The Bow of Heaven - Book I: The Other Al - By Andrew Levkoff Page 0,59
be right behind you, just in case.”
Crassus turned the reins and patted his mount. “Let’s go, Ajax.” With a kick to the horse’s flanks, he wheeled and took off down the hill at speed.
I climbed up onto one of the two carts and my men handed me the six bags. Lifting the seat of the storage bench, I secured the money in their hiding place and nodded to Ludovicus to proceed.
Crassus had little difficulty finding the location of the fire. By the time the rest of us got there, the top two floors of the apartment were glowing like paper lanterns and smoke was billowing above the flat roof. It was indeed a mud brick and timber building, four stories tall. At any moment the flames would erupt. The first brigade was standing a safe distance away having already prepared the hoses from the nearby stream and primed the pumps. Crassus nodded to the lead slaves of the two pike crews who rushed not to the burning insula itself, but the two adjacent buildings. With their ladders and long, hooked poles they began dismantling the now-vacant buildings.
The narrow streets were full of hundreds of spectators who acted as if they were privileged guests at a ludi put on just for them. Yet closest to the pumps was a large knot of anxious onlookers in anything but a festive mood. These were the people who actually lived on this street. They were being held in check by a semi-circle of armed men belonging to Crassus. With one exception, no one in the growing crowd had much hope anything would be left come morning: they all knew that poorly constructed buildings like these were almost impossible to save, either from the flames or the intentional demolition. The exception was an obese man stomping up and down amongst them, gesticulating wildly. His toga was unraveling and his hair stood out at odd angles. His face was made more florid by the glow from above. He was followed, back and forth, by several bodyguards who looked menacing but helpless.
“Is everyone safely away?” Crassus asked, riding up to the pumps. He remained mounted to be sure that the crowd could see him.
“Crassus! What are your men doing? They’re destroying my buildings!”
“Compose yourself, Septimus Florius. They’re following my orders.”
“Your orders?! Are you crazy, man?! My apartment house is burning!”
“We can’t have the adjacent buildings ignite, now can we? No, of course we can’t. Now tell me, Corvinus, does the whole complex belong to you?” The fat landlord nodded frantically, wiping sweat from his forehead with a perfumed kerchief. “The whole block? Oh dear,” Crassus said, shaking his head. “I don’t know how we’re going to be able to save them all.”
“If you’d stop talking and start doing something ...”
“You’re quite right, of course. Men, man the pumps!” With well-rehearsed choreography, Ludovicus and his team flew into action, adjusting regulators, shouting at each other, tightening connections, checking hoses, readying the buckets and doing … nothing.
“Septimus Florius,” Crassus said thoughtfully, “it occurs to me that no matter how successful we are, at least two of these insulae, possibly three will be forfeit. I am devastated that I could not get here quickly enough. I will make it a point to address this neglect of civil responsibility in the Curia. I feel personally responsible. Awful, just awful. Perhaps the best thing now is for you to cut your losses. It’s not really my area of expertise, but I would be willing to take this block off your hands for ... say ... eighty thousand sesterces?”
“Pumps two, three and four primed and ready, sir!” shouted Ludovicus. The first hose team approached the smoking apartment house while the pikemen continued to destroy the buildings on either side, pulling debris away from their incandescent neighbor. Two other groups of Crassus’ slaves hauled the rubble away to a safe distance almost as fast as the pikemen could create it.
“What? What?!” squealed Corvinus. “I don’t want to sell my buildings. I want you to save them!”
“Wait a minute!” Ludovicus shouted. “We’ve lost pressure!” As he spoke, there was a dull thump from the top floor. Wooden blinds blew out of two corner windows in a shower of sparks, and flames exploded out the smoking holes. There was a sharp intake in hundreds of lungs as the crowd quickly pressed back against the storefronts opposite the fire. Corvinus slapped pudgy hands to his face, pushing his fleshy lips out like a beached fish.