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aquarius?'
    'No. As I said, I am now the aquarius.' The engineer was in no mood to pay his respects. Contemptible, stupid, cruel – on another occasion, perhaps, he would be delighted to pass on his compliments, but for now he did not have the time. 'I must get back to Misenum. We have an emergency on the aqueduct.'
    'What sort of emergency? Is it an omen?'
    'You could say that.'
    He made to go, but Ampliatus moved swiftly to one side, blocking his way. 'You insult me,' he said. 'On my property. In front of my family. And now you try to leave without offering any apology?' He brought his face so close to Attilius's that the engineer could see the sweat beading above his thinning hairline. He smelled sweetly of crocus oil, the most expensive unguent. 'Who gave you permission to come here?'
    'If I have in any way offended you –' began Attilius. But then he remembered the wretched bundle in its shroud of sacking and the apology choked in his throat. 'Get out of my way.'
    He tried to push his way past, but Ampliatus grabbed his arm and someone drew a knife. Another instant, he realised – a single thrust – and it would all be over.
    'He came because of me, father. I invited him.'
    'What?'
    Ampliatus wheeled round on Corelia. What he might have done, whether he would have struck her, Attilius would never know, for at that instant a terrible screaming started. Advancing along the ramp came the grey-headed woman. She had smeared her face, her arms, her dress with her son's blood and her hand was pointing straight ahead, the first and last of her bony brown fingers rigidly extended. She was shouting in a language Attilius did not understand. But then he did not need to: a curse is a curse in any tongue, and this one was directed straight at Ampliatus.
    He let go of Attilius's arm and turned to face her, absorbing the full force of it, with an expression of indifference. And then, as the torrent of words began to slacken, he laughed. There was silence for a moment, then the others began to laugh as well. Attilius glanced at Corelia, who gave an almost imperceptible nod and gestured with her eyes to the villa – I shall be all right, she seemed to be saying, go – and that was the last that he saw or heard, as he turned his back on the scene and started mounting the path up to the house – two steps, three steps at a time – running on legs of lead, like a man escaping in a dream.

Hora duodecima

    [18:48 hours]

'Immediately before an eruption, there may be a marked increase in the ratios S/C, SO2/CO2, S/Cl, as well as the total amount of HCl.... A marked increase in the proportions of mantle components is often a sign that magma has risen into a dormant volcano and that an eruption may be expected.'
Volcanology (second edition)

    An aqueduct was a work of Man, but it obeyed the laws of Nature. The engineers might trap a spring and divert it from its intended course, but once it had begun to flow, it ran, ineluctable, remorseless, at an average speed of two and a half miles per hour, and Attilius was powerless to prevent it polluting Misenum's water.
    He still carried one faint hope: that somehow the sulphur was confined to the Villa Hortensia; that the leak was in the pipework beneath the house; and that Ampliatus's property was merely an isolated pocket of foulness on the beautiful curve of the bay.
    That hope lasted for as long as it took him to sprint down the hill to the Piscina Mirabilis, to roust Corax from the barracks where he was playing a game of bones with Musa and Becco, to explain what had happened, and to wait impatiently while the overseer unlocked the door to the reservoir – at which moment it evaporated completely, wafted away by the same rank smell that he had detected in the pipe at the fishery.
    'Dog's breath!' Corax blew out his cheeks in disgust. 'This must have been building up for hours.'
    'Two hours.'
    'Two hours?' The overseer could not quite disguise his satisfaction. 'When you had us up in the