Vita and the Gladiator

Vita stood proud in her battle chariot as it thundered towards the Roman lines. She and her army of blue-faced warriors were seriously outnumbered, but she wouldn’t yield – not without a fight. She raised her spear and prepared to lead the charge . . . BANG! She started and looked up from her desk. The front door – which meant Mother and Lucius had gone at last! A flutter of excitement rippled through her. It was nearly time. But first, she couldn’t resist one final read-through of her poem. As she scanned the neat lines of verse that sloped across the papyrus’s creamy-yellow surface, her chest filled with a warm glow of pride. She drew in a breath and read the title out loud: ‘The defeat of Boudicca, the fearsome ruler of the Iceni who burnt Londinium to the ground.’