A Day of Fire: a novel of Pompeii

by Stephanie Dray

  But she wasn’t going to see this villa, I reminded myself. She would always be waiting for me in Pompeii.

  As I came closer, the silence of the place took me aback. The villa was usually bustling with noise and activity, but this total stillness seemed unearthly. Usually, the murmuring of the sea or a call from the garrison nightguard below floated up through the dark. But not tonight. The silence was almost oppressive.

  Nobody expected me for another couple of days and everyone was asleep, I reminded myself. After lighting a small lamp, I crept through the house toward my uncle’s tablinum.

  The chest where he kept his money was shoved under a low table. Locked, as I’d expected.

  Quietly, so quietly, I opened every drawer in Uncle’s favorite ebony desk, a gift from Emperor Vespasian. No key anywhere. It had been worth a try. However, his desk overflowed with scrolls, as did his pigeon-holed shelves.

  I’d once heard his steward tell him he should lock up his scrolls, for they were worth their weight in gold. Uncle should’ve listened. I found a nearly completed draft of his latest work on the history of the Roman navy. No doubt, some grasping fool would pay a great deal to be able to say he was the first in Pompeii to own it. I was slipping the scroll into my travel pack when I accidentally bumped the desk. Something flashed in the light of the small lamp. My uncle’s signet ring, unearthed from a pile of papyrus. I shoved the gold and carnelian ring into the bag before I could change my mind. That ring alone would pay not just for Prima, but for months of rent on a small room near the sea.

  I headed back outside, certain that not a single soul knew I’d been back. Or what I’d taken.

  TWELVE hours and two exhausted horses later, I was back in Pompeii. I went straight to Julius Polybius’ house. I needed to find buyers for what I’d taken so I could make my bid for Prima. Surely he would know people who could help me turn what I had into gold and silver.

  I was not entirely without guilt or shame for what I had done. But I told myself that I’d find some way to make up for what I’d taken. I’d study harder, do more translations for my uncle, perhaps. I’d find some way to make it up to him, I was sure.

  Unfortunately, Julius was still sick from drinking the night before. I would have to wait until the third or fourth hour of the morning for him, but I was too restless to wait patiently. So I set out to Prima’s tavern with my bag of stolen goods firmly under my arm.

  She pouted prettily when she saw me and my heart jumped. “Why did you not come to me last night?” she asked. “You said you would.”

  “I had to go home—help a friend,” I said. “Believe me I’ll make it up to you.”

  “Good. Because I like my nights with you much better than with the drunk locals.”

  A small ball of pleasure warmed my belly. “I am glad to hear it,” I said. Still, imagining drunks pawing at her in the disgusting outside cubicles—or that smarmy, blond aedile insulting her—made my stomach twist. Very soon she would never have to be with those kinds of men ever again.

  Her dark eyes sparkled and her pink tongue peeked between the small gap between her teeth. “You’re up to something,” she said, cocking her head slightly.

  I nodded, grinning.

  “Let me get some wine and then you’ll tell me all about it.”

  I didn’t want wine, but we both had seen her owner step into the serving room. As long as I was spending coin, he wouldn’t care how long we talked. “Get extra,” I called out. “I am buying a cup for you too!”

  Her eyebrows shot up as she grinned. She put the cups before us and slid onto a stool next me. “Tell me,” she whispered in my ear, and I had to close my eyes for a moment so instant was my lust. “What are you up to?”

  “I have a way for us to be together—a way for you to never have to be with men like that horrible aedile,” I whispered.

  She started back as if I’d burned her. “What?”

  “I am planning to purchase you,” I said, still whispering. I didn’t want her owner to overhear and start working out how much he would charge for her. If I caught him by surprise, I could probably get her cheaper. “This very day, if possible.”

  She blinked under a furrowed brow. “I don’t understand.”

  “I am going to buy you from him,” I said. “And then we can be together all the time.”

  Her eyes grew wide, but not with pleasure. A pang of worry stirred in my belly. “Listen,” I said quickly. “Don’t say anything to your master yet. I don’t want him to know until I can present him with the money.”

  She shook her head. “I’m not for sale.”

  I smiled reassuringly. “You will be when he sees what I am prepared to pay.”

  “No, you don’t understand,” she said, leaning into me. Her face was flushed. “I can’t … you can’t just buy me.”

  “Why not?” I asked. “I could give you more than you have here and you would never have to deal with drunken idiots again.”

  “And this sudden plan is because you do not want to share me,” she said, crossing her arms.

  “No. I mean, yes. But it’s not just that.” Why was she being difficult about this? I thought she would throw her arms around my neck at the news. “Look, once you are mine I can free you if that is what is worrying you—as … as long as you agree to be my concubine.”

  “I am registered as a prostitute,” she hissed. “I’ll always be an infamis.”

  Gods was that true? But that wouldn’t matter, right? Unless Uncle found out. But he rarely came to Pompeii. The chances were few that he’d find out about a former prostitute I kept. “We can get around that,” I said, swallowing hard. “And if I buy you, you will have an easier life. It will be just you and me!”

  The silence grew between us. Again, not what I expected. Maybe I had sounded too business-like? “I love you, Prima. And you’re right. I don’t want to share you. Is that so awful?”

  She shook her head again, looking down at her hands.

  “You … you do care for me, yes?” I stammered. “You just said you like your nights with me! Even if you don’t love me, I know you care for me. And you will learn to love me when you see the kind of life I can give you.”

  “As your personal slut.”

  Gods that sounded awful. “No, but … well, isn’t that better than being a … a—”

  “Tavern whore.”

  I looked away. “I just don’t want to see you used and abused by men like that man the other morning.”

  “Pansa,” she said, making a disgusted face.

  “Yes.”

  She sighed irritably. “Let me ask you something, Caecilius. How old are you?”

  “Seventeen.”

  “And how many times have you been in love?”

  I frowned, not liking the way she said the last two words. “Just once. With you.”

  “And you think that will last longer than say, oh, I don’t know, until the Ides?”

  “Yes!” I said loudly. Too loudly. Her owner looked over at us, frowning.

  “Let me tell you something, little boy.”

  Little boy?

  “You will fall in love a million times over before the year is out—“

  “That’s not true.” I’d never seen her look so angry and bitter. Where had my Prima gone?

  “It is true. And what will I do in six months when you tire of me and you have fallen in love with another whore?”

  “That will never—“

  “Or when you fall in love with a sweet little virgin you want to marry? I’ll tell you what’ll happen. You’ll toss me out the back door like old fish.”

  “No,” I said, shaking my head.

  “Yes,” she said, leaning forward. She looked angry. “And what about my sister?”

  “What about her?”

  “I am Capella’s protector,” she nearly growled. “I cannot be separated from her. She needs me!”

  I looked down at my pack. My heart sunk. Her sister’s creamy blonde prettiness would f
etch a very high price. It was highly unlikely that I could afford both of them and still keep Prima in a place by the sea. “I might need some time to get more money—“

  “You don’t seem to understand,” she interrupted and her eyes looked hard and mean. “I do not love you. I never will. What you ‘love’ is what I do for you upstairs. For money. It’s an illusion.”

  Heat spread over my head and chest. “But … but you chose me. Remember? The first time, you said … I thought … that maybe you—”

  “The younger ones are easier because they finish faster,” she said in a hard tone. “And you paid extra for the whole night. I’d be a fool if I didn’t take advantage of that. But you’re a bigger fool for thinking I’d feel anything for you. Your coin bag, though—now that is something I loved. But not you.”

  I actually curved over my wine cup, as if she had physically struck me in the chest.

  She blew air out through her cheeks and stared up at the ceiling. “Venus’ tit, if I’d realized how stupid you really are, I would’ve taken you for much, much more, boy. You need—“

  “Stop calling me a boy!” I shouted.

  The place went quiet.

  “Pay for the wine and go, Caecilius.”

  The stool clattered behind me as I scrambled up. I slammed some coins on the table and clutched the bag of what I’d taken from my uncle hard against my stomach.

  Prima stood wearily. “Come back when you grow a pair. I’ll take your money then, same as any other.”

  I don’t know how I got outside, or when I remembered to start breathing. The road under me began to vibrate and a bread cart across the way almost toppled over. Dizzy and nauseated, I fought to keep my balance. It took me a moment to realize that it was not just my world falling apart around me but another tremor shaking the earth.

  But this one felt stronger. More dangerous. I put my hand on the wall outside the tavern almost hoping it would fall on me. When the vibrating stopped, someone started laughing too loudly across the street. A chicken squawked in outrage—wings outstretched as it ran desperately to get away from two barefoot children. People jostled me as they resumed their treks to and fro. I began putting one foot in front of the other, not caring or noticing where I went.

  I let the crowd sweep me around unfamiliar streets. A man carrying a squealing piglet pushed me into a wall outside a large house as he swept by. My eye caught a word scratched onto the side of the door: Prima. I blinked and forced myself to read all of it.

  Secundus says hello to his Prima, wherever she is. I ask, my mistress, that you love me.

  She doesn’t love anyone, I thought. And I was not the only fool for her. Still, the gods had led me to focus on her name. Clearly, they laughed at me most of all.

  I found myself walking in circles around the basilica in the forum. I should go home, I told myself. I should replace what I took before my uncle notices. But that meant walking through Prima’s end of town and that I could not do. Not yet. Besides, the horses would not be rested enough.

  What a fool I was! What an idiot. The worst kind of stupid. She called me a boy. She cared nothing for me. How could I have misjudged her so completely? The humiliation washed over me in waves.

  Three men suddenly stepped in front of me as I neared the unoccupied end being renovated. “The aedile would like a word with you,” the stocky one in the center said.

  “I’m not talking to anyone right now,” I said, turning to walk around them.

  “Oh, but you are,” one of the men said, grabbing me by the upper arm. That snapped me out of my miserable trance.

  “Take your hands off me!” I tried to pull my arm away but he held on tight.

  They dragged me to an abandoned alcove. Scaffolding climbed halfway up the brick wall, though no one was working on it. Pompeii was like a little child with blocks: it began projects in one corner, then got distracted and started something else streets away.

  The aedile who’d insulted Prima stepped out of the shadows. He gave me a brilliant smile. “How nice to see you again, Gaius Caecilius Secundus,” he said.

  Gods, the man knew my full name. What else did he know?

  “What do you want?”

  “Come, let us go into the shade and talk privately,” he urged, as if we were old friends. One look at his thugs and I knew I had no choice. I followed.

  “I wonder if your uncle knows what you’ve been doing in Pompeii,” he said mildly.

  “It’s no business of yours,” I said.

  “Oh, but it is. Everything that happens in Pompeii is my business.” He pointed to the bag I still gripped tightly under my arm. “Like what you have there. I think you should hand it over to me.”

  I blinked. “What? No!”

  Pansa smiled and shook his head as if he were dealing with a recalcitrant child. And like a child, I wanted to spit in his face.

  “Oh what a thrill it will be to inform the great Admiral Pliny that his nephew and likely heir is stealing from him,” he said with a smarmy smile. “The favors he will owe me! That is why you ran home in the night and came back with that package, yes?”

  I said nothing.

  He stared at me for a moment then laughed. “Ha! I had you followed but could only guess what you were doing. Your silence tells me I guessed right. Now give me what you took from your uncle’s villa and I won’t tell him that you tried to buy a common tavern whore from a seedy caupona in Pompeii.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  He sighed. “You have yet to master your expressions, my boy. There is no point in lying. Prima told me everything. The skinny little slut even laughed while betraying you.”

  My heart thundered in my ears.

  He held out his hand for the bag.

  Still, I did not move.

  Pansa cocked an eyebrow. “You can do this the easy way or the hard way.”

  That this backwoods politician thought that he was good enough to even approach my uncle, made me want to spit at him again. “You are a prick and an asshole and I hope Prima shits in your mouth the next time you go near her,” I blustered out. “And you aren’t taking anything of mine.”

  His lips quirked in amusement. “Well, I see you’ve made your choice.” He signaled to his men and sauntered away.

  “Aedile!” someone called when he stepped into the sunshine. “There you are! I have something to discuss with you …” Pansa smiled widely and directed the petitioner away from us and into the flow of people.

  Meanwhile, two of his men approached me while a third kept watch. “This is going to be too easy,” one joked.

  “Fuck you,” I growled.

  The burly man laughed. “The puppy barks,” he said. “Hand it over.”

  The first punch came before I could reply, quickly followed by a second and a third. When I hit the ground one of the men grabbed the bag but I clung to it desperately, even as the other kicked me in the ribs. I couldn’t let them have my uncle’s writings or his ring. I just couldn’t!

  Then a kick near my eye slammed my head against the stone floor. When I came to, the bag—and the men—were gone.

  I didn’t know how long I had lain there, but the sun hadn’t moved much, so not long. It took some time to sit up and even longer to stand. When I finally did, the ground swayed and bucked underneath me but I knew it wasn’t another tremor. It was my own weak and injured body failing me. I closed my eyes until the feeling passed. Checking under my tunic belt, I noticed that my coin bag was gone too. The thugs took everything.

  As I shuffled out of the shadows a woman squeaked at my sudden appearance. “Drunk idiot,” she murmured as she scuttled by.

  People gave me a wide berth. A small crowd had gathered in the Forum. I spotted Pansa’s blond head towering over a group of adoring clients. He bent his head to speak to someone I could not see. I headed toward him, not caring about the sounds of disgust people made when I pushed past them.

  Pansa laughed loudly. A thick, ridiculous fa
ke laugh. “Yes, Senator. You are right. A very astute observation about Pompeii’s endless construction.”

  Senator? I peered between the shoulders of some of the crowd and saw my uncle’s friend with the iron-colored hair and crooked shoulder—Senator Norbanus from Rome. What was he doing in Pompeii?

  If the senator’s expression of hooded disdain was any indicator, he saw right through Pansa. The aedile’s hands were empty though. He had nothing to incriminate him; he was the sort who would leave that to underlings. So I looked around for my things and spotted one of the aedile’s men holding my bag as if it had always belonged to him.

  “Senator,” I called, pushing my way into the inner circle. “How good it is to see you!”

  Norbanus stared at me a moment, then his graying brows rose. “Young Caecilius, is that you?”

  I smiled broadly which must have made me look even more gruesome—my teeth felt coated with something thick and metallic. “Indeed,” I said loudly, knowing what a sight I was.

  “What in the name of all the gods happened to you, young man? Are you all right?”

  “I’ve been robbed and beaten in your city, Aedile,” I said, turning to Pansa. The crowd gathering around us murmured and made clucking noises of disapproval.

  “A young man of quality beaten in the streets,” the senator said, and turned to Pansa with deceptive mildness. “The citizens of Pompeii who voted you into office, Aedile, deserve better control over your domain from you.”

  Pansa’s face flushed with anger.

  “But where is your attendant?” Norbanus turned back to me. “A man of quality should not walk quarters like these unprotected.”

  “I left him with my horses while I visited Julius Polybius,” I said.

  When I swayed slightly, the senator took my arm, which made me wince a little. “You say your things were stolen?”

  Pansa’s thug looked like he was about to run but the aedile put a warning hand on his man’s shoulder. “Oh! Yes,” Pansa said, pretending to be surprised. “My esteemed friend found this abandoned bag and reported it to me,” he said. “I was going to post a notice to help find the owner.”