A Day of Fire: a novel of Pompeii

by Stephanie Dray

  Rufus knew before his fingers had even traced the depression in Pugnax’s skull that his gladiator was dead. Go well, Pugnax, he thought. A tear streaked its way through the ash on his face, and another. Despair threatened to overwhelm him. There was no point continuing. Everyone was to die on this day of fire.

  “Come on, sir.” Mustius’ good hand tugged at his arm. “Don’t let Pugnax have saved you for nothing.”

  Rufus met his servant’s—his friend’s—gaze.

  “You and me, Sir, we’ve seen things as bad as this. If the damn Germans couldn’t kill us, I don’t see why a bloody great mountain should.”

  “You’re right, brother,” said Rufus, taking strength from Mustius’ valor.

  Locking arms to stabilize themselves, they turned their backs on Vesuvius.

  PART FOUR

  THE SENATOR

  Kate Quinn

  “And now cinders, and pumice stones fell too, blackened, scorched and cracked by fire.”

  —Pliny the Younger

  SENATOR Marcus Norbanus missed it when the mountain blew up. He had been knocked unconscious by a starveling whore armed with a jug.

  “Senator!”

  He managed to unstick his eyelids. Blackness gave way to … more blackness? He blinked, but the darkness stayed. A moment ago it had been bright, hot afternoon. I am dead, he thought, and smiled. Death. A great deal easier than he had expected. He had not needed a knife at the wrist after all; no need for a hot bath and perhaps a surgeon to open the veins correctly. All he had required was a skinny girl with a jug.

  “Senator!” The voice came again. Not the girl who had struck him—this woman was louder, more urgent. All at once his head began to throb and so did his knee. Not dead, then. Disappointing, he thought, and realized he was flat on his back in the street, paving stones digging into his shoulders. His lips were caked with something gritty.

  “Oh, good. You’re alive.” A woman’s face hovered, supplanting the whirling darkness overhead. “Can you walk? You have to walk, Marcus Norbanus, because I can’t carry you.”

  “Lady Diana,” Marcus managed to say. His vision was still blurred and his head ringing, but there was no mistaking the perpetual scarlet gown (did she ever wear anything else?), the tumble of white-blonde hair, the mischievous little face. Not looking mischievous now, however. She looked deadly serious, and that startled him. As long as he’d known Diana of the Cornelii—and he’d known her since she was a coltish little girl, when he entered into his short-lived marriage with a cousin of hers—she was serious about nothing. At least, nothing outside of horses, chariot races, or the current standing of her beloved Reds faction at the Circus Maximus.

  “Vesuvius has exploded,” Diana said succinctly, seeing his look of puzzlement. “The sky has gone dark. And Pompeii has gone mad. So I ask again, Marcus Norbanus—can you walk?”

  UP to that point, the day had been going rather well, or at least as well as his days ever went of late. Marcus could not help but like Pompeii—cooler and more sea-washed in this hot autumn than sewer-stinking Rome; rougher about the edges than over-polished Baiae. A vulgar, glittering, likable little resort town where everything was for sale and everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves. He had come to Pompeii on official business after a visit to Misenum to see his friend Admiral Pliny—the only other man Marcus knew who would rather stay up all night writing and debating than sleep. In truth, that was why he’d accepted Pliny’s invitation: so he could fill his endless empty nights debating Pliny’s treatise on the workings of nature, even though nature did not interest Marcus in the slightest.

  It had been to Marcus that Pliny confided about his favorite nephew, just a few days ago. “The lad seems distracted. Forever sneaking off to Pompeii to study with that young son of Julius Polybius, ha.”

  “Praetor Julius Polybius?” Marcus asked idly. “Good man.” They had worked together on a corruption case or two.

  “Yes, well, if that son of his is luring my nephew to Pompeii to study, I’ll cook my own balls. Boys that age don’t run through their allowances in a month by studying.”

  “A girl?” Marcus suggested. “He’s the age for it.”

  “Eh, well, the boy goes tight as a clam when I ask him anything. Perhaps you might have better luck …”

  And so Marcus had kept an eye out for the boy, once he came to Pompeii. Found him in a spot of bother just yesterday, bleeding and beaten in the forum, and asked one or two probing questions. His troubles had involved a girl, and Aedile Gaius Cuspius Pansa was somehow mixed up in it, though the boy wouldn’t say how. He just sat there looking despairing, and the advice Marcus heard himself uttering had sounded trite and useless. He’d finally sent the boy back to Misenum to face his uncle, but afterward felt queerly ashamed.

  The young deserve more from their elders than trite platitudes, he thought. And set off this morning to question Pansa.

  The man must have guessed he was coming, because as soon as Marcus set out into Pompeii’s streets, he discovered that he was being followed. A lifetime of negotiating the Senate House left you a knack for recognizing it: that tickle between the shoulder blades that meant someone was watching, either for secrets or to calculate which angle best to sink a blade. Do you have a knife, whoever you are? No doubt he looked like an easy target—he had made himself one, coming out alone without so much as a slave for an entourage. His pursuer stayed well back, but there was less cover than Pompeii’s streets would have normally offered: a series of jolting earth tremors had split the town’s northwest quarter that dawn, and those citizens who had not elected to leave town were clustered on street corners in sparse little knots, trading ill omens. Just as Marcus reached the notorious local brothel, he caught a good look at his spy: no hulking thug, but a waif-thin girl with a swarthy face and a mop of dark hair, sliding like an eel through a gaggle of anxious Isis priests.

  Probably no knife, Marcus decided, and felt a twinge of disappointment.

  He found a seat on a listing crate against the brothel’s wall, giving a polite nod to the plucked and painted boy who flashed his bare chest from the doorway. “Two dupondii to fuck me up the back?” he offered, lashes fluttering. “Tightest bum in Pompeii!”

  “I’m sure it is, but no thank you. What did you think of the earthquake this morning? Is it Vulcan we should be propitiating at the games this afternoon, or Neptune?”

  The boy was more than willing to talk bad omens. Marcus bought a jug of sour wine and a stick of dubious-looking roast pork from a passing vendor, munching as he listened, all the while keeping an eye on his pursuer, who was now lurking at the corner of the brothel. She was eyeing the skewer of meat in his hand with a hungry gaze.

  The painted boy went inside with a sweat-stained carter. (“Raise your price to at least three sestertii,” Marcus had advised. “If you really do have the tightest bum in Pompeii, you are undercharging.”) He settled back onto the rickety crate, laying his food beside him on a fold of toga. His senatorial colleagues would have clucked at him; a senator’s toga was supposed to be as pristine as the position itself. In which case, we should all wear togas dipped in blood and mud. Perhaps a hundred years and more ago in the days of the Republic, a toga had borne more honor than it did now—but perhaps not. Perhaps the much-idolized Republic had been nothing but greedy men angling for power, too. Marcus yawned, took a swig of sour wine, and let his eyes droop in the late-morning heat, hoping his hungry little shadow would come out. He wanted to discharge his duty to his friend’s nephew, and be done.

  He didn’t have to wait long. An almost inaudible rustle sounded, and his hand snapped out to catch a set of creeping fingers before they could claim his skewer. Senator Marcus Norbanus opened his eyes. “Now then,” he said pleasantly. “Who are you, and why are you following me?”

  She yanked at his grip, struggling. Marcus had never been a strong man even before his shoulder had been half destroyed during his arrest ten years ago, and the girl writhed and scratched like a
n alley cat. He had to double her arm up in a wrestling hold dimly remembered from his tribune days. “Name?” he said in his mildest tone.

  She glared murder out of a pair of big black eyes. Her best feature.

  “Tell me your name and promise not to run,” he said, “and you can have my lunch and my wine both.”

  “Prima,” she said instantly.

  A slave, he estimated, but he still gave a cordial nod of his head as though she were free-born, and let her go. His bad shoulder couldn’t really sustain that wrestling hold much longer, anyway. “I am Marcus Vibius Augustus Norbanus, senator of Rome.”

  Slave or not, she didn’t seem overly impressed by his status. Well, he wasn’t terribly impressive outside the title and the string of names. Just a quiet man of forty-three, not tall, with a crooked shoulder and hair that had gone entirely iron-colored after the terrible events of the Year of Four Emperors. Marcus passed over the jug and the meat. She didn’t need encouragement to snatch both. But the big black eyes were still wary over the jug as she drank.

  “Your master should feed you more,” Marcus said as an opener. “Tell me, do you belong to Gaius Cuspius Pansa?” The aedile was the only man in Pompeii with reason to be annoyed with him, after all.

  “Pansa pays me to do his errands,” the girl admitted readily enough. “But I work at a caupona—the master there owns me.”

  “Which caupona?”

  She tore off a bite of toughened pork in aggressive silence.

  He let it go. “Why does Pansa have you following me?”

  She ate the rest of her pork in quick bites. “Can I have another?” Waving the empty stick.

  “Do I get my answer?”

  “Be nice to a girl, Senator. I’m just trying to fatten up a bit.”

  Marcus beckoned the vendor again. “Why?”

  She snorted, smacking her own bony backside. “Would you pay good sestertii to poke that? Men pay more if you’re plump. My sister is plump and the men all ask for her.”

  “I’ll take your word for it.” He handed over another stick of the charred meat. “I assume Pansa heard I was in town again? After yesterday’s debacle in the forum, I’m not surprised he’s keeping an eye out for me.”

  “So he is.” Her eyes were still wary.

  “And I am keeping an eye out for him as well. I was informed he would be paying his usual visit to this brothel this morning, to register any new whores leasing a bed. I thought I’d wait for him and have a chat.” Marcus gave an avuncular smile. “How lucky he sent you to follow me. You can deliver my warning for me.”

  “He wanted to see what you were up to, that’s all—”

  “Tell him I know what he’s up to: taking advantage of the nephew of a dear friend of mine. I suppose it seemed like easy pickings, having an innocent boy beaten and robbed, counting on the fact he’ll be too ashamed to tell his illustrious uncle. But you can tell the aedile he will leave that boy alone in future.”

  “Pansa doesn’t like to be told what to do in his own city.”

  “He may be an important man in Pompeii, but he is still only an aedile. I am a senator of Rome, with a bloodline that goes back to the divine Augustus himself. If Pansa crosses me again, I will crush him like a flea.” Marcus gave another smile, surprised at himself. He’d never made such a bald threat before—in the Senate it was all done with hints and veiled language. I am tired of subtlety. He was tired of everything.

  “And Pansa could crush me like a flea,” little Prima threw back at him. “You might do better to tell him yourself because he won’t like that message coming from a skinny little slut like me.”

  “Is that what he calls you?”

  “When he’s in a good mood.” A ripple of extraordinary bitterness crossed her face. “When he’s in a bad one, he just clips me round the ear.”

  “Then find a better man for whom you can run errands.”

  “I can’t.” A cynical little laugh. “Unfortunately, he’s got this skinny little slut by the hairs.”

  “Why?” She gave an insolent shrug, but there was vulnerability under the insolence. “What is Pansa to you?”

  “My blackmailer.” She tore off and swallowed an impressively large chunk of meat. When he raised a brow, she snorted. “What? You think your fancy friend’s nephew is the only one Pansa extorts, or are you just surprised that a tavern wench has anything worth blackmailing?”

  “Everyone has something of worth.”

  “Well, all I’ve got is my idiot sister.” The wine had apparently loosened her tongue. “Capella dreams of freedom. A silly dream, but I won’t let Pansa take it from her. She thinks she’s going to get her freedom and start some nice life, but she can’t do it if she’s registered as a whore. One look at me and anyone would see what I am. But my sister? She’s all pretty and rosy and soft—she shouldn’t be stained with it.”

  So you take the stain for two, Marcus thought. Whoring and spying, all for love. What people did for their families!

  What would I have done if I didn’t have my son?

  He already knew the answer to that.

  “No one of honor would hold against a slave girl what she did in obedience to her master,” he said instead, wondering why he was standing here outside a whorehouse arguing with a slave who apparently had a bottomless pit instead of a stomach.

  “That shows how much a senator knows about people, even one whose bloodline goes all the way back to the Divine Augustus. People haven’t got any honor. That’s how we ended up whoring in the first place. We were sold as girls with a rule that we weren’t to be used as prostitutes. Didn’t make any difference to our master. I got registered on Pansa’s rolls as a whore, and that’s done, but if I do Pansa’s errands, he leaves my sister off.” Prima gulped down another bite, shaking her head. “Though I’m just as much of an idiot as Capella for indulging her little dream. No matter who’s on the rolls and who’s not, we’ll never get free.”

  "Not quite.” Marcus felt a flicker of interest. “The law gives freedom to those used illegally in a whore’s trade. It was Emperor Vespasian’s innovation; I worked with him on the finer legal details.” It had been an interesting case; the kind of law he enjoyed hammering out, and he smiled at this rude little slave girl for bringing him the chance to address the law in a live setting. She was insolent, she was vulgar, and she undoubtedly deserved a good whipping for the way she addressed her superiors, but her quandary was exactly the kind of detached problem he enjoyed unpicking. “Would you happen to possess a copy of your bill of sale?” he asked politely.

  She stopped chewing and stared at him as though he were speaking Greek. “Of course I don’t!” she snapped, as if she thought he was trying to trick her. “People like me—we eat, we shit, we fuck, we die. And nobody cares. Laws are only for rich old men like you.”

  “That is where you are wrong. Laws are for every Roman, high and low.” Marcus imagined the look on that smug aedile’s face if he could deliver another blow by stealing his little spy. “If you will come with me—”

  He reached for her wrist again, and that was a mistake. Her nostrils flared in anger or alarm, and her hand came around in a vicious arc, smashing the wine jug against his knee. As soon as he doubled over with a hiss of pain, the jug hammered across his ear—and then it was nothing but darkness.

  AND now Vesuvius had exploded, and he’d missed it all because of that jug. “A vast and entirely unique phenomenon, whether natural or divine, and I slept through it,” Marcus heard himself commenting. “Admiral Pliny will howl at me.”

  “Not to pry—” Diana helped Marcus sit up as people buffeted past, some carrying bundles under their arms, some pausing to stare and point at the darkened sky. “How in the name of all the gods did you get yourself knocked unconscious outside the most notorious brothel in Pompeii?”

  “I was looking for a man.”

  “Didn’t think your tastes went that way,” Diana said. “My cousin Marcella will be disappointed. She was always be
nt on seducing you.”

  Marcus brushed off the flippancy, his head pounding. “Yes, well, tangling with corrupt officials leads one to strange places. Even brothels.”

  “Why didn’t you take a good hulking slave or two with you? I never met a senator in my life who didn’t travel with an entourage!”

  His knee was throbbing as badly as his head. “Never mind why.”

  “Very well. Can you walk? Lean on me.”

  He managed to lurch upright with her small callused hands lifting his elbow. He hissed pain through his teeth, tipping his head back, and when he caught sight of the sky, his eyes were finally clear. It was pitch dark, and specks of ash whirled like black snow. “Dear gods,” he breathed. “What is this?”

  “I was in the amphitheater when it happened.” Diana slid her arm under his shoulder, supporting him on the injured side. “There was a huge double boom, like Jove dropping every thunderbolt in his quiver. And then an enormous cloud rose from the mountain. By the time I managed to fight my way free of the amphitheater, the sun was gone. Very bad timing.”

  He blinked. “Why?”

  “Because all the chaos cut off a very exciting bout. A thraex and a murmillo going at it like Hector and Achilles. I was sure the thraex was going to win, but—” she looked up at the black sky and shrugged.

  Marcus had never been a superstitious man, looking for omens in every cloud on the horizon or feather that fell from a bird’s wing. But he stared into that unnatural black sky, and shuddered. “Perhaps the gods have decided to end it all.”

  Diana let out an extraordinarily rude snort.

  “You don’t see a sign in this?” He waved a hand up at the swirling ash, the day turned night. “What else could it be?”

  “No idea,” she said briskly. “But if you want signs, Marcus Norbanus, think about this one. I’m stumbling my way from the amphitheater to the Herculaneum Gate, and halfway across town I fall over you. What are the odds that’s a good sign?”