Robert Harris - Pompeii

“And I also want oxen. Two teams and two wagons.”

“On a public holiday?” He clicked his tongue. “That, I think, will take longer.”

“How long?”

“Let me see.” Baculus squinted at the sun. The more difficult he made it sound, the more he could charge. “Two hours. Maybe three.”

“Agreed.”

They haggled over the price, the dealer demanding an outrageous sum that Attilius immediately divided by ten. Even so, when eventually they shook hands, he was sure he had been swindled and it irritated him, as any kind of waste always did. But he had no time to seek out a better bargain. He told the dealer to bring round four of the horses immediately to the Vesuvius Gate and then pushed his way back through the traders toward the Minerva.

By now the crew had been allowed up on deck. Most had peeled off their sodden tunics and the stench of sweat from the sprawled bodies was strong enough to compete with the stink of the nearby fish-sauce factory, where liquefying offal was decomposing in vats in the sunshine. Corvinus and Becco were picking their way among the oarsmen, carrying the tools, throwing them over the side to Musa and Polites. Corax stood with his back to the boat, peering toward the town, occasionally rising on tiptoe to see over the heads of the crowd.

He noticed Attilius and stopped. “So the water runs,” he said, and folded his arms. There was something almost heroic about his stubbornness, his unwillingness to concede he had been wrong. It was then that Attilius knew, beyond question, that once all this was over he would have to get rid of him.

“Yes, she runs,” he agreed. He waved to the others to stop what they were doing and to gather round. It was settled that they would leave Polites to finish the unloading and to guard the tools on the dockside; Attilius would send word to him about where to meet up later. Then the remaining five set off toward the nearest gate, Corax trailing behind, and whenever Attilius looked back it seemed that he was searching for someone, his head craning from side to side.

The engineer led them up the ramp from the harbor toward the city wall, beneath the half-finished temple of Venus and into the dark tunnel of the gate. A customs official gave them a cursory glance to check they were not carrying anything they might sell, then nodded them into the town.

The street beyond the gate was not as steep as the ramp outside, or as slippery, but it was narrower, so that they were almost crushed by the weight of bodies surging into Pompeii. Attilius found himself borne along past shops and another big temple—this one dedicated to Apollo—and into the blinding open space and swarming activity of the forum.

It was imposing for a provincial town: basilica, covered market, more temples, a public library—all brilliantly colored and shimmering in the sunlight; three or four dozen statues of emperors and local worthies high up on their pedestals. Not all of it was finished. A webwork of wooden scaffolding covered some of the large buildings. The high walls acted to trap the noise of the crowd and reflect it back at them—the flutes and drums of the buskers, the cries of the beggars and hawkers, the sizzle of cooking food. Fruit-sellers were offering green figs and pink slices of melon. Wine merchants crouched beside rows of red amphorae propped in nests of yellow straw. At the foot of a nearby statue a snake charmer sat cross-legged, playing a pipe, a gray serpent rising groggily from the mat in front of him, another draped round his neck. Small pieces of fish were frying on an open range. Slaves, bowed under the weight of bundles of wood, were hurrying in relays to pile them onto the big bonfire being built in the center of the forum for the evening sacrifice to Vulcan. A barber advertised himself as an expert in pulling teeth and had a foot-high pile of gray and black stumps to prove it.

The engineer took off his hat and wiped his forehead. Already there was something about the place he did not much like. A hustler’s town, he thought. Full of people on the make. She would welcome a visitor for exactly as long as it took to fleece him. He beckoned to Corax to ask him where he would find the aediles—he had to cup his hand to the man’s ear to make himself heard—and the overseer pointed toward a row of three small offices lining the southern edge of the square, all closed for the holiday. A long notice board was covered in proclamations, evidence of a thriving bureaucracy. Attilius cursed to himself. Nothing was ever easy.

“You know the way to the Vesuvius Gate,” he shouted to Corax. “You lead.”

Water was pumping through the city. As they fought their way toward the far end of the forum he could hear it washing clear the big public latrine beside the Temple of Jupiter and bubbling in the streets beyond. He kept in close behind Corax, and once or twice he found himself splashing through the little torrents that were running in the gutters, bearing away the dust and rubbish down the slope toward the sea. He counted seven fountains, all overflowing. The Augusta’s loss was clearly Pompeii’s gain. The whole force of the aqueduct had nowhere to run except here. So while the other towns around the bay were baking dry in the heat, the children of Pompeii paddled in the streets.

It was hard work, toiling up the hill. The press of people was mainly moving in the opposite direction, down toward the attractions of the forum, and by the time they reached the big northern gate Baculus was already waiting for them with their horses. He had hitched them to a post beside a small building that backed onto the city wall. Attilius said, “The castellum aquae?” and Corax nodded.

The engineer took it in at a glance—the same redbrick construction as the Piscina Mirabilis, the same muffled sound of rushing water. It looked to be the highest point in the town and that made sense: invariably an aqueduct entered beneath a city’s walls where the elevation was greatest. Gazing back down the hill he could see the water towers that regulated the pressure of the flow. He sent Musa inside the castellum to fetch out the water-slave while he turned his attention to the horses. They did not appear too bad. You would not want to enter them for a race at the Circus Maximus, but they would do the job. He counted out a small pile of gold coins and gave them to Baculus, who tested each one with his teeth. “And the oxen?”

These, Baculus promised, with much solemn pressing of his hands to his heart and rolling of his eyes to heaven, would be ready by the seventh hour. He would attend to it immediately. He wished them all the blessings of Mercury on their journey, and took his leave—but only as far, Attilius noticed, as the bar across the street.

He assigned the horses on the basis of their strength. The best he gave to Becco and Corvinus, on the grounds that they would have the most riding to do, and he was still explaining his reasons to an aggrieved Corax when Musa reappeared to announce that the castellum aquae was deserted.

“What?” Attilius wheeled round. “Nobody there at all?”

“It’s Vulcanalia, remember?”

Corax said, “I told you he’d be no help.”

“Public holidays!” Attilius could have punched the brickwork in frustration. “Somewhere in this town there had better be people willing to work.” He regarded his puny expedition uneasily, and thought again how unwise he had been in the admiral’s library, confusing what was theoretically possible with what actually could be achieved. But there was nothing else for it now. He cleared his throat. “All right. You all know what you have to do? Becco, Corvinus—have either of you ever been up to Abellinum before?”

“I have,” said Becco.

“What’s the setup?”

“The springs rise beneath a temple dedicated to the water goddesses, and flow into a basin within the nymphaeum. The aquarius in charge is Probus, who also serves as priest.”