Death in the Ashes

by Albert A. Bell, Jr.

  Bracing myself with one hand on the wall of the tunnel, I thought I felt something I hadn’t been aware of before—a few cracks here and there. I wasn’t sure they’d been there the last time we came through or what they might mean, and I didn’t want to say anything to Tacitus, for fear of upsetting Aurelia.

  When we reached the bottom of the entrance shaft and turned toward the front of the house, Aurelia began to call, “Calpurnius! Calpurnius! Where are you?”

  We heard a muffled sound ahead of us and Aurelia stepped in front of Tacitus and began to walk faster. I’m sure she would have run if she’d been able to. Tacitus and I had to pick up our pace to keep up with her.

  We entered the atrium of the ruined house and I was thankful for the somewhat more open space provided by the fallen roof, which had kept the ash from filling the side of the atrium where Calpurnius was holed up.

  Bastet met us at the door of Calpurnius’s room. “My lady, what are you doing here?” She tried to get hold of Aurelia’s shoulders, but Aurelia pushed her aside and barged into the room.

  “Calpurnius!” she cried. “Oh, my darling, are you all right?”

  When I got to the door I could see Aurelia kneeling beside the makeshift bed Calpurnius was lying on. He kissed her hand and drew her down to him. Bastet had washed him and brought him a clean tunic, so, while he looked gaunt, his appearance should not have dismayed his wife.

  “My lord, why did you bring her here?” Bastet snarled, stepping toward us with such vehemence that Tacitus and I both backed up.

  “Because she was going to come,” I said, “with or without us.”

  Bastet looked at the couple as they embraced and her face softened. “I suppose it’s for the best.”

  “How is Calpurnius?”

  “He’s doing all right, my lord. I worry, though, that he thinks he has little reason to live. He won’t eat, and that leaves him weak. The earth shook a bit during the night, he says, and I want him to leave this place, but he doesn’t seem to want to.”

  “Well, maybe having Auro—I mean Aurelia—in his arms will remind him of everything he does have to live for.” I knew Tacitus had heard me, but he didn’t say anything.

  “Pliny, Tacitus,” Calpurnius called, “come in, please.” His voice sounded hearty enough.

  We entered the room to find him sitting up, still holding Aurelia close to him. “I’m glad to see you looking so well, my friend,” I said.

  “I am much better. Thank you for bringing my wife to see me. Have you made any progress in…that matter we were…discussing?”

  “You don’t have to talk over me,” Aurelia said. “I know everything—the blackmail, the properties you’ve sold. Everything.”

  Calpurnius looked from me to his wife in dismay. “You know? Then…why are you here?”

  “Where else would I be? You’re my husband and the father of our child. You should never have kept anything from me.”

  “My darling, I am so sorry. I would never do anything to hurt you. I only wanted to protect you.”

  “I know. I know. It’s all forgiven. When we get out of here, we’ll make a fresh start.”

  “I don’t deserve…your forgiveness.” Calpurnius lowered his head and began to weep, long wrenching sobs.

  Tacitus and I stood back, leaving Aurelia to comfort her husband. We placed our torches in the wall brackets. I touched the one right outside Calpurnius’ room with particular care, remembering my ­experience at Fabatus’ house. The flickering light bathed the couple in a glow that no painter could hope to capture.

  “We have to get him out of here,” I said.

  Before Tacitus could reply, somebody rushed at us out of the darkness. Because I was standing turned toward Tacitus, I saw a flicker of movement before he did and was able to step back, causing the attacker to miss me and stumble. But another man grabbed Tacitus from behind. They struggled until the attacker threw Tacitus, who was still not at full strength, against the wall. His head struck with a thud and he fell to the floor in a heap. I pulled out my sword and was ready to face my assailant when he regained his footing and turned around. He had a knife, but it was no match for my weapon. One quick thrust left him gasping out his life at my feet.

  By the time I could turn my attention to what else was going on, the other attacker was advancing on Aurelia. Bastet threw herself in his path and the man stabbed her. “You meddlesome bitch,” he muttered. “I’ve wanted to do that for a long time.”

  “Sychaeus!” Calpurnius said. “What are you—”

  Sychaeus hit his former master in the face with the butt end of his knife and yanked Aurelia away from him. He was almost as tall as Tacitus, with a slim face, almost handsome except for the large ears.

  “Don’t hurt her,” I ordered him.

  “I don’t intend to unless I have to. Things haven’t gone as I planned, so she could be my passage out here.” He put his left arm around her throat, and with the other hand, held his knife poised over her.

  “Are you mad?” I said. “What do you hope to accomplish? There’s not going to be any more blackmail money, no matter what you threaten us with.”

  “Oh, I figured that. I just need to clean up. You’re the only ones who know what I’ve done. We’ve been watching and when we saw all of you coming out here together, it was too good a chance. If I kill you and leave you down here to rot, no one will ever know. Canthara and I can leave here and start over again somewhere else.”

  “But you’re badly outnumbered—four against one.”

  “That’s not how I count it. One of yours is out on the floor and the princess there is wounded.” Sychaeus jerked his head in Calpurnius’ direction. “And he’s useless, like he always has been. It’s really just you and me, sir. But I’ve got the one who matters. You won’t make a move against me as long as my knife is at her throat.”

  “That’s the way you killed Amalthea, isn’t it? You grabbed her from behind and plunged your knife into her heart.” I made a motion with my own weapon. “But you left your knife beside the body.”

  “I figured Calpurnius would pick it up if I made a noise of some kind. And that wasn’t my knife. It was one I’d stolen from the kitchen.” Sychaeus raised the weapon he was holding. “This is mine.” He pressed the blade closer to Aurelia’s throat.

  “And I’m sure I would find scratch marks on your left arm.”

  Glancing at his arm, Sychaeus tightened his hold on Aurelia. “You’re a smart fellow.”

  The words had never felt less like a compliment.

  “Yeah, that’s how I did it. But it was Canthara’s idea. There’s no harm in you knowing that now, I guess, since you won’t live to tell anybody.”

  “How did she know about Amalthea’s habit of coming out into the orchard every morning?”

  “She didn’t. She said we should throw a good scare into Calpurnius because he hadn’t paid for this month. We couldn’t let him get away with that. I told her about Amalthea. I thought we could tie her up and knock her around, but Canthara told me to kill her.”

  Aurelia groaned and wriggled in Sychaeus’ grasp as he backed her away from Calpurnius.

  “Don’t worry, my lady. I’m not going to hurt you as long as you don’t give me any trouble. You wouldn’t want anybody to get hurt, would you?” He slid the knife down and pressed it against Aurelia’s belly, wiping Bastet’s blood on her gown. “I’m going to have to change my plans a bit and take you with me as a hostage.”

  From behind us a thin voice echoed through the tunnel. “My lord, Gaius Pliny, watch out!”

  Sychaeus instinctively turned his head when he heard Philippa’s warning. In that instant Calpurnius lunged at him, grabbing the hand that held the knife and flinging Sychaeus to the floor. The knife clattered away from them. I was amazed to see Calpurnius display so much strength—the fury of a man pushed to madness. I took Aurelia’s hand and pulled her away from the two of them. She doubled over, as though in severe pain, and grabbed my arms in a grip th
at I couldn’t break.

  Calpurnius had thrown Sychaeus back into the room where he was holed up. Now he began pummeling him with his fists. Sychaeus, the stronger man, fought back, but Calpurnius attacked him like a wild animal, falling on top of him and pinning him down. I tried to loosen Aurelia’s grip on me so I could help him.

  “Gaius Pliny,” Calpurnius yelled in Greek, “grab the torch bracket…beside the door. When I tell you to…push it down, to the right!”

  Of course! Calpurnius’ father—lover of all things Egyptian—had built this house before he moved to the villa where he now lived. I got one arm free from Aurelia and reached for the bracket. “By the gods, man,” I called. “Do you know what you’re doing?”

  “It will take…precise timing. Get ready.” He mustered enough strength to push Sychaeus toward the back of the room where he’d been hiding. “Now!”

  Calpurnius turned and I put my full weight on the bracket. Just as the lever moved and Calpurnius lunged toward the door, Sychaeus recovered enough to grab the hem of Calpurnius’ tunic. As the giant block of stone crashed to the floor, he pulled Calpurnius back. Aurelia screamed. Letting go of my arm, she ran to the blocked door and began slapping her hands against it. “No! No! No!”

  I pulled her away and tried to comfort her. “We can get some men out here to raise the stone. It can be done. That’s the way Fabatus engineered it.” Though I was sure he hadn’t figured on two mortal enemies being trapped behind the stone with one knife between them. Which of them would still be alive by the time I could get enough men down here to—

  Then all around us I heard and felt a rumble. Pieces of the hardened ash began falling to the floor. The sudden shifting of all that weight had jarred everything loose. As if the keystone of an arch had been removed, the whole structure was collapsing.

  “We have to get out of here!” I cried. “Philippa, help her.”

  “But, my lord—”

  Then I noticed that the girl’s hands were tied behind her back. Her face showed bruises where she must have fallen while running down the tunnel in the dark with no way to brace herself. I sliced the ropes. “Get one of those torches.”

  I got Tacitus to his feet and put his arm over my shoulder and my other arm around his waist. It was going to be difficult to drag a heavier man up that shaft, but it was the only way we could get out. Bastet staggered to her feet, holding the spot in her shoulder where she had been wounded. As best she could, she helped Philippa support Aurelia.

  “Leave me here,” Aurelia cried, shaking her head so vehemently that her wig fell off, showing her own hair, barely longer now than mine. “I want to die with my husband.” She looked back over her shoulder and tried to pull away.

  “No,” I said. “You’re going to live with your child. Remember, I promised Calpurnius I would marry her.”

  We hurried out the way we had come in, but when we reached the entry shaft I took one look and could not see light at the other end, as I had been able to the other times I had peered up there. Dust and clumps of ash rolled down it.

  “It’s already collapsing,” I said.

  “What will we do, my lord?” Bastet wailed.

  “We can’t go back and we can’t go up this shaft,” I said. “The only thing we can do is follow this tunnel toward the back of the house.”

  “What’s down there?” Bastet asked.

  “Besides rats, I don’t know. I’ve only been part way.”

  “You said someone was living down there, didn’t you, sir?” Philippa asked. “People who live in these ruins always have a second way they can get out.”

  “Did you and your father?”

  “Yes, sir. We lived like animals, he said, so we needed to think like animals. It wasn’t a very big hole and it was covered up, but we had one.”

  “Then let’s find this one. And we’d better be quick about it.” I touched the Tyche ring under my tunic. A cloud of dust came roiling up the tunnel behind us as the thunder of collapsing ash grew louder. The earth beneath our feet shook.

  We were almost to the point where the tunnel turned when Aurelia made a strange, gasping noise and Bastet said, “My lord, her gown is all wet.”

  “Is she bleeding?”

  Bastet grabbed Philippa’s arm and pulled the torch down so that she could see by the dim light. “No, my lord. It’s the first sign that the baby is coming. The baby is in a sack in her belly. When that sack breaks, water flows out. Then the baby is born.”

  “Now?”

  “It could be very soon, my lord, or it could be hours yet.”

  I wondered if we could pray to Juno to prevent the birth for a while, as she had done when Alcmene was in labor with Heracles. It wouldn’t have to be long—not the seven days Alcmene suffered through—just until we could get back to the villa. From Aurelia’s gasps and cries of pain, though, I suspected something was going to happen much sooner.

  We turned the corner in the tunnel and Philippa immediately cried, “I see light ahead.”

  The denizens of the place had already bolted out of their hiding place, leaving the door open behind them. In the darkness it was hard to tell how far we had to travel. We couldn’t run, but we did walk faster. As soon as we exited the tunnel Bastet started to put Aurelia down on the ground.

  “No,” I said. “We need to get farther away, some place where we’re not directly over the house. There’s no telling how much of this ash may cave in. We need to be on solid ground.”

  Bastet encouraged Aurelia and I dragged Tacitus about twenty paces farther, enough I thought, to get us over the back wall of the house. His groans and mumbling told me he was regaining consciousness. Behind us dust erupted from the exit we had just used. Then an eerie calm settled over the place.

  “I think we’re safe now,” I said, laying Tacitus on the ground. “I don’t feel any shaking.”

  The sun was at its highest point, but there was no shade nearby in the barren landscape, and no time to move anywhere else. Aurelia began to pant rapidly.

  “The baby’s coming, my lord,” Bastet said. “I need some help.”

  “What can we do?” I asked.

  “I wish we had a birthing stool, but we’ll just have to work with what we have. My lord, you need to get behind her and let her rest against you. When she pushes, you must be strong and give her something to push against. Little one”—she turned to Philippa—“I know you hate me for what I did, but please, for the sake of our lady and her child, assist me.”

  Philippa knelt down beside Bastet without saying anything, and I took the position Bastet indicated for me, wrapping my arms around Aurelia as she leaned against my chest. Bastet lifted Aurelia’s gown to her knees and she and Philippa peered under it. I could see that the gown was indeed as wet as if Aurelia had plunged into a pool. As another wave of pain swept over her, she cried out and gripped my arms so hard I feared she might break them.

  “That’s good, my lady,” Bastet cooed. “Very good.”

  “I see a head!” Philippa squealed.

  “That’s good,” Bastet said. “It’s going to be a normal birth. Child, you’re going to have to take the baby when she comes out. With this wound, my arm is weak. I’m afraid I might drop her. I just wish we had something to wrap her in.” Philippa glanced at the head scarf Bastet wore and the Nubian put her hand to her head and began unwinding the cloth. “It’s the cleanest thing we have.”

  My mouth fell open when I saw her bare head. She had only tufts of hair, with long scars between them.

  “When I was captured,” she said without meeting my eyes, “Roman soldiers, after doing what they do to women, amused themselves by taking the jewels out of my crown, turning it upside down on my head, and twisting it back and forth. My lord Calpurnius was their tribune, but he was away from the camp at that time and had no control over them. In his remorse, he took me as his only spoils of the battle.”

  She folded the cloth and handed it to Philippa. “Get ready, child. We don’t want this
baby to fall to the ground. Now, my lady, push as hard as you can.”

  †

  “Did you really promise Calpurnius that you would marry her?” Aurelia asked as she cradled her daughter in her arms. The baby was still wrapped in Bastet’s colorful scarf.

  “Yes, he did promise,” Tacitus said, “in front of a witness. I intend to hold him to it.”

  Aurelia managed a slight laugh, the first sign of any emotion except the grief she had been expressing for Calpurnius. “How odd it will be to have you as my son-in-law.”

  “Well, there is the complication of the woman I’m engaged to,” I reminded them.

  “And the further complication,” Aurelia said, “of the woman you’re really in love with.”

  We were resting and recovering after the most exhausting morning I could remember. And I wasn’t the one who gave birth to a child—a fairly easy birth, according to Bastet. And it wasn’t just the baby that came out. To think that was what my mother had gone through to bring me into the world. I would never look at her the same way again. I wasn’t sure I would ever look at any woman the same way again. There’s a good reason why this sort of thing is confined to the women’s part of the house.

  Philippa had told us what happened after we went into the tunnel. Sychaeus and the other man, accompanied by a woman, took her by surprise. Sychaeus wanted to kill her but the woman wouldn’t let him. Instead she tied Philippa up. Sychaeus didn’t want the woman to go into the tunnel with them because of her foot. He was afraid she couldn’t move fast enough. Once the men were in the tunnel, Philippa tripped the woman and broke away from her. She was sorry she hadn’t gotten to us sooner, but she had fallen several times because her hands were tied behind her back.

  I knew already that I would not make any inquiries about the family that had owned her and her father before the eruption. Her freedom would be a small reward for all she had done for us and endured from us.

  “Do you think you can make it back to the raeda?” I asked Aurelia. I wasn’t even sure the carriage would still be there. Canthara might have driven it off. What had become of the driver? Since he’d made no effort to warn us or help us, I feared the worst for him.