Pompeii

road.'
    'My concern is for people, not books.'
    'People perish. Books are immortal.'
    'Then if books are immortal, they will survive without my assistance.'
    He began climbing the path back up towards the house.
    'Wait!' She gathered her skirts and ran after him. 'Where are you going?'
    'To find a boat.'
    'Pliny has boats. Pliny has the greatest fleet in the world at his command.'
    'Pliny is on the other side of the bay.'
    'Look across the sea! An entire mountain is threatening to descend on us! Do you think one man in one little boat can do anything? We need a fleet. Come with me!'
    He would say this for her: she had the willpower of any man. He followed her around the pillared walkway surrounding the pool, up a flight of steps and into a library. Most of the compartments had been stripped bare. A couple of slaves were loading what remained into a wheelbarrow. Marble heads of ancient philosophers looked down, dumbstruck at what was happening.
    'This is where we keep the volumes which my ancestors brought back from Greece. One hundred and twenty plays by Sophocles alone. All the works of Aristotle, some in his own hand. They are irreplaceable. We have never allowed them to be copied.' She gripped his arm. 'Men are born and die by the thousand every hour. What do we matter? These great works are all that will be left of us. Pliny will understand.' She sat at the small table, took up a pen and dipped it in an ornate brass inkstand. A red candle flickered beside her. 'Take him this letter. He knows this library. Tell him Rectina pleads with him for rescue.'
    Behind her, across the terrace, Attilius could see the ominous darkness moving steadily around the bay, like the shadow on a sundial. He had thought it might diminish but if anything the force of it was intensifying. She was right. It would take big ships – warships – to make any impression against an enemy on this scale. She rolled the letter and sealed it with the dripping candle, pressing her ring into the soft wax. 'You have a horse?'
    'I'd go faster with a fresh one.'
    'You'll have it.' She called to one of the slaves. 'Take Marcus Attilius to the stables and saddle the swiftest horse we have.' She gave him the letter and, as he took it, clasped her dry and bony fingers around his wrist. 'Don't fail me, engineer.'
    He pulled his hand free and ran after the slave.

Hora nona

    [15:32 hours]

'The effect of the sudden release of huge volumes of magma can alter the geometry of the plumbing system, destabilise the shallow reservoir, and induce structural collapse. Such a situation frequently increases the eruption intensity, inducing contact between phreatic fluids and magma, as well as explosive decompression of the hydrothermal system associated with the shallow reservoir.'
Encyclopedia of Volcanoes

    It took Attilius just under two hours of hard riding to reach Misenum. The road wound along the coastline, sometimes running directly beside the water's edge, sometimes climbing higher inland, past the immense villas of the Roman elite. All the way along it he passed small groups of spectators gathered at the edge of the highway to watch the distant phenomenon. He mostly had his back to the mountain, but when he rounded the northern edge of the bay and began to descend towards Neapolis, he could see it again, away to his left – a thing of extraordinary beauty now. A delicate veil of white mist had draped itself around the central column, rising for mile after mile in a perfect translucent cylinder, reaching up to brush the lower edge of the mushroom-shaped cloud that was toppling over the bay.
    There was no sense of panic in Neapolis, a sleepy place at the best of times. He had far outpaced the weary, laden refugees emerging from beneath the hail of rock and no word of the catastrophe enveloping Pompeii had yet reached the city. The Greek-style temples and theatres facing out to sea gleamed white in the afternoon sun. Tourists strolled in the gardens. In the hills behind the town he could see the redbrick arcade of the Aqua Augusta where she ran above the surface. He wondered if the water was flowing yet but he did not dare stop to find out. In truth, he did not care. What had earlier seemed the most vital matter in the world had dwindled in importance to nothing. What were Exomnius and Corax now but dust? Not even dust; barely even a memory. He wondered what had happened to the other men. But the image of which he could not rid himself was Corelia – the way