Death in the Ashes

by Albert A. Bell, Jr.

  “What are we looking for?” Tacitus asked.

  “If someone other than Calpurnius killed the woman, there should be footprints leading to and away from this spot from another direction.”

  “But there aren’t any,” Tacitus said after making a few circuits around the tree and its neighbors. “It’s as though he flew in and settled in a tree until he was ready to attack.”

  “We know that’s impossible, so we just have to find how he did get to her. Look farther out.”

  We fanned out, moving away from Aurelia’s house, until I spotted a footprint at the base of one tree, then other footprints leading up to that tree and away from it. “He walked this far,” I said, “climbed this tree, and moved from tree to tree until he was over the spot where he knew Amalthea came.”

  “Wouldn’t she have heard or noticed him?”

  “Thamyras said she became so enraptured in her prayers that she was practically in a trance. The morning he spoke to her, she didn’t notice him until he touched her.”

  Tacitus studied the footprints. “The killer didn’t come from inside the house, but he knew Amalthea would be here. The only way he could know that was if someone in the house told him.”

  “Or,” I said, “if he’s someone who used to be in the house but isn’t anymore. I think we’ve demonstrated Calpurnius’ innocence.”

  “But, if it’s that easy, why won’t Calpurnius say anything?”

  VIII

  By the time we got back to the house darkness had settled in. Showing us to our rooms, Aurelia walked between Tacitus and me and put her arms through ours, drawing us close to her.

  “Thank you again, both of you, for coming to help me. I think I will sleep better tonight than I have in several days.”

  “We’ll do everything we can for you,” I said, “but it’s not going to be easy.”

  We stopped in front of the two rooms where Tacitus and I would be sleeping. I had to move a shovel to open my door. As Aurelia kissed each of us on the cheek she groaned, put her hand on her belly, and bent over.

  “Are you all right?” I asked.

  She nodded quickly and drew a deep breath. “I think this baby is eager to meet you, Gaius Pliny. She’s been kicking since the moment I heard your voice in the atrium. I’d better get her to bed.”

  We watched as she made her way across the garden to her room, where Bastet stood waiting for her. Some women, when they are carrying a child, get fatter all over, to put it unkindly. Others seem to carry the child out in front, as though they have it in a basket. Looking at them from the back, one can hardly tell they’re pregnant. Aurelia was one of the latter. Watching her cross the garden, I couldn’t see any difference from the way she looked the first time I saw her. When she had closed the door behind her, Tacitus and I wished one another a good night and entered our rooms.

  I heard Tacitus close his door, but I left mine partly open. Before the eruption of Vesuvius I had never thought about how we build our houses. I doubt if many Romans had. When the eruption started, many people sought shelter inside—a natural enough response. After a few hours, when it showed no sign of letting up, they decided to leave but couldn’t because our doors are hinged so they open outward, away from the room. Several feet of heavy ash piled up against the doors kept many people from opening them. I was told by Decius that my uncle almost died that way in a house in Stabiae, before the fumes finally killed him on the shore of the bay. My mother and I had to flee our house at Misenum to avoid being buried.

  While I stayed at Misenum after the eruption, I would not close the door of a room all the way. In the years since, being away from this area, I thought I had overcome that fear. Now that I was back here, with the jagged peak of Vesuvius looming over me in the moonlight, I could not bear to think of closing a door.

  †

  I was awakened by a woman’s scream, cut short as though someone had clamped a hand over her mouth. For a moment I thought I might have been dreaming—reliving the catastrophe—but then I heard the muffled sounds of a struggle, coming from the garden.

  Putting just enough of my head through the partly open door to be able to look around, I saw two men carrying someone toward the rear of the garden. In the moonlight I could see a swollen belly that could belong to only one woman in this household. One man had his hand over Aurelia’s mouth and his other arm around her throat. The second man had picked up her feet. Since she wasn’t using her arms to fight them off, I thought her hands must be tied behind her back.

  My first impulse was to shout at them, but I decided on a surprise attack. I couldn’t find my sword quickly in the dark, so I grabbed the shovel that was propped against the wall beside my door. The men were having too much trouble controlling Aurelia to notice me until I was right upon them. I aimed a blow at the head of the man carrying her feet, but in his attempt to keep his hold and avoid her kicks, he bent over at the last instant and I could only land a solid blow on his back. As soon as his grip loosened, Aurelia kicked him in the groin. He crumpled to his knees.

  The second man dropped Aurelia and I could see a gag stuffed in her mouth. The man pulled a short sword from under his cloak and took a stance like a gladiator preparing to fight. We circled and feinted, but he wouldn’t get close enough for me to strike a blow. I yelled for Tacitus, to no avail. The man sleeps like the dead, and his door was closed.

  “Somebody! Anybody!” I called. “Help!”

  “I’m here, my lord,” Bastet’s voice sounded from somewhere in the garden.

  As unfamiliar as I was with the garden, even with the moonlight, I tripped over a bench and fell backwards. I managed to keep my grip on the shovel, ready to ward off a blow. Instead, the intruder pulled his companion to his feet and they scrambled up the pile of ash and over the back wall. A piece of pottery, thrown by someone behind me, crashed against the wall, barely missing the men. One of them let out a cry of surprise or pain as he went over the wall.

  Even though my yelling hadn’t penetrated Tacitus’ dreams, I had awakened several servants. They began lighting lamps as I knelt over Aurelia and removed the gag and the cord binding her wrists. As soon as her hands were free she threw them around my neck, grasping me so tightly I had trouble breathing.

  “Just lie still,” I said, loosening her grip. “Let’s make sure you’re all right.”

  “I think…I am,” she choked out between sobs. “Thank you, Gaius Pliny.” She grimaced and put a hand on her belly.

  “Is it the baby?”

  “No more…than usual. Don’t let…”

  “I’m right here, child,” Bastet said over my shoulder.

  Where had she been during the attack? I wondered. I had heard her voice but never saw her. Had I awakened her or had she already been in the garden?

  With the help of two of the female servants Bastet got Aurelia back into her bed. The intruders didn’t seem to have disturbed anything in the room. Aurelia was all they were after.

  Tacitus finally stumbled out of his room. His eyes widened as I recounted the evening’s adventure.

  “Was Aurelia harmed? The baby?”

  “I think she’s all right. Let’s look at how they got out.”

  “And how they got in, I imagine,” Tacitus said, rubbing his eyes.

  We climbed up the pile of ash, which had hardened over the years until it was practically a stone staircase, and looked over the back wall. The intruders were long gone, but the trees growing close to the wall must have provided them a means of entry. They were old trees, hardy survivors of the ashfall from the eruption. A broken branch hung down from one.

  “I want to look around out there in the morning,” I said.

  “Why not do it now?” Tacitus asked.

  “We could easily miss something in the dark, or trample over something important.”

  “You’re right. Sorry I wasn’t any help to you,” Tacitus said as we climbed back down to the garden. “I was more exhausted than I realized.”

  “With
at least one of them armed, I’m not sure what you could have done. I had to choose between chasing them and looking after Aurelia.”

  “You made the right decision. Following them in the dark, in unfamiliar territory, would have been risky, to say the least. And there might have been more men out there.”

  I nodded. “In the morning we can examine the ground outside the wall to see if they left any signs that would help us identify them or tell us which way they went.”

  When we returned to Aurelia’s door Bastet had put herself on guard, sitting on a stool in front of it, holding a short knife.

  “No one gets in for the rest of the night, my lord,” she said. “No one.”

  Surely she didn’t mean me. “May I talk to her?” I wanted to ask her if she recognized either of the men, or if they said anything to her.

  Bastet’s eyes narrowed to slits and her hand tightened around the handle of the knife. “No one gets in, my lord. I gave her something to help her sleep and forget all of this.”

  I hoped she could sleep, but I didn’t want her to forget even the smallest detail of what had happened.

  “I wish you had consulted me before you did that,” I said.

  “My lord, you are an honored guest, but you are not part of this house. With my lord Calpurnius gone and my lady in the condition she’s in, this house is my responsibility.”

  †

  At first light the next morning Tacitus and I unbarred the door in the back wall of the garden. The wall around the door was painted to represent a house, so one had the feeling he was about to step indoors but instead went outside. The whole effect struck me as whimsical. We stepped out to examine the spot where the intruders had made their entry and exit.

  “I suspect this is where they planned to take Aurelia out,” I said.

  Tacitus yawned and nodded. “I can’t imagine them hauling her up over the wall.”

  The barren stretch of ash between the house and the bay looked like a ghostly desert, broken only by random bits of greenery that struggled to grow wherever the wind or the birds happened to have dropped the seeds. Close to the house a layer of the ash had been removed to save the trees and other plants, but the ground still had a gray tinge to it and crunched under our feet as we walked. At least the smoky smell that had lingered over the area for so long had dissipated. The air was as fresh as it should be on the coast in the early morning.

  “Here’s the tree with the broken branch,” I said.

  Tacitus tugged at the branch. “It’s fresh. One of them must have grabbed it as he jumped from the wall last night and broken it.”

  “That would explain the yell I heard. Watch where you step. If the branch broke, the man who was holding it must have hit the ground harder than he expected. He might have left an imprint.”

  The man had apparently managed to land on his feet. Below the broken branch we found two deep footprints and a handprint where he reached down to steady himself. I knelt to examine them.

  “So we know he had two feet and at least one hand,” Tacitus said. “Beyond that, can you learn anything?”

  “It’s a right hand, and the small finger is missing.”

  Tacitus knelt beside me. “Missing? Are you sure? Maybe it just didn’t make an impression.”

  “No. The other fingers and the palm all made a clear impression. He must have landed hard and leaned forward with a bit of force. There’s definitely a stump where the small finger was cut off.” I pressed my hand into the ground next to the intruder’s print. “See, that’s about the same depth as this print, and all five of my fingers show clearly.” I put my hand in the intruder’s print. “He’s about my size, I think.”

  Tacitus snorted. “The size of one portion of a man’s anatomy doesn’t necessarily tell you anything about his overall size. Anyone who’s been in a public bath should know that.”

  I couldn’t dispute him.

  “Could you tell anything about either man last night? How tall they were? How heavy?”

  I shook my head. “So much happened so fast. It was dark, and I was concerned about Aurelia. I had a sense that both men were bigger than I am, but it’s not as though they were legionaries standing for inspection. We were all moving, and one of them was bent over after Aurelia kicked him.”

  “Maybe she can give us some description of them.”

  “I hope so, if whatever Bastet gave her didn’t actually make her forget everything. I wanted to talk to her last night, while her memory was fresh.” I stood, straightened my tunic, and made sure no one was around. “That woman bothers me. Does she seem awfully protective of this family, or am I reacting too strongly?”

  “No, you’re right.” Tacitus brushed ash off his hands. “The way she blocked Aurelia’s door surprised me. But I’m not sure protective is quite the word. Her attitude strikes me more as possessive. She seems to regard them as hers, rather than herself as theirs.”

  “I definitely want to talk to Aurelia some more without Bastet being there. She’s already expressed some misgivings about the woman. I want to know more.” I looked around and up at the wall the intruders had climbed over. “I guess we’ve done all we can out here for now.”

  “At least we know something about them,” Tacitus said as we went back into the garden and dropped the bar in place across the door. “They were both agile. One of them was heavy enough to break that branch and was missing a finger on his right hand.”

  “As a clue, that may not help much. How many butchers, farm hands, and retired soldiers do you know who have all ten digits?” I rubbed my unshaved chin as I glanced around the garden. “And another question we can’t answer is how they knew which room Aurelia was in.”

  “Why do you think they knew that?”

  I counted doors. “There are ten rooms opening off this garden. No one else reported anyone coming into their rooms. The only door those men opened was the door to Aurelia’s room. They didn’t have to search for her. She was the one they wanted and they knew exactly where she was.”

  With the sun fully up, I could see the thin column of gray smoke still rising from Vesuvius, like the last breath of a fire that has been extinguished. Or the smoldering of a fire that is just waiting to flare up again.

  “I don’t like the looks of that,” I said.

  “At least the ground’s not shaking,” Tacitus reassured me. “That’s not…what it looked like when it erupted, is it?” He seemed to need my assurance now.

  “No. There was no smoke at all until it erupted. I guess this is nothing to worry about.” Then why was my stomach starting to tighten?

  “Let’s see if we can talk to Aurelia,” Tacitus said.

  We crossed the garden to Aurelia’s room. She was still asleep, and Bastet refused to allow anyone to disturb her. The Nubian woman’s eyes were glazed from lack of sleep, but her grip on the knife was still firm.

  “An exhausted woman with a knife in her hand isn’t someone I want to confront,” Tacitus said as we stepped away from Aurelia’s door like rejected lovers.

  “We need to talk to Calpurnius anyway,” I reminded him. “Let’s get someone to guide us.”

  “Do you think it’s safe to leave Aurelia alone after last night?” Tacitus asked.

  I looked over my shoulder at Bastet. “She’s hardly alone, but even the most determined guard can have momentary lapses. And someone in this house may not be trustworthy. Let’s get a couple of our men and post them to guard the guard.”

  We summoned one of my servants and one of Tacitus’, armed them, and instructed them not to let Aurelia out of their sight, no matter what Bastet might say.

  †

  Feeling somewhat more secure, we set out on horseback, accompanied by Thamyras and three of our servants, for the headquarters of the vigiles in Naples. With the sky clear and the air cool, it would have been a beautiful day, if not for the gray pall hanging over everything. T­hamyras rode between us, with me on his left and Tacitus on his right. In a bag over his shoulder the
servant carried a change of clothing for Calpurnius. Away from his household, with no one except our men around to hear what was said, I took the opportunity to question the man again, based on what I had learned from Aurelia.

  “I understand the house you live in now belongs to the lady ­Aurelia,” I began.

  “Yes, my lord. Calpurnius’ house was covered by the ash.”

  “Did he try to dig it out?”

  “We tried, my lord, but the ash was just too deep. We couldn’t do much more than dig tunnels in it. By the time we gave up it looked like a gang of miners had been in the place. And the roof had collapsed over part of the atrium. It wasn’t safe to be in there. We recovered a few pieces, especially a bronze statue that stood in the atrium. The master was particularly keen to get that out.”

  “The one that’s in the atrium now, the satyr with the Pan flutes?”

  “Yes, my lord.”

  “I can see why he went to the trouble,” Tacitus said. “It’s a beautiful piece.”

  “He prizes it, my lord.”

  “How long have you been in Calpurnius’ household?” I asked.

  “I was born in the house, my lord, just two months after my master. He and I grew up together.” He said it with the kind of pride that vernae—slaves born and raised in one house—often display. They consider themselves as much a part of the family as the master’s children.

  Tacitus jumped back in. “You and Calpurnius’ other servants must resent having to move into Aurelia’s house and take second place to her servants.”

  “Why, no, my lord.” Thamyras seemed genuinely surprised. “There’s no first or second place. Because of the way she grew up, I guess, the lady Aurelia won’t let anyone act superior to the next one. And besides, there’s…well, there’s not many of us left from Calpurnius’ house.”

  “Why not? Has he sent some to his other estates?”

  “He’s been selling some of his slaves, my lord, starting with the ones he bought most recently. It’s brought…a great sadness into…the house.”

  “When did he sell your woman?” I asked softly.