Malcolm took her to the barracks of the vigiles and explained the function of the special cohort.
”Firemen?” Margo echoed. “I thought Benjamin Franklin invented fire departments.”
”Say, you have been doing that American history reading, haven’t you? Very good. In a manner of speaking, he did. But the Romans had a special fire-fighting brigade to protect the grain port and there was even a private company in Rome. Of course, its main job was to arrive at a fire and convince the owner to sell out cheap before putting out the blaze … .”
”That’s awful!”
”Free enterprise in action,” Malcolm grinned. “The owner got filthy rich.”
Margo huffed Malcolm’s gut response disturbed him to his core. C’mon, Malcolm, she’s your student. But he couldn’t help the fact that Margo was doing seriously troubling things to his bodily chemistry.
”Come on, I’ll show you the Mithraeum and the Temple of Vulcan.”
Margo giggled. “The guy with the ears?”
Malcolm gave her his best disapproving scholar’s glare, which reduced her to fits of laughter.
”I’m sorry,” she laughed, “but it always tickles me. And you look so funny when you’re irritated.”
He sighed, feeling suddenly old. Was a man old at thirty-six? Old enough for a bubbly eighteen-year-old to consider funny …
It was just as well. He needed complications in his life the way a flock of turkeys needed Thanksgiving. Malcolm adjusted the fit of his slave’s collar and gestured to his “master.”
”This way, if you please. The buildings you see here are the collegia of the boatmen, professional guilds with considerable clout in Ostia. Down that way are the warehouses and if we look off to the southeast, we can just see the roof of Ostia’s Temple of Cybele … .”