A Day of Fire: A Novel of Pompeii (8 page)

“I am not worried,” Capella said, reaching down to her ankle and fingering one of the small charms that hung there. All the charms were the same. Sabinus thought each looked like an inverted drop of water from which a long straight bar extended downward, crossed by a shorter horizontal one. The color had returned to the girl’s cheeks. “I need never worry,” she touched the token again, “for Isis is my guide and salvation.”

He rolled his eyes, but he hoped that she did not notice.

AEMILIA

“WELL, my treasure, a buyer has come to relieve me of that infernal animal.” Father plants a kiss on the top of my head as I sit weaving. Although I cut him dead this morning, I cannot resist looking up and smiling. “Will you come to the stables with me while I transact my business? You might even find occasion to hide a little something while we are there.” He winks. The stool before Mother’s loom is empty. She is lying down with a headache, doubtless the lingering result of her overexcitement in the garden this morning. “But perhaps not this.” The hand that was behind Father emerges, and his fingers open to reveal an exquisite agate ring with shades of orange and russet rippling through it. “It reminded me of your hair.”

Looking at the jewel and at my immaculately and expensively dressed father, anyone might think he was a patrician from an ancient and preferred family rather than the grandson of a freedman. Then again, he always tells me that the state of his coffers gives his lineage away.
“Remember, my girl, some of the greatest wealth in Rome belongs to those who’ve had the nerve and industry to earn it.”

“I will come.” I take the ring, then kiss his hand. He beams.

“Hurry. We would not be rude and keep her waiting.”

Her?

A slender form in a dress of brilliant scarlet stands before the stall, attended by a slave. She has hair so blonde it is nearly white. She leans on the gate, eyes devouring the stallion inside, who tosses his head and paws the ground.

“Lady,” father bows, “it is an honor. This is my daughter, Lucia Aemilia Lepida.” The woman glances at me, but only for a moment before her eyes return to the horse.

“Diana of the Cornelii.” She reaches up to seize the stallion’s tossing nose. I notice that her palm is as callused as a groom’s although the name of the Cornelii is old and noble. I would be chastised roundly should I allow my hands to become so. “How did a wine merchant come to own a racing stallion?”

“A combination of desperation and bad luck, Lady. I had a debtor who could not pay me other than by relinquishing this brute. He is too high-strung to be of any use to me for business or pleasure. Never advance credit to a chariot faction director, Lady, even if the vast quantity of wine he orders is for his wedding.”

She gives a swift nod like a man. “Let’s see him move.”

The grooms lead the horse up and down in the dusty yard outside. Muscle bunches under his red hide like silk, and Diana of the Cornelii smiles broadly. “I like a chestnut,” she says to no one in particular, as she watches the motion of the flashing legs. A lock of hair escapes its combs. The name Diana suits her. She is a huntress, lovely and unkempt. Did she travel all this long way from Rome alone? If so, how did she manage such a thing?

The grooms bring the stallion to a halt, and she bends to run her hands over a foreleg. No ring on her left hand, I notice. I rotate the plain betrothal ring Sabinus placed on my finger, a ring I secretly take off at night. She must be at least a decade older than me. How has she escaped being some man’s property, just as this horse may shortly be hers? I envy her freedom.

“He’s a bit heavy, but he might anchor a team on the inside.” She peels the horse’s lips back to examine his teeth. He does his best to bite her, but she merely swats him on the nose. “What are you asking for him, Lucius Aemilius Lepidus?”

My father cannot be beaten at haggling when it comes to his business. He drives a hard price for an amphora of wine, and does it with a smile. But on this occasion, he is bested. I listen in astonishment as the woman in the red dress pushes him to half his asking price. To see a Lady of high birth conducting her own business! It is unbelievable.

“You have the better of me, Lady,” Father says ruefully, but he does not look unhappy. Doubtless he is just pleased to have the stallion off his hands and no longer terrifying our grooms.

I would have the better of you, Father
. Or if not precisely the better of him, better than I am offered now. My father raised me in his shadow. So much so that Mother chided him many times for treating me like the son he never had. Father hears and even seeks my opinions on everyday things, yet I was not asked for one on the man I will marry. And everything my father has built will pass over me to that man. Sabinus will someday possess the grapes ripening outside and the murals being made splendid again on the villa walls as certainly has he will possess me. The unfairness of that causes my eyes to prick.

“I leave for Rome in three days,” the stallion’s new mistress says. “May I collect him then?”

“Can I persuade you, gracious Lady, to wait one day more? We are in chaos here as my daughter marries on the very day you name.”

“Congratulations.” Her eyes rest on me, faintly pitying. But perhaps I only see pity because I feel it for myself. I wish the lady and I were friends, as close perhaps as I am to my friend Julilla, for then I could ask her advice. Not how to be a model Roman wife—I get enough lectures on that from Julilla and Mother—but on how to avoid being Sabinus’ wife, good, bad, or indifferent. “I won’t interrupt your wedding, Lucia Aemilia Lepida. I’ll come for the horse the day after.”

“Excellent.” Father offers another of his winning smiles. “Lady, will you come in and take some refreshment?”

“Thank you, but I have messages to send to Rome.” She gives the stallion’s neck a final rub as the grooms lead him back toward his stall. “I should tell the Reds faction director he has his next champion.”

“Well then, if you will excuse me, I have tradesmen and petitioners waiting, and artists who need pushing if we would not hold a wedding shrouded by drop cloths.” He bows, then shifts his glance to me. “Aemilia, you might check on your mother, but before you do, I believe you have business in the stables.” He gives me a knowing smile. As he turns away, Lady Diana looks at me curiously.

“What business do you have here? Do you ride?”

By way of answer, I draw my small crescent moon pendant—the virgin’s symbol—from my pouch and hold it up. The wood is rubbed smooth as stone from all the hours I have fingered it without even being aware I did so. How Mother scolded me for that fidget. “I do not ride, Lady. I hide.”

She understands at once. “You don’t wish to burn it before your wedding.”

Perhaps because she is a stranger, and strangely unlike any woman I have ever met, I have the courage to confess the truth. “I do not wish to be a bride so I will not do as a bride should do.”

She tugs a silver chain out from the red drape of her gown, and I see a crescent moon like mine but made from silver and worn just as smooth. So she fidgets, too. “I didn’t wish to trade this for a red veil, either.”

“I would be well content if the only thing red I wear upon my head is my hair. How did you avoid being wed?”

“I knew how to manage my father. He's far too absent-minded to plan dinner, much less my future—and I took full advantage.” She smiles. “The law gives our lives to our fathers to manage, but not all fathers take the trouble. My father stays wrapped in his own affairs, so I am free to breed horses and manage myself.”

“I know how to distinguish grapes with nearly the same skill as my own father,” I say proudly. “But I will never be a wine merchant, and the vineyard that stands outside this villa will one day belong to Gnaeus Helvius Sabinus, not to me. I fear, Lady, that I have not your knack for managing fathers.”

“Gnaeus Helvius Sabinus might prove easier to manage than your father. He may be glad of a wife who knows her grapes.”

Here is a thought. If I must have Sabinus, perhaps I can hold sway with him. For a moment my hopes rise. But they quickly sink again. If Sabinus looked at me as Faustus does, perhaps. I believe I could get Faustus to do anything for me. But I see no hungry lion in Sabinus. I turn my eyes to the little wooden moon in my hand and stroke it lovingly.

“So you intend to hide it here in the stables?” she says.

“Yes, though I will miss it sorely.”

She unloops the chain from her neck and drops her little silver moon into my hand. “Silver doesn’t burn. Keep this one.”

I look into her eyes, my own dimmed with tears. “Thank you Lady. And perhaps you could keep this for me?” I hold out my little wooden charm. “I know it would be safer with you than hidden in a stall.”

“What’s safe? I may get kicked in the head by my new horse. Your bridegroom might run off with a tavern maid. Maybe the gods will spare you marriage after all. They did me.” She closes her callused fingers around my charm. “But I’ll keep it for you. Though Diana herself knows I haven’t needed a virgin’s symbol for years.”

My jaw drops. She laughs and gives a kiss to each of my cheeks. “Until we meet again.”

I mean to meet Faustus after dark while the household slumbers. Such an encounter is perilous. Being found with Faustus alone would mean both our ruins. So I must be as careful as possible. I dare not creep out until my nurse is insensible. But she cannot seem to settle into a deep sleep. She moans and groans, tosses and turns, and keeps calling out my name, putting my nerves on edge—so much so that I light a lamp, as if I were a child. At some point, I hear footsteps outside my door, and swear I hear a low voice say my name, once, twice, three times. I know it is Faustus, and the silence that follows tells me he has gone to his rest and there will be no precious time alone. No kisses. No hands exploring the curves of my body through my tunic. I drift to sleep weeping in frustration.

And I have a horrible dream. A dream of being kissed—by Sabinus! Just over Sabinus’ shoulder I can see Faustus, his face contorted in revulsion and anger.

I wake shaking and reaching for Lady Diana’s moon at my throat because I cannot draw breath. That is when I recognize it is not I, but the room, that shakes. My lamp lies on the floor broken. A rivulet of burning oil runs across the mosaic tiles like a river of fire, causing a good deal of smoke. Frantically I spring from my bed snatching a cover to smother the flames. I hear a ping as the betrothal ring I’d tucked beneath my pillow falls to the floor and rolls. I pay no mind, eager to address the fire, but another tremor sends me sprawling. Again I cannot breathe and clutch my throat. My nurse sits up, her eyes wild, and screams. An instant later a figure dashes into my room—a male figure. He beats at the flames with the coverlet I dropped as I fell, and stamps them too.
Faustus! Not gone to bed. Waiting in the peristyle beyond, hoping against hope that I might still come to him.

Another man runs into the room. This one with a lamp in hand. It is my father. Here is a catastrophe greater than fire. What will he think to see Faustus here? I must explain, and quickly. But Father holds up his lamp before I can marshal my words, and his face registers surprise. “Sabinus?”

I am struck dumb.

“It is not what you think,” my betrothed says quickly. “I was sitting in the garden, looking at the stars when I heard screaming.”

“The stars, eh?” The corners of father’s eyes crinkle merrily. “Yes, that will do. Fortunate thing we have a wedding in three days.”

My father’s intimation and the affable way in which he makes it summons heat to my cheeks. I must look away from his amused face, although I know I have done nothing wrong.

Sabinus glances in my direction, registering my mortification. To his credit, he looks equally aghast. And in that moment the warmth I feel shifts from embarrassment to gratitude.

“Lepidus, I am in earnest.” Sabinus appeals to my nurse. “You were here with your mistress, you can vouchsafe she was alone.”

My poor old slave, doubtless addled to be awakened in such a manner and still terrified, looks between the two men. “I was here. And all the gods help us there was a fire.”

“Fire,” Sabinus echoes the word. “A river of it no less.” Running a hand through his hair, he seems to have forgotten the rest of us. “No, it cannot be.” He looks utterly, utterly miserable.

I find my voice. “It is just a broken lamp.” I feel an urge to comfort him, perhaps because he defended my honor. “I left it burning when I fell asleep. I am sorry. It was careless of me.”

My nurse squats down and begins to gather the broken shards. For an instant, Sabinus stoops beside her, then rising he says, “Why will no one listen?” His voice is distraught. “Why will no one see? Well, not
no one
, but no one in a position to do anything useful.”

“Sabinus, my friend”—Father lays a hand on my betrothed’s shoulder—“next time we drink, I mean to send you home a few cups short of what we had tonight. You are not a funny drunk.”

Sabinus draws himself up, squaring his shoulders. “Lepidus, I am not drunk and there is nothing humorous in this situation. You think I would defile your daughter—”

Father holds up a hand. “Pish! Enough. I believe you—”