Curses and Smoke (23 page)

T
ag had barely turned away from the couple taking Castor before he was swallowed up by blackness. He needed a torch. He spied a lit one across the
via
and headed toward it. But his hands shook as he struggled with its rusted pins. How could the mountain continue its unholy roaring? How could it be
night
in the middle of the day?

Once he finally freed the torch, he looked around him, trying to understand where he was. He knew the city well, but suddenly everything looked foreign and strange. And, as if in a nightmare, he heard the disembodied wails of hurt and frightened people.

“Fulvia!” cried one man. “Fulvia, where are you?”

Someone coughed between wracking sobs.

“Have you seen my baby?” a woman wailed. “I can’t find my baby!”

He couldn’t see them, couldn’t help anyone. Children cried out for their mothers. Sometimes he heard them being comforted, but one cry reverberated in his chest.

“Don’t leave me! Wait for me! Please, wait!”

It was a boy’s hoarse, pleading voice. Tag thought of Castor’s wild-eyed thrashing when he’d foisted him on the slave woman, and he closed his eyes against the guilt. But he
had
to do it. He hadn’t
abandoned
Castor! He’d left him with people who would take care of him. Yet the sound of the boy’s anguished cries seemed to follow him through the streets.

Maybe he was imagining it. Still, he turned around, peering into the darkness. “Where are you?” he called out. “Tell me where you are, and I will help you!”

“I’m here! I’m here,” sobbed a familiar voice that made his heart sink into his belly. “Wait for me! Wait for me!”

It was not possible. Not possible. But there it was again.

“Healer! Wait!”

“Where are you?” Tag cried. “Can you run to me?”

The sobbing was different this time. More hopeful. Tag moved in the direction of the noise. Then he saw him in the small light of his torch. Castor was stuck up to his thighs in the drifts of pumice, tears carving black furrows through a layer of ash on his face. He held his arms up to Tag like an infant.

“Castor! You foolish boy! What have you done?” Tag picked him up, the rocks reluctant to release their hold. The boy wept into his neck. “You followed me this whole way?” he asked. “Gods! Gods!”

“I’m with you,” Castor repeated in between hiccups. “I’m with you. I’m not with those people, I’m with you.”

Tag closed his eyes and tightened his grip on the boy, relief flooding through his entire body to have him back. “It’s all right. It’s all right now. Listen. We are going to find Lucia. You will help me find Lucia, yes?”

Tag could feel the boy trying to nod. But exhaustion seemed to have overwhelmed him, and he fell asleep on Tag, grasping at his tunic with hands and toes as he always did — like a little monkey.

Tag tried not to panic at the slower pace he had to take with the boy in his arms. He sank deeper with every step into the layered rocks and ash. But he had a torch, and Castor was safe. He just needed to concentrate on putting one foot in front of the other, following the streets — corner fountain by corner fountain — until he got home.

Lucia had come back. She was here. They could escape together. She had returned for him. This was their chance. He sang it to himself like a chant.

The compound was quiet when he finally made it back. He needed water, and so did the boy. He spied a terra-cotta water jar abandoned under a half-fallen roof, jammed the torch into the accumulated rock, and grabbed the jar. A layer of pumice floated on top, but it was probably all right to drink. He scooped out the top layer and woke the boy.

“Come, Castor, drink this,” he said.

The boy fussed but drank when the cool water hit his cracked lips. Tag drank heartily too. He realized the boy needed food as well. Should he risk trying to scrounge up some bread? He slogged toward the demolished kitchen, hoping he could find something.

He found a round loaf someone must have dropped. It tasted of ash, but it gave them both sustenance. Outside again, he grabbed a large garden pillow and handed it to Castor. “Help me hold this over our heads,” he told the boy.

At the cellar entrance, the slave guarding the stairs pointed toward the barracks when he asked about Lucia. “She ran that way.” The door slammed before he could learn anything more. But he had confirmation…. She really
was
there!

As he neared the barracks, he saw light flooding out from an open door. A man stood there, brandishing a bloody
gladius
.

“Pontius?” Tag shouted. “Is that you? Is Lucia with you?”

“Who’s there?” the voice roared as Tag came closer.

His heart sank. Not Pontius.
Titurius
— the last person he wanted to see. He must have returned to Pompeii in search of Lucia. Did that mean she was in there with him?

Tag put Castor down. “Listen to me. Do not tell him I am here. But ask him if
Domina
is in there. We must find out.”

Castor scrabbled over the pumice toward the light spilling from the open door. “Master, is
Domina
in with you?” he called. “We are looking for
Domina
.”

“Who is ‘we’?’ ” Titurius responded.

The boy looked confused. “I mean, just me. I am looking for
Domina
.”

Castor froze in fear as the master looked out at the boy with a face like thunder. The child took a step backward.

Tag moved forward from under the eaves. “Do not hurt him,” he shouted. “It is me, Tag. I am looking for your daughter.”

“Tages?” Titurius shouted. “I should have crucified you myself!”

“Where is Lucia?” he yelled back.

“In here,” the master called. “Come inside and see.”

But something wasn’t right. “Have her call out to me so I know you are telling the truth,” he shouted.

Titurius raised his
gladius
. “You
dare
disobey me,
slave
?!”

“Lucia,” Tag yelled. “Are you there?”

No answer.

To his amazement, Lucia’s purple-faced father stepped out onto the shifting ground toward him. “I will cut your heart out, boy. I swear it!”

“Go inside with the other men,” Tag said to Castor. “Now. They will keep you safe.” He needed to run, but not without first knowing Castor was secure.

“Go!” he shouted to the boy again, but Castor could only stare with wide, terrified eyes at the master approaching. Thankfully, the layers of light rock slowed his progress.

Tag caught sight of a long, bright-red shield leaning against the wall. As quickly as he could, he grabbed hold of Castor and pushed the boy to safety under the eaves, shoved the torch into the rocks, and grabbed the top of the long
scutum
, pulling hard with both hands against the accumulation. The shield came free with such force, he almost toppled backward.

From the corner of his eye, Tag caught sight of Castor crouching under the crumbling eaves. “Go to the men!” he repeated to the boy. “You will be safe there.”

“No, I am not leaving you!”

Titurius lunged at Tag with the sword. Tag blocked the blow with the shield, which sent him deeper into the bed of ash and rock. He had barely heard the thud of metal on wood over the roaring of the mountain, but he felt the hit vibrate through his arm up to his shoulder. It was as if they moved in a strange dream, where everything was slow and muffled.

Tag concentrated on not losing his balance on the shifting ground as his owner came at him again and again. The master had experience and rage on his side, and pride: Titurius would rather die than allow Tag to live. But Tag had youth and strength; he could outlast Titurius if needed. He kept backing up to draw the master farther away from the room with the light. The man clearly did not like being led into the darkness, and the floating ash seemed to unsettle him.

Suddenly, Lucia’s father charged at him like a bull, and Tag barely blocked the swipe at his neck. Titurius bared his teeth in a growl. “Fight, you lily-livered son of a sow!” he roared.

“How can I fight with no weapon?” Tag yelled back. “You have no honor attacking an unarmed man!”

“You are not a man, you are a
slave
! A thing I own!”

They continued circling each other, catching their breaths. Tag’s lungs burned as he sucked in the hot, ashy air.

“Leave him be,
Dominus
!” yelled Pontius from the open door. “He will die in the elements soon enough.”

“Oh, I’m not going to kill him yet,” Titurius said with an ugly grin. “But my fool daughter will come back if she knows he is here, and then I will finish him off in front of her. Call out to her. She can’t have gotten far!”

Pontius shook his head but complied. “Lucia!
Domina!
” he yelled. “The
medicus
is here! Come back!”

Lucia was that close? Tag whipped his head around looking for her.

Titurius attacked.

L
ucia huddled in the dark under the eaves right outside the barracks. She heard her father’s angry voice mixed with the mountain’s roaring, and wondered whom he was yelling at this time. Was he sending someone after her? She had to go, but where? Think.
Think
. Could Tag have left with the groups of slaves fleeing to the countryside? Or perhaps he’d gone wherever the laundress was heading. He could be
anywhere
! Despair hovered with every ashy breath.

“
Lucia!
”

She raised her head. Who was calling her?

“The
medicus
is here! Come back!” someone yelled. It didn’t sound like her father. Pontius? She trusted Pontius.

She moved toward the sound. “Tag is there?” she shouted back.

“Yes, yes. He has come,” bellowed the trainer. “In the cells with us. Come!”

She pushed through the accumulation toward the barracks. As she neared the lit room, she caught sight of shadows moving near a torch set in the ground.

“What is happening?” she called out to Pontius. “Where is Tag?”

“It’s a trap!” Tag’s hoarse voice emerged from the blackness. “Run!”

She did run, but toward him.

O
ut of the corner of his eye, he could see a bobbing light moving closer. It had to be Lucia, but he couldn’t let himself be distracted. Titurius attacked again, using overhead blows that forced Tag to hold the shield high. After carrying Castor for what seemed like hours, his already-exhausted arms trembled with the effort.

“Stop, Father, stop!” Lucia cried out. “Please! I’m coming.”

Titurius turned toward her, and in that moment, Tag remembered Sigdag telling him to go low when someone consistently attacked high. So with every ounce of power and rage Tag had left, he slammed the edge of the shield into the back of Titurius’s knees.

The master screamed as both of his legs buckled, but he held on to his sword. Tag smashed the shield down on Titurius’s chest and heard the breath go out of him as he sank deep into the bed of tiny rocks. Tag dropped the shield and used two hands to twist Titurius’s wrist until he loosened his grip on the sword. With a growl of satisfaction, Tag took it and held it over the man’s neck.

“Tag, don’t!” Lucia yelled.

“Tell me why I shouldn’t,” he roared.

“Because he’s my father. Because … because you’re
not
a murderer.” She moved closer to him, lowering her voice as if gentling a horse. “You are a healer, Tag. Not a killer.”

Lucia was really here? Tag’s rage began to dissipate. “He would kill me without a moment’s hesitation.”

“Let’s just leave, Tag. Right now. Take the sword and we’ll disappear —”

“Give me the sword, boy,” Pontius yelled, coming up behind them.

Tag groaned, still holding the sword to the master’s neck. There was no way he could physically overcome the big Samnite. But even as he fought with himself about what to do, Pontius lunged at him and wrestled the sword out of his hand, all in what seemed like a blink.

Lucia moaned. Tag backed up, trying not to lose his balance in the ever-growing accumulation of rock beneath his feet.

“Kill him for me now!” her father yelled.

“No!” Lucia begged.

Tag put his arms up in an appeasing gesture. Pontius had always seemed to like him, but that wouldn’t make any difference now — not when the master gave him a direct command. He stopped backing up, dropped his arms, and straightened his spine. It was over. He looked Pontius directly in the eye.
Die with dignity
, he remembered from the gladiator code. He could at least do that.

But instead of striking him, the old overseer announced, “If yer going to run, boy, do it now. This is yer only chance.”

Tag released a breath he hadn’t even known he was holding.

“WHAT??!” roared Titurius. “You betray me too?”

“Ye will let him go, and ye will unshackle all my fighters,” Pontius said, turning to Titurius with the sword. “I will not have them die like penned animals.”

“They are my
property
,” the master shouted. “I will do with them what I want!”

As the two men argued, Tag ran to Lucia and took her in his arms. “You came back,” he whispered, his throat tight.

She squeezed him hard and said, “We need to go
now
.”

He nodded. “But I won’t leave Castor,” he said, turning to look for the boy. “He has to come with us.”

A burst of strange thunder rolled over their heads and they all cringed. Flashes of red lightning flickered across the blackness. Castor came running from under one of the eaves. “Why did the master want to hurt you?” he wailed.

Tag looked over at Pontius and Titurius. The overseer had the sword pointed at her father’s chest. “Unshackle ’em,” Pontius commanded again. Tag sent the old trainer a silent prayer of thanks.

Lucia squeezed his hand to get his attention. “Let’s go,” she urged.

“We’re going to need the torch,” Tag said. He scrabbled through the rocks as fast as he could, grabbed the torch, picked up the shield, and ran back toward Lucia and the boy. Castor had his head buried against Lucia’s waist, and despite the odds against them, Tag felt his heart lift. They were going to do this. They were finally going to leave. Together.