“She can't have come this way!” The great door would have stopped her. It was cantilevered so it swung easily to the touch, but the cat would have seen it as a fixed obstacle.
We fell back with relief Curious bathers tried to follow us “stay inside. Keep the door shut!” One of the vigiles had sense, but he was wasting his breath with advice. He was sweating so much he had lost all authority. People wanted to know what was happening. We had to find the cat. Then we could organize proper security around the area where she was.
These baths were unfamiliar to me. There seemed to be corridors everywhere. They had private pools, latrines, cubby holes, attendants' quarters. A thought struck. “Oh Jove! We have to make sure she doesn't get into the hypocaust.”
A vigilis swore. Under the suspended floors of the baths lay the heating chambers, fuelled by huge furnaces. He realized as I had done that crawling through stacked brick piers in the baking hot cavity in search of the leopard would be ghastly. The space was hardly big enough to squeeze through and the heat would be unbearable. It would be dangerous to breathe the fumes. An attendant wandered through a doorway holding an armful of towels, thin things that were hardly fit to blow your nose on. Piperita grabbed him, threw the towels away, and shoved him down one of the access points, with a large trooper standing guard.
“Search round all the columns. Shout if you see anything moving-” The man on guard grinned at me as Piperita gave his orders; even he looked a bit rueful. “Well, it's a start!”
“He'll collapse.” I was curt. It was stupidity. A big cat looking for a refuge just might slink between the hot pillars below, but for a man it was no joke.
“I'll send someone else in to get him if he does.” Without further comment I ran back towards the cold room. I met another attendant whom I sent running to warn the furnace master. “Where can I find the manager?”
“He's still at lunch probably.” Typical.
Luckily the vigiles had hauled out an under-manager from some nook. He had been chewing a folded roll, but the cheese was rather ripe and he seemed glad to abandon it. We persuaded him to organize his staff in a methodical search. Every time we checked a room we left a man in it to warn us if the leopardess prowled in there later. Slaves started persuading the rest of the public to leave, grumbling but fairly orderly.
The heat and steam were exhausting us. Fully dressed, we were overheating, losing our will to continue. Wild rumours of sightings were being exchanged. As the building finally emptied, the echoes of running feet and the vigiles' shouts made the atmosphere even wilder. I dragged my arm across my forehead, desperate to clear the perspiration. An overweight vigilis was emerging from a hypocaust vent but had stuck. His joshing mates rubbed his red face with towels as he gasped and swore. “Someone said they saw her go down-I went to look around, but it's hopeless. The space is only about three feet high and there's a forest of columns. If you met her nose to nose you'd be dead.” With a last effort he wrenched his body out through the manhole. “Phew! It's hot as stink and the air's foul!”
Temporarily done for, he fell full length against the corridor wall, recovering from the effects of humidity and hot gases.
“Best to seal up the underfloor area,” I suggested. “If she is in there either she'll expire or she'll come out of her own accord later. When we're sure she's nowhere else we can deal with that.”
We left him, and the rest of us dragged ourselves back to the search. Soon we reckoned we had checked everywhere. Maybe the leopardess was outside the baths altogether by now, causing a panic somewhere else while we wasted our time. The vigiles were ready to give up.
I was finished myself but I did a final check through the building. Everyone else had gone out. Finding myself alone I glanced through a wedged open door to the hot steam room. Much of the heat had escaped now. I walked to the great marble bowl of standing water and leaned over to splash my face. It was tepid, and had no effect. As I straightened up, I heard something that made all the hairs on my neck stand up.
The huge establishment was virtually silent. But I had caught the scratch of claws on marble-very close.
18
VERY GENTLY I made myself turn around. The leopardess was eyeing me. She had stationed herself on one of the wallseats, sitting up like a sweating bather-between me and the open door.
“Good girl-” She growled. It was terrifying. Fair enough. My luck with the feminine element had never been good.
I kept still. There was no way out. I had my knife but was otherwise unarmed. Even my cloak lay on the flat marble seat beyond the leopardess. The floor was slippery, worsened by a large slick of spilled bathing oil. Its perfume was vine blossom. The one I hate most, more fishy than festive. Needle-sharp shards of the broken alabastron that once contained it lay in wait amongst the oil too.
I sensed failure already. Expecting the worst makes it happen. If only success was as simple.
I felt exhausted by the humidity. This was not for me. I had never been a hunting man. Still, I knew nobody who had any experience would try to tackle a big, fit leopard with only a small hand-knife.
The spotted cat licked her whiskers. She seemed perfectly relaxed.
Noises surprised me: low voices and hurried footsteps approaching in the outer corridor. The leopardess twitched her ears and growled ominously. My throat became too dry to call for help-a bad idea anyway. Very slowly I adopted a crouch, hoping the cat would have learned to recognize a human threat posture. A boot sole skidded on the oily floor. The sickly scent of the spilled oenanthinum caught in my windpipe. The leopardess also moved and also slipped, one great paw dangling off the seat. Replacing it fastidiously, she looked annoyed. A low, harsh rumble came from her throat again. We were now watching each other, though I tried to feign disinterest, not offering a challenge. She still had room to escape. She could hop down, turn, and stalk away. At least she could until the voices we had heard came yet nearer; then both she and I knew she was about to be trapped.
It was a spaciously designed chamber. High walls. Vaulted roof Room for a whole guild of augurs to come here from the Temple of Minerva in the Saepta and lounge in the steam without knocking elbows. To a man hemmed in by a carnivorous wild cat, it suddenly seemed pretty confined.
The voices reached the door. “Stay out!” I called. People came in anyway.
The leopardess decided that the men now behind her represented danger. I must have just looked pitiful. She stood up and paced along the seat towards me, alert to the disturbance yet switchingly aware of me. I backed against the stone bowl; then I started ducking round it sideways. The mighty basin was shoulder high and might offer some protection. I never made it far enough. Whether the cat decided to spring up on to the bowl or whether I was her target, she came flying towards me. I shouted and got my knife up, though I stood no chance.
Then one of her pounding paws must have caught in a drainage cover- one of the sn13ll square grids with flowershaped patterns that allowed condensed steam to soak away. Splay-legged, she scrabbled for balance. Either the grid or a shard of glass from the broken alabastron must have hurt her; she bit angrily at a claw, where blood streamed. I kept yelling, trying to drive her off.
Someone broke through the knot of men in the doorway. A dark shape whirled through the air, briefly opened like a sail, then closed around the leopardess. She ended up writhing in a bundle, snarling and spitting, partially held in the folds of a net. It was not enough. One great spotted leg worked free, desperately striking out. The scrabbling bundle of fur and claws still came at me.
My arm flew up to protect my neck. Then I was knocked askew. The powerful weight, all wet pelt, teeth and snarls, belted me sideways. Smelling carnivore, I gasped. I hit the wall. I must have crash-landed right by one of the internal flues; at first I didn't feel it, then I knew my bare arm had been burned from the wrist to the hem of my sleeve.
People raced to the leopard, brisk figures who skated on the wet tiling but who knew what they were doing. Another net arched, spread and fell. Men held the beast down with long iron-shod poles Sharp commands rang out-then soothing noises for the animal. A cage was still in and swiftly dragged across to the writhing cat. She was still angry and terrified, but she knew these were the people in control. So, with relief: did I.
“Come out of the way, Falco!” A harsh order came from the tall, shapely female who had flung the first net and saved me. Not a voice to argue with. Not a woman to cross. I had had some dealings with her, though the last time I saw her seemed an age ago and we had been in Syria. Her name was Thalia. “Make some room for the
