Copyright

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First published in Great Britain in hardback by HarperCollins Children’s Books 2004

First published in Great Britain in paperback by HarperCollins Children’s Books 2005

This edition published by HarperCollins Children’s Books 2017

Cover design © HarperCollinsPublishers 2017

Cover illustration © Marc Martin 2017

Text copyright © Lynne Reid Banks 2004

Lynne Reid Banks asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

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Source ISBN: 9780007462940

Ebook Edition © 2017 ISBN: 9780007349913

Version: 2017-02-01

Dedication

For my son, Gillon Stephenson

Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Prologue

Chapter One: In the Hold

Chapter Two: Caesar’s Daughter

Chapter Three: The Naming

Chapter Four: Visits

Chapter Five: Marcus

Chapter Six: Aurelia to the Circus

Chapter Seven: ‘The Greatest Treat’

Chapter Eight: The Trick

Chapter Nine: The Catastrophe

Chapter Ten: Freedom

Chapter Eleven: Julius in Chains

Chapter Twelve: Aurelia’s Secret

Chapter Thirteen: Aurelia’s Sacrifice

Chapter Fourteen: The Ides of July

Chapter Fifteen: In the Arena

Chapter Sixteen: A Triumph of Will

Epilogue

Author’s Note

About the Author

Books by Lynne Reid Banks

About the Publisher

PROLOGUE

The two tiger cubs, romping in the jungle undergrowth near their den, prick up their ears.

While they play by themselves, they always half listen for their mother’s return. But these sounds are not what they want to hear. They are strange and alarming. Loud, staccato beats, clattering and banging – hacking and chopping – a trampling of green stems. And voices. Not animal voices, all familiar to them. These are voices alien to the jungle. And when they begin, other sounds, the sounds that make a constant, reassuring background to the cubs’ lives, fall silent.

They look around, anxiously. Something is coming. Where is their mother?

As the barrage of noise gets nearer, there is a sudden wild whirring over their heads. They look up, and see a blur of colour and affrighted movement as a flock of birds takes flight, disturbing the leaves.

Next, bands of monkeys go fleeing hand over hand through the canopy above, chattering and screaming in terror.

It is a signal. Beasts that have been hiding, spring up. The cubs see a buck stumbling clumsily among the trees, not far from them. At a greater distance, they hear an elephant trumpet a warning. Smaller creatures flee invisibly but audibly through the undergrowth. Every sound they hear seems to urge them to run. But they do not. The flight instinct conflicts with their mother’s training – they must stay by the den, where she can find them.

They crouch together, keeping low. There is a brief pause. Then suddenly the line of hunters breaks through the jungle thickets into the small clearing in front of the den.

The bigger cub tries to run now, but it is too late.

He is pounced on, seized by the scruff of the neck, and thrust into a sack. He squirms and squeals and tries to bite his captor, but it is useless. The smaller cub doesn’t even manage to struggle – he is enclosed in a dark, noisome place, and swung upward. They can see nothing now, but they hear the sound of trampling underneath them, and the ear-hurting other sounds fade. They are bumped up and down, their bodies distressed, their minds blank with bewilderment.

*

The two hunters who carry the sacks reach the edge of the forest where their horses wait. They hand their burdens to others while they mount, then take the sacks again and loop them over the pommels of their saddles.

The horses can smell the tiger-scent and begin neighing and curvetting, trying to get away from it. Their skilled riders use this fear to urge them forward. The tigress, they know, cannot be far away.

Behind them, in the jungle, the noise of the beaters continues. More beasts are being hunted and trapped.

The moment their heads are freed, the horses rear up, then gallop for the riverbank, where the boats wait.

With their goal in sight, the riders’ hair stands suddenly on end as they hear behind them the ferocious roar of a charging tiger. The horses bolt. Reaching the ramp that connects the bank with the first boat, the leading horse bounds up it. The one behind utters a scream as it feels the tigress’s claws tear its haunch – then, wild-eyed, it plunges up on to the deck.

The hunters disengage the sacks and fling them expertly to the waiting sailors. Then they jump from their horses, and turn at the rail to watch as others repel their pursuer.

As the cubs are carried down to where cages wait in the grim bowels of the ship, they cannot know that their last chance of rescue lies at the foot of the gangway with a spear through her heart.

Chapter One
IN THE HOLD

The two cubs huddled together, their front paws intertwined, their heads and flanks pressed to each other.

Darkness crushed them, and bad smells, and motion. And fear.

The darkness was total. It was not what they were used to. In the jungle there is always light for a tiger’s eyes. It filters down through the thickest leaves from a generous sky that is never completely dark. It reflects off pools and glossy leaves and the eyes of other creatures. Darkness in the jungle is a reassurance. It says it’s time to come out of the lair, to play, to eat, to learn the night. It’s a safe darkness, a familiar, right darkness. This darkness was all wrong.

The smells were bad because there was no way to bury their scat. And there was the smell of other animals, and their fear. And there was a strange smell they didn’t recognise, a salt smell like blood. But it wasn’t blood.

It was bad being enclosed. All the smells that should have dissipated on the wind were held in, close. Cloying the sensitive nostrils. Choking the breath. Confusing and deceiving, so that the real smells, the smells that mattered, couldn’t be found, however often the cubs put up their heads and reached for them, sniffing in the foul darkness.

The motion was the worst. The ground under them was not safe and solid. It pitched and rocked. Sometimes it leant so far that they slid helplessly until they came up against something like hard, cold, thin trees. These were too close together to let the cubs squeeze between them. Next moment the ground tipped the other way. The cubs slid through the stinking straw till they fell against the cold trees on the other side. When the unnatural motion grew really strong, the whole enclosure they were in slid and crashed against other hard things, frightening the cubs so that they snarled and panted and clawed at the hard non-earth under their pads, trying in vain to steady themselves.

They would put back their heads and howl, and try to bite the cold thin things that stopped them being free. Then their slaver sometimes had blood in it.

When the awful pitching and rolling stopped and they could once again huddle up close, their hearts stopped racing, and they could lick each other’s faces for reassurance.

They were missing their mother – their Big One. They waited for her return – she had always come back before. But she was gone for ever. No more warm coat, no rough, comforting, cleansing tongue. No more good food, no big body to clamber on, no tail to chase, pretending it was prey. No more lessons. No more love and safety.

All their natural behaviour was held in abeyance. They no longer romped and played. There was no space and they had no spirit for it. Mostly they lay together and smelt each other’s good smell through all the bad smells.

As days and nights passed in this terrifying, sickening fashion, they forgot their mother, because only Now mattered for them. Now’s bewilderment, fear, helplessness and disgust.

There was only one good time in all the long hours. They came to look forward to it, to know when it was coming.

They began to recognise when the undifferentiated thudding overhead, where the sky ought to be, presaged the opening of a piece of that dead sky, and the descent from this hole of the two-legged male animals that brought them food. Then they would jump to their feet and mewl and snarl with excitement and eagerness. They would stretch their big paws through the narrow space between the cold trees and, when the food came near, try to hook it with their claws and draw it close more quickly. The food, raw meat on a long, flat piece of wood, would be shoved through a slot down near the ground, the meat – never quite enough to fill their stomachs – scraped off, and the wood withdrawn. Water came in a bowl through the same slot. They often fought over it and spilt it. They were nearly always thirsty.

The male two-legs made indecipherable noises: ‘Eat up, boys! Eat and grow and get strong. You’re going to need it, where you’re going!’

And then there would be a sound like a jackal’s yelping and the two-legs would move off and feed the other creatures imprisoned in different parts of the darkness.

Brown bears. Jackals. A group of monkeys, squabbling and chattering hysterically. There were wild dogs, barking incessantly and giving off a terrible stench of anger and fear. There were peacocks with huge rustling tails, that spoke in screeches. And somewhere quite far away, a she-elephant, with something fastened to her legs that made an unnatural clanking sound as she shifted her great body from foot to foot in the creaking, shifting, never-ending dark.

One night the dogs began to bite and tear at each other amid an outburst of snarling and shrieking sounds. The cubs were afraid and huddled down in the farthest corner of their prison. But they could hear the wild battles as one dog after another succumbed and was torn to pieces. The next time the sky opened, the two-legged animals found a scene of carnage, with only two dogs left alive.

‘There’ll be trouble now,’ one muttered, as he dragged the remains out from a half-opening while others held the survivors off with pointed sticks.

‘I said they should have put ’em all in separate cages. They’ll say we didn’t feed ’em enough.’

‘Better cut the corpses up and give the meat to the tigers. Dogs is one thing, but if we lose one of them cubs, we’ll be dog meat ourselves.’

After that there was no shortage of food and the cubs spent most of the time when they weren’t eating, sleeping off their huge meals. But their sleep was not peaceful.

The cubs had no desire to fight or kill each other. They didn’t know they were brothers, but each knew that the other was all he had. One was the first-born and the larger. He was the leader. In the jungle, he had been fed first and most, and had led their games and pretend hunts. He was also the more intelligent of the two. He came to understand that it was no use howling and scratching at the ground and rubbing backwards and forwards with cheek and sides against the cold, close-together barriers, or trying to chew them to pieces. When his brother did these things, he would knock him down with his paw and lie on him to stop him.

The younger one would submit. It was better, he found. His paws, throat and teeth stopped being sore. He learnt to save his energies. But the misery was still there. It only stopped while he ate, and when he curled up with his brother and they licked each other’s faces, and slept.

*

At last it ended.

The sky-hole opened and stayed open and a new smell came through. They smelt earth and vegetation – not what they’d been used to, but bearing some comforting relation to it.

They stood together side by side, alert and waiting for what would happen next. The two-legged animals were running about over their heads and making loud noises with their mouths. The sky-hole grew bigger, and at last they could see the blue of the real sky over their heads. Something came down from above, grasped their prison and swung it upwards! It rocked and swayed and the cubs fell on their sides and couldn’t get up without falling down again. After a short journey, there was a hard jolt. Then two-legged ones gathered around them, peering at them, their loud mouth-noises coming from all directions.

One of them put its long-toed hairless paw in between the thin trees. The bigger cub snarled and snapped at it furiously. It was snatched away and there was an outcry.

‘It tried to bite me!’

‘Stupid! What do you expect? It’s wild, it’s not used to being petted.’

‘But they look so sweet, like big kittens—’

‘Do you need to lose half your hand to find out that they’re not? They’re for the arena, they have to be fierce.’

The cubs watched warily as the other captives were lowered to the ground near them, and soon the crowd had moved away to inspect the bears, the peacocks, the monkeys. When the she-elephant was carefully lowered from above, there were gasps and shouts.

‘Great gods! What a size! Keep clear of it!’

‘Will the Emperor show it at the Colosseum? Will they bait it, like the bears, with dogs?’

‘Perhaps. I hope so! What a fabulous show that would be!’

‘How many dogs will it take to kill a thing that size?’

‘No, Caesar won’t have it baited or killed. They never kill the elephants. Perhaps he’ll ride on it. Think of that! Our great Emperor on the tallest beast in the world, riding along the Appian Way! What a triumph!’

Thick vines were joined to the cubs’ prison and by them it was dragged on to the back of some unalive thing that nonetheless moved. It was pulled by animals whose feet made a hard, clattering sound against the ground. The cubs looked about them. There was sunlight, but not filtered through greenery. It flooded unhindered over green and yellow stretches of ground. The tigers had never left the jungle, never seen fields and crops, and these puzzled them, but at least it was natural earth and growing things – they could smell them and they longed to be free to bound away and seek safety and a hiding place. Freedom was something they had not forgotten.

Behind them came the other captives, dragged along like them. The bears, on their hind legs, held the prison-trees and roared at the crowd. The jackals pawed and whined. The monkeys leapt about, twisting their heads and gazing here and there with their little bright eyes. The two surviving dogs lay licking their wounds. The elephant stood swaying on her huge feet.

The motion went on for a long time. After a while, the cubs grew tired and lay down and slept.

When they woke up, they saw that the natural scenes had gone. Now they could understand nothing of what they saw. They were moving among many two-legs and behind these were big cliffs of stone that had caves in them where two-legs were passing in and out, or standing in the higher ones, looking out. Their interesting but nose-wrinkling smell and the noise of their mouths were everywhere.

The cubs dangled their tongues and let the scent of warm edible flesh enter their noses.

Chapter Two
CAESAR’S DAUGHTER

The Lady Aurelia was reclining on a couch on the balcony of her bedroom. She was twelve years old but already so beautiful and womanly that her father, the Emperor, had issued a protective edict that no man might be alone in her presence without his express permission. The balcony overlooked the palace gardens, and beyond them, three of Rome’s fabled ‘seven hills’ could be seen, covered with a mixture of sun-bleached stone buildings and cypress trees, their stately dark fingers wagging at the sky as if admonishing the gods for not giving Aurelia enough to do.

Her mother had hinted again, only that morning, that Aurelia was indulging in too much idleness and daydreaming. As a Roman emperor’s daughter she already had some duties, but they were not of a kind to alleviate the boredom she felt in doing them or in looking ahead to doing them again tomorrow. She had her regular lessons, of course, but only the musical ones actually engaged her, and that was as much because of the charms of her music teacher, a young Assyrian with coal-black curly hair and nervous but excited eyes, as for any fascination with the lute. Her other tutors were old and deadly dull, and didn’t seem to realise that she was quicker-witted than they were, and usually grasped what they were mumbling at her long before they’d got to the end of their meandering sentences.

Aurelia had all the intelligence that her clever parents could bequeath her. But it seemed it wasn’t going to do her much good.

Of course, her looks would do her good, if being helped to a rich husband was considered good. The son of a senator, perhaps, or an officer in the Praetorian Guard. She was aware that her mother was already on the lookout for a suitable match, though she would not be expected to marry until she was thirteen, or even fourteen if she were lucky.

She sighed from her very depths. Other young girls – the few her parents considered suitable for her to associate with – seemed to talk and think of little but beautiful young men and marriage, but the idea of following in her mother’s footsteps – marriage at thirteen, motherhood a year later, a life of matronly duties and domesticity – appealed to Aurelia about as strongly as being tied up in the arena and fed to the wild beasts, like those strange, death-inviting Christians.

No, no. Of course not, not that. Aurelia stopped sighing and shuddered. She turned her mind away, accompanying the mental trick with a swift quarter-turn of her head. She had learnt early how to swamp ugly imaginings with pleasant ones.

‘I am so lucky, not to be a Christian,’ she said aloud. This was part of the ritual of drowning fearful or unpleasant thoughts.

She was lucky. She had grown up knowing that she was. This was part of her cleverness, because others in her fortunate situation might have taken it entirely for granted, and not bothered comparing themselves with others. But from her earliest childhood Aurelia had observed the difference between the way she lived and the way the common people of Rome lived, in their several social layers, right to the bottom where there were slaves and the poor. It was a very great difference, and she pondered it every time she left the palace.

Even inside it, the palace servants, though relatively comfortable, led lives of terrifying insecurity. Once, five years ago, she had seen one of her own handmaids cruelly flogged. It had happened as a direct result of Aurelia complaining about her for some trifle. When a young child witnesses such a thing and knows herself to be the cause, she learns some lessons. The simplest would be to harden her heart. That’s what others did. But Aurelia learnt something better – to control her temper and to deal with her servants herself.

But she had learnt something more from hearing her maid’s screams. She had found out her place in the world, that she had power, and that her father had much more – almost an infinite amount. Later she grasped something of what power means. What she didn’t yet understand was why some have it and others lie under its lash. If her tutors could have taught her that, she would have listened to them with all her attention. But when she asked them, they seemed not only unwilling, but unable to answer. Some of her questions scandalised them.

‘All societies have hierarchies,’ she was told. ‘All societies have higher and lower, masters and slaves.’

‘It must be terrible to be a slave!’

‘You must not entertain such thoughts. Waste no pity on slaves. They have no responsibilities, no traditions to maintain, no laws to make and keep. They have no concerns about food and shelter. They only have to do what they’re told, and live out their simple lives in peace and order.’

‘And the animals?’

‘What animals?’

‘For example, the animals in the arena that are set to fight the gladiators, and each other. They’re usually killed in the end, and they’ve done no wrong. Why do they have to be hurt?’

Her teacher stared at her.

‘Why does any living being suffer? It is all the will of the gods. It is their design. It is blasphemy to question the order of nature. Surely you’re not questioning your father’s right to show the people signs of his power, to entertain them with circuses?’

Aurelia was silent. But on another occasion, she asked: ‘What is Christianity? Why is it so dangerous that people are killed for it?’

This time her tutor threw up his hands. ‘Don’t you know that Christians don’t believe in our gods – that they’ve set up a single, all-powerful god above ours? Could any heresy be worse? Come, enough of this idle tongue-wagging! You must stop asking foolish questions and get down to the study of the heavens.’ He wagged a finger at her. ‘Sometimes it is hard not to suspect you of harbouring heretical thoughts.’

Heretical thoughts. Thoughts outside what was permitted.

Aurelia knew she had many such thoughts and questions. With good reason this simple fact terrified her, and she tried to suppress them. Even being Caesar’s daughter would not save her from some dreadful punishment if it was believed she criticised him, even in the privacy of her heart.

*

Now she rose languidly and walked slowly through the heat to the fountain in the centre of the courtyard of her apartment. Its constant music and the cooler air around it always soothed her. In the pool at the fountain’s foot there were water lilies, and in their shadow exotic fish, brought from afar. She crouched beside the parapet and trailed her hot hand in the limpid water, letting the tinkle and splash of the fountain make her mind a harmless blank.

A large orange-coloured fish came to nose her fingers inquisitively.

She did her trick, something she’d discovered for herself. She let her fingers move gently in the water, and the fish glided in between them and held itself there with lazy motions of its tail while she very delicately stroked its slippery sides. She concentrated intently. She knew that if she moved her hand quickly enough she could stick her forefinger and thumb into the fish’s gills and, in a swift movement, lift it out of the water. She could capture it and end its life if she chose to. She knew this because she’d done it once, held a trapped fish firmly out of the water, felt it struggling in her hands, felt its struggles cease… Afterwards she’d felt sick. She’d thrown the dead thing back in the pond, where it turned on its side and floated until a servant came and cleared it away.

Now she tickled the fish for a few minutes and then lifted her hand suddenly and watched it flash away amid the bright drops from her fingers.

That was power. To have a life in your hand. Even a fish’s. She felt the thrill of it. But something told her it was an evil power – to kill because you could, without reason, for pleasure. She felt dimly that the true power was to withhold the death-stroke, to let the creature go when you could have killed it.

Such deep thoughts tired her. She sighed and went back to her day bed.

She had hardly settled on it when one of her maids came soft-footedly across the marble tiles to her side. She was breathing fast and her face was flushed.

‘My lady, someone is here to see you. He – he has brought a gift.’ She looked strange, as if she were torn between hysterical laughter, and fear.

Aurelia sat up sharply.

‘Who is it?’

‘I don’t know. But he says your honourable father sent him.’

‘Well, send him in!’

‘No – no, I can’t, my lady! You must come out and see what he’s brought. He can’t bring it in here!’ She let out a high-pitched giggle of excitement.

Aurelia pulled the girl down beside her. ‘Tell me,’ she said. ‘Tell me at once what it is.’

‘It’s – it’s a…’

‘Yes, go on! What’s the matter with you?’

‘It’s a tiger, my lady!’

Aurelia was silent for a moment, puzzled.

‘You mean, a tiger-skin rug.’

‘No.’

‘A stuffed tiger.’

‘No, my lady! A real, live one! Oh, please come and see it!’

Aurelia pushed her away, threw her long dark curling hair back over her shoulders, and stood up. Her heart was throbbing behind her ribs. A real, live tiger? But that was impossible! Of all the beasts brought from far-off countries to please the crowds with their ferocity, the tiger was one of the most formidable. Also, because it came, not from Africa, but from some far eastern land, it was the rarest, and most terrible, somehow. There could be no one bold enough to introduce one into Caesar’s palace! But the girl had said Aurelia’s father had sent it. As a gift.

She ran swiftly across the cool floor to the double doorway and flung the doors open.

There it was, indeed. Safely in a cage on wheels. And very young. And very, very – oh, there were no words for what it was! Beautiful, sweet, adorable. Fabulous.

Aurelia didn’t even notice the person who had brought it. She crouched down, a safe distance from the cage, and stared into the yellow eyes of the cub.

‘Hello,’ she breathed.

The cub stared back for about five seconds. Then it turned its face aside.

One paw, seemingly too large for its body, stuck through the bars of its cage. Not the whole paw, of course – the bars were too close together. Just the tip of it. Aurelia, greatly daring, crept forward and touched the golden fur with one finger. The cub pulled the paw back and then swiped the bars of the cage. Aurelia saw its claws spread themselves and jerked her hand away.

‘He wants to scratch me!’

‘It’s his instinct, Princess. But don’t fear. His claws will be seen to.’

She looked up swiftly. He was young and brown with smooth, round, muscled arms. A slave from the menagerie. He wore an animal skin over his tunic as a sign of his profession.

‘‘Seen to’? How, seen to?’

‘His claws will be drawn.’

She frowned. ‘What do you mean, drawn?’

‘Pulled out, Princess.’

For a second she felt faint. She clenched her hands as a sympathetic pain struck her fingernails.

‘You mean – someone will pull out all his claws?’

‘Of course. You couldn’t play with him if he had sharp claws.’

‘How? How will they do it?’

‘You need not trouble yourself—’

She raised her voice to one of command. ‘Tell me immediately how they will… draw his claws?’

‘With pliers, my lady. They will pull them out as teeth are pulled out.’

She stood up. ‘You will not do that to him. You will cut his claws instead, the way my finger and toenails are cut by my maid, straight across so they have no sharp points.’

‘He could still—’

‘There is no more to be said. He is to be mine, isn’t that so? I will say what shall be done with him.’

The young keeper bowed his head. But still, he muttered something.

‘Speak louder!’

‘I said, Princess, that you may keep him in his cage, just as he is, but if you want to let him out and play with him, you must let us protect you. He’s only a baby now, but like a cat he can already bite and scratch.’ He showed her several deep red scratches on his arm. She drew in her breath. ‘And when he grows a little bigger he may be dangerous to you unless you let us draw his claws. His fangs,’ he added boldly, ‘have already been removed.’

‘What!’ she shouted. ‘You’ve started pulling his teeth out too! How will he eat?’

‘Our concern,’ said the youth, with a touch of humour, ‘is that he shall not eat you.’

She looked back at the cub. He was looking at her again.

‘Will he try to bite me if I put my hand into his cage?’

‘No. I have handled him and gentled him. Also he’s not feeling very fierce just now because of the long journey he’s had, and the operation. Do you like him?’

‘Oh, yes,’ she breathed, gazing at the fabulous creature. Her own. Her very own. She glanced again at the scratches on the young man’s smooth, brown arm, and quailed for a moment. But then she stiffened herself. Cautiously she stretched her small hand, sideways to be narrow enough, between two bars towards the animal’s bicoloured head. Its ears moved, flattened. It growled deep in its throat. She snatched her hand out again.

The young keeper laughed. He unfastened the lid at the top of the cage and raised it. Then he reached in fearlessly and scratched the cub behind the ears. It looked up at him trustingly.

‘How can he like you and trust you when you’ve hurt him? It must have hurt terribly to have his fangs pulled out!’

‘I didn’t do it, Princess. I was the one who comforted him afterwards, rubbed oil of cloves on the wounds and gave him warm milk in a bottle to remind him of his mother.’

‘Where is she?’

‘Who knows? Far away in the jungle he came from. He won’t see her again.’ He was petting and stroking the tiger’s head, working his hand under its jaw. The cub’s eyes closed in bliss. There was a different sound from him now – a rumble of pleasure.

Aurelia stood up. ‘Oh, let me! Only I don’t want him to growl at me.’

‘He won’t. Here, take over from me. He’ll soon learn to accept you.’

The cub’s warm fur was a delight – so soft, so silky-soft, such beautiful colours, rich gold and deep, dark black. After a tentative moment, she sank her fingers into it luxuriantly and was overjoyed when the cub continued to purr like the great cat that he was. She was soon using both hands to pet and please him. Better than stroking a fish!

The keeper-boy was talking.

‘He’s a present from your father. There were two of them, twin brothers. One, the bigger and stronger of the two, has been taken to the Colosseum to be raised for the circus. This one was chosen as a special pet for you by the Emperor.’

Aurelia withdrew her hands and stood staring down at the baby tiger, who followed her now with his yellow eyes.

‘Do I have to keep him always in a cage? Because if so, I don’t want him.’

‘Well, I can take him out now, if you like. We’ll see if he behaves himself, but I don’t think he will try any tricks while I’m here.’

When she nodded breathlessly, he reached down and lifted the cub out of the cage, talking to him in a clucking, rumbling tone. He held him, positively cuddling him. Aurelia’s arms ached to hold the furry adorable thing.

‘Good boy. You’re a lucky cub. Look at your mistress! Wasn’t that worth a little pain? You’re better off than your brother!’ And he lowered him on to his big, padded feet on the marble floor, where he stood, his tail twitching from side to side.

‘Does he understand what you say to him?’

‘No. But it soothes him. You must talk to him a lot. And you must learn his language.’

‘Does he talk?’ she asked naively.

He smiled. ‘Yes, in his own way. Look at his tail, now. If it were lashing from side to side, you’d need to be careful, because that means, I am angry! I may pounce! But that twitching is just uncertainty – curiosity.’

‘No, no! Tell me exactly what he’s saying!’

‘He’s saying, I don’t know where I am or what’s happening. Reassure me. Be kind to me. Tell me I’m safe.’

‘Oh! Yes, I see!’ Aurelia, enchanted, fell on her knees and put out both her arms to the cub. ‘Come here to me! I won’t hurt you. I love you already. Come and be stroked!’ But the cub stood still and didn’t come. She looked up beseechingly at the young keeper. ‘What can I say to him to make him come?’

‘Nothing. You must offer him a gift.’

‘What? What?’

The keeper opened a basket he had on his back and took from it a small piece of raw meat.

‘Are you afraid to get your hands soiled?’

She hesitated, but only for a moment. ‘No! Give it to me!’

He handed her the meat. Before she fully had hold of it, the cub leapt forward and snatched it from her grasp, startling her so much she cried out and fell over backwards. In a moment, the young man had his hand fastened on the scruff of the cub’s neck and it shrank down. But Aurelia sat up at once and said, ‘No, he didn’t mean to frighten me. Leave him.’

The keeper obeyed. The cub lay down and began chewing on the meat. Every now and then he shook his head.

‘Why does he do that?’

‘He can’t understand why he can’t eat quite as he used to. And it may still hurt a little.’

Aurelia crept towards him.

‘No, my lady,’ warned the keeper. ‘Don’t try to touch him while he’s eating. He’ll think—’ He corrected himself. ‘Look, he’s put his ears back. He’s saying, Don’t try to take my food! When he’s satisfied his hunger he’ll remember that you gave him the meat. He may sniff the blood on your hand, and come to lick it off. Then he’ll begin to recognise you. That’s how cats are. They like you for what you give them.’

‘I want him to love me for myself.’

‘Better not to hope for that. He’ll be your companion, but never will he love you. Cats can’t love, except perhaps each other. But be kind to him and learn his language and you can be friends, in a way.’

Aurelia sat on the floor with her diaphanous robes spread about her, and watched the cub eat. She didn’t move a muscle till he had finished. Then, as he was licking his whiskers, she said, ‘Can I keep him with me all the time? Can he sleep in my bed?’

The youth shook his head.

‘I am to stay with you while you get acquainted. Then he must go back in his cage and I will take him back to the menagerie for the night. You have other things to do. But he’ll look forward to coming to see you, to leaving his cage, to eating from your hand, to being petted, to being free. In that way he’ll become yours.’

‘Has he a name?’

‘I call him Tigris.’

‘But that’s just what he is! That’s a boring name.’

‘Then think of a better one, Princess.’

She looked at the cub a long time. He stared at her, but he did not come to lick her hand. She wiped it on the floor.

‘I’ll spend the night thinking,’ she said.

The young man bent and picked the cub up. ‘I must take him now.’

‘Can I kiss him?’

He smiled secretly, thinking: Fortunate creature. ‘Yes. Why not?’

Aurelia came close and kissed the cub on the head and touched his hurt face tenderly. ‘Goodbye, little one. When you come back to me tomorrow, I will have a name for you.’

She watched as he was put back in his cage and wheeled away. The young man looked back once, irresistibly, but she didn’t notice. Her mind was following the tiger – her tiger – and was busy with the delightful task of naming him.

‘What’s your name?’ she called after the youth.

‘Julius.’

‘Come early, Julius!’

‘Willingly!’ he said, and added, in his head, If only your eagerness were for me!

Chapter Three
THE NAMING

The younger and smaller cub, still lacking a name, spent the night alone in his cage, in the city menagerie where he was to live.

His brain was full of new things, new bewilderments. Having his fangs drawn had been terrible, but the pain was fading and with it the memory of his terror and agony. He thought about the male two-legs that had comforted him, making soft sounds to him and giving him milk to suck, reminding him dimly of his lost Big One. Not all two-legs were either things to fear or things he might like to eat. They were certainly meat, but they were more. They were powerful and puzzling and even fearsome, but also they could do pleasing things. He thought of the female two-legs with the eyes that had looked into his. He had wanted to creep to her and lick the blood off her hand after she had provided him with food, encourage that hand to scratch and stroke him again. He sensed no threat, but he was uncertain. He hadn’t seen anything like her before.

Where was his brother?

That was the most important thing.

They had been a pair, and now that had ended and he was alone. In the darkness there was no warm, friendly other to curl up against. No familiar smell and no one to communicate with.

He slept at last, miserable, aching and lonely.

But in the morning things were better. The male two-legs came and made sounds to him and petted him. There were others with him, but the cub only noticed the one he knew.

‘Today would have been a bad day for you, Tigris, but you’re lucky again. She’s forbidden it. So I’ve got something for you instead, so that you won’t forget yourself and do her a mischief!’ He reached down into the cage and began to rub the cub’s belly. Instinctively he rolled over and stuck his big feet in the air. Before he understood what was happening, something was slipped over each of them, something that muffled his claws.

He rolled over swiftly and stood up, sniffing this new addition to his body. He didn’t like it. He caught the stuff in his teeth and tried to pull it off, but he couldn’t. It fitted tightly around his legs and was too strong to tear.

He rolled and rubbed and bit, but it was useless. The young two-legs watched him, and, when he could, scratched the cub’s ears.

‘Get used to it, friend. You’re a shod tiger now, and you must wear them till you learn good manners. Till you can be trusted.’

‘If that day ever comes!’ said one of the others.

But the cub understood only that when he tried to walk he couldn’t properly feel the ground under his feet and learn from it. He didn’t yet know that he couldn’t use his claws. But when his day’s meat was brought to him, he found out. He was used to pinning the meat down with his claws and chewing chunks off it. But this meat was in small pieces. He didn’t realise that it was because his jaws ached too much to chew properly. All he knew was that he couldn’t hold it, he couldn’t rend it… He was no longer whole, no longer what he had been. What he knew he was meant to be. He was muffled. He was less.

*

When he was taken to the female two-legs, he was already angry.

She took one look at him and began to make a mouth-noise.

‘Oh, look! He’s got boots on!’

‘Yes, Princess. It was Caesar’s orders when he heard that you’d forbidden us to draw his claws.’

She capered about joyfully.

‘I couldn’t think of a name for him, but now I have it! I’ll call him Boots!’

The cub named Boots without knowing he’d been named, watched her, surprised because she whirled like a peacock. She had no tail but she had something like a tail, that sparkled and flared. She made a noise rather like a peacock, too. But she still looked like a big monkey to him and she smelt good. He sensed she wasn’t as strong as the males. He thought he would try to eat her. But only if the male two-legs wasn’t there to put his hand on his neck and stop him.

But the big two-legs didn’t go away. He stayed.

He took the cub out of the cage. The cub liked being held by the two-legs. It made him feel very safe. It was strange, smelling his food-smell and, at the same time, liking to be held close to him. The anger was still there because of what had been put on his feet. But he already knew better than to bite the male two-legs. The puzzling thing was that he no longer wanted to.

*

That day he learnt to play.

Of course, he had played before, with his brother. But not for a long time. Not during the bad time in the dark, rocking place. They had been too fearful and wretched. But now he remembered that it was good to chase something that rolled along the ground, to catch it and leap with it, knocking it into the air and batting it with his muffled paws. He almost forgot they were muffled.

The female two-legs made the peacock noise and the rain-on-leaves noise with her front feet. She crouched down and made the same sound over and over again: ‘Boots! Boots!’ He sensed she wanted him to come to her, and he wanted to come. At first he was too timid, but then the male two-legs picked him up and put him down close to her. She smelt good and her paws when she touched him were knowing and cunning amid his fur, scratching and stroking in ways that made him squirm and lie on his back and rumble deep in his chest. He had a vague memory of the rough tongue and the warm flanks and the nipple that filled his mouth with sweet flowing power.

He hadn’t forgotten his brother, either.

*

And his brother hadn’t forgotten him.

The bigger, stronger cub was not frolicking with a tender, laughing female two-legs, being fed titbits of meat in a pleasant sunlit open place. He was in a dark, bad-smelling, closed-in place, under the ground.

He knew he was under the ground because he had been carried, in his cage, down a long flight of steps into dimness and coldness. He growled and snarled all the way and tried to reach through the bars to claw the bodies of those who carried him, but he couldn’t. At last he was released from the cage. The front of it was raised by some invisible agency and he came out with one bound – only to find his way blocked by cold black stone. There was a clang behind him as bars came down.

His thoughts were all confusion, rage, frustration. His stomach churned and threw up bitterness into his mouth. He clawed the hard, stopping walls. It was useless.

At last he stopped. He put his front paws on to the wall and stretched his neck, but he couldn’t see anything beyond.

He had never felt so alone in his life. He had never been alone, till now. He whined miserably.

A coarse, loud voice shouted, ‘Quiet, you little brute, or I’ll give you something to howl for!’ The threat in it was unmistakable. The bigger cub urinated with fear, then found a corner, pressed himself tight to the cold wall, and lay down.

He didn’t sleep. He was too nervous. He shivered and all his striped fur stood on end. There had been something in that voice that filled him with dread.

*

For several days no two-legs came near him. He could hear them, at a distance, shouting. His food was pushed between the bars at the front of his prison on the end of long poles, while the cub clawed and gnawed it. As the days passed he lost condition and became listless with misery.

Two days went by without any food. And then the teasing started.

The cub sensed something bad was going to happen when a two-legs came into the dark place and made sounds that were the same as the shouting from afar. Unlike his brother, this cub had never had kindness from a two-legs, and all he knew of them was that they were the all-powerful source of food, and fear.

This two-legs, very big and very threatening, stood over him as he lay in the corner he had chosen as a sleeping place. The cub didn’t know the nature of the threat but he knew he was afraid and helpless. He held himself alert as he lay with his head on his forepaws.

‘Get up, you,’ growled the two-legs. And it was a growl, deep in his throat, the sort of growl tigers make. It was almost the language the cub understood. The words meant nothing but the threat was clear. He didn’t move.

The man prodded him sharply with something he carried.

The cub lifted his head and snapped at the thing that had hurt him. But it wasn’t there any more.

‘Get up,’ the two-legs growled again.

When the cub still didn’t move, the two-legs jabbed him again. This time the sharp thing nearly pierced his hide. He jumped up with a snarl of pain and swiped at the thing with his claws. It went away, came back, jabbed again, was snatched away before the cub could seize it.

The cub was infuriated. He crouched, ready to spring at his tormentor. But he couldn’t, because a volley of small jabs kept him at bay.

‘Come on, you little pig’s whelp, you miserable mangy little runt! Spring at me! Just try it! You’ll never make the arena, you weakling! Come on, coward, what are you waiting for?’ The threatening voice went on and on, daring him, ordering him, provoking him, rousing him for battle – but always keeping him off, prodding him back. At last the cub, infuriated beyond bearing, did leap, full at the sharpened stick, not even seeing it in his blind rage. It didn’t pierce him. It vanished, as the man leapt aside and the cub dropped to the ground.

‘Good,’ said the two-legs. ‘Good. Now you’re learning.’

He gave him a piece of meat and went away.

So. That was it. He was supposed to spring. If he sprang, the sharp thing would not hurt him. It would only hurt and torment him if he did not spring. If he sprang, he would get meat.

Thus the little tiger began to absorb the lessons that prepared him for his destiny.

*

Aurelia’s mother and father came to visit her several days after Boots’s first appearance.

It was unusual for the Emperor and Empress to visit their daughter together. The Emperor was an intensely busy man and had all too little time for his youngest child (Aurelia had two older brothers, already away in the army). But that didn’t mean he was not devoted to her. Aurelia was the decoration on his life, his sweet reward after the essential sons, both troublesome and hard to love. He was conscious of his duty towards her now she was nearing womanhood, but left the details to his wife.

Except that now he had sent his child a daring and extraordinary present, which his wife fiercely opposed.

‘Are you mad, Septimus?’ she had railed. ‘A wild animal! Supposing it hurts her!’

‘I have given orders. It won’t hurt her.’

‘But why? Why take the slightest risk?’

She’d stood before him, her fists clenched, her face pale. This youngest child was the dearest of all to her, after two sons whom she had never been allowed to be close to. The Emperor drew her down beside him and unlocked her fingers.

‘Our daughter is as much the child of Caesar as her brothers. She too must be brave and proud. Would you have her play tamely with caged birds and goldfish for ever? She must show her mettle. She’ll teach the tiger to be gentle, and he will teach her to be strong.’

She stared at him. She knew what was in his mind. He was already imagining Aurelia going about the city in her carriage with a tiger at her side, her hand on its head, the people gazing at her in awe. ‘See! Caesar’s daughter rides with a tiger and is not afraid!’

For several days Caesar had let his thoughts stray to Aurelia more than usual. How had she received his gift? It was even possible that she might reject it. She had a will of her own. Besides, many young girls would be afraid of having a wild beast for a pet. He needed to know that his daughter had responded to the challenge as he wished her to.

When he heard that she had objected to the drawing of the animal’s claws, he tasted uncertainty, even alarm. But the animal-keeper had the solution. Leather pouches that would enclose the cub’s feet and keep his child safe. Better! Much better. He sent a purse of coins to the slave as a reward for his initiative.

Now he stayed away from the Senate for an hour to accompany his wife on her regular morning visit to their daughter and her new companion. They were accompanied by a middle-aged woman who had been Aurelia’s nurse when she was younger, and who now lived in retirement in the palace and assumed privileges that no one had given her. She was entirely on the Empress’s side.

‘It’s not right, Your Honour, not right at all! How can it be right to give a young girl a wild beast as a pet? The gods made wild animals to be rugs and wall hangings, not playmates!’

Caesar didn’t bother answering her. The woman had been a palace fixture since she’d been engaged as a wet nurse when Aurelia was born, and she had been interfering and even criticising ever since. He hardly heard her prattle any more. He was looking eagerly ahead of him as they entered the courtyard.

There they were, already frolicking together. The cub in his leather protectors was crouched in the sunlight, his striped fur glowing boldly, his head on his stretched-out front paws, his hindquarters raised and shifting to and fro, watching intently while the girl drew a string with a tuft of cloth on its end across the floor. His haunches quivered twice – then he pounced. She jerked the lure away just in time. The cub crouched, quivered, pounced again, and this time he got his muffled front paws on the thing and a moment later, had bitten it off its string and was flinging it in the air.

A young man stood in the shadow of an overhanging roof. His eyes never left the cub.

‘Who is that boy?’ asked the nurse.

‘The keeper, of course.’

‘Did Your Honour give permission for him to be alone with my young lady?’ she asked sharply.

‘Yes, yes,’ he said irritably. ‘Why not? She must have someone with her until we are sure the creature is tame. In any case, all her servants are close at hand.’

This wasn’t entirely true. Aurelia’s personal staff – chiefly female – were in hiding. They were frightened of Boots, even if Aurelia wasn’t. In the event of a mishap they would have been quite useless. The Empress, suddenly alerted by the nurse’s questions, guessed that.

‘I want there to be guards. Not just that boy. Older men, with weapons.’

He hesitated. He was watching with satisfaction and pride the fearless way the princess was now chasing the cub, trying to wrest the toy back from him. She held it boldly in both hands, close to his mouth, and tugged it while the cub growled playfully and braced his big, covered feet.

‘Whatever you wish, my love. Give what orders you think fit. Of course we should take no chances.’

‘Of any sort,’ murmured the nurse, her eyes on the young keeper’s well-muscled torso and handsome, bronzed face.

Caesar walked out of the shadows into the sunlight. Aurelia saw him and ran to him. The moment her back was turned to the cub he began to stalk her. The young keeper instantly leapt forward to put his hand restrainingly on the cub’s neck.

‘Pata! Thank you! He is wonderful. I love him so much!’

‘And you’re not afraid of him?’

‘Not a bit!’ She turned in his arms. ‘Oh, do look at him, how sweet he is! And I’ve named him Boots. What do you think of that?’

He laughed. ‘An excellent choice,’ he said.

The nurse sniffed and folded her arms. ‘Silly name for a tiger,’ she muttered.

‘Oh, Nurse, don’t be against him! Come and stroke him!’

‘I will not. I am not foolish, whatever others may be,’ she said.

‘Caesar, may I speak?’ said the keeper, after bowing.

‘Yes, what is it?’ asked the Emperor.

‘He needs a collar.’

‘Oh yes!’ cried Aurelia. ‘A beautiful one, with jewels on it! And I need a lead for him, too!’

‘Well thought of.’ Caesar clapped his hands, and at once one of his own slaves, who always attended him, ran forward.

‘A collar for my daughter’s tiger. Bejewelled, as she said. Order it from the leather shop. A leash, too. Tooled with gold leaf.’ He hugged Aurelia tightly. He couldn’t restrain his pride in the success of his gift, at her courageous receiving of it.

The Empress watched the scene, narrow-eyed, anxious. The tiger cub already looked large and menacing in her eyes. She still thought the whole thing was folly of the worst kind. She exchanged glances of anxiety with the nurse.

But apart from engaging guards, there was nothing she could do.

Chapter Four
VISITS

‘Boots! Yes, that silly name just suits him. He’s not a tiger, not him! He’s a pussycat. Here, puss puss puss! Here, tiggy-wiggy-woggy, come and play pussy games with Relia!’

Aurelia’s eyes narrowed dangerously.

She was entertaining – most unwillingly – a ‘friend’, except that he wasn’t, he was a stupid little bore and a maddening nuisance. His name was Marcus and he was her ten-year-old cousin.

‘Don’t tease him,’ she ordered sharply, as the cub showed signs of being about to investigate Marcus’s wriggling fingers, pretending to be a large spider scuttling on the floor.

‘I will tease him, and you too,’ said Marcus. ‘What’ve you done to him? Call that a wild animal? He’s about as fierce as one of your silly birds. Tweet-tweet, Bootsie, come to Pata!’ The cub obligingly pounced on the ‘spider’ and sank his teeth into it. But carefully. He knew better by now than to bite seriously. One or two hard bites, in the early days, had resulted in sharp blows on the head and scoldings from his keeper.

Still, even a gentle bite from a tiger cub is not nothing. Marcus let out a yell and snatched his hand out of the cub’s mouth.

Aurelia grinned broadly. ‘I hope that’ll teach you a lesson, you nasty little tease,’ she said unfeelingly as he sucked his hand. Seeing him fighting tears, she relented and went to look, taking his hand in hers and examining the indentations that were rapidly turning into bruises. ‘Ffff! Poor old you. Does it hurt?’

‘He ought to be whipped,’ said Marcus sullenly, more humiliated than hurt.

She dropped his hand. ‘Oh, pooh. It’s nothing much. He bites me all the time when we’re playing. Look!’ She showed some little regular bruises on her forearm where Boots had been playing a bit more roughly than usual.

‘I heard he’d had all his teeth taken out.’

‘Only his fangs.’

‘Hah! Lost his fangs, eh? How can a tiger be a tiger without fangs?’

‘Well, you’re lucky, he might have bitten your hand right off and run away with it, if he’d had them!’ retorted Aurelia, sitting down on the ground and calling the cub to her. He crawled to her on his belly and lay with his head in her lap while she petted and soothed him. His tail twitched gently. ‘Look,’ she said, ‘he’s saying “I love being with you.” I can understand nearly everything he tells me now!’

Marcus watched her, full of envy. Though he would have died rather than admit it, he was a bit afraid of the tiger. He had to stop her knowing that.

‘Let’s play circus with him!’ he said.

‘No.’

‘Why not? All you ever do is kiss and pet him!’

‘That’s not true. I play with him.’

‘But not real games, only silly kitten-games. We should pretend he’s a wild beast in the arena, pitted against a gladiator—’

‘That would be you, no doubt,’ said Aurelia sarcastically.

‘Yes it would! I know how to fight like a gladiator, with a net and trident, or a sword – my father’s not like yours, refusing to take you to the circus, mine takes me quite often! Here, you, lend me your sword!’ he said suddenly to the young keeper, who had a short sword in his belt.

Julius’s hand flew to it instinctively.

‘I’m sorry, Master Marcus, but my sword never leaves me. Besides, it’s sharp. You might hurt someone with it.’

Marcus faced him boldly. His rank was so far above Julius’s that he felt unassailably superior to him.

‘Do as you’re told,’ he shouted, ‘or I’ll have you flogged!’

Julius looked over the boy’s shoulder at Aurelia. Aurelia was watching, but she didn’t intervene.

‘I have no leave from the Emperor to give you my sword. It’s not a plaything.’

The boy flushed crimson with rage. He flung himself on to Julius and began trying to wrest the sword from his belt. Julius was in a quandary. He held the furious boy away, but he was frightened of what the consequences might be of defying a direct order from the son of a senator, let alone manhandling him.

‘Princess!’ he pleaded.

Aurelia put the cub aside and stood up. She stepped up to the struggling pair and seized Marcus by the hair. One strong jerk backwards and the fight was over. She flung him to the ground, then went back to her place, sat down on the marble floor and began to stroke the cub again as if nothing had happened.

‘You stupid squittering girl-pig, you hurt my head!’ Marcus shouted, sprawling.

‘Mind your language,’ she said calmly. ‘Your foul mouth will get you into trouble.’

That silenced him. The hint was enough. He had a bad temper and he had been thwarted, but as he lay there he gulped when he thought how lucky it was for him he had not said what he might have said in the heat of the moment; for example, that she was the daughter of a pig. You might say that to anybody else during a quarrel, but not her.

After a short while he got up, rubbing the back of his head, and moved towards her. She smiled to him as a sign of truce.

‘I don’t want him to be a fighting tiger, even in fun,’ she said. ‘Come on, let’s play ball with him. I’ll throw and you can race him for it. You’d better let him win,’ she added with a little smile.

*

She’d had Boots for two months. He had grown. He was quite a size now, but he had learnt many lessons, and he was so little danger to her that the heavily armed guards that had been engaged to stand by whenever the cub ‘came to visit’ had been dismissed. They were expensive. The Emperor had overruled his wife after watching Aurelia and Boots at play on several occasions.

‘The beast is quite safe. He loves her, you can see it. He wouldn’t hurt her – she has tamed him with her strong will and kind hands.’

The Empress was not so sure. ‘Does he really love her?’ she asked Julius, who still accompanied the cub whenever he was at the palace.

‘No, Empress. Not as we understand the word. But he knows her, and she has gentled him, that’s true, and I don’t think he poses any danger to her – as long as I’m here.’ He stressed this in part because he sensed that she was uneasy about his frequently being alone with the princess and would have liked to dispense with his services, and Julius was quite determined she should not.

‘But he’s getting so big! Surely large male animals become dangerous as they grow?’

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