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"Get to your room!" Bericus roared.
Instead, his wife seized a heavy goblet made of lead and flung it violently. Publius Bericus ducked, almost too late. It clanged against the wall like a battered Christmas bell and crashed to the floor.
The Roman lady's face flushed deep red. The heavy platter that followed the goblet narrowly missed Bericus' head—
His temper snapped. With a soundless snarl, he crossed the room in one leap. Bericus seized the woman by the wrists and shook her once, hard enough to jar her teeth together with an audible crack. Lucretia screeched and reached into her coif. Then jabbed Bericus with a long, sharp pin. "Murdering parricide! Boy lover! Maid chaser!"
Sibyl watched, helpless in the shadows, while Publius Bericus beat his wife to the floor. He panted for breath when she hung limp in his grasp, then tossed her aside and bellowed for slaves.
"Take that bitch to her rooms! Lock her in!"
He stalked away. Trembling slaves bent to Lucretia, who hadn't moved.
"She's dead!" a terrified woman sobbed. "She's dead..."
The slaves ran, scattering into the house.
Alone with a dead woman, Sibyl skittered across the open room and plunged down a corridor. She found the kitchen, right where she knew it would be. "Mistress is dead!" Sibyl cried.
Slaves at the hearth stared, then broke and ran past her to verify what she'd said. Sibyl found water in a basin and gulped a dipperful, then snatched up a loaf of bread, some cheeses, a bit of fruit, and dropped them into fold of her torn Egyptian gown. She spotted a long knife—nearly as long as a gladius, with a wide, heavy blade—which had been left on a table from the butchering of a carcass.
She grabbed it and ran. Sibyl tucked the knife into a fold of her long dress and held the cloth closed around it. She would have given almost anything to rinse her stinging, bruised body with some of that clean water from the kitchen. But she couldn't reach the whip marks in her back, and anyway, there was no time. Bericus or Tony Bartlett might discover her at any second.
She dodged past the house wall into a dark, narrow street.
Where should I search?
When last seen, Charlie had been headed toward the waterfront. Trying to secure a boat? Fortunately, the House of the Stags was very close to the waterfront. Sibyl crept through the darkness toward the Y-shaped staircase that gave the nearest access to the beach. As she approached the dark opening that marked the entrance to the southeastern stair, a drunken man of nearly fifty lurched abruptly toward her. He seized Sibyl's arm.
"C'mere," he growled, trying to drag her into the dark, filthy space behind him. Sibyl snarled and whipped her knife into the open, dropping her food and not caring. She shoved hard against the shorter man and knocked him off balance. He let go and fell against one wall, then swung awkwardly with his free fist. Sibyl ducked and whipped the long blade against his throat.
"Go hunt other game!"
"Please," he gasped, "don't kill me, girl... ."
Spittle sprayed from wet lips. Sibyl brought her knee up sharply between the man's legs. He went down with a strangled scream. She hit him over the back of the neck with her balled fist, then ran for the stairs while her attacker lay retching on the street. Her legs shook so badly she could hardly keep her feet. She slid to a sitting position on cold stone and swore viciously in English. Then dragged the back of one wrist across her eyes. Dammit, she couldn't afford to go soft now. It was her life on the line. Civilized niceties were out the window.
So she regained her feet and plunged down the black maw of the stairs, which tu
She knew where she had to go. Sibyl figured it was the same place Charlie would try to go. She'd told him about unearthing the manuscripts on the beachfront. It was the one place they both knew about. He would go there to try to find her—or to find Tony Bartlett.
Tony...
If he knew of her escape, that was the most dangerous place she could go. Maybe he'd already left Bericus' house? While she'd been locked into that dark little room off the kitchen? Tony was certainly their only prayer of getting home again. Charlie would know that as well as she did. And Charlie was the kind of man to wait for him, ambush him, get hold of whatever it was he used to get back.
Tony Bartlett had to get back somehow.
I'll find Charlie again there, surely I will, and everything will be all right... .
She reviewed every scrap of information she knew about the waterfront's layout, trying frantically to remember where she might discover a safe hiding place from which she could scout out the territory, find out if Tony were burying his box of loot alone or if he had a score or so of "friends."
She didn't know the first thing about skulking in the darkness, or scouting the enemy, or laying out ambushes. What she needed was some good military training—
Yeah, right.
What she needed was a machine gun, about a million spare rounds of ammo, and a working time machine.
And Charlie Fly
The stairs emerged abruptly from between buildings. The sea was a maddened beast. Waves lashed up by violent undersea shocks pounded against the narrow beachfront. Every few seconds, wild surf foamed into the arched mouths of gaping black boat chambers. The next moment, the sea would retreat a dozen yards or more, sucked back by violent submarine turbulence, stranding helpless fish on the shore.
Then it would rush back and smash into the seawall again, completely submerging the little wooden quay. Wild spray fountained up against the seawall. Every time the sea smashed forward, the entire lower story of the Suburban Baths was inundated.
Xanthus' ship was missing. His sailors had probably been paid by somebody hours ago to take them to safety. A lantern out on the water marked someone's getaway by sea. The prevailing wind would blow them straight toward Pompeii and Stabiae and further danger.
But escape by sea was the only way out of Herculaneum now. At least the people in Stabiae had had time to get away from the ashfall and fiery surges. Many of the people in Stabiae would survive, even if the town was doomed.
Sibyl finished descending the long stairs to the stone chambers that lined the sea wall. Once she reached the beach, violent surf threatened to drag her down. Maddened breakers smashed across her body, foaming right over her head before sucking debris back toward the sea. She clung to the seawall every few seconds, waiting out the water before dashing another few feet forward while the sea retreated.
Given the hour, Pliny the Elder was probably somewhere offshore of Pompeii just about now, hampered by falling debris and the heavy, hot ashfall from landing. The fleet would come ashore at Stabiae, instead, where Pliny would take refuge with his friend Pomponianus. Impossible seas and contrary winds would trap and kill him on that beach sometime during the night. Sibyl shut her eyes, terrified that impossible seas and contrary winds would trap and kill her, as well.
Sibyl kept flush against the wall and gripped with both hands as she made her way through boiling water. Sand and salt water poured into her shoes. The breakers soaked her floor-length garments until their heavy weight tugged at her legs like diving weights, impeding her progress. She didn't dare let go of either the knife or the wall to hitch the dress to her knees.