A Day of Fire: A Novel of Pompeii by Kate Quinn, Ben Kane, Stephanie Dray, Michelle Moran, E. Knight, Sophie Perinot, Vicky Alvear Shecter
Authors: Kate Quinn, Ben Kane, Stephanie Dray, Michelle Moran, E. Knight, Sophie Perinot, Vicky Alvear Shecter
Tags: Historical fiction, Historical, Literature & Fiction, Thrillers, Amazon, Retail, Genre Fiction, Mystery; Thriller & Suspense, Thrillers & Suspense
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…”
“Plinia,” he said gently. “Do not worry. The mountain will burn itself out. But we really must help those people who are either trapped or panicking. It’s my job to keep unrest to a minimum in the region and I intend to do so.”
“But what if—“
He flashed a look in my direction. “Gaius is the man of the house while I am on duty, Plinia. He will take care of you and the property.”
She stood on tiptoe and kissed her brother’s cheek. “May Fortuna keep you and Neptune watch over you,” she whispered and turned away to begin the long trek back up the path to our villa.
“Admiral, if we are to leave, we must do so now!” an officer said.
“Yes, yes,” he replied. “Let us go.”
I wanted to say something to him, to thank him, but for what, I didn’t know. My mind reeled, trying to find a way to undo my promise—just this time. He needed my help, didn’t he? I shouldn’t let him cross the bay to Pompeii alone! A pang—a sense of impending doom—squeezed my gut.
As if he could feel me struggling, he turned to me. “Your job is to stay here and take care of things in my name,” he said with finality.
I nodded.
Just as his first officer led him toward the boarding dock, he turned back to me and called out, “Goodbye, son.”
It was only later, looking out to sea and watching Uncle’s trireme disappear into the strange black cloud hovering over Pompeii, that I became aware of the significance of his words. He had called me “son.” He had claimed me.
I never saw him again. But in his will, dated to my manhood ceremony months before, he’d named me his heir, formally adopting me upon his death. He had believed in me all along. I prayed I could live up to the greatest gift of all—his name.
I was known, from then on, as Gaius Plinius Caecilius Secundus.
Pliny. The younger one.
PART TWO
THE HEIRESS
Sophie Perinot
“The world was not being merely shaken but turned topsy-turvy.”
—Pliny the Younger
AEMILIA
Three days earlier…
THREE days. Three days until my life is over.
Reaching out, I snap a branch off the nearest myrtle. It is still damp with morning dew. A few fading, star-shaped blooms cling to it. Casting it down, I grind it beneath my sandal. Glancing about to make certain I am unobserved, I take the doll from the pouch at my girdle. She is not the finest of my childhood playthings. Not one of my carefully carved, jointed dolls. But she is my favorite, made by Mother from scraps of linen and clothed in a dress of blue silk left from one of my own. I give her a little kiss, then push her beneath the bush. Another treasure spared from the flames.
I am a creature of fire, born in the back of a wagon as my parents fled Rome during the great conflagration in the reign of Emperor Nero. I’ve been told the harrowing story a thousand times. Told too that my extraordinary delivery is the reason my hair is red as flame. Well, fire may have birthed me and marked me, but it won’t have the mementos of my girlhood. I do not care that it is Roman tradition for a girl to burn such things on the morning of her wedding. I will make no offering to Venus because, were it up to me, I would not be a bride—at least not the bride of Gnaeus Helvius Sabinus! I push the doll further out of sight, then straighten to see my father emerging from his private wine cellar. Blinking in the bright autumn sunlight, he secures the door behind himself, extinguishes his lamp, and then smiles at me. An only child, I am the center of his world. I turn my back as if I have not seen him and head briskly for the atrium. Mistake. I can hear the earnest voice of Gnaeus Helvius Sabinus resonating from the tablinum . My intended is asking for Father. Good. Let Father deal with him. Father always smiles to see Sabinus, whereas I find nothing pleasing in the face or figure of the middle-aged man who will soon be my husband.
I have known all my life that Father
“Plinia,” he said gently. “Do not worry. The mountain will burn itself out. But we really must help those people who are either trapped or panicking. It’s my job to keep unrest to a minimum in the region and I intend to do so.”
“But what if—“
He flashed a look in my direction. “Gaius is the man of the house while I am on duty, Plinia. He will take care of you and the property.”
She stood on tiptoe and kissed her brother’s cheek. “May Fortuna keep you and Neptune watch over you,” she whispered and turned away to begin the long trek back up the path to our villa.
“Admiral, if we are to leave, we must do so now!” an officer said.
“Yes, yes,” he replied. “Let us go.”
I wanted to say something to him, to thank him, but for what, I didn’t know. My mind reeled, trying to find a way to undo my promise—just this time. He needed my help, didn’t he? I shouldn’t let him cross the bay to Pompeii alone! A pang—a sense of impending doom—squeezed my gut.
As if he could feel me struggling, he turned to me. “Your job is to stay here and take care of things in my name,” he said with finality.
I nodded.
Just as his first officer led him toward the boarding dock, he turned back to me and called out, “Goodbye, son.”
It was only later, looking out to sea and watching Uncle’s trireme disappear into the strange black cloud hovering over Pompeii, that I became aware of the significance of his words. He had called me “son.” He had claimed me.
I never saw him again. But in his will, dated to my manhood ceremony months before, he’d named me his heir, formally adopting me upon his death. He had believed in me all along. I prayed I could live up to the greatest gift of all—his name.
I was known, from then on, as Gaius Plinius Caecilius Secundus.
Pliny. The younger one.
PART TWO
THE HEIRESS
Sophie Perinot
“The world was not being merely shaken but turned topsy-turvy.”
—Pliny the Younger
AEMILIA
Three days earlier…
THREE days. Three days until my life is over.
Reaching out, I snap a branch off the nearest myrtle. It is still damp with morning dew. A few fading, star-shaped blooms cling to it. Casting it down, I grind it beneath my sandal. Glancing about to make certain I am unobserved, I take the doll from the pouch at my girdle. She is not the finest of my childhood playthings. Not one of my carefully carved, jointed dolls. But she is my favorite, made by Mother from scraps of linen and clothed in a dress of blue silk left from one of my own. I give her a little kiss, then push her beneath the bush. Another treasure spared from the flames.
I am a creature of fire, born in the back of a wagon as my parents fled Rome during the great conflagration in the reign of Emperor Nero. I’ve been told the harrowing story a thousand times. Told too that my extraordinary delivery is the reason my hair is red as flame. Well, fire may have birthed me and marked me, but it won’t have the mementos of my girlhood. I do not care that it is Roman tradition for a girl to burn such things on the morning of her wedding. I will make no offering to Venus because, were it up to me, I would not be a bride—at least not the bride of Gnaeus Helvius Sabinus! I push the doll further out of sight, then straighten to see my father emerging from his private wine cellar. Blinking in the bright autumn sunlight, he secures the door behind himself, extinguishes his lamp, and then smiles at me. An only child, I am the center of his world. I turn my back as if I have not seen him and head briskly for the atrium. Mistake. I can hear the earnest voice of Gnaeus Helvius Sabinus resonating from the tablinum . My intended is asking for Father. Good. Let Father deal with him. Father always smiles to see Sabinus, whereas I find nothing pleasing in the face or figure of the middle-aged man who will soon be my husband.
I have known all my life that Father