In Bed With Lord Byron

laughed
– well, that was certainly more imaginative than the ‘f ’ word. I wish I’d known that earlier; I could have used it on Ovid in the amphitheatre.
    Suddenly I became aware of a shadow falling on the wall.
    Someone had crept up behind me.
    I let out a gasp and spun round.
    Ovid.
    He planted both hands on the wall on either side of me, trapping me, his piercing gaze pinned on me. Despite myself, I was amazed to find an electric frisson ripple up my spine. I gazed at his
lips and then looked down, appalled.
    ‘You thought you’d lost me, didn’t you?’
    ‘I’d hoped so,’ I sighed.
    ‘Well, now I know your secret,’ he said.
    What on earth did he mean? I wondered shakily. He couldn’t have seen the time machine; and even if he had, nobody in Roman times would have been able to conceive of what it was . . .
    ‘What secret?’ I pretended to sound confident, looking him boldly in the eye.
    Ovid took a lock of my hair and gently breathed in its scent. It was almost romantic – if it hadn’t been for the arrogant look on his face. Incensed, I tried to push him away and he
laughed.
    ‘The scent of your hair – the scent of you – it isn’t Roman. Your skin is too pale. You’re not from around here. You don’t even know your way around Rome.
You’re an escaped slave, aren’t you?’
    I was so astonished, all I could do was stare at him openmouthed. Then I pushed him aside and started to walk away. He came after me, taking my arm. I stopped, meeting his gaze again.
    ‘Don’t you realise the trouble you’re in? I could easily tell the Emperor and have you passed over to the lions.’
    God, what a
bully.
For a moment I considered slapping him and making a run for it. But he was extremely muscly and his grip around my wrist was painfully strong. Then inspiration struck:
I would play the helpless female.
    I pretended to cry. It wasn’t hard; I just thought of Anthony and our row and I was surprised at how easily the tears welled up.
    As I’d hoped, Ovid suddenly became manly and gentle.
    ‘I promise to keep your secret safe,’ he said. ‘But on one condition.’
    ‘What?’ I asked nervously.
    ‘You become
my
slave.’
    Well, I didn’t have much choice, did I? All the same, as he walked me to his house, I felt tickled with excitement.
    Ovid’s home clearly confirmed his status as a patrician – an upper-class Roman – as opposed to a lower-class plebeian.
    We passed the pleb dwellings along the way. They lived in wooden flats, where entire families were crowded into one room. Ovid’s house, by contrast, was a lavish red affair with a tiled
roof, the rooms arranged around a central courtyard. Inside, our feet clicked on the beautiful mosaics that wound across the floors like snakes.
    We passed a beautiful slave girl with dark hair. She was pregnant – in fact she looked as though she was ready to give birth at any minute.
    ‘Tiryns!’ Ovid stopped her. ‘Have you seen Adrasteia?’
    Who? Then I realised. His wife. Of course, I should have known.
    Why did I feel such a sharp stab of disappointment in my heart?
    ‘She’s just back from the baths,’ Tiryns said. I noticed that she was so intimidated by her employer that she could barely look him in the eye.
    ‘Ovid!’ A voice rang out and Adrasteia appeared in a doorway.
    Ovid’s wife was tall, voluptuous and rather intimidating; her face was stern, with sharp black eyes beneath swooping brows.
    ‘I’ve, ah, got us a new slave girl,’ Ovid said. I stood there feeling like a lemon, as she swept those black eyes over me. Automatically I found myself tightening up my
shoulders as though on the parade ground.
    ‘Ovid,’ she said. Just one word was all that was needed to convey her annoyance. ‘Who is she and how much did she cost?’
    ‘Ah – what did you say your name was?’ Ovid asked me.
    ‘You don’t even know her name!’ his wife exclaimed, laughing cruelly.
    ‘I’m . . . ah . . .’ What? Lucius? Or was that a boy’s name? All I could think of was those poems by Catullus, the weepy ones about the sparrow and his beloved . . .
‘Lesbia,’ I said. ‘I’m Lesbia.’
    ‘Well, Lesbia,’ said his wife archly, ‘Ovid would be grateful if you would wait outside in the corridor while we discuss matters in our bedroom.’
    The door closed on me and I waited, trying to pretend not to notice when their voices began to rise.
    ‘Where’ve you been all day? So I’m left to run the house while you go off