Curses and Smoke (22 page)

T
ag bent over the gladiator they’d pulled out of the collapsed latrine. With a rag, he cleared out the dust over the man’s nostrils, wiped out his mouth, turned him on his side, and pounded on his back, trying to clear his lungs. The man began to cough. At the same time, Tag checked his ribs and limbs. He seemed fine.

“Take him to open air,” he told the gladiators who had helped remove the rubble.

“Take him at once,” cried the little boy beside him. Castor had taken to shadowing Tag and echoing his orders. Any other time, he would have found that both charming and irritating. Now he barely paid attention. He only became aware of the boy when Castor grabbed his hand and held on tight as they were led to different parts of the compound by the cries of the injured. It appeared that very few were badly hurt, except the kitchen women. And his father.

His father.
I need a coin
, Tag realized. He should put a coin in his father’s mouth for Charun, the Etruscan demon who would ferry him across the river to Pluto’s realm. His father had kept a stash of coins behind one of the walls in the herb room, he remembered.

The room was still smoking, but he went in anyway. Castor stayed outside, biting his lip, too afraid to enter the charred room but clearly unhappy about having even that much separation from Tag.

Tag found the small leather pouch inside a burned terra-cotta jar. The money had miraculously survived. He took a coin out and then tied the small leather bag to his belt. It occurred to him then that there might be other useful things that escaped the blaze, including bandages, herbs, and potions. He dug around the rubble, rescuing what he could.

That’s when the world exploded.

At the unearthly boom, Castor ran to him and buried his face in his hip. Tag bent low, covering the boy’s head with his body, sure that the remaining walls were about to come crashing down around them. The roar that followed vibrated in his bones. Castor wouldn’t release him, so Tag picked him up and ran into the courtyard.

Where had the mountain gone?

The top of it seemed to have shot into the air in a flashing column of smoke and fire. It roared, rumbled, and spit like a gigantic, furious beast. Some of the slaves dropped to their knees, wailing that it was the end of the world. Others ran in terror, calling for those they loved. Tag could only stand and watch, awed by the force and horror of the display. Castor trembled in his arms.

After a while, the massive column slowed its ascent and began spreading like a thickening storm cloud. Tag remembered the coin for his father. He went over to Damocles, but Castor refused to budge when he tried to put him down. Tag sighed and bent with the boy to wedge the coin between his father’s cold lips. Castor put his small hand on Tag’s wrist as if to help him. After, he replaced the tattered cloak over Damocles’s head and said a silent prayer over his body.

“Is … is the world ending?” the boy finally managed between hiccups.

“I don’t know,” Tag said, and realized that had been the wrong answer when the boy’s trembling increased. “I mean, no, no. Of course not. It is … it looks like there is a fire inside the mountain,” he said, trying to sound bland and unconcerned. “That is all. Soon it will burn itself out.”

He remembered his discussions with Lucia about the “earth-born” fires in Phrygia. She had been unnaturally preoccupied with that passage of Strabo. Had some part of her sensed that Vesuvius was like that black mountain? He and everyone around her had told her it was impossible.

Lucia was gone. His father was dead. Tag had been sentenced to die. And now the mountain was turning itself inside out. He would just stay here by his father until the end. What was left for him anyway?

Castor still clung to him. He patted the child’s back. “We need to find your people,” he said.

The boy shook his head. “My auntie died in the kitchen.”

Right
. Tag groaned. “There are other women who have helped take care of you. We need to find them.”

“No, no, no. I stay with you.”

Tag closed his eyes wearily. When he opened them, he saw that the giant plume rocketing from the mountain had spread its ash-brown cloudy fingers wide across the sky. Day began turning into night as the strange mass blotted out the sun. People screamed. Newly lit torches hissed. Somewhere, a baby wailed.

With the darkening sky came the pinging of what sounded like hail on the villa’s terra-cotta roof shingles.
Hail?
Tag caught a handful in his palm. It stung but did not hurt, and it looked less like ice and more like tiny pieces of frothy, gray, pitted rock. Impossible. The sky did not rain rocks!

Castor began to cry again, so Tag ducked under the eaves of the courtyard. He caught sight of an abandoned water jar. The little rocks
floated
.

“What is happening?” the boy cried.

He had no answer.

Soon, larger black rocks began crashing onto the roof and ground. They came out of the sky with such force, it was as if Jupiter himself was hurling them. Somewhere nearby, a dog yelped. Minos!

“I’ve got to untie the dog,” Tag said. “You stay here. I’ll only be a minute.”

“No, no, no!” Castor cried, plastering himself even harder against Tag.

“Fine, but we’re going to feel the rocks.”

“I don’t care,” wailed the child.

Tag ran as fast as he could to where Minos was still chained up. The poor animal looked terrified and was panting heavily. “Good boy, good boy,” Tag murmured as he unchained him, crouching over Castor as he did so to shield the child from the rocks pelting his back. Minos bolted as soon as he was free.

“We have to leave! This place is cursed!” a woman cried.

“The stables,” someone yelled. “The master’s horses should get us to Puteoli!”

With the child still clinging to him, Tag rushed back under the porticus for coverage from the rock fall. Already, his feet sank to the ankle in the accumulation of lightweight stones. He dragged his father’s body under the eaves to protect it from the pelting rain of rock.

A group of slaves with torches saw him and the boy. “Come with us! We are going to the marina to escape by sea!” one of the men called out to him. “The roads out of the city are too crowded!”

“Can you take the boy with you?” he called back.

“No!” Castor cried.

Tag followed the bobbing lights of the group heading to the marina. Once there, he decided, he would hand the boy over and head back to keep vigil by his father’s body. And if the mountain wanted to take him, it could, but at least Castor would be safe. He felt a measure of peace at the thought.

The group entered the street and began moving along the cut-through to the marina almost in single file. Everyone’s arms but Tag’s were laden with possessions. Some carried pillows or cloaks over their heads for protection. As the rain of rocks increased, Tag hunched his shoulders and put his arms up, trying to keep the worst of the deluge off his and Castor’s heads. It did little good. His face was coated in ash, and he had to keep blinking to stop the strange powder in the air from burning his eyes. His lungs blazed as if they were being singed from the inside. Occasional bursts of sulfurous air — which he guessed came with the rain of rocks — made his stomach roil, and he fought against the hot bile that climbed up his throat.

He pushed on, wondering about Lucia. Where was she? Had she made it to Herculaneum? His chest clenched with a familiar ache at the thought of losing her forever. The earth and sky both seemed to reflect how he felt on the inside — black and bitter and hopeless.

A large rock bounced off a roof and tripped an elderly man in front of him. The woman with him fell to her knees beside him.

“I’m fine. I’m fine,” the man said, looking more embarrassed than hurt as Tag helped him up. “I’m fine.” The woman gave a half sob of relief as she clutched the man’s arm.

“Come, we must catch up,” Tag told the pair. “I can still see the torches.” But were the lights he saw those of their group? Many others had streamed into the streets carrying lamps and torches too. Either way, they were headed in the right direction, he figured.

“Thank you,” the woman said. She looked vaguely familiar, but he couldn’t tell exactly who she was in the darkness with her face covered with ash. “Here,” she continued, handing him a blanket. “Cover your head!”

He accepted the blanket. As soon as he threw it over himself and the boy, the scent of it almost made him lose his footing — lemons and flowers and woods.

The woman turned back to him. “Come,” she said. “We must keep moving.”

“This is Lucia’s,” he said hoarsely.

“Yes!” the woman said, sounding exasperated. “But no matter how much I begged, the young
domina
would not come with us!”

Tag blinked. “What do you mean, you begged …? You talked to her? She is
here
? In Pompeii?”

The woman pulled him by the elbow. “Yes, she returned for some reason. She would have been safer far away from this place. Foolish girl!”

Tag stopped. “I have to go back.”

Again the woman grabbed his arm. “No, you must come with us. It is certain death at the villa! Don’t you see the mountain falling on us?”

“You must take the boy,” he said. “Please.”

“Nooooo!” Castor cried.

“I’m going back,” he said to the child. “You’ll be safer on the boats with these people.”

“No, no! I want to stay with you!”

“I’m sorry,” he mumbled. “This is safer for you.” Roughly, he pried the boy off of his side and shoved him at the woman. The child thrashed and screamed. Gods, he hated the look of terror and betrayal the boy gave him. But he wasn’t abandoning him — he was putting him in the hands of people who could take care of him. He had to keep telling himself that.

“Keep him safe, please,” he yelled as they continued toward the marina. He was going back for Lucia.

S
he saw a body under the eaves covered by an ashen cloak, and the words of the laundress repeated in her head: “He died in the fire.”
It isn’t Tag, it can’t be Tag
, she chanted as she approached it, as if her fervent wishing could make it true.

The mountain roared in her ears — along with her thundering heart — as she lifted a corner and peeked. She sobbed in relief, releasing the cloth. It wasn’t Tag, but his father. She gulped acrid air until she could calm herself, and then prayed to Damocles’s shade for forgiveness for the insult of her reaction. He’d understand, she knew. She also prayed to him for help in finding his son.

But his father’s shade gave her no message, so she retraced her steps back through the house, stopping in every room and calling for him, just in case he’d been released to treat the injured. Not surprisingly, most of the rooms were empty. As she passed a hallway, though, a slave popped his head out and called to her. “In here, girl! We are in the cellar. You will be safe with us!”

She shook her head. “Is the young
medicus
in there?”

The slave’s eyes widened as he recognized Lucia. “No,
Domina
. Last I saw, he was treating the injured in the kitchen.”

Her heart soared. That meant he was free and unhurt. But where? “And Metrodona? She is safe in there?”

He nodded. “Yes, but she worries for you.”

“Tell her I am fine,” she said, and continued going room to room. Could Tag have returned to the barracks? Perhaps that was where he had taken the injured. She headed toward the gladiator complex.

A flickering light in one of the cells in the stone barracks told her it was occupied. She called out, “Tag. Tag! Where are you?”

A door opened and light spilled out into the thick, sulfurous blackness. “Lucia?”

Her heart leapt. But as she ran toward him, she saw it wasn’t Tag calling her name at all. It was her father.

She slid to a stop amidst the growing accumulation of rocks.

“Get in here now!” Lucius Titurius ordered. “I have been searching for you!”

“Is … Tag in there?” she asked. “Is he all right?”

There was a pause, then, “Yes, he is here. Come inside.”

“The
medicus
is not here, miss,” someone with a thick African accent yelled from inside the building. “He is lying!”

“He has chained us all!” another man yelled. “He is going to make us all die in here!”

“Shut up!” her father yelled, his face red with fury as he turned toward the men inside and made a threatening gesture.

She stopped. “Father, you have chained them? Why?”

“The ungrateful sots were running away! I will not lose my investments. Not now.” He held up a sword with blood on the blade. Had he attacked his own weaponless fighters?

“Is Tag in there or not?” she said.

“By the gods, you get in here!” he roared. “Or I swear, I will hunt you down and drag you in!”

Tag wasn’t there. Lucia turned and ran. Her father roared after her in frustration, and it was as if the mountain itself spewed her name.