Pompeii: City on Fire (6 page)

You can save your politicking, Maius.
He shrugged the hand off his shoulder. Maius's attention shifted to Portia.

"Ah, here you are again." Maius sidled closer. "As if Fortuna herself smiles down on me."

A small crowd had grown around them, no doubt curious to see who the great Maius deigned to address. But it was Maius's interaction with Portia that troubled him. The politician was welded to his sister. Portia pulled her head back, as though to remove herself from him without the insult of stepping backward. She was elegance personified, as always. Cato saved her the trouble and inserted himself between them, resting a hand on his sister's lower back. He could feel her tension. "Come, Portia, I shall give you a lesson in the way of the games. I know how much you love blood and glory."

Maius extended his arm toward the fighters, like a host inviting a guest into his home. Cato bristled at the condescension, but strolled toward the end of the grassy field, his hand guiding Portia. He would not give Maius the satisfaction of seeing him perturbed.

A group had formed to watch the fighters, and Cato joined it, hoping that Maius would drift away. The man was ruining his good mood. But Maius remained close, even introducing him to several prominent men of Pompeii.

"Portius Cato," Maius offered to one of the nearby men. "Come to our little town to grow grapes and sell wine."

The patrician's eyebrows raised. "I knew your father in Rome, Cato." His expression grew haughty. "And many of the Portii clan. None of them were farmers that I remember."

Cato bowed slightly at the veiled insult. "An indulgence of mine, I will admit. But I am certain you will be glad of my new hobby once you have tasted my wine."

Maius laughed and elbowed the patrician. "Ah, but the wine supply in Pompeii is more than adequate with my vineyards and shops, is it not, Gracchus? Cato here refuses to see that his predecessor failed for just this reason. People simply prefer my wine." His voice was softness, undergird with iron.

Gracchus bowed. "And your fruit stands. And bakeries. Even your brothels."

Cato stifled a snort at Gracchus's fawning tone. "Perhaps they have been kept from a better alternative." His voice hardened and he smiled. "They need to be freed to try something new. Something superior."

From Maius's glare the man understood the deeper meaning of his words. But Maius recovered and again attached himself to Portia. "Well, if the Catonii family can create wine half as delectable as their women, my business will indeed be in jeopardy." He ran a finger up her arm to the elbow, and Cato saw a small shudder. "You are simply delicious, my dear girl."

"Pity for you she is a married woman." Cato pulled his sister from the man's grasp, his fingers twitching with the urge to strike Maius. But he should have kept silent. The husbands of beautiful women were never safe from unscrupulous men, and Maius struck him as a man devoid of integrity. His brother-in-law, Lucius, was in danger.

"Come, Maius." The sound of applause drifted from the theater, and Gracchus and the others backed away. "The performance is about to resume."

Cato held Portia back for a few moments, to give Maius and his sycophants time to clear the quadriporticus. He returned to watching the mismatched gladiators in silence. Had Portia's thoughts gone in the dark direction of his own?

He became aware of a small group of men in a huddle nearby, talking together, their eyes on him. He gave them a casual nod, and they glanced at each other and then approached, as if he had invited them to speak. From their dress he could see that they were wealthy men. One of them seemed to lead the group forward.

"Portius Cato? Newly come from Rome?"

Cato bowed. "Indeed. And anxious to make the acquaintance of the town's leading men."

The spokesman smirked. "Spoken like a true politician."

Cato straightened and raised his eyebrows.

"I meant no insult. In truth, just the opposite."

Cato lifted his chin and observed the man through lowered lids. "You have me at a disadvantage."

"My apologies. My name is Tullius Taurus." He nodded to each of his four companions and introduced them all in turn. Cato knew none of them.

Taurus inhaled deeply, as though bracing himself. "We saw you speaking with Nigidius Maius."

Cato tried to read Taurus's eyes, unsure whether to share his mind about the man who seemed to control the town. "Maius was speaking to
me.
" He held up his palms. "As you said, these politicians must try to make connections."

"And did he succeed?"

Taurus's direct question surprised him. Alliances in Rome were a tricky game. Were things simpler here in Pompeii, so far south of the mother city?

He examined Taurus's eyes once more, than decided on forthrightness. "He did not."

Taurus's chest seemed to deflate, and Cato had the sense it was in relief. "So you do not intend to be a Maius man?"

Cato laughed. "I am my own man. Always."

There were guarded smiles around the little group. Cato glanced at Portia. She'd been here for years and must know these men. Her eyes betrayed that she knew more of the encounter than Cato did. He furrowed his brow with an unspoken question, but she tilted her head, all wide eyes and innocence.

Taurus was speaking again, this time in a lower tone. He took a step closer to Cato. "There are many who would see Maius extricated from the office he's gripped with greedy fingers for many years."

Cato nodded. "I do not believe he is the man of the people he purports to be."

"He is evil, crawled out of a pit from the underworld."

Cato bit back a laugh, for the man's face bore an intensity that matched his words. "So why is he not voted out?"

Taurus spoke through clenched teeth. "Because he buys votes with money, blackmails to gain those that can't be bought, and threatens those with nothing to hide."

Cato eyed the quadriporticus, empty now except for the gladiators and the lanista who trained them. He should be back in the performance with his family, away from the talk of corrupt politicians. Yes, he should leave.

He must have leaned that way unconsciously, for he felt Portia's hand on his back, as though she would keep him here with her delicate fingers.

It was time to escape. The next words were inevitable, even before they emerged from the lips of Taurus.

"We want you to run against him."

His head was shaking before Taurus finished. "I came to Pompeii to enjoy life." He nodded toward the theater. "To bask in the balmy weather and grow luscious grapes and get fat with contentment."

Taurus inclined his head and watched Cato, as though he were a specimen to be studied. "You are young to be so disillusioned with higher purpose." His voice quieted. "Only two years as
aedile,
then two as
quaestor.
You had a long career ahead of you in Rome."

And you know too much about me.
He searched for a clever response, but had nothing. "I served the Empire as best I could. And now I wish for other things."

But Taurus would not be put off. "There is no one else in Pompeii qualified to run for duovir who has not already sold himself to Maius. There is only you."

A twinge of the old ambition, the old passion to right wrongs and destroy corruption, burrowed through his heart and threatened to surface. He beat it back with the hammer of the past. "I am honored by your request, citizens. Truly, I am. And I support your efforts to remove Maius from office so that he can face the prosecution he deserves for his many crimes. But you will have to find someone else."

Taurus would speak again, but Cato bowed and took Portia's arm. "My sister is no doubt grieved to be missing the third act." He pulled Portia along. "Please excuse us."

"Do not think you can avoid him, Cato," Taurus called after him. "Maius will destroy you as surely as he did Saturninus."

Cato strode from the quadriporticus, dragging Portia with him. But it was not his pace which caused her objections.

"Cato, how can you dismiss their request? You could do so much good here—"

Cato released her arm and escaped through the entrance to the grassy area outside the wall, with Portia on his heels. "Almost I could believe this was
your
doing, Portia." He headed for the steps to the theater.

Her silence condemned her.

How could you do it, Portia?

He reached the top of the stairs, emerged onto the highest tier of the theater, and stopped to take in the thousands of people who laughed at the farce before them.

They are only a quarter of the city.
So many more, with Maius's greed oppressing them all in some fashion. He stared at the man in his special cubicle, elevated above the people. In that moment Maius turned his eyes upward toward Cato as well, and though Maius could not identify him from this distance, nor did he know of the request just made, there still seemed to be a coldness emanating from the man, directed toward Cato. He thought again of the two gladiators, the way the younger fought with everything in him, even though outmatched.

You will not oppress me, Gnaeus Nigidius Maius. But I will find some other way to avoid your malice.

Not an election. Definitely not an election.

Vesuvius watched.

She watched as they insisted, these stupid people, upon living their lives as though calamity could never befall them. Like spoiled children, they needed to be taught a lesson, and she would gladly offer it to them.

The fire in her belly was known only to her, even now. She would keep her secret yet a little while. Let them run about down there, caught up in their own trifling pursuits, heedless, senseless.

Yes, she would play her story out as she saw fit and not be rushed by the flames that licked at her insides, nor the folly that attacked her sense of justice.

For she had been wronged, that much was certain.

And she would make it right.

CHAPTER 6

Pompeii did not have the expansive sprawl of Rome, nor was it weighted with the abundant amounts of marble, but Ariella would not have traded the one day spent here for a hundred in Rome. The town felt safe, as though she were tucked away, beneath the beneficent gaze of the mountain Vesuvius, from Valerius and his searching eyes.

The troupe had spent their second day in the town much as their first, training in the barracks that also had become their new home. The rectangular building housed dozens of cells off the roofed passage that ran around the open courtyard, with a kitchen, armory, even a prison. This evening, when the afternoon's heat fell behind the theater along with the sun, Drusus, their lanista, called them back from their cells to work out in the cooling air.

Ariella glanced at the back of the theater's two-story façade. What kind of play was being performed there? Valerius had dragged her to several in Rome, each one more embarrassingly vulgar than the next, further proving that Roman society had traded morals for thrills.

She faced off against her usual partner, Celadus, again, and not many minutes into their sparring, a crescendo of laughter from the theater beyond peaked with a thunder of applause. Ariella pulled back from Celadus and panted.

"By the end of the week they will be yelling for us." Celadus grinned, gap-toothed.

Ariella shrugged. "Yelling for our blood."

He raised his sword. "For honor. For glory. They live it through us. You will see."

A steady stream of people began to flow into the large enclosure from the far end, nearest the theater. They strolled along the columned porticoes, talking and laughing. Some of them made their way to the end where the fighters practiced, and formed a line along the muddy area to watch the training.

Though it wasn't a true performance such as they would offer in a few days, Ariella's nerves fluttered at the gaze of so many people, far closer than they would be in the arena. She tried not to take note of those that watched, but one man caught her attention, and she glanced toward him more than once. He had seemed interested at first, but another, larger, man had drawn him away. Even from the distance of twenty
gradi,
she could see that animosity between the men lay beneath their civility.