Of the five hundred men who nightly patrolled the Twelfth and Thirteenth Districts, almost every one was there. The sufferers from the sick bay had bravely rallied. Even the bucket-handler with life threatening burns from a bakery fire had been carried in on a stretcher. Someone whispered to me that he had struggled hard to last out until the party. If he died tonight, he would be smiling.
A drink found its way into my hand. I was expected to gulp it as fast as I could then have more; my elbow was jogged as encouragement. I recognised the wine as vinum primitivum from that night at Flora's. Then I spotted my sister Junia, red-faced and harassed as she pushed through the press. She was approaching forty and the menopause, but that hadn't stopped her pinning her hair in fat, lopsided rolls, adorning the edifice with fake rosebuds, and mincing about in her second-best stole. The effect was incongruously girlish. I felt slightly sick. 'Oh Juno, Marcus, these men are voracious – I'm never going to have enough!' 'You knew what you were taking on. You've heard Petro rhapsodising often enough.' 'I thought you and he were exaggerating as usual.'
'Not this time, sis!' Fear grew in her eyes. Grinning, I let her be dragged away by a group who were demanding their mixed platter of seafood (they knew exactly what they had signed for when the menus went round for advance orders) – what did it take to get service? they had asked four times… The vigiles held one party a year and were as fussy as young patricians at an expensive banquet. More so, because the vigiles paid for theirs.
When plain men who do hard jobs hold an entertainment, they like all the trimmings. Whole trees had been suspended from the rafters, until the roof space was crowded with greenery. Dropped pine needles stuck through the gaps in your bootstraps every time you took a step. Beneath the aromatic forest canopy, they had positioned enough lamps and candles to chase away the darkness of Hades. Smoke from the oil and wax was already thickening the air. Sooner or later they would set something on fire; in theory they had enough professional know-how to douse the blaze – but that assumed any of them were still sensible by then. Already they had flushed faces, gleaming with sweat from the heat and excitement. The noise level had risen high enough to cause complaints from neighbours several streets away – though if the locals had heard that this party was being planned, they had probably all left to stay with their aunties in the Sabine hills.
At one side of the room, a long table was serving as a bar. The idea was to protect Apollonius, who was penned behind it, looking unperturbed as he diligently doled out pottery cups of primitivum from a vast row of amphorae. The hard-bitten drinkers in the cohort had wedged themselves three deep in front of the table where they could most easily grab refills, and were set to stand there all night. Fighting fires gives men a great capacity; the vigiles were practised in working up a thirst. They had been banking contributions to the food and drink bill for the past twelve months, after which Rubella had added his customary top-up. He liked to pretend the bags of sesterces were a personal contribution, a generous thank-you to his loyal men; in fact, we all knew he fiddled the equipment budget. Still, he took the risk, and if ever the cohort was properly audited it was Rubella who would be penalised… Unlikely. I could see the internal auditor lapping up wine in a corner with a blissful expression that had nothing to do with discovering financial irregularities. He looked as if he had come across a crock of gold coins buried under a thorn-bush, and wasn't going to give the treasure back to its owner.
Quite a few of the vigiles were in fancy dress. They must have borrowed costumes from a third-rate theatrical troupe, the kind that drew the crowds the intellectual way: notoriety for topless actresses. The fire-fighters were sturdy ex-slaves with arms as thick as anchor cables and chin stubble a bear would be proud to own; in flimsy drapes of turquoise and saffron, the results were unspeakable. Some were throwing themselves into their feminine disguise so wholeheartedly it was sinister. Others were more restrained and had merely crammed wreaths on their greasy heads or draped themselves in strips of moth-eaten fur. Three were pretty well naked and had spent all afternoon painting one another all over with blue patterns, to look like Celts in woad – always a popular obsession in Rome. One of them had mistletoe in his hair, while a second had made himself a torque, though the 'gold' had melted and was running down over his swirly patterned chest among the curly black hairs and sweat. Attending on Rubella I saw a man dressed as a splendid five-foot carrot. His friend had come as a turnip, but had taken less trouble and didn't look so good.
Some new recruits whose mothers had sent them out cleaned up and nicely presented had used far too much crocus hair pomade. They were standing about in a perfumed little group, all very quiet. None had plucked up courage to go for a drink yet. It was their first year in the cohort and they were starting to feel overwhelmed by the promise of full-throated merriment ahead. Once they let go and began on the primitivum, they would be disgusting.
Women were present. None I recognised. From their dress and demeanour, it seemed unlikely they were vigiles' wives.
I was on my third beaker (though I had passed on my second to another man) when I finally spotted Petronius. He was behind the bar, helping Apollonius break off the wax bungs from a new batch of amphorae. His size and authority were helping to keep order; his only concession to fancy dress was the laurel wreath he wore. It was tied with crimson ribbons; Maia probably made it at home. Forcing my way through the press I waved a salute and mouthed 'lo!' As soon as I could get closer, I added, 'You're in the right place!'
'Not started yet. I like to pace myself' Even so, as there was a slight lull (comparatively), he was accepting a drink from Apollonius, whom I now saw, for the first time in all the years I had known him, holding a wine cup himself
We three stood talking cheerily, interrupted only when Junia tried to make us hand out trays of food. We pretended to help, but passed on the goodies to other people; fortunately the vigiles all have the bucket chain mentality. Petro grabbed a pie as a platter went by at eye height. 'These are not bad!'
'Maybe your sister made them,' Apollonius suggested to me; as he tried one, gravy squelched down his tunic when he misjudged the filling's consistency.
'No chance.' I knew Junia's capabilities, which were a legend in my family. 'She cooks a mean gristle turnover and her stodge polenta will fill holes in wall plaster… these are way out of Junia's class.' Nostalgia washed over me. 'Cassius' bakery, I'd say. Fountain Court.'
Cassius had been my neighbour and regular loaf-supplier in earlier, dreamier, more impoverished days. Petronius raised his eyes to heaven, and leaned in to refill my beaker fast. He knew I was about to hark back sentimentally. I had reached the stage of automatic swallowing, at about the level where I could reminisce without weeping. This would be a little before I began to expound theories that the Roman Empire was no longer what it used to be, nor would it ever be again thanks to the ignorance of the bovine populace and the lassitude of the governing aristocracy…
'The barbarians are at the gates!' Petro's apt exclamation startled me. He and I had been friends for a long time but even so he rarely read my mind to that extent. However, he was merely reacting to a lad who had come up to whisper that there was a bit of a problem on the door with some gatecrashers. The lad could have informed Rubella, but in view of the tribune's lurid Mercury get-up, he had wisely decided his chances of promotion were best preserved by reporting the debacle to Petronius. Marcus Rubella took himself extremely seriously. If he donned fancy dress to be one of the lads, he expected the lads to keep this honour to themselves and not lure him into an unscripted public appearance looking like a tipsy transvestite. For their part, the vigiles despised the public, but still thought the public had done nothing quite bad enough to warrant seeing Rubella's hairy legs.