The Last Girls of Pompeii Read online

  “But Marcus we’ll still be friends. We’ll see each other all the time.”

  “Yes, but it won’t be quite the same, will it?” Marcus’s clear gray eyes looked questioningly at Julia. The color of his eyes had always fascinated her, and she loved his high broad forehead and the way his very straight brown hair fell across it. She had told him once that he should never let a tonsor make curls for him, and he had laughed.

  He smiled now. “You must really be tired of wedding talk—and now mine.”

  “Sick to death of it!”

  “But when your time comes—” Marcus started to say but Julia interrupted him.

  “Don’t be ridiculous!” She decided to change the subject quickly. “Tell me Marcus, why does your mother have this sudden interest in the games?”

  A sly smile crossed Marcus’s face. “Now why do you think, Julia?”

  Julia looked hard at her cousin. “I’m supposed to know?”

  “Think!” He barely suppressed a chuckle.

  “She’s in love with a gladiator?” Julia whispered the words.

  “Yes, of course,” Marcus replied his eyes glittering.

  “Who?”

  “Gavianus, who else?”

  “But she could barely remember his name.”

  “That’s part of the ruse. Julia for a smart girl you are so innocent!”

  “Does your father know?”

  “I assume he doesn’t. They have very separate lives really. They enjoy different things. Still, I don’t think he would be pleased. No man would be. And my father is not really very confident. I mean your father is clearly more successful. He’s now a member of the ordo. Cornelius Petreius is a hard older brother to live up to in many respects. But to be cuckolded by a gladiator . . .” Marcus paused. “Well, you know what I mean.” Julia nodded. “And,” Marcus continued, “Gavianus is a wonderful gladiator. You’ll see him at the Vulcanalia games.”

  “I can’t wait for the Vulcanalia,” Julia said. “I hope Mother isn’t too caught up with the wedding and doesn’t make us all come home as early as she says she will.”

  “If she tries to make you leave early, you can stay on with us.”

  “Well, that might work,” Julia replied. She knew that her her father greatly admired Marcus and she often wondered if he would have traded some of his daughters for a son like her cousin.

  The laugher from the dining table was spilling across the garden now. Someone had probably told a bawdy joke. That was usually why Herminia let Julia leave the table early. She didn’t really approve of such joking, but she knew all too well that as the evening progressed and the wine flowed it was inevitable, especially when her husband got together with his younger brother. And Livia was as raucous and lewd as any of them.

  Julia and Marcus had settled down by the far end of the pool near the Venus fountain.

  “Look,” Marcus said running his hand under the spout. “It’s hardly flowing.”

  “You’re right,” Julia replied.

  “You know, it’s odd. The public fountain at the square was hardly running either when we came.”

  “Really?” Julia replied. “I wonder what’s happening.”

  “It could be small cracks in the aqueduct, the great one, the Aqua Augusta, or one of its branches. It’s happened before.”

  “When? I don’t remember.”

  “Before you were born. Before I was born—the earthquake seventeen years ago.”

  “How do you know about it then?”

  “My old tutor explained it. It didn’t happen all at once, but pressure builds up underground, deep in the earth. It’s as if the foundations of a building are shifting and tiny, minute fractures begin. They fixed those old ones in the Augusta, but maybe they didn’t do such a good job. I’m sure that if this is starting to happen throughout the city the chief engineer, the aquarius will look into it.”

  “Julia!” Marcus said suddenly. “Smell this!” He lifted his wet hand to her face.

  Julia wrinkled her nose. It was the same sulfurous odor that she had smelled that afternoon at the mouth of the Sarnus. Like rotten eggs.

  A shadow slid across the garden walkway.

  “Who’s that?” Julia asked

  “Me!” Livia giggled and swayed slightly. “Came to apologize for my remark.” She turned to Julia. “Your uncle is right. Marcus has the rest of his life to spend with Drusilla.”

  Marcus’s face darkened. There was a tension in the air that had not been there moments before.

  “Yes,” Livia continued. “And it’s so nice when cousins are close. I shall speak to Drusilla about you being an attendant at the wedding, Julia.”

  Julia shut her eyes. Oh, by the gods, not again!

  “You’ll do no such thing, Mother. Drusilla is perfectly capable of selecting her own attendants.”

  “Oh now Marcus, when you get that grumpy expression you look so much like your father!” She waved dismissively, turned, and teetered back the way she had come.

  Julia looked at Marcus. “What was the meaning of all that?” She nodded toward Livia, who almost stumbled against the urn where Sura had put the apricot pits the night before.

  “I don’t know. I don’t know.” Marcus shook his head wearily.

  Eight

  SURA COULD HEAR JULIA’S EVEN breathing. Usually this rhythm made her sleepy, but tonight she felt wide awake. For days now a fear had gnawed at her. At first she tried to dismiss it. She had told herself countless times that she had heard wrong or perhaps misinterpreted what she had heard. But tonight there was no mistaking the terrible words she had caught after she left the tablinium. This was the room was where all the family records were kept and where the master of the house conducted his business. Sura had been summoned to bring an extra oil lamp and a jug of wine. When she entered, she was surprised to see both master and mistress there pouring over the accounts. Undoubtedly studying the figures for the upcoming wedding of Cornelia, she thought. They had dismissed Sura after she set down the wine and lighted the extra lamp.

  Something about the way that both the master and mistress were regarding her as she lit the lamp had sent a shiver through Sura’s entire body on this hot night. The flame of the squib had trembled in her hand so hard that she could barely hit the wick with it. If it hadn’t been for the way they were looking at her, she would never even have thought of trying to listen in on her master and mistress’s conversation. But when she left the room she lingered in the shadows outside the tablinium which was at the back of the interior courtyard. The tablinium was only separated from the rest of the house by a wooden screen. It was easy to hear. Their voices carried. Especially the mistress’s, because she was once more becoming agitated. At first Sura thought it was the same old argument.

  “You say there would be enough for a twenty thousand sesterces donation to the temple. That is wonderful Cornelius, enough to reconstruct the roof and lay a new architrave over the south facing pillars.”

  “And the wedding wine. Falernian,” the master added

  “Yes, yes, of course we cannot have Falernian for Flavia’s wedding and not Cornelia’s. It would look terrible. And so unfair. Cornelia is difficult enough.” She paused before continuing. “ And you’re sure he said he will pay more than half in advance and the rest after the wedding?”

  “Yes, that is part of the agreement. It is due in three days.”

  “It’s wonderful really.” But her mistress’s voice did not sound as if it were brimming with joy. Then there was a deep, weary sigh. “I can’t help but be worried about Julia.

  She won’t like it. Sura has been with her since she was born. And he’s such a coarse man.”

  Sura felt her heart skip a beat. Her breath locked in her throat. This was not just about the Temple of Venus. This was not just about the wedding. It was about her—Sura. The scene in the fullery came back. The moment when Stephanus said that he would bring the wedding cloth himself, that he had business with Julia’s parents. Not just he
r father—that would have perhaps been about the election. But he had business with both Julia’s mother and father. That could only mean one thing They were selling Sura. The women of the households were always consulted on such domestic matters as the buying and selling of slaves, for it was the women who had to keep the home running smoothly. And now they would have enough money for the finest wines to serve their guests at Cornelia’s wedding and for the reconstruction of the Temple of Venus. It was all perfect.

  Sura was suddenly hit with a realization: she was not human. She a commodity no different from a slab of the highest grade marble or a barrel of the best wine. She was flesh to be traded. Her head began to swim. She felt her legs grow weak. They were not selling her to just anybody. Stephanus the fuller would be her new owner. And clearly she was being sold to be not just an ordinary slave but a concubine. She was sure of this. Why else would Herminia be sighing about this man being so coarse? What would she care if Sura was only going to pummel cloth in vats of urine in the fullery and not share his bed?

  Her life had begun to change on that day in late June when she had delivered the cloth for Flavia’s wedding clothes to be cleaned. Stephanus, reeking of the urine that was used as the cleaning agent, had leered at her when she handed over the cloth. He began making all sorts of inquiries that had nothing to do with the business of preparing Flavia’s wedding clothes. How long had she worked for the family ? Did she serve one person or was she just a general household slave? This was not the kind of information anyone really needed. When she had returned for the cloth a few days later he had tried to pinch her breast. But she had been too quick for him. Then a few weeks later Sura had caught snatches of conversation between the master and mistress that had begun to worry her. It was nothing definite. There had been no specific names mentioned. Not hers, not the fuller’s. She only knew that they were discussing money and that references had been made to the price a slave could fetch on the open market versus a private transaction. But now the pieces of this diabolical puzzle fell into place. And the cold hard truth stabbed like a sliver of ice into her heart. She was being sold for three barrels of Rome’s finest wine and a roof for the temple of Venus.

  Sura lay on her pallet feeling dazed. This was the only home she remembered. Both she and her brother Bryzos had been captured when a Roman legion had swept down on their mountain village in Thrace, setting it on fire. After catching them both in nets, the Roman soldiers had bundled Sura and Bryzos aboard a cart filled with other young girls and boys who would fetch a good price at the slave markets. They were lucky only in one respect—they had both been bought by citizens from Pompeii. Bryzos, who was nearly seven at the time, was purchased by Aurelius, a lanista, who would train him for the gladiatorial contests. Sura was purchased by Cornelius Vitellius Petronius to serve as a slave to his soon-to-be-born child, which he hoped would not be another daughter. Although Sura was was not quite five, he could tell at first glance that the Thracian child would serve quite well—she was clearly strong and quick-witted.

  The family of Cornelius Petreius had been good to Sura. She had been taught to read and write by the family tutor, for she would be expected to help the child with lessons in the future. The mistress was extremely beautiful and vain, but still kind. There was never a harsh word from either the mistress or the master. Indeed her only nemesis was the cook, a cantankerous crone named Obliata who shrieked at everyone. This life was all she had really known. Her memories of Thrace, of her mother and father, her grandmother, had grown dimmer and dimmer with each passing year. She was comfortable here, and although Julia often talked about manumission, giving her her freedom, it really hadn’t mattered to Sura as long as she could stay with Julia and be near her brother, who lived in the gladiator barracks. She was able to see him often. Household slaves were allowed to go freely around the city and even carry money. It was necessary, for there were always many errands to run for their masters and mistresses.

  Freedom to Sura was still a rather vague notion. She had never really thought about it that much. What did it matter if she was not paid? She had everything she needed here in the home of Cornelius Petreius. But now Sura began to think about freedom and what it could mean, and slavery and what it really meant. Her life was not her own at all. She could be sold like the barrels of wine her master would buy for Cornelia’s wedding. She would honestly rather endure a flogging of one hundred strokes, she who had never even felt the lash of the whip for one stroke, than be sold to that disgusting fuller Stephanus. But did it really matter whether it was Stephanus or someone else? She wanted to stay here. Sura sat up on her pallet. Would she dare run away? The punishments for runaway slaves were brutal. She could be thrown to animals in the amphitheater, or have a foot chopped off, or be sold into a brothel. As a brothel slave she would be made to lie with men, dozens of men every day.

  The high whine of the town crier slipped through the shadows as he turned into their street. Noctis gallicinium imperare. The second watch past midnight had now begun. The day of Mercury had already turned into Jupiter. There was no time to waste. Sura peered into the darkness. She had to see her brother now. Bryzos would know what to do.

  Five minutes later she had dressed and was in the street on which the villa Petronius fronted. She turned the corner and cut diagonally across a square, avoiding the thermopolium on the opposite side, where the rowdy voices of late night drinkers tumbled into the night.

  The moon was nearly full, and as Sura raced across the Forum her own shadows stretched over the travertine slabs, mingling with those of the statues of generals and emperors, of gods and poets. In the center was the altar of Augustus, both god and emperor—the first god-emperor after the fall of the Republic. Now every emperor was a god. But not every god was an emperor, Sura thought suddenly, and wondered if perhaps these gods that the Romans worshipped and sacrificed to so lavishly were still nonetheless jealous of the new emperor gods.

  Once across the Forum she threaded her way through a series of alleys and emerged on the Street of the Theaters on the west side of the Triangular Forum. She was approaching the neighborhood of the gladiators and the gladiator barracks. The graffiti that was scrawled all over the walls of Pompeii now had one subject: the celebration of gladiators. “Celadus the Tracian is the glory of the girls,” one bit of writing exclaimed. “Twenty pairs of gladiators furnished by Valens the glorious will fight April 8 through 12. “Greetings to Gavianus, slayer of beasts, and hearts!”

  Then she heard a woman laugh, and in the moonlight there was a gleam of turquoise and pyrite. She knew that necklace; it belonged to Livia Octavia. Livia was just coming out from one of the doors of the barracks, and she was accompanied by her slave. They were heading directly toward Sura. Plastering herself against a wall, she pulled her palla so it covered her face, but she could still smell the heavy jasmine scent that Livia always wore. Pressing herself flatter, she hoped that she would simply merge with the darkest of the shadows. Livia Octavia swept so close to her that Sura could have reached out and touched her. But the woman was giggling hard now with her slave and neither one noticed her. When they had safely gone by Sura entered the barracks through the door from which the women had just left.

  Tuning down a corridor, Sura tapped lightly on the first door. She waited, and then she knocked harder.

  “Who’s there?” a groggy voice called out.

  “Me, Sura.”

  The door opened. Her brother’s dark hair was tousled. He blinked at her. “Sura, what is it?”

  “I am to be sold.”

  He pulled her into his small room.

  “You cannot run away. It is unthinkable, Sura.” Her brother had not ceased holding her hands tightly in his during the entire time Sura related her story.

  “The man is awful, Bryzos.”

  “It won’t be that awful. You say he wants you for his concubine. He will never beat you unless you stray to another man.” Although he was trying to keep his voice calm, Sura noticed that he was r
ubbing his sword arm as he spoke, which was always a sign that he was tense. Bryzos was a murmillo. He fought bare chested with only a short sword, helmet, and shield, and his arm protected by a manica of linen.

  “He won’t beat me unless I stray to another man. So I am never able to choose in love.”

  “You are a slave. That is what being a slave means.”

  “You are a slave too, Bryzos, but you have been able to choose in love.”

  “I am a gladiator; that’s different. And besides,”—there was a bit of a sly twinkle in her brother’s eye that was not lost on Sura—“I don’t get to choose, really I am chosen.” Sura thought of Livia Octavia choosing Gavianus. But still she knew that her brother had had many girlfriends that he himself had chosen.

  “This is not the worst fate.” He spoke in a soft voice.

  “Think of Julia,” Sura pleaded.

  “Julia, why should I think of Julia? She’s a rich privileged brat.”

  “She is not a brat, and I am all she has known. She is used to me.”

  Sura shut her eyes tight as if to will this whole night away.

  “Look, Sura.” Bryzos put his hand on her shoulder. “Your life has been good compared to many slaves.”

  “I know, Bryzos and that is what is going to make this all the harder. I don’t want to leave.”

  “Have they settled on a date for Cornelia’s wedding?”

  “Yes, the twenty-fourth day of August.”

  “But that’s Mundus Patet,” Bryzos said. “She wants to get married on the day the doors to the underworld open?”

  “The mistress has been consulting every augur in Pompeii. They must have been telling her that this was not a good date. But Cornelia is stubborn.”

  “Well, I really doubt that you will have to leave until after the wedding. They will certainly need you and will not want to upset Julia before it’s necessary.”

  “But it is August tenth. The wedding is only two weeks away!”

  “Things can change in two weeks. Deals fall through. Maybe Stephanus will find another slave he wants, a prettier one.” He looked at her sister with a sly sparkle.