A Day of Fire: A Novel of Pompeii Read Online Free PDF

nearly growled. “I cannot be separated from her. She needs me!”
    I looked down at my pack. My heart sunk. Her sister’s creamy blonde prettiness would fetch a very high price. It was highly unlikely that I could afford both of them and still keep Prima in a place by the sea. “I might need some time to get more money—“
    “You don’t seem to understand,” she interrupted and her eyes looked hard and mean. “I do not love you. I never will. What you ‘love’ is what I do for you upstairs. For money. It’s an illusion.”
    Heat spread over my head and chest. “But … but you chose me. Remember? The first time, you said … I thought … that maybe you—”
    “The younger ones are easier because they finish faster,” she said in a hard tone. “And you paid extra for the whole night. I’d be a fool if I didn’t take advantage of that. But you’re a bigger fool for thinking I’d feel anything for you. Your coin bag, though—now that is something I loved. But not you.”
    I actually curved over my wine cup, as if she had physically struck me in the chest.
    She blew air out through her cheeks and stared up at the ceiling. “Venus’ tit, if I’d realized how stupid you really are, I would’ve taken you for much, much more, boy. You need—“
    “Stop calling me a boy!” I shouted.
    The place went quiet.
    “Pay for the wine and go, Caecilius.”
    The stool clattered behind me as I scrambled up. I slammed some coins on the table and clutched the bag of what I’d taken from my uncle hard against my stomach.
    Prima stood wearily. “Come back when you grow a pair. I’ll take your money then, same as any other.”
    I don’t know how I got outside, or when I remembered to start breathing. The road under me began to vibrate and a bread cart across the way almost toppled over. Dizzy and nauseated, I fought to keep my balance. It took me a moment to realize that it was not just my world falling apart around me but another tremor shaking the earth.
    But this one felt stronger. More dangerous. I put my hand on the wall outside the tavern almost hoping it would fall on me. When the vibrating stopped, someone started laughing too loudly across the street. A chicken squawked in outrage—wings outstretched as it ran desperately to get away from two barefoot children. People jostled me as they resumed their treks to and fro. I began putting one foot in front of the other, not caring or noticing where I went.
     
     
    I let the crowd sweep me around unfamiliar streets. A man carrying a squealing piglet pushed me into a wall outside a large house as he swept by. My eye caught a word scratched onto the side of the door: Prima. I blinked and forced myself to read all of it.
    Secundus says hello to his Prima, wherever she is. I ask, my mistress, that you love me.
    She doesn’t love anyone, I thought. And I was not the only fool for her. Still, the gods had led me to focus on her name. Clearly, they laughed at me most of all.
    I found myself walking in circles around the basilica in the forum. I should go home, I told myself. I should replace what I took before my uncle notices. But that meant walking through Prima’s end of town and that I could not do. Not yet. Besides, the horses would not be rested enough.
    What a fool I was! What an idiot. The worst kind of stupid. She called me a boy. She cared nothing for me. How could I have misjudged her so completely? The humiliation washed over me in waves.
    Three men suddenly stepped in front of me as I neared the unoccupied end being renovated. “The aedile would like a word with you,” the stocky one in the center said.
    “I’m not talking to anyone right now,” I said, turning to walk around them.
    “Oh, but you are,” one of the men said, grabbing me by the upper arm. That snapped me out of my miserable trance.
    “Take your hands off me!” I tried to pull my arm away but he held on tight.
    They dragged me to an abandoned alcove. Scaffolding climbed halfway up