The Wasteland, East of the Bay of Neapolis
The land lay gray under a sullen brown sky. A lone figure moved in the devastation, crawling slowly along the side of a military road. Dirty white flakes drifted on hot, sluggish air. Foot-high drifts of ash buried the road.
The figure was twisted and bent, one arm dragging uselessly in the powdery grit. Gasping in pain each time she moved, the woman crawled onward. The dim ochre disk of the sun was touching the western horizon before she stopped, overcome with exhaustion. The woman's rich red-gold hair had once been plaited into a single thick braid hanging down her back. Now the half-burned remains were matted and foul. Soot streaked her face and back, where a charred tunic clung to her flesh. Her arms, chest and legs were dark with ground-in pine needles.
She shuddered, wracked by a smoky cough. She lay on the stunted, burned grass, resting. Even lying perfectly still was torment. Her abused body was near death. Blood leaked slowly from dozens of cuts. There was a sound, muffled but distinct. The faint chuckling of water over rocks.
The woman raised her head, flinching from pain grinding like crushed glass in the nerves of her shoulders and neck. She could see the road dipping down ahead of her, and burned trees thick in a streambed.
Gritting her teeth, she dragged herself up onto the road. The smooth, carefully fitted stones drove cinders and tiny crescent-shaped flakes of volcanic glass into her good arm. With the tiny rise in height, she could see an arched bridge abutment ahead. She gasped, consumed by fierce, all-encompassing thirst. Dragging herself forward, she inched towards the bridge and the stream.
– |A dark pall hid the light of the stars. Even the moon was only a faint blur. The woman woke, shuddering with cold. Sharp rocks dug into her flesh. Her head lay in running water. Her nose and mouth were above the sluggish flow. She blinked, trying to focus on something in the darkness. There was nothing.
A sour, sulfurous taste filled her mouth and she tried to spit. Even that much effort brought a blinding wash of pain. Faint sparks flooded her vision. After a time they passed. Turning her head a little, she filled her mouth with water from the stream. It was strong-tasting and gritty, but it was water. She drank slowly. There was a vague memory of doing this before. Full, she leaned back, letting the current lap against her. She felt a chill seeping into her, but there was nothing she could do. Weariness overcame her.
– |A moon, bobbing and yellow, flickered over the edge of the bridge. The woman felt light touch her face and her gray-green eyes opened. The moon came closer and she heard the clatter of rocks knocking into one another.
The woman blinked and turned her head away from the moonlight. It was bright and hurt her eyes. What remained of her hair was floating in the current like a net, clogged with burned leaves and twigs.
"Otho! Look, another corpse in the stream."
The sound reverberated in the woman's skull. She tried to move her hand, to cover her face.
"Fool Celt, it's alive. See, the arm moved."
Metal clinked on stone and there was a splashing. The current changed, blocked, and the woman closed her eyes. The moon was close now, huge and burning. She could smell pitch and wax and the chalky odor of sweating men. Something touched her useless arm and she cried out.
– |Muted gray striped the woman's face. Her hair had been brushed back and covered a thin white pillow. The caked-on blood and soot were gone, revealing ugly bruises covering her face and neck. A cut above her eye was shiny with ointment. She lay on a narrow bed built into a wall.
The room rocked with an even rhythm. Bands of light, falling from a window set high above her, slowly moved across her body. Sometimes they faded away entirely and she lay in soft, dim quiet. From time to time she heard the braying of donkeys. But it was faint and muted by distance and the walls of red cedar surrounding her. Soft woolen blankets covered her. One arm lay atop the coverlet, bound in strips of cloth and held straight by wooden slats.
She snored softly. Occasionally she would stir and moan, but her mind was far from the world. A man sat with her, watching her quietly while she slept. He was elderly, with a polished bald head, a long white mustache and a prominent, skewed nose. His deep-set eyes watched her gently. His hands were thick with calluses and corded with muscle. Under his shirt, his body was lean and hard, without even the memory of fat.
The wagon rolled on, through the wasteland, leaving tracks in the ash that drifted across the Via Appia like snow.
– |The woman woke suddenly. She saw a dim ceiling, partially lit by candlelight. She drew breath and smelled beeswax and tallow and cedar wood and fresh linen. It smelled like home. Memories of pain warned her not to move her head, but her gray-green eyes wandered.
A bald man was sitting across from her, tusklike mustaches half lit by a candle.
"Salve," the man said. "I am Vitellix."
"Hello," the woman croaked. She stopped, her tongue feeling huge in her mouth. She was ravenously hungry and very thirsty. Everything tasted like sulfur. "Water, please."
The man nodded, his smooth round head bobbing in the light, and leaned close, a cup in his hands. The woman tasted copper on her lips as he tipped it for her. The water was cool and fresh. It felt heavenly on her tongue.
He stopped her before she drank too much. She lay back, relieved, on the pillow.
"Thank you," she said.
The man nodded his head gravely and sat back against the wall. She slept.
– |When she woke again the room had stopped rocking and sunlight slanted through the window. It was quiet and still in the little room. Outside she could hear the rattle of wood on wood and an odd hup-hup-hup sound. The pain had receded a little, letting her move her head and look around the room. The walls, which had seemed plain by candlelight, were joined planks. The wood was painted, in its upper courses, with scenes of bears and men and horses. The figures seemed to be part of a celebration or procession. Some wore masks while others went naked bearing standards before them. On the ceiling the gods looked down, their faces peering from blue-and-white-painted clouds. A golden-rayed sun surrounded the window.
"Hello?" The woman frowned; was this her voice? It was weak and harsh. What had happened to her? It should be clear and strong, ringing with command.
The door folded out of the wall. Bright sunlight and the smell of crushed green grass and damp oak trees spilled in. A head appeared; a girl with tousled brown hair, her nose wrinkling like a field mouse's. The woman in the bed tried to get up, but her right arm betrayed her and she fell back with a hiss.
"Poppa! She's awake again." The mouse-girl disappeared.
After a moment, the man from her night-dream entered. His skin was slick and glistening with sweat. A short linen kilt clung to his thighs.
"How do you feel?" His voice was muffled by a towel as he wiped his face.
"You… you are Vitellix? I remember you, speaking to me in the night."
He smiled, strong teeth very white in the dimness.
"Yes," he said, "I am Vitellix. What is your name?"
"I am…" The woman paused, feeling a huge, dull pressure in her head. "I… I don't remember."
As soon as she spoke, the pressure eased and a trickle of relief flooded through her. She sighed, gesturing weakly at her immobilized arm. "I don't remember what happened. Can you tell me?"
Vitellix closed the door and there was a muffled complaint from outside. "My boys found you in a stream. You were badly hurt, burned and covered with blood. Your arm was broken and your legs had been badly sprained. You'd taken a chill, too, but they carried you up to our camp. It took a long time to clean your wounds. Many leaves, bits of stone, pine needles and twigs had been ground into your skin. Your clothes were only rags. I've tended many hurts, but you taxed my skill!"
"Yes…" The woman captured a fragment of memory, of fire and a door silhouetted against the flames. "There was something burning… a house?"
Vitellix made a sharp, barking sound, neither laughter nor disgust.
"Everything burned, lass. That bridge was within the devastation of Vesuvius. Do you remember where you were before you were injured?"
The woman stared back at him with wide eyes. For a moment there was a look on her face, a moment of comprehension, then her eyes clouded and she shook her head. "No… What happened to the mountain?"
Vitellix's face turned grim and he looked away. In his hands, the towel twisted as he clenched his fists. "I have seen Vesuvius many times in our travels. We often camped on its wooded flank, buying our dinner from the farmers or vintners. The mountain slopes were rich-the finest wines, the richest cheese, the fattest calf-all came from the bounty of Vesuvius. There were fine cities on its shoulders, too. Pompeii, Herculaneum, Baiae."
The man's face paled as memory took hold.
"A week ago, now, in the night, the mountain shook off its slumber and woke. We were miles away to the south, camped on the road coming up from Croton. It was an odd night of rushing wind and clouds, yet there was no rain. Thunder shook the air and lightning spiked from cloud to cloud. A storm gathered on the height, crowning the mountain with a diadem of cold fire.
"I climbed onto the roof of the wagon. I could see over the trees of the orchard lining the road. The mountain was still and dark, silhouetted against the clouds. Then… then there was a light, just a spark on the summit. It seemed that the thunderheads gathered, lighting the upper slopes with the flicker of lightning. Then the glow began, a fierce red light, radiating from the very top."
The woman felt a creeping chill, even under the heavy blankets.
"Then there was a flash, a brilliant light. It lit the olive trees and shone in my face like the sun rising. I turned away and then there was a sound, like a great shout that rushed over us. Horrible wind followed and it threw me off the roof of the wagon, but I landed square."
Vitellix's voice dropped, becoming almost a whisper.
"Then ruddy, red fire filled the sky. The glow rushed down the mountainside, faster than a galloping horse. Burning stones fell hissing from the sky and the air turned foul. We hid beneath a bridge, there in the countryside above Nuceria, for three days. Sometimes the earth shook like a wet dog, heaving and bucking. Praise Lugh, the bridge did not fall around our ears!"
He sighed and picked up the towel again.
"When the rain of fire stopped, we moved north again, along the highway. Everything was covered with ash. It falls like snow, though it has slacked off. Until we found you, we thought sure that only the dead and ghosts lived under the shadow of the mountain."
The woman coughed, feeling a harsh, grating pain in her lungs.
"Did you see…" She stopped, took a breath and then said: "Did you see where I might have come from? Was there a house, a town, anything?"
Vitellix shook his head slowly. "If there was, lass, it is gone now. All the land around Vesuvius is dead. I'm sorry, but if your family lay nearby, we could not find them."