Fighting Fit by Annie Dalton Read Free Book Online

master! She’s been cooking all day long.”
    Slaves came hurrying to welcome us, helping us off with our sandals, bringing jugs of warm scented water for us to wash off the dust, offering us honeyed wine.
    I’m in a Roman house, I told myself. But I couldn’t quite believe it.
    We were in the atrium, a large central space with rooms leading off on all sides. There was a skylight in the roof to let in air, and light during the day, I guessed, because of the lack of windows. By night, oil lamps gave off a soft amber light, which reflected back from a gleaming marble floor. The furniture was minimal: a couple of couches, woven wicker chairs and a stone bust of the Emperor Nero. A fountain tinkled into an indoor pool, with gold sparkles in the marble basin.
    The actual decor was totally alien to modern tastes. Three walls were painted blazing red. The fourth featured a large mural of a horribly realistic battle scene - noble-looking Romans in armour, versus hideous barbarians in chariots.
    I noticed Aurelia’s father look up hopefully every time someone came in. Finally he asked a slave if his son was expected home that night.
    “Quintus Flavius is a very busy man,” the slave said tactfully. “He sometimes finds it more convenient to stay at the palace.”
    “Pater, let’s go and see if mother’s quince tree is still alive,” Aurelia pleaded. “She talked so often of that tree.”
    “You go, child,” he said in his tired voice. “I am going to rest.”
    “Mella can come with me, then.” Aurelia seized my hand and pulled me into a room with couches arranged around a low round table. The mural in the dining room showed gods and goddesses feasting in flowery meadows.
    On the far wall, beyond the open door, I was amazed to see waterfalls of white roses glimmering in the dark. I’d forgotten that Romans put their gardens inside their houses! This one was completely enclosed by a beautiful stone walkway with doors opening into yet more rooms and apartments. I thought Aurelia’s house was the closest thing to a palace I had ever seen.
    To her delight, the quince tree was still alive. It was old and bent but I could see tiny yellow baby quinces gleaming faintly in the moonlight. I glanced up through the leaves and was thrilled to see stars. Stars inside your house, now that IS cool!
    Then I noticed Aurelia furtively wiping her eyes, so I tactfully slipped off to find Reuben.
    Reubs and I had our supper in the slave quarters. The food was actually not bad; a kind of Roman sausage, followed by small deep-fried pastries, dipped in honey. Reuben isn’t big on Earth food though, so he sneakily fed most of his sausage to Minerva, who was now his faithful shadow.
    The other slaves stared at us quite openly while we were eating. But suspicious slaves were the least of my worries. For absolutely no reason, I was deeply depressed.
    Reuben put his arm round me. “You forgot your protection procedure didn’t you?” he murmured.
    “Might have done,” I admitted.
    “Well, do it now. This house is seriously toxic.”
    It was a relief to know these weren’t just my personal bad feelings. But where were they coming from?
    “You think there are PODS, here in this house?” I asked nervously.
    “Something just doesn’t feel right. You should stay with Aurelia tonight.”
    That was easy to arrange. When I told my mistress I was too scared to sleep by myself, she immediately offered to let me sleep on a couch in her room.
    “Won’t the other slaves think it’s strange?”
    “Of course not,” she laughed. “I’ll just say you’re my personal bodyguard!”
    As Aurelia’s ornatrix , I had to unpack her clothes and put them away in the cedar-wood closets in her room. Then I carefully set out all her little perfume bottles, tweezers, brush, comb, pretty hairpins and so forth on her dressing table. Before she went to bed, I had to help her remove her jewellery and lock it in a special casket. You couldn’t be too careful in