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Before the eruption (2)

A stray dog came sniffing around Petronia’s tunic, and she kicked it away with the side of her foot. As she leaned back again, the paving stones beneath her seemed to rumble and groan, and she could have sworn that the doorway she was leaning on trembled slightly. Petronia stood upright and looked around her. Had anyone else felt it?

But the crowds were going about their business as usual. Shoppers shoved each other aside on the street, while a group had gathered around a man playing a flute, Beside him a sickly-looking child with a wrinkled, old man’s face half heartedly beat a tambourine. From a wooden cart, an old peasant farmer was selling the fist grapes of the season, picked from the vineyards on nearby Mount Vesuvius.

Petronia gingerly rubbed her jaw. A week ago she couldn’t believe that any pain could be worse than her two rotting back teeth. She had tried every remedy she had heard of she had plugged them with earthworm ash. She had even tried wrapping sparrow dung in a piece of wool and wearing it around her neck to ward off the pain. Finally, in agony, she had begged Cook to pull out the teeth for her.

And Cook had obliged-all too cheerfully, petronia thought ruefully-cutting her gums so she could get a better grip with a nasty-looking instrument she had borrowed from a Greek slave who claimed to be a doctor. Petronia sighed. Her mouth was still so sore that she hadn’t been able to cat much all week On top of that, the household had been so busy that she had scarcely slept in days Was she so tired and hungry that the buildings themselves seemed to move? But now she had better hurry home before the baby woke up. As she bent down to pick up her basket, she noticed that several dates had toppled off the pile onto the street. Hurriedly she picked them up, wiped them on her tunic and tucked them back in with the others.

“Tell your fortune, pretty one?” Hard, thin fingers gripped Petronia’s shoulder, and a haggard face thrust itself in front of the young girl’s. The women’s lips, clumsily painted with red ochre, curled black in a gummy, buck-toothed smile. Petronia recoiled at the stench of sour wine that hit her like a wave.