Pompeii

by T. L. Higley

  The scare gave new meaning to the danger. Falling ash could be brushed away. Burning rocks could not. He risked a glance upward, expecting an avalanche from the sky. He could see no other blackened rocks, but it began to rain light pebbles that stung the skin. He bent his face to the ground, held out his hand to catch a few in his palm.

  The stone hail was dirty-white, light and porous—like bits of bleached sea sponge from Greece--but solid. The sound of it hitting the Forum stones brought memories of echoing theater applause.

  Again, this new revelation from the sky gave the townspeople pause, and the spacious court ceased its churning for a moment, then resumed in earnest.

  Cato, too, pushed forward toward the prison, his mind keeping pace with his feet. First the thick ash, and now rocks, some light and some fatal. It was growing more dangerous above ground than below it. The quakes had stopped. Would Portia be safer in the prison than they were above ground?

  He was not the first to consider it. The prison entrance thronged with people shouting to be allowed underground. Several guards fought them off, striking down men and women alike with their heavy rods. Cato kept his distance, measuring his chances, measuring the danger.

  In the end, he followed his instinct. For now at least, Portia was safer underground. How ironic . . . when this nightmare ended, perhaps the prisoners would be the only survivors.

  And what of those toward the north? Of Nigidius Maius and his estate outside the north wall of the city, and the one who was held there against her will? To run there was to run toward the mountain. Which meant she was even nearer the danger.

  Cato raced through the Forum to the north end, where the Temple of Jupiter still stood unrepaired from the last quake that had wrought destruction. Would Pompeii survive this disaster?

  The stones assaulted his face and arms, raising welts. He ran through the Street of Tombs, empty and silent save the continued rush of the fire-breathing mountain and the clatter of pebbles hitting the street.

  The street wound upward slightly, to a rise outside of town where Maius's estate farmed the rich, black soil and the grapes grew in abundance.

  He reached the villa breathless and beaten by the falling pebbles. The gravel accumulated under foot now, crunching beneath his sandals. No more flaming boulders had accosted him, but he ran half-expecting to be struck down. Above him, the black cloud had reached to every horizon. Daylight had been overtaken by a foul midday night, a darkness that traveled on an evil wind and wormed its way through mind and heart.

  Cato ran the length of the empty peristyle along the southern end of the villa, under a doorway, and into Maius's first atrium. The pleasant plink of rocks falling into the impluvium basin's water deceived. The reds and yellows of the garden's flowers glowed with the strange light of a coming storm.

  He'd formed no plan as he ran. Foolish. Where would Valerius keep Ariella? Where would Maius have housed his guests? The household had fled the safety that open space provided during an earthquake, to hide from the falling sky.

  Should he yell for someone? Would they hand over Ariella? He must at least be certain she was safe, that she had survived the quake.

  He ran through the house, coming upon a girl in a shadowy colonnade, about Isabella's age. She paced the hallway alone. She turned on him as though he might save her. Maius's blue-eyed daughter, Nigidia. With a flash of recognition he realized that he had seen her several times—among the Christians. Flora's friend.

  "Have you seen my father?" In the murky light her face seemed luminescent.

  He shook his head. "I am looking for the slave girl, Ariella. She belongs to Valerius."

  Nigidia blinked several times, her lips parted.

  He shook her. "Have you seen Ariella?"

  "They have gone."

  "Gone? Where?"

  "Valerius. All of them. He left for Rome."

  Cato released his grip on her. It had only been last night that Valerius arrived. "Because of the mountain? Is he a fool?"

  Nigidia shook her head slowly. "No. They left before the quake. He wanted to sail today."

  Cato turned from her, left her in the hall, guilt nipping at him. But she was not his responsibility. He already had four women to look after.

  "Will you tell my father I am waiting for him?" Her voice was plaintive, childlike.

  "Keep out of the open," he yelled in response, already across the atrium and heading back through the house. His tunic was damp with sweat now.

  The ash seemed to have thickened while he had been indoors. He stopped under the peristyle roof to rip a swath of fabric from the bottom of his tunic and tie it around his face, to cover his nose and mouth. Chest heaving, he ran back toward the town, through the dirty ashfall that lay ankle-deep, mixed with the pebbles and rising fast. When would it stop?

  More important, could Valerius have put out to sea before the disaster? And if he had . . .

  What had become of his ship—and the slaves it carried?

  CHAPTER 44

  Ariella and Micah pushed against the foot traffic on the inside of the gate and threaded through the crowd in the street. Ahead, though she could not see it past the people, lay the Forum. But between the gate and the Forum, people flooded into the entrances of the basilica on the right and the Temple of Apollo on the left, seeking refuge together. Stones began to fall on them, stinging bare skin. How could such a thing be? She understood the ash—it settled out of the sky from unseen fires. But stones from the heavens? It was beyond understanding.

  Where should they go? There was something illogical about fighting against the flow of people. Did it not mean she and Micah were headed the wrong direction? And yet, any direction away from Valerius seemed right.

  She longed for reassurance that Isabella and Octavia were safe. And Europa and her household. Jeremiah. The faces flitted across her mind. She fought the desire to weep and kept pressing onward.

  They reached the basilica and joined the flow into its central courtyard. The structure built for handling legal matters of the town had not yet been repaired since the quake that damaged the city years ago, as broken columns and a partial roof attested. Citizens clogged the nave, huddled in tight family groups. Children wailed and mothers tried in vain to comfort them, all the while looking at the treacherous black cloud spreading across the sky and the ash and pebbles it rained down on their heads.

  Ariella slowed to watch the sky. It was unreal, like something from one of Maius's dark frescoes, with its billowing darkness blocking out the sun. How could they find safety from such a widespread, fearsome thing? She had been trained to defeat any foe. But this was an enemy far beyond her reach, and the helplessness both angered and terrified her.

  Micah pulled her to the front of the building, to the raised apse that had retained its stone roof. They pressed against the wall, watching the turmoil as though they were ruling magistrates, looking down from positions of authority. Throughout the crowd, prayers to the various gods, chief among them Vulcan, were shouted from frightened lips.

  Beside her, Micah spoke over the people. "This is what the Holy One says: 'In a little while I will once more shake the heavens and the earth, the sea and the dry land.'"

  Ariella looked up at him, into the man's face of the boy she had known. Yes, a man now, of twenty years. A man who quoted the prophets as though their words were part of him. Since their meeting yesterday they'd had so little time to speak. Who had he become in the nine years since their separation? Had he carried anger as she had, refusing to bow the knee to a God who would rip him from his family and give away his inheritance?

  He met her eyes, looked deep into her heart.

  Regardless of what would become of them, for this moment they were together and they were free. She gave way to her emotions at last, and reached up to wrap her arms around his neck. Tears flowed unchecked, so unlike her and yet a welcome release.

  Micah held her head against his chest and patted her back as she sobbed out her fear and her joy. S
he had been a fool to think him still a boy, and the relief of being in his protective arms brought more tears.

  "I have missed you, sister." He pulled her away and held her arms. "I never gave up hoping that I would find you."

  She dried her face with the back of her hand. "Nor I, you."

  Memories of that last day in Jerusalem, of the terrified chaos, the raging fires, the screams of people fleeing the streets, burned through her mind. Memories so like this very day that it was as though they had reunited only moments after they had been lost to each other, as though the years did not exist.

  "Have you been in slavery these nine years?"

  He shrugged. "Among other things." It would be a story for another time. "But when I eventually learned that you served under Valerius, I arranged to be sold there myself, hoping to find you." He touched her cheek and smiled.

  She grasped his hand and held it there. "I am beginning to believe Hashem does watch over His children, even in the midst of suffering."

  "You must believe it, sister." Micah's eyes grew serious. "I have much to tell you, things I have learned. The Messiah has come, Ariella, and we missed it. He walked Jerusalem with our grandparents . . ." He frowned. "What is it, Ariella? Why do you look at me that way?"

  But she could not speak. Micah, too? Did everyone she loved believe in this new Messiah?

  The ground trembled under their feet, and Micah pulled her farther into their shelter, but Ariella's heart was too raw to notice. The words spoken to her on the beach resonated: I gave My life to redeem yours.

  Could it be true? Though her body remained in slavery, had her soul been purchased with holy blood? Could she be set free?

  She had been fighting for so many years, fighting the God of her fathers for all the evil He had allowed. And yet, if it were also true that He had provided a way for her to be accepted, this way of shattering grace that defied all understanding, then was He not good? And what was there to do but surrender? To continue to fight was to throw herself in the path of death.

  Her heart hovered there, on the edge of a precipice, looking into the unfathomable. She still did not understand His ways, how He could allow such horror and still love. Yet if the Messiah had come and died to save her, then what more proof did she require of the love of Hashem? She hovered—

  And then she leaped.

  It took only a moment. While death rained down around their heads, Ariella passed over to life. She felt it in her body, knew it in her mind, embraced it in her heart.

  Micah waited, his eyes locked on hers.

  "I know," she breathed. "He is also my Messiah."

  Micah once more pulled her to his chest, and the ground heaved again.

  He turned to the open nave, to the ash and pebbles that littered the floor. "I do not know that we are safe here."

  As though in response, a huge chunk of blackness flared into the courtyard, angling out of the sky as though thrown down from heaven. A moment later a woman's scream cut across the wide space, silencing the crowd. A circle widened from where she screamed, hugging two small children to her side. At her feet, under the flaming rock, lay the crushed body of a man. She screamed again and then again, the sound bouncing from the stone walls of the basilica, enveloping them all in a wave of panic.

  And then there were more. A shower of flaming rocks like falling stars. With them came a strange smell, rotten like the smell of death. The people scrambled over each other in their race to escape the basilica, as though there were safety to be found in the streets.

  Ariella's mouth went dry and she, too, pulled toward the crowd. Micah held her back.

  "Where else would we go, sister?" He pointed upward, to the roof. "We are protected here."

  Ariella panted, watching the people pour from the basilica to the street. "Micah, I—there are people I care about—"

  "You want to go to them?"

  She reached up to touch his cheek. "It should be enough to be with you. But if we are to die, I want to see the world end with my friends."

  His mouth was tight. "Portius Cato."

  "No!" Her denial was too quick, too sharp, she saw it in his eyes. "His mother, his sister. And there are others. Others who have loved me."

  He nodded. "Then I should also like to meet Hashem in the presence of those who have loved you."

  They joined the crowd pushing from the damaged building into the street, then turned right, toward the Forum. The Temple of Apollo's narrow entrance across from them also disgorged citizens. Inside the temple, someone had lit torches on the platform to combat the strange dusk, and Ariella caught a glimpse of the gold-trimmed altar, glinting in the torchlight.

  The crowd flowed both directions now, as though half were convinced that their escape lay across the sea, and the others had determined to return to safety under their own roofs.

  They reached the Forum, and Ariella took a deep breath of relief at the thinning of the crowd. But her breath caught, ash-filled and chalky. Had it grown worse? The layer of ash in the Forum, deeper than her ankles now, muffled the sound of the falling pebbles. They paused inside the Forum's wide rectangle, empty as most of the people crowded under the colonnaded roofs at its side. Black chunks of burning rock, some the size of a man's head and others as big as chariots, littered the Forum's expanse.

  The central gathering place for the city had been oriented toward Vesuvius, as though all important business should occur at the foot of the mountain. There was irony here now, as the mountain beyond the end of the Forum continued to spew upward, as though the underworld were emptying itself into the sky.

  Micah grabbed her hand. "Are you ready?" They would have to dash across the Forum, taking their chances in the open.

  She turned to look across the space, tracing the path they would take. To her left a single man ran toward them. She tried to draw courage from his bravery. He had tied a strip of fabric across his face to filter the ash. They should do the same.

  Something about him drew her gaze again. That familiar build, shoulders and chest. Her heart surged with something she could not name.

  Micah was pulling her forward. "Ariella, come!"

  But in that moment the masked runner slowed as well, drawing up as though in surprise. In recognition.

  She could not move. A chill ran over her flesh.

  And then he was running again, pulling the mask from his face, shouting her name.

  She struggled from Micah's grasp and left him behind, her feet carrying her toward the other.

  Cato reached her with his arms already open, and she fell into them. He held her tight, buried his face in her neck. "She told me you had sailed. I was so afraid for you."

  Ariella could not speak. How could she say what was in her heart?

  He was kissing her cheeks now, holding her face in his hands, kissing her forehead, her hair, like a husband who had thought his wife lost and had her restored. Tears streaked his dirt-stained cheeks, leaving her more breathless than the ash.

  Perhaps there would be time for truth between them later. Perhaps not.

  He circled her shoulder with his arm and pulled her toward Micah. "Come. The city is going to fall."

  They reached her brother and she read his disapproval. No doubt he believed Cato had used his slave girl for more than kitchen chores. Again, the truth must wait.

  Cato led them all to the covered colonnade and they circled together beside a pillar, holding their ground against the tide of people.

  Ariella found her voice at last. "What do you mean? How will the city fall?"

  He pointed upward. "Look at what the sky still holds for us." He kicked at the calf-deep ash and pebbles. "If the city is not buried, at the very least, the roofs will not hold. It is not safe indoors, nor outdoors." He lifted his head toward the magistrates' buildings at the end of the Forum, and the prison. "And those underground will be trapped beneath it."

  Micah straightened and spoke to Cato. "What is there to do, then?" He spoke as an equal, and a glow of
pride flickered in Ariella's heart.

  "We must leave Pompeii. Escape to the south, across the plains and away from the mountain." He eyed Vesuvius. "I am not certain she is finished yet. I have heard that rivers of fire can pour from Vulcan's mountains. We may not have seen the worst."

  Ariella kept her eyes from the monster. "But what of the others—your sisters and your mother?"

  Cato turned again to the prison and his face grew as dark as the sky. "We leave no one behind."

  CHAPTER 45

  Cato feared for them all. Isabella and Octavia. Portia, and even her husband, Lucius, wherever he might be. And what of his new friends, so recently dear to him? Had Europa and Seneca and the others survived the quakes? Did they also take to the streets, where burning boulders were as lethal as falling columns?

  Whatever came of each of them, of the city itself, Cato had found Ariella. He would not be separated from her again. He ripped another strip from his tunic, wrapped it around her face, and leaned forward to tie it behind her head. The fine powder of ash coated her short hair, whitening it, and the desire see her hair grow white with years flashed over him. Her dark eyes never left his own.

  He did not take the time to ask himself the obvious questions. She was a slave and he a patrician. She was a Jew and he a Roman. But disaster made all people equal, and as they ran together toward the prison, Cato counted on the city magistrates' agreement. They could keep no one in chains while the city burned.

  They dodged people and fallen rocks, crunched through the ash and stone with progress far too slow. The detritus from the sky was knee-deep now, and though the solid particles made it possible to walk on its surface in most places, in others they floundered in soft ash, alternately sinking and climbing.

  The townspeople were like animals trapped in an arena, running to and fro with no plan, and it grieved Cato to see it. They reached the suggestum, where he had once stood above the Forum crowds to announce his candidacy. He climbed again, yelling to the people who rushed past.