A Day of Fire: a novel of Pompeii

by Stephanie Dray

  “No! No!” I cry out, forgetting my gravitas. Forgetting everything but grief.

  But there is no grand touch of our gods. There is no miracle. There is no return of breath to my beloved son’s body. He is gone from us. I press my face to his small chest, my tears running freely from my eyes, and I pray. I pray that I am in a nightmare.

  “No, Gaius! No!” Decima pries Albinus from my arms, dragging his limp body against her breast. “Wake up, Albinus, wake, my boy!”

  She presses her lips to his face, her hand flattened to his heart as tears stream down her face. I feel myself falling backward, my backside hitting the hard marble, and I barely move my arm to catch myself from going down completely.

  “Albinus?” Lilla’s soft croak is barely heard, and then her muffled cries, as Titus gathers her in his arms.

  Our other children stand in a row behind us, staring at Albinus and Decima with looks on their faces that freeze me. They look resigned, as if they expected this all along. For my own children, losing their other brother some years before, perhaps they understand that death comes to those who are young. From their expressions, I fear they believe death comes to them first.

  But it shouldn’t. Not like this. Not holed up in a room and trying desperately to breathe.

  I swallow hard, my face wet and hot.

  The door flies open and Julius rushes inside. “I made it!” he calls out, holding up a small jug in his triumphant hands, but his face falls when he sees his mother clutching the still and gray body of his brother.

  I watch the muscles in his jaw flex, but he says nothing. Julius sets down the jug beside the door and shuts it. He entices his younger siblings—all but Quintus, who finds comfort with Lilla—to come with him to the adjoining room, boasting about something he’s found outside. But even while he keeps their attention from their grieving mother and me, he casts furtive glances back my way, and when our eyes lock, I can see the tears gathering.

  I press a kiss to my wife’s temple and stand.

  I have failed my boy. I have failed them all.

  JULILLA

  I clutch to Quintus, holding him to my chest, his little arms wrapping around my swollen belly. Our mother lays Albinus upon the couch he’d occupied most of the time we’d been in this room. She takes off her soot-streaked palla and lays it over his silent body, bringing it just up to his neck, but her hands shake and she drops it, unable to cover his face.

  I don’t blame her. I wasn’t able to cover my baby’s face either. Instead, Titus had to step in and see to our stillborn child. Pry him from my arms.

  Thinking about it brings tears to my eyes. I run my fingers through Quintus’ tangles, hoping I am offering even half the comfort to him that he is to me.

  “Is Albinus dead?” Quintus asks me.

  “Yes,” I say, my voice cracking as my gaze flicks to my brother once more.

  “What will we do?”

  My breath catches. My chest tightens and I force the sobs away. I cannot cry now. I have to be strong for Quintus. No one expects me to be, but I know I must. I must be strong for everyone, because I’ve seen Father beginning to break. And he is the strongest of us all.

  “When will he wake up?” Quintus asks.

  “Shh …” How can you explain the finality of death to one so young? That we may all be doomed to Albinus’ fate?

  Quintus fingers the ankh charm I tied around my ankle with a leather thong—like any child fascinated by baubles. Staring at the charm, I can’t help but wonder, what had Capella envisioned of my future? That I’d be whisked to the gods along with my child where we’d remain together forever? Or was it possible that we’d live and be together in this world?

  “Go and play,” I whisper to Quintus.

  I still hold a glimmer of hope.

  My mother’s sobs fill the room. I push Quintus toward the other room where the children’s voices carry on a song, and I go to her.

  “Mother,” I murmur, kneeling awkwardly at her side, the strain of the position tugging at my belly, but I ignore it.

  “Oh, Lilla, he suffered so,” she wails.

  I nod, my throat tight with grief. “But he passed from this world with all of his family surrounding him.”

  A scream from Charis causes us both to turn in horror to see her kneeling over Nikon’s prone body.

  “Nikon!” Our slave woman looks at us, her hands covering her mouth. “He’s dead!”

  My heart leaps into my throat. Our deaths have begun. Two out of twelve. I retreat to my couch where Titus lounges and lean into his embrace.

  “What will we do?” I ask, my voice smaller than before.

  Titus doesn’t answer. His throat bobs and he stares straight ahead. But finally, he speaks. “We’ll play a game of dice, Lilla. Just like you wanted.”

  I nod. We will play. We will pretend that our lives are not near the end. We will deny that two of our own lie dead in the room.

  Titus pulls a pair of dice from his purse and weighs them in his palm.

  “We have to leave! My babies! They will all—” Father cuts off my mother’s words with his hand over her mouth.

  He whispers words in her ear that seem to soothe her and pulls her to the couch that she’d been sleeping on before. He lies beside her, stroking her hair. Calming her the way I imagined a stable master calming a wild horse.

  All of us are starting to come apart at the seams.

  I lean closer to my husband, needing Titus’ comforting arms now more than ever. I call out to the gods in my mind, asking forgiveness for the harsh things I thought earlier about choices and my husband and father taking mine. I’d be forever obedient if only the gods would calm the storm outside and save us all.

  “Do you want to roll first?” Titus asks.

  I shake my head.

  Charis steps briskly toward the door, her eyes darting around the room and I have the distinct feeling she is looking for a reason to escape—a way out, just as we all want. It’s a feral, must-survive look. I’ve seen the look before in cornered animals. Animals that were heading to slaughter on some altar for sacrifice or a slave trapped in the amphitheater facing certain death as punishment for his crimes.

  “Charis, go and check on the children,” I call softly, hoping to distract her from trying to escape. There is no hope for it. No escape now.

  Let the children and our remaining slave distract each other.

  “How are you feeling?” Father asks me as he comes to stand beside me.

  “Fine,” I lie. With Albinus and Nikon dead and mother losing her sanity, he need not worry over me.

  “The baby has stilled within you?”

  I nod, biting down hard on the side of my cheek as my stomach tautens painfully in reminder. I am certain now the labor is real. I avoid Titus’ gaze as he scrutinizes my answer. My water had not yet broken. My midwife told me that, though I was delivered of a stillborn child, this labor would be like it was my first, as I’d lost the last babe well before it was ready.

  How many hours was it now since I first felt the spasms? Six? Seven? Eight? Without the light of the sun, I cannot tell the time. But I am certain that the birthing will be soon, and I am determined not to let my newborn into this world filled with smoke, ash, and the dead.

  Once more, I recall the vial in my pouch. Perhaps the gods wanted me to take it.

  POLYBIUS

  POMPEII is lost to us. I am sure of it. The buildings are crumbling and the ash is falling at such a rate, we’re likely to be buried before dawn—if dawn even comes. The air is slowly siphoned from this room and everyone grows weaker. My children play in the other room, well away from the body of their dead brother and our dead slave.

  I pace. It is all I can do. I want to run out of the room to find that this is all a terrifying machination of my mind. Perhaps it is better that I go out now, so I don’t have to see my family buried here. There will be no one to rescue us. We but wait for the end: I am certain of it.

  If I open the door,
I take the chance of letting in ash. Though what is inside is tainted, the air in the portico is even worse.

  This has become our world, and I’m always the paterfamilias. I cannot let my family down. I will strive to do all that I can in the short time we have left together.

  I glance at Lilla.

  She smiles and it is one of those rare beautiful things. Tears threaten, but I hold them down. We are resigned to our fate now, and I cannot be sad for it. We must live for the moments we have left.

  My wife still reclines on the couch. Her eyes are closed in slumber, and I hope she stays that way. She’s already suffered too much. Anything more and I think she might rush from the room intent on ending her own life.

  “Titus,” my voice cracks as I turn to my son-in-law. “I need your help.”

  He whispers something to Lilla and hands her the dice he’s holding.

  “We need to move Albinus and Nikon into the storage room.” Through the attached room where the children play is an antechamber and another, smaller chamber used for storage. “I do not know how long we will be in here and …”

  “There is no need to explain. I will help you.”

  “Tell Julius to keep the children from looking at us,” I say.

  Titus does as I ask, returning with a nod. I lift Albinus in my arms, and Titus carries Nikon. Through the children’s play area we go. They have their eyes closed and are guessing at something Julius has asked, innocent smiles on their faces as we carry the dead through the room.

  Once in the antechamber, I push open the door to the storage room. It is filled with clay pots, unused linens, and various other household items we stuck back here during the renovation. Now it will be my son and my slave’s tomb. I lay Albinus on top of a crate, curling him on his side and pressing one last kiss to his forehead. Titus sets Nikon on the floor in a corner he cleared.

  As we leave, both of us sober, I can’t help but wonder at what point we could have departed the city and been unharmed. Was Rome even secure?

  I smile at the children as we pass through the room, trying to give them the appearance of safety. Only three of my children are in here with Charis; the other two probably went back to see to their mother.

  When we are only a half-dozen feet from the door, another loud thundering crack echoes, this time coming from somewhere between the two adjoining rooms. I rush to reach the door, but I am too late. The ceiling cracks, the walls shudder, and the door frame snaps. The entire thing tumbles in on itself, wood, plaster, and stone blocking me from getting to Julius, Little Bird, Quintus, and Charis.

  “No!” The word tears from my chest, and all around us I hear the thunder of our roof collapsing on the floor above, sending the ceiling down in torrents around us.

  It does not crush us, but we are truly trapped now. There is no way out. Vesuvius has claimed us for its own, and created a tomb of my once beautiful villa.

  JULILLA

  FATHER won’t look at me. Mother is still unconscious. My husband holds me tight to his chest to comfort me. And my siblings stare wide-eyed at the collapsed entry. The one that blocks us. Thank the gods Charis is there with the children on the other side—it would have been much more frightening for them without an adult to soothe them.

  Of all things, to have them lost to us now. I cannot bear for it to be a final separation.

  Father collapses on the floor, tears streaming down his face.

  But I won’t have it. I won’t believe it.

  I settle on my knees upon the couch and bang both hands against the wall.

  “Julius! Little Bird! Quintus!” I call out. “Answer me!”

  There is a muffled cry on the other side of the wall. It sounds like Quintus. It claws at my heart, wrenches at my soul, and tears fall freely and in waves from my eyes. Unable to believe what has happened, I press my forehead to the wall. I feel as though Vesuvius has exploded within my own soul, pulverizing everything I hold dear, taking with it my sanity and hope. If we’d stayed in Rome …

  Swallowing past the lump in my throat, I force myself to speak, for I do not want that small child given over to my care to be frightened. And though I know he will be scared, I hope that my voice gives him some solace. “We’re here, Quintus, be strong. Little Bird, can you hear me? Julius? Charis?”

  “Lilla,” Quintus cries—and there is no answer from the others—“It hurts!”

  I am gutted. He is hurt. He is in pain. For his cries to graze my ears and be helpless to save him is unbearable. For his cries to be heard and no one else’s … have we lost them all at once?

  “Lilla,” Titus murmurs. “I am so sorry. This is all my fault.”

  I press a hand to my husband’s head. “How could you think it?”

  Tears spill down his cheeks as he stares at me. “I should have tried harder to find a way out.”

  “Shh …” I can’t blame Titus even if I want to. “This is not your fault. We can dig. We will dig.”

  Despite the pains in my belly I manage to stand, and I tug on Titus’ hand. We both kneel before the wall and dig at the never-ending pile of rubble.

  “I can see the sky,” Quintus says. “I’m scared.”

  “Do not be scared, my darling. We are coming. We’re digging to get you,” I say, desperate.

  “If the ceiling has collapsed,” Titus says, “He cannot breathe in there. There is nothing to protect him. Vesuvius has poisoned our air.”

  I’d realized our air was no longer of good quality, but I’d not realized how powerfully polluted it was. “What are you saying?” I whisper.

  Titus shook his head, looking toward his knees. That was answer enough.

  “Quintus,” Titus says, pressing his big hand, covered in soot, over mine against the wall. “Can you hear us?”

  “Yes.”

  “Where is Julius? Little Bird? Charis?” Titus asks.

  Silence.

  “Quintus?” I say around a lump in my throat that chokes me.

  “Julius is sleeping,” Quintus says, his little voice small and scared. “So are Little Bird and Charis.”

  I close my eyes, unable to see any longer what has become of us. My little brother stuck on the other side of this wall, alone, afraid, and with three corpses. I know within my soul they are dead. All of us will die here.

  Quintus begins coughing, the sound, breaking my heart. “Stay with me,” I say.

  Titus renews his digging with frenzy, and I join in, though I have to stop when a pain grips me so tight and hard around my middle it steals my breath. When the labor spasm breaks, I say, “Titus is going to dig you out.” For I no longer think I can.

  I am suddenly nauseated and filled with pain. I must lie down. I fear what I’ve been prolonging will soon come to pass. “Hold your shirt over your face.”

  “I’m doing it,” Quintus says between coughs.

  “Good boy.” I sit on the couch, lean against the wall for support and watch Titus work. Ash has darkened his skin and clothes. The dust of the marble and plaster coats him in a fresh powder, making him look gray. But he gets nowhere, even when father joins him. He gives me a look of utter despair, and the strength I’d summoned earlier returns, and with it, finality.

  We won’t get to the other room. Not in time.

  “Quintus,” I say softly against the wall, “do you want to hear a story?”

  “Yes.” His voice is small, and he coughs hard.

  I stare at Titus as I tell the story, as much to relive the happy moments of our life as to distract my brother.

  “Father took me to Rome when he was there on political business, and I visited the marketplace. You’ve never seen a market like the one in Rome. It’s filled with every kind of trinket—scarves, fabrics, sweets, and spices. Wooden figures for little boys like you to play with.” I smile at Titus, who stops digging and comes to sit beside me, holding my hand.

  “I saw Titus staring at me between several merchant booths. Every time I looked, he was in a different spot, closer, and
I would move, as though we danced in and out of the booths. But every time he caught my eye, he smiled. Until finally, he approached me with a sugared date, and asked if he could honor me with a taste.”

  “I like dates,” Quintus said.

  “Me, too. If I could have a room filled from floor to ceiling with dates, I would. I’d climb to the very top and eat my way to the bottom.”

  “I would help you,” my little brother said, between coughs.

  “I would like that. We’ll share the room.” I lean my head against Titus’ shoulder. “It will be our own sweet place.”

  “Lilla?” His voice sounds so small.

  “Yes, Quintus?”

  “I’m tired.”

  I bite my lip, knowing that it won’t be much longer until Quintus succumbs to the suffocating air. “Think of the dates, sweet brother. Imagine you are climbing to the very top, that a special fat one waits just for you.”

  “Yes, that one is mine.” There is a moment of silence. I close my eyes. “I want to lie down. I think I’ll lie with Little Bird.”

  My response tears from my throat. “Not yet, Quintus. Hold on a little longer.”

  “All right,” he says, but quieter now. Not as convinced.

  “Now you tell me a story, Quintus,” I plead. “Tell me of your favorite place.”

  The walls shake again and another loud crash sounds from somewhere in the villa.

  “I’m too tired, Lilla. I want to sleep.”

  Father comes to stand beside me, his hand trembling as he lays it on my shoulder. “We—We have to let him go,” he says.

  Titus doesn’t break his eye contact with me, and I see clearly that he agrees.

  I want to rave at them both. I want to pound against the wall, to find a way into that room, though I already know the truth.

  “Quintus. I’m here for you still,” I say, scratching lightly at the wall. But he doesn’t answer and fear cascades through me. “Quintus!” My voice becomes shrill.

  Father shakes his head, looking from one of us to the other. “They are lost to us.”

  “Not yet.” I rake a hand through my hair, ready to pull it out as grief consumes me.