Pompeii: City on Fire (36 page)

Micah held her head against his chest and patted her back as she sobbed out her fear and her joy. She had been a fool to think him still a boy, and the relief of being in his protective arms brought more tears.

"I have missed you, sister." He pulled her away and held her arms. "I never gave up hoping that I would find you."

She dried her face with the back of her hand. "Nor I, you."

Memories of that last day in Jerusalem, of the terrified chaos, the raging fires, the screams of people fleeing the streets, burned through her mind. Memories so like this very day that it was as though they had reunited only moments after they had been lost to each other, as though the years did not exist.

"Have you been in slavery these nine years?"

He shrugged. "Among other things." It would be a story for another time. "But when I eventually learned that you served under Valerius, I arranged to be sold there myself, hoping to find you." He touched her cheek and smiled.

She grasped his hand and held it there. "I am beginning to believe Hashem
does
watch over His children, even in the midst of suffering."

"You must believe it, sister." Micah's eyes grew serious. "I have much to tell you, things I have learned. The Messiah has come, Ariella, and we missed it. He walked Jerusalem with our grandparents . . ." He frowned. "What is it, Ariella? Why do you look at me that way?"

But she could not speak. Micah, too? Did everyone she loved believe in this new Messiah?

The ground trembled under their feet, and Micah pulled her farther into their shelter, but Ariella's heart was too raw to notice. The words spoken to her on the beach resonated:
I gave My life to redeem yours.

Could it be true? Though her body remained in slavery, had her soul been purchased with holy blood? Could she be set free?

She had been fighting for so many years, fighting the God of her fathers for all the evil He had allowed. And yet, if it were also true that He had provided a way for her to be accepted, this way of shattering grace that defied all understanding, then was He not good? And what was there to do but surrender? To continue to fight was to throw herself in the path of death.

Her heart hovered there, on the edge of a precipice, looking into the unfathomable. She still did not understand His ways, how He could allow such horror and still love. Yet if the Messiah had come and died to save her, then what more proof did she require of the love of Hashem? She hovered—

And then she leaped.

It took only a moment. While death rained down around their heads, Ariella passed over to life. She felt it in her body, knew it in her mind, embraced it in her heart.

Micah waited, his eyes locked on hers.

"I know," she breathed. "He is also my Messiah."

Micah once more pulled her to his chest, and the ground heaved again.

He turned to the open nave, to the ash and pebbles that littered the floor. "I do not know that we are safe here."

As though in response, a huge chunk of blackness flared into the courtyard, angling out of the sky as though thrown down from heaven. A moment later a woman's scream cut across the wide space, silencing the crowd. A circle widened from where she screamed, hugging two small children to her side. At her feet, under the flaming rock, lay the crushed body of a man. She screamed again and then again, the sound bouncing from the stone walls of the basilica, enveloping them all in a wave of panic.

And then there were more. A shower of flaming rocks like falling stars. With them came a strange smell, rotten like the smell of death. The people scrambled over each other in their race to escape the basilica, as though there were safety to be found in the streets.

Ariella's mouth went dry and she, too, pulled toward the crowd. Micah held her back.

"Where else would we go, sister?" He pointed upward, to the roof. "We are protected here."

Ariella panted, watching the people pour from the basilica to the street. "Micah, I—there are people I care about—"

"You want to go to them?"

She reached up to touch his cheek. "It should be enough to be with you. But if we are to die, I want to see the world end with my friends."

His mouth was tight. "Portius Cato."

"No!" Her denial was too quick, too sharp, she saw it in his eyes. "His mother, his sister. And there are others. Others who have loved me."

He nodded. "Then I should also like to meet Hashem in the presence of those who have loved you."

They joined the crowd pushing from the damaged building into the street, then turned right, toward the Forum. The Temple of Apollo's narrow entrance across from them also disgorged citizens. Inside the temple, someone had lit torches on the platform to combat the strange dusk, and Ariella caught a glimpse of the gold-trimmed altar, glinting in the torchlight.

The crowd flowed both directions now, as though half were convinced that their escape lay across the sea, and the others had determined to return to safety under their own roofs.

They reached the Forum, and Ariella took a deep breath of relief at the thinning of the crowd. But her breath caught, ash-filled and chalky. Had it grown worse? The layer of ash in the Forum, deeper than her ankles now, muffled the sound of the falling pebbles. They paused inside the Forum's wide rectangle, empty as most of the people crowded under the colonnaded roofs at its side. Black chunks of burning rock, some the size of a man's head and others as big as chariots, littered the Forum's expanse.

The central gathering place for the city had been oriented toward Vesuvius, as though all important business should occur at the foot of the mountain. There was irony here now, as the mountain beyond the end of the Forum continued to spew upward, as though the underworld were emptying itself into the sky.

Micah grabbed her hand. "Are you ready?" They would have to dash across the Forum, taking their chances in the open.

She turned to look across the space, tracing the path they would take. To her left a single man ran toward them. She tried to draw courage from his bravery. He had tied a strip of fabric across his face to filter the ash. They should do the same.

Something about him drew her gaze again. That familiar build, shoulders and chest. Her heart surged with something she could not name.

Micah was pulling her forward. "Ariella, come!"

But in that moment the masked runner slowed as well, drawing up as though in surprise. In recognition.

She could not move. A chill ran over her flesh.

And then he was running again, pulling the mask from his face, shouting her name.

She struggled from Micah's grasp and left him behind, her feet carrying her toward the other.

Cato reached her with his arms already open, and she fell into them. He held her tight, buried his face in her neck. "She told me you had sailed. I was so afraid for you."

Ariella could not speak. How could she say what was in her heart?

He was kissing her cheeks now, holding her face in his hands, kissing her forehead, her hair, like a husband who had thought his wife lost and had her restored. Tears streaked his dirt-stained cheeks, leaving her more breathless than the ash.

Perhaps there would be time for truth between them later. Perhaps not.

He circled her shoulder with his arm and pulled her toward Micah. "Come. The city is going to fall."

They reached her brother and she read his disapproval. No doubt he believed Cato had used his slave girl for more than kitchen chores. Again, the truth must wait.

Cato led them all to the covered colonnade and they circled together beside a pillar, holding their ground against the tide of people.

Ariella found her voice at last. "What do you mean? How will the city fall?"

He pointed upward. "Look at what the sky still holds for us." He kicked at the calf-deep ash and pebbles. "If the city is not buried, at the very least, the roofs will not hold. It is not safe indoors, nor outdoors." He lifted his head toward the magistrates' buildings at the end of the Forum, and the prison. "And those underground will be trapped beneath it."

Micah straightened and spoke to Cato. "What is there to do, then?" He spoke as an equal, and a glow of pride flickered in Ariella's heart.

"We must leave Pompeii. Escape to the south, across the plains and away from the mountain." He eyed Vesuvius. "I am not certain she is finished yet. I have heard that rivers of fire can pour from Vulcan's mountains. We may not have seen the worst."

Ariella kept her eyes from the monster. "But what of the others—your sisters and your mother?"

Cato turned again to the prison and his face grew as dark as the sky. "We leave no one behind."

CHAPTER 45

Cato feared for them all. Isabella and Octavia. Portia, and even her husband, Lucius, wherever he might be. And what of his new friends, so recently dear to him? Had Europa and Seneca and the others survived the quakes? Did they also take to the streets, where burning boulders were as lethal as falling columns?

Whatever came of each of them, of the city itself, Cato had found Ariella. He would not be separated from her again. He ripped another strip from his tunic, wrapped it around her face, and leaned forward to tie it behind her head. The fine powder of ash coated her short hair, whitening it, and the desire see her hair grow white with years flashed over him. Her dark eyes never left his own.

He did not take the time to ask himself the obvious questions. She was a slave and he a patrician. She was a Jew and he a Roman. But disaster made all people equal, and as they ran together toward the prison, Cato counted on the city magistrates' agreement. They could keep no one in chains while the city burned.

They dodged people and fallen rocks, crunched through the ash and stone with progress far too slow. The detritus from the sky was knee-deep now, and though the solid particles made it possible to walk on its surface in most places, in others they floundered in soft ash, alternately sinking and climbing.

The townspeople were like animals trapped in an arena, running to and fro with no plan, and it grieved Cato to see it. They reached the suggestum, where he had once stood above the Forum crowds to announce his candidacy. He climbed again, yelling to the people who rushed past.

"The sea is not safe, nor are your homes! We must flee the city. Gather your households. Move south!"

Some stopped to listen. Most hurried on, as though he were a crazed prophet, foretelling doom while the sun still warmed them. He smacked a fist against his palm and paced the platform. The message he shouted today outweighed any political speech. The vicious enemy above them overshadowed even Nigidius Maius.

Ariella grabbed at his ankle from beneath the dais. "It is not your responsibility to save them all. You have done what you can."

She was right, but the useless flight of the people toward the sea frustrated him. Still, he must see to his own.

He expected the entrance to the prison to be untended, but when they reached the narrow set of steps that led underground, they found that the guard had been tripled. As though the escape of criminals threatened the city more than the evil in the sky. Two burly soldiers stood at the steps, their pilum crossed at the opening, and another stood within the recess, shoveling out the ash and rocks that clogged the opening.

Cato scrambled through the remaining distance, Ariella's hand in his own and Micah somewhere behind them. "You must let them out." The guards wore a mixed expression of fear and duty. "They will be trapped under there!"

One of the soldiers inclined his head to the third. "He'll keep it clear."

"And you will be buried beside him. Think, men! Who will hold you accountable for fleeing your own death?"

But they had been trained too well, and looked over his head, silent.

Cato cursed under his breath. Could the three of them, unarmed, overpower the soldiers? "Who has given the order to keep them here?"

"Nigidius Maius. He was here only a short time ago, ensuring that the prison remain full."

Maius.
So this was where he had been when Cato had searched for him in his villa. Had he now returned to his daughter? Would they run to safety, leaving some to die in cells?

Ariella squeezed his hand and turned her face to speak to him. With the fabric covering her mouth, the guards would not hear. "We must find weapons and come back. They will not give up their duty without a fight."

Cato looked down on her sweet face, so earnest in her willingness to take up arms for him, for Portia. His beautiful and fearsome warrior. He kissed the top of her head once more, then led her and Micah from the prison.

"There are those with more influence here than we have. Seneca and Europa will know how to get into the prison."
And it will give me a chance to see how they fare.

Ariella's eyes brightened above her mask. "I have been worried for them."

"It should not take long to reach their home." He turned to Micah. "You should cover your face. The night is not over yet."

The grand house of Europa and Seneca lay in the eastern district, perhaps a league from the Forum. Could they reach it without being pummeled by falling cinders? Stay close to the walls, and stay together. What time was it? The early dusk was disorienting. Did it near the time of the evening meal?

But the townspeople were unconcerned with food. Many of them had strapped small cushions to their heads, to soften the blow of the falling fist-sized rocks. Strange sight. Man, woman, and child hurrying through the half-buried streets with terrified faces under their comical head coverings. Many clutched ornate wooden lock boxes. All they could carry, fearing the worst: that they would not return.

Cato had not released Ariella's hand since the Forum. They twisted through the crowd. A sudden and white-hot flash of light drew him up, and she rammed his back.

The crowd paused, as they had when the stones began to fall. As if an unseen god controlled the movement of each one, halting and setting in motion according to his whim. They looked to the sky, to the menacing gray cloud.