People died here, like this man on my doorstep, without many to grieve them. Or so it appeared. Somewhere, there was a person who would feel the loss of this man as much as the death of the slave in the Emporium had deeply cut whoever had set about to avenge him.
There were only a few ways the landlord could have entered our house to be killed inside it. The wine merchant was one—he had a key—but there was no reason the wine merchant would have either admitted the landlord or killed him.
The other solution that came to me made me furious. I swung around without explanation and headed back down the hill, my pace so rapid Livius’s men had difficulty keeping up with me.
Chapter 22
The vigiles’ house had quieted when I returned to it, most of the men resting in preparation for their all-night vigil.
“Where is Scaevola?” I demanded of the bleary-eyed man on guard.
“Not here,” he growled. “Did you want him to detain you again?”
“Find him,” came a rumble behind me. Regulus had followed, and now he pushed his way into the house. “Leonidas’s woman interrupted my sleep. I want to know why.”
“Scaevola isn’t here,” the guard repeated in irritation. “I don’t know where he is. Once the gladiator was freed, he walked away. He’s very angry at you.” The guard nodded in my direction.
“Everyone is always angry at Leonidas,” Regulus stated. “Why don’t you get off your arse and find this man?”
“I don’t take orders from gladiators.” The guard’s tone was cold. He likely held one of the lowest offices of the vigiles—he guarded while everyone else slept—but a gladiator could make him feel superior.
Regulus lunged at the man, but I cut in front of him. If Regulus got himself arrested, Aemil would never forgive me.
“Give me a guess where he’d be,” I said to the vigile. “I’ll find him myself.”
The vigile shrugged. “As I said, he rushed off, muttering to himself once you were gone. That way.” He pointed vaguely to his right out the open door. “If he’d known you’d come right back, I’m sure he would have waited for you.”
Regulus went for the man once more, impatient with insolence, but again, I stepped in his way. I was the only man in Rome, except for Aemil, who could stop Regulus’s charge.
“Just help me find him,” I said to Regulus.
Regulus pushed me off with a snarl but slammed himself outside. Without a farewell to the vigile, I went out and started off in the direction the vigile had indicated, Regulus trudging with me.
The lane where the vigiles’s house lay rose toward the Alta Semita, which ran northeast up the Quirinal. The Alta Semita met the Vicus Longus at a ruined temple to a deity—no one in the neighborhood remembered which one. Not far past this temple, we encountered Scaevola himself heading toward us at a run.
“Another fire,” he shouted. “Help or get out of the way.”
A second vigile came behind him, whacking a bronze bell with a stick. People streamed from houses, the call of fire always a feared one.
I fell into step with the second vigile. “Where?”
He pointed down a side lane with his stick, then went back to banging the bell. From below us, the vigiles, robbed of their final hours of sleep, hastened up the hill, once again carrying any vessel they could.
“Make sure people are out,” Scaevola roared as he charged down a lane.
I followed him, rapidly surrounded by vigiles who hurried after their leader. Livius’s men kept pace with me. I sought the lead guard, exchanged a few rapid words with him, then ran on, the bag of scrolls I still mindlessly held on to banging against my thigh.
I smelled a hint of smoke, but only a hint. Hopefully they’d find the fire and put it out before it spread too far.
The vigile, swarmed past me either toward the fountains at the ends of the streets or with their poles ready to pull down walls. Regulus had vanished, whether to grab a bucket and help or beat his way back home, I couldn’t tell. Livius’s men hurried with the vigiles to assist.
I slowed, uneasy, and not just because of the fire. People and their animals pushed past me as they fled, seeking safety. Once they were gone the lane I stood in became eerily quiet. A wisp of smoke floated overhead, black with whatever fuel it burned.
I started checking buildings in its path, opening doors and calling into stairwells to urge people to run. I heard only echoes of my own voice coming back to me, but I continued the task. The more feeble might need help.
This far up the Quirinal, the insulae were only three or four floors high, or the living spaces were rows of rooms over shops, like the apartment Cassia and I called home.
Down an even quieter lane, I reached a building that was taller and narrower than the others. It had at one time been a cistern, a pump house for the fountain below it. The pipe at its base was dry, the bowl of the fountain empty. Some cisterns that caught rainwater had been shut off as more aqueducts were connected to serve the city. Or else this one’s pipes had been beyond repair and the building put to other uses.
