Household Gods

Lucius hadn’t said a word since before the legionary fell. He slipped out from under Nicole’s arm and ran upstairs. Nicole started after him, but held herself back. If he needed to be alone, she’d let him. She’d go up in a little while and see if he was all right.

But he came down almost as soon as he’d gone up, clutching his wooden sword. Nicole had never liked or approved of it, but she’d never quite got round to taking it away from him. She held herself back now, with an effort that made her body shake. If he needed that comfort, she wouldn’t take it away from him.

He sat on a stool near the back of the tavern, with the sword in his lap. He sat there for a while, stroking the wooden blade.

Suddenly, violently, he flung it away. “It’s just a toy,” he said bitterly. “It can’t hurt a thing, except maybe a fly.”

Nicole walked over and put her arm around him. At first, he tried to shrug her away. Then he clung as he had at the window, and started to cry. The tears were as bitter as his words. She held him close and rocked him as she would have rocked Justin.

People were shouting in the distance, with a new note in it, a new urgency. It was a word, one single word. “Fire!”

For a heartbeat or two, idiotically, she listened for sirens. No fire engines here. God knew what they had; maybe nothing, though more open flames burned here than she’d ever seen in one place. And even if there was something, what could anybody do about it while the city was being sacked?

She glanced at Julia. The freedwoman had looked frightened before. Now she was stiff with terror. “Mistress,” she said in a small, tight voice, “if that gets any closer, we’ve got to run. I’d rather take my chances with the Germans than stay here and burn to death.”

“If the city’s burning,” Nicole said, “the Germans will be running, too.” Nicole took a deep breath, to steady herself, and nodded. “We’ll run if we have to. The shouting’s coming — yes, from the north, and the west, past the market square. The fire may not be able to go around an open space that big.”

“Maybe.” Julia cocked her head, listening. “Yes, north and west — I can hear it, too. I think you’re right. Please the gods, I hope you’re right!”

They sat in the gloom and waited. Nobody spoke. Lucius fidgeted for a while, then pulled his dice out of the pouch at his belt and squatted on the floor, playing a game of one hand against the other. The rattle of dice in the cup and the dull clatter as they rolled out on the floor struck counterpoint to the distant sounds of fighting and of terror.

Nicole sniffed. Did she smell smoke? Of course she smelled smoke. She always did in Carnuntum. No one ran screaming down the street, pursued by the lick of flames. What had Nicole heard once? Fire was fast, yes. Faster than anyone could imagine who hadn’t seen it.

More than once she tensed to jump up, grab whatever she could grab, and take her chances with the Germans. But some remnant of sense kept her where she was. As long as there was no sign of fire nearby, she was infinitely safer behind the barred door of the tavern than running in panic through the streets.

Julia had been sitting still in what might have passed for bovine calm except for the darting of her eyes. “I hope Gaius is all right,” she said suddenly. She spoke young Calidius Severus’ praenomen without self- consciousness. Why not? She’d gone upstairs with him both here and over the dyer’s shop. If that didn’t entitle her to call him by his first name, what did?

Once upon a time, Gaius’ father had complained that Nicole didn’t call him by his praenomen. She’d learned that courtesy, and a great deal more.

God, she missed that quiet, practical man with the infuriating habit of being right. His son was going to grow up just like him; she could see the signs.

If, she thought, he lived through the war. If any of them did.

There’d been a long lull, a quiet space in which no one ran past, enemy or friend. Then a new wave of Germans poured in from what had to be a breach in the wall or a gate forced open. Most still carried swords, but they weren’t so wary now. They moved at walking pace, traveling in pairs and threes, gawking at the sights. If they’d had cameras, they would have been taking snapshots. They looked like tourists, not like men who expected to have to fight their way through the city.

It took Nicole a distressingly long time to understand what that meant. It was over. The Germans had won.

And to the victors went the spoils. One of the Germans pounded on a door a little way down the street from the tavern. A moment later, Nicole heard the barbarian let out a happy grunt, like a pig in a corncrib. A moment after that, a woman shrieked.

“That’s Antonina,” Julia said, her voice the barest thread of whisper.

“Let me go!” Antonina cried, fear and anger warring in her voice. “Let me — “ The sharp sound of flesh slapping against flesh cut off her words. She shrieked again, high and shrill. The German laughed. He didn’t seem to mind the noise at all.

He wasn’t alone, either. From the sound of it, there was a whole pack of them out there, yipping with glee and calling back and forth in their own language. The words weren’t comprehensible, but the tone was all too plain. So was the tone of Antonina’s scream.

Nicole didn’t move from her seat well back in the tavern. Her head shook of itself. They couldn’t, she thought in disbelief. They wouldn’t.

Stupid. Of course they could. And if they wouldn’t, why had she and Julia doused themselves with stale piss?

From where she sat, she could see through the front windows, at least to the middle of the street. As if he had known that, a great hulking brute of a German dragged Antonina into the frame of the windows and threw her down. Nicole watched in sick fascination, unable to move to her neighbor’s rescue, and unable to look away. The rest of the gang crowded in, overwhelming Antonina. She got in one good kick before they had her spread-eagled on her back.

The Germans were shouting and singing, convivial as a gang of frat boys in a campus bar. But, as could happen in a bar, their good cheer turned abruptly to anger. Antonina’s husband, that weedy little man whose name Nicole had never got around to learning, appeared from somewhere — the back of his house, maybe, or down the street — and sprang on them, flailing about him with a length of firewood. The barbarian who’d seized Antonina stepped back leisurely from a wild swing, lifted his sword with the same air of unhurried ease, and swept it around in a deadly blur. It slammed the side of the little man’s head with a noise like a Nolan Ryan fastball slamming into a watermelon. Blood sprayed, the same explosion of scarlet as Nicole had seen a while ago, when the legionary fell. As the legionary had done, Antonina’s husband dropped bonelessly to the ground. The only mercy, as far as Nicole could see, was that he never knew what hit him. Not like the legionary, who had seen his death coming at him in a sweep of bloodied steel.

Antonina screamed on a new note. The Germans holding her down laughed and cheered, not even slightly discommoded by her renewed struggles. The man who’d slain her husband strutted and preened. He was proud of himself. And the rest were proud of him. The one who held Antonina’s left arm set his knee on it for a moment and beckoned with his freed hand, as if to say, Here, you go first.

The killer grinned. He swaggered back toward the huddle of men and the lone, suddenly very quiet woman. He squatted between her legs and ripped off her drawers. The others laughed with a note of incredulity, and let out a spatter of exclamations. The way they pointed and stared, Nicole knew all too well what had set them off. Their women didn’t shave down there — and if they hadn’t known that women here did, then this was their first rape in Carnuntum. Right here, in front of Nicole. Who couldn’t move a muscle to intervene.

The German yanked down his breeches with a grunt, as if to say, Enough of that. Without further ado, he thrust his great red club between Antonina’s legs, and ground deep.

Nicole turned her face away. Even with her fingers in her ears, she couldn’t banish Antonina’s cries. They went on and on, as if she’d lost all control over her voice.

Even through that shrill keening, Nicole heard the second, deeper grunt as the barbarian hammered himself to climax and pulled free. He sounded like a pig, a big, self-satisfied boar.

That wasn’t the end of it. Not by a long, ugly shot. They took turns, every one, and a handful of others who happened by and stopped to join the fun. After a while, Antonina stopped screaming. Her mouth was open; her