She pulled back the cloak from his head. Gaius’s face was cut and bleeding. His nose had been broken and there was an ugly knife wound across his left cheekbone. One eye was swollen shut but the other flickered and then opened. As he looked up at Miriam, one corner of his mouth pulled up in what looked to Flavia like a grimace.
But she knew it was a smile.
‘I don’t know if he’ll live,’ said Mordecai gravely. ‘The stab wound in his chest pierced a lung. His leg is broken and he has been badly beaten. He is also suffering from a number of dog bites.’
‘But you have to save him, father,’ cried Miriam. ‘He saved Gaius’s life. Without him Gaius would be dead now, buried by ash!’
They were back in Tascius’s dining-room. Mordecai knelt on a blanket spread on the floor and examined Ferox. Jonathan assisted his father.
Flavia’s uncle Gaius lay on a couch nearby. He had eaten some bread and cheese and had drained a jug of diluted wine. Now Miriam was gently sponging his cuts and wounds with a vinegar-soaked sea-sponge.
‘He saved my life . . .’ Gaius’s lip was swollen where he had been hit. ‘Four of them and a huge mastiff. Wanted the horse. Ferox killed the mastiff and wounded two of the men. Couldn’t fight other two off. They beat me. Took horse.’ He closed his eyes from the effort and Miriam put her cool finger gently on his battered lips.
‘Shhh! Don’t speak, my love,’ she said. ‘Father will do everything he can to save him.’
When Mordecai finished dressing Ferox’s wounds he got to his feet. ‘The only thing we can do now is pray.’
Ferox lay on the blanket, panting. He rolled his eyes up at the doctor and then over towards Gaius. He whined softly.
‘Yes,’ said Mordecai quietly. ‘He’s alive. You saved him. Good dog.’ As he spoke, Jonathan bent and placed something in the folds of the blanket, then stepped back. Tail wagging, Tigris sniffed Ferox. Then the puppy licked the big dog’s face and curled up beside him. Ferox lowered his big head, uttered a deep sigh, and slept.
It was after midnight when the mountain exploded. None of them were really sleeping, apart from Pliny, whose snores could be heard by those making their way to or from the latrine. The rest dozed in the dining-room or talked quietly together, waiting for the dawn.
Suddenly a brilliant orange flash lit the room and a moment later the whole house trembled under a deafening wave of sound. Everyone looked at the growing column of fire which rose slowly up from the mountain. In its light they could see that the top of Vesuvius was completely gone.
‘Jupiter,’ muttered Tascius. ‘It’s getting worse.’
Another quake shook the house and Flavia actually saw the columns sway back and forth. Some of the lamps fell to the floor and shattered, spilling hot oil. A snake of fire slipped from one shattered clay lamp, writhed across the floor and down the steps, then died.
Jonathan staggered into the room from the direction of the latrines.
‘Come quickly,’ he cried, his voice muffled behind his cloth. ‘Pliny’s door is blocked. He’ll be trapped!’
Mordecai, Tascius and a dozen of Pliny’s sailors hurried after Jonathan. Flavia and Nubia followed.
No one had swept the courtyard and it had quickly filled up with ash and bits of pumice stone. The level of the debris was almost up to Flavia’s knees. The sailors tried to wade through the grey ash, cursing as they went.
‘It’s hardening,’ said one of them.
‘Like cement,’ confirmed the other.
They tried to open the wooden door of the bedroom, but it wouldn’t budge.
‘He must be terrified!’ cried Flavia. ‘He’s probably been crying out for hours.’
One of the sailors put his ear to the door and the other one pressed his forefinger to his lips. But there was no need. From right across the courtyard and even above the rumble of the volcano, they could all hear the admiral snoring.
After nearly half an hour, the sailors had chipped away enough of the hardened ash to open Pliny’s door. The tapping had woken Phrixus, who helped by pushing the door from inside. At last he was able to help his master through the narrow opening and into the ashfilled courtyard.
‘What do you want?’ grumbled Pliny irritably. ‘Why have you woken me?’
‘Well, apart from the fact that the mountain is melting like wax, the house is falling down around us and you were about to be buried alive, no reason,’ muttered Jonathan.
‘Haven’t you felt any of the quakes?’ cried Tascius. He helped his friend into the dining-room. ‘And don’t you see those sheets of fire flaring up on Vesuvius?’
The admiral peered through the columns towards the mountain.
‘Bonfires,’ he announced after a moment.
‘Bonfires?’ echoed Mordecai.
‘Yes,’ the admiral wheezed. ‘No doubt they flared up when cowardly peasants left their homes in a hurry and their hearths caught fire.’
A huge flash lit the sky, silhouetting the decapitated cone of Vesuvius for an instant.
‘And that?’ asked Aristo.
‘An empty house catching fire, from the sparks showering down upon it. Nothing to worry about. Let me go back to sleep and wake me at dawn.’
There was another explosion and again the sky was lurid red for a long moment. Far away they could hear people screaming.
‘See,’ gestured Pliny. ‘Cowardly peasants. Nothing to worry about, I say. Back to bed . . .’
Abruptly, the whole house seemed to rock on its foundations. From somewhere nearby there was an enormous crash and a scream.
Gutta the slave-boy hurried in. ‘The roof of the baths has just caved in!’
‘Anyone hurt?’ asked Tascius in alarm.
‘No,’ said the slave, and fainted.
‘We must get out of here before the whole house comes down around our heads,’ said Mordecai, passing a tiny bottle beneath Gutta’s nose.
‘But you’re tending the ill and wounded,’ wheezed Pliny, gesturing at Gaius and Vulcan on their couches. ‘How can they travel?’
‘We could take Vulcan’s donkey,’ suggested Flavia. ‘And your sailors could help, too.’
‘Yes, very well,’ said Pliny, staggering to remain upright as another quake shook the house. ‘I suppose we could go down to the beach and see if it’s possible to make our escape by ship.’ He glared at the volcano. ‘It does appear to be getting a little worse.’
‘Miriam, your hair is on fire!’ screamed Flavia Gemina.
They had just set out for the beach when a shower of flaming pumice stones rained down upon them and Miriam’s dark hair burst into flame.
Before Miriam could panic or run, her father had enveloped her head with his robes, smothering the flames.
‘Father, it hurts,’ Miriam sobbed, and Mordecai pulled her back up the steps into the dining-room. Everyone followed.
‘See?’ gasped the admiral. ‘It’s death out there. We’d do much better to remain here.’
‘No,’ said Mordecai. ‘We must go, or I’ll lose both my children.’ He nodded at Jonathan, who was pale and wheezing. ‘Can’t you smell it?’ said Mordecai. ‘It’s sulphur.’
‘I know what we can do,’ gasped Jonathan. ‘Cushions! We’ll tie cushions . . . to our heads. To keep off . . . the burning pumice.’
Pliny gazed at him for a moment. ‘You really are the most resourceful children. Unless anyone has a better idea, I suggest we take young Jonathan’s advice!’
With a striped silk cushion tied to his head and two across his back, Scuto led the way down to the shore.
Earlier, the fall of ash had been like silent black snow, now it was fiery rain. The volcano’s rumble was deeper, angrier now, and flashes of lightning flickered ominously above its cone. Despite the muffling ash, they could hear women and children screaming and men crying out.
With cushions tied to their heads and the damp napkins still knotted to cover their noses and mouths, they made their way through the blackness down towards Tascius’s jetty.
&n
bsp; Flavia could see a line of torches extending ahead of her. There were at least fifty of them. Forty of Pliny’s sailors headed the procession, followed by the admiral and Phrixus. Gaius rode the donkey, with Miriam and Mordecai walking either side of him. The sailors had chopped up the dining-room couches to make two stretchers. They carried Vulcan on one, Ferox on the other.
Nubia had showed Jonathan how to make slings for the puppies, like the ones the women in her clan made for their babies. Behind them stumbled Flavia and Lupus, flanking Aristo, who carried old Frustilla on his back. Taking up the rear was the slave-boy Gutta.
Most of them held a torch or lamp. Even so, it was darker than any night Flavia had ever known. Presently, the torches at the front slowed and stopped. Something was happening up ahead.
‘What is it?’ Flavia called out, then adjusted her cushion as a shower of sparks fell on her.
‘Too rough,’ came the reply from Mordecai, relaying what he’d heard Pliny say. ‘The sea is still too rough for sailing. There is no escape that way. We must go along the beach towards Stabia.’
Flavia had never been so tired. She tried to concentrate on just placing one foot in front of the other. She prayed to Castor and Pollux, and she prayed to Vulcan – the god of volcanoes – and not for the first time she prayed to the Shepherd. She prayed that she and her friends might live.
Earlier in the evening she had felt hopeful. It seemed as if the volcano was not going to be the disaster they had all feared.
Now she felt only despair. The sun should have risen by now, but it was darker than ever, and all her hope had been quenched by oppressive heat, darkness and exhaustion. She wished she had slept earlier, for now she could barely keep her eyes open.
The refugees had turned on their heels, so that now Gutta and Flavia led the way down along the beach while Pliny and his sailors took up the rear. It seemed as if they had been walking for hours.
There was another awful roar from the mountain behind them and everyone turned wearily to see what new terror the gods had dreamed up.
Although they were miles from Vesuvius, they all clearly saw what happened next.
Of all the horrors the volcano had produced so far, this was the worst.
As when soda is added to wine vinegar and it bubbles and froths over the edge of the cup, so a tide of fire poured down the volcano’s cone. This was not a drift of warm ash falling gently from the heavens or a slow lava flow. This was a wave of yellow fire rushing towards them faster than galloping horses. The speeding flames lit up distant houses and olive groves and vineyards, and left them blazing as it passed.
Flavia saw a row of tall poplar trees explode and then burn like torches. The poplars were two or three miles distant but already the ring of fire was bearing down upon them.
‘Down!’ bellowed Tascius, in his commander’s voice. ‘Get down on the sand.’
Aristo had already eased Frustilla off his back. Now he pushed Flavia and Nubia face down onto the sand. Flavia’s cushion slipped halfway off her head. She had just pushed it back in place when the wave was upon them. A roaring heat, almost unbearable, made her ears pop and sucked the air from her lungs. Then it had passed.
Hesitantly, Flavia opened her eyes. And cried out.
She was blind.
Men were screaming, crying to the gods for mercy or help. In her blindness, Flavia heard one of Pliny’s big sailors cry out for his mother. Another shrieked, ‘Let me die!’ over and over.
Then a light flickered and flared and illuminated Aristo’s wonderful face.
Flavia sobbed with relief. She wasn’t blind. The blast of hot air had extinguished all the torches. Aristo had used a sulphur stick to rekindle his.
Soon they had all lit their torches and lamps from his one flame, and they could see each other again.
Some of the sailors hadn’t been prompt in following Tascius’s order. The wave of fire had knocked them to the ground, scorching their eyebrows and reddening their faces as if they’d been burnt by the sun.
‘We’re five miles from the mountain,’ breathed Aristo, picking up Frustilla and dusting her off. ‘What must that have been like for those at its foot?’
‘Or those on the water,’ said Mordecai grimly. His beard was singed and the locks of hair that hung from his turban burnt right away. ‘It was a mercy we were not able to board the ship after all.’
‘No one near Vesuvius could have survived that,’ said Flavia, then bit her lip as she saw the look on Lupus’s face. Tascius stared bleakly at the mountain, too. If Rectina and her daughters had remained at Herculaneum . . .
As they turned to move south again, Flavia was aware of something holding her back. Nubia had gripped her cloak.
‘Wait,’ Nubia said.
Flavia looked wearily at her slave-girl, then beyond her.
Something was happening. A group of people had stopped further back along the beach.
‘What?’ groaned Flavia. ‘What is it?’
‘I think it is the old man,’ said Nubia, pointing. ‘The Pliny.’
The glow of several torches marked a group of figures huddled on the sand.
‘Please, master.’ They heard Phrixus’s voice, exhausted but urgent.
Flavia turned and stumbled back towards the group on the beach. She hadn’t even the strength to ask the others to wait.
The wave of fire seemed to have purified the air and for a moment she imagined it was easier to breathe. She could see the group clearly in the flickering torchlight. Someone had spread a sailcloth on the beach and the admiral was sitting on it. Phrixus knelt beside him, and as she came closer Flavia saw the slave’s handsome face, smudged with soot and twisted in concern for his master. Three big sailors stood over their admiral, holding their torches and looking down helplessly.
Further back on the shore, a spark had ignited the sail of a beached ship. As the timbers caught fire it began to burn fiercely. The flames gave off a bright yellow light and illuminated the group on the sand.
Flavia sank onto the sailcloth beside Pliny and touched his shoulder. The old man lifted his head and gave her a feeble smile. The dark cushion on his head gave him an almost jaunty look. He had pulled the napkin away from his face and was breathing into the small sachet which hung from his neck. It was similar to the one he had given Jonathan, filled with herbs to bring relief for breathlessness.
Flavia suddenly felt her heart would break. What good would a little herb pouch do in this nightmare of ash, sparks and noxious gases?
The admiral tried to snap his fingers and both Phrixus and Flavia leaned nearer.
‘What do you want, master?’ asked Phrixus. Tears streaked the soot on his cheeks.
‘Your wax tablets and stylus?’ Flavia suggested.
Pliny gave another feeble smile and shook his head. His lips moved. Flavia and Phrixus both brought their ears closer. Flavia couldn’t make out his words, but Phrixus understood.
‘Water. He wants a little cold water . . .’
The scribe stood up and looked around desperately.
‘Water!’ he cried. ‘Does anyone have water?’
Everyone shook their heads. Few had thought to bring water, though they would have given anything for a mouthful to wash away the ashes from their mouths. For ashes were the taste of death. Flavia suddenly saw from Pliny’s face that he tasted his own death. Phrixus saw it, too.
‘Water. Please bring him water!’
A short figure moved out of the gloom and knelt beside the admiral. It was Gutta, the spotty slave from Tascius’s villa. He uncorked a gourd and poured a stream of water into the admiral’s thirsty mouth.
Pliny gripped the boy’s wrist and drank the water greedily. At last he nodded his thanks to the slave and curled up on the canvas sheet. Flavia heard his voice, stronger now, but still barely audible. ‘A little nap. That’s all I need. Just a little nap.’
Suddenly the smell of rotten eggs hit the back of Flavia’s throat and almost made her gag. She knew they must
get away from the deadly fumes, or die.
‘Sulphur!’ cried Tascius, looming out of the darkness. ‘We must go quickly, before we are overcome! Come on, old friend.’
Phrixus and Gutta helped the admiral to his feet. Pliny stood leaning on the two young slaves. The pillow tied to his head had slipped to one side.
‘We must go, master,’ cried Phrixus. ‘The sulphur.’
The curtain of ash parted for a moment and they could all see the admiral, lit by the red and yellow flames of the burning boat.
Pliny gazed back at them and tried to say something. Then he collapsed, like a child’s rag doll, into the arms of Phrixus and Gutta. They eased him back onto the sailcloth.
Mordecai was at his side in an instant. He loosened the admiral’s clothing and pressed two fingers against the side of Pliny’s neck. After a moment he put his ear to the admiral’s mouth. Finally he looked up at them and slowly shook his head.
Pliny was dead.
They left the admiral’s body there on the shore.
The sulphur fumes were still choking. Jonathan and Frustilla were both struggling for breath. One of the big Roman oarsmen took the old cook onto his back and jogged ahead, another carried Jonathan. Their fellow-sailors lit the way. Someone said the promontory was not far off. If they could get round it, the air might be clearer.
It was their only hope of survival.
To Flavia, dazed with exhaustion, everything was vague after that. They left the beach and made their way up to the coast road where the going was a little easier. Once round the promontory they found that the sulphur fumes were not as powerful, and the fall of ash was much lighter.
Beside a small cove was a seaside tavern with a boathouse attached. Many people were sheltering there, under the large brick vaults. They found a spot on the far wall and huddled against a rolled-up fishing net. Flavia was dimly aware of the faithful donkey Modestus standing patiently nearby. Then someone doused all the torches but one and she fell into a fitful sleep.
After a long time, Nubia shook Flavia awake. The tavern-keeper was bringing water round to the refugees. The small flame of his clay lamp illuminated the blackness around them.
The Roman Mysteries Complete Collection Page 26