Pompeii (7 page)
“The world, its shape, its motion. Eclipses, solar and lunar. Thunderbolts. Music from the stars. Sky portents, recorded instances. Sky-beams, sky-yawning, colors of the sky, sky-flames, sky-wreaths, sudden rings. Eclipses. Showers of stones . . .”
There were other books by Pliny in the library. Six volumes on oratory. Eight on grammar. Twenty volumes on the war in
Germany
, in which he had commanded a cavalry unit. Thirty volumes on the recent history of the empire, which he had served as procurator in
Spain
and Belgian Gaul. Attilius wondered how he managed to write so much and rise so high in the imperial administration at the same time. The Curator said, “Because he doesn’t have a wife.” He laughed at his own joke. “And he doesn’t sleep, either. You watch he doesn’t catch you out.”
The sky was red with the setting sun and the large lagoon to his right, where the warships were built and repaired, was deserted for the evening; a few seabirds called mournfully among the reeds. To his left, in the outer harbor, a passenger ferry was approaching through the golden glow, her sails furled,
a
dozen oars on either side dipping slowly in unison as she steered between the anchored triremes of the imperial fleet. She was too late to be the nightly arrival from
Ostia
, which meant she was probably a local service. The weight of the passengers crammed on her open deck was pressing her low to the surface.
“Showers of milk, of blood, of flesh, of iron, of wool, of bricks. Portents. The earth at the center of the world. Earthquakes. Chasms. Air-holes. Combined marvels of fire and water: mineral pitch; naptha; regions constantly glowing. Harmonic principle of the world . . .”
He was moving more quickly than the water pipes were emptying and when he passed through the triumphal arch that marked the entrance to the port he could see that the big public fountain at the crossroads was still flowing. Around it was grouped the usual twilight crowd—sailors dousing their befuddled heads, ragged children shrieking and splashing, a line of women and slaves with earthenware pots at their hips and on their shoulders, waiting to collect their water for the night. A marble statue of the Divine Augustus, carefully positioned beside the busy intersection to remind the citizens who was responsible for this blessing, gazed coldly above them, frozen in perpetual youth.
The overloaded ferry had come alongside the quay. Her gangplanks, fore and aft, had been thrown down and the timber was already bowing under the weight of passengers scrambling ashore. Luggage was tossed from hand to hand. A taxi owner, surprised by the speed of the exodus, was running around kicking his bearers to get them on their feet. Attilius called across the street to ask where the ferry was from, and the taxi owner shouted back over his shoulder, “Neapolis, my friend—and before that,
Pompeii
.”
Pompeii
.
Attilius, on the point of moving off, suddenly checked his stride. Odd, he thought. Odd that they had heard no word from
Pompeii
, the first town on the matrix. He hesitated, swung round, and stepped into the path of the oncoming crowd. “Any of you from
Pompeii
?” He waved the rolled-up plans of the
Augusta
to attract attention. “Was anyone in
Pompeii
this morning?” But nobody took any notice. They were thirsty after the voyage—and of course they would be, he realized, if they had come from Neapolis, where the water had failed at
. Most passed to either side of him in their eagerness to reach the fountain, all except for one, an elderly holy man, with the conical cap and curved staff of an augur, who was walking slowly, scanning the sky.
“I was in Neapolis this afternoon,” he said when Attilius stopped him, “but this morning I was in
Pompeii
. Why? Is there something I can do to help you, my son?” His rheumy eyes took on a crafty look, his voice dropped. “No need to be shy. I am practiced in the interpretation of all the usual phenomena—thunderbolts, entrails, bird omens, unnatural manifestations. My rates are reasonable.”
“May I ask, holy father,” said the engineer, “when you left
Pompeii
?”
“At first light.”
“And were the fountains playing? Was there water?”
So much rested on his answer, Attilius was almost afraid to hear it.
“Yes, there was water.” The augur frowned and raised his staff to the fading light. “But when I arrived in Neapolis the streets were dry and in the baths I smelled sulfur. That is why I decided to return to the ferry and to come on here.” He squinted again at the sky, searching for birds. “Sulfur is a terrible omen.”
“True enough,” agreed Attilius. “But are you certain? And are you sure the water was running?”
“Yes, my son. I’m sure.”
There was a commotion around the fountain and both men turned to look. It was nothing much to start with, just some pushing and shoving, but quickly punches were being thrown. The crowd seemed to contract, to rush in on itself and become denser, and from the center of the melee a large earthenware pot went sailing into the air, turned slowly, and landed on the quayside, smashing into fragments. A woman screamed. Wriggling between the backs at the edge of the mob, a man in a Greek tunic emerged, clutching a waterskin tightly to his chest. Blood was pouring from a gash in his temple. He sprawled, picked himself up, and stumbled forward, disappearing into an alleyway.
And so it starts, thought the engineer. First this fountain, and then the others all around the port, and then the big basin in the forum. And then the public baths, and then the taps in the military school, and in the big villas—nothing emerging from the empty pipes except the clank of shuddering lead and the whistle of rushing air . . .
The distant water organ had become stuck on a note and died with a long moan.
Someone was yelling that the bastard from Neapolis had pushed to the front and stolen the last of the water, and, like a beast with a single brain and impulse, the crowd turned and began to pour down the narrow lane in pursuit. And suddenly, as abruptly as it had begun, the riot was over, leaving behind a scene of smashed and abandoned pots, and a couple of women crouched in the dust, their hands pressed over their heads for protection, close to the edge of the silent fountain.
VESPERA
[
hours]
Earthquakes may occur in swarms at areas of stress concentrations—
such as nearby faults—and in the immediate vicinity of
magma where pressure changes are occurring.
—HARALDUR SIGURDSSON (EDITOR)
ENCYCLOPEDIA OF VOLCANOES
The admiral’s official residence was set high on the hillside overlooking the harbor and by the time Attilius reached it and was conducted onto the terrace it was dusk. All around the bay, in the seaside villas, torches, oil lamps, and braziers were being lit, so that gradually a broken thread of yellow light had begun to emerge, wavering for mile after mile, picking out the curve of the coast, before vanishing in the purple haze toward
Capri
.
A marine centurion in full uniform of breastplate and crested helmet, with a sword swinging at his belt, was hurrying away as the engineer arrived. The remains of a large meal were being cleared from a stone table beneath a trellised pergola. At first he did not see the admiral, but the instant the slave announced him—“Marcus Attilius Primus, aquarius of the Aqua Augusta!”—a stocky man in his middle fifties at the far end of the terrace turned on his heel and came waddling toward him, trailed by what Attilius assumed were the guests of his abandoned dinner party: four men sweating in togas, at least one of whom, judging by the purple stripe on his formal dress, was a senator. Behind them—obsequious, malevolent,
inescapable
—came Corax.
Attilius had for some reason imagined that the famous scholar would be thin, but Pliny was fat, his belly protruding sharply, like the ramming post of one of his warships. He was dabbing at his forehead with his napkin.
“Shall I arrest you now, aquarius? I could, you know, that’s already clear enough.” He had a fat man’s voice: a high-pitched wheeze, which became even hoarser as he counted off the charges on his pudgy fingers. “Incompetence to start with—who can doubt that? Negligence—where were you when the sulfur infected the water? Insubordination—on what authority did you shut off our supply? Treason—yes, I could make a charge of treason stick. What about fomenting rebellion in the imperial dockyards? I’ve had to order out a century of marines—fifty to break some heads in the town and try to restore public order, the other fifty to the reservoir, to guard whatever water’s left. Treason—”
He broke off, short of breath. With his puffed-out cheeks, pursed lips, and sparse gray curls plastered down with perspiration, he had the appearance of an elderly, furious cherub, fallen from some painted, peeling ceiling. The youngest of his guests—a pimply lad in his late teens—stepped forward to support his arm, but Pliny shrugged him away. At the back of the group Corax grinned, showing a mouthful of dark teeth. He had been even more effective at spreading poison than Attilius had expected. What a politician. He could probably show the senator a trick or two.
He noticed that a star had come out above Vesuvius. He had never really looked properly at the mountain before, certainly not from this angle. The sky was dark but the mountain was darker, almost black, rising massively above the bay to a pointed summit. And there was the source of the trouble, he thought. Somewhere there, on the mountain. Not on the seaward side, but round to landward, on the northeastern slope.
“Who are you anyway?” Pliny eventually managed to rasp out. “I don’t know you. You’re far too young. What’s happened to the proper aquarius? What was his name?”
“Exomnius,” said Corax.
“Exomnius, precisely. Where’s he? And what does Acilius Aviola think he’s playing at, sending us boys to do men’s work? Well? Speak up! What have you to say for yourself?”
Behind the admiral Vesuvius formed a perfect natural pyramid, with just that little crust of light from the waterfront villas running around its base. In a couple of places the line bulged slightly and those, the engineer guessed, must be towns. He recognized them from the map. The nearer would be
Herculaneum
; the more distant,
Pompeii
.
Attilius straightened his back. “I need,” he said, “to borrow a ship.”
He spread out his map on the table in Pliny’s library, weighing down either side with a couple of pieces of magnetite that he took from a display cabinet. An elderly slave shuffled behind the admiral’s back, lighting an elaborate bronze candelabrum. The walls were lined with cedarwood cabinets, packed with rolls of papyri stacked end-on in dusty honeycombs, and even with the doors to the terrace pushed wide open, no breeze came off the sea to dispel the heat. The oily black strands of smoke from the candles rose undisturbed. Attilius could feel the sweat trickling down the sides of his belly, irritating him, like a crawling insect.
“Tell the ladies we shall rejoin them directly,” said the admiral. He turned away from the slave and nodded at the engineer. “All right. Let’s hear it.”
Attilius glanced around at the faces of his audience, intent in the candlelight. He had been told their names before they sat down and he wanted to make sure he remembered them: Pedius Cascus, a senior senator who, he dimly recalled, had been a consul years ago and who owned a big villa along the coast at Herculaneum; Pomponianus, an old army comrade of Pliny, rowed over for dinner from his villa at Stabiae; and Antius, captain of the imperial flagship, the
Victoria
. The pimply youth was Pliny’s nephew, Gaius Plinius Caecilius Secundus.
He put his finger on the map and they all leaned forward, even Corax.
“This is where I thought originally that the break must be, admiral—here, in the burning fields around
Cumae
. That would explain the sulfur. But then we learned that the supply had gone down in Nola as well—over here, to the east. That was at dawn. The timing is crucial, because according to a witness who was in
Pompeii
at first light, the fountains there were still running this morning. As you can see,
Pompeii
is some distance back up the matrix from Nola, so logically the
Augusta
should have failed there in the middle of the night. The fact that it didn’t can only mean one thing. The break has to be here”—he circled the spot—“somewhere here, on this five-mile stretch, where she runs close to Vesuvius.”
