The Time Travel Diaries by Caroline Lawrence

Author:Caroline Lawrence [Caroline Lawrence]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bonnier Publishing Fiction
Published: 2019-03-24T16:00:00+00:00

28

Good Omens

‘Why was I looking for you?’ I repeated, partly to give myself time to think. ‘Um, a man who lives in my faraway country sent me to find out if you are well.’

‘Your patron? What’s his name?’

I couldn’t remember the Latin word for Daisy so I made one up. ‘Dasius,’ I said. Then I remembered that Roman men had at least three names. So I expanded: ‘Marcus Solomon Dasius.’

‘Does he know my father?’ she cried. ‘Marcus Lollius Honoratus? He is a dealer in spices and perfume.’

‘Um, yes, I think so.’

‘Then you are practically in our familia. You must come home with me and wait for him.’ She caught my hand and gave it a tug. ‘We’ll get you some dry clothes and better shoes.’

‘Do you live near here?’

She pointed. ‘Just back there.’

My mind was racing. I probably had enough information about her to get my bonus, but only if the world I knew was still waiting for me. And I realised how much I wanted to get back to that world.

Rule number three: as little interaction as possible.

‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘But I lost my slave in the shipwreck. I have to go back across the river and look for him.’ I was getting used to speaking Greek with strange round vowels.

Lollia’s sapphire eyes got even brighter. ‘Oh, Alexandros! Take us with you! We want to see the gladiator games, don’t we, Plecta?’

It must have taken a lot of courage for Plecta to do what she did next.

‘Mistress,’ she said, ‘we cannot go there alone. We should not even be out of the house!’

Lollia hauled back to slap Plecta, but I grabbed her wrist. Lollia stared at me in astonishment.

‘We don’t smack our slaves in my country,’ I said gently.

‘But she’s impudent!’

‘No, she cares about you.’

Lollia stamped the muddy road with her foot. ‘But it might be my last chance to go! Tertius will never let me see the gladiators.’ She looked at Plecta. ‘Alexandros can show us the way!’

‘I don’t know the way!’ I protested. Then I frowned at her. ‘What do you mean, your “last chance to go”?’

Lollia and Plecta looked at each other. Then Lollia took a deep breath and said, ‘In three days I’m getting married.’

I stared. ‘Married? Aren’t you too young?’

Lollia lifted her chin a little and looked down on me. ‘I’ll be fourteen in the autumn,’ she said. ‘And I am a woman, not a child.’ Then she grabbed my hands with both of hers. Her fingers had slight calluses on the tips. ‘Alexandros! Please come with us? I’m sure the gods have sent you.’

‘Isn’t it dangerous for you to be out on your own?’ I asked. ‘Like Plecta said?’

‘I won’t be on my own. And I have my lucky knife,’ she said. ‘The leopard of Dionysus will protect me from evil. And all the omens were good this morning.’

My mind was racing.

The blue-eyed girl with the ivory leopard knife had practically fallen into my lap. But I didn’t want to mess up my world by interacting too much in this one.

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