Pompeii. Part 34

Ariella pushed forward, a fearsome dread weighting her limbs. "No. We are going to the south wall. We will help you."

Seneca came to his wife and circled her shoulders with his arm. He spoke softly. "Flora and Jeremiah nearly did not make the trek from the prison to our home. They are-unable-" His voice caught and his eyes filled with tears.

Ariella looked from Seneca to Europa, then down at the two on the couch. They were not reclining, were they? They had collapsed there in exhaustion.

She shook her head slowly. "No. You cannot stay."

Quintus grabbed Seneca's arm. "We can get them out. Together."

Seneca pulled them into the hall, out of hearing range of the young girl and old man. His eyes held sadness, but also a strange peace.

"The Lord is with us. He will not forsake us."

Quintus breathed heavily. "The mountain-"

"May take our lives, yes. But not our souls."

Ariella tightened her lips, stifling a cry. They could not be left behind. She would not allow it.

Europa embraced her, whispered into her ear. "We are not afraid, dear one. This day we shall see the face of our Messiah and enter into His glory. Do not fear for us."

She clutched at the woman, drowning in memories of her last sight of her mother. "I cannot lose you."

Europa drew away and put her hands to Ariella's cheeks. "We shall see each other again. When there will be no more war."

Her breath came in short gasps now, and tears dripped from her chin. Quintus grasped her hand and led her into the triclinium, where Flora and Jeremiah rested.

The old slave opened his eyes to them, and Ariella bent to kneel at his side. "Jeremiah-"

He patted her hand. "This hip will lead me home after all, my girl." His smile was undimmed by pain or fear. "I only regret that these two remain." He pointed to Europa and Seneca.

Europa clucked her tongue. "We would not leave either of you."

Beside her, Flora sniffed, trying not to cry. Europa went to her and held her, rocking her as she must have done when the girl was a newborn, exposed by the river, left to die alone.

They do not die alone, any of them.

The words were true, yet they shattered her heart.

Quintus was moving behind her. He gripped her shoulder. "Come, Ariella. It is time."

Jeremiah grasped her hand. "My girl, the Holy One-"

She leaned to kiss his cheek, to whisper in his ear. "I have made my peace with Him, Jeremiah. Through the Messiah, as you taught me."

Jeremiah's smile was like the sun s.h.i.+ning through dark clouds and his eyes filled with tears. "Baruch Hashem." Blessed be the Name.

She smiled in return. "And Quintus joins us too."

He squeezed her hand and took Quintus's with the other. "My two warriors. He has great plans for you." A tear pooled in his eye and escaped. "And I can face the end with joy, knowing that the Creator calls you out to do His work after I am gone."

She could not release him. It took the gentle pressure of Quintus, untangling her warm fingers from his twisted ones, pulling her backward, away from Jeremiah, from Flora and her parents. She staggered and he caught her weight.

They paused in the doorway. Europa embraced a sobbing Nigidia, wrapped an arm around Portia, kissed them each, then patted Ariella's cheek one final time. Her eyes were bright with unshed tears. "We are well here, my girl. Go in peace."

And then they were off, retracing their steps through the corridor, as the husband and wife waved farewell. Already, a hole had been ripped through her heart. She followed Quintus, numb with grief.

They climbed back to the street, pulling Portia from the opening last. Her face had grown pale again.

Quintus studied her. "How do you fare, sister?"

She nodded. "I will not hold you back." No doubt she thought of those inside the house.

They moved on, reaching his house within minutes and repeating the process of digging through to get inside. This time, Portia and Nigidia waited in the street. Quintus found a torch still burning, and grabbed it to light the way.

As expected, they found no one at home, even after shouting through every room.

Quintus turned to her in the kitchen, the first time they had been alone since they had stood here once before. She pulled her torn tunic around her, embarra.s.sed.

She looked at his eyes. From this moment, nothing would be the same. There was nothing left to do but leave the city. What kind of life would meet them in the world beyond Pompeii?

Quintus seemed to also feel the hinge of fate. He put a palm to her cheek, ran his thumb over her lips. "Are you ready?"

She nodded. "It is time."

Up on the raised street once again they trudged south, high enough now that they walked on the same level as any of the remaining slanted roofs. From this unnatural vantage point Ariella could survey the entire city, all the way to Maius's estate if she chose to look that way.

Another explosion rocked them from their feet.

They scrambled to stand, turned toward the mountain, and watched amazed as it gushed, the outpouring aimed for Pompeii.

Closer, closer. The surge flowed downward with a speed no one could outrun. They stood transfixed, huddled together, and watched it come.

It swelled down the hillside, then poured toward them, a fiery deluge.

It swallowed the northern fields.

It submerged the northern estates.

Nigidia gave a sharp cry and her legs gave way. Quintus kept her upright. Ariella pulled the girl's head into her shoulder, whispered empty words of comfort into her ear. But she kept an eye on the surging tide of death. For their grief would end in moments, when they joined Maius under the whelming fire.

CHAPTER 52.

The northern wall of Pompeii halted the surge.

Cato watched it swell to the city wall, the height of five men, then settle. Barred entrance to the city, a failed siege.

But the proximity of the flow was telling. The mountain could surge again, and with the northern valley already filled with molten rock, the next one would race over its predecessor and sweep the town.

He turned to the women he had pledged himself to protect. No need for words.

They stumbled after him, a ragged, grief-struck group with little hope, but still the will to survive.

They were not the only ones to have seen the end coming. Survivors pocked the streets, eyes wide, their hope to remain hidden in safety erased.

"Come with us. Follow us." Cato spoke to each one they pa.s.sed, each bewildered and dazed face that turned their way.

He heard his name spoken by one man to his wife, heard the word Christian, and smiled to himself. Such a short time ago he would have feared the a.s.sociation.

And yet, as it happened, it was this very connection that proved most effective. The Christians of Pompeii had made themselves known, it turned out. In their quiet way they had loved well and spoken freedom, and it was this that convinced people to join Cato and the women on the march out of the city.

More and more emerged from rock piles and hidden recesses. Cato urged each one, not willing that any should perish in what was to come.

The lengthening line of survivors twisted through the streets, a river of life flowing through the city of death, with Cato at its head. He had desired to win the election, to lead the people. Was this not a greater victory?

The Stabian Gate lay half-buried, but still open enough for the train of people to pa.s.s under its arch, out of the city and toward the plains.

Where was the rest of his family? He looked everywhere at once, along the city wall in either direction, out over the field of stone. Beside him, Ariella scanned the pale horizon, her hand to her eyes.

There was nothing to do but keep walking, away from the mountain. Toward safety. The rock and ash still lay heavy here.

And so they climbed. Trailed by patricians and plebeians, slaves and freedmen, all who left the city empty-handed, with nothing but the breath of life.

They moved quickly, fearing another surge from the mountain, unsure how far they must travel to escape.

The sun rose above the lip of the east, burning through the ashy air with a filtered pinkish hue.

Ariella grabbed his arm and stopped. Pointed.

He followed her gesture to the rise ahead. To four figures moving toward them. Two men. Two women.

"Micah!" Ariella's scream punctured the early morning air. She scrambled forward, falling in the rocks, running in a crouch with her hands to catch her.

Cato's chest rose and fell with the sight of it. With the sight of the others.

He moved toward them, and they met at last, the two groups.

Octavia held her chin high as ever, though her clothes were as dirty and torn as any serving girl. Isabella fell on his neck, weeping, and he wrapped one arm around her and the other around his mother. Watched the reunion of Lucius and Portia, so long in coming, through tear-blurred eyes.

Micah picked up his sister and swung her as though she were a child. Cato's breath caught to hear Ariella laugh. To hear her laugh and see her smile.

Their reunion was brief. They were not yet safe.

But within another hour of travel, the rock and ash began to shallow, until at last they gained a hill and could see gra.s.s poking up from the rubble. A mighty crowd had gathered on the hill. Thousands upon thousands that had streamed from the city all the day before and through the long night. They had reached this knoll and had no strength to go farther, it seemed.

Cato wondered about those citizens he had not seen since the disaster began. His vineyard caretaker, Remus. The healed madman, Albus. Cyrus and the others of the believers. Were they among this crowd?

They had outrun the cloud, but was it enough?

As if in answer, the mountain roared once more, a sound to rock the heavens, a sound like the end of the world.

Cato turned to face Vesuvius to see what remained, of her and of them.

A ma.s.sive surge of fiery mud, far greater than any previous, flowed down her sides, across the devastated valley, up to the northern wall. This time, the wall did not hold. The flow breached the barrier, swelled over it, and swept the city of Pompeii.

The fire pulsed on, filling the Forum, swelling the city streets, burning across his vineyards. It reached the south wall, overflowed the banks of the city, and poured across the plain beneath them, until at last it exhausted itself and settled.

The city of Pompeii was no more.

Cato pulled Ariella to stand in front of him, her back pressed against his chest, and wrapped his arms around her. "We are saved."

She leaned her head against his chest and he felt the tension flow out of her, released into quiet tears for their friends left behind.

Around them, a cheer went up from the crowd, proof that the resilience of the human spirit knew no bounds.

Their city was submerged, but they had come out from destruction, into a wide place.

And they would live.

CHAPTER 53.

Moments earlier, near the southern edge of town, Tullius Taurus the Jeweler had his family in tow-two adolescent boys, his wife, and their young daughter-when he realized that he had waited too long.

He had such hopes for Pompeii once. How had it come to this?

Years of suffering under the corruption of Nigidius Maius, and now, just when it seemed they might have found a savior in Portius Cato, all his hopes had tumbled down the slopes of Vesuvius, so much ash and debris.

He had not wanted to face it, this invalidation of his own belief in the future. Even his own mortality, if he were honest. And so they had waited. Hiding their valuables from potential thievery, huddling together in a back room of their estate, hoping the roofs would hold.

All through the long night they had waited. Until it became clear that the house would become their tomb if they did not flee. But now, near the south wall of Pompeii, so close to freedom, he knew it had not been soon enough.

A blast from the mountain rocked them off their feet, all five of them. Nearby, two farmers and their families also fell.