It had grown dark enough to lend some mystery. A hired flautist came to lead the happy throng. Throwing nuts and yelling, we all jogged up one side of Fountain Court, then danced inelegantly back again, tripping on the nuts. Children woke up and became really excited. People hung out of upstairs windows, watching and cheering. The night was still and the torchlight flickered handsomely. The air, on the last day of October, was chill enough to sober us slightly.
We reached the bakery. Jostling up the narrow outer stairs, I joined the group of delirious attendants who pulled the bride up the last few steps to the nuptial rooms. Smaractus appeared in the doorway, with one of his friends loyally propping him up from behind. He managed to cling on to his ritual torch-and-water vessel while Lenia spilled oil down her dress as she made an attempt to anoint the doorframe in the time-honoured way. Petronius and I braced ourselves, then linked hands under her backside and heaved her indoors.
Smaractus rallied abruptly. He saw Lenia, leered horribly, and made a sudden grab. Lenia proved a match for him. She let out a shriek of salacious delight and lunged for him.
Appalled, Petronius and I made a break for the outside and left hurriedly. Most of the other attendants followed us. Any tradition of witnessing what happened in that nuptial bed was too ghastly to
contemplate. Besides, the remaining wine was in the laundry across the road.
The street was packed with singing revellers. It took single-minded desperation (and thirst) to force a passage through. We made it as far as the laundry's garlanded doorway. We found Arria Silvia shrieking to Petro over the noise that she was taking their young daughters home to bed. She asked if he was going with them, and of course he said yes but not yet. Helena, looking wan, told me she was going up to our apartment. I too promised to follow my dear one `very soon' as the old lie has it.
Something made us look back across the road. Lenia had run out onto the first-floor landing, waving her. arms about. Her veil flapped wildly and her gown was half off. A raucous cheer rose from the crowd. Lenia shouted something and raced back in.
It was dark. There was plenty of smoke from the torches. Almost immediately the distraught bride reappeared in the doorway of the nuptial home. People had quietened down, most of them looking for something to drink. Lenia spotted Petronius and me. In a voice like a grindstone she shrieked to us: `Help, help, you bastards! Fetch the vigiles! The bed's collapsed and the apartment is on fire!'
LXVIII
GUESTS WHO HAD been prepared to fill the street when there was hope of free food and liquor found a sudden urge to go home quietly once they realised they might be asked to form a bucket chain. Others made sure they didn't help us, though they still hung around in doorways having a good gape.,
The smell of real smoke had become apparent. Lenia had vanished again back into the first-floor apartment with a wild cry of `My wedding presents! My husband! Help me get them out!' It was clear that the presents were to be given priority.
There was one saving feature: as soon as someone cried `Fire!' out from my own new apartment came a group of vigiles. My Fourth Cohort helpers were soon spotted by the excellent Petronius and chivied into action. They smartened up immediately. Someone went running to the patrol house for equipment, the rest were ordered straight into the laundry where there was a well and plenty of water carriers too. Petro and I then raced across to see what we could do for the disrupted bridal group.
Lenia was scuttling about the outer room, uselessly gathering armfuls of gifts. We shoved her outside, fairly roughly for fire has to be taken seriously; things could end up worse than she realised: In the second room we were met by a pitiful sight: the nuptial bed, complete with exotic purple coverlet, had crashed partway through the floor. My landlord, even more dishevelled than usual, was clinging on to one corner in terror. He was afraid to move a muscle in case the bed slipped completely and fell into the bakery store below. That was where the fire was, started when in the midst of his uncontrollable passion for Lenia, Smaractus had pounded his bride so heavily that the props beneath the floor had given way. A bridal torch had then rolled across the collapsing floor and fallen through the jagged hole onto the baker's well-dried logs.
`Dear gods, Smaractus, we never knew you were such a hot lover!'
`Shut up and get me out of here!'
Below us we could already hear battering as the vigiles tried to break into the bakery. Petro and I began to cross towards Smaractus, but the boards lurched beneath us too dangerously. We had to stay where we were, trying to calm the stricken bridegroom while we waited for helpers with proper equipment. At first the smoke seemed slight enough and we were not too worried. A pillow slid slowly across the tilting bed, then tumbled down into the fire, showing what could happen to Smaractus. He squealed. He was looking dangerously warm. Petronius started bellowing for help.
A setback occurred. Instead of dousing the fire immediately, the vigiles allowed themselves to be lured from their duty by the tragic spectacle of a heartbroken bride: I won't say Lenia offered bribes to them, but overcome by good nature (or something) they came galloping upstairs to save her precious wedding gifts. By the time more help arrived and operatives started flinging water and mats over the logs in Cassius' store, lively flames were at work. Upstairs with us Smaractus was now screaming as the mattress he was clutching caught light from the flames beneath. That was when Petro and I really started worrying.
Luckily a centurion with sense turned up, bringing more men with grappling hooks, axes and mattocks. A party below us were clearing space in the log store, although one side of it was now raging with fire. Before they were forced back, the landlord's prop was replaced beneath the bed, along with poles they had brought themselves, to give him more security until someone could rescue him. Ordered to, this task, vigiles pressed past Petronius and me, at last working with speed and efficiency. They flung a huge esparto grass mat. across the room and commanded Smaractus to throw himself onto it. Just in time, he obeyed. They hauled. We helped. We dragged him clear at the very moment the flames shot up through the floor and devoured the bed. We all leapt back into the outer room, and heard the floor fall in accompanied by a huge roar of fire and sparks.
The blaze went racing up the walls. Smaractus had collapsed. He was picked up as if he were light as a leaf and rushed outside. A terrific gust of heat and smoke rushed through the building. Petro and I found ourselves coughing. The foul-tasting smoke was so thick it was difficult to find the door. As we fell outside, covering our mouths and retching, a member of the vigiles ran up the stairs, axe in hand, gesturing upwards.
`Who lives in the other apartments?'
`No one. They're even more derelict than this one.' `Quick then. Get out of here!'
We all staggered down to street level, relieved to be out of it.
A syphon party came running up, towing their pumping engine. They forced a passage into the laundry, and soon there were more buckets being passed out at a fast pace. More foot patrols arrived. When Petronius found his breath, he began organising these into crowd control, gradually moving the sightseers back. A recruit with a bucket went up the street, dousing the wedding torches. We had enough light now without them. A ballista was dragged to the corner, though it got stuck trying to turn into the narrow lane. Smaractus saw it, panicked, and began wandering about drunkenly, threatening to sue if anyone made a firebreak by knocking down any other buildings owned by him. He was so much of a nuisance, the vigiles arrested him for failing to keep fire buckets, interfering with their duties, and (just to make certain) arson with his bridal torch.