After Rome (22 page)

When they saw Vintrex they rushed toward him, calling him by name and demanding that he do something. Cadogan struggled to keep them from overwhelming the magistrate. “Please, my friends, can't you see that my father is ill? Please step back, give him some air.”

In their panic, no one was listening.

Quartilla drew a deep breath, opened her mouth to its fullest extent, and unloosed loose an ear-shattering scream that echoed around the dome of the hall like a summons from Hades.

The shocked crowd fell back.

Cadogan and Esoros hustled Vintrex into the apodyterium and sat him down on a bench.

It was almost twilight on a winter's day. Yet a lurid glow was growing in the sky to the east.

 

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

The atmosphere in the public bathhouse was permanently damp. A small army of slaves was dedicated to the ceaseless battle against mold and mildew. The warm rooms were vaulted with concrete rather than timbers as a precaution against steam. Hot air from the furnaces below the floors was circulated through flues lined with tile, while the furnaces themselves were safely ensconced in chambers carved from the living rock.

Quartilla was right; the baths would not burn.

Cadogan recruited several men to help him and Esoros seal the main entrance and ransack the surrounding chambers until they had a mountain of tables and benches to barricade the two massive doors. “If the Saxons try this they'll soon give up,” Cadogan said with an assurance he did not quite feel. “They're ignorant barbarians; they'll go for the easier targets.”

Seated on a bench in the apodyterium, under the watchful marble eyes of the goddess Fortuna, Vintrex began to shiver violently. The other refugees milled about the chamber like a herd of spooked horses ready to bolt.

“Fools,” Quartilla commented. She gathered an armload of towels from the nearest table and wrapped them around Vintrex.

The old man looked up at his son. “My house,” he said plaintively.

“I know, Father, but don't think about it now. Lives are more important than houses.”

“Are they going to slaughter us all?” In his unwonted vulnerability Vintrex sounded almost childlike. Cadogan had an urge to put his arms around the old man but restrained himself. He knew his father. When the danger was over Vintrex would never forgive him for taking advantage of a moment of weakness.

“No, Father, they're not going to slaughter us,” Cadogan said reassuringly. “I doubt if they'll even try to break in. A public bathhouse isn't much of a target for looting, not with so many wealthy houses in the area. But in case the fire comes close to this building, I'm going to take you to one of the pools as a precaution against the heat from outside.”

Esoros hesitated. “I really do not think we should move from here. Let us take a little time and think about this. Perhaps…”

“Don't be an idiot,” Quartilla said sharply. “At least Cadogan has a plan and that's what's needed. I'm with him. You will be too, if you have any brain at all.”

Esoros was not immune to her insulting remarks; every one of them was marked and remembered. But this was no time for reprisals. “I'm coming,” he decided. “Lead the way, Lord Cadogan.”

When they left the apodyterium the light changed. Illumination in the bathing chambers was provided by oil lamps depending on chains from the ceiling. As Esoros explained to Quartilla, “In very moist air oil burns more steadily than torches.”

The status Esoros enjoyed as steward to the chief magistrate allowed him access to many of the facilities the baths offered, and he was familiar with all the main areas. However, some chambers were off limits to all but the highly privileged. There were corridors he might glance down, but not follow. Esoros knew his place. As they moved through the series of bathing chambers he walked two paces behind Cadogan and Vintrex.

Quartilla walked beside them.

Most of the refugees followed, unwilling to be left behind. Their footsteps echoed hollowly on the marble floor.

Cadogan chose a room off the caldarium that contained a circular pool. He could not tell if any slaves remained below, stoking the furnaces, but the walls of the room were warm and a thin cloud of steam was rising from the water. Lamps were burning; towels were stacked on benches around the walls. Everything looked normal. Only an eerie silence argued otherwise.

The refugees hesitated at the doorway. “Come in if you like,” Cadogan told them. “There's enough space here for a dozen or so.”

Ten people accepted his invitation. The others, after an exchange of glances and some foot shuffling, went to seek a place elsewhere.

Cadogan padded one of the benches with towels for Vintrex and sat down beside him. The remaining benches were quickly filled by the others, including five men of varying ages. Esoros exchanged a nod of recognition with one of them, a great-limbed, ginger-haired individual in his middle years. There were also two women. One was a diminutive matron with gray hair and bony, imperious features. The other was a plump, pretty mother with three children; a boy of five or six and his little sister, plus an infant. The young mother uncovered her breast for the baby and then sat staring at the water, seeking comfort in the timeless communion.

No sound reached them from outside. Once there was something that might have been a crash in the vicinity, such as a wall falling. A slight shudder rippled the surface of the pool. Cadogan raised his head. “Esoros, do you want to go and…”

“No,” said the steward.

Time passed without measure. People whose lives were governed by the daylight could feel the day dying; feel the night waiting. They unconsciously moved closer together.

Except for Quartilla. She took off her sandals and sat down on the wide rim of the pool, then began splashing her feet in the water. Esoros frowned. “You are a servant,” he hissed at her.

“I am not,” she hissed back to him. And kept on splashing.

The older woman spoke up. “This is the best place to be, otherwise the chief magistrate would not be here,” she asserted. “We should give thanks for our good fortune.”

“It's not my good fortune,” said a paunchy man whom Cadogan recognized as Talus, the owner of several alehouses. “I planned on going to bed with Orcadia the Dancer this evening. I was on my way to her house when those savages started burning the city.”

Quartilla gave him a look. “So you rushed here to save yourself?”

“I did.”

“What of Orcadia the Dancer? Did you bring her with you?”

“I … ah…”

“What of your wife then? I presume you have a wife? Did you bring her?”

Talus looked toward Cadogan. Indicating Quartilla with a jerk of his thumb, he asked, “Is this nosy bitch yours?”

“My wife?”

“Or your mistress.”

“I would not have left any woman I cared about to burn to death,” Cadogan retorted.

Talus bristled at the implied insult. “Magistrate! Does your son speak for you?”

With an effort Vintrex roused himself. “Of course my son speaks for me. Where is your wife, Talus?”

The small matron chimed in. “Yes, Talus, where is she? I trust you made sure of her safety before seeking refuge yourself.”

Talus got to his feet and stalked out of the room.

The matron smiled, revealing prominent gums. “I apologize for not recognizing you sooner,” she said to Cadogan, “but I have not seen you for years.” Responding to his look of puzzlement, she added, “I am Regina Cassiodorus, the widow of Lentullus the Arbiter. Your dear mother and I were friends. What a fine figure of a man you have become! Domitia would be proud.”

“Regina,” Cadogan responded with a polite bow. Though he still did not recognize her.

Vintrex did. He made an effort to sit up straighter. “We have come together in difficult circumstances, Regina.”

“Indeed we have, Magistrate. Perhaps it would be wise to put old animosities aside.”

Vintrex sat even straighter. “You no longer blame me for Domitia's death?”

“With fresh death howling in the streets it seems futile to argue over old ones. Perhaps I was too hasty in my judgment at the time.”

Vintrex's shoulders slumped again. “No, you were not. I blamed myself then and I blame myself now. But I thank you for your kind intentions, Regina.”

“Then allow me to present my daughter-in-law, Pamilia, and my three grandchildren.” Regina gestured toward the young woman nursing the infant. She blushed at the attention directed toward herself and hastily covered her breast. Though her pale blue eyes were unremarkable, she had a glory of light brown hair braided to form a coronet atop her head. Her little boy was darker, with a petulant mouth, but her daughter was the image of herself.

“What a beautiful family,” Vintrex said gallantly. “And your two sons, Regina; what of them?”

“I wish I knew.” Some of the strength faded from the woman's face. “They went to Venta Belgarum seven weeks ago to sell some property we own there, and have not yet returned. Petros left Pamilia and his children with me for safekeeping, ironic as it seems now.”

“They will be safe with us,” said Cadogan.

Regina responded with a tiny bow. “How very kind of you.”

Their formal manners annoyed Quartilla. They spoke as if they were strolling through the forum on a lazy afternoon. “We can't be responsible for you!” she burst out.

Cadogan said, “Of course we can. Didn't you hear her? They're old friends of my family.”

“She never said that. And Vintrex said she blamed him for—”

“They are friends of the family,” Vintrex interrupted with as much force as he could muster. “If my son says so, they are.”

Cadogan was stunned by his father's abdication of authority. If he had been worried about the old man before he was twice as worried now.

Alerted to a change in the balance of power, the four remaining men approached Cadogan. The big, ginger-haired man, who had a strong Caledonian accent, introduced himself as Godubnus the Ironmaster. Esoros studied his face, then said, “I think we've done business before … at the house of the chief magistrate, in fact. Remember?”

“That was some years ago,” Godubnus replied. “Is my ironwork still satisfactory?”

“If it were not, you would have seen me long before this,” said Esoros.

“What I make will outlive us all,” Godubnus boasted. “These three men work for me. Nassos, he's from Ratae, and Karantec and Trebellos, who are Silurians.” The latter explanation was unnecessary; the Silures were noted for their swarthy skins and curly locks.

“We were delivering the parts for a new furnace for the baths when the alarm sounded,” Godubnus went on. “It's a big order and worth a lot of money. I knew we could never get the fully loaded wagon back to the workshop, so we drove it around behind the baths. I only hope the thieving Saxons don't find it. They'd steal my iron and eat my mules.”

Cadogan told him, “They won't steal a furnace, they won't even know what one is. You could be right about the mules, though.”

“I hope not,” said Godubnus. “There aren't many mules left since the Romans pulled out. My team is over twenty years old but still strong. I don't know how I could replace them.”

Pamilia unexpectedly spoke up. “Can you not breed more?” the young mother timidly suggested.

Nassos said, “Mules are usually sterile.”

“Sterile? Barren, you mean? Why is that?”

“A mule is the offspring of a mare and an ass,” Karantec told her, “and they are two very different kinds of animal. Breeding them to each other is like … like…”

“Like crossing a Celt with a Saxon,” said Quartilla.

The remark provoked a ripple of nervous laughter. It ceased abruptly when one of the lamps around the pool dimmed. No solicitous attendants were hovering nearby to replenish the oil. The night was hovering instead.

Quartilla withdrew her feet from the pool and strapped her sandals on. “I don't want to sit here in the dark, Cadogan.”

Dark.

A Stygian blackness engulfs me. Lucius Plautius would say I am depressed. He could be right. Dinas would say there is no such thing as depression. He could be right, but I don't think so.

I don't want to sit here in the dark either.

“Come with me, Esoros, and we'll find some lamp oil.”

“Please, no stinking herring oil,” Pamilia protested in her whispery, diffident voice. “They must have perfumed oil here somewhere.”

Since I left Viroconium I've grown used to the smell of burning fish oil, Cadogan thought with surprise. When did that happen?

The two men began a fruitless search. They discovered the others from the entrance hall huddled in a service chamber, gobbling refreshments meant for the clients of the bathhouse. In another chamber they found shelves stacked with towels and boxes of sponges, and cabinets filled with salves and ointments. But nothing to burn in the lamps. “They probably keep their expensive oils in the basement,” said Esoros.

“Do you know how to get down there?”

“No, Lord Cadogan. Those passageways are well concealed; clients must never see what goes on below.”

Furnace stokers were like sewer cleaners: invisible. The Romanized luxuries of Viroconium had simply appeared as if by magic. Until now.

They returned to the pool room to discover that the walls were cool to the touch. The water was growing cold and another lamp had exhausted its fuel. The chamber that had been warm and welcoming had become a place of shivers and shadows. Pamilia's exhausted children were crying fretfully. Vintrex was huddled in the same position he had been in when Cadogan left. The face he lifted toward his son might have been the face of a dying man. “No oil?” he asked querulously.

“We couldn't find any, but it doesn't matter. We'll be safe enough here, Father, and the Saxons will be gone by morning.”