Lindsey Davis - The Ides of April

Tiberius had reached the vehicle. He gestured furiously to the two snake-dressed hauliers. I heard him shouting, "Go! Go!" They took the strain. The chariot lurched forwards a few feet.

Zoe appeared, to find Chloe gripping Andronicus in a headlock with one arm, while with the other she pulled Marcia Balbilla to her feet, dewy-eyed with admiration for her exploit with the torch. Marcia stumbled tipsily and fell against Chloe. Zoe took that wrongly. Always pugnacious, she cursed and flew at Chloe, who had the sense to give Marcia a shove well out of the way. As they battled with their wooden swords, to the hysterical delight of the crowd, Andronicus squeezed free.

He made off and I tried to bawl for people to apprehend him. Useless. This was the Aventine. Any time you shout "Stop, thief!" strangers instinctively step in your way to prevent you catching the culprit, while he runs off laughing.

I was pulled down off the bar by eager men who liked a woman dancing on a counter in a half-transparent dress. They were too blissed out to cause me serious anxiety. I slipped through their grasp and wriggled my way through delighted people towards the action scene.

I saw Tiberius leap on the back of the chariot while the crowd surged forward and helped push it. This was so successful it shot ahead, rattling off at the fastest speed it had gone all night. Everyone tumbled along with it, except me. I was left, standing in a now dark and silent area, with Marcia Balbilla's dying torch. I picked it up and twirled it until the flame burned up. Holding it aloft, I set off steadily after the others, following the shadow I had spotted: someone who tailed the convoy, unobtrusively lurking at the back so nobody noticed him. I knew it was Andronicus.

I lost him. He must have merged into the crowd.

By the time I caught up myself, I could see Tiberius looking back anxiously from the chariot, as if he had glimpsed our quarry or some other risk. The vehicle jerked to a sudden stop again; the Baubo actor was once more trying to earn his fee. Being re-enacted now was a traditional scene where the old crone groaned as if in the desperate pangs of childbirth (helped by the crowd chorusing along with "Heave!"), then lifted up her skirts to reveal her privates (was that what amused Ceres? — she must be easily tickled). Baubo then produced a child of Ceres' own-represented tonight for extra comic effect by a swaddled piglet. The dialogue was as refined as the events. Laia Gratiana looked pained, but was encouraged to smile by raucous spectators who did not know she was too snooty.

I had more to worry about. The mob had increased here, including a boy I recognised with horror. He had climbed halfway up a column on a fire porch for a better view and was hanging there by one arm. At least it meant I noticed him. Watching wide-eyed, with all his solemn, curious intelligence, was young Postumus. He was carefully absorbing every detail, taking in every obscenity. Dear gods, my terrible brother had a waxed tablet and stylus; despite his perilous position, he was writing down the jokes. Baubo had noticed and was looking furious at the breach of copyright.

Someone else saw this too. Postumus had not spotted Andronicus, but Andronicus had fixed on him. I suddenly made out the archivist, beginning to move purposely towards my brother.

I was too far away. I tried shouting but there was too much general noise. I began to push through the crowd, assailed by smells and grabbing hands, using my torch to clear a space. There was little room to swing it but I stabbed a few feet and ribs in passing.

I saw an arm grab Postumus from below. Sick with fear, I jumped up on a large pot outside a shop, only to see it was Tiberius, with Morellus close behind him. Postumus was pulled down, furiously wriggling as he lost his note tablet. Relief surged, as I watched my brother flung hand to hand like a victim being rescued from a blazing building, in the classic vigiles manoeuvre. Somewhere at the end of that line, Postumus would receive a dressing-down. If Morellus had told his men who Postumus was, he would be escorted home, in the hope of a moneybag from our grateful parents. If Papa had been happily organising his wine cellar, they might even get one.

Andronicus had vanished again. I began pushing this way and that, searching. I heard Morellus call to some of his men, "Keep looking for Ginger!" and I reached Tiberius and Morellus. Frantic gestures indicated where Andronicus must be, so we butted our way in that direction. He must have leapt among the pavement paraphernalia outside a shop, kicking over a large jar of tallow for lamps. It smelt awful and as it spilled across the road, the cobbles had become slippery. People were also throwing nuts now, purposely trying to sting others with the hard little missiles.

The chariot slumped then set off again, once more helped by the crowd. Now they took up the Baubo episode's cry of "Heave!" as if the vehicle's painful momentum shadowed the birth process. It was a larger crowd, they pushed much harder, and as the lumbering vehicle swayed like a baby suddenly slithering out of its mother, one of the men in snake costumes at the front lost his footing on the spilt tallow. He fell, screaming in agony as a wheel ran over him. The chariot lurched spectacularly, then its axle collapsed.

Laia and Marcia were thrown out. The Amazons rushed to stand on guard over Laia, while Morellus strode across, grabbed Marcia and pulled her into the entrance to an apartment block. Closer to me, Tiberius had finally homed in on Andronicus. I scrambled after, treading on or elbowing anybody in my way. Just as Tiberius reached him, the runner's boot slid on a scatter of nuts. He was careering so fast he could not stop himself; he sprawled full length on the cobbles. Andronicus dropped onto him, punching him repeatedly with a fast, full arm stretch. The winded runner could barely protect himself. I still had the torch, so I ran straight in, swinging it as a weapon in wide arcs.

"Andronicus! Take on a woman, why don't you?"

Rearing backwards, away from the naked flame, he only just kept his feet. I was extremely angry and wanted him to know it. Prettied up at Prisca's and in my finery, I must have made a wild vision. He looked shaken.

Brandishing the torch, I really was trying to set fire to him. I would have killed him if I could. Tiberius stopped me. Still on the ground, he grabbed me by the ankle, shaking his head. I kicked free, but by then Andronicus had backed, cursed, twisted around and disappeared into a mass of people.

Tiberius struggled to his feet. "Leave it; we'll get him…" He was badly bruised and had a cut by his eye which needed to be mopped up. I checked; Andronicus had gone. I pulled Tiberius out of the crowd; we found refuge in the entrance where Morellus had shoved Marcia Balbilla, a sour stairwell to a typical multiple-occupancy block, stinking of damp, neglect, and uncollected urine in a great tank.

"Cerberus!"

"— With bells on his tail!"

We backed out fast. Morellus and Marcia were still there, closely engaged, and not locked in a discussion of public order control. I thought I might have to rescue her, then I realised that Marcia was doing most of the work. Morellus just leaned back against a bannister with his eyes closed, and thought it was his lucky day. Thank goodness he had had the presence of mind to put his fire-axe on one side or he would have disembowelled himself as they went at it. I left the torch, in case they needed extra light.

So much for festival abstinence.

Outside, Tiberius and I found space by a wall we could lean on. He managed to wipe some blood off himself with one arm. We settled our breathing. I found him a napkin that I kept folded small in my belt purse, which he pressed on his cut eye.