“Naw, there’s time. We can just hop the train and be there in about two hours,” Sam put in, looking over a brochure full of tourist information as he stood by the window basking in the early afternoon sun.
“I’m not going to Pompeii,” I stated unequivocally as I sat curled in a chair my arms around my knees.
“Oh.” Maggie looked across the room at Sam uncertainly. “Okay, we don’t have to go. Besides Sam got those tickets to the concert this evening for us. I’d forgotten until just now.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, knowing I’d been a little too abrupt. “You guys go. I’ll just hang here.” I could not bring myself to tell them about Pompeii right then and certainly could not bring myself to go there. Mount Vesuvius erupted in 79 C.E. when Titus was emperor of Rome, and I would never willingly go close to that mountain again.
* * * *
79 CE
“Diana, where are you?” Magda called to me as she entered the villa.
“Here!” I called from inside an alcove in the main room. I was painting a fresco on the wall. It was of Alexander and me standing together looking out into the room. I came out to greet her with a smile, wiping my hands and brush on a cloth already filthy from days of cleaning paint off brushes and knowing that there must be at least one streak of red down my cheek.
“I brought you wine and dried fruit from the market. All the fresh produce looked too limp to be edible.” She placed a basket down on the long stone table located to the right of the main door.
The villa contained two large main hallways—one that ran east and west on the North side of the building and one running north and south at the east end of the North hall forming a ninety-degree angle where they met. The main room branched off to the south from the North hall, and the bedrooms lay further to the east of the East hall.
“Any news from the marketplace today?” I asked, walking to stand near the door to the courtyard. It contained flowers and fruit trees surrounded by cement benches and was formed between the main room over to the East hall. Every room contained large windows with wooden shutters, some that also doubled as the doorways to the exterior. I lifted my face to the breeze that wafted through the long white linen curtains on either side of the opening.
“Well, people are nervous because there seem to be more earthquakes lately. They say the gods are displeased by the Christian God.”
“Yes, Mount Vesuvius has become quite tetchy just lately. Rather than gods, he reminds me of old Tellus always grousing about this or that,” I said with a smile.
“Speaking of Tellus, since his joints have been aching, I also brought him some wine and fruit. Do you know he pinched my backside as I was trying to leave?!” She asked indignantly.
“I am so happy that I am not the only one!” I laughingly responded.
“Yes, well I am sure I have a great ugly bruise.” As she turned to show me her rear, there was a strong earthquake. We stumbled our way out of the room to the courtyard, finally lying on the ground until it was over. Then we lay there waiting to see if there would be an aftershock.
“Diana!” I heard Alexander call to me urgently.
“We are here in the courtyard!” I answered. He rushed out to help and ended by just pulling us both to our feet with a hand on each of our arms and then helping to brush me off while looking for injuries. He chuckled as he reached my face and then gently tried to wipe away the paint. I blushed knowing that I was more than likely a mess, as usual when I painted, and wondered again why he bothered with me. He could have almost any woman. They would stare as he passed by and then turn to each other and giggle, looking back at him to invite with their eyes. Yet he ignored them all, looking only at me.
“I am fine,” I reassured him grinning and batting at his hand. “Magda brought wine. I think we should all drink some now.” Magda looked like she was still a little shaky. He nodded and escorted us to the table inside with his arm still around me.
“There does not appear to be any damage,” he said, and I shook my head looking around as well.
“I thought you were going to Naples?” I asked him.
“I forgot my gift to Titus, the dagger. As I will see him in Rome after leaving Naples, I wish to take it with me.” With that he went into our bedroom to fetch it.
“Why is he giving Titus a gift?” Magda asked, raising an eyebrow curiously.
“He is hoping that Titus will not command him to take charge of another legion. He wants to stay home for a time,” I said, happily rubbing my extended belly. Alexander came back into the room carrying the knife and gestured for me to follow him out.
“I will be back as quickly as I can,” he said holding me close to his heart, as we stood by his huge horse, Maximus, black except for a single white blaze on his nose.
“No need to worry. Magda is here, and she will take care of me.” Even though saying that, I was a little nervous. I had seen forty summers, and it was rare for a woman to survive a pregnancy at that age. In fact, I knew of no one.
We had met two years previously when I was painting a mural depicting a scene of dolphins swimming in the ocean at the home of his good friend Pliny in Naples. Pliny had brought me to Alexander’s attention by teasing me. I was working on my birthday—the longest day of the year, and apparently taking the longest time!
He had watched me closely after being introduced as if expecting something. But I’d just smiled at him calmly and politely. Men were not usually interested in me as I usually had splotches of paint across my face, and I could not fathom that he would be either. But after that first meeting, he was never far from my side except when duty to the empire called.
“I feel anxious leaving you so close to your birthing time.” He gently stroked down the side of my face while looking at me. “Diana…”
“Yes?” I encouraged when he hesitated.
“With you I have found real happiness for the first time. I know that you do not realize what that truly means, and I do not know if you will remember, but I want you to know that we will go forward as you once suggested.”
“I suggested we go forward? To where?” He smiled, shaking his head and kissed me quickly before mounting Maximus.
“Do not worry your head about it. I will be back as quickly as I can, and while I am gone, you are to stay within the house. Magda can fetch anything you need.”
“Yes, general,” I answered with a grin, raising my arm in a soldier’s salute.
Alexander had been gone two days when Mount Vesuvius explosively erupted. There was an initial loud blast accompanied by a quake that threw us to the floor. Magda was in the center of the room, walking through, but I was near the table and painfully slammed into it before hitting the floor.
Only with assistance could I regain my feet. Then we went to the window facing the mountain, looking at the towering cloud that extended up into the sky as far as the eye could see. It seemed as if it could touch the very stars. Magda and I held each other’s hands. Backing away in horror from the window, a mighty twisting pain caught me around my abdomen, and I doubled over.
“Oh no,” I gasped, trying to catch my breath.
“Come, we need to put a solid wall between us and that,” she said while holding me up. I nodded in agreement, and we made our way to the North hall. We sat down on the floor with our backs to the wall still holding each other. Another pain caught at me, and with it a warm wetness spread below me on the floor.
“I am afraid, Magda.” I began to sob. As it was not time for the baby, something was terribly wrong—I had at least seven more weeks. Pain lanced through me, taking my breath. I struggled to remain calm.
We heard a rushing roar within minutes after the initial explosion, and Magda started having difficulty breathing as well. I placed my hands over my mouth in an attempt to stop the choking feeling of having no air. Then the heat started. With my head dizzy from lack of oxygen, I was bewildered, not able to imagine burning where there was no fire. The air seemed blazing hot,
and as I tried to inhale, my lungs seared with pain.
Then the skin on my arms began to blister. Hangings further down the hall burst into flame and turned into ash almost as quickly…just gone. I slowly rolled sideways down the wall as another twisting pain struck and blood gushed from between my legs. Then there was only the floor as fiery darkness closed in.
* * * *
The Present
In one of my history classes, I had seen plaster casts of the people from Pompeii. They had been buried in ash and pumice as they lay and their positions had been preserved. The entire town had been buried in places up to twenty feet deep and had been forgotten for almost 1700 years. Then in 1749 it was rediscovered and excavations began. One picture depicted what was called the “Garden of the Fugitives” with a row of people lying curled up along a wall.
There was also a picture in my book of a remarkably well-preserved fresco of a couple in one of the villas. I knew the man in the portrait—it was Alexander. He hadn’t been smiling but he looked…content. And I knew that I must be the woman. The idea took root that if I went to Pompeii, I might see myself lying next to Magda, our bodies forever preserved in the rictus of death. I could not bear to look at those poor people who’d had no hope of survival.
While Sam and Maggie went out to explore, I stretched out on the sofa, clicked on the TV and settled back for a short, relaxing nap as the news aired.
* * * *
278 BCE
The mountaintop sent smoke lazily up into the air to be witnessed in the distance only by those who happened to glance that way. There had been no noise, no quake, no explosion. The world would not see Mount Vesuvius explode so memorably for another 357 years, and Alexander the Great had left the world a mere 45 years before.
“Hello, Diana.” One of Pyrrhus’ handsome soldiers stood next to me in the lane. With the arrival of the army, we had felt secure enough to travel out of the city walls to begin the harvest of olives. I had been delayed due to my mother’s illness, so the others had gone on ahead leaving me to catch up. I worried that she had pneumonia and planned to seek out fenugreek to boil to relieve her symptoms.
“I looked for you for years on the mainland before traveling to Macedon. And look what happens when I finally give up and come to Sicily to fight against Carthage—here you are,” he said with a grim smile.
“I am not sure what you mean,” I said looking at the stranger before me. “My name is Diana, it is true, but I have never been to the mainland, and I do not think that I know you.” My heart fluttered fearfully looking at the menacing man before me.
“You do not expect me to believe that you do not recognize me, do you?” he asked incredulously. I tried to take a step away from him, but he gripped my arm painfully.
“Truly, sir, I do not know you. I think you have made a mistake,” I said breathlessly trying to twist my arm from his squeezing hand—bruises no doubt ready to appear as soon as the pressure was released.
He pulled me close, looking intently into my fearful eyes that lacked any sign of recognition and slowly released me.
“You look so similar. I guess it is my mistake,” he said slowly. “Forgive me and let me help you to the fields.” He picked up my fallen basket and gestured for me to lead the way.
* * * *
The Present
When I woke up sitting on the hotel sofa clutching at my arm, I realized that someone was knocking at the door. No one else was back apparently, so I got up and went to check it out—just out of habit, glancing out the peephole. Alex! Unbelievably he was standing calmly waiting for the door to open. Backing away, my entire body began trembling, and I clutched my arms around my middle while shaking my head. What could he possibly want? Well, I knew. It had to mean pain for me.
“Diana, I know you’re in there. The hotel personnel told me everyone else had gone out,” he said through the door. “Open up. I just want to talk to you.” Right.
“You left your sunglasses on the table at the café. I have them here for you,” he tried to entice. I didn’t move, just kept staring at the door in shock.
“Diana, I have done many things, but I have never lied to you. You know that,” he said through the closed door. “I only want to talk.” True, he does seem to follow through rather thoroughly with his promises, I thought.
“I’m not leaving,” he said knocking again. Slowly I approached the door and again looked through the peephole. He held up my sunglasses and waved them back and forth at the door.
“Why should I believe you?” I asked, leaning my head against the door near the crack of the jam.
“Diana, I want it to end. I won’t hurt you. I promise.”
“If you want it to end, then you just have to leave. I’ll not follow you, that I promise,” I said, still not opening the door.
After a moment of silence, he said, “Very well. I’ll leave your glasses here on the floor.” As I heard his steps walk away, I heaved a sigh and the tension drained out of me, hardly able to believe that he’d left.
A short while later, Helen was back at the hotel with news of the monks.
“For monks who take vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience they live well.” It was just the two of us as Sam and Maggie hadn’t returned yet and the guys had called to say they would be by tomorrow to go over the game plan and make final decisions on weapons. Sol wanted us to “practice.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“Well, they converted a large old villa that’s built into a hillside into a mission. It’s full of luxurious carpets, tapestries, and old antiques polished to a gleaming shine. I was there when many of them had sat down to dinner, and the food looked and smelled scrumptious. At any rate, since taking over the Domitilla Catacombs in 2009, they have received all profits and maintained all expenses for it ever since.”
“Hmm, maybe it was all donated furniture and food,” I said, and she shrugged.
“While I was there a bishop from the Vatican showed up.” She paused, looked at me closely, and added, “I didn’t meet him because I was in what they called the ‘greeting’ room, but I heard him addressed as Bishop Soratino.”
“Is it me or is that odd?” I asked her with my stomach a little unsettled at the thought of the bishop, and she nodded.
“I’ve learned there are very few true coincidences in life. So I thought it odd too. As I looked out into the hall, he disappeared through a door that concealed a set of stairs leading down to a lower level of the villa.”
After sitting in silence for a short while, she said with a smile, “We should get a good night’s sleep, Diana, as I have the feeling that tomorrow is going to be a long day with Sol. Good night.”
I wished her a goodnight as well and headed to my room. My nap earlier had left me exhausted rather than rested, and I wanted nothing more than to get some true sleep. But I was also nervous, so left the lights on when crawling into bed—not that I expected it to do any good.
10 Path to Humanity
249 BCE
It was a glorious day to be on the island of Sicily. There were still 328 years until Mount Vesuvius would violently erupt, so no such fear existed for the population so near to the Italian states. The only fear was the fighting between Carthage and Rome. Who would ultimately win control of the island?
Some said only a general such as Alexander the Great, gone now these 74 years, had the strategic skills necessary to win the coming battles. Even so, Rome had sent more men, and the legion was marching past on their way to besiege Lilybaeum on the coast. I gasped at the sight of one particular soldier—it was Alexander!
Near the roadway, a large crowd had gathered to cheer them, throwing flower petals for them to tread on as they went by. He was near the front edge of the men, and though he was some distance away, he seemed to sense my presence. In a flash his black eyes met my startled gaze. For one, single second, I thought he was not going to come for me. Then hope fled as he leaped into the crowd. Turning, I ran madly, pushin
g people out of the way in my desperation.
Gaining a side street, I ducked between the buildings and found an empty barrel awaiting rain. I clambered in and pulled the top closed. Then it was waiting, barely breathing. I heard when his sandaled feet skidded to a halt at the entrance to the alley. He was seeing a dead end full of stacked crates and barrels. Did she go in? I pictured him wondering. Slow step by slow step he approached nearer my hiding place. Did he know? As the lid was removed, I looked up in despair to see him smiling at me.
“Well, well, well. Diana. You like barrels? I have just the one for you,” he said as he hauled me out by my hair, my hands clutching at his arms.
“No! Please, Alexander, hasn’t enough time gone by? I swear to you that I will never come for you.” He laughed raucously at the thought of me actually killing him.
“I promised you when Heph died that you would pay, Diana. I swear to you that this one’s going to hurt,” he assured me. He dragged me to the outskirts of town where some of the legionnaires camped and ordered one to get ‘the barrel.’
“Let me tell you of the barrel so that you can anticipate its arrival,” he said. “Last year Marcus Atilius Regulus was offered a reprieve from Carthage and given a chance to go to Rome. His mission was to negotiate a peace or even an exchange of prisoners. Instead, he urged the Roman Senate to refuse and continue fighting.
“For his trouble, when he honored his word and returned to his enemies, he was executed by being placed inside a barrel with spikes facing inward, which then was rolled down a hill,” he paused looking at me to see if I understood what was about to happen. I had a sick sinking feeling that I did.
“The barrel was delivered to the Senate, and I have brought it with me to use against the Carthaginians.” It seemed only minutes before the barrel was sitting before us. It was almost a typical rain barrel, black with age, or I supposed blood, narrower at the top and fat in the middle. I could see the ends of the spikes where they had been driven through the barrel so that the points were indeed facing inward.
He simply picked me up and placed me within the barrel. As my feet entered first, I tried to keep them together, but even so, my leg was slashed open from ankle to knee on one of the spike tips. Blood began running downward to pool on the bottom of the barrel.