I immediately threw my weight backward in an attempt to dislodge my attacker. He clung to me with strength, and I felt a punch in my ribs. I grunted, scrabbling to retain my balance.
Another smack, this one into the small of my back. A man who knew how to strike and do it well.
I swung around, attempting to grab him, but in this darkness, I could see nothing. While Rome at least had lights spilling from its densely packed houses, here there was no illumination at all, not even a moon in the night sky.
I struck out and was rewarded with a grunt. We wrestled with vehemence, I trying to grab hold of him, he trying to pummel me into submission.
My assailant seemed to be about a foot shorter than I was, and not as large, but he was strong and wiry. If I’d been less trained, I’d have quickly been beaten down.
I heard running footsteps and then the man was hauled from me and lifted to dangle between Brewster’s large hands. A knife was clenched in the man’s fist, and I was relieved he hadn’t had a chance to use it.
“Who the devil are you?” I demanded, my breath ragged.
No answer—it was reasonable to assume he did not speak English. I repeated the question in broken Italian, but the man only struggled valiantly with Brewster, who was having trouble keeping hold of him.
“Who sent you? Why are you after me?” Again both English and Italian received no response.
“Lacey?” Grenville’s voice rang out, and he rounded the corner behind Brewster.
The man gave a desperate wrench and managed to break free of Brewster’s grip. He tried to dash away but was stopped by Grenville, who bravely stepped in front of him.
A keening sound came from the man’s throat, and then words, English ones I thought, but slurred and oddly formed. He ducked to the left, evading Grenville, then sprinted into the darkness. Brewster was after him like a shot but returned to us not long later in defeat.
“Sorry, guv.” Brewster let out a heavy breath. “He vanished. Can’t see him, can’t hear him. He must know this place well.”
“He was trying to speak English, I’m certain,” I said. “Who on earth is he?”
“Who knows, guv? A gent what’s gone mad living among all these dead places?”
“Not mad,” Grenville said, strangely subdued. “Our fellow is deaf.”
“Deaf?” I stared at him.
“How’d ye know that?” Brewster demanded. “Begging your pardon, Mr. Grenville.”
“I will tell you.” Grenville gestured with his gloved hand, his suit as pristine as it would be at a Mayfair gathering. “But I think we should head indoors. It is time we retired, and who knows if our swift fighter will return?”
We agreed that this was best, and the three of us reentered the inn, I deeply curious about what Grenville had to say. The other travelers tried to engage us again, but Grenville made our apologies, citing our early start, and we took stairs to the rooms he’d let for us above. Baldini, deep in a glass of wine with other Neapolitan gentlemen, waved us cheerily off.
We entered Grenville’s large chamber, which had a settee, chairs, and a table for his breakfast in addition to a well-appointed bed. Even at a wayside inn, Grenville managed to procure the best accommodations.
Wine had been left for us and Grenville served it without ceremony, though Brewster declined.
“Happy for a good pint when I reach home,” he said.
Grenville settled himself after he handed me a cup of wine, and I sank into one of the chairs, grateful for a modicum of comfort after our day of walking and riding, not to mention fighting in the darkness.
“I have told you, I believe, that my father sired several by-blows,” Grenville began with a pained expression. “A few were brought to my nursery, and it was made out that they were my cousins, but of course we all knew the truth. Those were the siblings I knew about—who knows how many more my father had? He was a bit of a gadabout.”
His flush told me that embarrassment about one’s pater was not unique to me.
“One of the lads who came to live with us was deaf,” Grenville continued. “He hadn’t been born so but lost his hearing through a fever when he was very small. He had learned to speak, yet his words were never perfectly formed, very much like those of the chap who accosted us tonight.”
I thought back on the encounter. “Was this half-brother of yours as wily a fighter?”
“No, indeed,” Grenville chuckled. “I liked him a bit better than the other lads foisted upon me, and we still correspond regularly. James lives in France now, with a wife and son of his own. He took to written languages very well and is a translator for diplomats in Paris.” Grenville’s pride in his half-brother rang in his voice.
“Our assailant spoke English,” I said. “I confess I could not make out what he was saying.”
“It didn’t help that he was quite agitated,” Grenville answered. “Something to the effect of You will not stop me.”
“Stop him from what?” I rolled my wineglass between my hands. My ribs ached from my assailant’s punches, and he’d known exactly where to hit me at the base of my spine. “I wonder if he was soldier. Or a pugilist.” I glanced at Brewster.
“He didn’t fight like a boxer,” Brewster answered. “But, aye, he knew where to strike, and how. He twisted away from me easily enough.”
“I suppose we will have to put our hands on him and shake some answers out of him.” I grimaced. “I must sound heartless wanting to bully a deaf man.”
Grenville barked a laugh. “James and I scrapped plenty. A fellow not being able to hear does not mean he is feeble of body or of wits. This chap could have killed you, had not Brewster and I intervened. Or at least he’d have left you greatly injured.”
“Agreed.” I hardened my resolve. “I suspect he is the same who threw the knife at me in Napoli. I wish I knew what I’d done to earn his anger.”
“Mistaking you for another bloke?” Brewster suggested. “You do have a cousin what looks much like you.”
Indeed, that resemblance had given me a great amount of trouble in the past. “Marcus is tucked into the Lacey estate making it run better than it ever has. Why should an Englishman follow us about, trying to kill me, believing I’m him?”
“You could write Marcus and ask him,” Grenville said. “You’ve only known him a little over a year, and he’s proved to be quite skilled at intrigue himself.”
True, my cousin had begun our acquaintanceship by trying to assassinate me and did end up nearly killing Brewster. He could have tangled with other men in his past, angering them enough for them to seek revenge. I’d been mistaken for him and he for me before.
“I do not believe this is the case,” I concluded. “It is well known that Mr. Lucius Grenville took a villa near Rome for part of the Season and is exploring ancient cities with his friend Captain Lacey. These facts were blasted in all the newspapers before we left home. Anyone would know that the man with Mr. Grenville is me.”
“Then we are back to those you have offended.” Grenville sent me a wry look. “A long list. But for now, I am weary.” He set his wine cup on a table. “Tomorrow, we are for Pompeii. We will simply have to guard ourselves against our unknown attacker.”
“The captain’s attacker, you mean,” Brewster said. “Didn’t seem interested in knocking you down.”
“True.” Grenville rose, and I did with him, ready to retreat to my own chamber. “Guard him well, Mr. Brewster. I would say we should call off our exploration and return to the villa, but I know how quickly Lacey will refuse. Besides, we have come a long way, and I’m damned if I’ll let a ruffian turn us away now.”
“Not a ruffian,” I said. “His coat was of a decent cloth, from what I felt when grappling with him. Though his knife was rather ordinary.” I’d left it in Napoli, else I’d have used it to defend myself tonight.
“Sold in any shop in the Italian states,” Grenville said. “I’ve seen many like it. You are correct that his clothes weren’t a laboring man’s, but nor were they tailor-made in Bond Street. Secondhand, I’d say. Didn’t fit him precisely.”
Even in the dark, in a fight, Grenville had an eye for a man’s garb. He was a noted expert on couture.
“So, our decently dressed Englishman comes to Italy after me, realizes he needs a knife, and purchases one before he attacks?” I frowned as I finished. “It makes no sense.”
“No, indeed. But it might in the morning.”
Gautier entered at the precise moment, like an actor awaiting a cue. Without a word, he went straight to Grenville and took his frock coat as Grenville shrugged out of it.
We said our goodnights, and Brewster followed me out.
“If you are going to advise me to remain here or return to Rome, save your breath,” I told him.
Brewster gave me the even stare he did so well. “Wouldn’t dream of it, guv.”
In the morning, we packed what we needed for the day and set off for Pompeii.
Brewster hadn’t slept much, preferring to stay wakeful in case our assailant returned. He’d seen nothing, and as far as he knew, the man had not approached the inn.
He looked surprisingly refreshed for his vigil and kept a sharp eye out as we walked. I confess I glanced behind and about me often, waiting for another knife to sail at me across the fields.
A mile or so from the inn, we came to the ancient city of Pompeii.
Vesuvius loomed above us, a serene and beautiful mountain that had caused so much destruction. We climbed a short hill and passed under the arch of a large gate into the ruins.
In spite of the cool weather, excavators were digging enthusiastically here and there around the walls. Unlike in Herculaneum, where we’d been the only visitors in that silent land, Pompeii was a hive of activity.
Men crouched on hands and knees, stretching out sticks for measuring, gesturing to assistants who’d make a note in a book. Workers dug with spades, watched over by gentlemen in dusty suits, boots to their knees. Other men worked smaller patches with hand trowels and garden forks.
I was reminded of the bustle of activity on the Nile, where gentlemen—and ladies—excavated zealously, albeit on a larger scale.
“Not much treasure left in Pompeii,” Baldini said when I commented on the differences. “Many of the statues and bronzes earlier excavators found have been taken away, as in Herculaneum. But there is so much to learn—wall paintings, mosaics, and even notes scribbled on the walls tell us so much about how the Romans lived. Come, I will show you.”
He led us onward, taking a narrow road that went straight between walls that rose into the blue sky.
Roman men and women had walked on this stone street, I marveled as we went. The houses were brick, or rubble where the brick facing had fallen away. Once upon a time these walls would have been lined with marble or travertine, or perhaps only plastered over and painted. From my readings, Romans had used cheap materials to make the bulk of the walls—crushed rock and volcanic dust mixed into concrete—and then faced them with the more expensive bricks, stucco, or marble.
As I gawped at the perfect arches, the columns that rose startlingly from the ground, the capitals on those columns preserved in fine detail, Baldini and Grenville, chatting together, left me far behind.
Brewster made certain to wait for me. “Makes you think,” he said as we emerged into an open area that my guidebook had labeled as the forum. “All those centuries ago, but they were as good at putting up artful buildings as any who came after. Our Adams brothers and Mr. Nash can learn from them.”
“They did, as a matter of fact,” I remarked. “No coincidence that all the buildings in London resemble Greek and Roman temples.”
“I know that.” Brewster’s glance was disparaging. “I mean if our coves made their buildings more like the real thing and not just look like them, they’d be sturdier. This place lasted thousands of years.”
“Because it was buried in ash. Some of what these men are unearthing are skeletons.”
Brewster cast a suspicious glance at the mountain rising over the ruins, as though it might blow apart any moment. “Poor blokes.”
“Indeed. It is difficult to walk in the place of tragedy.”
“We do it every day, guv. London’s full of ghosts.”
“Which you do not believe in, Brewster, so do not grow morbid on me.”
“Aye, well. Any old city will have sad tales. And plenty of things worth purloining. Not here, though. It’s all gone.”
“Perhaps.” I gazed along the street and to the corner around which Baldini and Grenville had disappeared. “But there is so much more to uncover. Secrets of the past. It is tantalizing.”
“I nearly lost you—and me—in a tomb in Egypt, scrabbling after secrets of the past. No more of that.”
Brewster spoke firmly. He hadn’t liked Herculaneum and its underground passageways, but at least here, most of what we walked on had already been uncovered. Pompeii hadn’t been buried as deeply, and excavators had been scraping away the ash for many years.
Baldini and Grenville waited patiently for us to catch up before Baldini excitedly gestured to the small space we now stood in.
“This was a bathhouse, we believe.” Baldini pointed to the square depressions in the ground, which did indeed resemble the pools of a Roman bath. “And a brothel.” He chuckled. “The paintings revealed would shock your lady wives. It was meant for sailors putting into shore for a night or two.”
“Bit far to come for that, wasn’t it?” Brewster asked doubtfully.
“You can thank Vesuvius for your confusion,” Baldini said, as though delighted one of us had voiced the question. “Its eruptions have changed the shoreline, moving it a few miles from Pompeii. Used to be this town, like Herculaneum, was very near the coast. Another seaside retreat.”
“I can understand its attraction,” I said. Even though it was a bit cool today the green and black mountain rose against a very blue sky as a backdrop. The town must have been a pleasant refuge from the stink and crowd of Rome.
“Yes, indeed, until that fateful day.” Baldini grew somber. “The skeletons found are curled into the most pitiful positions.”
I felt a qualm of sympathy. The inhabitants had been going about their business—shopping, visiting, arguing, cooking, strolling—when their world had ended so abruptly.
“Before that, though, they lived happily,” Baldini said. A fanciful statement, but I nodded. “The walls were vibrantly colored, floors done in beautiful mosaics, and they left us plenty of messages.”
He led us into a narrow passageway, using his walking stick to point out scratches high on the walls. They were Latin letters, old and crooked, made by knives or whatever the writer had to hand.
“This fellow proclaims that Julia is the most beautiful girl on earth.” The walking stick moved. “This one claims that the first fellow has no eyes. It is Lucia who is the most beautiful. And this one tells us that a man came to find a lovely woman and only ended up leaving his turds in the latrine by his lonely self.”
I had to laugh. I’d read much Roman literature, from Cicero to Tacitus to Julius Caesar himself, and most were lofty tomes… the military ones often bloody. This annoyed young man who was disappointed in his shore leave was so human and real, he might have departed moments before we’d walked up.
Baldini showed us more writings, some of them rather bawdy, and we enjoyed the novelty.
We returned to the forum where most of the excavation work was being done and halted in an open area. Brick buildings surrounded us, arches to nothing, columns forlorn and lonely.
I would bring Gabriella and Peter here, I decided. I would have to find a more pleasant place for us to stay besides the nearby inn, which was fine for Grenville and me, but Grenville could likely find a house for us to let.
“Your knowledge of these sites is excellent,” I said to Baldini. “You are good to show us about.”
Baldini shrugged, trying to hide his pleased flush. “I have studied Herculaneum and Pompeii for many years. I have learned a bit about their pasts, and mine.”
“You are a scholar, you mean,” Grenville said. “I am surprised such a learned man as yourself has deigned to lead a band of ignorant tourists. But I am quite glad you did.”
“The conte, he asked it as a favor.” Baldini sounded surprised at Grenville’s amazement. “Of course, I wished to please him.”
I wondered if Trevisan funded his studies and Baldini had not wanted to refuse a patron’s request.
“He seems a hard man, if I may observe,” I said. “Though he was contrite he’d caused us trouble.”
“A hard man to those who do not know him,” Baldini returned. “He has the northern temperament, yet is erudite and knows much about ancient art. One of the foremost experts on it, I’d say. His knowledge of the Colosseum surpasses even mine, and I am an avid student. I will take you through that edifice if you have time when you return to Rome.”
“You admire him.” This puzzled me—I expected Baldini to be a reluctant toady, but he’d been warm and friendly to us and showed no animosity to Trevisan.
“I do indeed. A better gentleman, I have not met.”
“His behavior would suggest otherwise,” Grenville, as confounded as I, said.
Now Baldini turned a look of confusion to us. “Behavior? I confess he appears to not be the warmest of gentlemen, but I assure you—”
“They mean his nicking a bloke’s daughter,” Brewster interrupted, growing impatient with our hesitation. “Putting aside his own wife for a pretty girl to see him through old age.”
Baldini’s eyes widened in shock. “I beg your pardon, sir, but what are you saying? Conte Trevisan has not put aside his wife. He never would—he is devoted to her. If someone has told you he has left his contessa for a young woman, then that person is lying to you.”