The sixteenth regnal year of the emperor titus flavius domitianus caesar augustus conqueror of germany, conqueror of dacia consul, censor for life our lord and god

The eleventh day before the Kalends of Germanicus

[formerly September].

The sixth hour of the day. The island of Pandateria in the Bay of Naples.

A brassy sun beat down on the barren rock that for six weeks and four days had been Flavia Domitilla’s prison. She hurried along the path that wound down from the house to the black volcanic beach and, squinting into the sun, searched the haze for sign of a fishing boat coming over from Pontia. But the youth was here before her and was already waiting at the water’s edge. He gave a low whistle.

She glanced up over her shoulder to the white-washed cottage, far from the harbor, where she lived under the eye of her jailers. They dozed through the noonday heat. She reached into her bosom for the small packet wrapped in a square of silk cut from the hem of her gown. Her jailers would not allow her writing materials, but Flavia Domitilla had been very clever. She had trimmed scraps of papyrus from a volume of poetry which she had brought with her into exile, and by wetting the edges and pressing them together she had made two half-sheets large enough to print a message in tiny script using lamp black mixed with water for ink.

“The letter marked with an ‘S’-this one, it curls like a snake, you see? Think of the ‘sss’ of a snake. Deliver it to Stephanus-sstephanus-my house-steward. Our villa is on the Via Appia at the third milestone. Ask for the house of Flavius Clemens, my husband, I mean-was my husband. After you’ve done that, then deliver the letter marked with a ‘V’ to Sextus…Ingentius…Verpa.” She pronounced the name slowly to the youth, as though she were speaking to an idiot. “Look how the V is shaped like your hand when you raise it to say ‘ vale ’ to your friends; the same sound-vale, Verpa. He lives in Rome, in a big house with red columns near the east end of the Circus Flaminius. Anyone can show you. Give it to no one but him, you understand?”