Luckily a centurion with sense turned up, bringing more men with grappling hooks, axes and mattocks. A party below us were clearing space in the log store, although one side of it was now raging with fire. Before they were forced back, the landlord's prop was replaced beneath the bed, along with poles they had brought themselves, to give him more security until someone could rescue him. Ordered to, this task, vigiles pressed past Petronius and me, at last working with speed and efficiency. They flung a huge esparto grass mat. across the room and commanded Smaractus to throw himself onto it. Just in time, he obeyed. They hauled. We helped. We dragged him clear at the very moment the flames shot up through the floor and devoured the bed. We all leapt back into the outer room, and heard the floor fall in accompanied by a huge roar of fire and sparks.
The blaze went racing up the walls. Smaractus had collapsed. He was picked up as if he were light as a leaf and rushed outside. A terrific gust of heat and smoke rushed through the building. Petro and I found ourselves coughing. The foul-tasting smoke was so thick it was difficult to find the door. As we fell outside, covering our mouths and retching, a member of the vigiles ran up the stairs, axe in hand, gesturing upwards.
`Who lives in the other apartments?'
`No one. They're even more derelict than this one.' `Quick then. Get out of here!'
We all staggered down to street level, relieved to be out of it.
A syphon party came running up, towing their pumping engine. They forced a passage into the laundry, and soon there were more buckets being passed out at a fast pace. More foot patrols arrived. When Petronius found his breath, he began organising these into crowd control, gradually moving the sightseers back. A recruit with a bucket went up the street, dousing the wedding torches. We had enough light now without them. A ballista was dragged to the corner, though it got stuck trying to turn into the narrow lane. Smaractus saw it, panicked, and began wandering about drunkenly, threatening to sue if anyone made a firebreak by knocking down any other buildings owned by him. He was so much of a nuisance, the vigiles arrested him for failing to keep fire buckets, interfering with their duties, and (just to make certain) arson with his bridal torch.
The fire was now being contained, but with difficulty. One problem was the outer stairs. They had been rickety to start with, and the weight of heavy patrolmen thundering up in gangs with their buckets proved too much. The broken stonework gave way, luckily without too much damage to the fire-fighters. Petronius rushed forward to help them, and was knocked flat by a blazing shutter as it fell from above. I raced to pull him clear. At least he was conscious. Two patrolmen took charge of him, flapping cloths to give him air and checking him for broken bones. They knew their stuff.
I saw Cassius, standing with his arms folded, glumly watching the loss of his premises. Leaving Petro for a moment, I went over to commiserate.
`Could have been worse. You could have been in there asleep.' `Not with Lenia and Smaractus pounding all Hades out of the ceiling! But thanks, Falco.' I had turned away. `By the way,' asked the baker, `has anyone checked the upper floors?'
`Nobody lives there, do they?'
'I've seen an old woman going up a few times. Could be a new tenant – Smaractus will lease anything. Or a vagrant.'
`Dear gods. Any idea whereabouts she snuggles down?'
`Who knows?' Cassius shrugged, too absorbed in his own problems.
I stepped across to the centurion to warn him there might be a person trapped. At the same moment he noticed for himself: two floors up a shutter opened, and through the smoke we glimpsed a frightened face.
The vigiles had brought up ladders after the stairs collapsed. Without a word the centurion and I ran for a spare one, praying it would be long enough. We dragged it forwards and raised it below the right window. It barely reached the ledge. Whatever was in there had disappeared. We yelled, but there was no response.
The centurion swore. `We'll make a bridge from across the street.' I had seen them do that, raising and lowering ladders on ropes to form a dangerous crossing point. Sooner them than me.
But it would take time to organise. There was nothing for it. The centurion had turned away to give orders. While his back was turned I sprang onto the lower rungs of our own ladder and started up.
I was wearing the wrong clothes for this. The thin material of my Palmyrene suit shrivelled into little burnt holes every time sparks hit me. I kept on the hat, in the vague hope that it would protect my hair from being set alight. Below me I heard gasps as people realised what was happening.
I arrived below the window and shouted, but nobody appeared. Carefully I climbed higher. I reached up and managed to get one arm over the sill. Then it was necessary to climb with mere toeholds, knowing I had little chance of making my way back again. I pulled myself up, got halfway through the window, and felt the ladder move away from the wall. I let it fall back.
Now I was stuck clinging to the window. No choice but to go in. With a supreme effort I scrambled inside, falling headlong. I stood up, testing the floor beneath me nervously.
`Is anyone there?'
The room was full of smoke. It had seeped up from the two blazing storeys beneath, finding its way thickly through cracks and crannies in the ill-maintained building fabric. The air felt hot. The floor beneath, my Syrian slippers burned the soles of my feet as if its underside must be smouldering like red-hot cinders. At any moment everything around me could explode into an inferno.
In the back of this apartment fire broke through. The noise was appalling. Walls and floors cracked open. Flames roared up as they gave way. Light flickered wildly through an open door.
Now I saw a human figure. Someone crouched in a far corner. Shorter than me of course. Flowing female drapes. The head tightly wrapped against the smoke.
To calm any feminine fears I tried jovial reassurance: `Madam, you need to get out of here!' I strode across. I was all set to do a shoulder hoist, though I was not sure where to turn with the burden afterwards.
Then I saw the glint of a knife. It was no time for being soft on frightened virginity. With a hard blow of my wrist I knocked the blade to the floor. A foot kicked out frantically. Alert for the knee-in-the-groin defence, I glanced downwards ready to protect myself. Beneath the flounced hem of a matronly skirt lashed a dark grey leather travelling boot – on a foot as big as mine. It was a boot I seen before somewhere – the quay at Ostia. This was Balbinus Pius.
I wrenched aside the stole. A hand was grabbing for my throat. I banged that upwards with my forearm. He ought to have used my surprise, but he was still fumbling at his disguise. He underestimated the threat. If Petronius had stumbled in here, Balbinus would really have gone for him; Petro would be dead. I was safer. Balbinus had not bothered to remember me.
But I knew him. I drew my Arabian blade. The scabbard was pure decoration; the weapon was vicious. I set the point straight against his ribs and rammed home the sword.
I heard my voice grating, `Time to depart, Balbinus!' But he was already dead
LXIX
SOMETHING CRASHED AGAINST the window. From far away across the street I could hear shouts. Wiping and sheathing my sword, I staggered to the sill. On the opposite side of the lane, which was fortunately narrow, the vigiles had somehow raised a ladder, balancing it precariously on a balcony parapet their side and lowering one end to where I was. If I could find the courage, I could now crawl to safety across the full width of Fountain Court. It was no time for debate. Fire was sweeping through the apartment behind me. I took off and threw out my slippers (which had been quite expensive), then I checked that my end of the ladder was stable and set off for the other side.
I made it. Let's leave it at that. There is only one way to scramble for your life across a bowing wooden ladder two storeys above the ground, and it has to be undignified. The moment when Petronius leant out from the opposite balcony and grabbed me was one of the best of my life.
We exchanged glances. Petronius saw there was blood on my tunic, but that I had no visible wounds.
`Where's the crone you went to rescue?'
`I stuck my sword in her.' He did not ask why. I think he guessed. `It was Balbinus.'
