Robert Harris - Pompeii

“What class of fighter were you?”

“Guess.”

It was a long time since Attilius had been to the games. “Not a retiarius,” he said eventually. “I don’t see you dancing around with a net and a trident.”

“You’re right there.”

“So, a thrax, then. Or a murmillo, perhaps.” A thrax carried a small shield and a short curved sword; a murmillo was a heavier fighter, armed like an infantryman, with a gladius and a full rectangular shield. The muscles of Brebix’s left arm—his shield arm, more likely than not—bulged as powerfully as his right. “I’d say a murmillo.” Brebix nodded. “How many fights?”

“Thirty.”

Attilius was impressed. Not many men survived thirty fights. That was eight or ten years of appearances in the arena. “Whose troop were you with?”

“Alleius Nigidius. I fought all around the bay. Pompeii, mostly. Nuceria. Nola. After I won my freedom I went to Ampliatus.”

“You didn’t turn trainer?”

Brebix said quietly, “I’ve seen enough killing, aquarius. Thanks for the bread.” He got to his feet lightly, in a single, fluid motion, and went over to the others. It took no effort to imagine him in the dust of the amphitheater. Attilius could guess the mistake his opponents had made. They would have thought he was massive, slow, clumsy. But he was as agile as a cat.

The engineer took another drink. He could see straight across the bay to the rocky islands off Misenum—little Prochyta and the high mountain of Aenaria—and for the first time he noticed that there was a swell on the water. Flecks of white foam had appeared among the tiny ships that were strewn like filings across the glaring, metallic sea. But none had hoisted a sail. And that was strange, he thought—that was odd—but it was a fact: there was no wind. Waves but no wind.

Another trick of nature for the admiral to ponder.

The sun was just beginning to dip behind Vesuvius. A hare eagle—small, black, powerful, famed for never emitting a cry—wheeled and soared in silence above the thick forest. They would soon be heading into shadow. Which was good because it would be cooler, and also bad, because it meant there was not long till dusk.

He finished his water and called to the men to move on.

Silence also in the great house.

She could always tell when her father had gone. The whole place seemed to let out its breath. She slipped her cloak around her shoulders and listened again at the shutters before she opened them. Her room faced west. On the other side of the courtyard the sky was as red as the terra-cotta roof, the garden beneath her balcony in shadow. A sheet still lay across the top of the aviary and she pulled it back, to give the birds some air, and then—on impulse: it had never occurred to her before that moment—she released the catch and opened the door at the side of the cage.

She drew back into the room.

The habits of captivity are hard to break. It took a while for the goldfinches to sense their opportunity. Eventually, one bird, bolder than the rest, edged along its perch and hopped onto the bottom of the door frame. It cocked its red-and-black-capped head at her and blinked one tiny bright eye, then launched itself into the air. Its wings cracked. There was a flash of gold in the gloom. It swooped across the garden and came to rest on the ridge tiles opposite. Another bird fluttered to the door and took off, and then another. She would have liked to have stayed and watch them all escape but instead she closed the shutters.

She had told her maid to go with the rest of the slaves to the forum. The passage outside her room was deserted, as were the stairs, as was the garden in which her father had held what he thought was his secret conversation. She crossed it quickly, keeping close to the pillars in case she encountered anyone. She passed through into the atrium of their old house and turned toward the tablinum. This was where her father still conducted his business affairs—rising to greet his clients at dawn, meeting them either singly or in groups until the law courts opened, whereupon he would sweep out into the street, followed by his usual anxious court of petitioners. It was a symbol of Ampliatus’s power that the room contained not the usual one but three strongboxes, made of heavy wood bonded with brass, attached by iron rods to the stone floor.

Corelia knew where the keys were kept because in happier days—or was it simply a device to convince his associates of what a charming fellow he was?—she had been allowed to creep in and sit at his feet while he was working. She opened the drawer of the small desk, and there they were.

The document case was in the second strongbox. She did not bother to unroll the small papyri, but simply stuffed them into the pockets of her cloak, then locked the safe and replaced the key.

The riskiest part was over and she allowed herself to relax a little. She had a story ready in case she was stopped—that she was better now and had decided to join the others in the forum after all—but nobody was about. She walked across the courtyard and down the staircase, past the swimming pool with its gently running fountain, and the dining room in which she had endured that terrible meal, moving swiftly around the colonnade toward the red-painted drawing room of the Popidii. Soon she would be the mistress of all this: a ghastly thought.

A slave was lighting one of the brass candelabra but drew back respectfully against the wall to let her pass. Through a curtain. Another, narrower flight of stairs. And suddenly she was down in a different world—low ceilings, roughly plastered walls, a smell of sweat: the slaves’ quarters. She could hear a couple of men talking somewhere and a clang of iron pots and then, to her relief, the whinny of a horse.

The stables were at the end of the corridor, and it was as she had thought—her father had decided to take his guests by litter to the forum, leaving all the horses behind. She stroked the nose of her favorite, a bay mare, and whispered to her. Saddling her was a job for the slaves but she had watched them often enough to know how to do it. As she fastened the leather harness beneath the belly the horse shifted slightly and knocked against the wooden stall. She held her breath but no one came.

She whispered: “Easy, girl, it’s only me, it’s all right.”

The stable door opened directly onto the side street. Every sound seemed absurdly loud to her—the bang of the iron bar as she lifted it, the creak of the hinges, the clatter of the mare’s hooves as she led her out into the road. A man was hurrying along the pavement opposite and he turned to look at her but he didn’t stop—he was late, presumably, and on his way to the sacrifice. From the direction of the forum came the noise of music and then a low roar, like the breaking of a wave.

She swung herself up onto the horse. No decorous, feminine sideways mount for her tonight. She opened her legs and sat astride it like a man. The sense of limitless freedom almost overwhelmed her. This street—this utterly ordinary street, with its cobblers’ shops and dressmakers, along which she had walked so many times—had become the edge of the world. She knew that if she hesitated any longer the panic would seize her completely. She pressed her knees into the horse and pulled hard left on the reins, heading away from the forum. At the first crossroads she turned left again. She stuck carefully to the empty back streets and only when she judged that she was far enough away from the house to be unlikely to meet anyone she knew did she join the main road. Another wave of applause carried from the forum.

Up the hill she went, past the deserted baths her father was building, past the castellum aquae and under the arch of the city gate. She bowed her head as she passed the customs post, pulling the hood of her cloak low, and then she was out of Pompeii and onto the road to Vesuvius.