Free The King's Cavalry by Paul Bannister

seats were supported by brackets formed in the shape of dolphins, which acted also as separators between clients. Water flowed in channels under the seats, more channels provided water to wash the citizens’ personal sponges, a fountain played in the room’s centre and niches above the lines of seats contained small statues of the gods and a fine altar to Fortuna. Citizens about their business sat and chatted with their neighbours and the whole place had an air of social ease and a total lack of embarrassment.
    “What do the poor do, if they cannot afford to pay even an as to enter one of these places?” Candless asked as he and the guide settled into adjoining seats. “Well, they can use their own chamber pots, which they empty at the ground floor of their insula. There’s usually a vat placed under the staircase; or they can dump it on the local dungheap, to be taken away by a manure merchant. They can even donate their urine into one of the row of shaped pots the fullers put outside their shops, because they need the ammonia for bleaching.”
    The guide paused, and added: ”Then there are the people who are too lazy or too feeble to go downstairs to empty their chamber pots, and they’ll just pitch it out of the window onto the street. It’s a common court case brought by someone injured or fouled by a shit pot’s contents, if the plaintiff can track down who did it.”
    The bishop and his party regrouped outside to continue on their way to the house of Bishop Militades, who lived among Rome’s wealthy on the Caelian Hill, close to the huge baths of Caracalla. Candless’ talkative guide was eager to point out the sights along the way. “Rome has seven hills, but two of them aren’t really much,” he said, as they skirted the Viminal. “This all used to be marsh in the old days, and the different gens lived on the hills around it until it was drained. It was like living on islands, they say. That’s the Esquiline ahead of us. Old Nero built his Golden House on the cemetery and dump there, and the Temple of Claudius and Trajan’s baths are the big attraction now. They’re leveling the Vatican hillock, going to build something there.”
    Candless viewed the splendid structures on the hill to his right, in the west. “Capitoline Hill,” said the guide briefly. “The temples of Jupiter and Juno are on it, just beyond the forum. In the old days, that cliff over there, the Tarpeian, is where they used to throw off the mad and the bad. It’s still haunted. Next to it’s the Palatine Hill, with the Temple of Apollo, and those of Augustus, Tiberius and Domitian. Just beyond is the Circus Maximus where the chariot racing goes on, a good day out, sometimes a good week out, too. The ground was boggy in the old days, softer for the riders who fell off, they say, and the spectators clung onto the hillsides where they could to watch the races. It’s all improved now, proper track, proper seating. Rome’s come a long way.
    “There’s a few temples on that hill there, too, the Aventine. Diana’s and Ceres’ are the biggest. Pollio’s Library is there, too and so’s the Armilustrium where you go to get your weapons purified at the end of the military campaign season.”
    Potius tugged at Candless’ sleeve. “I’m getting a bit dizzy with talk about all these buildings,” he muttered. “Can’t you shut him up?”
    “Ignore him, look at the women,” the bishop hissed.
    As the group approached the great baths and library built by Caracalla, the tyrant they called The Enemy of Mankind, the streets were bright with fashionable, elegant matrons, their lips rouged, their hair piled in elaborate coiffures, tinted gold with saffron or red with beechwood ash, hints of it peeking out discreetly from under hooded pallae . Their slaves stood attentive as the ladies lingered and chatted, holding bright green parasols to protect their mistresses from the sun that could spoil their lily-white complexions. Many women