A Day of Fire: a novel of Pompeii

by Stephanie Dray

  Her eyes lit up. “What else will you bring me?”

  Anything and everything you want, I thought. “Tiny cheese tarts with sweet fig jam in the center,” I said.

  She groaned, smiling. “And?”

  “Cheese and olive paste on fresh crusty bread.”

  She licked her lips and closed her eyes once again. I watched her mouth, transfixed. I moved closer, whispering into her ear, “And the fluffiest little balls of nuts and honey you’ve ever tasted.” I covered her hungry mouth with my own.

  THE bed rustled. “Don’t go,” I murmured to Prima.

  “It is almost sunrise,” she whispered. “I must clean downstairs or the master will be angry.”

  “Can’t your sister do it?”

  She chuckled. “She gets distracted too easily. If I don’t go down and help her, she’ll do it poorly, and the master will beat us both then.”

  Gods, I hated hearing her talk that way. I hated being reminded that she was the property of a man who did not appreciate the wonder of her. Or that other men paid to have her. I would buy her one day, I told myself. Make her only mine. Just as soon as I figured out how get my hands on the money I’d need. Uncle kept me on a tight leash. As it was, I was grateful he didn’t dig too deeply as to where my monthly allowance went.

  I must have fallen back asleep because I woke to the shaking of the bed and the sound of crockery breaking down below. The increased frequency and duration of the tremors in Pompeii were disconcerting. Everybody had a theory—that Vulcan was angry or that the giants were stirring in Tartarus. Uncle probably had multiple theories of his own based on his research of Campania.

  “Did you sacrifice to Neptune yesterday?” a shrill voice floated up. The caupona owner’s wife. “You didn’t, did you? You gambled at dice instead, I know you did! You cannot continue to anger the Earth-Shaker!” she cried. Ah, so she was blaming the god of the sea and earthquakes. A man’s low undertones followed.

  With my hands behind my head, I stared at the low wooden ceiling. I did not want to leave the bed, awash as I was in the scent of her and sex.

  My mind drifted to my pre-Prima days. When I was about fifteen, my uncle had discovered that I had neither availed myself of any of the slaves in the house nor visited the fancy brothel in Misenum. A boy didn’t become a man until he entered a girl or boy, he reminded me, and I had done neither. I wanted to complain that all the slaves in the house were elderly, like him, but I dared not. The truth was, that was only an excuse. My crippling shyness left me terrified of the act. But no Roman boy or man would ever admit to such a weakness.

  Uncle had his man take me to his favorite brothel in Misenum. I bore the humiliation of men drunkenly cheering me on as I walked through the main room. The bare-breasted women, seemingly drunk as well, hooted at me. It didn’t help that, with my cheeks aflame, I probably looked about twelve.

  When we entered the room for “special guests,” I could not look the older, painted woman in the eye. Why did it have to be so public? With so many people knowing what was supposed to happen?

  When I couldn’t even speak my preference, the madam sent me into a room with a pretty naked girl of about fourteen. After shutting the curtain in the small room, the girl turned to me and inspected me coolly from head to toe, which chilled my blood. When I made no move, she rolled her eyes and crossed her arms. Then, without saying a word, she walked naked across the room and yelled out for a boy.

  But I didn’t want a boy! I was just scared and overwhelmed. When the naked boy arrived, I wanted to crawl into the woodwork and disappear like a mealy worm. Now both were laughing at me.

  “I will say you entered me for two silver denarii,” the girl said looking at me shrewdly. But I didn’t have the money, my attendant did.

  She thought my silence was bargaining. “Fine,” she said. “One.”

  I nodded. The boy looked at the girl and said, “You have to give me some or I’ll tell.”

  “Fine,” she said smiling, and I realized she hadn’t expected to get even that much for her promise. She could “afford” to be generous.

  She mussed her hair—making strange noises all the while—then smiled mischievously at the boy and sauntered out. “All done,” she announced and stood beside my uncle’s man with her palm out.

  “So quickly?” the madam asked, clearly amused.

  “Fast little man.”

  “Give her an extra denarius,” I croaked to the slave, whose eyebrows went up so high, they nearly touched his hairline.

  “A generous tipper,” the madam laughed.

  The fear that my secret would be divulged—that I was still a boy—haunted my every waking moment. How would I bear the humiliation if anyone found out? It marred my manhood ceremony during the festival of Liberia, though the heavy drinking helped. I avoided the brothels afterward in the fear that I might see that boy or girl again or worse, respond to another whore with shameful, flaccid panic.

  Then I had gone to Pompeii to visit my friend Julius, who eventually insisted we spend our time at the brothels. When I refused, I lied and told him that I had a girl nearby. He laughed at me, of course.

  I went in the opposite direction when Julius headed toward his favorite brothel. When I realized I had inadvertently circled back again close to his house I snuck into the neighborhood caupona to avoid being seen by anyone in his household. And that’s when I met her.

  That day, sulking on a stool at the counter, while I waited for Julius to finish manly deeds I could not perform myself, Prima brought me wine, then bread and olives, throughout the afternoon and into the night. When it got very late and very quiet, she slid onto a short stool across from me.

  “You must be very wise to be so sad at your age. Most boys are happy and dim-witted.”

  “I am not a boy,” I slurred. “I am seventeen and a man.”

  “I didn’t say you weren’t a man,” she said. “All I said is that you seem different from most boys.”

  I shrugged.

  “Has some girl broken your heart?” she asked leaning toward me.

  “I don’t have a girl.”

  “Would you like one?”

  I had been staring into my empty cup but I quickly looked up at her. The movement left me slightly dizzy. Was she making fun of me?

  When my eyes focused I saw that she was not laughing at me at all. She looked tired, and a little lonely. She glanced at the man measuring wine at the counter and sighed. “I may be a slave, but I like to choose for myself sometimes. And I choose you. If you’ll have me.”

  With her, there had been no nerves, no shyness. She had chosen me. She had wanted me. I’d been hers ever since.

  I dressed and went downstairs. Prima was pouring wine into clay beakers. “Good morning,” she said, eyes dancing. Gods! I wished I could drag her back upstairs that very moment. My feelings must have been evident on my face for she mouthed the word, “tonight.”

  Right. For now, I would go to the baths—even though the water shortage meant only the tepidarium would be open. Julius would probably be there waiting for me.

  “Ai, what’s talking you so long, my skinny little slut?” a man across the room called out to her.

  Prima’s back went rigid. “Coming!” she called, trying to hide the disgust that flashed across her face. She scurried over with the wine cup while I tried to take in the fact that somebody dared talk to my Prima that way.

  The man grinned up at her. I saw her jaw flex as if she were gritting her teeth. A deep, dark hatred of this man uncoiled in my chest. He turned to look at me.

  “I do not know you,” the man said, draining his cup. “And I know everyone in Pompeii.” He stood. To my dismay, he towered over me. Worse, he was handsome, with blond hair, a straight nose, and the muscular body of a man who exercises in the palaestra regularly. I gave him a sullen look, hating that his size and athleticism left me with familiar feelings of self-disgust.

  “I am the new aedile in Pompeii, Cuspius Pansa,” he sai
d. “I offer greetings. And you are?”

  “Caecilius,” I muttered, for the first time becoming aware of the crowd of companions waiting for him nearby.

  “Where are you from, Caecilius?” he said, cocking his head slightly, ignoring the great rudeness I’d shown him in not providing my full name. The thick, gold cuff around his wrist glowed in the stream of sunlight from the open door. It was vulgar, just like he was.

  “Are you visiting from Herculaneum or perhaps Nuceria?”

  He was fishing. Did he know my uncle? “Nuceria,” I blurted.

  “Ah, now we are getting somewhere.” He gave me an oily smile, as if he knew I was lying. “In what regio do you live? And what do you think about your gladiatorial champion defeating ours in the arena? An outrage to Pompeii but you must be pleased. What was his name again…?”

  The air in the caupona felt thick. I cleared my throat. “Excuse me. I am late for meeting a friend at the baths,” I said. Turning to say goodbye to Prima, I was shocked to see her wide eyes full of loathing as she stared at the blond man. She’d reached out a hand as if to stop me.

  Had this man hurt her in some way? Was he going to hurt her now? I took a step back toward her and she shook her head almost imperceptibly. A sense of utter helplessness froze me to the spot. I wanted to protect her, but how?

  Go, she mouthed, as if she were trying to protect me. I looked at the slimy magistrate. He was watching me carefully. Too carefully. She was right. I needed to go, but I hated myself for doing it. I turned and walked out into the bright light of a busy Pompeian morning.

  Half-blinded, I walked fast, trying not to imagine that disgusting man touching Prima. But of course, that was all I could imagine. Did she prefer him to me? Because of his size? His handsomeness? No. No. She was disgusted by him. That was clear.

  All the way to the forum baths, I had the sense that someone was following me, yet whenever I looked around, nobody seemed to be paying any attention to me. The streets were bustling with people on the way to and from the Macellum. The tall blond man would’ve been easy to spot, I knew. And hadn’t he said he had just won the aedileship? No magistrate would be able to follow someone like me even if he wanted to. Countless people would stop to talk to him, either asking for favors or complaining about something. Still, I could not shake the sense that someone had eyes on my back.

  In the forum district, several gladiators loitered outside the entrance of the abandoned theater, which served as a surplus barracks. It seemed like a strange place to house gladiators, but Pompeii had its own rules. One scarred fighter watched me as I passed.

  What in Prosperina’s tight ass do you want? I thought at the grizzled fighter. But of course, I didn’t say a word.

  The man seemed to read my expression. He uncrossed his arms and yelled in my direction. “Hey, you, boy! You better bet on Pugnax at the upcoming fights, or I’ll eat you!” the gladiator shouted at me. His mock scowl quickly turned into a grin when several men called out, “Io, Pugnax!”

  I hated the man for his size. Gods, one forearm was as big as my thigh! Knowing that men like that slimy aedile, or even that monster gladiator, could use Prima—could hurt her—any time they wanted left me roiling with a furious, impotent rage.

  I was not a child, I reminded myself. I was a man. And I had to do something. Something that would save her and keep her safe. Something that would make her mine. The solution was clear. I had to find some way to turn the fantasy that one day I’d be able to purchase her into reality.

  The idea was so thrilling, it burned away the sense of helplessness the way a hot plunge melts away muscle tightness. I would do it. Sure, my uncle wouldn’t be happy, but the household could always use an extra hand, couldn’t it? Or, even better, maybe I could arrange it so that Uncle would never even have to know about Prima. I could keep her here in Pompeii—in a little insula room facing the ocean. I could almost picture white drapes billowing with salty sea breezes cooling the sweat off our intertwined bodies.

  But how much did a slave like Prima cost? I stepped into the next tavern I saw. After chatting up the owner and ordering his best wine, I asked him how much that pretty slave in the corner cost.

  “For an hour or for the night?” the man asked.

  I shook my head. “No. My apologies for not being clear. I want to know … if a man came in here and wanted to buy that girl from you, how much would you charge him?”

  The man looked me up and down, then solemnly gave me a figure.

  “Thank you,” I said and marched out.

  “Wait,” the man called. “Make me an offer!”

  The sum he’d named was more money than I had. Certainly too much money to ask for outright from my uncle. I would have to figure out some way to get the money on my own.

  But how? How would I get the money?

  I passed the baths without stopping to look for Julius. He always had extra money. How did he get it? Did his rich father give it to him? Having no father of my own, I would have to find a different way. Walking past a group of men in an alley throwing bones reminded me that Julius also gambled. Of course he did. But Fortuna had never smiled at me when I gambled, not even in Pompeii. Besides, I saved all my coins so I could pay for my nights with Prima.

  Without realizing it, I had walked onto the street of leatherworkers and booksellers. The smell of tanning leather and the calls of booksellers woke me out of my trance. A man in a threadbare tunic held up a scroll like a pilum as if he was about to spear a customer with it.

  “I have here in my hands, the original work of our beloved admiral!” he brayed and I almost laughed out loud. What a liar. My uncle kept very tight control over who got original drafts of his works. Still, the tactic drew a crowd. “Impress your friends with this treasure! Also, I have all of Pliny’s Natural Histories. Written by his own hand! No scribes! No educated person’s library in all of Campania should be without the whole set!”

  For a moment I wondered if the man knew who I was, whether that’s why he had begun hawking my uncle’s writings. But he wasn’t looking in my direction. He faced, instead, a knot of men dressed in fine linen tunics and golden armbands.

  Instantly, I recognized them as the peculiar product of Pompeii: former slaves who had made their fortunes investing in the city after the devastating earthquakes the year of my birth. Most of the families of nobility left the city, never to return, leaving beautiful homes to be purchased by freedmen and tradesmen like fullers, bakers, and garum makers. They had my grudging admiration for the way they had filled in the cracks of what was missing in the city, much like Prima filled in the cracks of what was missing in me. It was men like these, after all, who likely discovered Pompeii’s strange mud that hardened like stone underwater and made their riches selling it as concrete for aqueducts, piers, and bridges across the entire empire.

  But were these same men really so eager for respectability that they would allow themselves to be swindled with forgeries of my uncle’s work? Glittering with gold and shining with oiled curls, the men surrounded the bookseller. “Written by his own hand, you say?” one of the men asked. “How can you prove such a thing?”

  The man carefully unrolled a corner. “That’s Admiral Pliny’s seal, right there!” The gaggle of men clucked and nodded with appreciation.

  Meanwhile, I could barely contain my laughter. Writers of scholarly tomes didn’t put their seal on the papyrus or parchment like letters. What fools!

  “How much do you charge for this?” one of the bejeweled men asked.

  When the seller answered, I nearly choked. “A bargain for such impressive works for your growing libraries,” the man added.

  I stopped cold under the awning nearby. The men were considering paying that much for an obviously fake scroll? By the gods! Just thinking about all the original works crammed into Uncle’s library made me gasp. What if—

  “Order or move on!” a sweating lady waving a ladle said.

  I blinked. The woman nodded at the dolia
sunk into the masonry counter, which reeked of badly mulled wine. She waved her hand like a showman over the other earthenware containers in her thermopolium, one with fish cakes swimming in garum and another with stewed octopus tentacles. “Just caught this morning,” she said, pointing to the octopus. “So fresh you can almost see them twitching,” she added grinning, showing brown teeth.

  She was clearly proud of her offerings. But then everyone in Pompeii seemed to take great pleasure in even its most rustic charms.

  “No, thank you,” I said stepping away.

  “Finally,” a man muttered behind me. He quickly placed an order for the octopus, along with some olives and figs.

  I walked blindly after that, considering what I’d overheard. Former slaves desperate to appear cultured would pay outrageous sums for the original works of my uncle, whose desk overflowed with manuscripts that he’d begun then set aside as another thought or observation caught his fancy.

  The gods had given me the answer to how I could get the money I needed to purchase Prima. I turned and headed for the Sarno gate—and the stable—burying two small coins under a pile of flowers on a niche altar to the god of crossroads in gratitude for giving me the solution to my problem. Julius would probably not even notice that I was skipping the baths and although I hated missing a night with Prima, it would be worth it in the end. I’d have her forever soon enough.

  I arrived back in Misenum—at my uncle’s villa—deep in the dark of night as I’d hoped. To my horseman’s dismay, I told him to prepare fresh mounts and wait for me on the road. Uncle’s cliff-side villa, which overlooked the beach and a naval garrison, stood out like a pearl on black silk. The pinpoints of light in the night sky glowed over the dark water with such beauty, I felt as if the gods themselves were smiling down on me. Venus surely was!

  For the first time, I saw the villa where I spent most of my youth with fresh eyes—imagining what Prima would think when she saw the multiple tiers of bright white walls carved into cliff rock, the glittering red roof tiles as they caught the sun, the exquisite statues of the Muses in our gardens. She would be enchanted.