City on Fire

by Tracy L. Higley

  The thought of Portia brought memories of Cato on its heels, of Maius’s threat to have him executed, of Cato’s eyes on her as Valerius led her away.

  She paced the cell, her wrath building to the breaking point.

  It was all absurd, everything Jeremiah had taught her. There was no freedom of spirit without freedom of body. She belonged to Valerius once again, all of her. The Creator had forsaken her, as she had always believed.

  Her heart pulsed with the desire to lash out, to hurt someone as she had been hurt, to destroy and to tear apart, and in the destruction to dull her own pain.

  The searing hatred for Valerius, for the Romans who had razed her city and destroyed her family and annihilated her faith rose up inside her with a boiling heat, overwhelmed her, and set her screaming. Screaming out her rage and pain at the God who had allowed all of it, her fist raised to the low ceiling as though she could reach through it into the night sky, all the way to the heavens above.

  No one came. No guard chastised. No God either.

  She was alone.

  Spent, she dropped to the floor and lowered her head to her bent knees.

  She would forget everything that Jeremiah had nearly made her believe. There was no contentment to be found in injustice and despair. There was no community here to help her. And most of all, there was no God who cared.

  She would not give up fighting. Never. But she would fight alone. For herself and for her brother, she would do what must be done. In the darkness, she made a vow. And through the long, sleepless night, she repeated this vow until it hardened into solid rock within her soul.

  Even if it brought about her own death, Clovius Valerius would not live to abuse them again.

  39

  Late into the night Cato paced the city streets, reliving the day and berating himself for his foolish pride. He never should have brought Valerius to Pompeii. What a stupid, arrogant thing to do. To think that he could control the situation, manipulate Maius’s ally for his own ends.

  He reached the southern edge of the city, his feet having taken him toward the arena of their own accord. The circular stone wall loomed gray and black against the night sky, its series of arches like hooded eyes, scowling down on him.

  He would lose the election. Of this he was certain. He had made inroads into Maius’s corruption, but it was not enough. The failure of it nagged at his pride, but it was pain over the fate of his sister that crushed him.

  And Ariella.

  Ariella.

  Her face was before him in an instant. The way her eyes had rested on him as Valerius hauled her into the street with her newly found brother. Her lips parted, as though she would say farewell. But she did not.

  He crossed the grassy field that led to the arena, ignoring his vineyard on the left. The amphitheater was silent, like a massive tomb awaiting its occupants. He walked down the darkened ramp that led to the arena floor and stepped into the soft sand.

  The memory of ten thousand cheers seemed to echo from the hollow seats, as though a spectral audience wavered, ghostly and unreal, in the empty marble tiers. Cato moved on soundless feet to the center of the arena.

  He turned a slow circle, remembering the day he had sworn that Ariella would not face another opponent. Self-reproach washed over him. What good had he done her? Taken her from one form of slavery to another, then brought an adversary more dangerous than any her net and trident had seen.

  He saw her again, pleading with him not to summon Valerius. Why had he not understood?

  Suddenly weary, Cato lowered himself to the sand, spreading out with his face to the cold sky and his back to the cold sand. It still smelled of blood and death here. Of the thousands of men and animals that had died to entertain.

  What would happen to Portia? To Ariella?

  He faced the truth that he had brought harm to both of these women whom he loved, and he was helpless to change anything.

  Helpless.

  A failure.

  All the pain of Rome. He had been so cocky, so sure of his fight against the corrupt praetor, Maximus. Outspoken and arrogant and immature. In the end, he had failed to convince the consuls and had been trounced, even ridiculed for his position.

  He had come to Pompeii to forget and had only caused more harm.

  He tried to pray. Reached out to the God who had saved him from his sin, but not from himself. But there was only the black sky above, and the stars seemed to accuse with their brightness. Cato threw his arm over his eyes and lay there in the sand, defeat as sharp as if he had fallen by a gladiator’s sword.

  The despair swelled in his chest and overflowed, spilling tears from his eyes, down over his temples. The sand that had soaked up so much blood over the years drank in his tears as though they were nothing, and the sobs that wracked his chest bounced back at him from the stone surrounding him.

  Hours later he lay on a bench in his courtyard, half-frozen but uncaring. The family and household had all gone to their beds, but sleep came only in fragments of uneasy dreams for Cato.

  His mother found him nearly senseless in the morning, unwashed and cold. She roused him enough to swallow some cold porridge. Lucius arrived soon after, his face as white as marble.

  “Have you heard?”

  Cato pushed the porridge away. What else could there be?

  “It is all over town this morning.” Lucius’s voice cracked with emotion.

  Octavia gripped her son-in-law’s arm with both hands. “Portia?”

  Lucius eyed her as though he did not comprehend the question, then turned back to Cato. “Maius has sent letters throughout the town. Telling everyone that you have taken up with the sect of Christians and are practicing their unnatural rites with them, defying the emperor. There are rumors of your arrest.”

  Octavia gasped and took an unsteady step backward. Lucius had the sense to catch her.

  Cato did not move.

  Lucius spoke through pale lips. “What are we to do, Quintus? How can you free Portia—”

  “I cannot!” He jumped to his feet. “I cannot free Portia, or Ariella, or anyone in this town! I told you. All of you. I told you not to force me to take a stand against this man. I failed in Rome and I have failed here. And I never should have expected anything but failure.”

  Octavia and Lucius said nothing, but their stricken faces accused and Cato could bear it no longer. “I am going to work in my vineyard. When they come for me, they can find me there.”

  He left them both, open-mouthed and staring, in the atrium. Left behind the house and the election and his empty promises to find justice for anyone, and returned to his vineyard where he should have stayed months ago.

  The vines had matured in the months since he had come to Pompeii, and they hung heavy now with ripened fruit. Cato spread a cluster across his palm and felt the weight of it, pleased.

  Remus came up behind him, startling him. “The harvest is ready.”

  Cato nodded and surveyed the rows that remained healthy and strong even after Maius’s fire. The vineyard seemed unnaturally silent today, perhaps feeling the emptiness of his own heart. Somewhere across the city, a dog howled, and then another. A chill shuddered through Cato, like a portent of evil to come. He lifted his eyes to the protective mountain, purple and green against the blue sky, like a reflection of the grapes and vines. A wisp of cloud hovered above Vesuvius’s dome, almost as though it wafted from the mountain itself.

  More dogs howled. Somehow, something was not right. But it was likely the disturbance lay within him. He shook off the feeling and turned to Remus, trying to smile. “Have you been taking a holiday, Remus? This soil looks as dry as an Arabian desert.”

  Remus straightened and scowled. “Not much I can do with no water, master.”

  Cato clapped his shoulder. “Easy, Remus. I was only joking with you. Who has stolen our water?”

  His forced humor fell short with Remus. “Ask the gods, master. It’s them that have dried out the city.”

  Cato
frowned. “What nonsense are you talking?”

  “Where have you been since yesterday? The water has slowed to a trickle through the aqueducts. The city is growing panicked.”

  As if in response, a small flock of black birds erupted from the vineyard, wings beating in unison.

  The birds. That was the unnatural silence he had noticed. No birds sang this morning.

  “What are you doing here, master?” Remus’s question cut through his puzzlement.

  “Did you forget I own this vineyard, Remus? I came to get my hands dirty.”

  The laborer scratched at his neck. “You do not belong here. Not any longer. You have more important work to do.”

  Cato looked away, focused again on that wisp of smoky cloud that hung over the mountain. “Not anymore.”

  Remus stepped in front of him, demanding his attention. “I do not know what has happened, but I will tell you this, Portius Cato. You are not this man anymore. No longer the carefree winemaker who arrived in Pompeii.” He drew himself up, strangely assertive. “Go back and fight your fight, Cato.”

  His words were punctuated with another howl of a dog.

  Cato ran his hand through his hair. “The whole city has gone mad, and you with it, Remus.”

  But the man was right. He did not belong here. No more than he belonged in the arena or in the magistrates’ offices. He was neither winemaker nor politician. He belonged nowhere. So who was Portius Cato, in truth?

  “You are a champion of the weak.”

  Jeremiah’s words, spoken over him that night, in a holy hush that felt like a calling.

  Somehow, in all of the sprawling decay of Rome and the countryside beauty of Pompeii, there seemed to be only one man who could see into his heart.

  Cato turned from Remus and left him to the vineyard.

  If it was truth he sought, there was only one place it would be found.

  40

  The Empire had more festival days than it had gods, or so it seemed. On the heels of Maius’s feast to honor Vulcan and appease the fiery underworld god, he prepared for another holiday the next day, the Festival of Luna. There would be no feast today, only the opening of the mundus pit outside the city. Three times each year the stone covering of the pit was pulled away to allow the departed spirits trapped in the underworld to escape and, for a brief time, roam the world of the living.

  As duovir, Maius was expected to be present at the lifting of the stone, but he made his way outside the city walls, anxious to be about his more pressing desire this morning—to begin the raids.

  The morning was bathed in that unnatural stillness he had noted yesterday, as though the earth held its breath, listening for what would come next, like the gray serenity of the sea in the moments before a mighty storm. The silence unnerved Maius, and he quickened his steps along the shadowed eastern wall of the city and through the arched stone of the Marina Gate. He sought reassurance above in the bright yellow orb of the sun, already scorching a pale blue sky, and the mountain behind him with only a trace of wispy whiteness above it. There would be no storm today.

  Only the storm of his wrath.

  He smiled. Yes, he would sweep through the city in a tempest of retribution.

  But first, the mundus pit.

  The pious had already begun to assemble around the large pit with its stone covering when Maius arrived. From a distance he could identify the blinding chalk-white toga of the priest, surrounded by the lesser white of the townspeople. An air of agitation prevailed. Did they also feel the strangeness of the morning air? The crowd was smaller than it had been even last year. The people grew less religious with each passing season. They preferred the arena to the temple, the public baths to public worship. Ah, well. They could be controlled either way, it made little difference to him.

  The priest chanted over the pit as Maius approached and lifted his head in a subtle acknowledgment of the duovir, as though the magistrate were inconsequential in these religious matters.

  Maius curled a lip and scowled at the presumptuous little man, who began the official opening ceremony.

  “Mundo nomen impositum est ab eo mundo qui supra nos est.” The mundus gets its name from that world which is above us.

  He would participate when the stone was pushed aside. That would communicate to the priest where he stood.

  In the beats of eerie silence after the priest’s declaration, there was a whispering, like the touch of a breeze through a leafy tree, and it raised the hair on his neck. He surveyed the people. Did he alone hear the murmurs of the dead?

  But it was not the dead that whispered. Beyond the circle of peasants who waited to toss their firstfruit offerings into the pit stood a tight circle with clasped hands, facing inward, and it was their hushed prayers that had sounded so sinister. The very Christians he had been dreaming of raiding now prayed against him, prayed against the good fortune of the city bound up in the mundus pit opening. Maius shuddered, part disgust and part mystical fear. Would that he could push each of them into the pit when it opened.

  “Mundus cum patet, deorum tristium atque inferum quasi ianua patet.” When the mundus is open, it is as if a door stands open for the sorrowful gods of the underworld.

  Four lesser priests bent to the stone, and Maius pushed his way through the sparse crowd to bend over the lip of the stone beside one of them. The high priest frowned, but Maius ignored him. They lifted the large piece away from the pit, revealing the black earth beneath, deep enough that one could not be certain where the bottom lay. A musty, rotten smell escaped the pit. Was it the odor of decaying spirits rushing out of Hades?

  The Christians’ prayers increased in volume, as though they also sensed evil escaping. He clenched a fist, ready to leave the ceremony and begin the day’s arrests.

  The high priest said a few words over the pit, and the rites ended. The people dispersed, but the high priest grabbed at Maius’s toga before he could leave the grassy hillside.

  “A word, duovir.” The small man’s eyes bored into him.

  “I have pressing business—”

  “Yes, so I have heard.”

  Maius turned on him. “You question my actions?” He pointed to the disbanding Christians. “Even after this?”

  “It is the Festival of Luna. In honor of the blessed dead there are to be no military or public matters undertaken this day.”

  Maius waved him off. The priests alone cared for such trifles. “I am certain the blessed dead will understand the urgency of the situation.”

  The priest’s face darkened. No matter. Maius stalked away, reentered the city with haste, and found the contubernium of eight legionaries he had requested awaiting him in the Forum, arranged in two silent rows of four.

  Somewhere in the city the wretched howl of a dog punctuated the odd atmosphere. Maius crossed the paving stones to the Decanus, their leader. “All is ready? They have instructions?”

  The Decanus gave a sharp nod.

  Maius clapped him on the back. “Then be about your business!”

  The quiet morning was in need of shaking up. The chaos they would cause throughout the city pleased him. He followed the contingent of soldiers as they began their march.

  Street after street, house after house. Had the mystery sect believed they had gone unnoticed? Oh, but their names had been catalogued and recorded long ago, and now it took only the stomp of military boot, the splintering shove of a wooden door frame, the sharp end of a soldier’s pilum to bring them to heel.

  Maius stuck close to one bulky soldier who seemed to delight in his work. The excitement of it built in his own stomach, as though he himself bore the weapons, as though his hands grabbed and yanked the Christians from their hearths and gardens.

  Rich and poor alike were snatched from their homes, but it was the rich who gave the most delight. In one large city house, a family of six gathered in the leafy atrium at the sound of the soldiers, mother clutching young children to her side and father standing before the huddled group as
though he could protect them. The home smelled of freshly baked bread. Beside them, a table had been set with midday breads and cheeses, and a bowl of glossy black olives watered Maius’s mouth.

  A soldier jabbed at the father. The man smacked the pilum away, bringing the wrath of the soldier. Two grabbed at him, and the children cried out.

  Maius pushed past the soldiers to the woman. “Take them both. Leave the children.” No one could say he was not merciful. He snatched a handful of the olives, filled his mouth, and bit down on the moist flesh.

  They were all crying now, the children and the mother. They should have considered the consequences before they aligned themselves with impious traitors to the Empire.

  The troops stomped out, the man and his wife gripped between two of the lead soldiers. Maius followed, ignoring the cries of the children.

  It was good, this purging. Good for Pompeii and good for him.

  Even better would be the moment when they came upon Portius Cato. Perhaps he would fight the soldiers. Resist and force them to run him through with a sword.

  Maius shut the door of the house as he left, and he couldn’t help but smile.

  41

  By the time Cato reached the home of Seneca and Europa, he questioned himself a hundred times. Why did he keep crossing the city to hear the opinion of an aging Jewish slave? Did his future rest in the old man’s leathery hands, as though his life were nothing more than an evening meal prepared for gladiators?

  And yet the brokenness and desperation that had left him cold in the sand of the arena drove him forward, until he stumbled out of the stink and noise of the street and over the threshold of the warm house, as though he had reached the comfort and safety of a fortress, with an invading army snapping at his heels.

  The Persian slave, Cyrus, met him near the door and led him in silence to a receiving room off the main atrium garden, where he collapsed into a chair. Seneca appeared moments later. Cato lifted his head from his hands.