In the Shadow of Vesuvius

by Tasha Alexander

  When I arrived, he was packing up his easel. “Hoping to avoid me?” I asked.

  “Not at all. I wouldn’t have left before you got here, but I do need to get back to Taylor’s dig.”

  “I’ll walk with you, if you don’t mind. I have a few questions for you.”

  “Should I be nervous?”

  “Only if you’ve something to hide.”

  We passed through the garden, with its frescoes depicting wild beasts and hunting scenes, and left the house through a smaller entrance rather than the main one, Benjamin explaining this enabled us to cut through an unexcavated part of the city and reach the dig through the Vesuvius Gate. “It’s far less crowded. The longer I spend here, the less tolerance I have for tourists.”

  “I sympathize. Had you been to Pompeii before this trip?” I asked.

  “Never. As I may have already shared with you, my father was a shopkeeper. My family didn’t have the sort of money required for a Grand Tour, nor did we move in that echelon of society where such things are de rigueur.”

  “Tell me more about your father.”

  “What is there to say? He was a hardworking man, but narrow-minded and judgmental when it came to me.”

  “Where was he from?”

  “New York. Lived there all his life.”

  “And your mother?” I asked.

  “They were childhood sweethearts.”

  “Did he ever tell you about his days in Montana?”

  “Montana? I’m afraid you’re mistaken,” he said. “He never traveled.”

  “What about you?” I asked.

  “I haven’t been west of Connecticut, but there are striking views to be found in New England.” He went on to describe in intricate detail—and at a pace so rapid I could hardly keep up with his words—the splendor of the red maples in the autumn, and the way the sun, at a certain time in the afternoon, illuminated to glowing the riot of colorful leaves that covered the mountainsides.

  “Where did you study? In New York?”

  “I’ve had no formal training,” he said. “There wasn’t money for it. My parents didn’t discourage my interest in art, but they could not financially support the study of it.”

  “Callie went to Radcliffe,” I said. “I’m shocked they paid for her education and not yours.”

  “Some things are best not thought about,” Benjamin said.

  Had his shopkeeper father been so progressive that he preferred to see his daughter educated over his son? Unlikely, unless the expectation was that Benjamin would take over for his father. Archaeology and classics for a daughter, who they likely believed would never need to find employment—she would be married instead—might have proven more palatable to them than an artist son.

  As we neared the Vesuvius Gate, Benjamin stopped walking.

  “What’s that?” he asked. I looked in the direction he was pointing, and saw a flash of red fluttering from high up on an unexcavated section of the city. Colin and I had combed these areas when searching for a location where Mr. Walker’s body might have been encased in plaster, and I was certain I hadn’t seen anything red on that occasion. I started to climb the hill—it wasn’t really a hill, rather an immense amount of earth covering ancient buildings—motioning for Benjamin to follow.

  At the top, I found a piece of bright fabric caught in a thorny bush. “How very strange,” I said. “It’s almost as if it were left here deliberately. It looks like a piece of a scarf of some sort, but I don’t see how it would have been accidentally torn by the bush. It’s too low to the ground.”

  “Maybe someone had been carrying it rather than wearing it,” Benjamin said. “He might have dropped it and bent to pick it up, causing it to rip. Is it important?”

  “Given what else is here, I’d say so.” A few feet further back, stood the remains of an abandoned camp. Someone had cleared a small circle in the brush and ringed a firepit with rocks. Narrow holes in the dirt marked the spots where tent poles once stood.

  “Who would want to sleep here?” He frowned. “And even if someone did, it can’t be allowed.”

  “I imagine not.” I searched for any sign as to who had been here, or when. The remains of the fire were cold. A largish rock had been moved close to it—the perfect improvised seat. I shifted it and found, almost underneath, a battered cuff link monogrammed FM. Rather than show it to Benjamin, I slipped it into my jacket pocket. How convenient, to stumble upon such a thing so soon after I’d started asking questions about Felix Morgan. Someone had deliberately staged this scene. There were a few footprints on the ground, made with ordinary-looking boots, not deep enough to reveal anything specific, but nothing else of note.

  “Do you think this is connected to the murder?” Benjamin asked, a little too eager.

  “No, I don’t. It appeared that way initially, but it’s probably just some tourist who didn’t have enough money for a hotel.”

  “Are you sure? Maybe we should look again, see if we can find anything.” He went over to the rock, as if he expected to see something there. He kicked it over and looked surprised. “I guess there’s nothing.”

  I started for the pavement below, taking a slightly different route than that we’d come up because I could see that someone had recently broken through the brush. Halfway down, I spotted a pencil on the ground, different from the one I’d found in the House of the Silver Wedding. This one was from Staedtler, and some of its blue paint was scraped, as if it had been in a pencil holder. I picked it up, careful that Benjamin didn’t see. He had denied knowing Felix Morgan. Yet he’d taken me on an out-of-the-way route through the excavations that just happened to bring us to a spot where someone had—purposely—dropped a cuff link with the man’s initials on it. Benjamin chatted, as we continued to walk, tearing through an immense span of topics at a manic pace, hardly pausing to let me reply. When we reached the dig, he rushed off to help dig a trench without so much as saying good-bye.

  I looked for Callie and found her, covered in dust, her titian hair gray and dingy. Hadn’t Mr. Taylor described Felix Morgan as having had red hair?

  “Do you have a moment to answer a few questions?” I asked.

  “Only if you’ll help me apply mortar in an attempt to stabilize this wall,” she replied. “What we ought to do is build a roof over our excavations, as has been done elsewhere within the city, but, unlike my colleagues, I favor a technique using new supports rather than having it rest on the actual ruins. That way there is less chance of the ancient structure being adversely affected by the weight. In the meantime, all I’ve got is this canvas. A drainage system would be helpful as well, so that the rain wouldn’t cause so much damage. When it’s heavy, it can destroy everything in its path.”

  “That doesn’t sound simple to construct,” I said.

  “It’s less complicated than you might think. A good start would be to unearth and then unblock and repair the original Roman drains. The infrastructure is still there and it’s criminal not to take full advantage of it.” Her suggestion, simple and elegant, had not, she explained, been appreciated by those in charge. Not surprising, but disappointing. Had one of her gentleman colleagues proposed the idea, it likely would not have been summarily rejected. “Forgive me. I’m wittering on. You had a question?”

  “Can you think of any reason why someone would have wanted Mr. Jackson dead?”

  “Jackson? Heavens, no. I didn’t know him well, but he seemed altogether ordinary, boring even. A top-notch archaeologist, and that’s all any of us care about here. I’m sure you’ll find his death was an accident. He wouldn’t have inspired murderous passion in anyone.”

  “Are you acquainted with Felix Morgan?”

  “No,” she said. “I don’t recognize the name. Did Jackson know him?”

  “It’s possible, but Mr. Morgan also might have been a friend of your father’s from Montana.”

  “If so, I was never aware of it. My father certainly never went to Montana, and never introduced me to anyone who l
ived there.”

  “Your parents must have been quite enlightened,” I said. “Funding an expensive education and supporting your pursuit of a decidedly un-feminine occupation.”

  “The money was the easy part,” Callie said. “Convincing them that archaeology is a suitable occupation for me would’ve been impossible. As I lost both of them soon after I completed my studies, I never had to try.”

  The money was the easy part? This did not reconcile with what Benjamin told me about the family finances.

  “There are few things less interesting to discuss than my family. I really must get back to work.”

  With that, she dismissed me, leaving me to wonder about this shopkeeper father who couldn’t afford an education for his son, but was in possession of an extensive library and enlightened enough to pay a small fortune to send his daughter to Radcliffe. One of the Carter siblings was not being altogether forthright.

  AD 79

  24

  I saw Lepida the day after I met her husband in that wretched bar near the theater. She came to my house, six slaves carrying her litter, bringing with her an antique Greek vase that she presented as a gift for my father. “To brighten your new home,” she said. She would never before have been in a dwelling so unfashionable as the one in which she now stood. Embarrassment colored my cheeks, but my friend gave no indication of finding it any less splendid than her own. My father thanked her for her kindness and returned to his work. Lepida took me by the hand and demanded to see my room. I did as she asked, knowing that Melas’s paintings would dazzle her.

  On this count, I was right. The painter had completed three of the four walls, and his scenes from the Aeneid were nothing short of breathtaking. They, however, were not what best impressed my friend, who had enthusiasm only for his delicate floral garlands until she noticed the sweet expression on Venus’s face.

  “Why he’s made her face yours!” she said, stepping closer to the image of the goddess, appearing to her son, Aeneas, in the guise of Diana.

  “I don’t see that at all,” I said.

  “Either you’re a liar or you have no idea what you look like.”

  I didn’t argue with her because she was quite correct; I was a liar. I’d been so shocked when I first saw the fresco that, had Melas still been in the house, I would have violently reprimanded him. But Fortuna favored him; he had finished work for the day. By the next morning, I had reconsidered my actions, not wanting to draw attention to what he had done. Surely he meant it as an insult of some sort, a criticism that implied I viewed myself as worthy of being portrayed as a goddess. So I said nothing and made a point of avoiding him for the following week.

  “You must tell me more about this painter,” Lepida said. “I know he’s Greek—Silvanus mentioned it. How long as he been in love with you? Do you welcome the match? I’m sure your father would.”

  “He is not in love with me,” I replied, queasy at the thought. “We can hardly hold a civil conversation. He’s judgmental and impossible.”

  “He brings to mind a certain quote from Ovid of which you’ve long been fond: Let love be introduced in friendship’s dress.”

  “We’re not friends, and even if we were, I would prefer a Roman husband, as you well know.”

  “Then I shall make it my mission to find you one. Have you seen anyone you like? I caught a glimpse of a rather handsome wine merchant a few blocks from here.”

  My heart clenched in my chest. I didn’t want to marry a wine merchant, handsome or not. But I knew I would never have a husband as noble as Silvanus. Men like him did not take former slaves as their wives. Maybe the wine merchant wasn’t such a bad idea. If he was wealthy—or on the way to becoming so—I would at least stand a chance of being mistress of a house with a spacious atrium, and my children would be well and truly Roman. What more could I ask than that? But then I remembered the way Silvanus looked at me—the heat in his eyes—and I couldn’t control the fluttering of my heart.

  “Tell me, friend, do you find married life to your liking?” I asked, desperate to change the subject. “Would you recommend it?”

  Lepida giggled. “I certainly would. Silvanus is all kindness. I don’t see that much of him, but I’ve plenty to occupy myself—you wouldn’t believe how my skills at the loom have improved. When he does come to me, he’s most attentive, an ideal husband. He’s pushing me to become a priestess of Venus, something to which I have no objection. It’s natural for a woman of my rank, and I’ve always had an affinity for the goddess of love.”

  “I’ve always longed to serve Isis,” I said.

  “A foreign priestess for a foreign goddess.”

  “Not so foreign,” I said. “My parents may be Greek, but I was born in Pompeii.” I had never before questioned my devotion to Isis, but seeing it through Lepida’s eyes, I wondered. Without meaning to, I had chosen a foreign god.

  “One only need to look at your golden hair to see that you are no Roman, Kassandra. Don’t frown, I know all too well your thoughts on this matter. But you should embrace your heritage. It makes you an exotic flower in a tedious world, which means you will be all the more appealing to that handsome wine merchant. Or, maybe to another, who owns vineyards as well as a shop. You’d stand out from the stolid Roman girls who would bore him to death.”

  Standing out was something I had never desired, but I could see the wisdom in her words. “I’ll consider your advice.”

  “I assure you, it’s sound. Now, carissima, I have a favor to beg. You are so skilled with words. Would you write me a little poem for my husband? I want to give him a gift, one that’s personal and a bit romantic. Something not too sweet but perhaps not so shocking as Ovid.” She blushed as she asked.

  “Of course,” I said and promised to bring it to her the day after tomorrow, only later realizing that was the same day I was to meet Silvanus. After she left, I retreated back to my room, telling my father I was unwell, blaming a badly made pie I’d had for lunch. I closed my door and spent the rest of the day bent over the wax tablet on my table. By the time I was satisfied with the result, it was too late to copy the poem onto papyrus. I snuffed out my oil lamps and crawled onto my couch. There, enveloped in darkness, I contemplated what to do now. For I had not written what I’d promised Lepida. Instead of her love poem, I had scrawled more than two hundred lines of my epic.

  Two hundred lines that more than primed me to compose an ode worthy of Silvanus.

  1902

  25

  When I returned to the villa, I recounted for Colin the events of the day. “I’m most suspicious of Benjamin,” I said. “We already knew he lied about where he was the morning Kat was attacked and then he admitted to having been practically across the street from her when it happened. And now we have that ridiculous camp. Yesterday, I asked him about Felix Morgan, and today he takes me on a walk where I find a strategically placed cuff link.”

  “He had plenty of time after receiving your message last night to stage the scene,” Colin said. “But he’s not the only one you asked about Morgan. Stirling or Taylor had opportunity as well.”

  “Yes, but neither of them brought me to the site. And I could see that Benjamin was expecting to find the cuff link when he moved the rock under which I had found it. It was as if he already knew it was there.”

  “In the morning, I’ll take the pencil you found at the camp and the one from the House of the Silver Wedding and compare them both with those in Benjamin’s art supplies.”

  We stayed up half the night discussing the case. He was already gone when I awoke the next morning, and had left a note for me:

  Sleep, rest of nature; O sleep, most gentle of the divinities, peace of the soul, thou at whose presence care disappears, who soothest hearts wearied with daily employments, and makest them strong again for labor!

  Heed Ovid’s wise words, my dear. I could not bear to wake you.

  I dressed and went to the terrace, where I found Jeremy alone, still breakfasting. “Ivy went off to
the ruins to draw and your industrious husband is long gone. Kat shut herself up in her darkroom after he refused to let her accompany him and then forbade her to leave the house unaccompanied. What are your plans for the day, Em?”

  “Colin let me have an unexpected lie-in, so I’m at loose ends. What about you?”

  He brushed a stray crumb off his otherwise immaculate tweed jacket. “I’m going to the summit of Vesuvius. You should join me. Thomas Cook operates a funicular railway that reaches the top from a road partway up the mountain. I’d hoped to persuade Callie to skive off work, but she was insulted I suggested she would even consider such a thing. I need to stop giving her reasons to despise my aristocratic upbringing.”

  “She knows your background. There’s no hiding it from her.”

  “I agree, but I can’t figure out how to convince her I’m not all bad.”

  “Perhaps because you are all bad?” I suggested.

  “I do adore you. No one else knows me so well. Come explore Vesuvius with me. We can make an offering to Vulcan. You can ask for help solving the murder—or is it murders now that we have poor, dead Jackson?—and I can beg for assistance in winning Callie’s heart.”

  “I have grave doubts about the efficacy of petitioning pagan gods,” I said, “but the excursion is appealing. It would give me a break from the investigation, which might allow my thoughts some much-needed percolation time. Shall we collect Ivy from the ruins and bring her, too?”

  “If you don’t mind, I’d prefer we go alone. I’m not in the mood to be on good behavior today and I’d hate to horrify Ivy. She’s a lovely, sweet thing and shouldn’t be subjected to me at my worst.”

  The carriage he had ordered arrived at the villa as I finished breakfast, and we set forth across the sweeping, fertile ground that led to the slopes of the mountain. Oh, the irony of that land! Vesuvius was at once a blessing and a curse. The very things that made this area appealing to its ancient residents—the tremendous crops that could be grown in the volcanic soil—had led them to their doom. And now, more than eighteen hundred years later, the slopes were as verdant as they had been before the catastrophic eruption.