Pompeii

  The slave waited for him. His blank eyes, endlessly searching for what he could not see, gave him a look of constant unease. ‘Don’t worry, aquarius. It happens all the time this summer. Five times, ten times, even, in the past two days. The ground is complaining of the heat!’

  He offered his hand but Attilius ignored it – he found it demeaning, the blind man reassuring the sighted – and mounted the high pavement unaided. He said irritably, ‘Where’s this bloody house?’ and Tiro gestured vaguely to a doorway across the street, a little way down.

  It did not look much. The usual blank walls. A bakery on one side, with a queue of customers waiting to enter a confectionery shop. A stink of urine from the laundry opposite, with pots left on the pavement for passers-by to piss in (nothing cleaned clothes as well as human piss). Next to the laundry, a theatre. Above the big door of the house was another of the ubiquitous, red-painted slogans: ‘HIS NEIGHBOURS URGE THE ELECTION OF LUCIUS POPIDIUS AS AEDILE. HE WILL PROVE WORTHY.’ Attilius would never have found the place on his own.

  ‘Aquarius, may I ask you something?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Where is Exomnius?’

  ‘Nobody knows, Tiro. He’s vanished.’

  The slave absorbed this, nodding slowly. ‘Exomnius was like you. He could not get used to the shaking, either. He said it reminded him of the time before the big earthquake, many years ago. The year I was born.’

  He seemed to be on the edge of tears. Attilius put a hand on his shoulder and studied him intently. ‘Exomnius was in Pompeii recently?’

  ‘Of course. He lived here.’

  Attilius tightened his grip. ‘He lived here? In Pompeii?’

  He felt bewildered and yet he also grasped immediately that it must be true. It explained why Exomnius’s quarters at Misenum had been so devoid of personal possessions, why Corax had not wanted him to come here, and why the overseer had behaved so strangely in Pompeii – all that looking around, searching the crowds for a familiar face.

  ‘He had rooms at Africanus’s place,’ said Tiro. ‘He was not here all the time. But often.’

  ‘And how long ago did you speak to him?’

  ‘I can’t remember.’ The youth really was beginning to seem frightened now. He turned his head as though trying to look at Attilius’s hand on his shoulder. The engineer quickly released him and patted his arm reassuringly.

  ‘Try to remember, Tiro. It could be important.’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘After the Festival of Neptune or before?’ Neptunalia was on the twenty-third day of July: the most sacred date in the calendar for the men of the aqueducts.

  ‘After. Definitely. Perhaps two weeks ago.’

  ‘Two weeks? Then you must have been one of the last to talk to him. And he was worried about the tremors?’ Tiro nodded again. ‘And Ampliatus? He was a great friend of Ampliatus, was he not? Were they often together?’

  The slave gestured to his eyes. ‘I cannot see –’

  No, thought Attilius, but I bet you heard them: not much escapes those ears of yours. He glanced across the street at the house of Popidius. ‘All right, Tiro. You can go back to the castellum. Do your day’s work. I’m grateful for your help.’

  ‘Thank you, aquarius.’ Tiro gave a little bow and took Attilius’s hand and kissed it. Then he turned and began climbing back up the hill towards the Vesuvius Gate, dancing from side to side through the holiday crowd.

  Hora Quinta

  [11:07 hours]

  ‘Injections of new magma can also trigger eruptions by upsetting the thermal, chemical, or mechanical equilibrium of older magma in a shallow reservoir. New magmas coming from deeper, hotter sources can suddenly raise the temperature of the cooler resident magma causing it to convect and vesiculate.’

  Volcanology (second edition)

  The house had a double door – heavy-studded, bronze-hinged, firmly closed. Attilius hammered on it a couple of times with his fist. The noise he made seemed too feeble to be heard above the racket of the street. But almost at once it opened slightly and the porter appeared – a Nubian, immensely tall and broad in a sleeveless crimson tunic. His thick black arms and neck, as solid as tree trunks, glistened with oil, like some polished African hardwood.

  Attilius said lightly, ‘A keeper worthy of his gate, I see.’

  The porter did not smile. ‘State your business.’

  ‘Marcus Attilius, aquarius of the Aqua Augusta, wishes to present his compliments to Lucius Popidius Secundus.’

  ‘It’s a public holiday. He’s not at home.’

  Attilius put his foot against the door. ‘He is now.’ He opened his bag, and pulled out the admiral’s letter. ‘Do you see this seal? Give it to him. Tell him it’s from the commander-in-chief at Misenum. Tell him I need to see him on the Emperor’s business.’

  The porter looked down at Attilius’s foot. If he had slammed the door he would have snapped it like a twig. A man’s voice behind him cut in: ‘The Emperor’s business, did he just say, Massavo? You had better let him in.’ The Nubian hesitated – Massavo: that was the right name for him, thought Attilius – then stepped backwards, and the engineer slipped quickly through the opening. The door was closed and locked behind him; the sounds of the city were extinguished.

  The man who had spoken wore the same crimson uniform as the porter. He had a bunch of keys attached to his belt – the household steward, presumably. He took the letter and ran his thumb across the seal, checking to see if it was broken. Satisfied, he studied Attilius. ‘Lucius Popidius is entertaining guests for Vulcanalia. But I shall see that he receives it.’

  ‘No,’ said Attilius. ‘I shall give it to him myself. Immediately.’

  He held out his hand. The steward tapped the cylinder of papyrus against his teeth, trying to decide what to do. ‘Very well.’ He gave Attilius the letter. ‘Follow me.’

  He led the way down the narrow corridor of the vestibule towards a sunlit atrium, and for the first time Attilius began to appreciate the immensity of the old house. The narrow façade was an illusion. He could see beyond the shoulder of the steward straight through into the interior, a hundred and fifty feet or more, successive vistas of light and colour – the shaded passageway with its black and white mosaic floor; the dazzling brilliance of the atrium with its marble fountain; a tablinum for receiving visitors, guarded by two bronze busts; and then a colonnaded swimming pool, its pillars wrapped with vines. He could hear finches chirruping in an aviary somewhere, and women’s voices, laughing.

  They came into the atrium and the steward said, brusquely, ‘Wait here,’ before disappearing to the left, behind a curtain that screened a narrow passageway. Attilius glanced around. Here was money, old money, used to buy absolute privacy in the middle of the busy town. The sun was almost directly overhead, shining through the square aperture in the atrium’s roof, and the air was warm and sweet with the scent of roses. From this position he could see most of the swimming pool. Elaborate bronze statues decorated the steps at the nearest end – a wild boar, a lion, a snake rising from its coils, and Apollo playing the cithara. At the far end, four women reclined on couches, fanning themselves, each with her own maid standing behind her. They noticed Attilius staring and there was a little flutter of laughter from behind their fans. He felt himself redden with embarrassment and he quickly turned his back on them, just as the curtain parted and the steward reappeared, beckoning.

  Attilius knew at once, by the humidity and by the smell of oil, that he was being shown into the house’s private baths. And of course, he thought, it was bound to have its own suite, for with money such as this, why mix with the common herd? The steward took him into the changing room and told him to remove his shoes then they went back out into the passageway and into the tepidarium, where an immensely fat old man lay face down, naked, on a table, being worked on by a young masseur. His white buttocks vibrated as the masseur made chopping motions up and down his spine. He turned his head slightly as Attilius pass
ed by, regarded him with a single, bloodshot grey eye, then closed it again.

  The steward slid open a door, releasing a billow of fragrant vapour from the dim interior, then stood aside to let the engineer pass through.

  It was hard at first to see very much in the caldarium. The only light came from a couple of torches mounted on the wall and from the glowing coals of a brazier, the source of the steam which filled the room. Gradually Attilius made out a large sunken bath with three dark heads of hair, seemingly disembodied, floating in the greyness. There was a ripple of water as one of the heads moved and a splash as a hand was raised and gently waved.

  ‘Over here, aquarius,’ said a languid voice. ‘You have a message for me, I believe, from the Emperor? I don’t know these Flavians. Descended from a tax-collector, I believe. But Nero was a great friend of mine.’

  Another head was stirring. ‘Fetch us a torch!’ it commanded. ‘Let us at least see who disturbs us on a feast day.’

  A slave in the corner of the room, who Attilius had not noticed, took down one of the torches from the wall and held it close to the engineer’s face so that he could be inspected. All three heads were now turned towards him. Attilius could feel the pores of his skin opening, the sweat running freely down his body. The mosaic floor was baking hot beneath his bare feet – a hypocaust, he realised. Luxury was certainly piled upon luxury in the house of the Popidii. He wondered if Ampliatus, in the days when he was a slave here, had ever been made to sweat over the furnace in mid-summer.

  The heat of the torch on his cheek was unbearable. ‘This is no place to conduct the Emperor’s business,’ he said and pushed the slave’s arm away. ‘To whom am I speaking?’

  ‘He’s certainly a rude enough fellow,’ declared the third head.

  ‘I am Lucius Popidius,’ said the languid voice, ‘and these gentlemen are Gaius Cuspius and Marcus Holconius. And our esteemed friend in the tepidarium is Quintus Brittius. Now do you know who we are?’

  ‘You’re the four elected magistrates of Pompeii.’

  ‘Correct,’ said Popidius. ‘And this is our town, aquarius, so guard your tongue.’

  Attilius knew how the system worked. As aediles, Popidius and Cuspius would hand out the licences for all the businesses, from the brothels to the baths; they were responsible for keeping the streets clean, the water flowing, the temples open. Holconius and Brittius were the duoviri – the commission of two men – who presided over the court in the basilica and dispensed the Emperor’s justice: a flogging here, a crucifixion there, and no doubt a fine to fill the city’s coffers whenever possible. He would not be able to accomplish much without them so he forced himself to stand quietly, waiting for them to speak. Time, he thought: I am losing so much time.

  ‘Well,’ said Popidius after a while. ‘I suppose I have cooked for long enough.’ He sighed and stood, a ghostly figure in the steam, and held out his hand for a towel. The slave replaced the torch in its holder, knelt before his master and wrapped a cloth around his waist. ‘All right. Where’s this letter?’ He took it and padded into the adjoining room. Attilius followed.

  Brittius was on his back and the young slave had obviously been giving him more than a massage for his penis was red and engorged and pointing hard against the fat slope of his belly. The old man batted away the slave’s hands, and reached for a towel. His face was scarlet. He scowled at Attilius. ‘Who’s this then, Popi?’

  ‘The new aquarius of the Augusta. Exomnius’s replacement. He’s come from Misenum.’ Popidius broke open the seal and unrolled the letter. He was in his early forties, delicately handsome. The dark hair slicked back over his small ears emphasised his aquiline profile as he bent forwards to read; the skin of his body was white, smooth, hairless. He has had it plucked, thought Attilius with disgust.

  The others were now coming in from the caldarium, curious to find out what was happening, slopping water over the black and white floor. Around the walls ran a fresco of a garden, enclosed inside a wooden fence. In an alcove, on a pedestal carved to resemble a water nymph, stood a circular marble basin.

  Brittius propped himself up on his elbow. ‘Read it out, Popi. What’s it say?’

  A frown creased Popidius’s smooth skin. ‘It’s from Pliny. “In the name of the Emperor Titus Caesar Vespasianus Augustus, and in accordance with the power vested in me by the Senate and People of Rome –”’

  ‘Skip the blather!’ said Brittius. ‘Get to the meat of it.’ He rubbed his thumb and middle finger together, counting money. ‘What’s he after?’

  ‘It seems the aqueduct has failed somewhere near Vesuvius. All the towns from Nola westwards are dry. He says he wants us – “orders” us, he says – to “provide immediately sufficient men and materials from the colony of Pompeii to effect repairs to the Aqua Augusta, under the command of Marcus Attilius Primus, engineer, of the Department of the Curator Aquarum, Rome”.’

  ‘Does he indeed? And who foots the bill, might I ask?’

  ‘He doesn’t say.’

  Attilius cut in: ‘Money is not an issue. I can assure your honours that the Curator Aquarum will reimburse any costs.’

  ‘Really? You have the authority to make that promise, do you?’

  Attilius hesitated. ‘You have my word.’

  ‘Your word? Your word won’t put gold back in our treasury once it’s gone.’

  ‘And look at this,’ said one of the other men. He was in his middle-twenties, well-muscled, but with a small head: Attilius guessed he must be the second junior magistrate, the aedile, Cuspius. He turned the tap above the circular basin and water gushed out. ‘There’s no drought here – d’you see? So I say this: what’s it to do with us? You want men and materials? Go to one of these towns that has no water. Go to Nola. We’re swimming in it! Look!’ And to make his point he opened the tap wider and left it running.

  ‘Besides,’ said Brittius craftily, ‘it’s good for business. Anybody on the bay who wants a bath, or a drink for that matter – he has to come to Pompeii. And on a public holiday, too. What do you say, Holconius?’

  The oldest magistrate adjusted his towel around him like a toga. ‘It’s offensive to the priests to see men working on a holy day,’ he announced judiciously. ‘People should do as we are doing – they should gather with their friends and families to observe the religious rites. I vote we tell this young fellow, with all due respect to Admiral Pliny, to fuck off out of here.’

  Brittius roared with laughter, banging on the side of the table in approval. Popidius smiled and rolled up the papyrus. ‘I think you have our answer, aquarius. Why don’t you come back tomorrow and we’ll see what we can do?’

  He tried to hand the letter back but Attilius reached past him and firmly closed the tap. What a picture they looked, the three of them, dripping with water – his water – and Brittius, with his puny hard-on, now lost in the flabby folds of his lap. The sickly scented heat was unbearable. He wiped his face on the sleeve of his tunic.

  ‘Now listen to me, your honours. From midnight tonight, Pompeii will also lose her water. The whole supply is being diverted to Beneventum, so we can get inside the tunnel of the aqueduct to repair it. I’ve already sent my men into the mountains to close the sluices.’ There was a mutter of anger. He held up his hand. ‘Surely it’s in the interests of all citizens on the bay to co-operate?’ He looked at Cuspius. ‘Yes, all right – I could go to Nola for assistance. But at the cost of at least a day. And that’s an extra day you’ll be without water, as well as they.’

  ‘Yes, but with one difference,’ said Cuspius. ‘We’ll have some notice. How about this for an idea, Popidius? We could issue a proclamation, telling our citizens to fill every container they possess and in that way ours will still be the only town on the bay with a reserve of water.’

  ‘We could even sell it,’ said Brittius. ‘And the longer the drought goes on, the better the price we could get for it.’

  ‘It’s not yours to sell!’ Attilius was finding it hard to keep
his temper. ‘If you refuse to help me, I swear that the first thing I’ll do after the main line is repaired is to see to it that the spur to Pompeii is closed.’ He had no authority to issue such a threat, but he swept on anyway, jabbing his finger in Cuspius’s chest. ‘And I’ll send to Rome for a commissioner to come down and investigate the abuse of the imperial aqueduct. I’ll make you pay for every extra cupful you’ve taken beyond your proper share!’

  ‘Such insolence!’ shouted Brittius.

  ‘He touched me!’ said Cuspius, outraged. ‘You all saw that? This piece of scum actually laid his filthy hand on me!’ He stuck out his chin and stepped up close to Attilius, ready for a fight, and the engineer might have retaliated, which would have been disastrous – for him, for his mission – if the curtain had not been swished aside to reveal another man, who had obviously been standing in the passageway listening to their conversation.

  Attilius had only met him once, but he was not about to forget him in a hurry: Numerius Popidius Ampliatus.

  What most astonished Attilius, once he had recovered from the shock of seeing him again, was how much they all deferred to him. Even Brittius swung his plump legs over the side of the table and straightened his back, as if it was somehow disrespectful to be caught lying down in the presence of this former slave. Ampliatus put a restraining hand on Cuspius’s shoulder, whispered a few words in his ear, winked, tousled his hair, and all the while he kept his eyes on Attilius.

  The engineer remembered the bloody remains of the slave in the eel pool, the lacerated back of the slave-woman.

  ‘So what’s all this, gentlemen?’ Ampliatus suddenly grinned and pointed at Attilius. ‘Arguing in the baths? On a religious festival? That’s unseemly. Where were you all brought up?’