by AM Kirkby
***
If Lucius thought it would be easier going once that first span had been built, he was wrong.
The completion of the first span of the bridge did at least show that his engineering was sound, that the principles on which the bridge had been planned were good; in short, that it would stand up. There were those who had doubted it, not least Faustus, who had made sure that his doubts were communicated to anyone who would listen. Even those who wouldn't listen to him could not escape his insinuations; like water seeping slowly on to stone, his words gradually wore their way into the consciousness, insidiously, inevitably. But the bridge stood; and as the timbers of the second span were carefully levered into place, it became evident that it would continue to stand.
But little things started going wrong. They were annoyances, rather than disasters; one morning, one of the two boats which carried the men out to the further pilings was missing. It was found, towards noon, having drifted downstream and become wedged between two rocks in the river. One of the men had waded out in the river almost up to his chest to retrieve it. It seemed the painter had not been properly tied the night before; no one could remember who had tied it up, so perhaps, Lucius thought, it had been left untied for want of someone whose responsibility it was to do so. He appointed one of the gang as boat-master, and went home that night feeling at least one problem had been solved.
The next day, the two boats were safely tied up; but one of them was full of water. That would take two men a wasted morning pumping it out, thought Lucius. Still, he had those precious two weeks in hand that he'd allowed himself; they could afford a morning.
But as the sun rose higher, and the men kept pumping, it became apparent that the level of the water wasn't falling. The boat must be holed. It would have to be dragged out of the river - that took another four men; though the boat was light, the water in it weighed it down. Two of the planks near the bottom had been stove in. Perhaps by accident, Lucius thought, perhaps not. That would take both his carpenters a couple of days to repair; two days of their work lost, which would make the beams for the third span a day and a half late, since the tenons on the ends hadn't yet been carved. And till the second boat was in commission, he couldn't use the labourers as flexibly as he wanted to, since every journey out to the pilings in the middle of the river would have to be doubled, to bring the boat back.
Still, Lucius thought, he still had ten days or so in hand. The bridge would still be finished on time, even with only one boat.
He had reckoned without the effect of the problems on the men. They were beginning to talk; his foreman told him the next day that some of them were saying it wasn't an accident.
“It might have been,” Lucius said reasonably. “You know how things are. The river's fast; tree trunks, dead cows, whatever, it all comes down the river. Something bashed into the boat.”
“Something bashed into the bottom of the boat?” The foreman's face was sour. “Could be. But not likely.”
He had a point. It was possible, but it wasn't likely. “You think it was one of the men?”
“No, I don't think so.” It seemed to have taken him rather a long time to think about it. Lucius thought about asking him whether he was sure, then thought better of it.
“Well, let's agree it was an accident. But keep your eyes open.”
“I do already.”
“Good.”
There were no more accidents after that, but there were numerous small annoyances. The harness for one of the ox teams broke; the leather was too thin, and seemed to have been rubbed away where it had been stretched by the load put on it. That meant one of the beams for the central span was delayed; and because it was late, the tenons couldn't be carved in time to fit it on the day it should have been fitted, and so the detailed work had to take up the morning of the next day, when they should already have been working on the next bay. Then the second boat sprang a leak where some of the caulking between the timbers had come loose. That was easily repaired, but again, time was lost, and the men complained at having got wet, again. Then the lead carpenter, Gaius, dropped a chisel into the Tiber while he was out at the far pilings, shaving down a tenon that had been made slightly oversize.
Lucius found it difficult to anticipate his men's reaction. Sometimes they treated events with rough humour, as they did when Gaius dropped the chisel; for days afterwards they'd call 'Splash!' or 'Butterfingers!' when he passed, and laugh, and they laughed even harder when he scowled at them and his face went the dark red colour of old bricks. Other times they were sulkingly silent, or muttered between their teeth. They knew by now, though he'd tried to keep it quiet, that they were behind time; and they didn't like it.
Still, he thought, the bridge itself was safe; the structure was too strong, the system of counterweighting too secure, for it to fail. Now that first span was up, he knew it would work. It was just a question of getting it finished. He held on to this thought throughout the coming days; there were times when it was the only thing getting him through the day, and there were nights when he woke from a nightmare of swirling waters and splintered wood and held the thought of that hard geometry close to him as a talisman, a protection against his fears.
He wasn't convinced it wasn't one of the men sabotaging the equipment. Some of the men must have thought the same; there was an air of tension about the site now, and every so often he'd hear angry yells. Men looked at each other with suspicion; borrowing another man's tools would lead to a scuffle. He noticed some of them wouldn't walk behind another man's back now, but deliberately went out of their way instead.
The day they were starting on the central span, two of the men started a fight. He could never find out what had started it; when he asked, he was met by silent stares, or prolix admissions of ignorance. One man simply said, “You don't want to know,” and turned his back; that would never have happened in Tarchna, but in Rome, where every man was his equal, some men thought they needed to show it. One of the fighters was a Faliscan, the other a Roman, but that didn't mean race was at the bottom of it; it could have been anything, a lost bet, a spilt cup of water, a wedge inserted the wrong way up.
The fight might even have started as a friendly scuffle, but within a minute it had become serious, and the other men were watching, keeping carefully out of the way of the two antagonists. The Faliscan was stockier, and he knew his strengths, trying to close with the Roman and grapple him; the Roman, taller and less well muscled, kept moving, jabbing punches at his opponent two-handed, trying to keep him occupied. They were fighting on the edge of the river, above the little pier where one of the boats was tied, and the Roman used that to his advantage, trying to edge the Faliscan towards the water, giving him no room to move. When he landed a blow, a couple of the men cheered; but most of them watched in silence, as if they were at a religious ceremony.
The Faliscan was pushing forward, though one of his eyebrows was split and bleeding. He blinked, and raised an arm, wiping the back of his elbow across his face; the blood must have got into his eye. Bellowing, he ran at the Roman, knocking him off his feet and into the river. But there was no splash.
Lucius couldn't see what had happened to the Roman, but the men were surging forward to the edge of the river, shouting, and the Faliscan was on his knees, surrounded by them, screaming. A couple of the men were kicking him, hard.
He'd only have one chance to stop it. He looked around for Gaius, thinking he'd be useful support, but the carpenter was nowhere to be seen; he'd have to do it on his own. He had to elbow his way through to reach the Faliscan; he stuck his arms under the man's armpits and pulled him up, holding him against his own body for a moment till he was able to stand. The other men fell silent; not dispersing, as he'd expected them to, but shuffling, looking down at the ground, not willing to meet his eyes.
“Get back to work,” Lucius said; and they did.
It wasn't till he looked over the side that he realised what had happened. The Roman had fallen b
adly, not on to the mud or into the water, but across the edge of one of the boats; one arm had smacked the gunwale, and hung at an unnatural angle. The bone stuck out, white through a swathe of red tissue and blood.