by Nhys Glover
Smoke clogged my lungs and, coughing, I looked back in the direction from which the fleeing people came. Was it my imagination or was there really a wall of flames racing toward us? I glanced at my companions, hoping they saw more clearly than I did. This was madness! And the flames would not remain down here for long. My uncle’s domus and those on the lower levels of the hills would soon be affected.
I turned to Janus. “Go back and warn my uncle’s family that the fire will reach them soon. This is... This is out of control. It is not safe to remain where they are!”
“We should go back too,” Ramus argued. “What good are your bandages when people are running from that!” He pointed emphatically at the wall of flames devouring everything in its path.
Terror choked off my words. Panic threatened to consume me. I had no idea what to do.
At that moment a high pitch scream of such terror rent the air that it seemed to drown out all other sounds. It did not, of course. The deafening thunder and crackle of the raging fire should have been all we heard. But that scream! It sent a chill right through me.
I scoured the buildings nearby looking for the source of the sound. I saw a woman leaning out of an upper-floor window of the insula across from us. In her arms was an infant who was screaming almost as loudly as she was. I saw the desperation on her face. Right now she was untouched by the ash blowing in the wind, but she would not stay clean for much longer.
Why was she screaming? The flames were still further down the lane. They hadn’t reached us yet. I looked at the other windows and saw large men moving around inside. What were they doing in there? And why was the woman screaming from the window when she could get out by the stairs?
I ran towards the building with Janus and Ramus on my heels.
Why hadn’t Janus gone back to warn my family?
We ran through the open door and up the steep flight of stairs—already filled with smoke—to the floor where I’d seen the woman.
“They’re looters,” Ramus yelled to me as we climbed. “The woman probably thinks they’ll hurt her and her babe. She’s likely barricaded herself inside that room.”
If she stayed in there she’d die. If she tried to jump out that window she’d die. We had to get to her!
“We’ll get rid of the heartless bastards!” Janus said confidently, although the effect was spoiled by a coughing fit at the end.
“You were supposed to go back,” I yelled. “Why are you still here?”
“Because you are!”
I scowled in frustration but said no more. We had reached the upper floor. The doors leading off the small landing had all been flung open. I took the door leading to the front of the house, moving through the cramped and stifling space without paying it much notice. All I cared about was reaching the woman and child and getting them out safely.
When we passed through the next doorway we were greeted by three men filling sacks with all manner of personal items. None of them seemed worth much to me. But then, I was surrounded by luxury every day. What did I know about what these people saw as valuable?
The looters looked up as we entered. I saw panic and fury pass cross their features.
“Get out!” Ramus ordered in his most threatening tone. I had forgotten for a moment that these men with me were gladiators, raised by my grandfather to be deadly. In that moment, I saw them for what they were. Really saw them. And I would have wet myself had they been glaring at me as Ramus and Janus were now glaring at the three bulky men.
The looters exchanged glances and then made a break for it, barging toward us and the door. I stepped to the side to avoid the fight about to erupt and ran toward the door I hoped led to the screaming woman. Behind me I heard grunts and thumps as flesh hit flesh. Plundered loot crashed to the floor. Or was that bodies colliding with furniture? I did not know, nor did I care.
I tried the door. Locked. The woman had locked herself in.
“Hello, can you hear me? We’ve come to help. Open the door!” I yelled at the top of my lungs.
Nothing.
The fighting had ended, or so I thought from the silence behind me. I tried again, “Hello! You’re safe. You can come out now! Hurry! The fire is coming. You must get out!”
There was a sound on the other side of the door and I breathed a sigh of relief. In the next instant, the door opened a crack and the woman I had seen at the window peered out at me. I realised suddenly that I was not dressed as a woman. Would a youth be someone she could trust?
Yes, it seemed so, because the door opened fully, and I got to see a small, panicked woman clutching too tightly to a babe who was now whimpering more than screaming.
“Come. The way is safe now. The looters are gone!” I hoped that was true. I expected it to be true. Two gladiators, retired though they might be, were more than a match for three ordinary men.
I looked over my shoulder to see Ramus and Janus looking no worse for the brief skirmish. In fact, they looked quite pleased with themselves. The woman looked at them in terror, but before she could bolt back into her sanctuary, I wrapped a comforting arm around her and led her past them.
“These are my men. You are perfectly safe. But you must go now. The fire is coming,” I coaxed as I led her between my two fearsome companions and down the stairs.
Once outside, I removed my arm and she looked back at her home. Tears were streaming down her face. I could see confusion and loss written on her tired features.
“My things... All I have... They were taking all I have,” she said just loud enough for me to hear over the approaching fire.
“The babe in your arms is still yours. That is all that matters now. Go, flee, before it’s too late!”
She turned to look at me for a brief moment before nodding her agreement. Then she took to her heels, joining the soot-covered river of Romans escaping the flames.
I brushed stray hair back off my burning face. The heat was unbearable.
What now? Go back up to my uncle’s? Clearly, my healing skills would not be needed here. What if I followed the crowd to the Forum? That was where they were heading. Surely the stone buildings of the Forum would be safe from the flames. I could set up a small hospital in one of the government buildings or the temple. Maybe someone had already thought to do that, and I could just lend a hand.
“Janus, go up to my uncle’s as I told you. Ramus and I will go to the Forum. The fire will not go there. We will be safe, and I can do what I can for those who are injured.”
Janus glanced at Ramus, who gave him a nod. The aging guard began jogging away up the road we had so recently come down.
“This is a mistake,” Ramus grumbled.
But he still stayed at my side as we joined the sea of fleeing people.
I had been to the Forum several times over the last months, and the soaring structures there were impressive. Not as impressive as the many newer buildings out on the field of Mars, of course. Those had been built during the last days of the republic by rich patricians vying for the support of the plebs. Compared to impressive structures like the Pantheon, the fForum’s government buildings seemed old and tired.
As soon as we entered the Forum, I could see that my idea had not been original. People milled in the centre, feeling safe for the moment from the encroaching monster. The injured were sprawled out on the marble stairs and under the portico of the temple. Priests were moving among them, doing what they could for the injured and burned. I rushed to join them.
One white-robed priest stared at me, startled, as I dropped to the side of a man whose arm was little more than a red and black half-cooked lump.
“I have brought soaked bandages to soothe burns and keep them protected,” I said to the priest. “Lavender and chamomile. Witch Hazel too. It will help.”
The middle-aged priest took me in with narrowed eyes and then flicked his glance to Ramus, who stood behind me.
“You should be at home, safe,” the priest said tersely, turning back to the man who moaned pitif
ully.
“I am not a boy. I am a grown woman and a trained healer. I can be of use, I promise you.”
The startled expression was back, and I immediately realised my mistake. It was far worse for a noblewoman to be mixing with the lowborn than a patrician youth. And to declare myself a healer? Not possible!
But he had no time to argue with me. Turning back to the man, he dismissed me as not his concern.
When he spoke next it was my turn to be startled. He had not dismissed me at all.
“The arm will have to come off. The fire has burned the nerve endings. He cannot move his fingers,” the priest muttered.
I sat beside the man and examined the burn. He was young, not much older than me, but his face was grey and not from ash. This was the pallor of death. I’d seen it several times before.
“He will not survive,” I told the priest.
He shot me a glance and then nodded reluctantly.
A woeful keening began. Looking up, I saw a girl maybe a year or two younger than me, round with child, crouching beside the young man’s head. She had heard me.
Groaning, I leaned over to pat her hand. “Is he your husband?”
She nodded as she moaned, rocking backward and forward as her approaching loss hit her.
“He’s all I’ve got. I can’t live without him,” she moaned as she rocked.
The priest shook his head. “You’re right. Not even amputation will save him.”
He rose and moved off to see to his next patient. How could he just... just walk away like that?
But, of course, I understood. There were others in need of help. Others who might live. He could not waste his time on a man who was so badly injured.
“He got burned saving me. He can’t die for that. The gods are not that cruel. He can’t die for that!” the girl wailed.
Something inside me shifted. No, he could not die for that! I knelt at the man’s side and placed my hands on his shoulder where the flesh was unmarred. Quietening my mind, blocking out the chaos and noise around me, I sought the place where time ceased to exist. My breathing altered, becoming slower and deeper.
Through my closed lids, I saw my hands on the burned man’s shoulder. I saw the dead flesh as darkness and the rest of his body as Light. But pale Light, dimmed Light. Oh, yes, he was close to death. I had been right about that.
With resolve, I drew on the Light around me, funnelling it through my own body and into the man, filling him up with it until it overflowed him. From somewhere far away I heard a girl cry out and the gruff rebuke of a man. But they meant nothing to me. All my focus was on the Light that was streaming through me into the man.
How long it took, I have no idea. But when I felt the Light ebbing and fading, I opened my eyes and looked down at my patient. He was no longer just Light and darkness, he was flesh and blood again. And that flesh and blood looked different from the way it had been before I closed my eyes. Now the arm seemed less like half-cooked meat and more like an arm left too long in the sun. Red and raw, but not dangerously so.
I looked at the man’s face. He had lost his grey pallor. His cheeks were pink under the soot and filth. Blue eyes opened and looked up at me in astonishment.
“It... It doesn’t hurt so much,” he croaked out in wonder.
The girl threw herself forward and wrapped his head in her arms. “Lorian... oh, Lorian!”
I moved away and brushed stray hair from my sweating forehead. Glancing up, I noticed Ramus staring at me, his mouth partially open.
“What y’ did...” He swallowed loudly. “What y’ did ain’t possible.”
I shrugged. My body felt heavy and lethargic, as it often did when I had finished this kind of healing. Although the source of the healing did not come from me, it still took my energy to wield it.
Ramus saw me struggling to get to my feet and rushed to help me up. “Are you well, Mistress?”
I looked back at the injured man, who now had his good arm wrapped around his wife. She cried her relief onto his soot-stained chest.
“Oh, yes, I am very well. But I will find a quiet spot and rest for a few minutes. Then I’ll see if I can tend some of the burns that will do well enough with my bandages. I doubt I can do another healing like that today.”
He helped me to a quiet corner, and I slumped back against the marble wall. Ramus lowered himself down beside me.
“Does the Master know you can do that?” he asked me in awe.
I shook my head. “No, and I would prefer he does not find out. Ariaratus took me on as his apprentice while Pater was away. If Pater found out he would be very angry.”
Ramus gave a grunt of a laugh. “I imagine he would. Patricians don’t want their daughters working as lowly healers. But what you did... that was like one of those Christian miracles people talk so much about. I never would’ve believed it if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes.”
Again I shrugged. “I don’t know how it happens. I... I just close my eyes and see the Light inside a person. Then I just add to it. There is Light everywhere, you know. And I just draw it into a person. You can’t see it with your eyes. The Light. Because it isn’t like sunlight or even firelight. It is... It is hard to explain.”
Ramus nodded. “I bet it is. That’s two people.. no three, if you count the babe, that you’ve saved. Maybe that’s enough? Maybe it’s time to go back and help with the packing. There’ll be a lot to do...”
I shook my head. “There are enough people there to do that. I am of more use here. And the Forum is safe enough.”
Undoing my pack I withdrew a flask of water and took a deep swallow. My mouth was as dry as ash. I handed the flask to Ramus. For a moment he seemed shocked by the offer and a little discomforted. Patricians did not share their water with slaves.
I nodded at the flask. “Drink. We cannot afford to dry out. Loss of water will kill us as surely as the fire.”
He nodded and took one small, obligatory swallow from the flask I offered. I scowled at him. Sighing, he gave in and took yet another small swallow.
When he handed it back, I drank a little more before putting it away again. Who knew how long we would be without water? Conserving what we had was our best course of action.
As I slowly recovered, I watched the Forum filling up with sad and frightened people. The stink of sweating, unwashed bodies was almost too much, but it paled next to the stench of burning that permeated the air. My eyes watered from it, my throat felt raw from it.
And still the wind blew down the narrow alleys to lift loose clothing and hair, carrying with it fine ash and larger flakes of charred debris.
When I felt up to it, I started looking around for more people in need of my help. There was no shortage of them. And for the rest of the endless day I wrapped limbs and heads and backs and gave what comfort I could to those who most needed it.
Night came, though it was hard to believe it was night. The fire lit up the sky like daylight. A red, garish daylight, but still a brightness that was all wrong for a sunless world. I was exhausted, hungry, and worried.
People had been talking about the fire coming around from the other side to surround the Forum. They were saying we’d be cut off. That we should travel on the short distance into the Campus Martius.
“Do you think they have found shelter away from all this?” I asked Ramus tiredly.
“Your uncle’s household? Probably. If they went. Patricians everywhere will open their doors to their own kind. They should do well enough.”
“Has there been word of Campus Martius?” I asked. “Is it still safe?”
Through it all I had worried about my pack. I knew they would do well enough out there on open ground, but still a nagging anxiety ate at me.
“Haven’t heard. What worries you?”
“Our gladiators. If the fire comes and they’re locked in... I can’t stand to think of them being burned to death locked in with no way out.”
He nodded silently for a moment. “My guess is that if
the fire gets close they’ll either let them all go or the gladiators’ll break out themselves. There’s too much money tied up in those men to let them die like that, though, so I think it’ll be the first.”
“I’m not sure they will. They will be afraid of what they might do. After Spartacus...”
Ramus shrugged. “If the fire gets to them they won’t be thinking about revolting. They’ll be trying to stay alive. And your father’s slaves? They’d be let loose first. Because everyone knows they’ll come back. We all come back.”
I looked at him closely. He looked to be a mix of Germanic and Celt lines. Not as big as the men my father now bred, but hardy and broad in the shoulder and chest. Although he was not exactly handsome, there was still something attractive about his hawk-like features, in the way a bird of prey could be considered harshly beautiful.
“Why do they come back? They have a chance at freedom, and yet they all ... you all... come back.”
He gave a little laugh. “Freedom? Who is truly free, little Mistress? If we left the empire we would either be killed by some warrior tribe or forced to join them. What kind of freedom is that? We would still be fighting and dying. At least we have a place here. And something to aspire to. The glory of the arena is a tempting thing for men raised to desire it above all else. And few men have the respect we do. It is a good life. I have never regretted returning home. I doubt few ever do.”
I nodded. I knew my pack felt like that. Or they had before they experienced life in the ludus. Would they feel that way now? Was the glory of the arena all they were led to believe?
“We should go. You are exhausted and can do no more today. We should find shelter in a patrician’s villa somewhere away from the fire,” Ramus went on.
“I’m too exhausted to go anywhere,” I answered unhappily.
