Pompeii Read Free

“Fetch the tools.”
    “Aquarius—”
    “Fetch the tools!”
     
    They dug all morning, as the sun climbed slowly above the blue furnace of the bay, melting from yellow disk to gaseous white star. The ground creaked and tautened in the heat, like the bowstring of one of his great-grandfather’s giant siege engines.
    Once, a boy passed them, dragging an emaciated goat by a rope halter toward the town. He was the only person they saw. Misenum itself lay hidden from view just beyond the cliff edge. Occasionally its sounds floated up to them—shouts of command from the military school, hammering and sawing from the shipyards.
    Attilius, an old straw hat pulled low over his face, worked hardest of all. Even when the others crept off occasionally to sprawl in whatever patches of shade they could find, he continued to swing his ax. The shaft was slippery with his sweat and hard to grip. His palms blistered. His tunic stuck to him like a second skin. But he would not show weakness in front of the men. Even Corax shut up after a while.
    The crater they eventually excavated was twice as deep as a man’s height, and broad enough for two of them to work in. And there was a spring there, right enough, but it retreated whenever they came close. They would dig. The rusty soil at the bottom of the hole would turn damp. And then it would bake dry again in the sunlight. They would excavate another layer and the same process would recur.
    Only at the tenth hour, when the sun had passed its zenith, did Attilius at last acknowledge defeat. He watched a final stain of water dwindle and evaporate, then flung his ax over the lip of the pit and hauled himself after it. He pulled off his hat and fanned his burning cheeks. Corax sat on a rock and watched him. For the first time Attilius noticed he was bareheaded.
    He said, “You’ll boil your brains in this heat.” He uncorked his waterskin and tipped a little into his hand, splashed it onto his face and the back of his neck, then drank. It was hot—as unrefreshing as swallowing blood.
    “I was born here. Heat doesn’t bother me. In
Campania
we call this cool.” Corax hawked and spat. He tilted his broad chin toward the hole. “What do we do with this?”
    Attilius glanced at it—an ugly gash in the hillside, great mounds of earth heaped all around it. His monument. His folly. “We’ll leave it as it is,” he said. “Have it covered with planks. When it rains, the spring will rise. You’ll see.”
    “When it rains, we won’t need a spring.”
    A fair point, Attilius had to concede.
    “We could run a pipe from it,” he said thoughtfully. He was a romantic when it came to water. In his imagination, a whole pastoral idyll suddenly began to take shape. “We could irrigate this entire hillside. There could be lemon groves up here. Olives. It could be terraced. Vines—”
    “Vines!” Corax shook his head. “So now we’re farmers! Listen to me, young expert from Rome . Let me tell you something. The Aqua Augusta hasn’t failed in more than a century. And she isn’t going to fail now. Not even with you in charge.”
    “We hope.” The engineer finished the last of his water. He could feel himself blushing scarlet with humiliation, but the heat hid his shame. He planted his straw hat firmly on his head and pulled down the brim to protect his face. “All right, Corax, get the men together. We’ve done here for the day.”
    He collected his tools and set off without waiting for the others. They could find their own way back.
    He had to watch where he put his feet. Each step sent a scattering of lizards rustling away into the dry undergrowth. It’s more Africa than Italy, he thought, and when he reached the coastal path, Misenum appeared beneath him, shimmering in the haze of heat like an oasis town, pulsing—or so it seemed to him—in time with the cicadas.
    The headquarters of the western imperial fleet was a triumph of man over nature, for by rights no town should exist