Pompeii

plunge to the bottom of the tunnel, the current sweeping him on – on like a leaf in a gutter – on into the darkness.

Nocte concubia

    [22:07 hours]

'Many observers have commented on the tendency for eruptions to be initiated or become stronger at times of full moon when the tidal stresses in the crust are greatest.'
Volcanology (second edition)

    Ampliatus had never cared much for Vulcanalia. The festival marked that point in the calendar when nights fell noticeably earlier and mornings had to start by candlelight: the end of the promise of summer and the start of the long, melancholy decline into winter. And the ceremony itself was distasteful. Vulcan dwelt in a cave beneath a mountain and spread devouring fire across the earth. All creatures went in fear of him, except for fish, and so – on the principle that gods, like humans, desire most that which is least attainable – he had to be appeased by a sacrifice of fish thrown alive on to a burning pyre.
    It was not that Ampliatus was entirely lacking in religious feeling. He always liked to see a good-looking animal slaughtered – the placid manner of a bull, say, as it plodded towards the altar, and the way it stared at the priest so bemusedly; then the stunning and unexpected blow from the assistant's hammer and the flash of the knife as its throat was cut; the way it fell, as stiff as a table, with its legs sticking out; the crimson gouts of blood congealing in the dust and the yellow sac of guts boiling from its slit belly for inspection by the haruspices. Now that was religious. But to see hundreds of small fish tossed into the flames by the superstitious citizenry as they filed past the sacred fire, to watch the silvery bodies writhing and springing in the heat: there was nothing noble in it as far as he was concerned.
    And it was particularly tedious this year because of the record numbers who wished to offer a sacrifice. The endless drought, the failure of springs and the drying of wells, the shaking of the ground, the apparitions seen and heard on the mountain – all this was held to be the work of Vulcan, and there was much apprehension in the town. Ampliatus could see it in the reddened, sweating faces of the crowd as they shuffled around the edge of the forum, staring into the fire. The fear in the air was palpable.
    He did not have a very good position. The rulers of the town, as tradition demanded, were gathered on the steps of the Temple of Jupiter – the magistrates and the priests at the front, the members of the Ordo, including his own son, grouped behind, whereas Ampliatus, as a freed slave, with no official recognition, was invariably banished by protocol to the back. Not that he minded. On the contrary. He relished the fact that power, real power, should be kept hidden: an invisible force that permitted the people these civic ceremonials while all the time jerking the participants as if they were marionettes. Besides, and this was what was truly exquisite, most people knew that it was actually he – that fellow standing third from the end in the tenth row – who really ran the town. Popidius and Cuspius, Holconius and Brittius – they knew it, and he felt that they squirmed, even as they acknowledged the tribute of the mob. And most of the mob knew it, too, and were all the more respectful towards him as a result. He could see them searching out his face, nudging and pointing.
    'That's Ampliatus, ' he imagined them saying, 'who rebuilt the town when the others ran away! Hail Ampliatus! Hail Ampliatus! Hail Ampliatus!'
    He slipped away before the end.
    Once again, he decided he would walk rather than ride in his litter, passing down the steps of the temple between the ranks of the spectators – a nod bestowed here, an elbow squeezed there – along the shadowy side of the building, under the triumphal arch of Tiberius and into the empty street. His slaves carried his litter behind him, acting as a bodyguard, but he was not afraid of Pompeii after dark. He knew every stone of the town, every hump and hollow in the road, every storefront, every drain. The vast full moon and the occasional streetlight – another of his innovations – showed him the way home clearly enough. But it was not just Pompeii's buildings he knew. It was its people, and the mysterious workings of its soul, especially at elections: five neighbourhood wards – Forenses, Campanienses, Salinienses, Urbulanenses, Pagani – in each of which he had an agent; and