Lynne Ellison's The Green Bronze Mirror

by Christopher Posner

were being piled into these. Apart from the actual riding-horses, every animal in the

  Caecina stables had been pack-saddled and was being laden with silks and curtains and jewellery. The Lady Julia was going half mad trying to make up her mind what she could take.

  The man who usually guided them to the meetings was not waiting for them in the yard, but Karen noticed a small wax tablet propped against the wall. There was a message on it which read: 'THE MEETING IS ON', so they hurried out and down the hill.

  In the room above the shop there were fewer people than was usual. Marcus and Quintus were absent, presumably fighting the fire elsewhere. Pyrea explained that others had left the city, having been rendered homeless. Indeed, Thrasyllus' words as he prayed for guidance were almost drowned by the clamour of carts and people going along the street outside.

  Suddenly footsteps came pounding up the stairs, and Quintus burst into the room, his hair dishevelled and eyes wide. He waved his arm towards the street and shouted, 'Get out, all of you! The mob's coming. Someone's denounced us!'

  Everyone rose to their feet in alarm. Old Thrasyllus caught Quintus by the arm. 'They say we've done it?'

  'Yes- listen! They're here now.'

  Karen could hear, above the trampling and swearing outside, a chant in the distance, coming nearer.

  'Death to the Christians! Death to the Christians!'

  Thrasyllus turned to the group. 'All right,' he said. 'There's an exit at the back, or you can hide in the shop. Pyrea and I will go down to the underground store-room where there is a trap door. Anyone wishing to join us may do so. Otherwise, it's every man for himself. My blessing, brothers.'

  Rhoda looked at Karen. 'I'll go with Thrasyllus,' she said quickly.

  'I don't think I will,' said Karen, 'I think Kleon and I would stand a better chance outside.'

  Kleon nodded in agreement. 'There's no time to waste,' he said. 'Come on!' And he dived down the narrow back stairs.

  They came out in a small yard, and a gateway at one end led on to the street. They slipped out as quietly as they could, but a woman carrying a huge basket of clothes saw them, and shrieked, 'Look at those two- they've just sneaked out of that house. They're Christians! Stop them!'

  She grabbed Karen's arm and held her in a vice-like grip.

  ‘Let me go!' said Karen struggling, but other people hemmed her in, and the horrible chant of 'Death to the Christians!' had begun again.

  Hands reached out for her, and she fought back with a growing sense of panic. Someone pushed past her and struck the clothes woman full across the face. It was Kleon. He pushed a man backwards into the crowd, and pulled Karen away and down the narrow way at a run, threading past the seething crowds.

  People tried to stop them and give chase, but where two could go it was impossible for ten to pass. Once, when three men looked like catching them, Karen desperately grabbed the halter of a pony laden with fruit, and hauled it across their path, blocking them. The pony lashed out, and there was fruit all over the road, but that saved them for a while. Finally, when they had got a long way ahead, Kleon pulled Karen into a tenement doorway and up the stairs.

  At first the steps were stone, but they soon became rickety and wooden. A lot of the tenants were coming down, with their children and bundles of clothing.

  'If were you, ducks, I'd come with us instead of going in,' said a woman as Karen pushed past. 'The fire's getting nearer, you know. I 'ope to Jupiter as they stop it soon!'

  Karen smiled briefly and ran on up.

  Then she heard loud voices below. 'Ere- you! ‘Ave you seen a young man and a girl go in ’ere?'

  'Why, yes ... only a few minutes ago. They've gone up the stairs- why?'

  There was a short, barking laugh. 'They're Christians, that's why. And we're lookin' for ‘em.'

  ‘Christians? Oh, my! I'm sure they wouldn't be; that girl seemed so nice-'

  Steps sounded from the lower floors, and the two fugitives toiled on with increasing effort. The men below were unable to hear them above the noise of their own footsteps, and they rested once or twice on the landings, so Karen and Kleon got to the top with about two minutes to spare. They went in at the first doorway they saw- and stopped dead.

  A man with a long Celtic face was sitting on the single bed, staring at them in surprise. Karen went over to him.

  'Oh, hide us, please!' she cried. 'They're looking for us; they'll be here in a minute ....'

  The man's calm expression hardly altered, but he said sympathetically 'Well, there really isn't anywhere here. But you could get on to the roof from the window.'

  'Thanks!' said Kleon fervently, and strode over to it. He swung a leg over the sill and leaned out. The roof was flat, and the edge jutted out a little way. He seized this and pulled himself on to the top in one graceful, athletic movement. Next moment his arm dangled down and Karen locked her hand in his.

  'Now, come on,' he said.

  Karen was on the point of balking, but she heard the steps on the landing and scrabbled desperately at the edge. She shot a last pleading glance at the man in the room, that begged him not to give them away, and he smiled reassuringly before Kleon hauled her from his sight.

  She and Kleon lay flat on the roof, listening to the voices in the garret. They heard the door pushed violently open, and the men asking threateningly if a young man and a girl were hiding there.

  'No,' said the room's owner tranquilly, 'I don't think so. You see, I'm a philosopher.'

  'If you're lying …'

  'Indeed, I'm not lying. You may search the room if you like. Not that it'll take you long, there's only under the bed if you want to look there.'

  'Wait a minute, Titus,' said another voice. 'The window's open.'

  The two on the roof held their breath. Then the man said calmly, 'Yes, I like fresh air. Besides, I want to see which way the fire is coming.'

  'If you ask me,' said someone else, 'they're off over the house-tops by now. You can risk your neck for a couple of scrawny Christians if you like, but I'm not.'

  'No, all right,' said Titus. 'You win. I don't reckon we'd 'ave caught them, anyway.' They went out, and their footsteps gradually receded, going down the stairs. Karen and Kleon breathed sighs of relief. Silently Karen blessed the man in the room for not giving them away.

  XI

  THEY MADE THEIR ESCAPE OVER THE ROOF-TOPS, LEAPING from one shaky tenement block to the next. Some of the roofs were flat, but most of them sloped slightly, which did not help. Karen tried not to look down, but inadvertently she glanced at the street below, and immediately wished that she hadn't- the narrow lane was such a long way down, and the people crowding it looked the size of pinheads. She remembered going round a harbour at home and looking down the narrow gap between a tanker and the quay; the water had sucked and gurgled evilly, with bits of rubbish floating on it- not so different from the street.

  She lost her breath, and they rested for a while. To the rear was a cloud of smoke: the fire was catching up. There were several other such clouds in the neighbourhood, because sparks blew from one place to another on the breeze.

  'We’d better get a move on,' said Kleon anxiously. 'We’ll do better to stay up here. We’ll make better speed than they do down there.' The mood of the crowd down below was getting ugly. The people were going as fast as they could, but the heavy waggons went slowly and there was the makings of a traffic-jam. Karen wondered how soon the fire would catch up, and how long it would be before the people panicked.

  'Just where can we go?' she asked, but Kleon didn't really know. However, she had a suggestion. 'Let's go back to the House of Caecina,' she said. 'We'll be safe from the fire there ... for a while at least.'

  Kleon looked doubtfully at her. 'Back there?' he said. 'Do you think we should? They'll want to know where we've been.'

  'We can say we wanted to know where the fire had got to. Anyway, I'm worried about Tiro.'

  'Why? He's all right, isn't he?'


  'Yes-but don't you see? This is a golden opportunity to escape in the fuss and confusion. None of us house-slaves is branded except you- and yours'll cover up-so there's nothing for people to know us by. I want to get Tiro out, too, you see.'

  'Oh, yes. All right, then- if you still think we'll be able to slip off again without being stopped. But for Heaven's sake, Karen, hurry. The fire's only five tenements away now, and it's getting hot here.'

  They ran and the people in the street ran too. They dropped their bundles and climbed over each other to get away.

  Finally Karen and Kleon came to a bleak patch near the Forum, where the houses had all been burnt to the ground, and they climbed down by the remains of the last one of the row, which was partially consumed and still smoking. However, the hard-pressed City Cohorts had managed to soak it enough to prevent it from starting another blaze-chain, and although one of the timbers snapped under Karen's weight so that she was left hanging by her hands to another hot beam, Kleon seized her before her palms scorched too much.

  The bleak patch was full of homeless people, sitting among the ashes with their pathetic few possessions and their wide-eyed children. Unnoticed in the confusion, the two slaves threaded their way through and ran in a homeward direction. There were great streams of refugees leaving Rome by the Vicus Longus and the Porta Nomentana, so they went up the Viminal by a score of back streets. Karen was pretty sure of the way, and the fire had not touched this part, so they arrived in