In the Shadow of Vesuvius

by Tasha Alexander

  “You said you didn’t know him,” Ivy said.

  “Correct, but I saw him when he was alive, and that’s enough to give me chills.”

  “Why don’t you and your brother join us for dinner this evening?” Ivy asked. “Although I’d prefer we talk about archaeology rather than murder.”

  “Thank you. I accept for us both. Benjamin will be eternally grateful,” Callie said. “He complains constantly about the quality of our meals.” We watched as she walked away, her flaming hair barely contained under a pith helmet, and the neat suit she wore flattering her curvy figure.

  “An interesting lady,” I said. “I suspect she knew Mr. Walker better than she admitted. Did you see her face when she looked at the picture? If she got a late start in the morning, why would she be wandering around Pompeii instead of getting straight to work?”

  “What do you think she meant by that story, about the sailor?” Ivy asked. “Surely she didn’t—she wouldn’t—”

  “I’m quite certain she would and she did. We aren’t in the nineteenth century any longer. Morals are changing with shocking speed.”

  “Not that radically, I hope. I’m terribly fond of Callie, yet … well. You’ve always been more of a New Woman than I, but surely this shocks even you?”

  “Yes, a bit, although it would be naïve to believe this sort of thing doesn’t happen. That she would be so free about referring to it, in the presence of new acquaintances, is what surprises me. It’s one thing to do it, quite another to speak about it.”

  “Dear me, aren’t we a couple of dowdy matrons?”

  “We might be matrons, technically speaking, but we are not dowdy in the least,” I said. “I commend Callie, who, I’m quite certain can’t be more than five years younger than us. She is living life on her own terms, and that’s to be much admired. Even if I would choose a slightly different path.”

  “Slightly different?”

  “Colin was awfully tempting before we were married.”

  “Emily! You didn’t?”

  “Of course not.” I paused for a moment, basking in the memory of my husband’s courtship: the way his dark eyes seemed to see through me, the rich, undeniably sensual tone of his baritone voice, and the ever-so-pleasant feelings that consumed me when we used to waltz in my library at Berkeley Square. “Perhaps it was a lost opportunity. There’s always a special thrill to the forbidden, or so they say.”

  AD 79

  4

  That fateful night, when I followed Silvanus into a small room off the peristyle of Lepida’s father’s house, I was convinced I knew what to expect. Plautus did not allow anyone in his family to use slaves in this way; he considered it weak and unbecoming, but I had heard stories about what went on in other households. Nerves consumed me—delicious, tantalizing nerves—as he closed the door behind us and turned to face me. I could not imagine a man more handsome. His noble features were perfectly Roman. He ought to hold a high-ranking position in the government, be a tribune, a consul. Poets should write epics about him. I held my breath as he stepped toward me. I wanted to close my eyes and lose myself in the moment, but at the same time, I could not bear to look away from his face.

  “You are a fascinating girl, Kassandra,” he said, turning from me and lowering himself onto a chair. “I hear you are a poet. Is this true?”

  This question came wholly unexpected, and I hardly knew how to respond. I was a slave, he a patrician. He need not waste time seducing me with words. “It is true, yes, but my skills are not well developed. Not yet.”

  “You speak freely.”

  “You asked me a direct question. I gave you a direct answer.”

  “Plautus is impressed with your talent. You recited for him a poem you wrote about Aeneas. I would like to hear it.”

  “My poem about Aeneas?” My brow crinkled. “It is of little consequence, I assure you. I only meant it as an homage to Virgil. You might prefer that I recite some of the Aeneid instead.”

  “I know Virgil as well as I know my own thoughts,” he said, leaning forward and resting his elbows on his knees. “Give me your poetry.”

  I stood in front of him, but said nothing.

  “You are shy now?” Was he flirting? I couldn’t tell. “I beg you to bring back your earlier confidence. A poem. One of your own. Now.”

  I drew a deep breath, closed my eyes, and began to recite, no longer wanting to look at him, terrified to see his reaction to my immature, derivative work. I gave him only a few lines.

  “Look at me, Kassandra.” His voice, commanding and deep, must be obeyed. So I obeyed. A slave has no choice. He was staring at me, his dark eyes full of question, but I saw no criticism in them. “You do have talent, my little Greek girl. A flair for language. I will come again and expect to hear more. I won’t be satisfied with only a handful of lines next time.” He rose from the chair and stepped forward, standing so close I could feel his breath on my lips, but he did not touch me. Without another word, he turned and left the room. I felt more vulnerable than if he had taken me. Words, I learned that evening, can have more power than anything physical.

  1902

  5

  As the afternoon faded, and Ivy and I finished our interviews—Mr. Taylor and a number of others remembered meeting Mr. Walker, but no one was able to give us much that illuminated the dead man’s character—the time came to meet Colin at the amphitheater. Questions about Callie and Mr. Stirling swirled in my head as we walked, but our surroundings distracted me from adequately contemplating them. Pompeii mesmerized me. It was impossible not to catch glimpses of the past, standing in the exact spot ancient people had so long ago, feeling the acute pain of the heartbreak of their final moments. It was intoxicating and frightening, a lure I couldn’t resist.

  The sun having grown quite hot, Ivy snapped open her parasol and admonished me to do the same, but I liked the feeling of the heat on my face. “Your mother would be horrified and warn you of freckles,” my friend said.

  “Despite having spent most of my youth avoiding parasols, the promised freckles have not yet developed. At any rate, I welcome the ruin of my complexion. It will add character to my face.” The clusters of tourists around us were all heading in the direction of the Teatro Scoperto, the Great Theater, where the German archaeologists were currently at work, but we followed the Via dell’Abbondanza past the Stabian Baths, to where it turned into the Strada dei Diadumeni. Much of this area was unexcavated, and we paused as we crossed the hill to look down on the ruined city beneath us. “How can destruction be so beautiful?”

  “It’s a conundrum,” Ivy said, slipping her arm through mine. “I wonder if, before the city was razed, there were ladies like us, best of friends for ages, then not so close after their families married them off to stern Roman politicians. Perhaps they found each other again, as Vesuvius started to rain fire down on their city, and they escaped, together.”

  “Fire did not rain down on the city. More like pumice and ash.”

  “Don’t spoil my romantic picture. Would our wretched stern politician husbands have saved us, do you think?”

  “No, we would have saved them. Unless we were escaping from them as much as from the eruption.”

  “Perhaps we would have been in love with gladiators. They could’ve saved us.”

  “We wouldn’t need saving, Ivy, in this time or any other,” I said. “But surely you don’t find gladiators appealing? They were brutal killers.”

  “Handsome, strong, brutal killers, forced to do their evil work,” Ivy said, her soft brown eyes glowing. “I would’ve bought them all and freed them if I were alive then.”

  “I don’t think it was quite so simple.”

  “That, my dear friend, is the beauty of fantasizing about the past,” she said. “We can make it anything we like.”

  “I shall evermore think of you as She Who Frees Gladiators,” I said.

  We had reached the amphitheater, where the Pompeiians would have watched Ivy’s gladiators in sp
ectacula. Built in the early days after the Romans colonized Campania, the structure was vastly older than Rome’s famous Coliseum. When first excavated, its frescoes were nearly intact, but, like so much else, they were destroyed or stolen in our supposedly enlightened modern age, and now all that remains are copies of the originals. We entered, not through the vomitorium, as the ancients would have, but through the tunnels used by Ivy’s gladiators, and saw Colin sitting high in the seats of the summa cavea, where the members of the lowest classes would have been relegated. He stood and hailed us as we climbed to meet him.

  “I assume you chose this spot because you object to the senatorial class and the wealthy being the only ones allowed in the best seats?” I asked after giving him what could be considered a rather scandalous kiss of greeting.

  “You know me too well, my dear.” His dark eyes sparkled in a way that made me wish we were alone, but his countenance grew serious. “Sit. We have much to discuss. A telegram is en route to Mr. Walker’s family to notify them of his death, and arrangements for formal identification and the return of his remains to the States organized. The police consider the case closed.”

  “Closed?” I had far too much experience with the incompetence of official investigations for this to surprise me, but felt outraged nonetheless. “They know who killed him? Already?”

  “I said they consider the case closed, not that they’ve actually solved it. I suspected we’d run into something like this. This part of Italy is a nest of corruption and crime. The Camorra, a criminal organization, control much of the area, although their power has lately waned. Apparently, Mr. Walker penned an article about their failure to get their preferred candidate elected in Naples last year, and the police are satisfied that his death was retribution for what the Camorra view as an insult from the journalist.”

  “Retribution isn’t effective if one disguises and hides the victim,” I said. “Have they made an arrest?” I asked.

  “They don’t often arrest members of the Camorra.”

  “How convenient. Should I ever decide to join the criminal underground, Naples shall be my first stop.” I frowned. “Do you think the Camorra are responsible?”

  “It’s possible, but we have no evidence to support the theory beyond a piece in a New York newspaper that unlikely anyone here would have seen.”

  “There are loads of immigrants in New York, aren’t there?” Ivy asked. “Perhaps one of them read it and sent it to family here.”

  Colin nodded. “Possible, but unsatisfying. We have the murder of a foreigner, no immediate clues, no idea as to where the killing occurred, and only a vague notion as to its timing. Easier for the police to pin the crime on the Camorra and move on to cases they have a better chance of solving.”

  “What would this criminal society think of being blamed?” Ivy asked. “Would they take it lying down?”

  “An insightful question, Mrs. Brandon,” Colin said, smiling at her. “Most likely, they would view it as a sign that city officials weren’t interested in interfering with them. It could be a subtle move to placate the Camorra without actually giving anything up to them.”

  “Surely you, Mr. Hargreaves, shall not stand by and let justice be perverted? I expect better things of you.”

  “It’s not my place to interfere,” he said. “However, if we were to quietly investigate and managed to solve the crime, I doubt the police would object to us handing them the evidence necessary to convict a murderer.”

  “What if the Camorra are responsible?” I asked. “They won’t look kindly on our actions.”

  “I wouldn’t expect even the Camorra to frighten you off, my dear.”

  “Quite right. If anything, it spurs me on.” I was less than best pleased with the police in Naples. How could they be so quick to abandon the search for Mr. Walker’s murderer? Why would a man with no apparent interest in Pompeii return to the site, only to be killed before any of the people who had earlier made his acquaintance knew of his arrival? What had motivated him to make this second trip?

  As we left the ruins, we stopped at the ticket booths and inquired after Mario Sorrentino. Neither the clerks nor his fellow guides had seen him recently, but one of his colleagues told us where he lived. Colin, insisting that Ivy and I return to the villa to dress for dinner, attempted to call on him, but there was no answer at his rooms, so he left a note requesting an interview. The guide didn’t send a response.

  * * *

  The murder dominated our conversation that evening when Callie and Benjamin came to dine. Callie considered it something of a lark—not the death itself, but the idea of our investigating it—but her brother was much more serious.

  “If you insist on pursuing the case, I shouldn’t let the police know,” Benjamin said to my husband after we had finished eating and retired to the terrace. “They won’t look kindly on foreign interference.”

  “There’s no cause for worry on that count,” I said. “Mr. Hargreaves specializes in situations that require discretion. The police won’t have an inkling of what he’s doing until he’s proved the murderer’s guilt beyond all doubt.”

  “It’s just that … well, these locals can be a bit hotheaded.” Benjamin scowled. “Violent, even. You don’t want to anger the Camorra.”

  “They won’t object if we prove someone outside their organization guilty,” Colin said. “If they give the matter any attention at all.”

  A maid approached with a tray of glass goblets, fashioned in ancient style, filled with honeyed wine; Ivy wanted it served as a nod to the ancient residents of Campania. Colin grimaced when he tasted it and poured himself a whisky instead, from the bottle he had brought with him from England. For too much of his life, his time abroad was spent taking covert action for the Crown, and part of his ritual was to bring a piece of home with him, generally in the form of a fine single malt.

  “What about you, Emily?” Callie asked. “Our acquaintance may only be brief, but I feel confident in predicting you will not leave this to your husband. You’ll investigate as well.”

  I liked Callie. She was sharp, insightful, and pert, unbound by the mores that governed polite society, but not so radical as to be tedious. I found myself surprised that Ivy had taken such a shine to her. From childhood, Ivy had always been a tempering influence on me, pulling me back from my most outrageous schemes, gently persuading me that I ought not reject everything I disliked about society all at once. She had enjoyed our debut Season more than I, quickly found a husband, and adapted readily to the role of dutiful wife. Through all of this, she never lost herself, because there was no hidden part of her longing for more, chafing against the chains that prevented women from voting or getting the educations they deserved. She was content, happy even, with the world the way it was.

  “Perhaps I should start by asking you a few more questions,” I said, careful to modulate my tone so that it sounded neither threatening nor judgmental. “Now that you’ve had the day to think about it, can you recall anything else about Mr. Walker from your time on the ship? An overheard conversation, perhaps, that might offer insight as to his reasons for returning to Pompeii?”

  “I’m afraid not,” Callie said. “As I told you, I noticed him while I was walking on the deck, but did not form an acquaintance with him. His sideburns put me off.”

  Benjamin was leaning against one of the columns on the terrace, turning his wineglass in his hand. Small lights from boats dotted the dark expanse of the bay below. The villa was not electrified, but Ivy had placed oil lamps of the ancient style on tables and around the fountain. Their flames flickered bravely in the salty breeze, casting a soft glow over the scene and lending a certain nobility to the American’s profile. One could almost picture him in a toga. Until he spoke, of course. His accent shattered the illusion.

  “I didn’t see Walker when we were on the ship,” he said. “I’m quite certain of it. But, then, I don’t have an eye for the gentlemen like my sister does.” The venom in his tone took me aback,
but Callie’s response came equally sharp.

  “My brother likes to flatter himself by thinking he can protect me from cads. I try not to let it irritate me too much. I didn’t have an eye for Mr. Walker. If he noticed me, that’s hardly my fault.”

  “Did he notice you?” I asked.

  “Not so far as I know, but Benjamin judges harshly anyone he views as a potential suitor. Why he would’ve considered Mr. Walker as such is beyond me.”

  “I never said I did!” Benjamin’s glass was in danger of shattering as he tightened his grip on it. Ivy stepped forward, ready to soothe him, but he got control of his anger and sighed. “I didn’t see him on the ship and I didn’t see him in Pompeii.”

  Commotion from the front of the villa and a booming voice prevented further discussion.

  “No, no, don’t announce me. I object to being announced. It quite ruins the surprise.” Jeremy Sheffield, Duke of Bainbridge, companion of my childhood, whose oft-stated goal was to be the most useless man in Britain, marched past a maid. She muttered something in Italian, but did nothing to stop the advance of our visitor.

  “Ivy Brandon, passion of my youth, perfect English rose, quintessential example of all the best Britain has to offer, I throw myself on your mercy and beg you to give me sanctuary.” He bowed low in front of her as he spoke.

  “Passion of your youth?” Ivy’s laugh rang loud. “I’ve never heard you utter something so ridiculous, and I’ve heard more than my share of the absurd coming from you. Why on earth do you require sanctuary? And what are you doing here?”

  “I’ve been in Rome. It was quite dreadful, if you must know. I had the misfortune of inflaming the interest of a young lady there, who took my attentions rather more seriously than she ought. I’ve had to flee. Her mother was beginning to terrify me. I heard you were visiting Pompeii and could think of nowhere I’d rather be. You will take me in, won’t you? I’m desperate.”