Household Gods

Somehow it had never occurred to her that that could happen, that she’d be — a pagan. Or something. It was startling how that struck her, that same twisting in the stomach she’d had when she was seven years old and had learned that not only were some people not Catholic, some people didn’t even believe in Jesus. “Will they go to hell?” she’d asked her mother.

She didn’t remember what her mother had said. Something impatient, probably: “Shut up and eat your dinner.” Her mother didn’t like answering hard questions. Her catechism teacher, when she asked the same question, had gone on about sincere belief, tolerance for other religions, and differing views of the afterlife. It had been more than she’d been ready to swallow, at that age. In a lot of ways, it still was.

Even worse than being a pagan, than being surrounded by pagans, was hearing one of them scorn the religion she’d grown up in. Never mind that she’d fallen away from it. Maybe political correctness had something in it after all. For that matter, so did simple politeness.

She drew breath to begin a reprimand, but let it out again without saying anything. What good would it do? She’d learned long ago never to get into arguments over politics or religion. People’s minds were always made up.

She glanced at Lucius and Aurelia. Was Aurelia named for Marcus Aurelius? Did they do things like that here?

For that matter, weren’t the children supposed to be getting ready for school? Did they even go to school? If they did, they weren’t showing any signs of it. Or was today Saturday? Sunday? Did Saturday or Sunday matter in Carnuntum in the ninth year of the reign of Marcus Aurelius, whenever that was? How could she find out without looking like an idiot again?

Before she could find an answer to any of those crowding questions, Julia said, “Oh! Mistress, here’s Ofanius Valens. He’s early today.” She leaped up and ran busily about, as if the boss had come into the office and found the secretaries in the middle of a kaffeeklatsch.

Nicole leaped up, too, but, once she was up, had no idea what to do. Christ! she thought in panic. A customer! At least Julia had given her his name. She scrambled to remember what a proper restaurant owner would say to a regular. “Good day to you, Ofanius Valens,” she said as smoothly as she could manage — fund-raisers were good practice; so were jury selections. “What can we get for you?”

He sat down on a stool: a thin fellow a few years younger than she, not too clean but not too dirty, either. He’d had horrible acne in his youth, which couldn’t be that long ago; his beard didn’t hide all the scars. “First time you’ve even asked in a while,” he said with a familiar chuckle. “My usual will do fine, thanks.”

And thank you, Ofanius Valens. I’ll remember you in my nightmares. Umma, no doubt, had known what his usual was. Nicole hadn’t the faintest idea. But maybe, she thought with a stab of relief, someone did. “Julia,” she said, “take care of him.”

“Yes, Mistress,” Julia said, and did. Along with his bread and oil, Ofanius Valens favored walnuts and green onions and the wine from under the second lid from the left. As he ate, the eye-watering pungency of the onions moved in around him and settled to stay.

He seemed content enough to have Julia deal with him rather than Umma in person. Nicole congratulated herself for escaping unscathed, for once, from yet another difficult situation. What she’d done didn’t dawn on her for a few moments. She’d ordered Julia about as a mistress would order a slave.

No, she told herself. I’d have handled it the same way if she were free and working for me. Maybe that was true. She thought it was true. She devoutly hoped it was.

She shivered, though the room was warm enough. Every word she spoke to Julia, every gesture she made, couldn’t be a normal human interaction. Not as long as Julia was her property. Everything she did, as long as she knew that, was a political act.

As soon as Nicole knew how it was done, if it could be done, she’d have to free Julia. She couldn’t go on living like this, owning another human being, treating her like an object. Pretending Julia was a hired servant didn’t cut it. The truth remained, insurmountable.

Should she free the rest of the slaves, too? For of course there had to be more. Lots of people had to have them, if Umma, who wasn’t particularly wealthy or powerful, could own one. But Nicole couldn’t start right this instant. She didn’t know enough — and reality, in the person of Ofanius Valens, intervened. He fumbled in the pouch he wore attached to his belt. “An as for the bread,” he said, and slapped a copper coin about the size of a quarter on the table in front of him. “An as for the oil.” He brought out another copper coin.

Nicole was glad he knew what everything cost, because God knew she didn’t. “Two asses for the nuts and onions. “ Two more of the copper coins. “And two asses for the wine. Here, I’ll give you a dupondius, because I’m running out of asses.” This coin was bigger and brighter, yellowish instead of dirty-penny brown. It couldn’t have been gold, not if it was worth only two of the copper ones. Brass, maybe? Julia, watching him count up the bill, nodded at the amount. Nicole breathed a faint sigh of relief. She wasn’t being ripped off, then.

“Here,” Ofanius Valens said with a wink, “I’ve got one lonely as left in my purse. If I give it to Julia, you will let her spend it on herself?”

For an instant, Nicole didn’t understand why he’d asked her that. Julia was an adult, wasn’t she? Then realization smote. Legally speaking, Julia wasn’t an adult. Probably, she wasn’t even a person. Which had to mean that, technically, that as belonged to her owner. Before Julia could accept it, Nicole had to assent. “Yes,” she said, trying not to let anger at the system show. “Yes, of course.”

Ofanius Valens nodded and smiled. He hadn’t intended her to refuse, nor given her much room to do it, either, by the signs. Nicole might have lousy taste in men, but she could read them perfectly well — too well, maybe, if you asked any one of a number of male lawyers whom she’d shown up in front of a judge. Men didn’t like to know how transparent they were.

“Thank you very much, Mistress,” Julia said. If Ofanius Valens had expected Nicole to say yes, she probably had, too. Her gratitude had a hint of calculation in it, the calculation of the extremely disadvantaged. If she didn’t grovel enough, she might be thinking, then maybe next time she wouldn’t be allowed to keep the money she got. Children could think like that. So could employees. But there was an edge to it, a hint of ugliness. More than anyone else, a slave had to keep her mistress sweet, or who could say what might happen? If a slave wasn’t considered human, how could she have human rights?

Women still got treated like that in the twentieth-century world — some even in the United States. People in the Third World lived like that. But not like this. Not quite.

And what, Nicole wondered, did this slave really think of her mistress? What was going on, deep down, when she bent her head and said the words she judged it best to say? Nicole shivered. The likely answer wasn’t comfortable. In fact, it was scary.

Ofanius Valens couldn’t know, any more than anyone else in this world and time, what Nicole was thinking — or even that Nicole was there; that it wasn’t Umma standing by him, waiting for him to get up and go on his way. He obliged with a cheerful air, oblivious to any undercurrents. “Tomorrow, then, Umma,” he said. “Then maybe I’ll order something different. Wouldn’t that be a jolt?”

He went off whistling and laughing to himself at what was evidently a great joke. Well, Nicole thought a trifle wryly, there was a rarity: a man who knew how much a creature of habit he was.

She shook her head and forgot about him — until tomorrow. Julia was still standing there, the coin clenched in her fist as if she feared her mistress would take it away after all. Nicole tried to reassure her with a smile. “What will you do with your as, Julia?” she asked. She hoped she didn’t sound too patronizing, or too much like an adult talking, uncomfortably, to a child.

Julia didn’t seem to notice anything wrong with the tone, or, if she did, it was a wrongness she was used to. She answered readily enough: “When things slow down this afternoon, Mistress, if you’ll let me, I’ll go over to the baths — it’s a ladies’ day today — and get clean. Is that all right? I’ll work hard all morning, I promise, so I won’t put you to any trouble. Please? “

A grown woman shouldn’t have to beg like that. Nicole’s anger at Julia’s condition heated up again. She should not have to ask permission for every little thing, as if she were a small child.

There was nothing Nicole could do, not right this instant, except give Julia what little she had to give, which was her permission. “Yes,” she said. “Yes, that’s all right.”