I, Claudia

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Even for July, the streets seemed hotter and busier than ever as Claudia pushed her way across the Forum, grateful that she didn’t have to walk very often. She’d got the litter to drop her at the arch of Augustus, but there was no escaping the last few hundred paces she’d have to cover on foot. One of the senators-she thought it might be that odious little Ascanius-was waving his arms and ranting on about food subsidies to a gathering crowd.

To avoid recognition, she pulled her palla low over her eyes and pointed her face to the ground. Turning into the Via Sacra, she collided with a small boy in porridge-stained rags, his filthy hands clutching a pig’s head which he’d undoubtedly stolen.

‘Out of my way, you poxy little oik!’

Claudia elbowed him aside and thought she caught the words ‘Up yours, missus’, but when she spun round he’d disappeared into the crush of lawyers, vendors, fortune-tellers and dancers. Dodging a porter’s pole, she turned left into a narrow sidestreet, then, glancing over her shoulder ducked down a deserted alleyway, from which point her sense of smell led her forward.

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