‘What does a woman care when she is drunk? She drains the cup of undiluted wine, the room spins, the lights blur, and she opens her legs for anyone. Every one of them is a whore at heart.’
‘They can’t help it.’ The other dice player spoke for the first time. ‘It is bad for their health not to get fucked. If the womb is dry, it contracts, gives them pain. A good fuck heats the blood, helps the menses flow.’
The barber shook his head. ‘Spurius here fancies himself a doctor.’
‘He would never make a doctor,’ Gnaeus said. ‘For one thing, he is not Greek, and for another, not all his patients might die.’
‘Laugh all you like,’ Spurius said, ‘but if they don’t get it, they go off their heads. Some of them throw themselves down wells.’
‘Worst of all is if you try to educate them.’ This was his shop, and the barber intended to control the conversation. ‘As soon as you sit down to dinner, she is weighing the merits of Homer and Virgil, blaming Aeneas for the suicide of Dido. An avalanche of words, like pans and pots being beaten. No one can get in a word, not even an auctioneer, or another woman. If you do get to speak, she will correct your grammar.’
With a flourish, the barber removed the napkin, and produced a mirror. ‘See, sir, not so much as a scratch.’
Ballista stared at the apparition in the mirror. His scalp was very white, with pink blotches where the razor had scraped too close. He was unconvinced by the efficacy of the disguise. The reflection still looked like him, but with no hair.
As he paid the barber – By the gods, the profession was a licence to coin money – he saw a movement outside. The urchin had got to his feet, and was coming to the shop.
‘Not in here, you don’t, you thieving little bastard.’
The boy ignored the barber. ‘They are coming,’ he said to Ballista.
There would be no delay before the disguise was put to the test.
‘What about my money?’
Without looking, Ballista gave the boy a couple of coins.
‘You really should have gone to see my sister.’
The barber and his cronies looked expectant. They sensed entertainment, something which might provide gossip for months. Trying to exhibit no haste, Ballista bade them good day, squared his shoulders, and left.
A troop of eight of the City Watch were at the entrance out on the street. Axes on shoulders, buckets in hand, they entered the market. It could be just routine, a check that no one had infringed the fire regulations. Ballista turned left, away from them. The concourse was busy with shoppers. It was difficult to walk normally, as if he did not have a care.
‘Stop! You with the shaved head, stop!’
Ballista kept walking. The disguise had failed at the first test.
‘Halt, in the name of the emperor!’
Ballista ran, sidestepping shoppers, using his shoulders and weight to force his way through.
The calls of hawkers gave way to shouts. The confined space filled with cries of alarm from those strolling, peremptory commands from those in pursuit. At the foot of the stairs, Ballista glanced back. The City Watch were blundering down the concourse. They were impeded by their reluctance to abandon their equipment; every lost bucket or axe would come out of their pay. Shifting from foot to foot, starting for gaps, then swerving as they closed, they seemed reluctant to knock citizens to the ground. Each collision with a shopper and misstep into each other’s way allowed Ballista to leave them further behind.
Ballista took the wide stairs two at a time. Emerging onto the next level of shops, he saw another stairwell opposite. Without pause, he hurled himself across. These stairs were dark, lit just by occasional light wells. They were narrow, the bare bricks on either side nearly brushing his shoulders. Halfway up, they turned, and Ballista collided with a man coming down. Picking himself up, without a word, Ballista scrambled over the prone, expostulating figure and resumed his ascent.
The stairs seemed to go on forever. All Ballista could hear was his own ragged, panting breathing, the thud of his boots. Suddenly he was out on the highest level. Here the shops were splashed with colour. Shafts of sunlight angled down from between the arches that spanned the open roof. He turned left, ran back towards where the entrance to the market was way below. There was only a handful of shoppers this high up. Some of them stopped, and stared as he raced past. Others studiously ignored him as being none of their concern.
In moments he was at the other end of the arcade. The gods had been kind. As he had hoped, there was a matching staircase at this end. It was very dark going out of the sunlight. Ballista crept down, going fast, but trying to step softly, fighting to control his laboured breathing. If the gods continued to smile on him, he could get down these stairs while the City Watch laboured up the others. If he could come out behind them, he should be able to slip out of the markets into the street.
A clatter of hobnail boots echoed up the passageway, around the corner, and ended his tender hopes. At least two of the Watch were coming up. As silently as he could, Ballista retraced his steps to the top.
Dazzled by the bright light, Ballista looked around wildly. There was nowhere else to go but the roof. He could see no way up. Ballista burst into the nearest shop. A small cubicle, stairs to a platform, where the shopkeeper probably slept. No other doors, no access to the roof. Ballista grabbed the merchant by the front of his tunic.
‘How do you get on the roof?’
The man goggled at him, surprised beyond speech.
Ballista shook him. ‘The roof?’
The merchant pointed, and stammered there was a ladder next door.
The City Watch still had not reached this level, but the sounds of their approach were loud; yells, curses, the rattle of weapons.
The adjoining shop was a clothes seller. The proprietor was showing a woman a robe. Ballista pushed them out of the way. The woman screamed as she fell. A ladder at the rear of the shop, a trapdoor at the top. Ballista swarmed up the rungs, put his shoulder to the wooden boards, and climbed out onto the flat roof.
He was on the roof of the markets nearest the Forum of Trajan. Forcing himself to be calm, he stood still. His eyes roved over the surrounding buildings, measuring and judging the rooftops. There must be a way to escape. Nothing offered towards the Forum, just a sheer drop to the Via Bibracte. It had to be towards the Quirinal Hill. Across the markets, over the neighbouring offices and tenements. There must be a way down over there.
The arches that spanned the hall of the upper market were no more than two feet wide. Ballista went to the closest. No reason to fall, but best not to look down. Carefully, arms held out on either side for balance, he stepped onto the impromptu bridge.
The thump of the trapdoor opening made him look around. The helmet of a watchman appeared. The sudden movement had unbalanced Ballista. He swayed precariously, arms flailing.
‘There! After him!’
Before he had fully recovered, Ballista started to run. One false step would send him cartwheeling down into the arcade. The narrow stones seemed to stretch to eternity. Off balance, he could feel himself starting to topple forward. Just as his boots went from under him, he staggered and half fell onto the opposite roof.
The roof was strung with washing lines, divided by low walls. Picking himself up, Ballista set off. Ducking under flapping garments, hurdling the walls, he glanced back. One by one, like creatures in a fable, the City Watch were edging across the arch after him. They had got rid of their buckets and axes. Firemen as much as soldiers, the bastards were used to scaling buildings. No praetorian would have made that crossing.
Having cleared the last wall, Ballista slackened his pace. With each hand he snatched a small cloth from the next washing line. As he ran, he twirled them around his hands. Behind him the watchmen were crashing through the clotheslines.
The roof ended in a drop taller than a man down to another flat roof. No time to lower himself – Ballista jumped. He landed on both feet and rolled forward
onto his hands, tumbling to dispel the force. The cloths protected his palms from the rough plaster.
As he got to his feet, a cat, sunning itself, hissed and darted away. Ballista envied its assurance in its aerial domain.
This roof ended in a blank wall. Eight or nine feet above was the gutter of a taller, sloping roof. Ballista adjusted the cloths so they were wrapped around his palms, leaving his fingers free. Then he ran as fast as he could, and jumped. Banking on the wall with his right boot, he hooked his forearms over the gutter. There was a loud crack. He swung his left leg up onto the roof. The gutter shifted. Somehow he fought his way onto the tiles, before the gutter gave way, and smashed into a thousand shards on the roof below.
The incline was gentle, and, clasping the edges of the tiles, Ballista scrambled up to the ridgeline. On his knees, one either side, he looked back. There were six of the City Watch still in the chase. Perhaps the others were guarding the buckets and axes. Better that than going for help, or raising the alarm. The watchmen were boosting each other up onto the tiles. These were men inured to heights. They had no intention of abandoning the pursuit.
Like a monkey, running on hands and feet, Ballista went along the line of the ridge. A loose tile slipped out from under his left boot. A surge of pain in his damaged ankle. He thumped flat on his face, had to grab the apex of the roof before he started to slide. Infernal gods, his ankle hurt. Not now, of all times.
The watchmen were following, cautious, but relentless; some fifty paces behind.
Pain was an irrelevance. He forced himself up. If he were to save Julia and his sons, he had to get off this roof. Limping, he pushed on.
Ballista had not been able to see this far from the roof of the market. He had been sure that there would be a roof garden, or a skylight, perhaps some lower buildings by which to descend. There was nothing, just the expanse of red tiles. A couple of cross roofs ran out to the left. But they ended at a street, and the Via Bibracte still lay below the slope to his right.
At the end of the roof, Ballista skidded to a halt. There was an adjoining building below. Some forty feet below. No way down. Do not panic. Just think. The Via Bibracte was wide, too wide to jump. It had to be the other street.
Ballista set off the way he had come.
The leading man of the Watch shouted in exultation.
Ballista reached the first cross roof. He scuttled along it to the end. The street was a narrow ravine. The pavement perhaps seventy feet down. There was no convenient balcony or column, let alone a ladder. But the opposite building was set lower. A gap of say five or six paces, a fall of maybe fifteen feet.
Ballista stood, and turned. The City Watch were at the other end of the jutting-out ridge. One foot either side of the apex, Ballista walked towards them.
‘That is it, there is no way down.’
Counting each step, Ballista did not reply.
‘Give yourself up.’
Ballista stopped, facing them. The sky was very blue. Gulls screamed up here above the city.
The nearest watchman held out his hand, as if encouraging a nervous horse to come.
Ballista turned. He took a deep breath.
Woden Allfather, do not let the ankle betray me. Do not think, just act.
‘Don’t be a madman!’
Ballista started to run.
Five paces, six. The chasm getting closer. Nine, ten, and jump.
The vertiginous plunge ended in a sickening impact. Ballista’s midriff hit the edge of the roof. The breath punched out of his chest, he scrabbled for a hold. He was slipping. His boots could find no purchase on the wall. He grabbed a tile. It came away, went spinning out into the abyss. The next tile also gave. Another moment, and he would be gone. He thrust his right hand down into the hole. His fingers curled around a batten. He hung, suspended. His own weight tearing at his arm, threatening to pull his shoulder out of its joint. Ripping away another tile, he got his other hand on a beam. Straining every sinew, he hauled himself up onto the roof.
Ballista lay, not daring to move. Angry shouts rose from the street below. Falling tiles were a constant danger in Rome.
He could not stay here. When he tried to move, he found that his arms and legs were shaking, his muscles rigid, locked with fear. Do not think, just act. Get off this roof.
Spreadeagled, belly to the tiles, Ballista inched up the slope. At the top, he hung over the ridge.
One of the City Watch was taking off his helmet.
‘Don’t do it.’ Ballista tried to shout, but his voice was little more than a croak.
The man did not respond.
‘Don’t be a fool. You have done your duty.’
Now the watchman looked at him. ‘There is a big reward on you.’
‘Not enough to die for.’
‘A man has to make his way in this world.’
The other watchmen were trying to talk him out of it, holding his arms. He shrugged them off, gestured them out of his way.
Ballista had to stop him. ‘This will end in tragedy. Think of your wife.’
The watchman actually smiled. ‘Not married. When I have the money, I can get any wife, anything I want.’
‘One of us will die.’
‘If it is you, I still get the reward.’
The watchman turned and paced out his run.
Ballista watched in horror as he set off.
Like a ghastly enactment of the myth of Icarus, the man fell through the air.
Ballista was sliding down before the man hit the roof. He had landed in the same place as Ballista. Like Ballista, only his arms and chest were on the roof, his legs dangling out into the precipice. As Ballista reached him, the watchman got a grip on the exposed woodwork.
Face contorted with effort, the man started to pull himself up.
Ballista could not do this. Allfather, why did you not make him fall? That was the thought of a nithing, a coward. Ballista thought of Julia, of his sons. He stamped his boot down on the man’s hand. He heard the knuckles break.
Hanging by his one good hand, the man did not fall. As his useless hand scrabbled at the roof, he looked up at Ballista.
‘Help me.’
‘You made your choice.’
Ballista brought his boot down on the other hand.
CHAPTER 17
The Street of the Sandal Makers
G
ETTING OFF THE ROOF WAS EASY, compared with what had happened before. Ballista found a light well on the far side of the ridge. He levered the frame loose with his knife, and kicked the wood and glass to pieces. Despite the noise, no one came out onto the uppermost landing. Wriggling through, he avoided as far as possible the remaining shards of jagged glass. Ballista hung full length from his hands for a moment, then dropped down.
Getting back to his feet, he took care brushing the slivers of glass off his clothes. He was not cut, and the tunic was only a little torn. He unwound the strips of material from his hands. Still no one appeared. Ballista made his way down the several flights of stairs. There was no sign of a caretaker on the ground floor. Perhaps the sounds of violent destruction and heavy boots cautioned the inhabitants to remain behind bolted doors.
Ballista emerged two streets from the Markets of Trajan. There was no time to waste, but he hesitated in the doorway. The subura was close, and he could go to ground there. But that was where they would search, and hiding in that maze would not get him to the emperor, or save his family. He turned right, away from the slums.
Merchants selling the same goods often congregated in certain streets; jewellers along the Via Sacra, perfume sellers in the Vicus Tuscus. But such merchants tended to cater for expensive tastes in luxury items. For the ease of local residents in a city the sheer size of Rome, most streets contained a heterogeneous mixture of traders, side by side without theme, selling all manner of merchandise. Ballista walked past butchers, cobblers, bakers and vintners. It was not until he was opposite the rear wall of the Forum of Augustus that he came across a shop
selling clothes.
Before entering, he checked his money. So far he had lost several wallets, and spent freely from this one. The young man he had taken it from last night had been rich, but the coins were getting depleted. Still, there were enough for Ballista’s present purpose, and later, if he needed more, he had a knife, so could always get another wallet. Perhaps life in the army had conditioned him for taking whatever he wanted without payment. Once a man on trial had been asked why he had become a bandit. In reply he had asked why his questioner had become Praetorian Prefect. Some held that all power amounted to little more than theft. Certainly it was an accusation that had often been levelled at the Roman empire.
The shopkeeper had none of the hauteur of those whose main trade was with the nobility. Ballista bought a blue tunic, a hooded Gallic cloak in dark green – one of those from which the Emperor Caracalla had acquired his nickname – and a broad-brimmed travelling hat, all new. He changed in the shop, and told the merchant that he could keep his old tunic; either repair and launder the garment, and add it to his stock, or sell the thing to a ragman. When he asked for nothing off the bill, his generosity was praised fulsomely. Ballista looked himself over in the mirror. By now the City Watch would be hunting a man with a shaven head in a grimy white tunic. In the distorted reflection, Ballista saw a man wearing immaculate apparel of different colours, and whose lack of hair could be hidden in two ways. He settled for the hat, pulling the brim low.
‘May the gods hold their hands over you, sir.’
‘And over you.’
When Ballista left, immediately a press of people forced him back against the wall.
‘Make way for the Lady Iunia Fadilla.’
Three burly Aethiopians were clearing a path for a litter carried by eight more slaves.
Ballista waited quietly. The streets were still crowded, even though by this time some fifty thousand or more Romans would be crammed inside the Colosseum.
The progress of the litter was stately. Its occupants not to be jostled by any unseemly haste. Ballista knew of this Iunia Fadilla from his wife. It was one of Julia’s favourite stories, a contemporary example of the underappreciated resources of women. As a descendant of Marcus Aurelius, Iunia had been married off to the vicious son of the Emperor Maximinius the Thracian. Iunia had run away from her husband’s brutality. Somehow, in disguise, and almost alone, this delicate, imperial princess had made her way across the high country of Dalmatia in the midst of a civil war to reach the Adriatic and safety. It was hard to see anything of the beautiful, wild girl that had shown such daring, and braved such dangers, in the plump matron who reclined on embroidered cushions talking to a younger woman, who might well be her daughter.
The Last Hour: Relentless, brutal, brilliant. 24 hours in Ancient Rome Page 18