Chapter 214 - Pompeii

Pompeii was a seaside town, a city where the privileged of Rome came in pursuit of pleasure. Laevinus had spoken a few times of buying a villa in Pompeii, expounding upon the city's attractions—the temples, the forum, its view of the bay. He'd never gotten around to it, of course, so Apollonius had never seen the city with his own eyes.

It was not exactly as the boy had imagined.

It was a fortress-like city, surrounded by high walls. He had imagined a sprawling resort, like Baiae or Misenum, cities he had visited with his dominus over the years. This was a frontier town, a city built for siege, set back a good quarter of a mile from the sea, with only a modest harbor sitting at her feet. Inside its walls-- and extending a little ways outside its walls, too—was a hive-like conurbation of whitewashed buildings and narrow, maze-like streets. Not at all how his master had described it.

Of course, thinking back, Laevinus had mostly spoken of Pompeii's slave trade. "A man can buy anything he wants in Pompeii," he had said. This was to Domitianus, during one of his dinner parties. "Parrots, monkeys, slaves. You can buy Oriental slave girls there who are especially trained in the most exotic sexual techniques. Boys, too, for that matter! Anything your heart desires. Anytime you want it!"

Apollonius had no interest in anything like that. Nevertheless, he had heard many good things about the town, and he was anxious to sample her pleasures for himself.

But first they had to settle in.

His master's villa sat on the northwest side of the city, near the wall, about halfway between the forum and Herculaneum Gate. It was a sprawling house, fronted by several small shops, all of which appeared to be occupied, though they were closed for the night. Past the shops, through a recessed door, a colonnaded peristyle encompassed a lavish garden, with statuary and fountains and exotic flowering plants.

Apollonius had expected the villa to be dark and neglected. His new master had said he hadn't resided here in years, but the garden was well maintained and there were a few low lights glowing in the windows. He stared around in wonder as they passed across the courtyard. Peacocks roosted in the trees and a statue of a dancing nymph stood frozen in mid-leap in the center of a shallow pool. The trickle of the fountains was soothing and the atmosphere was thick with the perfume of exotic plants. A nice place to sneak a nap. In all honesty, he couldn't be certain he wasn't dreaming now, the past few days seemed so unreal to him.

"I employ a small staff even when I'm absent," his master said, anticipating the boy's question. "A housekeeper, a cook, a few men to run my shops." He turned to the boy and held up a finger, "They are not slaves, so you will treat them with respect."

"Of course, dominus," Apollonius said quickly.

"No!" his master corrected him. "Do not call me dominus. I am not your master. Remember our story?"

Apollonius blushed. "Yes, uh…."

He couldn't bring himself to call the man "father".

"Germanis," the magician reminded him.

"Yes, Germanis," he said. A thought occurred. "Do your servants know you're a magician?"

"Of course not. I am a dealer of rare antiquities here. A mortal dealer of antiquities."

Apollonius smiled and nodded.

He spotted a tremulous light approaching from the interior of the villa. A moment later, an old man peered out between two of the columns, a lantern in one hand. "Who goes there?" the old man shouted. "I hear voices! Begone, thieves, before I unleash the dogs on you!"

"Be at peace, Fulvius. It is I, Germanis."

"Germanis?" the old man echoed, holding the lantern up higher. "Germanis! I thought I'd die before I saw your return!"

"Fulvius is my major domus here in Pompeii," Gon said quietly to Apollonius.

The boy nodded.

The old man approached, walking gingerly in the grass, which was wet with dew. He was ancient, bent, with narrow, bony limbs. "By Jupiter, you have not aged a day, Germanis! It is unseemly!" He noticed Apollonius then. "Ah, and who is this young man?"

"This is Paulo. My son."

"Your son?" the old man screeched.

"I got his mother with child in the course of my travels. She died recently, so I decided to raise the boy myself. I plan to educate him here in Pompeii, be a proper father to him."

"Yes, yes, I see the resemblance," the old man said, squinting at the boy myopically. "He is a spitting ringer of his father! Greetings, Paulo, young son of Germanis. I am Fulvius, the majordomo here at Villa Eyya."

Paulo bowed slightly.

"Well, come inside, come inside," the steward said, waving for the two men to follow him. "Are you hungry? Let me rouse Herminia. I think we still have some fish left over from supper."

Gon wasn't hungry—he had dined along the way-- but the boy was famished. He hadn't eaten since they departed the inn. The major domus woke the cook, who prepared the boy a great breakfast. Apollonius ate while Gon made arrangements with Fulvius to staff the villa and bring in tutors for the boy. Belly full, Apollonius was ready for bed. A room was readied for the lad next to the magician's chambers.

Apollonius slept until midday, when his stomach roused him from his dreams. He ate again, then wandered about the villa, exploring the extensive estate. The door of the magician's bedroom was locked, but Gon had left instructions that the boy not be allowed to leave the villa. Not until he was familiar with the city.

Villa Eyya was a fantastical labyrinth, so much so that Apollonius half-expected to come upon a Minotaur in the midst of his explorations. The walls and floors of nearly every room were decorated with exquisite frescos-- intricate patterns that captivated the eye, famous historic events, mythological characters and detailed depictions of erotic acts. The furniture was sumptuous. The statuary was so realistic the figures looked almost alive. The faun leaping in the middle of the impluvium looked like he might finish his step the moment the boy glanced away. He located the latrine, a bath, a gym and the servants' quarters, most of them unoccupied. There were two atriums. Numerous chambers and winding corridors. He even discovered two secret passages.

When he tired of exploring the house, Apollonius crossed the courtyard and peeked into the shops that adjoined the villa. There was the antique shop his master had spoken of, the largest of the businesses, a store that sold common household goods, and a food seller's booth. All three businesses bustled with activity. Customers of every stripe, from rich Roman citizens to exotic foreign tourists, crowded into the kiosks, browsing, haggling, clamoring for attention. Despite the bustle, most of the shopkeepers took note of the boy and spared their landlord's son a friendly nod.

Apollonius waved back before retreating to the villa.

It was strange being treated so courteously. It was not something the boy was accustomed to. Two days ago, he was the property of Albanus Laevinus, a crude, cruel, violent slaver. Now he was the son of Germanis Vulso, a rich merchant, a man unreservedly adored by his servants. Already this afternoon he had been told numerous times how happy they all were that the master had returned to Pompeii. How his father was a good man—honorable, kind, generous to a fault. Most of the staff, he learned, had been slaves that Gon had freed.

It was a lie, of course. Germanis Vulso was a lie, and so was his bastard son Paulo, and knowing it was a lie made it all the more dreamlike. Yet it was a pleasant dream, one that he did not wish to wake from.

He learned how Germanis concealed his true nature—his pale skin and sensitivity to light—from his servants. Another lie. His new master claimed that his mother was an albino, and that he had inherited his infirmity from the woman. Apollonius had never seen an albino, but he had heard of them. Strange men and women with no pigment in their skin. It sounded like a seemly lie.

"Yes, my mother told me that," he said, when the cook, Herminia, questioned him about it.

It was, he thought, a clever response.

He took a nap, and rose to find that it was evening. The magician was in the large atrium, interviewing tutors. Apollonius went and sat at his new master's feet. He could tell by the way Gon put his hand on his head that the magician enjoyed his nearness.

He said that I reminded him of his son, Apollonius thought.

The magician had spoken of a family, said that he had lost them many, many years ago. Apollonius knew what it was to lose family. He had seen his mother and father murdered, watched his sisters hauled away to auction. He felt pity for the magician for the first time, and he propped his chin on the tall man's knee.

"I would like to learn Latin, too, Father," the boy said, and he knew from the way the magician's voice faltered that he had struck the mark. His new master was still sad for the son that he had lost, and Apollonius was the boy's replacement.

He had mixed feelings about that.

He thought about that boy as he sat there beside the magician. What did he look like? Was he a serious child or a frivolous one? Did he share his father's strange powers?

No, that couldn't be. The magician had said that he was a normal mortal man before he was cursed with immortality.

And then he wondered how the magician could consider such a power a curse. Apollonius had lived in fear of death for half his life. It was a terrible burden to carry, always worrying if you were going to die from one moment to the next. In Laevinus's household, one never knew when their dominus was going to lose his temper, fly into a rage and have someone crucified or strangled. Apollonius had seen it happen time and time again. And the look on their faces…! Surprise, fear, and then a kind of surrender, a withdrawal into their inner thoughts as they embraced the inevitable. It gave him nightmares.

I would like to live forever, the boy thought.

Perhaps the magician could "curse" him with immortality!

He will do it, if it is within his powers, Apollonius thought. If I can make him love me, truly, like a son.

The time was not right to ask for it now, he thought. But someday…

The months that followed were a whirlwind of activity. Apollonius lived as he had not lived in many years. If his father had never cuckolded Domitianus, this was the life he might have led in Rome, not quite as lavish as with his new family in Pompeii, but close to it.

The magician pampered him, bought him fine new clothes and toys. He ate the richest foods and slept on soft, clean sheets every night. He was tutored during the day. In the evenings, he entertained the magician. They hosted dinner parties two, sometimes three nights a week. He made the acquaintance of artists, philosophers, poets and actors. Gon commissioned a portrait of him. They visited the forum and the theaters, the public baths and the chariot races. They went everywhere together, enjoyed all the delights of Pompeii, all save the brothels and the coliseum. Gon said he was still too young for the brothels, and the magician didn't care for the arena.

"Men should not kill other men for sport," is what he said of the games.

Apollonius enjoyed the games. He came to view them as his secret vice. He went to the coliseum whenever he could sneak away. By then, the magician trusted him to venture out alone. He was, after all, nearly a man! Apollonius usually said he was going to the baths, or to the forum to shop, but he always went to the arena.

Like his adopted father, Apollonius craved blood. Only he drank it with his eyes instead of his mouth. When he watched the gladiators battle, his heart raced and he broke out in a sweat, and he got the most exhilarating tingle in his stomach. He jumped to his feet when the crowd jumped. He roared when they roared. He could afford the good seats, the ones down near the arena reserved for Pompeii's elite, so close he could smell the sunbaked sand, the sweat of the combatants, the blood. He didn't get too excited when they were just killing animals or those atheistic troublemakers, the Christians—he pitied the animals, and didn't care one way or the other about the strange, quarrelsome Christians—but when the gladiators fought one another, when they wounded or killed one another, he was transported. In his mind, every man who died in the arena was Domitianus, and every victor was Apollonius.

He became infatuated with one gladiator in particular. The warrior's name was Russus. He was not a big man, not like some of the others. In fact, he was slim and blond like Apollonius, but he was fast! Jupiter, was he fast! And he was a master of the short sword. When Russus fought, Apollonius screamed so loud his throat was sore the next day. One afternoon, as the boy was leaning over the railing to watch, Russus beheaded his foe just below his seat and the blood had flown all the way up and freckled his face. He was so overwhelmed he nearly swooned and tumbled over into the arena. If the fellow sitting next to him hadn't grabbed the hem of his tunic, he would have went right over. Probably broken his neck.

He began to work out in the gymnasium at home. He wanted to be strong and fast like Russus. Gon hired a sword instructor to teach him how to fight. He was fifteen years old by then, though he did not know it, and developing quickly. His groin and armpits had already sprouted hair, but he quickly put on new, wiry muscle. He was like a plant that had languished for years in the shade, and his new life in Pompeii was the nourishing sun.

Sometimes, after the games, he journeyed down to the Caserma dei Gladiatori, the warrior's barracks, and tried to get the attention of Russus. He only saw the man once or twice, but once, Russus happened to hear him shouting in the crowd and he turned and saluted, his golden skin shining. Apollonius thought his heart would fly up out of his throat.

Russus was not like the others. He was not a slave or a criminal. He had been a free man before he volunteered for the arena. He fought for respect and adoration, and for the simple thrill of combat, testing his strength and skills against the abilities of his opponents. Though Apollonius was getting a little old for children's toys, he bought a wooden effigy of Russus from a seller in the forum. He took it home and placed it on his nightstand. Russus, he believed, could never be defeated. Russus would never die.

Only he did.

He died during the games in the middle of Augustus. Apollonius was seated down near the arena, cheering at the top of his voice for his hero, as usual. It was a brutally hot day, and the crowd was particularly surly, booing the exhausted combatants and throwing vegetables into the arena. Russus was fighting two condemned men, one armed with a sword and shield, the other with trident and net. Russus had just dispatched the swordsman, killing him with a vertical stroke across the throat, when he stepped back and slipped on a chunk of cabbage. He fell just as the other gladiator let his trident fly, a desperate gambit on his part, and the weapon impaled the boy's hero in the chest.

They said later that the center tine of the weapon had pierced the gladiator's heart.

He died instantly.

Apollonius didn't remember his trek home that evening. He left the coliseum in a daze. He didn't come back to himself until he was standing in the middle of the peristyle, vomiting into one of the fountains.

That night, when Gon rose, he asked the magician for the living blood.

He knew by then the workings of his master's "curse". The magician had confided in him how he had been made an immortal, and that there were others like him. Some were more powerful than others, he said, but they were all long-lived, if not truly immortal, and they all shared his master's remarkable strength. It was the blood, his master said. It was a living creature, a parasite. The striga carried it in their bodies, and when they wanted to make another of their kind, they passed a portion of it to a mortal with their mouths, bringing it up from their bellies and feeding it to them, as a mother bird feeds her baby chicks. His master called it the living blood. Sometimes he called it the Strix.

"Give me the blood," the boy demanded, tears crawling down his cheeks. "I do not want to die!"

Death seemed quite certain and terrible for him that night, for he knew, if a warrior as skillful as Russus could die so easily, death might come for him at any moment, and from any quarter. He did not want to die from slipping on a chunk of cabbage!

"You do not know what you ask for, son," Gon answered, looking very surprised and concerned. "Everything in this life has a price, and eternal life has the highest price of all."

"I do not care!" Apollonius screamed, crying and stomping his foot. "How can you parade your immortality before me and expect me not to want it!"

What the servants must have thought of that, he did not know or care. Gon took him aside and they argued about it for hours, but the magician finally relented, as Apollonius knew he would. He loved the boy, loved him like his own flesh and blood, and so he said yes, but with one caveat.

"One more year, Apollonius. Live your mortal life one more year. You've yet to attain your full adult size. You are still growing. You need to finish growing before I give you the blood, else it will freeze you forever in the form of a child. Enjoy your youth for one more year. Forsake the coliseum and its bloody distractions. Fall in love with a woman, or a man-- or both! Try every food you care to taste, only live, and this time next year, I will give you the blood."

"Do you swear it?" Apollonius asked, sniffing and wiping his cheeks.

"I swear it."

And he kept his promise.