The Night Villa

by Carol Goodman

  “I’ll make you a copy of the latest scan,” Agnes offers, getting up from the table. “And then I thought I’d go, too.” She looks toward George. “That is, if you don’t need me for anything. After reading this”—she holds up the slim sheaf of paper in her hands—“I’m dying to see those tunnels.”

  “It’s fine with me,” George says, yawning. “We don’t have anything left to scan after this and I’m exhausted after working all night. I plan to sleep all day while you folk toil in the salt mines. I don’t know how you’re so fresh.”

  “One of the blessings of youth,” Lyros says, smiling at Agnes. “By all means, join us. The more the merrier.”

  I detect a tightness in his smile, but it might be my imagination. He can’t welcome so many extra witnesses if he plans to steal The Golden Verses. It’s Elgin who makes me realize I’m staring at Lyros. “Well, don’t just stand there, Chase,” he snaps. “Go get some clothes on.”

  I shower and dress quickly, but when I get out to the front gate only Agnes is there waiting for me. “Elgin and Mr. Lyros have already gone down to the dock to get the boat ready. They left the cart for us to take. Maria went with them, but she’s taking the ferry in because she has business in Naples and will meet us at the site later.”

  “Thanks for waiting for me,” I tell Agnes, opening the wrought-iron gate so she can drive through.

  “No problem,” Agnes says after I’ve closed the gate and climbed onto the seat next to her. “To tell you the truth, I’d just as soon avoid being alone with the two of them. You can practically smell the testosterone coming off them in waves. I haven’t seen two guys hate each other so much since Sam first met Dale Henry—oh, gosh!” Agnes claps a hand over her mouth, almost swerving the cart off the path into an oleander bush. “I shouldn’t joke about that after what happened. Maybe if I had taken Dale’s jealously more seriously…”

  “You can’t blame yourself for that, Agnes. You couldn’t have known that Dale Henry was that crazy or what other influences he might have been exposed to.” I’m thinking about what Ely told me, angry that on top of everything else that’s happened to her Agnes blames herself for Dale Henry’s rampage when it’s really John Lyros who’s to blame. But Agnes reads the emotion in my voice differently.

  “Like your ex-boyfriend?” Agnes asks shyly. “Didn’t he leave you to join some kind of cult?”

  “Who told you that?” I ask more sharply than I mean to.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you. Elgin said something about it, to make me feel better about Dale, I think. He said if even a smart, beautiful woman like Dr. Chase could make a mistake like that, it could happen to the best of us.”

  “Hmph,” I snort, trying not to feel pleased at Elgin’s description of me. “That’s very generous of Dr. Lawrence, considering the mistakes he’s made. Yes, my boyfriend, Ely, did join a cult, but that’s not why he left. He left because I was seeing another man.”

  “Oh,” Agnes says. “I am sorry. I didn’t mean—-”

  “It’s okay, Agnes. Elgin’s right about one thing: we all make mistakes. The important thing is what we do after we’ve messed up. We can give up or we can try again. And we can try not to mess up if we’re lucky enough to get a second chance.” If your lover comes back from the underworld, I want to say, remembering how Ely touched me this morning in the grotto, you should not second-guess your good luck by looking over your shoulder to see if he’s still there—like Orpheus did when he lost Eurydice.

  Agnes gives me a long, searching look, but she says nothing. I imagine she’s thinking about Sam and wondering if it’s too late for them. “Everyone deserves a second chance,” I tell her as we arrive at the dock where the Parthenope is anchored. She nods and looks away, but not before I notice her eyes filling with tears.

  Clearly Agnes has taken my exhortation to heart. As soon as we’re on the boat she asks to borrow Lyros’s laptop and then spends the trip e-mailing and IM-ing, her body curled around the screen so that no one can see what she’s writing (as if we’d all want to see the romantic dialogue of two twenty-two-year-olds!). Lyros steers the boat and Elgin stands at his side, keeping his eyes on a chart of the bay as if he doesn’t trust Lyros not to run us into a sand bank. Although I feel a bit neglected, I’m glad to have the time to read Phineas’s account of the morning of August 24, AD 79. Once I’ve begun, I hardly notice I’m on a boat at all.

  Because I had stayed up so late the night before—and anticipated another late night to come—I ordered the slaves not to wake me in the morning. I was, however, awoken by a loud clamor, a sound I first thought was a thunderclap. Good, I thought, a thunderstorm will relieve this infernal heat. I fell back to sleep and dreamed that I was at sea in the storm that had besieged my ship on the journey from Alexandria and left me shipwrecked. In my dream, I couldn’t escape into the sea because I was chained to the oarlocks along with the galley slaves. Just as I realized that this terrible trick had been played on me, and that I was to be drowned at the bottom of the sea along with my slaves, the deck of the boat pitched upward, borne aloft by a towering wave, and then slammed down into a wall of water, shattering the bow. I clung to broken boards as I slipped down into the maws of the sea that opened like the jaws of a giant serpent hungry for my flesh.

  I awoke to find myself on the floor, pitched from my bed, which was in fact rocking back and forth like a ship upon an angry sea. It took me another moment to realize it was not the bed that was moving, but the floor I lay upon. The whole house shook so hard that I could not get to my feet. I crawled through the door to the courtyard, believing that I would be safer in the open than under a roof.

  The courtyard offered little promise of safety. The columns ringing the pool swayed like snakes writhing on a Minoan priestess’s arms and clay tiles from the rooftop were flying through the air. Most horrible to say, the painted figures on the wall appeared to be dancing—some dreadful celebration of death and destruction, the sirens cracking their whips to the sound of thunderclaps that rent the still, dry air. Dionysus leered as he bounced up and down atop the virgin suppliant bound beneath him.

  Everything stopped.

  The stillness that followed was unnaturally silent. The water in the fountain had ceased to run. Even the sea had been silenced and as I crept toward the balcony, I was almost afraid to look, so sure was I that I would come eye to eye with avenging Poseidon, holding back the wrath of the deeps to unleash a last fatal blow upon me.

  Instead I found myself eye to eye with a dying gray mullet gasping its last breath on the railing. The sea did appear to have retreated, leaving the stranded bodies of many sea creatures—fish, octopi, sea urchins—on the beach, but no avenging god stood ready to strike. Instead the air was now full of the shrieks and lamentations of the slaves in their quarters below. I turned to see what damage had been done by the tremor.

  All was chaos: amphorae and statuary toppled and broken, roof tiles scattered about, slave girls crying hysterically and older slavewomen on their knees praying before the lararium, through which a crack, a hand’s-breadth across, had opened, shattering the clay figures of the household gods. And amidst this chaos stood the goddess Night, impassive and regal. Of course, I thought, recalling my Hesiod: Chaos gave birth to Erebos and black Night. And standing before the statue of Night was another figure, so still in the midst of all the tumult that for a moment I thought that she was Night’s sister, Day. Then I realized it was Calatoria standing in front of the fountain, one arm held out, her hand cupped as if offering a libation to the goddess Night. Indeed some liquid dripped through Calatoria’s fingers, staining the still water of the fountain red. I stepped closer to see what she held in her hand and saw that a sickle of broken pottery was lodged in the palm of her hand. It was her own blood that dripped into the fountain.

  “Domina, you’re injured—”

  “Struck by the gods.” She turned to me with a ghastly smile on her face. “I was trying to gather the lares for safety when
the second tremor hit and it shattered in my hands. I believe the genii of my husband’s house are angry with me.”

  “Nonsense!” I said. “You yourself know how common tremors of the earth are in this region. Let us get your wound bandaged and then discuss where the safest place might be….” I faltered. As much as I wanted to reassure Calatoria I was not sure if the tremors were really over. She did not seem to notice my hesitation. Instead, she extracted the shard of broken pottery from her flesh without so much as a wince, then washed the cut in the water that remained in the fountain basin. She cupped a handful of water in her hands and brought it up to my nose.

  “Do you smell it?” she asked. I noticed then that the pupils of her eyes were unnaturally large. She had taken a drug—in preparation for the rites, I guessed. No wonder she spoke so strangely. To humor her, I sniffed the water. It did have an odd smell, familiar, like the fumes I had smelled wafting up from the cracked earth below the tripod that supported the Oracle of Delphi.

  “Sulfur,” I said.

  “Yes,” she agreed, nodding. “From Hades. The Queen of the Underworld approaches. We must be ready—” She turned from me and called to her slaves to make haste to clean up the debris. The house had to be readied for tonight’s ceremony. I was surprised that she intended to go through with the rites, but realized that there was no point in arguing with her in her current state. I resolved instead to go into the town to see what damage had been done to other buildings and what plans were being made to ensure the safety of the residents. Before I left, I stopped Calatoria to ask what had become of Iusta.

  “One of the other slaves saw her running toward town after the first tremor,” she said, sniffing distastefully. “She’s always running off to town for some reason or other. Perhaps she has a lover,” she added, with a mischievous glint in her eyes. “If you see her, please tell her she must come back right away. She must be prepared for tonight.”

  I told Calatoria I would give Iusta her message. I had an idea where she had gone.

  As I made my way along the seawall toward the Porta Marina I passed small groups of people discussing the earth tremors. Voices were high-pitched with fear, but I also heard laughter among them. The general tone was relief that the worst seemed to have passed without much damage. One old man said that this morning’s shaking was nothing compared to the convulsions that had occurred seventeen years ago. Another responded that smaller tremors had, at that time, preceded the larger convulsions and that one shouldn’t assume that all danger had passed. Precautions should be taken, but what precautions? As I passed from one group to another, I gathered that there was no consensus as to what course of action would best ensure safety. Where could one flee if the very earth was unstable? Better to stay at home and pay homage to one’s household gods than to take one’s chances on the open road.

  The sea, which had been calm and flat these last few days, was now rough and flecked with white foam. Turning my face away from the city, I saw why. At last a wind was blowing—from the northwest. The breeze felt mild enough on the sunny sea wall, but apparently it must be stronger on the open sea. The fishing boats on the water were encountering rough waves. No, after my last experience at sea I had rather take my chances on land.

  I turned my face back toward the town and my eyes traveled quite naturally up the steep slope of Mount Vesuvius, which loomed over it. The area around the summit was covered with a white substance. If it had been winter, or if this were Germania or Helvetia, I would have thought it was snow. Plumes of the stuff moved in the wind, sifting toward the southeast like a great rainstorm. Whatever it was, it was headed in the opposite direction from Herculaneum.

  Once inside the city gates, I found myself caught up in the human traffic that flowed toward the Forum, where larger groups had gathered. A priest of the Collegium of the Augustales was addressing the masses, ordering what sacrifices and prayers should be made to avert the wrath of the gods. I quickly passed by this group, dispirited by the rather lackluster approach to calamity. Although I have no objection to the deification of the emperors, I often find the religious practices surrounding their worship rather colorless. I could sense in the mood of the crowd a certain tension that was not dispelled by the priest’s assurances. What was needed was a dramatic flourish: a blood sacrifice—animal, if not human—and a little magic. I passed out of the Forum in search of Iusta, hoping that I could retrace my steps to the house where I had found her before.

  I was not at all sure that I could find my way. Here, in the poorer section of town, the streets were more chaotic. More damage had been done to cheaper edifices. Rubble blocked the narrow alleys and the smell of smoke and incense hung in the air, as well as the smell of blood as the inhabitants killed animals to appease the gods. There was chanting amidst the crying of children and the lamentations of women. I stopped outside one house to listen to voices raised in song. Looking up, I saw carved above the lintel waves, a mother and child, and a boat—signs, Iusta had told me, that her religion held sacred because their leader was a fisherman and his birth had been a miracle. The singing was coming from inside the house.

  In the garden, I found Iusta, who in only a few hours would play Persephone to my Hades. She was seated in a circle of men and women singing a prayer. A silence descended on the group when they heard me enter. Since Nero punished the Christians for setting Rome on fire some fifteen years ago, the sect had been driven underground, which was why, of course, Iusta had made me promise not to reveal her affiliation with it to her mistress. Her compatriots, though, might not know that I had agreed to keep her secret. As they looked up at me I sensed distrust. What I did not sense, surprisingly, was fear. Unlike the rest of the townspeople I had passed on my way here, this fellowship appeared calm. I couldn’t help wondering if their faith gave them this peace, or if perhaps they were too simple to appreciate the danger.

  “Your mistress sent me to bring you back to the villa,” I said, addressing Iusta, ignoring the glances of the other members of the group. One of them, a young man with dark curly hair who wore the iron neck ring of a slave, was glaring at me most rudely.

  “She’s not her mistress,” he began, but Iusta silenced him with a look.

  “It’s all right, Tiro. After tonight, I’ll be free.”

  “But at what price?” Tiro asked. “Is this the man who has the temerity to play a god?”

  “Enough, Tiro!” Iusta spoke sharply to the youth and he blushed. She laid a hand on his arm and whispered something in his ear. Then she got up and came quickly to my side. “Let’s go,” she said, steering me away from the angry young man. “The smell of sulfur and fear have no doubt made Calatoria more eager than ever to proceed with the rites. We might as well get them over with.”

  We made our way through the town, which had grown quieter now that the time of the siesta had come. It must be near the seventh hour. I had been gone longer than I’d thought. Calatoria would be anxious. I hurried us through the Porta Marina, but just as we were coming out onto the seawall, we heard a loud explosion and the ground jolted beneath us. I grabbed Iusta’s arm just as a crack opened up in the stone beneath our feet and pulled her to safety—or at least the closest I could find to safety. As we crouched in the shadow of the seawall, I saw that the great stones were rolling like dice thrown by the hand of a giant. I felt fine dust and small pieces of rubble sifting down on our heads, and when I looked up, expecting to see the wall above us toppling over, I saw instead that the dust and rubble were falling from the sky: a gray rain that had dimmed the sun. I looked back toward the town, expecting to see the buildings reduced to rubble, but the town was intact. What had changed was the mountain behind it. At first, I wasn’t sure what I was looking at. The summit of the mountain, which had appeared snow-capped earlier, was gone. In its place was a silver crown—a great plume that rose above the peak like the trunk of a tree and then swelled like the branches of an umbrella pine, only this tree was made of clouds and stood taller than any tree I had ev
er seen.

  I put my hand out to feel the patter of dry rain and it quickly filled with ash and small porous rocks that were warm to the touch.

  “What is that?” Iusta asked.

  I looked down at her. There was a streak of gray ash across her right cheekbone and one on her shoulder where her dress had torn. Her face looked white in the dim gray light and different somehow—younger, more open. It was the first time I had seen her really frightened and I realized then that what I had thought was fear on the first night she came to me had been an act. This is what she looked like when she was really afraid.

  I wasn’t sure what was happening. I had never seen anything like it. But I didn’t want to admit my ignorance to this frightened girl.

  “It appears to be a cloud of ash,” I replied, “disgorged from a fire burning inside the mountain. I believe Strabo recounts something like it in Sicily…. Luckily the wind is blowing most of it away from us. Come, when your mistress sees this she will surely decide to abandon the rites and seek a refuge farther away from the mountain.” I looked back at the top of Vesuvius and saw that the cloud was spreading a pall of black over the eastern side of the bay. I could no longer make out the towns of Pompeii or Stabiae or Surrentum. “We should head west along the coast road to Neapolis, perhaps farther to Puteoli or Cumae. Don’t worry,” I said, putting my arm around her. “As long as the wind continues in this direction, we should have plenty of time to reach safety.”

  “And you would leave without recovering the scroll that was stolen from you?” she asked.

  “Yes, of course! Do you think I would risk all our lives for a mere book? No matter how ancient or rare?”

  She didn’t answer at first. I felt her dark eyes holding mine, looking for something in my face. We had no time to waste, though, so I turned us toward the villa and hurried her along, thinking as we went that there should be some way to convince Calatoria to admit she had stolen the scroll and get it back before we departed on the coast road to Neapolis. Maybe she had already retrieved it from its hiding place in preparation for our departure. I had meant what I said to Iusta—that I would choose our lives over an old book—but I hoped I wouldn’t have to make that choice. And when we got back to the villa, I found I didn’t. Calatoria had already made her choice.