Page 65 of Vesuvius

‘My brain nearly oozed from my ears listening to him,’ Julia said. ‘Gossip about that helmet, as if that helps the situation.’ She squinted. ‘Are you ill?’

‘I need to speak with you,’ Loren said. ‘It’s urgent.’

‘Urgent?’ Glancing over Loren’s shoulder, her smile soured. ‘Ah. Your pet is here, too.’

Loren couldn’t bear to look back at Felix for fear he’d vanish, Eurydice in the Orpheus story. If he never looked, never wanted, Felix couldn’t be taken from him.

‘Felix found something,’ Loren said. ‘It concerns your father.’

Her posture changed, hand dropping from Loren’s elbow, spine straightening. Warm Julia disappeared. Statue Julia took her place.

‘I see,’ she said, chilly as a winter sea storm. ‘Come with me.’

‘Mention this to nobody,’ Umbrius warned as he handed Julia the key to his study, eyeing Loren and Felix hovering behind her. ‘A woman in the office. Unspeakable.’

She offered a tight smile and led the way inside. The small study was too cramped to be called cosy, but private enough. A desk and pair of chairs crowded the space. Along the back wall, a shelf held a pitcher and goblets, perfect for men settling in to play a long game of politics.

Julia sank into Umbrius’s spot. Loren chose the seat opposite. Felix, after a lengthy pause, perched on the arm of Loren’s chair, and Loren did his best to ignore his fluttering insides. He had to play it cool. More skittish cat than boy, Felix was warming to him. One wrong move and Felix would bolt.

‘We won’t have much time,’ said Julia. ‘Show me what you found.’

Loren passed the letter over. She skimmed it, stony face not shifting. When she reached the end, she tossed it on the desk with a dismissive wrist flick.

‘Is this all?’

‘No,’ said Loren. ‘Felix saw Servius’s guard moments before he—’

‘Found Clovia,’ Julia finished. ‘I’m aware of Servius’s techniques, believe me.’

‘But at the games—’

‘Yes, I knew then, too. Hold your protest, Loren.’ She busied herself decanting wine. ‘There’s more to this story than you can possibly predict.’

Julia plucked a scroll from a basket under the desk and unfurled it, a portion of a map. She weighed three corners with her filled goblet and two apples, leaving the fourth to curl back over the sea. Finally, she withdrew a pouch, concealed by the drape of her dress, and emptied out a scatter of coins.

‘Our friend has hands in more places than you realise.’ She set to work arranging the coins, placing them one by one over points on the map.

Loren recognised some of the cities. Rome, their capital. Surrentum. Stabiae. Even Salernum. Then Julia began filling in the gaps, setting coins over places even Loren, with his education in trade, hadn’t heard of. Two dozen markers soon cluttered the map.

‘A pattern,’ Felix said, flushing when both Loren and Julia looked up in surprise. ‘Look. Rome in the centre. The coins surrounding it.’

‘Keen observation,’ Julia said, not quite begrudgingly. Her eyes slid to Loren. ‘Perhaps your dog does have a brain.’

Felix’s lip curled. Loren shot a warning glare, and Felix slouched back against the chair.

‘Anything Servius wants, he will stop at nothing to get.’ Julia placed a final pair of coins over Pompeii and Herculaneum, side by side, as though covering a corpse’s eyes for passage to the underworld. ‘What he wants is this city in his pocket.’

‘I don’t understand,’ Loren said. ‘His end goal is what? To be elected here? You said he’s from Rome.’

Julia snorted. ‘Pompeii could crumble into the sea tomorrow and Servius wouldn’t flinch. No use drizzling shit with honey. He hates this city. Hates it for holding him hostage here. He crept onto the councils of these other towns, swayed the vote, and turned them obedient to the capital within months. Pompeii has held out for four years. Do you think that endears us to him?’

‘He should leave,’ Loren said hotly. ‘If he thinks so poorly of us.’

‘He has nowhere to go. The emperor won’t allow him to return to Rome until he fulfils the conditions of his sentence. Servius has been in exile for six years.’

Felix scoffed. ‘Most smugglers aren’t let off so easily.’

‘You know about his hobby? You keep surprising me. But yes, why is anyone ever exiled? You fall from good grace but are too important to assassinate. A useful strategy to keep yourself alive, I’ll allow him that. Servius entangled himself with a smuggling guild and got caught with his hand in the honeypot. Former Emperor Vespasian offered a deal – bring the colonised towns in line, and Servius would see his station restored.’

---