New Pompeii (26 page)

Nick nodded. “Well, you can at least understand her being protective of her son.”

For a second, Patrick looked confused. “Oh, Noah? Sure… right.”

“You don’t agree?”

Patrick shrugged. “It’s nothing to do with me.” He pointed down the street. “Whelan asked me to say ‘thank you’ for your good work yesterday.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, I think you’ve managed to impress him, which is no mean feat.”

“So what’s my reward?”

“He said you could do with a bath.”

It was only mid-morning, and Nick followed Patrick expecting that they would be turned away. In Pompeii the bathhouses would have been closed until about midday. But the Stabian Baths were open; another indication that New Pompeii was different to its namesake.

“We asked the aediles to keep these places open longer,” Patrick explained. “To distract people from some of the remaining problems, including the Isis situation. Of course, as representatives of Augustus, we don’t have to pay.”

Nick nodded, and followed the interpreter into a changing room where about a dozen men were in the process of getting undressed. The sound of voices and splashing water echoed from the rest of the building.

Nick removed his sandals and stepped barefoot on to the changing room’s intricate mosaic floor. A beautiful image of an octopus stared up at him from the tiles, mythical sea creatures floating around its tentacles. All he had to do was take off his clothes, but that was easier said than done. He struggled to remove his belt and swore under his breath. Although he’d wanted to see how the Roman baths worked since he’d arrived, the process of going inside didn’t exactly fit with any modern ideals of modesty. He pulled off his tunic and stuffed it into one of the many niches that lined the walls, making a mental note of the number scrawled above his niche. He looked over at Patrick, careful to keep his gaze at eye level.

“What happened to Felix? Was he sent back to the control villa?”

Patrick looked at him with heavy eyes. “No, Nick. That’s not how McMahon likes things done. And Whelan generally makes sure things don’t go wrong twice, if you catch my drift.”

Nick nodded, understanding. “They’re all just puppets, right?”

“Something like that.”

“And it doesn’t bother you?”

“Of course it does. But I’m not going to feel too upset about what happens to someone who should have died two thousand years ago.”

Nick didn’t reply. The translator’s logic didn’t assuage his feeling of guilt. He followed Patrick through the low door at the far end of the changing room, trying to push thoughts of Felix to the fringes of his mind, remembering that at least he’d managed to save Calpurnia from getting caught.

Calpurnia. He immediately regretted thinking about her.

“So what do you think?” asked Patrick.

The exercise yard was noisy and stank of sweat mixed with olive oil. There were men lifting weights; others sparring. Shouting as they won some small victory, and letting everyone know defeats weren’t their fault. Around the edges of the main pool stood a huddle of stalls, mainly selling food. Their owners hollering about what they had for sale, above the splashing of the water.

It was all there. A Roman bathhouse in full flow.

And no one seemed to have noticed them.

“Let’s speak in Latin,” Nick said.

The translator looked amused. “Going native?”

Nick shook his head. Patrick didn’t understand. On the street they were obviously outsiders. But although he’d come in here feeling completely exposed, their “emperor’s new clothes” were an effective disguise: they were lost among all the other naked apes.

Still, there were still some things he wasn’t prepared for. They made their way to the main pool, and Nick scowled as he saw the water. He reminded himself that Astridge had recreated Roman plumbing. The lack of circulation meant an accumulation of soap fat, oil, scum and phlegm dotted the water’s surface. He didn’t even want to think about what else could be in there.

“I’m not going in that water,” Nick said.

“Fine – let’s go and get scraped.”

Patrick indicated a side chamber. Inside were a collection of knee-high rectangular tables, each manned by a slave. The translator slid on to the nearest one, stomach down. Nick clambered on to the table next to him. Two slaves came over and started the process of oiling and then scraping their skin using hook-shaped metal strigils.

“Roman exfoliation,” Patrick said. “Maggie would be very impressed.”

“There’s an old anecdote about the baths,” said Nick, feeling the pressure of the metal pushing against his shoulder blades. The smell of the oil was starting to irritate his nose. “It goes something along the lines that an emperor visits the baths and sees a man scraping his back against a wall. The emperor finds out he’s too poor to own a slave to do it for him, so gives him one. The next time he goes, ten men are stood scraping themselves against the wall. So the emperor tells them to scrape each other.”

“Very good. From that joke book?”

“Yes.” Nick paused, feeling the strigil scrape away at the tension in his muscles. “Back at the house, I heard McMahon talking about a man called Harris.”

Patrick didn’t respond.

“He seemed quite obsessed with him.”

Patrick turned his head as his slave pushed heavily against him. The skin on the translator’s back was pushed up like a wave and deep into his shoulders. “Best not to talk about that,” he said, in English.

“It would be useful to know,” Nick persisted. “So I don’t put my foot in it with McMahon.”

Patrick let out a heavy sigh. “Okay – but you didn’t hear it from me, right?”

Nick nodded.

“So a few years ago, we kept on hearing about a guy called James Harris. Who was he? Who knew him? Who had he spoken to? McMahon was quite worried for a time but then announced he’d dealt with the problem.”

“When was this?”

“A while ago… I’d only just joined. I had to answer a ton of questions about him. Which would have been easier to answer, if I’d actually known anything about the guy.”

“Well,” said Nick, “it looks like he’s back.”

“Y
OU LOOK SURPRISED
.”

Kirsten stared into the eyes behind the horn-rimmed spectacles. It was the student. Except he was no longer a teenager. Or a student. His hair was thinner and there were clusters of lines at the corners of his eyes.

“I don’t think I ever introduced myself.” He put the small phone he’d been carrying into his pocket, and extended his hand. “James Harris.”

Kirsten didn’t accept the gesture. She lifted the magazine. “That’s not what it says in here.”

“No,” he replied, his tone even. He reached forward and took the magazine from her, replacing it on the shelf. “But sometimes it’s better that people don’t know who we are, or where we’ve been.”

“You’re working for McMahon?” she said.

The student – James Harris – smiled patiently. “Why would you think that?”

“You said he’d snatched me into the future. I didn’t expect you to be part of it.”

“Well, I don’t work for Novus Particles.”

Kirsten didn’t say anything.

“Now,” said Harris, looking towards the door, “if we wait another ten minutes, I’m assured we can get you out of here.”

T
HE NICHES WERE
empty, their tunics and sandals gone. Nick looked about, seeing Patrick looking as confused as he felt. Other patrons were dressing and undressing around them – all seemingly unaware of their predicament.

“Where’s the attendant?”

The man who had been guarding the changing room had disappeared.

“There he is.” Patrick pointed at a man who had appeared in the entrance. Nick didn’t recognise him. Was he even the same guy who’d been on duty when they’d arrived? Nick realised he didn’t know. He hadn’t been paying any attention.

“Where are our clothes?”

Patrick’s voice was perhaps a bit too aggressive for a man who was naked.

“Someone must have taken them,” replied the attendant. He didn’t sound at all bothered. Then the edge of his lip curled upwards, and Nick realised it was a scam. “Citizens can buy replacements for a small fee.”

So that was it. Pay the fee, boys, or lose your dignity on the way home. Nick didn’t fancy the latter. But replacement clothes were probably going to be expensive. And that was their other problem. They had no money.

“How much?” asked Patrick. Others were now listening to the conversation. And more men were entering from the main door. But they weren’t undressing.

They were circling.

Nick found himself being shepherded closer to Patrick. It took far too long for it to dawn. It wasn’t a scam.

It was a trap.

The attendant grinned. “Citizens can buy replacements for a small fee.”

“You’ve already told me that.”

“You’re no citizen.”

Instinctively, Nick looked behind him. The circle of men had grown tighter, and the attendant’s face had lost its self-satisfied smile. His expression was grim.

Naked or not, it was time to leave. “Let’s go,” he whispered. “As quickly as we can.”

“No,” said Patrick. He still didn’t seem aware of the danger. His attention was focused on the attendant. He’d not noticed the other bathers starting to scramble. Grabbing their clothes and running for the door. “Do you realise who we are?”

“Patrick!”

Nick grabbed the translator’s arm, spinning him round. But the men wouldn’t have let them run anyway. Without a spoken order, they lunged forward – some aiming at Nick, others for Patrick. It didn’t take long to wrestle them both to the floor.

Nick tried to resist but couldn’t. Two men held his shoulders. Another couple sat on his lower thighs, holding his ankles. Slowly, his legs were pulled out into a “V”.

To one side, from where Patrick was being held, Nick heard a voice. It was a smooth, controlled tone, which barely echoed around the chamber.

“The Greeks believed that, when Uranus was overthrown, they cut his balls off with a sickle and cast them into the sea.”

Nick immediately tried to wrench himself free but couldn’t. He felt the
thump-thump-thump
of his heart, but no amount of adrenaline was going to shift the weight now pushing down on him. His entire body had been locked down. All except his genitals.

“And from his blood and semen, the whole gamut of life erupted from the oceans, and a new era was born…”

The thug holding his right shoulder grinned down at him just as the speaker appeared in his line of sight. He was holding a small metallic blade, which looked a lot like one of the strigils used in the steam room. Not unlike a sickle.

The man disappeared from view. Back to Patrick.

“Some people here think of you as gods,” he continued. “They think you saved us from the mountain. But I don’t think this is Olympus… and your shrivelled, wet dicks don’t look too godly to me. So should we see what happens when we throw your balls into the water? Will any new life spring forth?”

“You’re all going to die for this!”

Patrick. Nick ignored him. They were in no position to make threats. “Let’s just talk this through, okay?” His voice sounded weak – his chest squeezed by the pressure on his shoulders. The man with the sickle came and stood over him. He leered down.

“And what do you have to say to me?”

A few lines of argument came to mind. He rejected most of them. “We’re not like you,” he admitted. “We’re not from Pompeii, and we’re not Romans. But we never claimed to be gods…”

The man knelt down in front and below him – inside the “V” of his legs – the sickle resting on his knee. “Go on…”

“We can give you money,” said Nick. “What do you want? To be aedile?
Duumvir?
We can arrange that.”

“Nice speech, Cicero; but I don’t believe it.” The man reached forward and grabbed Nick’s balls. Bunching them between his thumb and forefinger. Squeezing and stretching.

The vessels connecting to his testicles pulled tight. Nick opened his mouth to scream, but couldn’t. The man slid the curve of the sickle underneath him. He lifted the blade a couple of centimetres, allowing the edge to bite into the underside of Nick’s balls. Nick felt them trying to contract. But they couldn’t go anywhere. And it just made the pain worse.

“Wait…” Nick whispered. The hammering in his chest was getting louder. He heard the first few missed beats as his heart started to motor like it was running low on gas. He swallowed dryly, and registered blotches of red and purple in his vision. He was going to die. They wouldn’t just stop at emasculating him. They were going to kill him. Make an example of him. Probably drag his neutered body through the streets so everybody could see there was nothing to fear from the men of Augustus.

The sickle lifted higher. Nick sensed the deepening of the initial cut, but only allowed himself the merest grimace. He felt blood running down between his thighs. His head lolled. He was about to faint, and tried not to shake. It wouldn’t take much now. Perhaps just one flick of this psycho’s wrist.

“Do you have anything to say to me, god?”

Nick opened his mouth, but didn’t speak. His head was swimming, and he didn’t have anything to say. He couldn’t see the corners of the room. Didn’t know if there was any CCTV. And without his belt, he couldn’t call for help.

Nick could feel a small pool of blood forming around him. But the man suddenly hesitated; looking at his men and then skyward. Nick’s heart continued to pound, but suddenly he understood. They weren’t sure.

They weren’t sure he wasn’t a god, and that there wouldn’t be some divine retribution. Nick looked at the men holding him down. They were all staring at their boss, clearly uncertain. He might still have a chance.
He just needed to work out what to say
…

But as he opened his mouth, the man reached forward with his free hand, and touched Nick’s bruised cheek.

“You can be injured,” the man said, his tone still calm.

“Stop,” said Nick, suddenly finding his voice. But the men holding him down were no longer fearful. Whelan’s smoke and mirrors had suddenly dissipated, even though the steam from the bathing chambers seemed to be encircling them.