The Fire Waker

by Ben Pastor

  In the large northeast district newly enclosed in the urban walls, south of the barracks are the so-called Herculean Baths. Built in Maximian's honor, they're splendid in excess of their size, which is median. A handsome statue of Hercules in the cold-pool hall shows the god leaning on his club: The veins on the figure's hip and the knots on his weapon are so skillfully carved that you would think them flesh and wood rather than Greek marble. A smaller version of this work is in the barracks' shrine, also dedicated to Hercules.

  As a soldier, however, above all other things I admire Medi-olanum's walls, because they have one advantage over Rome's, in that a river or canal runs all around them. It dictates — even limits — the circumference, but makes the defense more secure.

  Compared to Egypt, crime is scarce, so they tell me. There's no report of marauders infesting the waterways or houses broken into, and even murder is rare. According to Decimus, a Mediolanum brick manufacturer would only be murdered for a question of profit. "How do you know he was not killed for profit in Treveri?" I asked. Anyhow, here the streets are considered secure after hours, except in those districts — the small river harbor, the leather- and cloth-making quarter — where brothels and drinking places thrive. Of course, I consider exaggerated prices a form of stealing.

  In sum, one has the impression that everyone in Mediolanum owns or runs a business; folks are rushed and not particularly friendly, and if I think back on Egypt — how people there take life in a cyclical, philosophical way — and compare it to the bustle of folks at this city's gates, all contracting with haulers the cheapest transport of this or that good, I realize how different the Empire really is. Worlds away, in fact, from the frontier I have known since my young years, where everything was and is a function of the military. There, one's experience is limited to a string of army camps and settlements where all the officers' quarters resemble one another, the officers' wives' parties serve the same food, and everybody knows everybody else.

  "May I?" The Briton—his name was Duco—pointed with his freckled hand at the chair across from Aelius and, having received an assent, sat down at the table. "One doesn't often see officers writing, in these barracks. I suppose Curius Decimus is right in calling us boors. How did it go last night?"

  "An excellent dinner."

  "And the company?"

  "Also."

  There was no telling whether fact-finding was limited to court officers, so Aelius chose not to let out more than he had to. The truth was that the after-dinner conversation had taken an odd turn after he'd mentioned the helmet acquired from the German antiquary. Given that the Roman commander at the time of the military disaster was Quintilius Varus, son of one of Caesar's murderers, Decimus had said something humorous, to the effect that Varus had disgraced the family more than his father. "You could also say," Aelius had replied, smiling all the same, "that he elevated betrayal to an art. Through his military lack of skill, Varus betrayed Augustus, his emperor, as his father had betrayed Augustus's father."

  But Aelius had no reason to be rude to the Briton this morning. So he thanked him for ensuring that his Guardsmen and himself had such good accommodations, and invited him to join him for lunch if his duties allowed. Duco shook his head. "I'd like to, but I ended up being officer of the day again. The colleague who was supposed to do it today has gone off in all haste. There's been a murder at the Old Baths, as we call them, and riots are reported throughout the Circus and Palace area."

  Having just jotted down flattering words about safety in Medi-olanum, Aelius was taken aback. "Is murder so rare here that mobs protest it in the streets?"

  "No-o-o." If Duco found the observation naive, he saw no reason to laugh at it. "But the victim happens to be the judge who sits on the proceedings against the Christians, and he was everyone's darling. A squadron of Palace Guards had to disperse the crowd in front of the city jail, as they wanted to drag out those awaiting judgment inside. Too bad in a way, because popular justice would have hastened the process at least."

  Aelius cleaned his pen with a bit of soft cloth. "This judge, is he a man called Marcellus?" Having replaced the pen in its case, he blew over the papyrus sheet before rolling it up.

  "Minucius Marcellus, yes. The Legal Turtle, as his colleagues loved to make fun of him. You heard of him?"

  "Only in passing." His writing kit gathered and put away in a leather bag, Aelius stood, and the officer of the day with him. "Where are the Old Baths?"

  "I wouldn't go there now, there are bruises and worse to be gotten. Wait until the mob is bloodied a little."

  "Thank you." Aelius laughed. "I've broken up disturbances before. My men and I held the main entrance to Alexandria's harbor during the Rebellion. We'll get our anti-riot gear on and go take a look."

  "As you like." Duco gave him directions to the murder scene, suggesting a detour that would put a cavalry troop at an advantage. "Do you happen to have another password in mind, since I'm stuck here?"

  "Yes. How about the one used by one of Septimius Severus's predecessors: Let us be soldiers 7 ."

  The riot was reported in the southeast district of the city. There the Old Baths—Balnea Vetra, in the local speech—stood not far from the city prisons, on an irregular small square that went by the name Gallic Meadows, the two establishments set in roughly facing positions.

  Duco said that well outside the Palace's perimeter, the Palace Guard formed a protective loop stretching from Porta Vercellina to Porta Ticinensis, that is, cordoning off the entire southwest quarter of the city along the two ancient perpendiculars. "Imagine Mediolanum is a square cut in four parts. You'll find the bottom left segment sealed off by horsemen, more than three thousand feet worth of steel."

  "Who is facing the mob, then?"

  "The police, probably the firemen. We can't send more than a handful, as most of the garrison is out for maneuvers."

  Aelius's Guardsmen—thirty-two in number, the usual subunit of a cavalry wing—were trained to ready for battle on a moment's notice. It was a good thing, too, because in the time it took Aelius to alert them, a request came from the Palace to send all available units to Gallic Meadows. Thus the wearing of anti-riot gear, which in his mind had been only a commonsense measure, became a prerequisite. Quickly the Guardsmen reached the stables, threw covers and saddles on their mounts, harnessed them with hackamores (to keep them from opening their mouths and running away from the bit), and buckled leather chest guards and chamfrons on the horses' faces. Themselves they fitted with middle dress, a kit between escort duty and battle gear that included quilted blow-proof jackets under leather corselets, battle helmets with cheek pieces, and kerchiefs with the regiment's colors tied around their necks. Aelius did the same, so that in record time they headed out of camp following Duco's instructions to bend left at the "place where washing is done in open-air vats" to reach the city prison, not far from a secondary gate called Posterula Mariana. Here they would face the prison's blind side wall, where it was unlikely that rioters would congregate. The added advantage was that side streets were not paved, so that the clack of hoofs would not give the riders away—a useful anti-riot trick given that, unlike other units, the Guardsmen's horses rode to battle metal-shod.

  As Aelius and the Guardsmen approached Gallic Meadows, the street became crooked, flanked by low constructions housing meat shops; these were barred shut or in process of being locked up by frightened shop boys. To the left, a lane opened like a crack between walls. Duco said it eventually led to the Jewish quarter at Porta Tici-nensis, and there must be considerable nervousness there.

  Duco's instructions said that ahead, around a narrow elbow bend, the street was supposed to widen as it neared the square. Humming sounds and a disorderly clash of voices—the noise of all crowds— came from that direction. Aelius lifted his right hand, with the extended forefinger biding his men to halt. At a pace, alone, he rode to the corner and looked. A wider pavement, yes, but given the curve, not enough room to charge. More shops. People pressing an
d running everywhere. That looting was going on was clear by the traffic of carcasses from the meat shops: The left side of a split hog, pink-white-red, heavy with fat, navigated like an obscene boat above the sea of heads; skinned goat carcasses with their opaque staring eyes bobbed over shoulders. Aelius hardly recognized the policemen among the tumultuous crowd. The street and square beyond were a sea of agitating bodies and dead meat. Duco had been right about the blind wall of the prison being unattractive to rioters, but he had not considered the lure of well-stocked food stores.

  Across the square, what resembled an improvised fortification of overturned carts, market crates, benches, and whatnot made him at first think that the authorities had set up an enclosed area to protect the prison. By the movement on both sides of the barricade, however, Aelius understood that the mob itself had built it in order to have a free hand while it attempted to enter the jail. Bloody-faced and limping, some policemen staggered away from the melee, stumbling on sausages and blood pudding mashed underfoot. It was impossible to gauge what was happening inside the prison: For sure, its bronze-studded doors were being battered with wooden poles, such as are used to lay a foundation in marshy soil.

  At the other end of the square, the Old Baths attracted no attention, even though the respected Judge Marcellus had been assassinated between those walls.

  "You had better have a plan, Spartianus."

  When unexpectedly Curius Decimus joined him, having come from behind at a trot, Aelius thought two things. First a question: Why is he not with his colleagues manning the Palace? And then the answer to himself: because his house by Porta Romana stands, as the crow flies, less than a thousand feet away from this mess. Decimus tensely greeted him with a wave.

  "I do have a plan. Before it reaches the Jewish quarter, where does the narrow lane back there lead to?" Aelius asked. He listened to the reply, then wanted to know, "Is it wide enough, and can I take a right from there?"

  Soon, one by one, the Guardsmen were filing between house walls barely far enough apart to let a horse through, as if riding down an oppressive canyon, exiting into a surprisingly wide, paved avenue running parallel to the street they had taken. It seemingly parted the district in two, marking the edge of the Jewish quarter on the opposite side. From left to right, the pavement streamed with people seeking the square, but one hundred or so feet down to the left, the avenue was still empty, and there was ample space to line up and maneuver. Aelius directed his Guardsmen there.

  In the square, the riot continued. Outnumbered and defeated by the mob, the policemen could not relieve those inside the prison building; bare- and bloody-headed, powerless, they mostly let themselves be shoved here and there in the thick of screaming men, and the battering on the doors continued with good chances of succeeding.

  Without haste Aelius rode down to join his troop, nearly at the head of the avenue. The Guardsmen had lined up in three rows of ten abreast, with the two noncoms at the ends of the first row. Lifting their man-tall oval shields, they waited for an order to start banging their swords on them. Aelius looked at the shadows under the handsome horses, like puddles or swatches of cloth between blue and gray. The men ready to attack, the tumult, those shadows about to unravel like wind-torn rags: It felt like Egypt a few years earlier, except for the difference in temperature and light. There, an attempt to usurp the throne was at stake; here, as far as he could tell, only rage against the Christians for a judge's murder. But the thrill, the dancing in place of the excited mounts—that was no different. If Decimus was watching from somewhere, Aelius was not aware of it, and did not much care.

  At his order, in a double-time rhythm slow at first, then accelerating, the advancing Guardsmen filled the avenue with the clang of metal on metal edges. Speed increased to a canter, then to a trot. The clack of hoofs on the pavement awoke a dry echo, like rocks knocked against one another at the start of a landslide. A chance glancing back, more than the noise, caused the outer fringe of the mob to see the troopers: First one, then another of the rioters looked and shouted; the mass of men began to undulate as others heard the alarm and looked back. Something like a shiver was transmitted from one side to the other of the crowd, but those protected by the barricade did not stop their battering. At the distance of sixty feet, Aelius gave the order to charge, and the next ten feet were literally leaped by the horses spurred into a gallop. The yellow-black of kerchiefs and shields shredded into a blur; the clacking sound grew hard, sharp, ringing, until the thunder of metal under the heavy animals and riders shook the avenue.

  Aelius rode ahead, and for all the speed and haste, time seemed to elongate and dilate around him. He was conscious of details as if standing still—a hand, a face, the corner of the building ahead; he recalled Egypt and Armenia and every other place where he'd charged, wedged in the secure hold of the four-horn saddle. He even noticed a few black shiny strands in the gray braid of his horse's mane, just before rumbling into the square.

  In the square, panic had struck at the sight of the approaching Guardsmen. A breech in the wall of backs and legs ensued, but also a rain of things pelted from the sides, rocks and reddish things, and great shouting everywhere. Aelius's mind kept reasoning in that oddly dilated time, like a calm wheel. Had there been Christians among the rioters—not the case, since these were people come to lynch Christians—they might have resorted, as they did in Alexandria when they backed the usurpers, to throwing themselves on the ground, because horses will not charge supine bodies. But they weren't Christians, and they were running. Those on the other side of the barricade kept battering the doors. Moments had gone by, no more. Aelius halted, harshly pulling the reins to let the three rows of Guardsmen trundle around him to part the crowd like weeds under the scythe. He galloped back the space necessary to take a run-up, and, whooping to incite the horse, he wedged it and himself where his Guardsmen had made the void, leaped over crouching backs, over arms folded on heads and faces, over the cart, knees tight to the animal's flanks, landed without sliding on the flagstones. He did not even have to lower his sword. Showing it unsheathed and ready to strike sufficed to cause the wooden poles to fall from the hands of those by the doors. Before him were open mouths and wide staring eyes, ferocity becoming fear on the faces, rocks and red bricks making arcs in the cold air. Past the steam from his horse's nostrils, Aelius saw one of his horsemen, squarely struck, lean over and only remain mounted because he was wedged in the saddle.

  Then time regained its speed, and this was like every riot, every urban battle. The mob ebbed back; the backing up and awkward turning around formed a whirling motion like a slow vortex in a herd; the barricade crumbled like a weak dike in the current. Suddenly it became a rout, with folks scuttling into doorways to escape the charge, flattening themselves against the walls, uselessly attempting to climb through grille-covered windows, being corralled by the horses into the crooked street; nearness and lack of space brought a shock of animal chests on human shoulders, heads. The Guardsmen forced what was like a cork of bodies at the corner where the crooked street angled tight; there was a fierce moment in which the horses nearly forgot their training and reared against the human wall. Trusting his troopers enough to let them conclude the operation, Aelius did not follow them.

  When he vaulted off the saddle and removed his helmet, the cold of day was like water splashed on his skin. Opening only enough to show a livid face—a prison official, surely—the bronze-studded doors yawned little by little. The building appeared inviolate. White with anguish, those who had been manning its entrance walked out. Prison guards followed, armed with clubs and short swords. The battered policemen were already removing the barricade, and silence stretched above everything as it did every time after a battle or a riot. Sounds themselves seemed to have been trampled into silence. Several bodies remained on the ground, most of them still moving, although there had to be a few dead, as always.

  A deep trench at the wider end of the square, half filled with water that had either rained in or se
eped up from the ground, marked yet another construction site. To excavate it, flagstones and paving slabs had been dug out; rocks, bricks, and other improvised projectiles came from there. Aelius saw wooden shafts, like those used to batter the prison's doors, stacked to one side; a few feet away lay a series of tall columns and ornate capitals, waiting to stand in a building yet to be erected. The Palatine Baths, Aelius had heard from Decimus the night before, to match catty-corner the great ones across town.

  The Old Baths were what interested him now. He walked toward them, a small building of brick and a peculiar, creamy limestone Aelius recognized as the porous Tibur stone of the color and appearance of mountain cheese, liberally employed in Hadrian's immense villa outside Rome. They'd been, he saw from a glance at the plaque by the entrance, private baths a citizen had bequeathed to the city a generation before, along with money for their upkeep. In fact, the building resembled old-fashioned army camp baths, longer than wide, unadorned.

  Inside there wasn't much light; the windows were small, high up in the thick walls. The vaults were cement and stucco, with no ornament except for that wavy pattern one often saw on stone coffins, recalling the shape of the sweat scrapers athletes used after oiling their muscles. A scratched sentence on a service door was in Greek, a verse Aelius knew but could not at once identify. Woe, woe, look, look! Keep away the bull from the heifer. Room by room, odor of sweat, wet towels, shoes, a perfume that had the same tangy aftertaste of Theo's spice shop in Antinoopolis. The latrines opened to the left, a semicircular row of holes, with a bruised policeman kneeling with his head low over one of them. Cold room, tepid bath room, a sharp left into a long, narrow room for the hot baths; beyond, the closed door of the sweat room.