Pompeii by Robert Harris Page A

its motion. Eclipses, solar and lunar. Thunderbolts. Music from the stars. Sky portents, recorded instances. Sky-beams, sky-yawning, colors of the sky, sky-flames, sky-wreaths, sudden rings. Eclipses. Showers of stones . . .”
    There were other books by Pliny in the library. Six volumes on oratory. Eight on grammar. Twenty volumes on the war in Germany , in which he had commanded a cavalry unit. Thirty volumes on the recent history of the empire, which he had served as procurator in Spain and Belgian Gaul. Attilius wondered how he managed to write so much and rise so high in the imperial administration at the same time. The Curator said, “Because he doesn’t have a wife.” He laughed at his own joke. “And he doesn’t sleep, either. You watch he doesn’t catch you out.”
    The sky was red with the setting sun and the large lagoon to his right, where the warships were built and repaired, was deserted for the evening; a few seabirds called mournfully among the reeds. To his left, in the outer harbor, a passenger ferry was approaching through the golden glow, her sails furled, a dozen oars on either side dipping slowly in unison as she steered between the anchored triremes of the imperial fleet. She was too late to be the nightly arrival from Ostia , which meant she was probably a local service. The weight of the passengers crammed on her open deck was pressing her low to the surface.
    “Showers of milk, of blood, of flesh, of iron, of wool, of bricks. Portents. The earth at the center of the world. Earthquakes. Chasms. Air-holes. Combined marvels of fire and water: mineral pitch; naptha; regions constantly glowing. Harmonic principle of the world . . .”
    He was moving more quickly than the water pipes were emptying and when he passed through the triumphal arch that marked the entrance to the port he could see that the big public fountain at the crossroads was still flowing. Around it was grouped the usual twilight crowd—sailors dousing their befuddled heads, ragged children shrieking and splashing, a line of women and slaves with earthenware pots at their hips and on their shoulders, waiting to collect their water for the night. A marble statue of the Divine Augustus, carefully positioned beside the busy intersection to remind the citizens who was responsible for this blessing, gazed coldly above them, frozen in perpetual youth.
    The overloaded ferry had come alongside the quay. Her gangplanks, fore and aft, had been thrown down and the timber was already bowing under the weight of passengers scrambling ashore. Luggage was tossed from hand to hand. A taxi owner, surprised by the speed of the exodus, was running around kicking his bearers to get them on their feet. Attilius called across the street to ask where the ferry was from, and the taxi owner shouted back over his shoulder, “Neapolis, my friend—and before that, Pompeii .”
    Pompeii .
    Attilius, on the point of moving off, suddenly checked his stride. Odd, he thought. Odd that they had heard no word from Pompeii , the first town on the matrix. He hesitated, swung round, and stepped into the path of the oncoming crowd. “Any of you from Pompeii ?” He waved the rolled-up plans of the Augusta to attract attention. “Was anyone in Pompeii this morning?” But nobody took any notice. They were thirsty after the voyage—and of course they would be, he realized, if they had come from Neapolis, where the water had failed at
noon
. Most passed to either side of him in their eagerness to reach the fountain, all except for one, an elderly holy man, with the conical cap and curved staff of an augur, who was walking slowly, scanning the sky.
    “I was in Neapolis this afternoon,” he said when Attilius stopped him, “but this morning I was in Pompeii . Why? Is there something I can do to help you, my son?” His rheumy eyes took on a crafty look, his voice dropped. “No need to be shy. I am practiced in the interpretation of all the usual