether Julia would feel the same way as herself about horses in her bathroom.

Finally her fears were allayed, for Julia said, 'I like it, I must admit that I do. It's very good. Where did you learn to draw?'

'I taught myself,' said Karen. 'I've always liked horses.' Privately she breathed a sigh of relief.

'Hmm. When will it be finished?'

'Oh, I can have it done in three days, and then it will have to dry.'

The horses' coats gleamed with the fresh paint, and their eyes stared

Perhaps they knew that the rest of their frieze would never be finished.

Nobody really knew where the fire started. Some said among the warehouses along the river; some said in the tenements; but wherever it began, the fact remained that the City Cohorts were unable to stop it. Every few hours there was news of its having spread farther, and the occupants of the house on the Viminal Hill waited anxiously.

 'Nobody really knew where the fire started'

During the daytime, clouds of thick brown smoke rose slowly over the city, and at night the glare of the flames silhouetted the crumbling houses. By the third day it looked to Karen as if it was really getting a hold, and she wondered how soon they would stop it. The only thing that conceivably could was rain, and the clear polished sky was completely devoid of clouds, rain or otherwise. She was becoming really worried; she remembered reading about the great fire that destroyed Rome in some year A.D., and this must be it. It was odd to be living two thousand years back in history that she had already read about, but right now her main worry was what would become of her.

Hadn't the fire nearly destroyed the city completely?

And Nero- he'd built a beautiful new palace or something, and the mob had accused him of starting the fire- whether justly or unjustly was never discovered. Anyway, since he had not cared to be accused of starting the conflagration, he had looked for a scapegoat ...and found the Christians!

The thought struck Karen hard. The Christians! That was her and Kleon. They would have to get out before the persecutions. Quickly she planned it. The next meeting was tomorrow. She must tell them then that she suspected the Christians would be blamed... but what if they wouldn't listen? They must see the sense of it, she thought, they must.

She got Kleon and Rhoda into the little laundry-room that evening and told them her fears, without telling them about the twentieth century. Kleon looked grave.

'Yes,' he said. 'They might well accuse us. But I'd rather not leave Rome unless we have to, because if we're caught you know the penalties. And my brand's all too obvious.'

'We could say you'd been freed. Anyway, you surely don't think we'll be the only ones going away? There'll be hundreds of people, slave and free, leaving the city. We just join the baggage train. And while we're still here we must be careful. They're saying already that Nero's done it, and he won't let the blame rest on himself. It'll not be long before he turns it on us.'

'All right,' said Rhoda. 'We leave. Agreed.'

None of the three slept that night, and not only because of the stench of burning blown through the house by the wind.

It was not difficult to slip away in the morning, because the house was in a turmoil. Lucius had finally agreed to leave while the going was good- and everyone was packing feverishly. Zenocrates had managed to hire a couple of waggons pulled by sturdy dray-horses, and clothes and food were being piled into these. Apart from the actual riding-horses, every animal in the

Caecina stables had been pack-saddled and was being laden with silks and curtains and jewellery. The Lady Julia was going half mad trying to make up her mind what she could take.

The man who usually guided them to the meetings was not waiting for them in the yard, but Karen noticed a small wax tablet propped against the wall. There was a message on it which read: 'THE MEETING IS ON', so they hurried out and down the hill.

In the room above the shop there were fewer people than was usual. Marcus and Quintus were absent, presumably fighting the fire elsewhere. Pyrea explained that others had left the city, having been rendered homeless. Indeed, Thrasyllus' words as he prayed for guidance were almost drowned by the clamour of carts and people going along the street outside.

Suddenly footsteps came pounding up the stairs, and Quintus burst into the room, his hair dishevelled and eyes wide. He waved his arm towards the street and shouted, 'Get out, all of you! The mob's coming. Someone's denounced us!'

Everyone rose to their feet in alarm. Old Thrasyllus caught Quintus by the arm. 'They say we've done it?'

'Yes- listen! They're here now.'

Karen could hear, above the trampling and swearing outside, a chant in the distance, coming nearer.

'Death to the Christians! Death to the Christians!'

Thrasyllus turned to the group. 'All right,' he said. 'There's an exit at the back, or you can hide in the shop. Pyrea and I will go down to the underground store-room where there is a trap door. Anyone wishing to join us may do so. Otherwise, it's every man for himself. My blessing, brothers.'

Rhoda looked at Karen. 'I'll go with Thrasyllus,' she said quickly.

'I don't think I will,' said Karen, 'I think Kleon and I would stand a better chance outside.'

Kleon nodded in agreement. 'There's no time to waste,' he said. 'Come on!' And he dived down the narrow back stairs.

They came out in a small yard, and a gateway at one end led on to the street. They slipped out as quietly as they could, but a woman carrying a huge basket of clothes saw them, and shrieked, 'Look at those two- they've just sneaked out of that house. They're Christians! Stop them!'

She grabbed Karen's arm and held her in a vice-like grip.

'Let me go!' said Karen struggling, but other people hemmed her in, and the horrible chant of 'Death to the Christians!' had begun again.

Hands reached out for her, and she fought back with a growing sense of panic. Someone pushed past her and struck the clothes woman full across the face. It was Kleon. He pushed a man backwards into the crowd, and pulled Karen away and down the narrow way at a run, threading past the seething crowds.

People tried to stop them and give chase, but where two could go it was impossible for ten to pass. Once, when three men looked like catching them, Karen desperately grabbed the halter of a pony laden with fruit, and hauled it across their path, blocking them. The pony lashed out, and there was fruit all over the road, but that saved them for a while. Finally, when they had got a long way ahead, Kleon pulled Karen into a tenement doorway and up the stairs.

At first the steps were stone, but they soon became rickety and wooden. A lot of the tenants were coming down, with their children and bundles of clothing.

'If were you, ducks, I'd come with us instead of going in,' said a woman as Karen pushed past. 'The fire's getting nearer, you know. I 'ope to Jupiter as they stop it soon!'

Karen smiled briefly and ran on up.

Then she heard loud voices below. 'Ere- you! 'Ave you seen a young man and a girl go in 'ere?'

'Why, yes ... only a few minutes ago. They've gone up the stairs- why?'

There was a short, barking laugh. 'They're Christians, that's why. And we're lookin' for 'em.'

'Christians? Oh, my! I'm sure they wouldn't be; that girl seemed so nice-'

Steps sounded from the lower floors, and the two fugitives toiled on with increasing effort. The men below were unable to hear them above the noise of their own footsteps, and they rested once or twice on the landings, so Karen and Kleon got to the top with about two minutes to spare. They went in at the first doorway they saw- and stopped dead.

A man with a long Celtic face was sitting on the single bed, staring at them in surprise. Karen went over to him.

'Oh, hide us, please!' she cried. 'They're looking for us; they'll be here in a minute ....'

The man's calm expression hardly altered, but he said sympathetically 'Well, there really isn't anywhere here. But you could get on to the roof from the window.'

'Thanks!' said Kleon fervently, and strode over to it. He swung a leg over the sill and leaned out. The roof was flat, and the edge jutted out a little way. He seized this and pulled himself on to the top in one graceful, athletic movement. Next moment his arm dangled down and Karen locked her hand in his.

'Now, come on,' he said.

Karen was on the point of balking, but she heard the steps on the landing and scrabbled desperately at the edge. She shot a last pleading glance at the man in the room, that begged him not to give them away, and he smiled reassuringly before Kleon hauled her from his sight.

She and Kleon lay flat on the roof, listening to the voices in the garret. They heard the door pushed violently open, and the men asking threateningly if a young man and a girl were hiding there.

'No,' said the room's owner tranquilly, 'I don't think so. You see, I'm a philosopher.'

'If you're lying ...'

'Indeed, I'm not lying. You may search the room if you like. Not that it'll take you long, there's only under the bed if you want to look there.'

'Wait a minute, Titus,' said another voice. 'The window's open.'

The two on the roof held their breath. Then the man said calmly, 'Yes, I like fresh air. Besides, I want to see which way the fire is coming.'

'If you ask me,' said someone else, 'they're off over the house-tops by now. You can risk your neck for a couple of scrawny Christians if you like, but I'm not.'

'No, all right,' said Titus. 'You win. I don't reckon we'd 'ave caught them, anyway.' They went out, and their footsteps gradually receded, going down the stairs. Karen and Kleon breathed sighs of relief. Silently Karen blessed the man in the room for not giving them away.

XI

THEY MADE THEIR ESCAPE OVER THE ROOF-TOPS, LEAPING from one shaky tenement block to the next. Some of the roofs were flat, but most of them sloped slightly, which did not help. Karen tried not to look down, but inadvertently she glanced at the street below, and immediately wished that she hadn't- the narrow lane was such a long way down, and the people crowding it looked the size of pinheads. She remembered going round a harbour at home and looking down the narrow gap between a tanker and the quay; the water had sucked and gurgled evilly, with bits of rubbish floating on it- not so different from the street.

She lost her breath, and they rested for a while. To the rear was a cloud of smoke: the fire was catching up. There were several other such clouds in the neighbourhood, because sparks blew from one place to another on the breeze.

'We'd better get a move on,' said Kleon anxiously. 'We'll do better to stay up here. We'll make better speed than they do down there.' The mood of the crowd down below was getting ugly. The people were going as fast as they could, but the heavy waggons went slowly and there was the makings of a traffic-jam. Karen wondered how soon the fire would catch up, and how long it would be before the people panicked.

'Just where can we go?' she asked, but Kleon didn't really know. However, she had a suggestion. 'Let's go back to the House of Caecina,' she said. 'We'll be safe from the fire there ... for a while at least.'

Kleon looked doubtfully at her. 'Back there?' he said. 'Do you think we should? They'll want to know where we've been.'

'We can say we wanted to know where the fire had got to. Anyway, I'm worried about Tiro.'

'Why? He's all right, isn't he?'

'Yes-but don't you see? This is a golden opportunity to escape in the fuss and confusion. None of us house-slaves is branded except you- and yours'll cover up-so there's nothing for people to know us by. I want to get Tiro out, too, you see.'

'Oh, yes. All right, then- if you still think we'll be able to slip off again without being stopped. But for Heaven's sake, Karen, hurry. The fire's only five tenements away now, and it's getting hot here.'

They ran and the people in the street ran too. They dropped their bundles and climbed over each other to get away.

Finally Karen and Kleon came to a bleak patch near the Forum, where the houses had all been burnt to the ground, and they climbed down by the remains of the last one of the row, which was partially consumed and still smoking. However, the hard-pressed City Cohorts had managed to soak it enough to prevent it from starting another blaze-chain, and although one of the timbers snapped under Karen's weight so that she was left hanging by her hands to another hot beam, Kleon seized her before her palms scorched too much.

The bleak patch was full of homeless people, sitting among the ashes with their pathetic few possessions and their wide-eyed children. Unnoticed in the confusion, the two slaves threaded their way through and ran in a homeward direction. There were great streams of refugees leaving Rome by the Vicus Longus and the Porta Nomentana, so they went up the Viminal by a score of back streets. Karen was pretty sure of the way, and the fire had not touched this part, so they arrived in half an hour.

They entered it by the side door, and hunted through the passages for the others. The place was strangely silent, and they stopped in the atrium, dismayed. The walls threw back the empty echo of their footsteps.

'Where is everybody?' said Karen. 'There's no one here at all.'

'They must have left already,' said Kleon, 'and gone to the country.'

Of course, thought Karen, they must have ... but they weren't supposed to be leaving until this evening. Probably Julia got nervous. When they went through the family's rooms, most of the hangings and valuable furniture had gone and also the children's toys. She smiled when she saw Julia's cosmetic box open and empty. Julia never went anywhere unprepared.

'They've gone without us,' she said. 'I don't know whether to be glad or sorry.'

'Glad. We're free now, remember. I wonder how many of the others nipped off. Have they left anything to eat? I'm hungry.'

The kitchen turned out to be well stocked with wine, bread, and salad, so they had a good meal with some cold chicken as an afterthought. While they were sitting at the table, Karen heard a bird singing. She followed the sound to Julia's bathroom, where she found the pet canary in his cage. He was hanging on a hook by the window, singing and chirruping, and the sun's rays made a golden halo of the quivering feathers on his throat.

'Oh, have they left you behind?' said Karen, lifting the gilded cage down. 'What a shame! You're lucky we're here.'

She carried the cage into the kitchen. 'Let's feed him,' she suggested. 'Is there any birdseed?'

After a hunt round among the jars on the shelf, they found it in a little painted pot. The canary alighted on the cage floor with an eager chirrup and gobbled it down along with some fresh water. He was a pretty little bird, fat and finchlike, and he chirped conversationally when Karen spoke to him.

'We'll have to let him go,' she said, 'but not yet.' The truth was that she had a canary at home and he reminded her of it.

It was glorious to have the whole vast house to themselves and not to have to bother with washing-up. They went at last to the Lady Julia's room, and flopped down on the bed, for it was the most comfortable place. Karen sighed happily and turned to Kleon. He put his arms around her and she lay close to him while he kissed her face.

'I love you,' she muttered, 'but what are we going to do now? I feel sort of lost.'

He smiled and grinned. 'Don't worry about that now,' he said. Karen laughed and, twisting over, rose from the bed.

'Let's spend the afternoon here,' she said, closing the shutters. 'This is the first time we've been alone together.'

They left the house at sunset, when the long shadows thrown by the buildings softened and enveloped the whole city. At a whim, Karen stalked out by the grand front-entrance, swishing an imaginary silk train behind her and sweeping elegantly down the marble steps. Several passers-by stared.

'Where shall we go?' she asked and Kleon suggested trying to find Rhoda and the rest.

'Wait a minute,' he said. 'I've got a hunch,' and he disappeared into the alley running round the house. Soon he came back, grinning and waving something. It was a wax tablet, the same sort as the previous one. This time there was a different message on it.

'It says: "IN THE CATACOMBS",' Kleon said in an undertone. 'What do they mean by that?'

Karen thought it over, and suddenly the message clicked as she remembered her history book. The Catacombs were a series of underground galleries and tomb-chambers, and the Christians used to hide in them when they were persecuted. Thrasyllus and the others must be in there.

'Where are the Catacombs?'

Kleon said that he thought there were one or two along the Via Sacra, at the bottom of the Caelian hill.

'Let's go there, then,' said Karen. 'That's where Thrasyllus'll be waiting. How far is it?'

'I don't know exactly. Some distance; so let's hurry.' They ran down the hill. It was quicker getting to the Via Sacra than they had imagined, for there were several short cuts available where the tenement rows had been completely razed. The ground was unpleasant to walk on, however, being covered in ashes and pieces of charred timber.

They turned left along the high road, which was broad and paved, with gutters running along either side- an amenity the narrower ways lacked.

As they were going along, they heard a commotion behind them. There were not many people around at this evening hour, and in a few minutes they could see what the fuss was about.

Down the wide road a girl came tearing, at full speed, in the van of a great multitude of people who were chasing her. The girl had long black hair and a fringe; even from a distance she looked familiar, and Karen realized with a shock that it was Rhoda. The crowd must have found but somehow that she was a Christian. Karen clutched Kleon's arm. 'We must do something!' she said desperately. 'Where are the Catacombs now?'

'I think that's one,' said Kleon, pointing to a low building; half-concealed in a cypress-grove. 'We can give that lot the slip easily enough.'

When Rhoda caught up with them they ran with her half-supporting her for she was nearly at her last gasp, and was too blown to look surprised. As they ran, a stone struck Karen between the shoulder-blades, and an angry voice cried, 'That fer yer Christian God! And that!' And more stones whizzed past.

Dodging them skilfully, they dived off the road into a group of olive trees about a hundred yards past the Catacomb and ran around in a big circle.

The foremost in the crowd had seen them turn off, but they could not find them among the gnarled trunks. In actual fact the fugitives were right up in the trees- Karen sitting in the fork of two branches high up, and Rhoda close by doing her best not to breathe. The thick, grey leaves obscured the girls well in their light-coloured dresses, and Kleon was a master in the art of hiding.

'They can't've got far,' remarked the man who had thrown the stone at Karen. 'Hunt around, everyone. They're sure t'be here somewhere. Can't've just vanished.'

'If you arsk me,' said another. 'They'm doubled back to t'road, and we'll never find 'em now. Let's go 'ome, I say.'

'That's as may be,' said the stone-thrower, 'for them as _'as_ got 'omes, like, wot ain't been burned dahn by these same bloomin' Christians as we're lookin' for.'

There was a low muttering, but several others felt like the first speaker that the hour was late, and despite the stone thrower's protests, the crowd dispersed.

Sighing with relief, Karen was just about to slide down from her tree when she saw Kleon motion for caution. Sure enough, one man had stayed, almost hidden behind a tree-trunk.

'Nearly fell into that little trap,' Karen said to herself. 'What an idiot I am! It's a good thing Kleon noticed. Oh, go away, you suspicious so-and-so!' She could think of several names for him, but none of them was very ladylike.

Finally, to the immense relief of all three fugitives, the man shrugged his shoulders and walked off. Kleon was the first to jump down after waiting to make sure he had really gone.

'Phew!' he said. 'Suspicious blighter!'

They sneaked along to the Catacomb under cover of the long grass by the road, noticing even in their distress that now that they were well away from the crowded centre of the city the district was pleasant, with trees, grass and gardens- things unheard of in the middle of Rome.

The Catacomb was something like an iceberg in temperature, the greater part of it being under the ground. The entrance to it reminded Karen of an air-raid shelter, being an eerie flight of steps leading steeply down. There was a great stone doorway at the bottom, with a painted arch at the top, and in the dim light Karen could vaguely see ancient carvings.

Once inside the doorway, they saw that the Catacomb was a vast burrow of passages and tombs and niches. A few windows, high up in the wall of the main hallway, sent down long shafts of light that were soon lost in the surrounding gloom. The footsteps of the slaves bounced back against a thousand faces of stone, and the vast tomb was filled with the echoes.

Karen stopped, awed. 'It's enormous,' she whispered. 'How old is it?'

Kleon didn't know, but Rhoda said, 'Very old. Hundreds of years, I think. Anyhow, it's a good place to hide. Some of the Christians are buried here, and one or two actually died for the faith.'

'Are there many who have so far?'

'Quite a few, especially under Nero. He's an inhuman monster. Have you ever seen him?'

'Yes, at the shows in the Amphitheatre. This is a creepy place, isn't it? It's so vast. How big is it?'

'Oh, there's a lot more of it than this,' answered Rhoda. 'This is only the entrance-hall. All those passages leading off branch and turn till there's a labyrinth of 'em. And they get really narrow, too, or so I've heard; once you're in there no one looking for you will find you. I was meaning to come here when someone saw the cross round my neck, and before I knew where I was they'd turned on me. It was dreadful. Good thing you were there. Thank you.'

'Yes, you were lucky,' said Kleon. 'But where's Thrasyllus? He should be here somewhere.'

'We are here, brothers,' said a voice, and Karen jumped with fright before she saw that it was Thrasyllus himself and breathed a sigh of relief.

'Are we glad to see you!' she said. 'We thought you might have been caught.'

Thrasyllus smiled. 'We were in the back passages,' he explained, 'and at first we did not know whether you were friend or foe. Pyrea and Myros are here with me. We came directly when the crowd had left the shop, and Leacus went to tell the others. Did you see him?'

Leacus was the tall, silent freedman from Thrace who knew where to find each member of the group, and who used to inform them of alterations in the meeting-times.

'No, we didn't see him,' said Kleon, 'but he left a ....Shhh! What's that?'

Above their heads they heard the scrape of sandals on stone and

the clink of metal.

Soldiers!' said Rhoda, her eyes wide as a voice barked: 'All right, men. Orders are to search the place for Christians and bring 'em out if possible. The emperor's got plans for 'em.' There were a few harsh laughs and the sergeant said, 'Now then! Which of you's going in first?'

'Not me,' said somebody else. 'I'm afraid of the dark, I am. Bring me a torch, Titus. If you ask me, we'll never find 'em- not in there.'

'And not if you don't get a move-on, mate,' said the sergeant. 'Quick march!'

The Christians looked at one another.

'Split up,' said Thrasyllus, 'and don't get caught.' He strode away soundlessly.

'We'd be better not to stay together,' said Kleon. 'Goodbye for now. Take care and try not to get lost. From what I've heard it's not very difficult.'

Karen nodded and ran. A moment later, when the soldiers came down the steps, all was quiet in the great, dank hallway, except for the slow dripping of water somewhere in the passages.

Karen was too frightened to look where she was going. She went down one corridor and turned down another, and then another, hurrying desperately until at last she stopped, her heart pounding. The passages were getting narrower the farther she went, and very dark. They were made of hewn stone, rough to the touch, and the walls were riddled with small, rectangular niches. The floors were covered in dust, and dirty cobwebs stretched across the openings in the walls, old and full of grey filth.

The narrowness of the passages made Karen feel panic-stricken and claustrophobic. They were just wide enough for her to get through, and only about six feet high. She could just edge past some of the narrower places by squeezing herself up as small as possible.

She listened, breathing hard. Yes, there it was again- faint, hesitant footsteps coming down the next passage. Friend or foe? The feet were heavily sandalled, and light from a torch flickered across the floor of the corridor she was in. Foe it was- she could see that now- and two of them at that. She pressed back against the wall, feeling utterly trapped. If they looked in her direction then they would see her easily. She prayed silently, and a slow trickle of sweat ran down the backs of her arms.

She could see the man now. He was standing with his back to her and looking down another corridor, with the torch held high. The yellow light slid over the stones, danced momentarily on Karen's face, and then was gone.

'The passages were getting narrower the farther she went, and very dark.'

'There's nothing here at all,' said the man. 'Creepy, ain't it?' He moved on, without looking Karen's way.

She felt weak at the knees and sagged against the damp stone wall. Then a thought struck her. When the soldier came back along the passage- and presumably he would- he would probably search the passages on his other side, namely her own. She had better get out quickly.

She went back along it as fast as she could, hoping the men wouldn't hear or see her, stopped in the adjoining passage, and waited. Sure enough, the flickering light fell in a stripe across the floor to her left, and a voice said, 'Nothing here.'

'Wait! What's that?'

Karen's heart stood still.

'A sandal, isn't it? And it can't belong to one of our men. So there are Christians here!'

Karen hadn't noticed the loss of the sandal, but now she felt the cold damp stone under her right foot, and realized that it was hers. The soldiers went on talking.

'Shall we go down there, then? We might catch him- or her.'

'Aw, don't let's bother. This place gets on my nerves, without bein' lost in it. Do you know the way back?'

'Sort of. Okay, let's go back. That passage's too narrow fer me in me armour, anyhow.'

The light vanished, leaving the Catacomb darker than ever, and the footsteps faded away.

Now what, Karen asked herself. Should I stay here or what? Should I try and find the entrance again? Even as she thought about it, she realized she had no idea where the entrance was. It was frightening to be lost in this dreadful dark maze. She longed for light and sun, instead of gloom and dusty tombs.

'If only I could find a nice, safe, warm niche to sit in and wait for Kleon,' she whispered, and set out to look for one.

She felt along the walls- it was pitch-black- and found another entrance. She went in slowly, not able to see a thing.

It was when she was about half way in that she heard a dry rustle and the low hiss of a snake. She gasped in a spasm of sudden terror and stopped.'

'Don't be afraid,' she heard a human voice saying. 'He's in a basket.' The voice was slow and husky, a woman's voice. Karen could feel the hair stirring on the back of her neck.

XII

'WHO ARE YOU?' SHE MANAGED TO SAY AT LAST.

'Locusta.'

'Who?'

'Locusta. Perhaps you've heard of me?'

'Yes, I think your name does ring a bell. Oh, I remember now. You're ... er .. you're Nero's poisoner.'

A low laugh rang around the cell. 'In a manner of speaking, yes. I live for science, you might say. But they don't like me- as if it's my fault what the emperor does with the things I have to make for him!'

'I- I'm sorry I blundered in on you.'

'Oh, that's all right. You see, I meant you to, so you couldn't help it. You were looking for somewhere to wait, weren't you? Come and sit down, anyway. It's nice and comfy here; I brought my wolfskin.'

Karen sat down on the hairy rug, and Locusta rummaged around, whispering to herself. Suddenly a candle lighted. She held it up.

'Now I can see you properly,' she said. 'And you can see me. Am I all that terrifying?'

'No,' said Karen. 'You're not. I was frightened of your snake really.'

Locusta was beautiful in an eerie way. Her face was finely shaped, with high cheek-bones and large eyes, black as night. Her hair was long and auburn, falling back over her shoulders in a wild tangle. She looked young, not more than twenty-five.

'Well, you seem quite a sensible girl,' she said. 'But you don't need to be afraid of the snake. He's very tame; almost a pet now.'

She lifted the lid of a basket and extracted a handsome snake, about three feet long and ringed with black and red. The coils glistened in the candlelight, and the snake wound himself around Locusta's arm.

Karen felt herself interested in the reptile in spite of her former fears. 'Is he poisonous?' she asked, and Locusta laughed.

'Oh yes,' she said, but not unpleasantly. 'But he wouldn't bite you unless I told him to.'

Cautiously Karen put out her hand and stroked the flat, diamond-shaped head. The snake's forked tongue flickered out and in and he swayed from side to side.

'He likes that,' said Locusta, 'don't you, snake?' She turned to Karen. 'I suppose you're one of the Christians?'

'Yes- we hid when the soldiers came. I hope they've gone now.'

'They haven't, but they won't find us here.'

'Why not? I mean, why shouldn't they?'

'I closed the entrance to this cell after you'd got in safely.'

Karen stared. 'How?'

Locusta smiled her mysterious smile. 'That's my special secret. I let you in because you were not an enemy. But if those stupid soldiers came here it would be blank wall to them.'

'Are you a witch or something?' Karen hoped she wouldn't be offended, but she had to know.

'I have the Power, yes, so I suppose you might say I was a witch. But I don't like the word; it implies evil, and I'm not evil, I assure you. I don't work black magic- or not unless I have to.'

An idea occurred to Karen then, a fantastic idea, but one which opened the doors to hope. She tried it tentatively.

'You don't know anything about travelling through time, do you?'

Locusta looked at her closely. She took Karen's face between her hands and stared into her eyes. Finally she said, 'Yes- I see what you mean. You're not of this time, are you?'

Karen suddenly felt that Locusta might understand, so she told her about the twentieth century and how much she wanted to get back. She explained about the mirror too, and Locusta clicked her tongue.

'You looked into it, I suppose,' she said. 'That was a silly thing to do.'

'Well, I didn't know,' said Karen. She knew herself that it had been a silly thing to do; she had no need of telling.

'Didn't you feel the magic in it?'

'It did sort of vibrate. But there isn't magic in the twentieth century. People don't believe in it.'

'There's always magic,' said Locusta. 'Sometimes it's stronger than at other times. It's supposed to be particularly strong at the moment. Anyway, about that mirror. It belongs to some Druid in Britain; it's quite well-known among us.'

'Do you know how I could get back, though?'

Locusta stared into the candle-flame, and the pupils of her eyes gradually widened until the eyes were like great black holes in her face, with two little orange flames mirrored in them. The flames hardly flickered in the power of her gaze, and even the snake in his basket was still.

Finally she said slowly: 'I myself cannot help you because I did not make the mirror. But there is hope-' Karen opened her mouth to shout with joy, but Locusta motioned to her to be silent - 'if you can get back to Britain and find the mirror and the owner of it.'

Karen's face fell. How could she find either of them? She didn't even know the man's name, or where the mirror had fallen when she had thrown it away.

Fortunately Locusta had a little more information up her sleeve. 'He's a Druid, and his name is Math-Giddon- his Druid name, that is. Druids aren't very difficult to find; they usually know when they're wanted. He'll know what to do, but you have got to find the mirror first.'

'Oh, I'll try, anyway. I know vaguely whereabouts I threw it. Thank you, Locusta. You don't know how grateful I am!'

Locusta sighed. 'I hope you'll be all right. Surely it would be simpler and a lot less dangerous to stay here. Can't I persuade you not to risk your life getting to Britain? It's a hard journey.'

'No, definitely. I must get home again, no matter whom I have to leave behind ...' She thought sadly of Kleon. It would be hard to give him up. Thinking of him brought her back to the present.

'Is it safe to try and find the others again now?'

Locusta nodded, but declined gracefully when Karen invited her to come and meet them. 'I'll stay here,' she said, 'I don't think we would get on very well. Goodbye, Karen. You can tell them you met me; they wouldn't find me here. Do you want a candle?'

'Oh, yes please. It's horrible in the passages.'

Locusta produced one and smiled slowly. She passed a hand

over it and it burst into flame.

'A little magic for you,' she said. 'It won't go out until it reaches

full light. Goodbye, then ... and good luck.'

Karen thanked her again and walked out of the dead-end passage. At the entrance she looked back and waved shyly; Locusta waved too, the candlelight gleaming on her auburn hair.

Once out of the cell, Karen looked back again but there was only a blank wall. She passed a hand over it and nothing but the damp, solid feel of the stone met her palm.

She realized as soon as she was out of the cul-de-sac that she had forgotten to ask Locusta the way back, but she found the main hall easily, because the candle seemed to know the way with incredible surety. The little flame just leaned forward oddly and all she had to do was follow it.

The first time a turning was necessary the flame leaned to the left, pointing the way, but Karen did not realize what was meant, and went straight on. Only when the candle flame immediately shrank until she could hardly see did she understand and obey it after that. Thus the way back didn't seem half the distance it had before, for the candle obviously knew the quickest route.

Finally she reached the lofty entrance-hall and found Thrasyllus and Kleon waiting for her. Kleon hugged her. 'I was afraid you'd be lost,' he said. 'I nearly was.'

'The candle knew the way,' she told him. 'Oh! It's gone out.' To her surprise, however, she saw that the wick was unburnt, and that none of the wax had been consumed. Entirely mystified, she shrugged and told Kleon about meeting Locusta and the magic. Kleon was interested, but Thrasyllus frowned and looked grim. 'Witchcraft,' he said. 'It's unholy.'

'Yes, but you must admit it's been very helpful this time,' Karen said. She did not mention the twentieth century, until she and Kleon were out of the Catacomb in the fresh, early morning air.

Karen sighed. 'Isn't it gorgeous to be out in the fresh air again? Sit down here, Kleon; I've got something to tell you that's very important!'

He sat down, mystified, on a stone slab at the edge of the road, and Karen began her story, although it was very difficult to know how to begin.

'I ... I wasn't born here ....' she said at last.

'I know _that!'_

'No, don't interrupt. Just let me tell you. That's not a very good way to begin. By "here", I mean in this time. I was born nearly two thousand years in the future.'

'Karen, are you off your head?'

'No, I'm perfectly serious. I'm only in this century because I found a mirror, and- oh, I know it sounds silly- it was a...well, it was a magic mirror, and I looked into it and I'm here! Locusta understood, so why can't you? That's about all there is to it. I was born in Britain, you see, and we were on holiday on the coast. The mirror took me to the same spot, only two thousand years back. Oh, if only I could make you believe me! I could tell you about aeroplanes and television and spaceships and radio. I could tell you what will happen to Rome!'

Kleon stared, utterly incredulous. 'What will?'

'It'll go on for about four more centuries, I think, and then the Huns under Attila and the Goths will invade it. Nearly all the Roman Empire will be Christian by then, so you see Thrasyllus isn't working in vain. Anyway, Locusta's told me how I can get back to my own time.'

'I don't know whether you're mad or what!'

'I'm not mad! If I was, I wouldn't talk like this; I'd ramble and froth at the mouth. And I couldn't have made all this up, now could I?' She hoped her argument would hold.

Kleon sat deep in thought. 'So you're going?'

'I must, really.'

'Yes, I suppose so. It's a pity though; I shall miss you.' He sighed and played idly with her hand. 'How do you get back?'

'That's the difficulty.' Karen explained about having to find her way back to Britain and when she had finished, Kleon was silent. Then he stood up and pulled her to her feet.

'We'd better go soon,' he said with a smile.

'Oh, you needn't come! It's not that I don't want you, but you mustn't go chasing across Gaul for me.

'Don't get so agitated. You don't think I'm letting you go alone, do you? There's no telling what might happen to you on your own. Besides, I could settle in Britain once there. It's out-of-the way and there's plenty of land.'

Karen offered no further resistance, for she was really glad that he was coming; she had been worrying about how to find her way, and she didn't want to leave him in Rome.

They spent the rest of the night in the olive-grove, lying side by side with the stars overhead. Over the city the red glow from the fire looked savage and ugly and even bigger now than it had the previous night.

Karen lay awake for a while, watching the glare and hoping the fire would not come in her direction. She was glad that Kleon wanted to go soon, because she remembered that any time now Nero would have a great round-up of Christians, and the persecutions would really begin. By then, however, she hoped that they would both be safely out of the city.

They woke early and determined to start the same day. Karen wanted to say goodbye to Thrasyllus and Rhoda, if they could be found; and she would have liked to see Gaius and Lucilla, but she knew that was impossible.

The sun was hot already and the air was heavy with the now-familiar burning smell. Most of the houses and little shrines along here were still untouched, although farther on Karen could see gutted ruins.

On the left was a narrow grass verge, and it was there that they found the donkey. He was cropping the grass wearily and there was no one about who could be the owner.

Karen could never resist stroking animals, especially horses or donkeys, so she went to make his acquaintance. Immediately he trotted out into the road, shaking his head. Karen shrugged. 'Not very friendly,' she said.

'No,' said Kleon. 'Wait a minute, though. He'd be just the thing for the journey- you can ride on him. Let's grab him.' The donkey wore the remains of a halter, which made catching easier, and Kleon reinforced the halter with his tunic-belt. 'Get on,' he said.

Karen mounted with the help of a nearby bank, and settled herself on the donkey's anything-but-comfortable back. It was rather akin to a ship's keel, although he was in quite good condition and not very skinny. His fur was rubbed in a few places by harness, but apart from that he was well looked-after. He seemed to feel that the game was up now that he was caught, and followed Kleon quietly.

The shop was a smoking ruin when they reached it, and there was no sign of Thrasyllus or Rhoda, so they went up to the House of Caecina and left a note in the alley. Finding some biscuits and raisins left in the pantry, they took a supply of those, along with a little bag of money which Lucius had forgotten, a few clothes, and a small sheepskin rug for the donkey's back.

Only then, sure that there was nothing else to do, did they leave Rome at midday and proceed north along the Flaminian Way.

XIII

THEY MADE SLOW PROGRESS AT FIRST BECAUSE THE weather remained almost unbearably hot, but the farther they got from Rome the happier they became. They had decided to go north by the Via Aemilia and then to make for the coast road to Genua and Massilia. From there they could cross Gaul via Lugdunum, Alesia and Lutetia, and try to get a ship from Itium.

It was Kleon who had worked out their route. Some of these names meant nothing to Karen, although she realized that in the future they would be important cities.

The roads were good, especially in Italy as far as Placentia, and they not infrequently met travellers, merchants and pedlars, but farther on the country was wild and lonely, covered with great tracts of forest. In these regions often the only people they would, meet in a whole day would be a troop of legionaries singing their harsh marching-songs and swinging briskly along. Karen used to wish that she and Kleon could go at that speed. They would soon be in Britain then! Occasionally they were given a lift by a lonely waggoner, which helped; and the donkey was either bundled into the waggon as well or made to trot behind. Karen was rather fond of him, but had somehow never given him a name. He was always referred to simply as 'The Donkey.' Considering the distance he had to go, he behaved very well, and stood up well to the rigours of the journey, for the rough wayside grazing was enough to sustain him. The humans managed well enough, too; Kleon hunted rabbits with a bow-and-arrow they had bought from a trader whom they had met; and these they roasted over a fire and ate with anything they could find or scrounge. Once or twice, too, they stole fowls and fruit from outlying farms.

At Massilia Karen was once more on the route she had travelled along with the legionaries from Britain. She had also been through France the year before-on a train to Italy, but the flat, rural country she had seen then now looked very different in the first century A.D., and even more so if you had to walk across it. The days seemed endlessly long, and the flat parts interminable, but the nights made up for it, lying in a bed of scented wild flowers, with the stars overhead and the cool evening breeze whispering in the trees.

So they completed the southern half of their journey and at last came in under the ancient stone gateway of Alesia. It was a large, heavily fortified city, but the houses now spilled outside the walls in an untidy jumble instead of keeping to their proper order. Karen and Kleon pushed their way through the market-day crowds, and found a tumbledown inn that would take them for a night. The donkey was left in the stable with a bunch of pigs.

'He'll probably kick them to death,' remarked Kleon, but not so loud that the landlady would hear.

Karen felt unusually happy that evening. They were halfway across Gaul, and had done more than half of the entire journey. The rest would be easy-or so she thought.

They went out early the next morning to look round the town and by chance they found themselves in the marketplace. With thoughts only of what food they could obtain, Karen suddenly saw a familiar face, and went white when she realized who it was. She grabbed Kleon's arm.

'Quick, hide!' she said. 'Isn't that Lucius?'

It was Lucius, unmistakably, though what he should be doing here was beyond both of them. He was sitting on a roan horse and talking to some men in the street. Behind him waited Zenocrates and half a dozen slaves, Gauls by the looks of them. Even as Karen and Kleon watched, the party began to move towards them.

Quickly Kleon pulled Karen into a doorway, and they turned their faces to the wall, listening to the clatter of approaching hoofs. Lucius was still talking to someone as he drew level, and they hoped they would escape his notice, but then there was an exclamation, and they heard a sharp, 'Turn round, you two!'

'Run for it,' Karen whispered, and they fled past Lucius in different directions. Karen heard the horse following her at a gallop, and she raced across the open square, but the roan was quicker than she was and within moments Lucius had reached down and seized her by the wrist. She fought and struggled, but he soon had firm hold of her and told Zenocrates to tie

her arms behind her back. Karen looked desperately about for Kleon and saw him hesitating in the mouth of an alley. Unfortunately Lucius saw him too and, picking up his riding-crop, he raised it to hit Karen, at the same time beckoning to Kleon.

Bravely Karen shouted to her friend to get away and not be caught, then turned violently away as Lucius slashed her face with the whip. She gasped at the stinging pain and stared at him, feeling tears and blood well up and horrified to see Kleon come running across the square.

'All right,' he said, 'don't hit her again. I'll come quietly.'

'Sensible of you,' said Lucius with a smirk, 'because I hate to think what state your girl-friend's face would have been in when I'd finished with her.'

Karen listened, horrified. She would never have thought Lucius capable of cruelty like that.

With their hands tied, the two prisoners were marched down the road to the Army Headquarters, where the officer in charge agreed to keep them in the military jail for the night- for a fee which would probably never find its way into the Army revenues. The cell assigned to them was small and gloomy and damp, and its only contents were some old straw in a corner and a cracked water jar in the centre of the room. It was lighted only by a thin ray of sunlight that came in through the little square window and made a small coloured patch on the floor of the otherwise dark cell. They sat back to back and Karen untied Kleon's hands with her fingers; then he did hers.

'That's better,' she said. 'Kleon, why did you come back for me? Now we'll both be taken back to Rome, if we're not crucified.'

'I didn't want to leave you and I still don't. I couldn't stand by and watch that Lucius take a whip to you. Does your face hurt?'

Karen put her hand up to it. 'Not much,' she said. 'It only stings a bit.'

'It's spoiled your beauty for a while,' he remarked, 'but it hasn't cut very deep so I should think it'll be all right in a week or two. I suppose Lucius'll take us back tomorrow. He said something about going.'

'Yes,' said Karen. She watched the tiny particle of dust sliding down through the sunbeam and felt like crying. She would never get back to her own century now. She'd be hauled back to the house on the Viminal hill and kept as nursemaid to those ghastly children for the rest of her days.

'Never mind,' said Kleon, seeing her lip tremble. 'We'll get to Britain somehow.' He put an arm round her shoulders and kissed her. It was the only comfort he could offer.

The sunbeam shifted slowly across the cell floor, and finally disappeared, leaving the two slaves more depressed than ever.

They were sitting in miserable silence, no longer able to think of anything to say to each other, when they heard the clink of money and voices at the door. Glad of any diversion, they watched as bolts slid back and the door opened slightly. The sentry on guard then poked his head in, and jerked his thumb towards the passage behind.

'All right,' he said gruffly. 'Get out. I don't 'ear nothing, see? And I don't see nothing. And don't ask me who that was. Just thank yer lucky stars.'

He stumped away, leaving the door open, and Karen looked at Kleon. 'We've got a friend somewhere,' she said. 'Let's go!'

At the end of the passage a cloaked figure was waiting for them. As she came nearer Karen saw that it was an oldish man with a long beard.

'Zenocrates!' she murmured. He turned towards her and smiled grimly. 'Shh!' he said. 'This way.'

He took them out of the barracks-building by a back-exit, then threw back his hood and went boldly out of the main gate as if on some night errand. The sentry did not challenge them as they passed him.

At a point on the town walls where there was a sloping roof that would serve as a kind of ladder to get over by, Zenocrates left them, nodding to them and slipping away before Karen could even thank him.

Kleon led the way up the roof and they dropped noiselessly on to soft grass on the other side. Hardly had they picked themselves up when there was a snorting noise and something moved nearby.

'Horses!' Kleon exclaimed. 'He's thought of everything.' Catching the bridle of the first and quietening it, Karen swung herself into the saddle and kicked the animal to a gallop, with Kleon close behind. The horse she was riding was a strong grey gelding. Its silvery mane whipped in her face, and as she gripped with her knees to keep her balance, she kept a firm hold on the reins and let the restless horse go as fast as it liked.

The road was level and firm, and they galloped for several miles before the horses began to blow; then Karen eased on the reins and the gelding fell into a trot, and later a walk, snorting and tossing his head. Kleon made his mare trot for a while longer to catch up.

'That was great,' he said. 'You're a good rider.'

Karen explained that she had been riding at home for three years, although not in these sort of circumstances. They were now proceeding at a walk, to let the horses get their breath back, when suddenly Kleon held up his hand.

'Stop a minute,' he said. 'I think I heard something.'

He dismounted and put his ear to the ground. 'Shh! We're being pursued.'

Karen felt a stab of fear. 'What are we going to do?'

'Get off the road for a start. We'll hide up somewhere.' All around them the woods were dark and silent, except for the faint swishing of leaves in the breeze. The horses jogged between the broad beech-trunks, treading on fallen twigs with loud cracking noises. About a hundred yards from the track they tied the horses up at a point from which they could still see the narrow silver strip of road between the trees.

After ten anxious minutes Karen heard hoof-beats coming nearer, and glimpsed a troop of four mounted men cantering along. They were almost past when they suddenly stopped, and the leader swung his horse round with a jerk on the bridle.

'I don't reckon on catchin' 'em now,' he said. 'Better turn back.'

The others agreed, pulling up and wheeling round likewise. As they did so one of their horses neighed. Immediately there was an answering whinny from the mare in the woods. Karen tightened her grip on the tree. That stupid beast! The whinny sounded terribly loud; the men could not have failed to hear it. Yes, there they came, shouting to one another and turning their horses to the woods.

Karen and Kleon ran to their horses. Karen scrambled on somehow, and the game little grey plunged forward and jumped a stream, its hoofs slipping and splashing in the water. She had to throw her arms around its neck to avoid being swept off by low branches, and as she clung grimly on she dimly saw the flying tail of the mare in front, and heard the shouts of the pursuers.

Fortunately for the fugitives the men's horses were tired with the long canter they had just had, whereas the mare and the grey had rested for quarter of an hour and had lighter weights on their backs. To Karen's tremendous relief she heard the men drop gradually behind.

When at last Karen allowed the panting grey to stop, all was quiet to the rear. Her own heart felt as if it went beating inside her head, and she still felt panic-stricken. Kleon's idea was that they must not return to the road, for the men would be there, but push on parallel to it deep among the trees. It would be slower going, but safer.

'Couldn't we stop for the night?' asked Karen wearily, because she was very tired and beginning to feel stiff; it was ages since she had been on a horse and they had galloped a long way.

'Well, I don't know-I suppose so. We can't light a fire, though. Worn out, are you?'

Karen nodded sadly and he helped her off the horse. 'Doesn't matter about the fire,' she said. 'Shall we hobble the animals?'

They tied their forelegs with the bridle-reins, which were fortunately detachable; then Karen found a large hollow tree, which would make a better sleeping place than the open ground, although a bit cramped. The wood inside was dry and rotten and kept crumbling and falling down Karen's neck, but she was asleep in no time, curled up with her head on Kleon's arm.

They felt much better when they set off in the morning. For food the horses had done well enough on grass and water, but the two humans were ravenously hungry, for now they had nothing to eat at all, and the countryside was deserted and lonely. However, after twenty-four hours of fasting they managed to steal a chicken from a small outlying farm. Kleon was quite good at this kind of thing by now. They roasted it over a little fire among the trees, where the farmer would be unlikely to catch them.

They found travelling much quicker now that they had two horses instead of one slow donkey, and they reached Lutetia six days after the escape from Alesia.

Lutetia was then a small fortified town on the banks of the Sequana river. Karen realized that it was Paris, although very different from the sprawling modern city she knew dominated by the Eiffel Tower. Now it was just a huddle of stone buildings on the riverside, though quite a busy little place, for much of the south-going traffic passed through it.

Kleon spent the last few coins they had on some food which they both needed, for Karen was inches slimmer than she had been in Rome and Kleon was positively bony. However, they were both in very good spirits. Karen's face was already almost healed and left very little trace of the whip slash. Refreshed and rested they left Lutetia behind and in another week were trotting over the green hills and verdant valleys of what in future ages would be Normandy.

It was not far to the coast now.

XIV

IT WAS A COLD, GREY DAY WHEN THEY DISEMBARKED ON the shores of Britain. They had sold their horses in Itium for a good price, and with the proceeds they had been fortunate enough to obtain a passage across the Channel on board a merchant ship which had put them off at a convenient spot on the south coast. Karen remembered the name of the fort where Duillius Rufus had sold her, and the merchant said it was twenty miles away to the west.

Karen thanked him, and when she finally stood on British soil she picked up a handful and threw it playfully at Kleon, then whirled him around in a dance of triumph.

'Now we've only got to find Math-Giddon!' she said jubilantly, but Kleon snorted.

'Is that all?' he asked sarcastically. 'And how do you propose to find him? Do you realize it'll be like looking for a needle in a haystack.'

This put a damper on Karen's spirits. 'I don't know,' she said. 'I wish you hadn't said that. But I'm sure we'll find him when the time's right.'

The wet mist swirled around them and the long waves sounded empty and dead on the shore. A cold wind flattened Karen's dress against her legs and blew the tangly hair over her eyes.

'A typical British day!' she said, refusing, however, to let it depress her.

Kleon suggested going along the coast, but Karen turned the idea down, afraid of meeting legionaries from the Roman coastal forts.

'Let's go inland,' she said. 'We're bound to find a farm or something, and they'll probably know more about Math-Giddon.'

There was a faint cart-track leading over the downs, and they followed that. After an hour's dismal trekking Karen began to feel a longing for food and shelter, and inwardly decided that going inland was not such a good idea after all. Kleon tactfully said nothing.

Finally, just as Karen was on the point of sitting down and admitting that she had been wrong, they heard hoof-beats and the jingle of bridles on the track behind them. A group of four men, mounted on tall horses, approached at a trot.

Karen and Kleon looked at each other, uncertain whether to run or stay on the track, but in the end they waited for the men to catch up with them.

The leader reined in his horse. 'Well, well!' he said. 'Look at these two beauties! What would you be doing here, then?'

'Nothing,' said Karen, and immediately wished that she hadn't. It was such a juvenile answer to a question when she had no idea of the answer.

The man roared with laughter and slapped his thigh so that the ornaments on his sword-belt clinked. 'Nothing!' he said, and turned to the others so that they should appreciate the joke.

'What I meant was, we haven't anywhere in particular to go,' Karen explained hastily. She wondered what business of this man's it was, anyway.

He looked at her quizzically, then at Kleon. 'Nowhere in particular, on a cold day like this? Night's coming on, you know. Now, how would you like to spend the night in a good warm place with lots o' the best company?' There was sarcastic laughter from the men behind. Karen looked at Kleon, leaving the decision to him, but doubts about 'strange men' kept flooding into her mind.

'Very well,' he said finally. 'Thank you. But this is my girl, so you keep your filthy hands off her.'

The men muttered at this, and Karen was glad that Kleon had raised the point, but the big red-haired leader nodded silently and signalled to two of the followers to take them up on their horses.

A tall thin man with greasy yellow hair spurred his roan forward and literally scooped Karen up with a grip under her armpits. She wondered where he found the strength, and then realized that she must be much lighter since the past weeks. The horse did not seem to be affected by the extra weight, for it broke into a restless, bumpy trot, while Karen clutched its mane.

'Falling off, are you?' said the man, putting an arm around her waist, and not entirely to hold her on. Karen stiffened, but there was nothing much she could do about it.

'Where are you taking us?' she asked.

The man took the reins in his other hand and pointed up the hill. 'That's our hideout,' he said.

'Hideout! What are you?'

He laughed pleasantly. 'Gentlemen o' business, the chief calls us. Robbers to you.'

'Are you planning to rob us?' she said blandly. Might as well ask him straightforwardly.

'I don't know what the chief wants with you. We don't beat up everyone, you know- mainly Romans or merchants if we find any. We have to keep moving our quarters as people find out where we are. The Romans would be very glad to get rid of us, I'll tell you! Hup, my beauty.' This was addressed to the horse, which picked its way up past rocks and thorn-trees with agility.

Among the rocks cresting the hill was a large cave, and they drew up outside that in the gathering dusk and fine drizzle. Two boys of about fifteen, with the same red hair as their father, came out and took the horses, and a tall, solid-looking woman in grey homespun followed them.

'There y'are!' she cried. 'An' about time, too. The stew's been ready this half-hour.'

She noticed Karen. 'What's this ye've got?'

'Just a friend, just a friend,' said the chief. 'I've a mind to give these two a bed for the night.'

'Huh! It's not often you give anything.'

'Silence, woman, and let's be having yer stew instead of yer opinions.'

Inside the cave the air was smoky, though the worst of it went out through a gap in the roof. There was a huge pan of stew bubbling over the fire, and a horsehide screen over the mouth of the cave hid any tell-tale view of the flames from people on the road below.

Karen sat down feeling utterly weary, and dumbly accepted the bowl of stew she was given. She looked for a spoon, but seeing that the men were all eating with their fingers, she did the same. It was a very messy business, especially mopping up a lot of gravy, but the food itself was delicious.

During the course of the meal she heard Kleon talking to the chief, who had become very merry on account of a mead-horn that was being passed around, but she did not hear what Kleon was saying, because the horn was passed to her. Not fancying what was inside, she made to pass it to the next person without drinking, but he caught her wrist and draped an arm around her shoulders.

'No, come on, have a drink. S'nice ...'

'It seems to have made you drunk already.'

He sniggered. 'So what? S'nice to be drunk, too. Go on, have a drink. Then you'll be d-drunk l-like me.' He stumbled over the words.

Karen took a mouthful. The liquid tasted of honey and trickled down her throat like soup. It left a fiery after-taste that was rather pleasant and she was just about to have another sip when she saw Kleon give her a warning glance from the other side of the fire, so she passed the horn on.

'Is there anywhere I can sleep?' she asked the chief, who roared with laughter and was about to give her a very vulgar reply, but she gave him a cold glance which sobered him up. His wife-the tall solid woman-came forward and, beckoning to Karen, she led her to the back of the cave where there was a pile of furs, hidden behind a bluff of rock.

'There y'are,' she said, 'if ye can sleep wi' this noise goin' on.'

Wearily Karen flung herself down though no sleep came to her as she lay listening to the men singing raucous songs around the fire. After half an hour Kleon came quickly round behind the rocks and shook her.

'I'm not asleep.'

**'** I thought you were. Listen, I've been talking to the chief and he knows where we can find Math-whatsit.'

'Oh, smashing! Where?'

Kleon repeated the directions. They were to go to a stone ring ten miles away and there they would find him. The chief seemed to be sure that they would have no trouble. 'There's another thing, though,' Kleon continued. 'I don't trust these men at all.'

'Me neither. So you think we ought to slip off tonight, is that it?'

'Yes. I was hoping there'd be another exit, say, at the back of the cave.'

'Even if there is they'll soon miss us if they come in here to sleep.'

'Not if we make dummies out of these furs and cover them up. They'll be too drunk to notice the difference.'

'All right. We can try anyway.'

They heaped up the furs to look as if there were people sleeping under them, and then slipped to the back of the cave to explore the possibilities of escape. They found themselves going down a long tunnel, damp and dripping, that led back into the hillside, and they had to tread carefully because of lumps of slippery rock on the earth floor. All about them was a wet, fusty smell.

About four hundred yards from the main cave a draught of sweet night air blew down on the backs of their necks and they looked quickly up to see a hole in the tunnel roof and the starry sky above.

'Can we get up there?' she asked Kleon.

He nodded. 'I think so. Look, the tunnel wall's climbable just here. I could reach across and grab the edge of the hole.'

He scaled the wall easily and balanced precariously as he felt for the edge. Karen thought he must fall, but at the last minute he managed to get a handhold and swung outwards. His feet thrashed wildly, and slowly rose above Karen's head as he forced himself up. Finally he vanished from sight altogether, and a moment later his head reappeared.

He reached down. 'Can you climb that wall?'

Since she looked like having to, Karen said, 'Yes,' with what she hoped was cheerful assurance.

It was not as difficult as it had seemed at first glance, for there were plenty of crevices. When she was near enough Kleon caught her wrist and hauled her up with remorseless strength, so that all at once she was sprawled on the dewy grass. Stifling a giggle, she stood up. They were on the very top of the hill, and in the valley below all was shadow. The flat hilltops in the distance were silvered in the moonlight, looking unreal and fairylike in the white stillness. Somewhere down in the valley an owl hooted.

Kleon put a finger to his lips for silence, and set off down the slope in the opposite direction to that of the cave-mouth. They broke into a run over the velvety grass, trying to tread on tiptoe and avoid kicking rocks. Once, when Karen caught up with him, Kleon told her that they must get down among the trees in the valley as the men might find they were gone any minute.

'When she was near enough, Kleon caught her wrist and hauled her up with remorseless strength'

Karen ran faster. It was easier going when the ground became more level, and soon they were pushing through thickets and brushwood. A river ran down among the trees, and Kleon told Karen to follow him upstream through the water. This would put dogs off the scent if the men did choose to track them. Obediently Karen took her sandals in one hand and waded into the shallows. The water was icy cold and she curled her toes around the smooth pebbles on the bottom. There was mud near the shore, soft and silty, but a strip of stones ran down the middle, and they had stepped into the stream on those because they held no footprints.

They splashed upstream for about half a mile and then Kleon chose a jutting rock to climb out over. He was still being meticulously careful over footprints. Karen was glad to come out for her feet were by now feeling very numb. She sat down and rubbed them with her warm hands, and the feeling gradually came back along with pins-and-needles. When she had got going again, a delicious warmth flowed through her that was only partly due to the kiss of encouragement Kleon gave her before they set out again. It would have been fun if only it hadn't all been so important.

Ten miles was a long way, especially in the dead of night and over very rough country, trackless hills with thickly wooded valleys in between. Plodding on, Karen was almost too weary to be excited by the time they stumbled up the last slope and saw the ring in a hollow below them.

The sky was paling towards dawn, and the stars were fading. A faint glow appeared on the horizon, glimmering between the dark fir trees around the ring. Karen stood very still, watching the glow turn rosy and gold. There was a blue mist down in the valley, rising in veils of vapour. The fir trees whispered and swayed in the breeze, and as the first sun ray struck the great altar-stone in the centre of the ring, Karen became aware of a third person on the scene. In the shadow thrown by the fir trees stood a tall, kingly man, dressed in a tattered robe of faded green, and crowned with oak-leaves.

XV

MATH-GIDDON STROKED HIS BEARD REFLECTIVELY AS Karen told him about the mirror. 'Yes,' he said at length, 'it was my son's mirror. He was always doing things like that, you know. I suppose you would consider them practical jokes. That mirror was his masterpiece. I never fully understood it myself. Now, the question is, how do you reverse its effect?'

'Do you know? If you can't, I'm finished.'

'Oh, probably. Can you find the mirror again?'

Karen thought back. With luck, it would still be on the beach, where she had thrown it. 'I could probably find it,' she said.

The old man started on a rough description of what he would have to do with the mirror. 'I should have to ...er ... exorcize it, as it were. Not a very good word, but it's the nearest to my meaning that I can get. Then, once you've found it, you've just got to look into it again, and it should take you back to wherever you came from. But if anyone else has touched it since you left it, you're here for ever, I'm afraid.'

Karen wondered if he was serious. All this talk about exorcism and not having touched the mirror sounded crazy to her, but she couldn't very well ask him if he was pulling her leg. 'Shall I go and look for it now?' she suggested, her tiredness temporarily forgotten.

'I don't see why not. I can start working on it now. It shouldn't take long. By the time you find it I'll be finished. Are you hungry, by the way?' He led the way down the hill to a wattle-and-daub hut in a grove of trees. Three ponies grazed nearby, and a row of beehives stood against the sunny side of the house. The morning sun had warmed the grove already, and the bees were blundering out to seek the flowers. The air vibrated with their droning hum.

'Sit down outside,' Math-Giddon said. 'There's hardly any room inside. Time was when I'd have a better place than this, and more respect too, before ever the Roman came. They put my son to the sword, and my brother too, we who have ruled here hundreds of years!'

 'MATH-GIDDON STROKED HIS BEARD REFLECTIVELY'

'I'm sorry .. .'Karen said. She could think of nothing else to say to this bitter, grey-haired old man who walked like a king.

'Ah, well,' he said eventually, and stooped through the low doorway of the hut. Karen sat down on a little bank, between clumps of larkspur and ox-eye daisies; then she lay back on the soft grass and watched a bee, hanging on invisible gauze wings, drift from flower to flower.

The old man gave them chunks of bread and ham, washed down with a little wine, and they devoured it all ravenously, for they were very hungry. Afterwards he whistled up the three ponies, bridled two, and handed Karen and Kleon the reins.

'I presume you're going to the beach with her?' he asked Kleon

'Naturally. Listen, I want to ask you something. Karen, you go ahead and I'll catch up.'

.'Oh, all right.' Karen was puzzled, and wondered what Kleon could want with Math-Giddon. She clicked her tongue at the pony, and it ambled off at a comfortable pace, while she let her hips swing to and fro in rhythm with its plodding walk.

Left behind, Kleon turned to the Druid. 'I didn't want her to hear,' he said, 'in case it doesn't come off. I don't suppose you can get me to her twentieth- century place too?' He looked hopefully at the old man. 'It'd have to be so I knew how to get on there-their money and this television thing she's always telling me about and all that. Could you do it?'

The old man looked at him very hard for a minute. 'Are you prepared to go through with that for a girl? Are you quite sure?'

Kleon nodded.

Hmm. I had a feeling you'd ask me that when I saw you holding her hand. How old are you?'

'Eighteen.'

'Only that? You look older. Well, never mind. Come inside.'

Karen was down at the beach and had just started to root among the furze bushes when she heard a terrific clatter of pebbles and a horse's hard breathing.

It was Kleon. He had galloped the pony all the way from the hut, and it was shiny with sweat. He pulled it to a halt and jumped to the ground, slapping its neck affectionately.

'Phew!' he said. 'It's a good pony, this. He's never dropped below a gallop all the way. Whereabouts is the mirror?'

'I'm not exactly sure. It should be around here, because I was standing on that track over there-near the rock-and I threw it away like this ...' She demonstrated.

Kleon mentally followed the arc that the mirror must have described, and traced it to a large gorse-bush.

'Perhaps it's in there,' he suggested. 'I'll have a look.'

He pulled the prickly stems aside and suddenly gave a shout of triumph.

There it is! I'll just get it out-'

'No!' shouted Karen. 'Don't you remember? No one else must have touched it, or it won't work.'

Then she thought of something else. What about her shorts and T-shirt that she'd been dressed in before? She couldn't really go back to the twentieth century in a Roman slave-girl's dress. Besides, it was filthy and ragged with creases all over, since it had come all the way across Gaul without being ironed, although it had been washed once in a stream. Her own clothes were with Cordella at the fort, however, and Karen could see no way of getting them back. For one thing they would probably refuse her entry, and for another, she wasn't even sure that Cordella was still there. She explained this to Kleon.

'She might have thrown them away,' he pointed out. 'If so, they would be on the rubbish-dump, wouldn't they? Let's go and look.'

'Kleon, you are a genius! I don't know where I should be without you. The rubbish-dump's at the bottom of the cliffs on the far side of the fort.'

The dump was situated on a very small beach of pebbles. The air was thick with flies in a noisy buzzing cloud, for the uneaten food from the soldiers' mess was regularly thrown out to be washed out to sea when the tide came far enough in, which it rarely did.

Karen avoided the thrown-out food and rummaged through a pile of moth-eaten blankets that didn't appear to have been there long. There were some old tunics as well, and right at the bottom she unearthed her shorts and shirt.

She couldn't resist shouting, 'Yippee!' and clapping Kleon on the back, but her enthusiasm waned a little when she saw how dirty they were. Feeling that she just couldn't put them on without giving them a good salt-water rinse first, she washed them thoroughly in the sea and left them to dry on a rock, though they were still quite damp when she emerged in them an hour later, from the shelter of a large boulder.

Kleon stared. 'Is that how you dress in the twentieth century?' he said incredulously, 'I don't think I shall-' He stopped himself just in time.

Fortunately Karen had not noticed. 'Only on holiday,' she said. 'Don't you approve?'

'I don't know; you don't look bad. But they're old clothes. Now you're ready.' He said it gently and a little sadly.

His tone of voice brought it back to Karen. So far she had managed to stop herself thinking about leaving, and only about going home, but now the awful moment had actually come she could hardly stop herself crying.

'Oh, Kleon, I don't want to leave you. How can I be in love with someone who's been dead nearly two thousand years?'

He squeezed her hand. 'Don't be too sad about it,' he said, 'because you're not really leaving me. I fixed something with the old man; I can't tell you more than that.'

'You don't mean-'

'It all depends. 'Leave it at that. Come on, let's get that mirror. Dry your eyes.'

Karen wiped them with the back of her arm and scrambled up the cliffs. When she finally stood on the spot where she had first found herself in Roman Britain, with the mirror in her hand, she felt a curious mixture of emotions. Would the mirror work? And what had Kleon been hinting at? He'd told her not to worry about him.

She turned to him and sniffed miserably.

'Goodbye...' she said.

He took her in his arms and kissed her tenderly, which only made it worse. 'Now, don't worry,' he said, 'I'm sure we'll meet again, if only in dreams.'

Karen nearly laughed. How romantic! 'Oh, well,' she said, 'I suppose I'd better get on with it.' She gave his hand a last squeeze, then dropped it reluctantly and looked into the mirror with some trepidation.

The rhythmic sound of the waves rolling on to the sands was the first thing she was properly aware of. Then she opened her eyes and saw a cloudy grey sky. The world was nothing but sky, and a little strip of land around the edge of her vision.She sat up. She was resting in a wet puddle, so she rose hastily to her feet and looked around. She was on the sand-island again, with the little green mirror in her hand. So it _had_ worked! She was very relieved. Now there was the mirror to deal with.

Deciding that the best thing would be to bury it again, she scooped a deep hole in the sand and pushed the mirror in; then she covered it deep and said aloud: 'That's you fixed. Now you can't cause any more trouble, unless you whip any sandworms back to the time of your maker.'

Gratefully, she saw that the village was where it should be, and the houses looked the same as she remembered them. At least she was somewhere near the right time, then. She'd have had a job explaining to the Normans where she'd come from, if she hadn't managed to get right forward to her own century again!

Quickly she ran across the island, scaring away groups of herring gulls as she went. It was easier returning across the channel because she found a shallower place. Then she raced along the main beach, splashing through the watery pools, and finally reached the village.

She wondered anxiously if the mirror had brought her back a year later, for she had spent roughly that amount of time in the first century. She looked at the church clock; it said twelve mid-day, which told her nothing.

She went into the hotel to get some drier clothes because her shorts were still damp, and walked boldly in by the front door. Nobody challenged her. Going up the stairs she met one of the maids, a friend of hers.

The maid grinned. 'Your ma's been lookin' for you,' she announced. 'She said to tell you she was lunchin' at the Beach Cafe at twelve-thirty, and she wasn't waitin' for you if you didn't show up!'

'Thanks, Jan,' said Karen. Better and better! She didn't seem to have got back much later than she'd left- a few hours, only. She could say she had been down on the beach for that length of time.

She changed into a check dress and a cardigan, and hurried outside. As she was passing the church, she saw a young man in jeans and a shirt examining the carvings over the doorway. She was just level with him when he turned round, and she saw that he had tangly dark hair, wide-set brown eyes, and a straight nose. She couldn't believe her eyes. She went over to him and touched his arm, about to start with the 'Haven't I seen you somewhere before?' gambit, but then she was sure it couldn't be anyone else, so she just said: 'Kleon!'

He winked at her.

They strolled down to the cafe together.

'It was very complicated,' he was saying. 'I don't know how Math-What's-his-name did it, but he's managed to fit me somehow into your world, and I've apparently just got a job in a garage. I've emigrated from Athens or something, so I'm here legally. Funny, isn't it? I understand the language and I understand those cars too. I can't work out how.'

'It's very odd,' said Karen. 'But I'm glad it worked. Have you got the afternoon off?'

It's my lunch break.'

'Oh, good. You must come and have it with us. Mum'll be sure to like you. I can say I met you- oh, I know! On our holiday last year. We stayed in Rome!'

The Beach Cafe was a small, cosy place with a serve-yourself counter. In a corner sat Anne and Karen's mother, sipping Coca-Cola and coffee respectively.

'Hullo, Mum,' said Karen. 'This is Kleon. I met him on our holiday last year. Can he have lunch with us?'

Her mother looked him up and down and smiled. 'Certainly,' she said. 'What will you have? The salad dinner's supposed to be very nice.'

She turned to Karen. 'Where have you been? Your hair looks longer. We must have it cut.' Then, returning to the original question, she added, 'I suppose you were on the beach all morning?'

Karen drew breath to tell her mother about the mirror and the fort and Rome and the journey back, but she realized in time that she would never be believed or understood. It didn't seem real to herself now, although she had Lucius' whip-scar and she was- or felt- inches slimmer. She'd have to take the belt of her dress in.

'Yes,' she said, 'I was on the beach all morning.'

