“They arrived at first light this morning, sent by the agent of Aemilius Scaurus. It seems we are to be fiooded. What am I to do?”
“Why, carry on, of course! This building has survived the high water of the last few years. Maybe it will survive this as well.”
“But suppose it doesn’t!” he cried excitedly. “All will be ruined! What shall we do then?”
I took him by the arm. “Now, Publius Syrus, you just leave all the petty details to me. If this theater is destroyed, we can always move operations to Pompey’s, much as it would pain me to do so.” I steered him toward the tunnel that led back to the stage. “Just go back and drill your troops. Whatever happens in the next few days, the water will have subsided by the Megalensian Games. I will see to everything.”
Muttering to himself, shaking his head, wringing his hands, he retreated into the interior. As if I didn’t have enough on my hands already, I had to deal with temperamental artists, too.
“Let’s go talk to these men,” I told Hermes. There was a rickety stairway leading from the gallery to the mud fiat. Downriver to our left was the Sublician Bridge. Before us the river itself had achieved alarming breadth and swiftness of current. The bridge, like the upriver Aemilian (built by an ancestor of the Aemilius who built the theater), was lined with gawkers, pointing at the water, gesturing, and doubtless all exclaiming how they, personally, had predicted this very thing. People always do that.
Most of the workmen appeared to be slaves, but these were not unskilled foreigners like the gang we had seen demolishing the wreckage of the insula. These men knew their business, and they were constructing a stout brace beneath the overhang of the huge theater, with heavy timbers set horizontally, vertically, and diagonally, resting atop blocks of cut stone. To my unpracticed eye, it all looked very secure. What made me uneasy was that my eye was, indeed, unpracticed.
Bossing the crew was a man whose clothes were of better material than those of the workmen. His hair and complexion were a bit darker than those of a typical Roman, though he wore a citizen’s ring.
“I’m the plebeian aedile Metellus,” I told him. “What is the likelihood that your work here will save this building in a severe fiood?”
He bowed slightly. “I am Manius Florus, freedman of Manius Florus. My patron’s firm has been retained by the steward of the proconsul Aemilius Scaurus to try to preserve his theater from the coming high water. To answer your question, Aedile, all will depend upon the fiood itself. If the current is terribly swift, the bank here could be eaten away so severely as to drop the whole structure into the river.
“However,”—he swept an arm wide, taking in both bridges—”situated as it is, here between these two fine, strong bridges, I have hopes that it will be spared that. It has been my experience of such fioods that the upstream bridge,” he pointed toward the Aemilian, “will break much of the force of the current here in the bend and redirect it toward the center of the stream, where it can do little harm. That bridge has survived many, many fioods over the centuries.”
“I truly hope you are right,” I said.
Hermes came up to me. “I think you had better look at this,” he murmured. It was unlike Hermes to murmur. I followed him to the heavy framework. “Look at that,” he said, pointing. Into the surface of the timber was scratched, in large, crude letters, HERMES.
“You wanted me to see this?” I demanded. “I know you can write your name.”
He gave me a look of exasperation. “I didn’t put this here this morning.”
“Eh?” My mind was not working at full power that morning.
“Look.” He poked with a fingernail at a blob of sap that had oozed from the cut. It was soft, but a thin crust had formed over it. “This is one of those timbers I scratched my name on the day before yesterday. They were loaded on the wrecker’s carts. Isn’t this illegal?”
I swore luridly, something I did well. “This is an outrage! The law states very clearly that condemned wood is not to be used in any aspect of construction or shipbuilding. It is to be employed only as firewood or for funeral pyres!”
“It shouldn’t surprise you by now that people are fiouting the law,” Hermes pointed out.
“No, but this time it involves a building I need for my Games! Manius Florus!” I bellowed.
The man ran up, startled. “Aedile? Is something wrong?”
“Something is very wrong.” I pointed at the offending beam. “Where did this timber come from?”
“My patron had me pick up this wood at the salvager’s yard out by the Circus Flaminius. It is where we usually get timber for braces, scaffolding, bleachers, and so forth, anything that isn’t going to be part of a permanent structure.”