Rome's Sacred Flame by Robert Fabbri

Author:Robert Fabbri
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Atlantic Books

CHAPTER X

‘THAT’S THE WHOLE southern end on fire,’ Sabinus exclaimed, incredulity in his voice.

‘And it’s already spread to two of the tenement buildings next to it, by the looks of it,’ Vespasian said, thinking of the children who had been playing in that very place as he had passed it a little over an hour previously and hoping that they had been taken to safety.

‘It spread really fast,’ Magnus informed them, ‘it was half that size when we first saw it from Decianus’ place.’

Sabinus gave Magnus a quick quizzical glance but his mind was more focused upon his duty. ‘I’d better get down there and take charge.’

Vespasian followed his brother down the hill at speed until the streets became choked with terrified people fleeing the ever growing conflagration that now, with flames clawing at rising, billowing smoke, lit the entire quarter. Their passage was made even more gruelling by knots of spectators from the surrounding areas whose properties were not yet threatened and had no concept of the danger that lurked.

‘Get back to your homes!’ Sabinus shouted to the onlookers, as Magnus, Sextus and the two other South Quirinal brothers beat a path through the crowds in lieu of Sabinus’ lictors whom he had dismissed for the day. ‘Get back, the Vigiles will need easy access if this isn’t to spread too far. Your homes could be next.’ The authoritative voice of the Urban prefect, conspicuous in his purple-bordered toga, warning them of imminent danger to their property brought a sense of reality to many and it was with urgency and rising horror on flickering faces, at the thought of losing everything, that the curious dispersed.

Still fighting against the tide of panic as people, carrying or dragging possessions or clutching babes or small children’s hands, struggled to get clear of the heat emanating from what were once their homes, Vespasian and Sabinus struggled forward with Magnus and the lads doing their best against the throng. Even as he glanced up at it, the tenement next to the two already burning burst into flames that leapt from windows as if the place had been torched by fire-razers. Out ran the inhabitants who had been clinging on until the last moment in the hope that their squalid abode would be miraculously spared; but it was not to be. So quick was the building engulfed that Vespasian did wonder, briefly, whether there had been foul play, but all extraneous thoughts were soon banished as the scale of the blaze, compared to the lack of effort to counter it, became apparent. The entire rounded end of the circus was being consumed by flames that seemed to spring from the very stones themselves rather than just the thick wooden beams upon which the edifice had been constructed. Facing the fire were two pathetically weak hand-pumps, whose jets of water spurted irregularly and barely made it twenty feet into the air, and four bucket-chains of twenty or so sweating Vigiles conveying water from a nearby cistern.

‘Where

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