Pompeii

by Harris, Robert

  And it was particularly tedious this year because of the record numbers who wished to offer a sacrifice. The endless drought, the failure of springs and the drying of wells, the shaking of the ground, the apparitions seen and heard on the mountain – all this was held to be the work of Vulcan, and there was much apprehension in the town. Ampliatus could see it in the reddened, sweating faces of the crowd as they shuffled around the edge of the forum, staring into the fire. The fear in the air was palpable.

  He did not have a very good position. The rulers of the town, as tradition demanded, were gathered on the steps of the Temple of Jupiter – the magistrates and the priests at the front, the members of the Ordo, including his own son, grouped behind, whereas Ampliatus, as a freed slave, with no official recognition, was invariably banished by protocol to the back. Not that he minded. On the contrary. He relished the fact that power, real power, should be kept hidden: an invisible force that permitted the people these civic ceremonials while all the time jerking the participants as if they were marionettes. Besides, and this was what was truly exquisite, most people knew that it was actually he – that fellow standing third from the end in the tenth row – who really ran the town. Popidius and Cuspius, Holconius and Brittius – they knew it, and he felt that they squirmed, even as they acknowledged the tribute of the mob. And most of the mob knew it, too, and were all the more respectful towards him as a result. He could see them searching out his face, nudging and pointing.

  ‘That’s Ampliatus,’ he imagined them saying, ‘who rebuilt the town when the others ran away! Hail Ampliatus! Hail Ampliatus! Hail Ampliatus!’

  He slipped away before the end.

  Once again, he decided he would walk rather than ride in his litter, passing down the steps of the temple between the ranks of the spectators – a nod bestowed here, an elbow squeezed there – along the shadowy side of the building, under the triumphal arch of Tiberius and into the empty street. His slaves carried his litter behind him, acting as a bodyguard, but he was not afraid of Pompeii after dark. He knew every stone of the town, every hump and hollow in the road, every storefront, every drain. The vast full moon and the occasional streetlight – another of his innovations – showed him the way home clearly enough. But it was not just Pompeii’s buildings he knew. It was its people, and the mysterious workings of its soul, especially at elections: five neighbourhood wards – Forenses, Campanienses, Salinienses, Urbulanenses, Pagani – in each of which he had an agent; and all the craft guilds – the laundrymen, the bakers, the fishermen, the perfume-makers, the goldsmiths and the rest – again, he had them covered. He could even deliver half the worshippers of Isis, his temple, as a block vote. And in return for easing whichever booby he selected into power he received those licences and permits, planning permissions and favourable judgements in the Basilica which were the invisible currency of power.

  He turned down the hill towards his house – his houses, he should say – and stopped for a moment to savour the night air. He loved this town. In the early morning the heat could feel oppressive, but usually, from the direction of Capri, a line of dark blue rippling waves would soon appear and by the fourth hour a sea breeze would be sweeping over the city, rustling the leaves, and for the rest of the day Pompeii would smell as sweet as spring. True, when it was hot and listless, as it was tonight, the grander people complained that the town stank. But he almost preferred it when the air was heavier – the dung of the horses in the streets, the urine in the laundries, the fish sauce factories down in the harbour, the sweat of twenty thousand human bodies crammed within the city walls. To Ampliatus this was the smell of life: of activity, money, profit.

  He resumed his walk and when he reached his front door he stood beneath the lantern and knocked loudly. It was still a pleasure for him to come in through the entrance he had not been permitted to use as a slave and he rewarded the porter with a smile. He was in an excellent mood, so much so that he turned when he was halfway down the vestibule and said, ‘Do you know the secret of a happy life, Massavo?’

  The porter shook his immense head.

  ‘To die.’ Ampliatus gave him a playful punch in the stomach and winced; it was like striking wood. ‘To die, and then to come back to life, and relish every day as a victory over the gods.’

  He was afraid of nothing, no one. And the joke was, he was not nearly as rich as everyone assumed. The villa in Misenum – ten million sesterces, far too expensive, but he had simply had to have it! – that had only been bought by borrowing, chiefly on the strength of this house, which had itself been paid for through a mortgage on the baths, and they were not even finished. Yet Ampliatus kept it all running somehow by the force of his will, by cleverness and by public confidence, and if that fool Lucius Popidius thought he was getting his old family home back once he had married Corelia – well, sadly, he should have got himself a decent lawyer before he signed the settlement.

  As he passed the swimming pool, lit by torches, he paused to study the fountain. The mist of the water mingled with the scent of the roses, but even as he watched it seemed to him that it was beginning to lose its strength, and he thought of the solemn young aquarius, out in the darkness somewhere, trying to repair the aqueduct. He would not be coming back. It was a pity. They might have done business together. But he was honest, and Ampliatus’s motto was always ‘May the gods protect us from an honest man’. He might even be dead by now.

  The flaccidity of the fountain began to perturb him. He thought of the silvery fish, springing and sizzling in the flames, and tried to imagine the reaction of the townspeople when they discovered the aqueduct was failing. Of course, he realised, they would blame it all on Vulcan, the superstitious fools. He had not considered that. In which case tomorrow might be an appropriate moment finally to produce the prophecy of Biria Onomastia, the sibyl of Pompeii, which he had taken the precaution of commissioning earlier in the summer. She lived in a house near the amphitheatre and at night, amid swathes of smoke, she communed with the ancient god, Sabazios, to whom she sacrificed snakes – a disgusting procedure – on an altar supporting two magical bronze hands. The whole ceremony had given him the creeps, but the sibyl had predicted an amazing future for Pompeii, and it would be useful to let word of it spread. He decided he would summon the magistrates in the morning. For now, while the others were still in the forum, he had more urgent business to attend to.

  His prick began to harden even as he climbed the steps to the private apartments of the Popidii, a path he had trodden so many times, so long ago, when the old master had used him like a dog. What secret, frantic couplings these walls had witnessed over the years, what slobbering endearments they had overheard as Ampliatus had submitted to the probing fingers and had spread himself for the head of the household. Far younger than Celsinus he had been, younger even than Corelia – who was she to complain about marriage in the absence of love? Mind you, the master had always whispered that he loved him, and perhaps he had – after all, he had left him his freedom in his will. Everything that Ampliatus had grown to be had had its origin in the hot seed spilled up here. He had never forgotten it.

  The bedroom door was unlocked and he went in without knocking. An oil lamp burned low on the dressing table. Moonlight spilled through the open shutters, and by its soft glow he saw Taedia Secunda lying prone upon her bed, like a corpse upon its bier. She turned her head as he appeared. She was naked; sixty if she was a day. Her wig was laid out on a dummy’s head beside the lamp, a sightless spectator to what was to come. In the old days it was she who had always issued the commands – here, there, there – but now the roles were reversed, and he was not sure if she didn’t enjoy it more, although she never uttered a word. Silently she turned and raised herself on her hands and knees, offering him her bony haunches, blue-sheened by the moon, waiting, motionless, while her former slave – her master now – climbed up on to her bed.

  Twice after the rope gave way Attilius managed to jam his knees and elbows against the narrow walls o
f the matrix in an effort to wedge himself fast and twice he succeeded only to be pummelled loose by the pressure of the water and propelled further along the tunnel. Limbs weakening, lungs bursting, he sensed he had one last chance and tried again, and this time he stuck, spread wide like a starfish. His head broke the surface and he choked and spluttered, gasping for breath.

  In the darkness he had no idea where he was or how far he had been carried. He could see and hear nothing, feel nothing except the cement against his hands and knees and the pressure of the water up to his neck, hammering against his body. He had no idea how long he clung there but gradually he became aware that the pressure was slackening and that the level of the water was falling. When he felt the air on his shoulders he knew that the worst was over. Very soon after that his chest was clear of the surface. Cautiously he let go of the walls and stood. He swayed backward in the slow-moving current and then came upright, like a tree that had survived a flash-flood.

  His mind was beginning to work again. The backed-up waters were draining away and because the sluices had been closed in Abellinum twelve hours earlier there was nothing left to replenish them. What remained was being tamed and reduced by the infinitesimal gradient of the aqueduct. He felt something tugging at his waist. The rope was streaming out behind him. He fumbled for it in the darkness and hauled it in, coiling it around his arm. When he reached the end he ran his fingers over it. Smooth. Not frayed or hacked. Brebix must simply have let go of it. Why? Suddenly he was panicking, frantic to escape. He leaned forward and began to wade but it was like a nightmare – his hands stretched out invisible in front him feeling along the walls into the infinite dark, his legs unable to move faster than an old man’s shuffle. He felt himself doubly imprisoned, by the earth pressing in all around him, by the weight of the water ahead. His ribs ached. His shoulder felt as if it had been branded by fire.

  He heard a splash and then in the distance a pinprick of yellow light dropped like a falling star. He stopped wading and listened, breathing hard. More shouts, followed by a second splash, and then another torch appeared. They were searching for him. He heard a faint shout – ‘Aquarius!’ – and tried to decide whether he should reply. He was scaring himself with shadows, surely? The wall of debris had given way so abruptly and with such force that no normal man would have had the strength to hold him. But Brebix was not a man of normal strength and what had happened was not unexpected: the gladiator was supposed to have been braced against it.

  ‘Aquarius!’

  He hesitated. There was no other way out of the tunnel, that was for certain. He would have to go on and face them. But his instinct told him to keep his suspicions to himself. He shouted back, ‘I’m here!’ and splashed on through the dwindling water towards the waving lights.

  They greeted him with a mixture of wonder and respect – Brebix, Musa and young Polites all crowding forward to meet him – for it had seemed to them, they said, that nothing could have survived the flood. Brebix insisted that the rope had shot through his hands like a serpent and as proof he showed his palms. In the torchlight each was crossed by a vivid burn-mark. Perhaps he was telling the truth. He sounded contrite enough. But then any assassin would look shame-faced if his victim came back to life. ‘As I recall it, Brebix, you said you could hold me and my mother.’

  ‘Aye, well your mother’s heavier than I thought.’

  ‘You’re favoured by the gods, aquarius,’ declared Musa. ‘They have some destiny in mind for you.’

  ‘My destiny,’ said Attilius, ‘is to repair this fucking aqueduct and get back to Misenum.’ He unfastened the rope from around his waist, took Polites’s torch and edged past the men, shining the light along the tunnel.

  How quickly the water was draining! It was already below his knees. He imagined the current swirling past him, on its way to Nola and the other towns. Eventually it would work its way all around the bay, across the arcades north of Neapolis and over the great arch at Cumae, down the spine of the peninsula to Misenum. Soon this section would be drained entirely. There would be nothing more than puddles on the floor. Whatever happened, he had fulfilled his promise to the admiral. He had cleared the matrix.

  The point where the tunnel had been blocked was still a mess but the force of the flood had done most of their work for them. Now it was a matter of clearing out the rest of the earth and rubble, smoothing the floor and walls, putting down a bed of concrete and a fresh lining of bricks, then a render of cement – nothing fancy: just temporary repairs until they could get back to do a proper job in the autumn. It was still a lot of work to get through in a night, before the first tongues of fresh water reached them from Abellinum, after Becco had reopened the sluices. He told them what he wanted and Musa started adding his own suggestions. If they brought down the bricks now, he said, they could stack them along the wall and have them ready to use when the water cleared. They could make a start on mixing the cement above ground immediately. It was the first time he had shown any desire to co-operate since Attilius had taken charge of the aqueduct. He seemed awed by the engineer’s survival. I should come back from the dead more often, Attilius thought.

  Brebix said, At least that stink has gone.’

  Attilius had not noticed it before. He sniffed the air. It was true. The pervasive stench of sulphur seemed to have been washed away. He wondered what that had all been about – where it had come from in the first place, why it should have evaporated – but he did not have time to consider it. He heard his name being called and he kicked his way back through the water to the inspection shaft. It was Corvinus’s voice: ‘Aquarius!’

  ‘Yes?’ The face of the slave was silhouetted by a red glow. ‘What is it?’

  ‘I think you ought to come and see.’ His head disappeared abruptly.

  Now what? Attilius took the rope and tested it carefully, then started climbing. In his bruised and exhausted state it was harder work than before. He ascended slowly – right hand, left hand, right hand, hauling himself into the narrow access shaft, working himself up, thrusting his arms over the lip of the manhole and levering himself out into the warm night.

  In the time he had been underground the moon had risen – huge, full and red. It was like the stars in this part of the world – like everything, in fact – unnatural and overblown. There was quite an operation in progress on the surface by now: the heaps of spoil excavated from the tunnel, a couple of big bonfires spitting sparks at the harvest moon, torches planted in the ground to provide additional light, the wagons drawn up and mostly unloaded. He could see a thick rim of mud in the moonlight around the shallow lake, where it had already mostly drained. The slaves of Ampliatus’s work-gang were leaning against the carts, waiting for orders. They watched him with curiosity as he hauled himself to his feet. He must look a sight, he realised, drenched and dirty. He shouted into the tunnel for Musa to come up and set them back to work, then looked around for Corvinus. He was about thirty paces away, close to the oxen, with his back to the manhole. Attilius shouted to him impatiently.

  ‘Well?’

  Corvinus turned and by way of explanation stepped aside, revealing behind him a figure in a hooded cloak. Attilius set off towards them. It was only as he came closer and the stranger pulled back the hood that he recognised her. He could not have been more startled if Egeria herself, the goddess of the water-spring, had suddenly materialised in the moonlight. His first instinct was that she must have come with her father and he looked around for other riders, other horses. But there was only one horse, chewing placidly on the thin grass. She was alone and as he reached her he raised his hands in astonishment.

  ‘Corelia – what is this?’

  ‘She wouldn’t tell me what she wants,’ interrupted Corvinus. ‘She says she’ll only talk to you.’

  ‘Corelia?’

  She nodded suspiciously towards Corvinus, put her finger to her lips and shook her head.

  ‘See what I mean? The moment she turned up yesterday I knew she was trouble �
�’

  ‘All right, Corvinus. That’s enough. Get back to work.’

  ‘But –’

  ‘Work!’

  As the slave slouched away he examined her more closely. Cheeks smudged, hair dishevelled, cloak and dress spattered with mud. But it was her eyes, unnaturally wide and bright, that were most disturbing. He took her hand. ‘This is no place for you,’ he said gently. ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘I wanted to bring you these,’ she whispered and from the folds of her cloak she began producing small cylinders of papyrus.

  The documents were of different ages and conditions. Six in total, small enough to fit into the cradle of one arm. Attilius took a torch and with Corelia beside him moved away from the activity around the aqueduct to a private spot behind one of the wagons, looking out over the flooded ground. Across what remained of the lake ran a wavering path of moonlight, as wide and straight as a Roman road. From the far side came the rustle of wings and the cries of the waterfowl.

  He took her cloak from her shoulders and spread it out for her to sit on. Then he jammed the handle of the torch into the earth, squatted and unrolled the oldest of the documents. It was a plan of one section of the Augusta – this very section: Pompeii, Nola and Vesuvius were all marked in ink that had faded from black to pale grey. It was stamped with the imperial seal of the Divine Augustus as if it had been inspected and officially approved. A surveyor’s drawing. Original. Drafted more than a century ago. Perhaps the great Marcus Agrippa himself had once held it in his hands? He turned it over. Such a document could only have come from one of two places, either the archive of the Curator Aquarum in Rome, or the Piscina Mirabilis in Misenum. He rolled it carefully.

  The next three papyri consisted mostly of columns of numerals and it took him a while to make much sense of them. One was headed Colonia Veneria Pompeianorum and was divided into years – DCCCXIV, DCCCXV and so on – going back nearly two decades, with further subdivisions of notations, figures and totals. The quantities increased annually until, by the year that had ended last December – Rome’s eight hundred and thirty-third – they had doubled. The second document seemed at first glance to be identical until he studied it more closely and then he saw that the figures throughout were roughly half as large as in the first. For example, for the last year, the grand total of three hundred and fifty-two thousand recorded in the first papyrus had been reduced in the second to one hundred and seventy-eight thousand.