Read Online The King's Cavalry by Paul Bannister - Free Book Online Page B

level, there’s no water for you unless you carry it up yourself from the fountains. There’s no toilets, and no fireplaces in there either, just open stoves or braziers. People suffocate from the smoke all the time in the winter, when they close the rooms up against the cold.” Candless shuddered. Even the most primitive Pict hut had its homely fire and usually, a closeness to a water source. And this was great Rome!
    The million-person mass of humanity might be crammed inside the vast walls of Aurelius, but the same fortifications that ringed them also contained much green space: half a hundred parks, gardens and public open spaces, plus large swathes of land dedicated to the gods that were virtually empty of humans.
    Additionally, in among the human rookeries were the oases of the wealthy: private homes whose outside showed blank walls to the world, but whose interiors opened onto verdant gardens with fountains, fruit trees and private courtyards far removed from the city bustle and stink outside their protective fronts.
    The bishop was familiar with stink and crowds, for he had known the streets of Londinium before it was destroyed, and he knew towns like the bustling seaport citadel of Bononia, but those places did not compare with the sensory overload he was experiencing here. Every street, plaza and circus offered a bewildering abundance of temples, basilicas, docks, baths, taverns, public administration buildings, theatres, monuments and statuary, all crowded between the teetering insulae that swarmed with humanity.
    He knew that no waggons were allowed inside the walls during daylight hours, and that many streets were designated for vehicle travel in one direction only, for they were far too narrow to allow wheeled vehicles to pass each other. Only two viae in all of the city, the Via Sacra and the Via Nova, were wide enough for two carts to pass. The acti were rated wide enough for a single cart, the itinera made a tangled zig-zagging net of pedestrians-only thoroughfares, and Candless could see the sense of allowing only horsemen, pedestrians and chairmen-carried litters on the streets between dawn and dusk.
    He knew that at night the city was locked up and dark. The rich might venture out with their torchbearers and guards, and wag goners with their necessary guards had no choice but to rumble around making their deliveries at night, but Rome after dark was the province of murderers, footpads and burglars and the ordinary citizen stayed safe in his tenement tower insula.
    Another thing surprised the bishop. In this place of marble and polished limestone, of golden statuary and the opulence of an empire, he was shocked to see how the streets ran with filth, and he mentioned it to the guide.
    “Well, yes, there are cess trenches, but there are some fine sewers under the streets, too,” said the man with a touch of indignation. “Some are big enough to drive a hay wain through. The sewers collect the waste from the insulae, but I suppose really only from the ground floor apartments. But they also serve the public latrines, and they are quite splendid places.”
    The group had halted as an altercation broke out ahead between two well-dressed women. One was clutching a naked baby, the other seemed to want to take it from her. “It happens,” said the guide. “Unwanted babies can legally be exposed by the cess trenches, but quite often wives eager for a baby will snatch them up. These two seem to have both wanted the same child. The loser will just wait and watch for another woman putting out a child, usually after dark. I think they should let them be collected at the public toilets, as a service.”
    Candless said: ”Toilets, eh? Well, let’s try one. I could use a natural break.” Minutes later, they halted outside a forica . Entry to it cost a small coin, but the interior of the cedar-ceilinged building was impressive. This particular forica was circular, with marble seats lined all around the walls. The