Chapter XX Loren
Chapter XX
LOREN
J ust as Loren’s thighs went numb from the rumble of the rough wood, splinters pinching, brain rattling in his skull, Stravo pulled the reins.
‘This is as far as I can take you,’ he announced. ‘Beyond here, the trail is impassable by cart.’
They’d stopped at a fork in the trail, where one branch narrowed as it wound up Vesuvius’s flank, past where trees withered and only sparse grass grew.
The other path dipped to a mountainside terrace hosting a special selection of grapes.
Loren knew all about them, an experiment with higher-altitude wines, still in its infancy when he’d left home.
He hadn’t realised how far north his father had expanded in the years since.
It made sense, in the twisted way Lucius Lassius’s logic tended to work. He wouldn’t drag his son home yet, but he’d hover a hand over Pompeii to ensure Loren stayed within reach.
Felix stumbled a little when he slid from the cart, Mercury’s helmet tucked beneath his arm. It was almost a relief to have that freedom up here. On Vesuvius, they didn’t have to hide or sneak.
If Stravo thought anything suspicious about the helmet, he didn’t mention it. Instead, he gave Felix a cautious once-over. ‘Don’t return to the vineyard.’
Felix asked, carefully neutral, ‘Why is that? ’
‘You may think you fooled Adolphus, but he’s shrewder than he appears.’
‘There isn’t anything to suspect.’ Felix flashed the ring again.
To Loren’s surprise, Stravo didn’t quell under the show of authority. Instead, he raised a brow, half-hidden by his hat. ‘You’re a talented actor, I’ll give you that. But you’re not our master’s heir.’
Wind rustled the grass. ‘How do you figure?’
‘The real son of Lassius doesn’t want to be found. Wouldn’t stroll onto his father’s field midday and announce himself, would he?’ With a snap of the reins, the cart creaked back down the mountain. Over his shoulder, Stravo called, ‘Rest easy. I won’t tell Adolphus more than he knows.’
Loren gave him a moment’s head start before he tripped along the path after him. ‘Wait!’
Stravo shot him a bemused look when he drew even. ‘So, the assistant can speak.’
‘How many of you are there? Workers, I mean.’
‘Slaves,’ Stravo corrected.
Discomfort clenched Loren’s belly. ‘Slaves.’
‘Twenty or thirty, counting the women in the house.’ Stravo shifted his shoulders.
He was broad and strong from years in the field, skin toasted red by the sun.
He might be from one of Rome’s upper provinces, Gaul, perhaps, or further north to Londinium.
Either way, he didn’t belong here. None of them did.
Loren had little power when it came to his father. But this he could do.
‘Gather them. As many as will go. Leave tonight.’
‘Orders from an assistant?’
‘Tell Adolphus you were released on good authority.’ Loren levelled Stravo’s scepticism. ‘By order of Lassius’s son. And if Adolphus resists, remember he is only one man.’
Stravo hesitated. For a moment, Loren feared he would laugh him off. But he nodded, a single motion. Reins cracked. The cart rumbled on .
Loren was left in the dust, hoping he hadn’t done more harm than good.
Slowly, he trudged back to Felix, whose expression was unreadable.
‘Until you started speaking,’ Felix said, ‘I thought you were begging a ride back. You’re a bit unpredictable.’
‘Me?’
‘Yes.’ Felix tilted his head. ‘Though I think I’ve figured you out. If someone set a fire, I would run away. But you live by your heart. You would run towards it.’
‘Yet you followed me here.’
Felix’s mouth twitched. ‘Someone has to make sure you don’t get burned.’
Warmth spilled across Loren’s face, but he forced his mind back on track.
Even if Stravo hadn’t taken them all the way, he’d easily cut their journey by half.
The air was thinner, and when Loren breathed in deep, his lungs came up short.
He was made for the balmy coastal breeze, not sheer mountain wind.
And the heat. Stravo may have spared them a long walk under the sun, but the mountainside boiled, assailing from all directions.
Steam curled from the ground. Thick silence settled, not a birdcall to break it.
‘The stink is worse,’ Felix said, reading Loren’s wrinkled nose.
‘It’s no perfume.’
‘We could turn around. Go back. I don’t know what you expected to find, but there’s nothing here.’
The suggestion shouldn’t have been so tempting.
But Loren rejected it. He had what he wanted, the peak of Vesuvius in his grasp, where his dreams had led him all along.
Answers lived there, and Felix confiding his fears only made Loren more determined to demand them.
He would solve the mystery of the helmet for the city.
And for Felix.
‘No.’ Loren pursed his lips. ‘But we haven’t reached the top. ’
In truth, Loren had no idea what he thought to find on the crest of Vesuvius. He was certain it would reveal itself once he arrived. All the pieces would click into place, turning the right key in a lock. The answer would present itself.
Until he stared into the depressed crater of the mountain – a desolate valley of hissing steam and gravel, bulging in the middle, like something was trapped inside and trying to break free – and he realised he had no clue what he was doing.
‘My feet are on fire,’ Felix grumbled. Sweat trickled from his hairline into reddened eyes. Loren could empathise. He, too, felt like bones set to boil. ‘So, we’re here. Now what?’
Loren opened his mouth to say something, anything, but bit his lip instead. Noxious fumes clouded his mind. His ankles ached, and dirt clung like a second skin. What he wouldn’t give for a bath. A cool bath with orange slices and mint leaves floating.
Vesuvius had no baths. Only an empty crater and unnatural heat and two boys who shouldn’t be there.
‘Don’t tell me you don’t have a plan,’ Felix snapped. ‘Don’t say you dragged me here for nothing.’
‘Not for nothing.’
‘Damn. I can’t think past the ground’s hum. Like voices I can’t parse. Driving me mad.’ Felix flopped on a boulder at the crater’s edge, planting the helmet firmly into the loose gravel beside him. It glared at Loren. ‘Pass the water.’
‘You drank it all.’
‘Damn. I’m leaving.’ He stayed sitting.
What had Loren expected? A vision? Clarity, truth, a grain of salt in a mound of sand? What an ugly place to look for it. Vesuvius was beautiful from a distance, but up close, it writhed like an angry, sick beast .
Maybe he wasn’t close enough.
‘I wonder,’ Loren said.
Hands shielding his eyes, Felix replied, ‘What?’
If Loren didn’t stop biting his lip, he’d gnaw it off.
Felix waited. When Loren offered nothing more, he dropped his palms from his face. ‘The one time I ask you to talk, and you won’t.’
‘I think,’ Loren said, ‘I should go down there.’
‘Go . . .’ Felix jerked around. ‘There? No.’
Too late. Loren swung over the edge of the crater, fixed on the peak of the bowl’s centre, where the land swelled. Carefully, he began picking his way down the slope.
‘Stop!’
Stone scattered, and a hand yanked Loren’s elbow. He jerked free, but it threw his balance. Arms whirling, he teetered. He nearly steadied himself, but Felix made another grab. Loren dodged and hit the ground hard. Momentum carried him forward.
He slid.
Hot gravel snagged his tunic and bit his palms. Silver flashed in his peripheral, a round object knocked free and sent tumbling down. By reflex, he reached.
Fingertips brushed cold, stinging metal.
Loren gasped and, in an instant, everything changed.
Loren’s dreams weren’t dreams.
He had come to terms with that as a child, when he’d wake from a nightmare with paint-covered hands smearing his bedroom walls.
Red dripped down his wrists and puddled on the tile.
Then he’d scream until his lungs burst and a servant came running.
His mother fancied him an artist, indulging him with colours and brushes, instructing him to paint all sorts of lovely things.
Fruits in baskets. Flowers. Things to cover the horrors he splattered in his sleep. Nothing helped.
Loren wasn’t mad. He wasn’t.
But against the pounding heart of Vesuvius, hand still brushing metal so cold it burned, he began to second-guess himself.
Time stopped. The helmet, tumbling free, halted its trajectory. Felix, who seconds earlier had been grappling with Loren, disappeared. As though he’d never been there at all.
A shiver racked Loren’s spine. All his hair stood on end. In the stillness of this sweltering world, the breath he released was loud enough to shatter stone.
Movement. White mist wisped into a figure, legs and arms and hair flying loose. A phantom child, running carefree. Loren grasped at the boy’s ankle as he passed, but his hand slipped through.
A ghost. Not real.
Head swimming, he watched the boy launch into the arms of a second figure, face murky but with the same head of curls. A parent, maybe. The two spun, then dissolved.
Another spirit formed, one Loren recognised, gangly limbs and skinny knees: himself, sitting cross-legged, eyes closed. Smiling. From the mist emerged a disconnected hand, and Loren’s ghost-self allowed himself to be pulled up with a silent laugh. And vanished.
His heart skipped, and the crater filled. Pompeii’s Forum on its busiest occasion might have been transferred to the peak of Vesuvius, except these figures were as real as his ghost-self. Gods, they looked happy.