Pompeii

  He had little time to register much else, apart from this engulfing blueness, before they were off again, Corelia in front now, leading him down, past statues, fountains, watered lawns, across a mosaic floor inlaid with a design of sea creatures and out on to a terrace with a swimming pool, also blue, framed in marble, projecting towards the sea. An inflatable ball turned gently against the tiled surround, as if abandoned in mid-game. He was suddenly struck by how deserted the great house seemed and when Corelia gestured to the balustrade, and he laid his hands cautiously on the stone parapet and leaned over, he saw why. Most of the household was gathered along the seashore.

  It took a while for his mind to assemble all the elements of the scene. The setting was a fishery, as he had expected, but much bigger than he had imagined – and old, by the look of it, presumably built in the decadent last years of the Republic when keeping fish had first become the fashion – a series of concrete walls, extending out from the rocks, enclosing rectangular pools. Dead fish dappled the surface of one. Around the most distant, a group of men was staring at something in the water, an object which one of them was prodding with a boat-hook – Attilius had to shield his eyes to make them out – and as he studied them more closely he felt his stomach hollow. It reminded him of the moment of the kill at the amphitheatre – the stillness of it – the erotic complicity between crowd and victim.

  Behind him, the old woman started making a noise – a soft ululation of grief and despair. He took a step backwards and turned towards Corelia, shaking his head. He wanted to escape from this place. He longed to return to the decent, simple practicalities of his profession. There was nothing he could do here.

  But she was in his way, standing very close. ‘Please,’ she said. ‘Help her.’

  Her eyes were blue, bluer even than Sabina’s had been. They seemed to collect the blueness of the bay and fire it back at him. He hesitated, set his jaw, then turned and reluctantly looked out to sea again.

  He forced his gaze down from the horizon, deliberately skirting what was happening at the pool, let it travel back towards the shore, tried to appraise the whole thing with a professional eye. He saw wooden sluice-gates. Iron handles to raise them. Metal lattices over some of the ponds to keep the fish from escaping. Gangways. Pipes. Pipes.

  He paused, then swung round again to squint at the hillside. The rising and falling of the waves would wash through metal grilles, set into the concrete sides of the fish pools, beneath the surface, to prevent the pens becoming stagnant. That much he knew. But pipes – he cocked his head, beginning to understand – the pipes must carry fresh water down from the land, to mix with the sea water, to make it brackish. As in a lagoon. An artificial lagoon. The perfect conditions for rearing fish. And the most sensitive of fish to rear, a delicacy reserved only for the very rich, were red mullet.

  He said quietly, ‘Where does the aqueduct connect to the house?’

  Corelia shook her head. ‘I don’t know.’

  It would have to be big, he thought. A place this size –

  He knelt beside the swimming pool, scooped up a palmful of the warm water, tasted it, frowning, swilled it round in his mouth like a connoisseur of wine. It was clean, as far as he could judge. But then again, that might mean nothing. He tried to remember when he had last checked the outflow of the aqueduct. Not since the previous evening, before he went to bed.

  ‘At what time did the fish die?’

  Corelia glanced at the slave woman, but she was lost to their world. ‘I don’t know. Perhaps two hours ago?’

  Two hours!

  He vaulted over the balustrade on to the lower terrace beneath and started to stride towards the shore.

  Down at the water’s edge, the entertainment had not lived up to its promise. But then nowadays, what did? Ampliatus felt increasingly that he had reached some point – age, was it, or wealth? – when the arousal of anticipation was invariably more exquisite than the emptiness of relief. The voice of the victim cries out, the blood spurts and then – what? Just another death.

  The best part had been the beginning: the slow preparation, followed by the long period when the slave had merely floated, his face just above the surface – very quiet now, not wanting to attract any attention from what was beneath him, concentrating, treading water. Amusing. Even so, time had dragged in the heat, and Ampliatus had started to think that this whole business with eels was overrated and that Vedius Pollio was not quite as stylish as he had imagined. But no: you could always rely on the aristocracy! Just as he was preparing to abandon proceedings, the water had begun to twitch and then – plop! – the face had disappeared, like a fisherman’s plunging float, only to bob up again for an instant, wearing a look of comical surprise and then vanish altogether. That expression, in retrospect, had been the climax. After that, it had all become rather boring and uncomfortable to watch in the heat of the sinking afternoon sun.

  Ampliatus took off his straw hat, fanned his face, looked around at his son. Celsinus at first appeared to be staring straight ahead, but when you looked again you saw his eyes were closed, which was typical of the boy. He always seemed to be doing what you wanted. But then you realised he was only obeying mechanically, with his body: his attention was elsewhere. Ampliatus gave him a poke in the ribs with his finger and Celsinus’s eyes jerked open.

  What was in his mind? Some Eastern rubbish, presumably. He blamed himself. When the boy was six – this was twelve years ago – Ampliatus had built a temple in Pompeii, at his own expense, dedicated to the cult of Isis. As a former slave, he would not have been encouraged to build a temple to Jupiter, Best and Greatest, or to Mother Venus, or to any of the other most sacred guardian deities. But Isis was Egyptian, a goddess suitable for women, hairdressers, actors, perfume-makers and the like. He had presented the building in Celsinus’s name, with the aim of getting the boy on to Pompeii’s ruling council. And it had worked. What he had not anticipated was that Celsinus would take it seriously. But he did and that was what he would be brooding about now, no doubt – about Osiris, the Sun God, husband to Isis, who is slain each evening at sundown by his treacherous brother, Set, the bringer of darkness. And how all men, when they die, are judged by the Ruler of the Kingdom of the Dead, and if found worthy are granted eternal life, to rise again in the morning like Horus, heir of Osiris, the avenging new sun, bringer of light. Did Celsinus really believe all this girlish twaddle? Did he really think that this half-eaten slave, for example, might return from his death at sundown to wreak his revenge at dawn?

  Ampliatus was turning to ask him exactly that when he was distracted by a shout from behind him. There was a stir among the assembled slaves and Ampliatus shifted further round in his chair. A man whom he did not recognise was striding down the steps from the villa waving his arm above his head and calling out.

  The principles of engineering were simple, universal, impersonal – in Rome, in Gaul, in Campania – which was what Attilius liked about them. Even as he ran, he was envisaging what he could not see. The main line of the aqueduct would be up in that hill at the back of the villa, buried a yard beneath the surface, running on an axis north-to-south, from Baiae down to the Piscina Mirabilis. And whoever had owned the villa when the Aqua Augusta was built, more than a century ago, would almost certainly have run two spurs off it. One would disgorge into a big cistern to feed the house, the swimming pool, the garden fountains: if there was contamination on the matrix, it might take as long as a day for it to work through the system, depending on the size of the tank. But the other spur would channel a share of the Augusta’s water directly down to the fishery to wash through the various ponds: any problem with the aqueduct and the impact there would be immediate.

  Ahead of him, the tableau of the kill was beginning to assume an equally clear shape: the master of the household – Ampliatus, presumably – rising in astonishment from his chair, the spectators now with their backs turned to the pool, all eyes on him as he sprinted down the final flight of steps. He ran on
to the concrete ramp of the fishery, slowing as he approached Ampliatus but not stopping.

  ‘Pull him out!’ he said as he ran past him.

  Ampliatus, his thin face livid, shouted something at his back and Attilius turned, still running, trotting backwards now, holding up his palms: ‘Please. Just pull him out.’

  Ampliatus’s mouth gaped open, but then, still staring intently at Attilius, he slowly raised his hand – an enigmatic gesture, which nevertheless set off a chain of activity, as though everyone had been waiting for exactly such a signal. The steward of the household put two fingers to his mouth and whistled at the slave with the boat-hook, and made an upwards motion with his hand, at which the slave swung round and flung the end of his pole towards the surface of the eel pond, hooked something and began to drag it in.

  Attilius was almost at the pipes. Closer to, they were larger than they had looked from the terrace. Terracotta. A pair. More than a foot in diameter. They emerged from the slope, traversed the ramp together, parted company at the edge of the water, then ran in opposite directions along the side of the fishery. A crude inspection plate was set into each – a loose piece of pipe, two feet long, cut crossways – and as he reached them he could see that one had been disturbed and not replaced properly. A chisel lay nearby, as if whoever had been using it had been disturbed.

  Attilius knelt and jammed the tool into the gap, working it up and down until it had penetrated most of the way, then twisted it, so that the flat edge gave him enough space to fit his fingers underneath the cover, and lever it off. He lifted it away and pushed it over, not caring how heavily it fell. His face was directly over the running water and he smelt it at once. Released from the confined space of the pipe, it was strong enough to make him want to retch. An unmistakable smell of rottenness. Of rotten eggs.

  The breath of Hades.

  Sulphur.

  The slave was dead. That much was obvious, even from a distance. Attilius, crouching beside the open pipe, saw the remains hauled out of the eel pond and covered with a sack. He saw the audience disperse and begin traipsing back up to the villa, at the same time as the grey-haired slave woman threaded her way between them, heading in the opposite direction, down towards the sea. The others avoided looking at her, left a space around her, as if she had some virulent disease. As she reached the dead man she flung up her hands to the sky and began rocking silently from side to side. Ampliatus did not notice her. He was walking purposefully towards Attilius. Corelia was behind him and a young man who looked just like her – her brother, presumably – and a few others. A couple of the men had knives at their belts.

  The engineer returned his attention to the water. Was it his imagination or was the pressure slackening? The smell was certainly much less obvious now that the surface was open to the air. He plunged his hands into the flow, frowning, trying to gauge the strength of it, as it twisted and flexed beneath his fingers, like a muscle, like a living thing. Once, when he was a boy, he had seen an elephant killed at the Games – hunted down by archers and by spearmen dressed in leopard skins. But what he remembered chiefly was not the hunt but rather the way the elephant’s trainer, who had presumably accompanied the giant beast from Africa, had crouched at its ear as it lay dying in the dust, whispering to it. That was how he felt now. The aqueduct, the immense Aqua Augusta, seemed to be dying in his hands.

  A voice said, ‘You are on my property.’

  He looked up to find Ampliatus staring down at him. The villa’s owner was in his middle fifties. Short, but broad-shouldered and powerful. ‘My property,’ Ampliatus repeated.

  ‘Your property, yes. But the Emperor’s water.’ Attilius stood, wiping his hands on his tunic. The waste of so much precious liquid, in the middle of a drought, to pamper a rich man’s fish, made him angry. ‘You need to close the sluices to the aqueduct. There’s sulphur in the matrix and red mullet abominate all impurities. That –’ he emphasised the word ‘– is what killed your precious fish.’

  Ampliatus tilted his head back slightly, sniffing the insult. He had a fine, rather handsome face. His eyes were the same shade of blue as his daughter’s. ‘And you are who, exactly?’

  ‘Marcus Attilius. Aquarius of the Aqua Augusta.’

  ‘Attilius?’ The millionaire frowned. ‘What happened to Exomnius?’

  ‘I wish I knew.’

  ‘But surely Exomnius is still the aquarius?’

  ‘No. As I said, I am now the aquarius.’ The engineer was in no mood to pay his respects. Contemptible, stupid, cruel – on another occasion, perhaps, he would be delighted to pass on his compliments, but for now he did not have the time. ‘I must get back to Misenum. We have an emergency on the aqueduct.’

  ‘What sort of emergency? Is it an omen?’

  ‘You could say that.’

  He made to go, but Ampliatus moved swiftly to one side, blocking his way. ‘You insult me,’ he said. ‘On my property. In front of my family. And now you try to leave without offering any apology?’ He brought his face so close to Attilius’s that the engineer could see the sweat beading above his thinning hairline. He smelled sweetly of crocus oil, the most expensive unguent. ‘Who gave you permission to come here?’

  ‘If I have in any way offended you –’ began Attilius. But then he remembered the wretched bundle in its shroud of sacking and the apology choked in his throat. ‘Get out of my way.’

  He tried to push his way past, but Ampliatus grabbed his arm and someone drew a knife. Another instant, he realised – a single thrust – and it would all be over.

  ‘He came because of me, father. I invited him.’

  ‘What?’

  Ampliatus wheeled round on Corelia. What he might have done, whether he would have struck her, Attilius would never know, for at that instant a terrible screaming started. Advancing along the ramp came the greyheaded woman. She had smeared her face, her arms, her dress with her son’s blood and her hand was pointing straight ahead, the first and last of her bony brown fingers rigidly extended. She was shouting in a language Attilius did not understand. But then he did not need to: a curse is a curse in any tongue, and this one was directed straight at Ampliatus.

  He let go of Attilius’s arm and turned to face her, absorbing the full force of it, with an expression of indifference. And then, as the torrent of words began to slacken, he laughed. There was silence for a moment, then the others began to laugh as well. Attilius glanced at Corelia, who gave an almost imperceptible nod and gestured with her eyes to the villa – I shall be all right, she seemed to be saying, go – and that was the last that he saw or heard, as he turned his back on the scene and started mounting the path up to the house – two steps, three steps at a time – running on legs of lead, like a man escaping in a dream.

  Hora Duodecima

  [18:48 hours]

  ‘Immediately before an eruption, there may be a marked increase in the ratios S/C, SO2/CO2, S/Cl, as well as the total amount of HCl . . . . A marked increase in the proportions of mantle components is often a sign that magma has risen into a dormant volcano and that an eruption may be expected.’

  Volcanology (second edition)

  An aqueduct was a work of Man, but it obeyed the laws of Nature. The engineers might trap a spring and divert it from its intended course, but once it had begun to flow, it ran, ineluctable, remorseless, at an average speed of two and a half miles per hour, and Attilius was powerless to prevent it polluting Misenum’s water.

  He still carried one faint hope: that somehow the sulphur was confined to the Villa Hortensia; that the leak was in the pipework beneath the house; and that Ampliatus’s property was merely an isolated pocket of foulness on the beautiful curve of the bay.

  That hope lasted for as long as it took him to sprint down the hill to the Piscina Mirabilis, to roust Corax from the barracks where he was playing a game of bones with Musa and Becco, to explain what had happened, and to wait impatiently while the overseer unlocked the door to the reservoir – at which moment it evap
orated completely, wafted away by the same rank smell that he had detected in the pipe at the fishery.

  ‘Dog’s breath!’ Corax blew out his cheeks in disgust. ‘This must have been building up for hours.’

  ‘Two hours.’

  ‘Two hours?’ The overseer could not quite disguise his satisfaction. ‘When you had us up in the hills on your fool’s errand?’

  ‘And if we had been here? What difference could we have made?’

  Attilius descended a couple of the steps, the back of his hand pressed to his nose. The light was fading. Out of sight, beyond the pillars, he could hear the aqueduct disgorging into the reservoir, but with nothing like its normal percussive force. It was as he had suspected at the fishery: the pressure was dropping, fast.

  He called up to the Greek slave, Polites, who was waiting at the top of the steps, that he wanted a few things fetched – a torch, a plan of the aqueduct’s main line and one of the stoppered bottles from the storeroom, which they used for taking water samples. Polites trotted off obediently and Attilius peered into the gloom, glad that the overseer could not see his expression, for a man was his face; the face the man.

  ‘How long have you worked on the Augusta, Corax?’

  ‘Twenty years.’

  ‘Anything like this ever happened before?’