Robert Harris - Pompeii

The summit of Vesuvius was not the sharp peak that it had appeared from the base but a rough and circular plain, perhaps two hundred paces in diameter, a wilderness of black rock, with a few brownish patches of sickly vegetation that merely emphasized its deadness. Not only did it look to have been on fire in the past, as the Greek papyrus had said, but to be burning now. In at least three places thin columns of gray vapor were rising, fluttering and hissing in the silence. There was the same sour stench of sulfur that there had been in the pipes of the Villa Hortensia. This is the place, thought Attilius. This is the heart of the evil. He could sense something huge and malevolent. One could call it Vulcan or give it whatever name one liked. One could worship it as a god. But it was a tangible presence. He shuddered.

He kept close to the edge of the summit and began working his way around it, mesmerized to begin with by the sulfurous clouds that were whispering from the ground and then by the astonishing panoramas beyond the rim. Away to his right the bare rock ran down to the edge of the forest, and then there was nothing but an undulating green blanket. Torquatus had said that you could see for fifty miles, but to Attilius it seemed that the whole of Italy was spread beneath him. As he moved from north to west the Bay of Neapolis came into his vision. He could easily make out the promontory of Misenum and the islands off its point, and the imperial retreat of Capri, and beyond them, as sharp as a razor cut, the fine line where the deep blue of the sea met the paler blue of the sky. The water was still flecked by the waves he had noticed the night before—scudding waves on a windless sea—although now he thought about it perhaps there was a breeze beginning to rise. He could feel it on his cheek: the one they called Caurus, blowing from the northwest, toward Pompeii, which appeared at his feet as no more than a sandy smudge set back from the coast. He imagined Corelia arriving there, utterly unreachable now, a dot within a dot, lost to him forever.

It made him feel light-headed simply to look at it, as if he were himself nothing but a speck of pollen that might be lifted at any moment by the hot air and blown into the blueness. He felt an overwhelming impulse to surrender to it—a yearning for that perfect blue oblivion so strong that he had to force himself to turn away. Shaken, he began to pick his way directly across the summit toward the other side, back to where he had started, keeping clear of the plumes of sulfur that seemed to be multiplying all around him. The ground was shaking, bulging. He wanted to get away now, as fast as he could. But the terrain was rough, with deep depressions on either side of his path—“cave-like pits of blackened rock,” as the Greek writer had said—and he had to watch where he put his feet. And it was because of this—because he had his head down—that he smelled the body before he saw it.

It stopped him in his tracks—a sweet and cloying stink that entered his mouth and nostrils and coated them with a greasy film. The stench was emanating from the large dust bowl straight ahead of him. It was perhaps six feet deep and thirty across, simmering like a cauldron in the haze of heat, and what was most awful, when he peered over the side, was that everything in it was dead: not just the man, who wore a white tunic and whose limbs were so purplish-black Attilius thought at first he was a Nubian, but other creatures—a snake, a large bird, a litter of small animals—all scattered in this pit of death. Even the vegetation was bleached and poisoned.

The corpse was lying at the bottom, on its side, with its arms flung out, a water gourd and a straw hat just beyond its reach, as if it had died straining for them. It must have lain out here for at least two weeks, putrefying in the heat. Yet the wonder was how much of it remained. It had not been attacked by insects or picked to the bone by birds and animals. No clouds of blowflies swarmed across its half-baked meat. Rather, its burned flesh appeared to have poisoned anything that had tried to feast on it.

He swallowed hard to keep back his vomit. He knew at once that it had to be Exomnius. He had been gone two weeks or more, and who else would have ventured up here in August? But how could he be sure? He had never met the man. Yet he was reluctant to venture down onto that carpet of death. He forced himself to squat close to the lip of the pit and squinted at the blackened face. He saw a row of grinning teeth, like pips in a burst fruit; a dull eye, half-closed, sighting along the length of the grasping arm. There was no sign of any wound. But then the whole body was a wound, bruised and suppurating. What could have killed him? Perhaps he had succumbed to the heat. Perhaps his heart had given out. Attilius leaned down further and tried to poke at it with his stick and immediately he felt himself begin to faint. Bright lights wove and danced before him and he almost toppled forward. He scrabbled with his hands in the dust and just managed to push himself back, gasping for breath.

“The afflatus of the tainted air near to the ground itself . . .”

His head was pounding. He threw up—a bitter, vile-tasting fluid—and was still coughing and spitting mucus when he heard, in front of him, the crack of dry vegetation being broken by a step. He looked up groggily. On the other side of the pit, no more than fifty paces away, a man was moving across the summit toward him. He thought at first it must be part of the visions induced by the tainted air and he stood with an effort, swaying drunkenly, blinking the sweat out of his eyes, trying to focus, but still the figure came on, framed by the hissing jets of sulfur, with the glint in his hand of a knife.

It was Corax.

Attilius was in no condition to fight. He would have run, but he could barely raise his feet.

The overseer approached the pit cautiously—crouched low, his arms spread wide, shifting lightly from foot to foot, reluctant to take his eyes off the engineer, as if he suspected a trick. He darted a quick glance at the body, frowned at Attilius, then looked back down again. He said softly, “So what’s all this then, pretty boy?” He sounded almost offended. He had planned his assault carefully, had traveled a long way to carry it out, had waited in the darkness for daylight and had followed his quarry at a distance— He must have been the horseman I saw behind me, thought Attilius—all the time relishing the prospect of revenge, only to have his plans thrown awry at the last moment. It was not fair, his expression said—another in the long series of obstacles that life had thrown in the way of Gavius Corax. “I asked you: what’s all this?”

Attilius tried to speak. His voice was thick and slurred. He wanted to say that Exomnius hadn’t been wrong, that there was terrible danger here, but he couldn’t pronounce the words. Corax was scowling at the corpse and shaking his head. “The stupid old bastard, climbing up here at his age! Worrying about the mountain. And for what? For nothing! Nothing—except landing us with you.” He returned his attention to Attilius. “Some clever young cunt from Rome, come to teach us all our jobs. Still fancy your chances, pretty boy? Nothing to say now, I notice. Well, why don’t I cut you another mouth and we’ll see what comes out of that?”

He hunched forward, tossing his knife from hand to hand, his face set and ready for the kill. He began to circle the pit and it was all Attilius could do to stumble in the opposite direction. When the overseer stopped, Attilius stopped, and when he reversed his steps and started prowling the other way, Attilius followed suit. This went on for a while, but the tactic obviously enraged Corax—“Fuck this,” he yelled, “I’m not playing your stupid games!”—and suddenly he made a rush at his prey. Red-faced, panting for breath in the heat, he ran down the side of the hollow and across it and had just reached the other slope when he stopped. He glanced down at his legs in surprise. With a terrible slowness he tried to wade forward, opening and shutting his mouth like a landed fish. He dropped his knife and sank to his knees, batting feebly at the air in front of him, then he crashed forward onto his face.