Tales of Ancient Rome Read online

  His days in the vigiles would almost certainly be numbered after this. Particularly given that debacle last week with the explosion at the emporium. His wages would be halved for the next thousand years to pay for the replacement pump.

  Hurriedly throwing on a cloak and grateful that he’d gone to sleep wearing his tunic and breeches and not even unlacing his boots because he was so tired, he decided on his course of action. He would have to check the extent of the fire and get down to the yard. In the central courtyard that had previously been the light well for the insula, a series of large tablets on the walls bore the instructions and rules and regulations for all trainee vigiles. He would have to read them and remind himself of what to do next.

  Reaching out, he grasped the door handle and pulled.

  The words ‘back draft’ rose though the levels of denseness in his head a fraction of a second before the explosion of boiling fire blew the suddenly freed door into the room, knocking him flat, but miraculously protecting him from the worst of the heat.

  Struggling out from under the battered portal, he peered fearfully around the room. The blast had calmed and the fire was starting to take hold on the walls and furniture in his room. Pulling himself upright, he wandered across to the large bronze mirror next to a small glowing oil lamp that seemed almost ridiculous in the circumstances.

  His eyebrows had gone and his lush, curly black hair had disappeared as far back as his ears, leaving only tiny charred stumps. His face was covered in sooty grime, pink lines extending from his eyes where he had instinctively screwed them up.

  He looked idiotic. But then people told him that under normal circumstances, too.

  Leaning to the side, he peered out into the corridor. The formerly painted walls, white and red, with a decorative strip of something he couldn’t remember, were black, fire ripping its way along the wooden railing that surrounded the stair well. Leaning the other way, he could see the blanket of flame that filled the corridor, blocking off any chance of reaching the other stairs. Other than trying to jump down the fifteen foot drop into the light well, these stairs would have to do.

  All the vigiles had practiced the jump, of course. They were supposed to be able to manage something as easy as that. It was often required in the course of duty. Postumus, with his somewhat portly figure and his apparently severed connection between mental function and the gangling muscle-free flesh he called limbs, had never managed anything but a temporarily-crippling belly-flop onto the hard floor. He had in the past year, broken one ankle, twisted another, cracked five ribs and broken his nose during training jumps. Two months ago Safranius had given up trying.

  Honestly, if it weren’t for his illustrious lineage and the sizeable donations his long-suffering father made to help the vigiles, he would probably have been thrown out long ago.

  Taking a deep breath and gagging on the smoke, he stepped closer to the stairs, muttering a quick and very fervent prayer to the lares and Penates of the building.

  A flickering orange glow was visible through the cracks in the wooden staircase. Downstairs was already an inferno. But there was nothing else for it. He had to brave it.

  Putting one foot delicately on the top step, he applied pressure and winced as it groaned and shifted underfoot. Biting his lip, he put all his weight on that leg and moved down a step. Another charred groan.

  Postumus whimpered and hoped his bladder would hold under the panicked pressure.

  He was just reaching out with his first leg again when a noise caught his attention.

  ‘Meeee-owwwwwooooo?’

  “Mister Socks!”

  The second step cracked as he turned hurriedly and ran back up into the corridor. Mister Socks was the station cat; a mangy, fat thing with an evil temper, one ruined eye, a perforated ear and a bad case of flatulence. Of the eighty periodical occupants of the building, the only one that treated Postumus as anything other than an unfortunate piece of furniture was Mister Socks. It wasn’t that he didn’t bite and scratch the overweight vigil; he did, and frequently, but less frequently than he bit and scratched the others.

  Of course, it was Postumus that fed Mister Socks, which might go a long way to explaining it. Many of the others just kicked the station cat and would happily evict the menacing, evil creature. It was Postumus that had renamed ‘That Smelly Bastard Cat’ as Mister Socks. It was so much nicer.

  Running along the corridor, he spotted the four legged terror of the station crouched in a doorway, hissing at the danger all around. Beyond, the inferno had gripped the corridor, making it impassable to man and beast alike. Through the doorway, the glow of violent orange spoke volumes. A rafter fell between the two of them, roaring with dancing flames and sealing off the cat. Even the wooden frame of the balcony above the light well on remaining wall was starting to char and fall away.

  “Don’t worry Mister Socks. I’m coming.”

  Carefully, he edged toward the burning beam and jumped across it, just as another fell where he had been standing but a moment before. His heart lurched. A whole insula, just for the sake of a late night snack and forty winks!

  Reaching out, his face turned away from the searing heat, he reached out for Mister Socks, muttering soothing noises.

  The cat turned its one baleful eye on him and leapt away, momentarily touching the charring balcony to gain leverage, and dropped to the courtyard below, landing, as expected, on its feet. Postumus leaned close to the balcony and stared down to see Mister Socks give him a superior glance, turn, display its bottom in graphic detail, and then prance away to the safety of the street.

  Postumus sobbed.

  Standing straight and taking in ragged breaths, the vigil nodded to himself and turned. Taking two steps carefully across the burning rafters, he felt his bowels loosen a little as a third crashed down next to him, bouncing off his foot and hurting his little toe.

  A moment later, he was back at the stairs.

  Carefully navigating the first, he passed over the cracked second step and winced as the third almost gave under him. He could feel the hot glow beneath him and a gust of warm air blew his tunic up around his armpits.

  Pushing it back down coquettishly, he stepped as lightly as possible down the stairs to the first turning. The fire on the floor below was blazing, filling the corridors. There was no way out that did not involve passing through a wall of fire.

  Taking yet another deep breath and gagging and coughing on the roiling smoke, he unfastened his cloak from around his neck and wrapped it around him as thoroughly as he could, leaving a small spy-hole to see through.

  Damn that cat.

  “One…”

  Safranius was going to crucify him.

  “Two…”

  The people out in the street would be watching in amusement as the fire-watch station burned down, knowing damn well who was at the heart of the problem.

  “Three!”

  Lowering his head, Postumus charged into the sheet of roaring flame, his legs pumping as they scorched and seared while he ran, heedless of the pain, through the corridor, around the bend, past the well-room and its blessed water, through the courtyard, where he managed a couple of deep, cleansing breaths without slowing, and on into the far side of the building.

  The main corridor ran from the light well and past rooms that had once been people’s residences, out past the shops that occupied the outer facade, looking onto the street.

  Without pausing, he ran on along the corridor. The flames had not yet consumed the main entrance, but it was dark and solid with smoke.

  Choking, wheezing, and stinging red from the heat, Postumus burst out into the street, the twin hills of the Palatine and Caelian rising before him, behind the insulae opposite. He stopped, heaving breaths, bent double with his hands on his knees, coughing up black dust and spitting soot onto the road.

  Mister Socks appeared from nowhere and rubbed around his red raw ankles, purring affectionately.

  It was then that Postumus straightened an
d looked about him.

  Buildings flowered with blooms of flame. Roiling black columns rose from insulae along the street. Flames burst from windows and screaming citizens ran wildly in the thoroughfare, their panic infectious.

  The city was afire.

  But something Safranius had taught him had apparently stuck in his brain after all.

  How to track the source of a fire.

  Buildings were burning all the way along the street and up side alleys also. But the progression was clear. The insula of the Second century in the Fourth cohort of vigiles was the furthest gone and the epicentre of the spreading chaos.

  “Gods, Postumus. What have you done?”

  The great fire of 64 AD burned for five and a half days and levelled three quarters of the city, destroying thousands of homes and some of the grandest buildings that had stood for half a millennium. Rumour placed the cause in the hands of the Emperor Nero, who hurriedly, and very effectively, passed the blame on down to the burgeoning cult of Christians.

  Gaius Postumus rose to the rank of tribune, commanding one of the cohorts of Vigiles, one of few survivors of the service during the conflagration.

  Of the fate of his fish supper, history does not relate.

  Lucilla

  Lucilla licked her lips and rolled over, pulling the covers tighter. The room was chilly in the November night, frost forming on the garden of the villa outside her wall, the bone-cold breeze sneaking in through the shutters and lowering the room’s temperature.

  Briefly she contemplated leaving the room and going to the closet to collect a spare blanket. Possibly one of the slaves would still be up and about preparing things for the morning and could get her one. Certainly if her mother or father caught her wandering around the villa’s corridors at this time of night, no amount of defensive argument over the temperature would save her from trouble.

  She rolled back over again, irritation at her parents bringing her extra wakefulness and driving elusive sleep that bit further away. It wasn’t that she didn’t love her parents. Of course she did; they were her parents, after all. But they were sometimes a little too careful about her, instituting so many rules to keep her safe and sound that at times her safe, sound life felt more like a prison.

  The few friends she’d had years ago were gone now, leaving the valley and its wealthy villas, taken to Deva where they were matched and married off. Oh, Lucilla should have been married and gone from here more than two or three years herself. She was hardly a girl anymore, anyway. At sixteen years, she should already be contemplating her own children.

  But she wasn’t healthy. No man would want her, as her father told her repeatedly. Her body was too frail; too weak. She was not the bright and robust girl her friends had known when they used to play in the woods and river of the valley.

  It had begun with the visit from her sister. Her father would deny that, of course, as would her mother. But then they had always denied even the very existence of her sister. Whatever Livia had done when Lucilla was still a baby had been so horrifying that they had shut her out of their life, not even speaking of her. Only one or two of the slaves spoke warmly of her when confiding in Lucilla.

  She turned over again, shivering in the wind, wondering once more about getting that blanket.

  Yes, it had begun with her sister; that first night about three years ago when she had found out that Livia even existed. The older girl, very reminiscent of her younger sibling, had defied their parents and crept back into the house, into Lucilla’s room. She hadn’t said anything, just stood watching with a sad smile on her face. It made Lucilla’s heart break to think of her sister being out there in the outbuildings, denied her parent’s love and the comforts of the villa. Perhaps that was why mother and father kept Lucilla so safe?

  No. That was because of her frailty. But her frailty had begun then. It had, as she had said, made her heart break. Quite literally. The next morning, the robust girl was gone, leaving this pale, willowy, feeble girl with the short breath and the twitch.

  Her mother had been quite distraught, and her father, calling on his veteran’s benefits, had brought the legion’s chief medicus from Deva to examine her. The surgeon had explained, after lengthy tests, that her heart was damaged. Some great shock had actually stopped it for a time, and it had resumed its beat with a problem.

  The care and virtual imprisonment had begun that day. Perhaps she would have recovered in time; found herself a handsome soldier to wed, and been gone from this dreadful, grey, chilling villa, if only she had not declined in steps.

  Every step, of course, coincided with the infrequent visits from her sister. Livia could only sneak into the house very rarely when it was dark and everyone but Lucilla was asleep. Perhaps twice or three times a year she came.

  Every time was a wrench for Lucilla. She loved her poor, exiled sister so much and the warmth of her return filled her with a fleeting joy that soon plummeted into the icy river of sadness again as Livia, wordlessly, smiled that sad smile and returned to her freezing den in the outbuildings.

  Lucilla had stopped telling her parents about Livia’s visits after the first year, as the conversation inevitable led to an argument and anger from her father, denial that Livia could have come to see her, and an extra layer of cold security being placed around their younger daughter.

  But the visits still came. Livia never explained why she came or how she could live like she did, but Lucilla didn’t care. It was enough even to see her beautiful sister on those rare occasions. Even if it was rapidly dragging her toward her own demise, her weakening heart now making it dangerous for her even to leave the interior of the villa. Eventually, if she died, her sister would join her and they would be together in the beyond, living in the light of Sol Invictus.

  Too cold. The temperature just appeared to be dropping all the time. It had merely been chilly earlier, but Lucilla would swear she could see ice on the shutters, reflecting the moonlight shining through the crack in the shutters. Frost seemed to be forming on her blanket.

  She gave a deep sigh and sank back into her blankets, feeling the welcome pull of sleep at last.

  It was then she knew that Livia was in the room. Shuddering, she sat up rigid to see the pale figure in her grey tunic, with the long, lustrous black tresses of her hair hanging low, touched and speckled with the frost.

  Lucilla smiled. It had been long months since her last visit. She straightened her night tunic and raised her eyebrows questioningly. Livia never spoke, of course. She couldn’t. But Lucilla instinctively knew what her sister was wanting or trying to say.

  Livia curled a beckoning finger, and Lucilla frowned. This was new. She’d never left the bed before. A surge of dangerous excitement ran through her cold, frail figure. Could Livia be taking her to show her the den where she spent her time? Gingerly, wincing at the freezing marble of the floor, Lucilla swung out her legs and climbed from the bed, swaying slightly for a moment, before she got herself under control. Her legs were so weak she had to shuffle toward the figure in the doorway, holding out her hand to the wall to steady herself.

  Livia smiled that sad smile of hers, but this time, actually walking toward her, it didn’t drive Lucilla’s spirits down into that icy river of loss once more. Instead she felt the electric thrill of discovery. She would, she knew instinctively, find out about her sister this time. She had to. It felt right.

  As she approached the open doorway of her room, the corridor dark beyond, Livia beckoned once more and then slipped around the corner out of sight.

  A sense of urgency overtaking her, unwilling to let her sister out of her sight for fear she might lose her entirely, Lucilla let go of the wall and tottered quickly to the doorway, her feet slapping on the freezing floor.

  The move was too quick for her frail body and as she reached the door jamb, dizziness overcame her and she slumped, her mind fogging with confusion and pain, her body cold and aching. It was almost half a minute before she pulled herself up, peering off arou
nd the corner, hoping her sister was still there.

  And there was her room. Somehow, during her dizzy fall, she must have got turned around and confused.

  There was Livia, lying on her back on the bed, her grey, thin face surrounded by lustrous black hair as she rested among the blankets and pillows. She looked so peaceful.

  Lucilla smiled sadly. Best not disturb her now. She’d come back and see her soon.

  The man who bought an Empire

  Lamp-light glinted off the cuirass of burnished bronze with its protective medusa head, honorific scorpion emblem and winged horses and off the tip of the gladius in the man’s hand. Breath clouded in the chilly night air and condensation formed on the red-painted walls.

  Titus Flavius Genialis leaned around the corner of the corridor and glanced left and right sharply before pulling back to safety.

  “No one. The passage is clear, Caesar, but we must hurry.”

  Behind him, the emperor Marcus Didius Julianus flattened against the wall, wild-eyed and breathing heavily. His normally intricately-combed and curled black beard hung loose and ragged, much like his hair. His normally swarthy, handsome features were strangely pale and glistening, the result of such desperate nerves. His toga was muddy and covered in dust from the many hiding places they had been forced to utilise on the way through the enormous Palatine palace complex.

  “Where now, prefect?”

  Genialis shrugged.

  “Rome crawls with your enemies, Caesar. The circus maximus throngs with the soldiers of Severus; his agents are abroad across the forum and the Capitol. Most of the praetorian cohorts are already shouting his name. There is nowhere to go but to your chambers and prepare for death.”

  The emperor stared at the commander of his praetorian guard. Behind them, Julianus’ son in law shuddered like the inveterate coward he was.

  “I thought you were helping me escape!”

  Genialis sighed.

  “I would give my life if it would save yours, Caesar, but there is simply no escape. Rome belongs to Severus now. All that is left for you is to decide the manner of your end.”