Page 53 of Vesuvius

‘Utter waste of time,’ a man said from outside, and Felix thanked the gods he’d shut the door. He stuffed the letter down his tunic, shoved the box in place, and lunged for the closest hiding spot, an adjoining bedroom. No sooner had he ducked below an unmade bed than the study’s door slammed open and in strode the statesman.

From this angle, chest against the floor, Felix could see only the statesman’s leather boots as he paced the study in sharp strides. Something had him agitated. A second pair of legs joined, red hem just visible. Darius. He stood at attention near the door, an obedient watchdog.

‘Leaving early, won’t that strike the others as odd?’ Darius asked.

‘You saw Umbrius’s condition. I’d wager half my worth he didn’t notice.’

Dust swirled under the bed. Felix’s nose tickled, and he bit his tongue to tamp a sneeze down. Light fell in slats across the floor to his right, filtered through shutters. Slowly, so slowly, he inched toward it.

‘I didn’t mean Umbrius, sir.’

The statesman’s pacing paused. Paper rustled. ‘Ah. If our dear lady believes her new boy makes a fraction of difference, she’s more addled than I thought. Or more desperate.’

Felix stilled.

The morning Felix fled to the Temple of Isis, Loren wore temple robes and a veil. Unrecognisable from the boy in fancy clothes Julia swaddled him in today. But Felix spent that encounter unconscious. He didn’t know what Darius had walked in on, how much of Loren’s face he’d seen. If Darius put the pieces together, realised Loren, draped on Julia’s arm, bore a connection to Felix . . .

‘Seen him before,’ Darius grunted. ‘In the Forum. A whore, I think, from the lupanar.’

‘Spend much time there?’

Wisely, Darius held his tongue.

The statesman continued, ‘Easy to pick off, in any case, no one weeps for whores. It’s unsurprising Julia would stoop so low. Her mistakes grow sloppier by the day. I imagine we’ll finish her soon. Of course,’ he said, tone shifting from idle amusement to one far more pointed, ‘if I had the damned helmet, none of this would be necessary.’

‘The guards at the gate have no news,’ said Darius.

‘He must be biding his time in town,’ the statesman murmured. ‘I dealt with boys like him in Rome; I know the lines these thieves think along. Their uncanny good fortune, their ability to blend in. Almost magical, isn’t it?’

Felix tensed. Always that. Always magic. And the statesman had accused Pompeiians of being superstitious.

He slunk towards the window, emerging from the bed and crouching low as he edged for the shutters. He didn’t dare breathe.

‘Darius,’ the statesman said, ‘did you unlock my letterbox?’

Heavy footsteps clomped toward the desk.

Felix flung himself over the window ledge into the alley. He didn’t stick around to learn if Darius had caught sight of him. He hotfooted it to the street, swift as a cat, and never glanced back.

Felix found Aurelia in an alley near the Forum. She knelt by a chalk circle, head bent with another child. But where Aurelia’s clothes were plain and lived-in, the boy’s were formal – a crisp white toga over an orange tunic, a Roman senator in miniature, wholly out of place crouching on dirty cobblestones. The two were conspiring about something, overthrowing the empire or taxes or whatever else devious children colluded over.

‘I need your help,’ Felix announced, tugging on his sandals as he neared.

The two separated abruptly.

Aurelia glared. ‘I’m busy.’

‘Seems like it.’ Felix surveyed the ground. A handful of marbles adorned the circle. Aurelia’s friend used his thumb to launch a glass shooter into the ring. It crashed and scattered a cluster of smaller marbles. Two rolled out of bounds, and the boy cheered.

Aurelia slapped the ground and groaned. ‘See what you did? Distracted me. Now I’ll lose.’

‘You won’t.’ Felix did a quick count, then squatted next to her. ‘Aim this way’ – he mimed shooting – ‘and you’ll knock out all three.’

Scepticism twisted her mouth, but she snatched her shooter. ‘Like this?’

‘Angle it more.’

She let it fly. It hurtled through the ring, striking the other orbs. As Felix predicted, the final marbles rolled free, securing the game. ‘Yes! Where did you learn that?’

---