Yeah, well, that's what he is, rather....
Anyway, he and his dad are hightailing it out of the story,
but where does our heroine face her next peril?
Junia was being transported on a sort of wooden wheelbarrow, bumping bruisingly as the Wardens proceeded rapidly along the main street. It was not comfortable, and quite embarrassing, as she was trussed naked in an unladylike posture that attracted some attention from drunken revellers in the busy evening, though the sight of a captured runaway being carted off to her fate was not out of the ordinary.
I suppose I’ll be branded, she thought glumly, on my forehead with an F for fugitive. That’s not the way I want it. F-brand slavegirls end up in brothels. And only after they’ve been scourged and hung out to dry on crosses. I fear I’m in a pickle!
Suddenly the leading Warden signalled to his colleague to pause, at a junction with a narrow side-street. He glanced around a bit anxiously, as if to make sure no-one who mattered was watching, then he gestured, grunting “Down here!”
They turned and hurried along the alley-way, making several more turns through shadowy side-streets and snickets. Funny, thought Junia, this isn’t the way to the Basilica, I thought they'd taking me there, to the Cohors Urbana HQ. They must have a local Interrogation Centre for this district.
At last they came to a small open square, with a taverna lit by burning torches along one side. From where Junia was lying, the most striking thing she could see was a magnificent white horse tethered to a ring in the wall at one end of the square. An equally impressive young woman, with fine blonde hair, was drinking at a bench close to the stallion. She stood up as the party arrived,
“Hi! You’ve got her! Good work. Get her untied.”
The junior Warden rolled Junia over and quickly un-knotted her, she hopped off the barrow then, deciding the lady was likely to be someone requiring respect, dropped to her knees as a good slavegirl must. While she was being freed, the woman handed the senior Warden a leather purse, he examined its contents, several silver coins, nodded satisfaction, and signalled to his colleague, both quickly vanished with their barrow into the darkness down a back-lane.
“What do you think you’re doing down there? Take a seat, you’re my guest – I expect you’re hungry, do you fancy a chilly fruit cream?”
“Ooh, yes please Mistress!” responded Junia, flustered at this unexpected change of fortune, as she got to her feet and perched on the drinking-bench. The woman signalled to a slavegirl inside the building, “Hey, get us a fruit-cup!”
“You can cut out the slave-stuff, kneeling and calling me Mistress, we don’t do that where I come from,” said the blonde. “I’m Pollia – well, Polly really, but these Latins call me Pollia. You must be Junia – or Duo, which do you prefer?”
“Um – I don’t know, I don’t really mind Mis – er - Polly…” Junia looked thoughtful for a moment, “Really, I feel best being Duo.”
“Right, Duo it is. Here’s your cup, tuck in!”
The tavern-slave served Duo with a bronze bowl filled with a luscious mixture of cream, eggs, forest berries and a good splash of sweet wine, all chilled with ice from the mountains. She really was hungry, the miserable cook at Blattus's house had fed her no more than a few mouldy scraps, she eagerly helped herself to the feast. Polly watched, amused.
“Your tits look all right.”
“Er… thankyou,” responded Duo, through cream-coated lips.
“I mean, you’ve still got them on. Melissa said I’d need my nipple-restoring kit.”
“Oh yes,” Duo chuckled, “I persuaded them to send sweetbreads instead.”
Polly laughed, “That was cool. Did they hurt you at all?”
“Not really. Iobbus was into oriental bondage, but he hadn’t got a clue, I had to tell him how to do it. But he didn’t really hurt – the hot candle-wax was quite exciting!”
“Weren’t you raped?”
“No, not quite – I think I was just going to be when the Wardens turned up. A bit of a downer really.”
“More so for Iobbus!” Polly giggled, “Anyway, looks like I won’t need to open my emergency kit. Sup up now, we need to be off, we don’t want be here when the Vigiles come snooping.”
Polly tossed a coin to the slavegirl, who looked surprised and pleased, then led Duo to the mounting block, helped her get astride the horse, untied the reins, and vaulted up herself.
“Hold on tight Duo! We’re off to Isabella’s!”
At once they were galloping at breakneck speed through the streets and alleyways of Rome, scattering pedestrians, swerving around wagons and market-stalls, soon they were out through the Esquiline Gate into the starlit countryside.
“Wow, this is some horse!” gasped Duo.
“Yep, he’s classy isn’t he? Been featured on Top Harness, you know, Ieremia Claxon rode him - just before he got the sack!”
Duo’s head was in a whirl, what with the thrilling night-time ride and all the strange turns her life was taking, she was struggling to get a handle on it all. Remembering what Polly had said when she introduced herself,
“Polly,” she asked, “where do you come from?”
“Oh, the Twenty-First Century. I’m a time-traveller.”
“Cor!” was all Duo could say, all the more baffled - the Twenty-First Century, is that some far-flung corner of the Empire? But Polly continued,
“I came with The Doctor, to check out Ancient Rome, but I met Isabella and she took a fancy to me and I fancied her, so we hoodwinked The Doctor and sent him back to the Megalithic.”
Duo pondered for a while, decided she couldn’t make head or tail of that information, so tried another tack,
“Isabella, is she the Insatiable?”
“That’s my Izzy!”
“She bought my sister in the slave-market.”
“I know, Una. That’s why I’ve come for you – Una got a message from Melissa through Crucis Fora – you know CF?”
“Oh yes, my friend Uli told me about that.”
“Well she said you’d been kidnapped by that thug Blattus and she’d better get me to winkle you out.”
“Ah!” Now things were beginning to make sense to Duo, well, a bit of sense anyway.
“So you bribed the Slave-Wardens?”
“Uh-huh.”
The moon was rising over the mountains to the east, bathing in her white light the extensive vineyards swathing the hillsides, Villa Isabella crowned the summit ahead.
“And what do you know?" Polly added, "There was a PS to Melissa’s message. It just said ‘Are you the Polly Perkins who was at Hallam High back in the Twentieth Century?’ Blow me down, Melissa’s a time-traveller too, we were at school together – she was head girl of course!”
(
footnote - no resemblance to any real establishment of that name is intended, Hallam is just an old name for the district where Melissa and Julie's home city now stands 
)
)
