understood also that he had forgiven me for what happened last time we stared doom in the face. In the town below, buildings collapsed before our eyes, crumbling from their foundations upward as the earth continued to shake in violent tremors. More than once we were nearly flattened by falling masonry; the carriage before us overturned in the dust, our terrified horses swerving and pitching just in time. We did not see what happened to the passengers, but there was no question of stopping, not if we were to live. In some places hardly one stone remained standing above another. As we passed San Lorenzo Maggiore somehow I registered that part of that church had fallen in a heap of stone, the tower standing firm like a chimney as gray dust climbed into the sky like smoke. I offered a silent prayer that the terrifying black specter with the freezing silver eyes had surely met his end within. Everywhere were the sounds of screams and shouts and the sights of citizens running with their homes piled on their backs, snaillike, the corno of the popular song. Firestorms broke out everywhere in little pockets which threatened to spread, and I knew that in such a sun-soaked, arid place the city could soon be reduced to cinders. I understood now the power of the blood of Saint Gennaro—not just religious hocuspocus, which I had snorted at with scorn at last night’s feast. His blood had the power to shake the earth and drain the seas. His blood had not liquefied this year so he had given his people fair warning; he had told his people of impending doom.
And doom had come.
“The city gate!” yelled Don Ferrente to his driver above the chaos. “We must climb the hill away from the city.” He pointed to the glorious triumphal Roman arch we had passed through on the way to San Lorenzo.
Another rumble entered my ribs as the ground shook again. As we hurtled to the gates, rubble rained upon the silk canopy of our carriage, ripping the roof and powdering our heads as the queen and I competed in our screams. Still the faithful horses pressed on, skirting the human disaster, the fallen masonry, and the keening women kneeling and crying by the road. I could not let myself think of what they had lost—we just had to reach the arch and quit this place. We passed the statue of Old Man Nile and I was glad that he, at least, had survived this to live a thousand more years. I blew him a kiss for his earlier warning as we sped past, but this time he was silent, shocked into slumber by the wreck of his citadel. But I knew by the very sight of him that we were nearly at the city gates. The wedding carriages thundered round the corner in a maelstrom of dust, skidded through the great arch and began to climb, and suddenly we were away from the chaos, high in the hills, the earth still once more and the cursed city below us. I wondered that the sun still hung in the sky.
We shook the rubble from our heads and masonry dust flew from Brother Guido’s curls, giving him a smoky halo. Our carriage slowed to a more sedate pace as we climbed the cliff road, and the sight of green plane trees and olive groves soothed my pounding skull. When my ears ceased their ringing I found my tongue. “What just happened?” I gulped, my voice hoarse from screaming. “Were we fired at from below by sappers? Were a thousand cannons turned upon us?”
Don Ferrente smiled, seemingly unaffected by our narrow escape. “It was not men but the old gods who shook the earth. I have heard of such shakings before, but did not know they could come so strongly.” He calmly brushed rubble from his velvet sleeve and glanced through the window back at the ruined coastline. “The Romans held that Neptune, god of the sea, was the ‘earth shaker,’ and it was thought that he was the bringer of such quakes. It is the disturbance of the earth, of course, that causes the seas to retreat and then return in the giant wave you witnessed.”
“Such a tremor has happened before?” I asked, goggling.
“Here in Naples an earthquake interrupted Emperor Nero’s stage debut as a musician, a thousand years ago,” put in Brother Guido eagerly. “Pliny wrote of it. Nero thought the gods had slighted his