Death in the Ashes: A Fourth Case from the Notebooks of Pliny the Younger by Bell Jr. Albert A

Author:Bell Jr., Albert A.
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Rome, mystery fiction, historical fiction, Ancient Rome, Mt Vesuvius, Pompeii
ISBN: 9781564747723
Publisher: Perseverance Press
Published: 2013-09-11T00:00:00+00:00

XIV

I don’t know,” I said, breathing rapidly, with my mouth open. “It’s so…damnably dark in here.” The light from my torch flickered even more because the hand holding it was starting to shake. “How much farther?” I asked Bastet.

“I think we’re almost down to ground level, my lord,” the Nubian said, looking over her shoulder at me with an expression that I couldn’t read. In the dim light, against the dark background of the tunnel her black skin seemed to disappear. All I was aware of was her multi-colored head-covering swirling in the torchlight, and her eyes. Those eyes seemed to grow and shine.

Within a few more paces we did reach a point where the tunnel leveled out and we could stand a bit straighter. The sense of panic I was feeling ebbed a bit, but only a bit. My desire—an almost frantic need—to get out of this place was making my head throb and my stomach tie into a knot. I didn’t understand what was happening to me. I’d been in a few caves when I was younger—Aurora and I explored some around Laurentum—and never felt anything like this. But those caves had been larger, and I had been smaller. I could turn around in them. These tunnels were so narrow I couldn’t even straighten my arms out to each side and my head almost scraped the top. And Aurora wasn’t beside me.

“That’s the fish pond,” Bastet said, pointing to a mosaic edge worked in a meander pattern, blue and red against a white background—a welcome splash of color.

From there the tunnel branched in three directions. I pointed to our left. “That would take us to the atrium, wouldn’t it?”

“Yes, my lord. And I think that’s the way my lord Calpurnius would go.”

“Then let’s get moving.”

Walking more quickly on level ground, it took only a couple of moments to reach the front of the house. To my great relief I saw that one side of the roof over the atrium had collapsed in a single large section. Because of the way the piece of the roof was sitting at an angle, supported by fallen columns and other debris, it had prevented the ash from filling in the rooms on that side of the atrium. We could stand up and move more freely. I took a deep breath and was able to stop my hands from shaking. Our torches had more effect here, easing the knot in my stomach.

“You look like you’re feeling better,” Tacitus said, patting my shoulder.

I nodded. “I just wish there were more light.”

Tacitus reached into the bag of torches he was carrying and pulled out two. “The man wants more light. Well then, fiat lux.” He placed the torches in the wall brackets and lit them from the one he was carrying. “Is that better?”

“Yes. I hope we don’t need them on the way back. That tunnel was unbearable with some light. I couldn’t do it in the dark.”

“We’ve got a few more, so don’t worry about it.

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