Pompeii

invoices, promissory notes, legal stipulations and opinions, engineers' reports and storeroom inventories, letters from the department of the Curator Aquarum and orders from the naval commander in Misenum – some of them twenty or thirty years old – spilled out of chests, across a table and over the concrete floor. Attilius swept the table clear with his elbow and unrolled the plans.
    Nola! How was this possible? Nola was a big town, thirty miles to the east of Misenum, and nowhere near the sulphur fields. He used his thumb to mark out the distances. With a cart and oxen it would take them the best part of two days merely to reach it. The map showed him as clearly as a painting how the calamity must have spread, the matrix emptying with mathematical precision. He traced it with his finger, his lips moving silently. Two and a half miles per hour! If Nola had gone down at dawn, then Acerrae and Atella would have followed in the middle of the morning. If Neapolis, twelve miles round the coast from Misenum, had lost its supply at noon, then Puteoli's must have gone at the eighth hour, Cumae's at the ninth, Baiae's at the tenth. And now, at last, inevitably, at the twelfth, it was their turn.
    Eight towns down. Only Pompeii, a few miles upstream from Nola, so far unaccounted for. But even without it: more than two hundred thousand people without water.
    He was aware of the entrance behind him darkening, of Corax coming up and leaning against the door frame, watching him.
    He rolled up the map and tucked it under his arm. 'Give me the key to the sluices.'
    'Why?'
    'Isn't it obvious? I'm going to shut off the reservoir.'
    'But that's the Navy's water. You can't do that. Not without the authority of the admiral.'
    'Then why don't you get the authority of the admiral? I'm closing those sluices.' For the second time that day, their faces were barely a hand's breadth apart. 'Listen to me, Corax. The Piscina Mirabilis is a strategic reserve. Understand? That's what it's there for – to be shut off in an emergency – and every moment we waste arguing we lose more water. Now give me the key, or you'll answer for it in Rome.'
    'Very well. Have it your way, pretty boy.' Without taking his eyes from Attilius's face, he removed the key from the ring on his belt. 'I'll go and see the admiral all right. I'll tell him what's been going on. And then we'll see who answers for what.'
    Attilius grabbed the key and pushed sideways past him, out into the yard. He shouted to the nearest slave, 'Close the gates after me, Polites. No one is to be let in without my permission.'
    'Yes, aquarius.'
    There was still a crowd of curious onlookers in the street but they cleared a path to let him through. He took no notice of their questions. He turned left, then left again, down a steep flight of steps. The water organ was still piping away in the distance. Washing hung above his head, strung between the walls. People turned to stare at him as he jostled them out of his way. A girl prostitute in a saffron dress, ten years old at most, clutched at his arm and wouldn't let go until he dug into the pouch on his belt and gave her a couple of copper coins. He saw her dart through the crowd and hand them to a fat Cappadocian – her owner, obviously – and as he hurried on he cursed his gullibility.
    The building that housed the sluice-gate was a small redbrick cube, barely taller than a man. A statue of Egeria, goddess of the water-spring, was set in a niche beside the door. At her feet lay a few stems of withered flowers and some mouldy lumps of bread and fruit – offerings left by pregnant women who believed that Egeria, consort of Numa, the Prince of Peace, would ease their delivery when their time came. Another worthless superstition. A waste of food.
    He turned the key in the lock and tugged angrily at the heavy wooden door.
    He was level now with the floor of the Piscina Mirabilis. Water from the reservoir poured under pressure down a tunnel in the wall, through a bronze grille, swirled in the open conduit at his feet, and then was channelled into three pipes that fanned out and disappeared under the flagstones behind him, carrying the supply down to the port and town of Misenum. The flow was controlled by a sluice-gate, set flush with the wall, worked by a wooden handle attached to an iron wheel. It was stiff from lack of use. He had to pound it with the heel of his hand to loosen it, but when he put his back into it, it began to turn. He wound