A Day of Fire: a novel of Pompeii

by Stephanie Dray

  “You already have,” he said. “It took balls of bronze to march up here and tell me the truth. A boy is not capable of such a thing. Only a man is.”

  The shock of his words was swept away by the alarmed voices floating up from the lower terraces. My mother came scrambling up the steps. “Brother!” she called. “Have you seen what the mountain is doing?”

  “The mountain?”

  I helped him up and we walked to the edge of the terrace where we stared agog at a strange vision from across the bay.

  “What mountain is that?” Mother asked. “And why is it spewing dirt?”

  “I cannot tell,” Uncle said. “What in Vulcan’s world could have caused such a cloud?”

  A thick, whirling, billowing column of ash and dirt climbed eerily and silently into the sky. Several stades high, the gray-brown cloud began spreading out as if it had grown tired. “It looks like an umbrella pine,” I said.

  “Extraordinary,” Uncle mused in that curious way of his. Then he sent the order to prepare a boat for us to take a closer look at the strange phenomena across the bay.

  “Do you think it is like the fire mountain in Sicily?” I asked as we continued staring.

  He shook his head. “Impossible! And Aetna actually has fire when it erupts,” he said. “I’ve seen it. Here, there is no fire, no lava. Only clouds, as if the fire is deep inside the mountain.”

  “Fascinating,” I mumbled.

  “Indeed!” agreed Uncle, his eyes shining. “It is hard to tell from here, but it looks like Vesuvius is responsible. Pompeii and Stabiae will lie beneath that cloud.”

  My mother turned to her brother with a worried expression. “Are you two going to explore the edges of the cloud? Or will you go all the way to Pompeii?”

  Staring into that strange dark cloud, I tried to imagine what Prima must be feeling. Gods, she must be terrified. I saw myself running through the panicked city until I found her. How she would throw her arms around my neck in relief and beg my forgiveness for her cruelty. How she would say she lov—

  “Gaius,” my uncle called, and I jumped. “Are you joining me on this journey? The winds will probably take us straight into Pompeii.”

  Why was he asking? Normally he would just order me to accompany him and I would do so without question or complaint. And then I understood. He was testing me. Hadn’t I just promised to stay away from Pompeii and Prima?

  I raised my chin and looked at my uncle in the eye. “I am keeping my word and staying here,” I said. At the look of confusion on my mother’s face, I added, “To finish my studies.” Even I could hear how weak that sounded, but my mother did not say anything.

  “Good man,” my uncle said, smiling proudly at me. “A Roman always keeps his word.”

  When an ash-coated messenger came barreling up the cliff and into the house bearing a message from a dear friend of Uncle’s begging to be rescued near Pompeii, the investigative excursion turned into a naval rescue mission. The fleet was put on high alert. All of Misenum, it seemed, came to the docks to bid farewell to the heroes of the day, led by my uncle.

  Just as he was about to board, my mother grabbed his hand. “Brother, perhaps you shouldn’t go. I have a terrible feeling …”

  “Plinia,” he said gently. “Do not worry. The mountain will burn itself out. But we really must help those people who are either trapped or panicking. It’s my job to keep unrest to a minimum in the region and I intend to do so.”

  “But what if—“

  He flashed a look in my direction. “Gaius is the man of the house while I am on duty, Plinia. He will take care of you and the property.”

  She stood on tiptoe and kissed her brother’s cheek. “May Fortuna keep you and Neptune watch over you,” she whispered and turned away to begin the long trek back up the path to our villa.

  “Admiral, if we are to leave, we must do so now!” an officer said.

  “Yes, yes,” he replied. “Let us go.”

  I wanted to say something to him, to thank him, but for what, I didn’t know. My mind reeled, trying to find a way to undo my promise—just this time. He needed my help, didn’t he? I shouldn’t let him cross the bay to Pompeii alone! A pang—a sense of impending doom—squeezed my gut.

  As if he could feel me struggling, he turned to me. “Your job is to stay here and take care of things in my name,” he said with finality.

  I nodded.

  Just as his first officer led him toward the boarding dock, he turned back to me and called out, “Goodbye, son.”

  It was only later, looking out to sea and watching Uncle’s trireme disappear into the strange black cloud hovering over Pompeii, that I became aware of the significance of his words. He had called me “son.” He had claimed me.

  I never saw him again. But in his will, dated to my manhood ceremony months before, he’d named me his heir, formally adopting me upon his death. He had believed in me all along. I prayed I could live up to the greatest gift of all—his name.

  I was known, from then on, as Gaius Plinius Caecilius Secundus.

  Pliny. The younger one.

  PART TWO

  THE HEIRESS

  Sophie Perinot

  “The world was not being merely shaken but turned topsy-turvy.”

  —Pliny the Younger

  AEMILIA

  Three days earlier…

  THREE days. Three days until my life is over.

  Reaching out, I snap a branch off the nearest myrtle. It is still damp with morning dew. A few fading, star-shaped blooms cling to it. Casting it down, I grind it beneath my sandal. Glancing about to make certain I am unobserved, I take the doll from the pouch at my girdle. She is not the finest of my childhood playthings. Not one of my carefully carved, jointed dolls. But she is my favorite, made by Mother from scraps of linen and clothed in a dress of blue silk left from one of my own. I give her a little kiss, then push her beneath the bush. Another treasure spared from the flames.

  I am a creature of fire, born in the back of a wagon as my parents fled Rome during the great conflagration in the reign of Emperor Nero. I’ve been told the harrowing story a thousand times. Told too that my extraordinary delivery is the reason my hair is red as flame. Well, fire may have birthed me and marked me, but it won’t have the mementos of my girlhood. I do not care that it is Roman tradition for a girl to burn such things on the morning of her wedding. I will make no offering to Venus because, were it up to me, I would not be a bride—at least not the bride of Gnaeus Helvius Sabinus! I push the doll further out of sight, then straighten to see my father emerging from his private wine cellar. Blinking in the bright autumn sunlight, he secures the door behind himself, extinguishes his lamp, and then smiles at me. An only child, I am the center of his world. I turn my back as if I have not seen him and head briskly for the atrium. Mistake. I can hear the earnest voice of Gnaeus Helvius Sabinus resonating from the tablinum. My intended is asking for Father. Good. Let Father deal with him. Father always smiles to see Sabinus, whereas I find nothing pleasing in the face or figure of the middle-aged man who will soon be my husband.

  I have known all my life that Father would select my groom—that is what fathers do. What I did not anticipate, could not imagine, was how wretched fulfilling a daughter’s obligation would make me feel. Perhaps it is as Mother always says. Perhaps I was shown a faulty amount of indulgence as I grew—presented with five fabrics by my doting father where only one was needed to make a gown—until I believed I would be offered choice where I would not. Or perhaps it is the fact that Sabinus is an old man, and I have met a younger one I like better. Whatever the reason, I cried the day I was told of my betrothal. I remember Mother, looking perplexed, as she often does when dealing with me, and saying, “He is a fine, honorable man from an old Sabine family. What more can you want?”

  What more? Everything more. While what my mother said was entirely true, there is nothing extraordinary about Sabinus. He is the sort of man who does not stand out—neither tall nor shor
t, fat nor thin, ugly nor handsome. His voice is always moderate, his mode of address always correct. Only his interests make him noticeable, and not in a good way. Sabinus is highly educated, yet he professes no interest in art or philosophy. Instead, he is fascinated by the workings of machines, by details of construction and hydraulic engineering better left to workmen, and by the geology of the area surrounding Pompeii.

  By rocks. Yes, rocks.

  I have no intention of getting trapped into another painful conversation with him—doubtless about earth tremors because, since the latest shaking started some weeks ago, that is the only subject he seems capable of discussing.

  Turning with alacrity, I move through the oecus with its graceful paintings of fluted columns and lush garlands, toward the man who is everything Sabinus is not. I must lift a sheet of coarse fabric and walk beneath a scaffold to enter the dining room. My breath quickens at the smell of the paint. Letting the drape fall, I hear my name. The flesh on my arms, on my whole body, begins to prickle. Looking into the scaffolding, my eyes find Faustus—long, lean, his fingers holding a brush, his eyes locked on me. I take a step forward.

  “Stop there! The light has caught you.” His voice is excited and exciting. “I wish I could paint you as you look at this moment. Paint you as Erato. Lower your chin.”

  I comply. Beneath my gown I can feel my nipples growing hard under his gaze. “Would you make me beautiful?”

  “Of course.”

  He sets aside his brush and climbs down, his movements fluid, the muscles of his arms taut and those in his legs plainly visible under the short tunic he wears while he works. He moves around me as I have seen lions move during games at the amphitheater, in a slow circle, his eyes hungry. I am certain mine are as well. Faustus is the one good thing that the expensive and frantic preparations for my nuptials have brought—hired and set to work restoring our villa’s ancient and much admired frescos before I even knew the reasons for these efforts. But the same ceremony that drew him to our villa will separate me from him forever.

  Drawing close behind me, he whispers, “You want me to touch you.”

  Of course I do. But I focus on a larger dream. One that is dangerous and that, until this moment, I have left unspoken. “I want you to marry me.”

  I hear his breath catch. More than a catch, he gasps. Good, I have impressed him with my boldness. “How I wish I could.” He stammers slightly. “Yes, that is what I want,” the natural confidence returns to his voice, “to be your husband.”

  “My father would support your career.” Why not, I think, Father certainly has the money for such patronage. But I know the thought is nonsense. Even if there were no Sabinus, no betrothal, my father would never consider a penniless tradesman as a suitor.

  Faustus’ breath on the back of my neck is warm. “Oh Gods,” he groans. “No more touching up the work of others. Only my own, better, work, immortalizing you for the ages. If only it could be so.”

  My eyes travel over the figures on the room’s rich, red walls—all movement, color and mystery. I’ve been told the painted figures engage in sacred and mysterious rituals, designed to turn a girl into a woman, a virgin into a wife. Small wonder then that I see my own face among them. I am the bride sitting, wistfully touching her hair and gazing into the distance as an attendant beautifies her. But I do not see my groom. Instead, I see my artist, Faustus, my personal Eros—though he is far, far more handsome than the winged figure depicted in the final panel of the mural.

  “Come tonight,” he begs.

  Two nights ago I crept from my cubiculum as my ancient nurse lay snoring. Came here, to the triclinium, in darkness, for a stolen kiss. I wonder, on my wedding day as I sit beside Sabinus on a banqueting couch in my flammeum, my girdle tied into the knot of Hercules, will my eyes seek the corner where, beneath the scaffolding, I let Faustus’ lips touch mine for the first time?

  The drapery in the doorway from the portico twitches. Faustus jumps back as if my hair were not just flame-colored, but fire itself.

  Sabinus sticks his head in. “Aemilia Lepida, I thought I might find you here.” Is it the light, or do his cheeks color? His blush makes me nervous. Whatever my attachment to my artist, I have been chary. I may be angry at my father, but I have no desire to shame him or to dishonor my family. “I have finished with your father,” Sabinus continues. “Come walk with me in the viridarium. Your mother has given permission.”

  He holds back the drop cloth. There is nothing for it, I must go. Once we are in the portico he offers an arm, which I ignore. I am careful not to look directly at him as he walks beside me. His unnerving way of locking his eyes on mine whenever he can catch them gives me the feeling he can see the things I am careful not to say.

  My mother’s ornamental garden is her pride and joy: all carefully sculpted shrubs, tinkling fountains, and exquisite marble sculptures. As we enter, I notice that she sits at the far end, near the freshly painted statue of Livia that will shortly be moved to the newly created shrine to her. I should have known—Sabinus is overly nice on such points; he would prefer to be chaperoned, even so few days before we are wed. Your worry for my reputation is wasted, Sabinus. Both because you are too staid to lay a hand on me, and because Faustus already has. I shiver at the thought of how close Faustus stood just moments ago, but Sabinus does not notice for he is waving to Mother. She smiles in return. Then he turns and walks me toward a bench beside the long shallow pool. I sit. He looks down at me intently.

  “I have been thinking about our future—”

  So have I, if dreading counts as thinking.

  “—I mean to be a good husband to you, Aemilia Lepida. I have watched you grow up. I understand the care and esteem you have been accorded by your father, and I mean to proceed in the same vein.”

  He speaks true. Sabinus visited this house before I lived here, before I was born. My father bought the villa after it was damaged in Emperor Nero’s quake—bargaining the price down to nearly nothing. He intended it to be a place to spend summers by the glittering sea away from the repressive heat of Rome, and a place to indulge in the viniculture that is, appropriately for a wine merchant, his dearest hobby. Sabinus, father’s old school friend, was already living in Pompeii and supervised work restoring the villa when Father could not be here. And when my parents fled to Pompeii as fire swept Rome, my nurse told me that Sabinus waited beside her at the entrance to help them down from the wagon.

  “When you were a little girl, I thought you fond of me.” The eyes, which have changed from brown to startling gold in this light, press still further into me. “But I know you do not favor me now.”

  Here is a level of bluntness I do not expect from the mild-mannered Sabinus. I can feel the heat rising in my cheeks. Of course I had no ill thoughts of him those many years—I had no apprehension anyone thought of him for my husband. He was just a family friend who listened to the fanciful stories I liked to make up, and laughed in the right places. Someone who took me to the market if Mother had one of her headaches or my nurse was too tired, and marveled at my facility for doing figures in my head the way Father does. Someone who called me Vesta, jokingly, because of my hair. But Vesta is not merely the goddess of the sacred fire; she is goddess of hearth, home, and family. It ought to have been a clue. I feel a sudden surge of anger at myself for missing it. Also a burst of irritation at Father. If Sabinus was to be my husband, why could I not have been told long ago? Given time to accustom myself to the idea? Would that have mattered once you met Faustus?

  “I will be patient and hope—Did you see that?”

  I am left not knowing what he hopes—not that I particularly care—as Sabinus moves past me, his eyes on the pool. I turn, curious. He stands at the water’s edge, his head tilted to one side. “Yes!” Turning back, he appeals to me. “Do you see the ripples on the surface? Another tremor! Too faint for us to feel perhaps, but the water apprehends what we do not.”

  I stare hard at what little water is left in the pool t
hanks to an exceptionally hot summer that has left the city short of water. I do see small ridges. “Perhaps something fell into it from above.”

  “No, such a disturbance would create circular ripples emanating from the place where the falling thing broke the surface.” He illustrates by tracing the rings on his left palm with the index finger of his right hand.

  I can hear my father as we dined last evening: “Sabinus, you become obsessed with your earthquake prognostications! You have not heard one word I have said about the new press I am installing in my calcatorium.” And hear my mother’s furious whisper when I snickered: “Aemilia, a proper Roman wife does not laugh at her husband, only with him.” Looking at Sabinus, now squatting at the pool’s edge, I think: not my husband yet. But I think something else as well. However little I fancy him as a groom, Sabinus is by any measure an intelligent man and he is right about the pattern of the ripples.

  The earth begins to shake, hard enough that I cling to the edge of the bench and Sabinus puts a hand on the ground to steady himself. Across the viridarium, a bust falls from a niche and Mother gives a little scream. “Go to her,” Sabinus urges. “I must go to the forum. My conscience will not be easy until I try Gaius Cuspius Pansa again. If those who love me well like your father do not heed me, I have little chance with the aedile who dislikes me deeply. But I must try.”

  SABINUS

  “WITH all due respect, Pansa—” Sabinus tried to keep his voice low, for while Pansa had agreed to withdraw with him to a spot between two of the new travertine columns along the east side, one was never truly alone at the forum. The handsome aedile rolled his eyes behind lashes that seemed unfairly noticeable for a man of such fair complexion.

  “—Sabinus, you never show me the respect I am due.” Pansa gave an amused smile. “What would your grandmother think of such behavior?”