Julia served him with a kind of numbed efficiency. While she did that, the kids slipped free of Nicole’s tiring grasp, but didn’t try to get any closer to the sick man. They did hover, big-eyed, clearly waiting for him to do something — bleed, maybe, or vomit spectacularly, or die.
The customer ate, drank. He paid for his order in exact change, and walked out. Either he was as phlegmatic a man as Nicole had met, or he was just plain callous. Or maybe he was both at once.
Nicole had just scrambled herself together and taken thought for spelling Julia at the bar, when Julius Rufus let out a small sigh. A second or two later, Lucius wrinkled his nose. “I think he’s gone and shit himself,” he said matter-of-factly.
The odor that wafted toward Nicole was unmistakable. She felt her own nose wrinkle, and her gorge start to rise.
Lucius snickered. “Just like a baby.”
If he’d been within Nicole’s reach, she might have slapped him silly. The impulse was so strong it scared her. “It’s not funny, she said when she could trust her voice. “He’s not doing it on purpose.” She turned to Julia, who was hanging about as if she couldn’t tear herself away. “Fetch me some damp rags, will you? I can’t leave him lying here in his own filth.” Cleaning him was the last thing she wanted to do, but what choice did she have? Unlike Julia, she’d already touched him, already had his breath in her face. She knew she was exposed to the pestilence; she didn’t know whether the freedwoman was. Best not to make it a sure thing.
She swallowed the sour taste of bile, and breathed shallowly so as not to take in more of the combined reek of ammonia and ripe shit. His mouth had fallen open. His eyes were open, too, wide and staring. A moment after she realized she didn’t see him blinking, she noticed she didn’t hear him breathing.
She dropped the dripping rags and snatched his wrist. It was hot, as hot as his forehead had been — maybe hotter. Her finger found the spot outside the tendons, below the fleshy swell at the base of the thumb.
Nothing.
She bore down on the spot, the pulse-spot, where she should feel the beating of his heart. The only pulse she felt was her own. She pressed her palm to the left side of his chest. Nothing there, either. Nothing at all.
“He’s dead,” she said in dull wonder.
“I was afraid of that,” Julia said. “When his bowels let go… that happens, you know. Every time.”
Lucius and Aurelia stared more avidly than ever. A sick man was interesting. A dead one was absolutely riveting.
Gaius Calidius Severus came back while Nicole was still trying to figure out what to do, bringing with him a woman about Julius Rufus’ age and two young men who strongly resembled the brewer. They also had the donkey, from which they’d removed the barrels. Obviously, they’d intended to pack the unconscious man on the donkey’s back, and get him home more easily than if they’d had to carry him.
Nicole had been dreading the moment when she had to tell them the man was dead. It was just as bad as she’d imagined. The men began to bellow, the woman to shriek and wail. “What will we do without him?” she shrilled, over and over. “What are we supposed to
Nicole could think of just one thing. She retreated to the bar and pulled out a toppling pile of cups, and filled them pretty much anyhow. Alcohol was the only tranquilizer the Romans knew. She administered it liberally.
They didn’t thank her for it, or pay her either, but they drank it down. It quieted them somewhat, though the woman couldn’t stop asking what she was supposed to do.
Still sniveling and weeping, Julius Rufus’ two sons took up his body and draped it over the donkey’s back. It slipped and slid bonelessly; they had to tie it in place. Still without a word of thanks, they set off on their sad journey home, or more likely to the undertaker’s.
People stared as they made their slow way down the street. The cries of Julius Rufus’ widow faded with distance, and sank into silence.
“Times will be hard for them now,” Gaius Calidius Severus said as he paused in the doorway on his way back to work. “I remember how things were when Mother died. They weren’t much different for you, were they, when you lost your husband?”
“I’m afraid it’s worse, “ Gaius Calidius Severus murmured, but he managed a smile at Nicole.
To her amazement, she found a smile in return. “Thank you for your help, Gaius,” she said. “It was very, very kind of you.”
She’d been a bit daring in calling her lover’s grown son by his praenomen, but he didn’t protest. He dipped his head to her, that was all, and went quickly across the street.
Nicole stayed by the door, staring at the space where he had been. It was better than what she wanted to stare at, which was the place where the brewer had collapsed.
She hadn’t known how long she stood there, until Julia asked, “Are you all right, Mistress?”
“No, I’m not all right,” Nicole said, “but I’m not sick, either, if that’s what you mean.”
Julia didn’t look too greatly reassured. Nicole didn’t have any reassurance to give her. All she had had drained away when she looked into Julius Rums’ face, and saw that he was dead.
If anyone had asked her afterwards, she couldn’t have said how she got through the day. When sunset came at long last, and business slowed and then mercifully stopped, she did something that she’d have been horrified to contemplate, back in West Hills. But in this place and time, it was the only reasonable or rational thing to do. She got quietly and systematically drunk.
14
In the early days of the pestilence, hardly an hour seemed to go by without the shrieking and moaning of professional mourners, as funeral processions made their somber way out of the city and toward the burial ground. After a while, however, the sounds of formal lamentation, almost as formal as the Mass, began to diminish.
Ofanius Valens explained that to Nicole when he stopped by for breakfast one morning. “From what I hear,” he said, “so many of the mourners are dead, the rest can’t come close to keeping up with all the funerals.”
“That’s horrible,” Nicole said.
“It’s not good,” he conceded, taking an unenthusiastic mouthful of bread and oil. “My family’s been lucky so far, the gods be praised. I’ve only got one cousin down with it, and she doesn’t look like dying. If you make it through the rash, they say, you’re likely to get better, and she’s done that. Half her hair fell out, and she’s peeling like the worst case of sunburn you ever saw, but she’s still with us. How about your kin, Umma?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “I haven’t heard a word.” And she wouldn’t have much cared if she had, she thought but didn’t add. Whatever Umma thought of her relatives, Nicole had no earthly use for any of them.
Ofanius Valens looked shocked. Everyone in Carnuntum was shocked when someone failed to keep minutest track of anything that had to do with family. But, after a moment, his face cleared. “That’s right.” He nodded as he reminded himself. “You had that squabble with them after you manumitted Julia. Still haven’t made it up, eh?”
Nicole shook her head. “I’m the bad apple in the barrel, as far as they’re concerned.” She straightened. ‘‘They can think whatever they please, for all of me. I’ll get along just fine.”
“You certainly seem to be getting along.” Ofanius Valens spoke with no small wonder. “I’ve known other people who fought with their families. Most of them act like fish hauled out of the Ister” — by which he meant the Danube. He imitated a fish out of water with such popeyed aplomb, Nicole couldn’t help laughing.
Julia laughed, too. So did Lucius, who’d come downstairs while Ofanius Valens was eating. Nicole said, “It’s good to hear people laughing. Not much of that sound in the city these days. “
“Not much reason for it these days,” Ofanius Valens said. “Let’s see what we can do about it.” He aimed his
