A Day of Fire: a novel of Pompeii

by Stephanie Dray

  It will not be an appearance.

  “And,” Julilla adds, “make him buy you something pretty afterward.”

  “I certainly will,” I say. “Even forgetting his own fortune, given my dowry, Sabinus can well afford to buy me many, many pretty things.” The thought of a new gown or piece of jewelry distracts me nicely from the uncomfortable feelings that Julilla’s and Mother’s earlier words conjured.

  “I would be worried your husband will spoil you,” Mother says, “but it is too late for that. Your father already has. What do you think—now that you are done being scraped you shall bathe in asses’ milk just as Empress Poppaea did.” She gestures to a nearby tub.

  Asses’ milk! It is an exquisitely expensive treatment for the skin. I clasp my mother’s hand in delight.

  She pats my shoulder. “Don’t thank me. Thank your father. He insisted. And he ordered enough for me to have a soak as well. Doubtless he is trying to appease me. Exasperating man! As if weeks of wedding preparations have not left me worn out, yesterday he told me we go to your uncle’s the morning after your ceremony.”

  “What?” Julilla gives Mother a sympathetic look.

  “Yes.” She helps me step into the tub. “When I asked him why, he said it was just his whim. Well, he may well have a whim but it is I who must supervise the packing—this afternoon when I could be better doing other things. I warned him it will be his fault if I arrive in Nuceria and collapse.”

  I know Sabinus is to blame for these sudden plans, not Father. But I slide down into the milk until it is up to my chin without coming to Father’s defense. Sabinus guards my honor; the least I can do in return is not draw Mother’s ire upon him.

  “Thank heavens my husband is not capricious. I could hardly travel now should such a whim strike him."

  “I have precious little cause to justly complain about Lepidus, but when he gets an idea in his head,” Mother shakes her own head, “he will not let go of it.”

  This is a trait he appears to share with Sabinus, I think, reflecting on my betrothed’s current obsession with earthquakes and his insistence we leave the city.

  “That, daughter, is where you get your stubbornness,” Mother continues. “And more’s the pity, for what is merely vexatious in a man is entirely inappropriate in a woman.” She smiles in spite of herself, and I use my toes to splash milk upon both her and Julilla.

  “My father is much the same way, and my mother grateful I take after her.” Julilla reaches a hand into my bath and splashes me back.

  AT bedtime, Father comes to tuck me in. He has not done so since I was a little girl. He pulls the covers up to my chin, and generally fusses. My nurse is much the same, hovering about as Father takes a seat.

  “When you wake, it will be your wedding day.”

  I do not need the reminder. I feel hollow, as if something is ending and nothing will ever be right again.

  “Is there anything you wish me to take away with me?” He tugs my ear—the gesture another vestige of my childhood.

  I shake my head.

  “What will your mother say when you have nothing to burn at the altar?”

  “Oh, I’ve kept a few things. That ghastly wooden snake bangle my aunt gave me for Saturnalia one year. A set of combs I never liked …”

  “Clever girl!” When father says this, it is a compliment as it is not from so many others. “Your mother will know of course. Don’t look so skeptical, Aemilia. She is clever, too. You do not give her enough credit. She has only learned to wrap her requests in soft looks. Her cleverness is stealthy where yours is brazen. You will learn to shade the lamp—we all do as we age.”

  I wonder if he means all, or all women?

  “In the meantime, be glad that Sabinus knows you so well. He will not expect reticence and obedience.” Father laughs and pulls my ear again. “Though he is entitled to both. Try and remember that, Aemilia.” Rising to go, he leans down to kiss my forehead.

  I don’t know if he notices the tears welling in my eyes, but my nurse certainly does. “I can remember when you were so small that this bed seemed to swallow you up,” she says when we are alone. “Shall I sing you to sleep as I did then?”

  “You did not sleep well last night,” I remark, trying to distract her from my distress by bringing up her own.

  “It’s Nuceria.” She wrings her hands. “I do not like to go. But your dear mother says I must.”

  “There is much to see there, for it is larger than Pompeii. Just think of all the things we will discover in the market.”

  “Pompeii is just the right size, Lady.” She shakes her head, dismissively. “What we do not have in our market is not worth seeing.”

  “Well then, you can rest in the sun while I go shopping. My uncle’s farm is large, his house bright, and my aunt, despite her appalling taste in snake bangles, is very sweet.”

  This only seems to increase her agitation. “I have never been to a farm, and I hope I am not so old that I need to rest in the middle of the day.”

  She is old, very. Now that I think of it, I am not sure how old. She came to my father with the villa because its former owner thought her too aged to be worth taking where he went next. And that was before I was born. “When was the last time you left Pompeii?” I ask.

  “I have never left it. Not really. I was born within its walls and I traveled quite far enough when I came to live here, outside the gates.”

  The cause of her restlessness last night and her current anxiety becomes clear. I do not like to go against Mother, but the nurse is my slave, not hers. Father told me that she was part of what I might take away with me when I married. “If you will only calm down, you need not go any further, ever.” I reach out and stroke her withered arm, soothingly. “I will make arrangements for you to go instead to my new home—within the city proper. Now sing me to sleep. We could both use a good night’s rest. Tomorrow is a big day.”

  I wake in the middle of the night thinking of two men—the one who behaved honorably yesterday and the one who did not. Admittedly, the longer I stare into the dark the more I think of the latter. What Faustus demanded was insulting and wrong, but his request was driven by his mad love for me. Have I not wanted things that were wrong in the grips of the same love? Of course I have. I have sneaked from this chamber to taste his kisses. And I have dreamed of more than kisses. Faustus is a man, and thus more subject to the urges of the flesh and more accustomed to having them satisfied. My cheeks burn at the thought of him taking the slave girl, yet might he not have done so to help him resist his urges to dishonor me? Roman men have sex with slaves, though ordinarily their own slaves, as is their right. That cannot mean none of them love their wives. Oh, if I could see Faustus again. He would surely apologize for his intemperate behavior, but I would as well. Not for refusing him sex but for being so abrupt and sending him away in such anger. I do not wish to become a wife with this bitterness between us. I wish to part from Faustus with kisses and soft words so that I can cling to those in the dark of the night when I must lie in another bed.

  SABINUS

  THE shaking of the bed awakened him. Sabinus lay, waiting for it to stop, fearful that if he tried to rise he would only stumble into something. But it did not stop—it got stronger. Sabinus’ teeth chattered in his head as if he were freezing. His bed scuttled sideways despite his weight. He could hear things falling across the house. A slave in the next room cursed. And then he heard something more—a grating, grinding noise, and a series of larger crashes. At the corner of the shuttered window nearest the bed, a crack appeared, proceeding down the wall until it met the floor. He watched in fascination as it opened until he could see into his garden. Then, and only then, did the earth stand still and the screaming begin. Not just his slaves, and some of them were certainly screaming, but individuals in the house next door and in the street. Scrambling to his feet, Sabinus snatched up his fine tunic and pulled it on. Too impatient to bother with all the folding that putting on his wedding toga would r
equire, he merely grabbed his belt and pouch, taking a moment to pluck Aemilia’s doll from his bed and stuff it in inside. Without quite knowing why, he also added the keys meant for his bride on their wedding day. He was fastening his sandals when he looked up to find his grandmother on the threshold in her night things.

  “My boy, the tiles on the roof above my chamber have gone clattering down onto the street, and one of the columns in the atrium leans oddly.”

  “Get dressed.”

  She nodded. He’d always been told he got his calm, measured nature from his grandmother and here, he thought as he watched her turn and glide away, was the proof.

  Sabinus charged out into the street. The couple who kept the nearby bakery were outside already—he running frantically up and down and she screaming—for their bakery was on fire. Sabinus could hear horses in the stables across the street whinnying in terror. Perhaps at the smell of smoke, but he rather thought it was because part of the stable roof had collapsed and some number of animals were trapped beneath. He hoped his own was not among them. He planned to be on it, the sooner the better. Heading past the outdoor shrine, Sabinus stooped to help an elderly man lying beside it. The poor man had struck his head in falling and was bleeding. He grasped the front of Sabinus’ tunic leaving two dirty marks.

  Never mind, Sabinus thought, looking at the mix of blood and grime as he handed the man off to the surgeon who lived a few houses away. His wedding tunic was spoiled but there would be no wedding today. Whatever he had promised Lepidus, or whatever he had to promise, Sabinus would see them all on the road within the hour. He and Aemilia could be married in Nuceria. Doubtless his betrothed would be delighted by the postponement—and he wouldn’t care if she was, as long as she was safe. So long as Lepidus and all his family were safe.

  Inside the stables, the damage was considerable. Grooms struggled to lift a fallen timber from an injured beast, its eyes wide in pain and fear. No one paid any attention to Sabinus. Thank Equestrian Neptune, his horse was unharmed. Still, the animal was wild, kicking and snorting—sensing the fear of his brethren. Sabinus lowered his voice and spoke soft nothings, biting back his impatience. To show anything but calm to the horse would only make matters worse. At last he was able to get a bridle over the animal’s head and a saddle onto his back. This moment of triumph was short-lived. As Sabinus led the animal across the street, he realized he could hardly put his grandmother on horseback with him. Once they arrived at the Lepidus villa, there would be wagons and mules, but to get there would require her litter. The slaves needed to carry it were, if anything, more skittish than his horse. Additional calm talk was required. Nor could he show impatience with his grandmother. Disrespect would not see them out the Herculaneum Gate any more quickly.

  By the time they reached the gate, it was clear they were not the only inhabitants for whom the last tremor was the final straw. A collection of people—families on foot, merchants in wagons, men he recognized from the forum, and the retinues that surrounded them—moved through the gate’s three channels in a steady stream and onto the two roads branching off beyond.

  “Gnaeus Helvius Sabinus!” an acquaintance hailed him. “I fear we will not be at your wedding. That last bit of shaking took down the wall I had buttressed only last week. We are headed to Herculaneum to wait out the repairs with my wife’s brother. We will call upon you when we return.”

  A short time later, Sabinus recognized another figure, one he had hoped never to see again. The artist Publius Crustius Faustus was on foot, his sandy hair tousled as if he had just rolled out of whatever bed he’d slept in last night. Was he also headed to the villa to make certain Aemilia was all right? The proprietary nature of such an action nearly made Sabinus reconsider his decision not to speak to the boy. But whereas a warning yesterday might have occasioned undesirable notice, confronting the youth today would slow Sabinus’ journey. So he merely urged the slaves to move more quickly and Faustus was soon passed.

  The quarter mile to the villa had never, Sabinus was sure, taken longer to travel. More than once he found himself cursing under his breath and speculating that the eight slaves he’d rounded up must have been the slowest among those he owned. Looking back at the city, he was surprised how normal it appeared. Only a few plumes of smoke—rising from his regio—suggested anything at all had happened this morning. As they at last drew near Amelia’s family home, Sabinus was happy to see it looked entirely ordinary as well.

  Lepidus came out to greet them, his eyes full of curiosity. But, to his credit, he held his tongue until Sabinus’ grandmother had alighted and been shown inside. “A bit early for a social call.”

  “Surely you felt that last tremor.”

  “Yes, as I did the ones before it.”

  Sabinus raised his eyebrows.

  “All right, it was different. More sustained. What of it?”

  “The wall of my bedroom cracked open, Lepidus. I lost a column in my atrium.”

  “Take my daughter home to a different bedroom this evening and have the damage seen to while we are all in Nuceria.” As he finished speaking, Aemilia herself padded out, barefoot, hair undone.

  “Father, there is a large fissure in the pavement of the veranda and Mother’s statue of Livia has gone over. I fear the Empress has lost some fingers.” Then, as if noticing him for the first time, “Sabinus?”

  “It is worse in the city. Buildings on fire, roofs fallen in.” Sabinus was exaggerating of course, though not lying, he told himself—the stable roof had definitely fallen. “It is time to go, Lepidus.” Sabinus had promised himself he would not be wounded by Aemilia’s look of relief, but it hurt nonetheless.

  “I will dress and pack,” she said. Sabinus was glad for her abrupt retreat when, a moment later, Faustus appeared.

  “Boy,” Lepidus said, “have you forgotten there is no work here today?”

  “Dominus, the inn where I lodged shook something horrible and a bit of the roof fell onto my bed—”

  Bless the boy, Sabinus thought. I hate the very sight of him but his testimony helps me.

  “—The innkeeper turned all of us on the second floor out, and I have not sufficient money to pay for a place on the first. I thought perhaps …”

  “You may return to my servant’s quarters.”

  Sabinus barely waited for the youth to disappear. “You see, Lepidus. This earthquake did significant damage, but nothing compared to what the next will do. I’ve read the accounts of Nero’s quake. You know that I have. Every one of them. Then as now, smaller tremors provided warning—warning unheeded—growing closer and stronger.”

  “Surely we can wait until tomorrow.”

  “Things are crowded at the Herculaneum Gate already.” Another half-truth. “By tomorrow the roads will be overrun and travel will be more unpleasant than if we go now. My grandmother is frail; I do not wish her to endure more hardship than necessary.”

  “Your grandmother is as hale as I am, Sabinus. But the fact you are willing to lie about that …” Lepidus shook his head. “If your concern is such that it begins to make you less fastidious about truth then I know you to be, it is an unkindness to make you suffer longer. We will go.”

  “Now?”

  “As soon as furnishings can be packed.”

  Furnishings. Sabinus plowed on. “I remember the first time you told me the story of your escape from the great fire in Rome, Lepidus. You told me that, knowing that nothing you owned was as important as the life of your wife and your unborn child, you could not be bothered to clear your household. This is another moment for such action. Whatever you have here—leave it.”

  “For looters?”

  “For looters, for the ground to swallow up, or, if I am proved a nervous fool, for you to come back to. In the latter case, you can have a good laugh at my expense.” Clasping his friend’s arm, Sabinus looked directly into his eyes. “You are a man blessed, Lepidus. Not by your great wealth, but by the finest of wives and the most exceptional of daughters. Tak
e them from this place before death comes to claim them.”

  Lepidus pulled him into an embrace. Stopping a slave passing beneath the portico, he said, “Spread the word, we leave as quickly as mules can be put in traces and horses saddled.”

  AEMILIA

  I gaze at myself in the mirror with unutterable satisfaction, waving away the slave who comes forward to do my hair. “Pack,” I tell her. No parting with a spear for nuptial good luck, no elaborate coiffure, no wedding! In the corner the slave joins my nurse in pulling things from my cupboard as I swiftly plait my hair into a single, simple braid. For a second time, Sabinus enters my bedchamber. He stops for a moment, staring down at the portion of my floor where three nights ago he beat out the flames from my lamp. A strange look crosses his face.

  “It is time to go, Aemilia.”

  “I am not ready and my packing has just begun.”

  “Come.” He says it with a tone of command and holds out a hand.

  I can hear my father as he sat with me last night, reminding me that I owe Sabinus obedience. But not yet. “I have told you I am not ready.”

  In two strides he reaches me. In a single swift and unexpected motion he picks me up. I struggle slightly, more surprised than anything by his presumption. And in reaction to my struggling, Sabinus throws me unceremoniously over his shoulder. “You were born in fire, Aemilia, but by all the gods I will not let you die in it.” The words come out half spoken, half growled. The last thing I see as he carries me off is the shocked faces of the serving women with their hands full of my clothing. “Leave it,” Sabinus instructs them. “Get outside.”

  “Put me down,” I demand.

  “No. Not until I put you in a wagon.” And tromping outside, he does just that—heedless of the stares of those we pass and even of the shocked expression on my mother’s face as he deposits me next to her.