My gran once told me that when she first moved to London in the 1980s, taxi drivers would refuse to drive her home from the West End because she lived ‘South of the River’.
She said other Londoners have always looked down their noses at those of us who live in south London. I guess it was just the same in Roman times, because everyone was heading for the bridge so they could cross over to the northern bank.
As we shuffled along with the other people I tried to get more information about the blue-eyed girl with the ivory knife. ‘When did you come to Londinium?’ I asked Lollia. ‘And where are you from?’
‘I was born in Lepcis Magna, in the province of Libya,’ she said. ‘We came here five years ago, when I was nine. My father was in the army,’ she said. ‘After he retired, he started working for his uncle as a buyer and seller of spices.’
My stomach gave a ginormous rumble.
Lollia and Plecta shared a look and giggled.
‘Are you hungry?’ asked Lollia.
Suddenly I was hungry. ‘Starving!’ I said. And then my empty stomach sank as I remembered. ‘But I’m fasting.’
‘Are you doing a diatritus?’ asked Lollia.
It was a Greek word, but I had no idea what it meant.
‘What’s that?’
‘A fast lasting three days,’ said Lollia. ‘You do it to bring on the crisis. I’m an expert on fevers,’ she said proudly. ‘I get them all the time.’
‘I’m doing it for religious reasons,’ I lied.
‘Oh! Which god do you worship?’
I almost told them I worshipped Jesus Christ, but remembered just in time that Romans liked to throw Christians to the lions.
While I was trying to think of a safe god, Lollia said, ‘I worship the Great Mother of course. But Dionysus is my favourite. The leopard is his special pet.’
I frowned. ‘Isn’t Dionysus all about wine?’
‘And music and dance and most of all plays!’ said Lollia. ‘Pater says Dionysus is the most powerful deity, because he is the god of stories.’ She put her hand to her cheek. ‘Eheu!’ Alas!
‘Is your tooth hurting, mistress?’ asked Plecta.
‘Yes. The oil of clove has worn off.’ Lollia reached down the front of her tunic and produced a miniature amphora made of bluish-green glass. After using her front teeth to pull out a tiny cork, she tipped some of the golden oil onto her forefinger and rubbed it on one of her lower left molars. When she put back the little cork, I caught a whiff and realised that was the smell I had mistaken for apple pie, probably because my gran puts cloves in her recipe.
We had come to a standstill because we had finally reached the bridge. The road was crowded with braying animals, creaking carts and shouting Londoners. The traffic was hardly moving at all.
‘Ask someone what’s happened,’ Lollia whispered in my ear. ‘Just say, “Quid agitur?”’
‘Why don’t you ask someone?’ I said.
‘Because I’m a girl!’
‘I thought you were a woman.’
Lollia rolled her eyes. ‘Women can’t ask either. It’s too bold.’
The man in front of me had a pointy-hooded cloak and a walking stick. I tapped his shoulder. When he turned to look at me I tried not to gasp. He had a big lump of flesh growing out of the side of his cheek and neck. I managed a smile and said politely, ‘Quid agitur?’
He scowled and in heavily accented Latin said something about a donkey. Apparently one had stopped on the bridge and refused to budge.
The man muttered something else. His accent was so strong that I only caught the word ludi, which means plays, games or fun.
‘Oh no,’ said Lollia. ‘He says if we’re going to the games we’ll never make it. They start in an hour.’
Suddenly a great cheer went up and people started laughing and making a bee sound.
‘What is it?’ I said. ‘What’s happening?’
‘There!’ said Lollia, and pointed. ‘Acrobat girls!’
Four young women wearing nothing but leather bikinis seemed to be walking on the heads and shoulders of the crowd. Their long dark hair swung in beaded plaits around their shoulders and their bare arms were painted with blue spirals. When one of them did a kind of cartwheel, I realised what was happening.
‘I think they’re walking on the side of the bridge,’ I said. I tried to think of a way to add like a gymnast on a balance beam but couldn’t think of the words in Greek.
Lollia gasped and looked at Plecta. Her blue eyes sparkled with excitement.
‘Mistress, no!’ cried Plecta. ‘We couldn’t!’
‘Yes, we could!’ said Lollia.
‘What?’ I asked.
‘Plecta used to be an acrobat,’ said Lollia. ‘She’s been teaching me how to do tricks, including walking on the rope.’ The word she used was funambulist.
I looked at Plecta. ‘You mean you could do what those girls just did?’
Plecta inclined her head for yes, her pale cheeks flushed with pleasure.
‘No,’ I said firmly. ‘You two might be able to walk on the side of the bridge. But I can’t.’
‘Wool fluff!’ said Lollia. ‘It’s easy.’
‘We will help you,’ said Plecta, and then to Lollia, ‘We should do it barefoot, mistress. It will be easier.’
‘Yes!’ agreed Lollia, and extended her foot so that Plecta could crouch to unlace her pretty red leather shoes. Lollia turned to me. ‘I’ll lead the way. You can follow me and Plecta will follow you to make sure you don’t fall. The trick,’ she added, ‘is to look at the point where you want to go, the end of the bridge. Oh, and you’d better take off your carbatinae too. Tie the laces together and hang them around your neck.’
And so it was that I found myself walking on the right-hand guard rail of Londinium’s first bridge.