A Day of Fire: A Novel of Pompeii (3 page)

But how much did a slave like Prima cost? I stepped into the next tavern I saw. After chatting up the owner and ordering his best wine, I asked him how much that pretty slave in the corner cost.

“For an hour or for the night?” the man asked.

I shook my head. “No. My apologies for not being clear. I want to know … if a man came in here and wanted to buy that girl from you, how much would you charge him?”

The man looked me up and down, then solemnly gave me a figure.

“Thank you,” I said and marched out.

“Wait,” the man called. “Make me an offer!”

The sum he’d named was more money than I had. Certainly too much money to ask for outright from my uncle. I would have to figure out some way to get the money on my own.

But how? How would I get the money?

I passed the baths without stopping to look for Julius. He always had extra money. How did he get it? Did his rich father give it to him? Having no father of my own, I would have to find a different way. Walking past a group of men in an alley throwing bones reminded me that Julius also gambled. Of course he did. But Fortuna had never smiled at me when I gambled, not even in Pompeii. Besides, I saved all my coins so
I could pay for my nights with Prima.

Without realizing it, I had walked onto the street of leatherworkers and booksellers. The smell of tanning leather and the calls of booksellers woke me out of my trance. A man in a threadbare tunic held up a scroll like a
pilum
as if he was about to spear a customer with it.

“I have here in my hands, the original work of our beloved admiral!” he brayed and I almost laughed out loud. What a liar. My uncle kept very tight control over who got original drafts of his works. Still, the tactic drew a crowd. “Impress your friends with this treasure! Also, I have all of Pliny’s
Natural Histories
. Written by his own hand! No scribes! No educated person’s library in all of Campania should be without the whole set!”

For a moment I wondered if the man knew who I was, whether that’s why he had begun hawking my uncle’s writings. But he wasn’t looking in my direction. He faced, instead, a knot of men dressed in fine linen tunics and golden armbands.

Instantly, I recognized them as the peculiar product of Pompeii: former slaves who had made their fortunes investing in the city after the devastating earthquakes the year of my birth. Most of the families of nobility left the city, never to return, leaving beautiful homes to be purchased by freedmen and tradesmen like fullers, bakers, and
garum
makers. They had my grudging admiration for the way they had filled in the cracks of what was missing in the city, much like Prima filled in the cracks of what was missing in me. It was men like these, after all, who likely discovered Pompeii’s strange mud that hardened like stone underwater and made their riches selling it as concrete for aqueducts, piers, and bridges across the entire empire.

But were these same men really so eager for respectability that they would allow themselves to be swindled with forgeries of my uncle’s work? Glittering with gold and shining with oiled curls, the men surrounded the bookseller. “Written by his own hand, you say?” one of the men asked. “How can you prove such a thing?”

The man carefully unrolled a corner. “That’s Admiral Pliny’s seal, right there!” The gaggle of men clucked and nodded with appreciation.

Meanwhile, I could barely contain my laughter. Writers of scholarly tomes didn’t put their seal on the papyrus or parchment like letters. What fools!

“How much do you charge for this?” one of the bejeweled men asked.

When the seller answered, I nearly choked. “A bargain for such impressive works for your growing libraries,” the man added.

I stopped cold under the awning nearby. The men were
considering
paying that much for an obviously fake scroll? By the gods! Just thinking about all the original works crammed into Uncle’s library made me gasp. What if—

“Order or move on!” a sweating lady waving a ladle said.

I blinked. The woman nodded at the
dolia
sunk into the masonry counter, which reeked of badly mulled wine. She waved her hand like a showman over the other earthenware containers in her
thermopolium,
one with
fish cakes swimming in
garum
and another with stewed octopus tentacles. “Just caught this morning,” she said, pointing to the octopus. “So fresh you can almost see them twitching,” she added grinning, showing brown teeth.

She was clearly proud of her offerings. But then everyone in Pompeii seemed to take great pleasure in even its most rustic charms.

“No, thank you,” I said stepping away.

“Finally,” a man muttered behind me. He quickly placed an order for the octopus, along with some olives and figs.

I walked blindly after that, considering what I’d overheard. Former slaves desperate to appear cultured would pay outrageous sums for the original works of my uncle, whose desk overflowed with manuscripts that he’d begun then set aside as another thought or observation caught his fancy.

The gods had given me the answer to how I could get the money I needed to purchase Prima. I turned and headed for the Sarno gate—and the stable—burying two small coins
under a pile of flowers on a niche altar to the god of crossroads in gratitude for giving me the solution to my problem. Julius would probably not even notice that I was skipping the baths and although I hated missing a night with Prima, it would be worth it in the end. I’d have her forever soon enough.

I arrived back in Misenum—at my uncle’s villa—deep in the dark of night as I’d hoped. To my horseman’s dismay, I told him to prepare fresh mounts and wait for me on the road. Uncle’s cliff-side villa, which overlooked the beach and a naval garrison, stood out like a pearl on black silk. The pinpoints of light in the night sky glowed over the dark water with such beauty, I felt as if the gods themselves were smiling down on me. Venus surely was!

For the first time, I saw the villa where I spent most of my youth with fresh eyes—imagining what Prima would think when she saw the multiple tiers of bright white walls carved into cliff rock, the glittering red roof tiles as they caught the sun, the exquisite statues of the Muses in our gardens. She would be enchanted.

But she wasn’t going to see this villa, I reminded myself. She would always be waiting for me in Pompeii.

As I came closer, the silence of the place took me aback. The villa was usually bustling with noise and activity, but this total stillness seemed unearthly. Usually, the murmuring of the sea or a call from the garrison nightguard below floated up through the dark. But not tonight. The silence was almost oppressive.

Nobody expected me for another couple of days and everyone was asleep, I reminded myself. After lighting a small lamp, I crept through the house toward my uncle’s
tablinum
.

The chest where he kept his money was shoved under a low table. Locked, as I’d expected.

Quietly, so quietly, I opened every drawer in Uncle’s favorite ebony desk, a gift from Emperor Vespasian. No key anywhere. It had been worth a try. However, his desk overflowed with scrolls, as did his pigeon-holed shelves.

I’d once heard his steward tell him he should lock up his scrolls, for they were worth their weight in gold.
Uncle should’ve listened. I found a nearly completed draft of his latest work on the history of the Roman navy. No doubt, some grasping fool would pay a great deal to be able to say he was the first in Pompeii to own it. I was slipping the scroll into my travel pack when I accidentally bumped the desk. Something flashed in the light of the small lamp. My uncle’s signet ring, unearthed from a pile of papyrus. I shoved the gold and carnelian ring into the bag before I could change my mind. That ring alone would pay not just for Prima, but for months of rent on a small room near the sea.

I headed back outside, certain that not a single soul knew I’d been back. Or what I’d taken.

Twelve
hours and two exhausted horses later, I was back in Pompeii. I went straight to Julius Polybius’ house. I needed to find buyers for what I’d taken so I could make my bid for Prima. Surely he would know people who could help me turn what I had into gold and silver.

I was not entirely without guilt or shame for what I had done. But I told myself that I’d find some way to make up for what I’d taken. I’d study harder, do more translations for my uncle, perhaps. I’d find some way to make it up to him, I was sure.

Unfortunately, Julius was still sick from drinking the night before. I would have to wait until the third or fourth hour of the morning for him, but I was too restless to wait patiently. So I set out to Prima’s tavern with my bag of stolen goods firmly under my arm.

She pouted prettily when she saw me and my heart jumped. “Why did you not come to me last night?” she asked. “You said you would.”

“I had to go home—help a friend,” I said. “Believe me I’ll make it up to you.”

“Good. Because I like my nights with you much better than with the drunk locals.”

A small ball of pleasure warmed my belly. “I am glad to hear it,” I said. Still, imagining drunks pawing at her in the disgusting outside cubicles—or that smarmy, blond
aedile
insulting her—made my stomach twist. Very soon she would never have to be with those kinds of men ever again.

Her dark eyes sparkled and her pink tongue peeked between the small gap between her teeth. “You’re up to something,” she said, cocking her head slightly.

I nodded, grinning.

“Let me get some wine and then you’ll tell me all about it.”

I didn’t want wine, but we both had seen her owner step into the serving room. As long as I was spending coin, he wouldn’t care how long we talked. “Get extra,” I called out. “I am buying a cup for you too!”

Her eyebrows shot up as she grinned. She put the cups before us and slid onto a stool next me. “Tell me,” she whispered in my ear, and I had to close my eyes for a moment so instant was my lust. “What are you up to?”

“I have a way for us to be together—a way for you to never have to be with men like that horrible
aedile
,” I whispered.

She started back as if I’d burned her. “What?”

“I am planning to purchase you,” I said, still whispering. I didn’t want her owner to overhear and start working out how much he would charge for her. If I caught him by surprise, I could probably get her cheaper. “This very day, if possible.”

She blinked under a furrowed brow. “I don’t understand.”

“I am going to
buy
you from him,” I said. “And then we can be together all the time.”

Her eyes grew wide, but not with pleasure. A pang of worry stirred in my belly. “Listen,” I said quickly. “Don’t say anything to your master yet. I don’t want him to know until I can present him with the money.”

She shook her head. “I’m not for sale.”

I smiled reassuringly. “You will be when he sees what I am prepared to pay.”

“No, you don’t understand,” she said, leaning into me. Her face was flushed. “I can’t … you can’t just buy me.”

“Why not?” I asked. “I could give you more than you have here and you would never have to deal with drunken idiots again.”

“And this sudden plan is because you do not want to share me,” she said, crossing her arms.

“No. I mean, yes. But it’s not just that.” Why was she being difficult about this? I thought she would throw her arms around my neck at the news. “Look, once you are mine I can free you if that is what is worrying you—as … as long as you agree to be my concubine.”

“I am registered as a
prostitute
,” she hissed. “I’ll always be an
infamis.”

Gods was that true? But that wouldn’t matter, right? Unless Uncle found out. But he rarely came to Pompeii. The chances were few that he’d find out about a former prostitute I kept. “We can get around that,” I said, swallowing hard. “And if I buy you, you will have an easier life. It will be just you and me!”

The silence grew between us. Again, not what I expected. Maybe I had sounded too business-like? “I love you, Prima. And you’re right. I don’t want to share you. Is that so awful?”

She shook her head again, looking down at her hands.

“You … you do care for me, yes?” I stammered. “You just said you like your nights with me! Even if you don’t love me, I know you care for me. And you will learn to love me when you see the kind of life I can give you.”

“As your
personal
slut.”

Gods that sounded awful. “No, but … well, isn’t that better than being a … a—”

“Tavern whore.”

I looked away. “I just don’t want to see you used and abused by men like that man the other morning.”

“Pansa,” she said, making a disgusted face.

“Yes.”

She sighed irritably. “Let me ask you something, Caecilius. How old are you?”

“Seventeen.”