Pompeii

a welcome distraction from the crisis on the aqueduct to return to it. But what he had seen and done and what he had read or been told seemed nowadays to run together, in a kind of seamless dream. Such things he had witnessed! The empresses – Lollia Paulina, Caligula's wife, sparkling like a fountain in the candlelight at her betrothal banquet, cascading with forty million sesterces' worth of pearls and emeralds. And the Empress Agrippina, married to the drooling Claudius: he had seen her pass by in a cloak made entirely out of gold. And gold-mining he had watched, of course, when he was procurator in northern Spain – the miners cutting away at the mountainside, suspended by ropes, so that they looked, from a distance, like a species of giant bird pecking at the rockface. Such work, such danger – and to what end? Poor Agrippina, murdered here, in this very town, by Ancietus, his predecessor as admiral of the Misene Fleet, on the orders of her son, the Emperor Nero, who put his mother to sea in a boat that collapsed and then had her stabbed to death by sailors when she somehow struggled ashore. Stories! This was his problem. He had too many stories to fit into one book.
    'The Chauci –' How old was he then? Twenty-four? It was his first campaign. He began again. 'The Chauci, I remember, dwelt on high wooden platforms to escape the treacherous tides of that region. They gathered mud with their bare hands, which they dried in the freezing north wind, and burnt for fuel. To drink they consumed only rainwater, which they collected in tanks at the front of their houses – a sure sign of their lack of civilisation. Miserable bloody bastards, the Chauci.' He paused. 'Leave that last bit out.'
    The door opened briefly, admitting a shaft of brilliant white light. He heard the rustling of the Mediterranean, the hammering of the shipyards. So it was morning already. He must have been awake for hours. The door closed again. A slave tip-toed across to the secretary and whispered into his ear. Pliny rolled his fat body over on to one side to get a better view. 'What time is it?'
    'The end of the first hour, admiral.'
    'Have the sluices been opened at the reservoir?'
    'Yes, admiral. We have a message that the last of the water has drained away.'
    Pliny groaned and flopped back on to his pillow. 'And it seems, sir, that a most remarkable discovery has just been made.'

    The work-gang had left about a half-hour after Corelia. There were no elaborate farewells: the contagion of fear had spread throughout the men to infect Musa and Corvinus and all were eager to get back to the safety of Pompeii. Even Brebix, the former gladiator, the undefeated hero of thirty fights, kept turning his small, dark eyes nervously towards Vesuvius. They cleared the matrix and flung the tools, the unused bricks and the empty amphorae on to the backs of the wagons. Finally, a couple of the slaves shovelled earth across the remains of the night's fires and buried the grey scars left by the cement. By the time this was finished it was as if they had never been there.
    Attilius stood warily beside the inspection shaft with his arms folded and watched them prepare to leave. This was his moment of greatest danger, now that the work was done. It would be typical of Ampliatus to make sure he extracted a final measure of use out of the engineer before dispensing with him. He was ready to fight, to sell himself dearly if he had to.
    Musa had the only other horse and once he was in the saddle he called down to Attilius. 'Are you coming?'
    'Not yet. I'll catch you up later.'
    'Why not come now?'
    'Because I'm going to go up on to the mountain.'
    Musa looked at him, astonished. 'Why?'
    A good question. Because the answer to what has been happening down here must lie up there. Because it's my job to keep the water running. Because I am afraid. The engineer shrugged. 'Curiosity. Don't worry. I haven't forgotten my promise, if that's what's bothering you. Here.' He threw Musa his leather purse. 'You've done well. Buy the men some food and wine.' Musa opened the purse and inspected its contents. 'There's plenty here, aquarius. Enough for a woman as well.'
    Attilius laughed. 'Go safely, Musa. I'll see you soon. Either in Pompeii or Misenum.'
    Musa gave him a second glance and seemed about to say something, but changed his mind. He wheeled away and set off after the carts and Attilius was alone.
    Again, he was struck by the peculiar stillness of the day, as if Nature