BETWEEN FOUR JUNCTIONS

This seems too easy, Julius thought.

Nevertheless, he followed everyone around the corner, dolabra in hand.

Boudicca ushered him to the front as two Celts started to yell and wave their weapons in the air. They rushed out the nearby gate with about five guards chasing after them, leaving the Emperor unattended.

“Come on kid,” Boudicca whispered. “This is your chance.”

Julius took a big breath and slunk around the corner. Sensing everyone watching him, he quickly slid behind a bronze shield and exhaled nervously.

“I don’t trust this kid. I mean, didn’t Boudicca find him locked up in a gladiator’s cell,” hissed a strange voice that obviously belonged to one of her followers.

Hearing this, Julius turned round to give him a look and shuffled around the perimeter of the shield until he caught sight of the Emperor in the corner of his eye. Without hesitating, he ducked behind a pillar with the face of a woman with long snake-like hair. Somehow, the Emperor hadn’t heard him yet and was oblivious to what was about to happen. Julius stepped out from behind the sculpture and – with shaking, sweaty hands – brought the dolabra crashing down on his skull. An ear-splitting crack echoed through the room as the body of Emperor Augustus crumpled onto the mosaic floor. Julius dropped his weapon and brought his blood-splattered hands up to his face.

“What have I done?” he cried.

But it was even worse than how he’d imagined. As he looked more carefully at the body’s face, horror swallowed him whole as he realised something that would endanger them all.

“This isn’t the Emperor...!” he yelled. “It’s a trap!”

As soon as he said that, guards burst in from the adjacent rooms and surrounded the Celts – swords aimed at their throats. Terrified, Julius scrambled behind the same pillar and prayed to Ollathir, the god of death, to survive at least one more day. Luckily, they hadn’t noticed him yet and were concentrating on Boudicca and her troops, who didn’t seem to be scared at all.

“Well, well, well. How about that,” the Emperor sneered, coming out from behind the curtain. “You actually mistook that lowlife imperial legate for me – even you, Boudicca. Now, I’m going to kill you.”

Julius had to do something, he couldn’t just stand by and watch them being slaughtered. Doing the first thing that came to mind, he peeked his head out from the cover of the pillar.

“Hey, over here Augustus! How about you pick on someone your own size?”

Emperor Augustus’s face turned bright red because he was very sensitive about his height – “Guards, kill him!” he ordered.

When they drew their attention away from the Celts, the Celtic band barged through the soldiers and fled through the gates, Aaron and Boudicca included. Julius had never really thought of Boudicca as the running-away type but he could understand – he could hear them cheering in the distance and he smiled.

Still behind the statue, Julius realised with dread that he’d never actually seen Aelia since they got split up and that broke his heart. But he knew that some way or another, she would find out. And his parents too. They’d be so proud of him. His name would go down in history. Bringing himself back to the present, he noticed that all the guards had their swords pointed directly at him. “At least,” he thought, “it’ll be a more or less quick way to go. Grinning, he looked directly into the eyes of the Emperor.

“Do your worst.”

Some weeks later, a Celtic stonemason switched the pillar that Julius had died behind with one bearing a Celtic moustache to remind everyone of the Celtic boy who saved Boudicca.

2080 Caerleon, Wales

The boy looked at Robert disbelievingly.

“What do you mean you don’t know what it is? What kind of a tour guide are you?”

Robert scoffed, “And what, you do?”

The boy explained the story from the beginning and it left Robert gobsmacked. Sighing, the boy unlatched his satchel and brought out a fragment of the pillar with a piece of Medusa’s Celtic moustache in surprisingly good condition.

Robert stared at it with wide eyes and a gaping mouth, “What... How did you get that?”

Looking up at him with a twinkle in his eye, the boy winked. “Let’s just say this is a family affair.”

Rosa Thorne

Melusine

“Gently frozen, preserved in time, everything bar thoughts lost in this icy cave, you know what you did wasn’t enough, don’t you Melusine? It could have been, but you, you are so small and unknowing.You weren’t all innocent though, judging by that final desperate shout into the wind. Breath in a gust of air. A bid for freedom. And your passion too. That was practice.”

Your former lover smirks at you. “Pity we weren’t all like that, ay Cindy?” he laughs, patting the glass beside you, its creamy off-white frame. Another corpse mangled by his muscular hands, frozen blood. A metal cylinder overflowing with liquid nitrogen. She’s fairly new, added maybe in the last month or so, not long after you. She’s the one you might have been able to save, if you could just think calmly. You know the guilt is the worst part of being stuck here in this damn frame, and he knows it too. It’s why he always mocks her.You can’t apologise though, or communicate. Anything. It’s just you and your former lover alone, like you once dreamt of. That wasn’t now, though. Nothing’s like now. And now is an eternity.

She used to be my best friend, Marie Catriona, I mean. She was, well, everything I wasn’t – content with where she was. She had dreams, but realistic ones, something I could never imagine, and she understood me, a totally alien concept. Most of all, she was completely and utterly in love.

It’s been the best part of a year since I last spoke to her now, I think. The memory’s surprisingly vivid. I had just seen Henrí for the first time. Not that I knew his name. Just the way he sat upon his snow-white horse with the glassy mane, and the force with which he tugged on the lead rope with strong muscular hands that me and Marie fantasised about for hours, even though she was still with Kev and happy. She did it for me.

‘Maybe he’s an escaped prisoner?’

‘A firefighter?’

‘Nah, something hotter and more dangerous – a Spanish bull fighter.’

‘Marie! Anyway he’s obviously a spy.’

‘Ooh where from?’

‘Australia. I love the accent.’

‘Do you luuurrrve him, Melusine?’ She asked jokingly as I blushed and punched her lightly.

She never heard about his place, his name or actual job. Or the time we first kissed. The memory’s not very clear anyway. Blood red crimson lips, slightly too much tooth, slightly too sharp. Honestly though, that was months ago and that’s not the only time that’s happened. Or the only thing that’s happened either.

We always stay at his place. Complete privacy. It’s nice, secluded, enclosed by tall sandy bricks and wrought iron black gates. Dried ivy climbs the walls, only you can’t tell it’s not alive, will never climb again. I only know because he confessed on a stroll around the gardens. He had an arm around my shoulders and with the other hand pointed to the ivy.

‘It’s dried, you know. Liquid nitrogen preserves stuff perfectly. Only slight shrinkage, and it saves so much time gardening. Stops me having to worry about it growing too tall and someone trying to climb over the wall because it would shatter on contact.’

Then he moved his hand to smooth my pastel skirts and smiled at me.

I loved those walks. I loved the time we spent in the cold-floored echoing candlelit ballroom waltzing to imagined music, focused on everything but the dance. Or browsing through the library, pretending to read, sneaking glances at him in the tall arching stained crystal windows. And the times he pulled me close to give me a new golden necklace, but kept me close even after fastening the clasp, and pulled me even closer to whisper his dreams and fantasies in my ear. I never said no. I never wanted to. I always loved making him smile.

Maybe that’s why we worked so well together.

I barely spent a single second without him, even in my dreams.

I’m alone now though. In the cold stone dressing room connected to my room in the wing that’s still technically mine even though I’m rarely in there. I moved all my stuff to his rooms months ago. I’m only here because I’m waiting for a designer to discuss ivory dresses. A designer I am increasingly certain will never turn up.

I hate this room. It’s mostly the insane number of mirrors, and the granite. The granite’s ugly and out of character and the mirrors remind me how pale I am and how out of character I must look next to Henrí. Broad-shouldered, bright-eyed and tanned, he’s the picture of the perfect prince in every fairy tale. I am not the princess. I’m far too pale. The yellow undertones in my face leave me looking constantly contagious and my face is just such an odd shape, still