Pompeii

the cat to be a sacred animal: of all creatures the nearest in intelligence to Man. And in the whole of Nature, only cats and men – that he could think of – derived an obvious pleasure from cruelty. Did that mean that cruelty and intelligence were inevitably entwined? Interesting.
    He ate another fig. The noise of his slurping made Popidius wince. 'I must say, you seem supremely confident, Ampliatus.' There was an edge of irritation in his voice.
    'I am supremely confident. You should relax.'
    'That's easy enough for you to say. Your name is not on fifty notices spread around the city assuring everyone that the water will be flowing again by midday.'
    'Public responsibility – the price of elected office, my dear Popidius.' He clicked his juicy fingers and a slave carried over a small silver bowl. He dunked his hands and dried them on the slave's tunic. 'Have faith in Roman engineering, your honours. All will be well.'
    It was four hours since Pompeii had woken to another hot and cloudless day and to the discovery of the failure of its water supply. Ampliatus's instinct for what would happen next had proved correct. Coming on the morning after most of the town had turned out to sacrifice to Vulcan it was hard, even for the least superstitious, not to see this as further evidence of the god's displeasure. Nervous groups had started forming on the street corners soon after dawn. Placards, signed by L. Popidius Secundus, posted in the forum and on the larger fountains, announced that repairs were being carried out on the aqueduct and that the supply would resume by the seventh hour. But it was not much reassurance for those who remembered the terrible earthquake of seventeen years ago – the water had failed on that occasion, too – and all morning there had been uneasiness across the town. Some shops had failed to open. A few people had left, with their possessions piled on carts, loudly proclaiming that Vulcan was about to destroy Pompeii for a second time. And now word had got out that the quattuorviri were meeting at the House of Popidius. A crowd had gathered in the street outside. Occasionally, in the comfortable drawing room, the noise of the mob could be heard: a growl, like the sound of the beasts in their cages in the tunnels of the amphitheatre, immediately before they were let loose to fight the gladiators.
    Brittius shivered. 'I told you we should never have agreed to help that engineer.'
    'That's right,' agreed Cuspius. 'I said so right at the start. Now look where it's got us.'
    You could learn so much from a man's face, thought Ampliatus. How much he indulged himself in food and drink, what manner of work he did, his pride, his cowardice, his strength. Popidius, now: he was handsome and weak; Cuspius, like his father, brave, brutal, stupid; Brittius sagged with self-indulgence; Holconius vinegary-sharp and shrewd – too many anchovies and too much garum sauce in that diet.
    'Balls,' said Ampliatus amiably. 'Think about it. If we hadn't helped him, he would simply have gone to Nola for assistance and we would still have lost our water, only a day later – and how would that have looked when Rome got to hear of it? Besides, this way we know where he is. He's in our power.'
    The others did not notice, but old Holconius turned round at once. 'And why is it so important that we know where he is?'
    Ampliatus was momentarily lost for an answer. He laughed it off. 'Come on, Holconius! Isn't it always useful to know as much as possible? That's worth the price of lending him a few slaves and some wood and lime. Once a man is in your debt, isn't it easier to control him?'
    'That's certainly true,' said Holconius drily and glanced across the table at Popidius.
    Even Popidius was not stupid enough to miss the insult. He flushed scarlet. 'Meaning?' he demanded. He pushed back his chair.
    'Listen!' commanded Ampliatus. He wanted to stop this conversation before it went any further. 'I want to tell you about a prophecy I commissioned in the summer, when the tremors started.'
    'A prophecy?' Popidius sat down again. He was immediately interested. He loved all that stuff, Ampliatus knew: old Biria with her two magical bronze hands, covered in mystic symbols, her cage full of snakes, her milky-white eyes that couldn't see a man's face but could stare into the future. 'You've consulted the sibyl? What did she say?'
    Ampliatus arranged his features in a suitably solemn expression. 'She sacrificed serpents to