operated by a large rocker arm. As the vigiles worked the arm up and down-something they did with gusto when a crowd was watching-the pistons forced a jet of water up and out through a central nozzle. It had a flexible joint that could be turned through three hundred and sixty degrees.
With more skill than they ever applied to house fires or burning granaries, the Seventh projected their water spray straight at the leopardess. She was knocked sideways, more by surprise than by the initial impact. Now angry and unpredictable, she started to slide, but recovered and scrambled to get a grip on the roof tiles with her extended claws. The Seventh followed her with the fine arc of the waterjet.
“I'm getting out of here!” Famia muttered. Many of the crowd lost their nerve too and surged off in different directions. Above us the troubled leopardess tried to walk along the roof-tree. The vigiles swung their nozzle to intercept her. She decided to escape downwards and moved tentatively lower on the pantiles a couple of steps, coming down on the street side rather than the internal Saepta enclosure. She was nervous of the roofs slope. It took the Seventh a fraction longer to adjust to the new direction; once they caught her in the spray again she made up her mind to leap.
People scattered. I should have done the same. Instead I reached for a stool, abandoned on the street by a flowerseller. I freed my knife from my boot and moved towards where the cat was intending to land. She was aiming for the narrow street half-way along Agrippa's Pantheon.
“Shift your arse out!” shouted the centurion, spotting a hero who might show him up.
“Shut up and do something useful!” I snarled back. “Get your lads sorted. Make a line. When she jumps we can try to guide her inside the Saepta. If we lock all the doors at least she'll be confined, then we can get specialist help-”
She leapt. I was ten strides away. Nearer folk scrambled for safety, screaming. Street-sellers ran with their trays. Parents grabbed infants. Youths jumped behind statues. The leopardess looked around, sizing up the situation.
“Everyone stand still! Turn off that bloody water!” yelled the centurion, as if pumping it had never been his own idea.
The scene quietened. The leopardess yawned. But her eyes never ceased watching; her head never failed to turn towards any hint of movement.
“Everyone keep calm!” shouted the centurion, sweating badly. “Leave it to us. It's all under control-”
The leopardess decided he was annoying her and adopted a low crouch, fixing him with those dangerous dark eyes.
“Oh great gawds,” muttered one of the troopers in a low voice. “she's stalking Piperita!”
One of the others laughed a bit, then advised in an unhelpful tone, “Better stand still, sir!”
I felt myself grin involuntarily: still one of the ranks, still hoping any officer would come unstuck. The centurion now had his own worries, so I took charge myself “Avoid sudden movements, Piperita. She's probably more scared than we are-” That old lie. “Famia,” I called quietly. “Nip round the back and get into the Saepta. Tell everyone to lock the other doors and stay inside their booths. Some of you lads run around the Pantheon to the other side of her so we can make a phalanx and guide her indoors-”
The Seventh responded at once. They were so unused to leadership that they had never developed healthy rebellion against it.
The silent leopardess was still observing the centurion as if he was the most interesting prey she had seen for weeks. Rightly or wrongly Piperita tried to inch further away from her without appearing to react. This aroused her hunting instincts even more. We could see her tense.
A small group of vigiles appeared from behind the Baths of Agrippa, on the far side of her, now sensibly holding esparto mats in front of them. The grass mats hardly offered much protection, but gave the impression of a solid barrier across the street and might help them steer the beast. They would be steering her towards me and the others, but we had to put up with that. I told the men in my row to take off their cloaks to use for a similar barrier. Not many were wearing them; even in December such luxuries were never part of their uniform. All the vigiles were unarmed too. A couple of nervous ones Hill behind the syphon waggon. Holding my stool in front of me, I steered the others forwards slowly.
It was going well. It had been a good idea. The leopardess saw us advancing. She tried a feinting run towards our group, but we stamped our feet and made off putting gestures; she turned tail. Piperita scampered among us and lost himself from her view. Threatened, the leopardess was looking for somewhere to escape. We had two lines of men walking towards her, closing in to make a V-shape at the Pantheon side. It left her a wide space the other way, inviting her to retreat through one of the grand side entrances to the Saepta. I heard Famia call down from one of the upper storeys, confirming that the other doors were closed. This was going to work.
Then disaster intervened. Just as the leopardess was approaching the open archway, a familiar voice boomed from inside: “Marcus! What's going on out there, Marcus? What in Hades are you playing at?”
I could hardly believe this nightmare: the short, wide bodied shape of my father had popped out of the Saepta. Face to face with the cat, he stood plumb in the middle of the entrance: grey curls, startled brown eyes, delinquent scowl, no damned sense. Famia must have told him to stay under cover-so the fool had to come straight out here to see why.
He must have thought about running. Then, being Pa, he clapped his hands smartly as if he were shooing cattle. “Hep! Hep! Get out of it, puss!”
Brilliant.
The leopardess took one look, decided Geminus was too scary to tackle, and bounded for freedom at full stretch, straight towards the hapless row of men opposite me. They stood their ground in horror, then leapt aside. We saw the big cat pounding through the gap, muscles rippling all along its back, paws pounding, tail up, backside in the air in that distinctive leopardine style.
“She's away!”
She was-but not far enough. She made a beeline for what may have looked like a place to hide: the Agrippan Baths.
“Come on!” I set off after the cat, urging the vigiles to follow me. As I passed Pa, I shot him a disgusted look.
“You harbouring a death wish, boy?” he greeted me. I was too good a Roman to tell my own father to jump into a quaking bog, without a plank or ropes. Well, there was no time to phrase it rudely enough. “I'll get Petronius,” he called after me. “He likes cats!”
Petro wouldn't like this one. Anyway, it was marauding in the Seventh's jurisdiction: not his problem. I, though, had somehow involved myself So who was stupid?
We tried telling the attendants to close the doors behind us. No use. Too many frightened people were rushing out through the monumental entrance. The attendants simply decided to run away with them. Everyone was shrieking in panic. When we ran inside, the leopardess had disappeared. The noise died down after the first exodus of naked men. We started to search the place.
I ran through the apodyterium, snatching at clothes on the pegs to check that the cat was not hidden under togas and cloaks. The Baths of Agrippa had been planned to impress; together with the Pantheon they formed the most dramatic building complex in the large output of Augustus' organizing son-in-law, his visible monument after he realized that despite decades of service he would never himself get to be Emperor. These baths had been free to the public since Agrippa died, a gracious gesture in his will. They were elegant, lofty, marble-clad, and supremely functional. Every time we pushed open the door to the next chamber we were slapped back by a wall of ever hotter, steamier air. Every step forward became more slippery and dangerous.
Out here in the Field of Mars was a long way to come for most folk, but even so the baths were generally well patronized. The leopardess had almost cleared them. The pickpockets and snack-salesmen had been first out. The fat women who took money for guarding clothes and supplying equipment had knocked us sideways as they ran for cover. A solitary slave now cowered in the unguent room, too frightened even to flee. For once the Spartan dry heat room and steamy tepidarium lay eerily empty. I kept going, accompanied by a few of the vigiles, our studded boots scraping and sliding on the tiled floors. When we staggered through the heavy self-closing door to the hot room, our clothes instantly stuck to us. Unprepared by normal warming-up procedures, we found the wet heat utterly draining Our hair dripped. Our hearts pounded unnaturally. Through the stifling steam we could make out naked shapes, the shiny raspberry flesh of soporific bathers all apparently undismayed by the chaos outside- oblivious in fact. These men had not been recently inspected by a loose leopard.
