Household Gods

up on her mother.

Nicole grabbed at the first lie that came into her head. “I don’t know his name,” Nicole answered. “He’s come to the tavern a time or two, and had a cup of wine.”

“I never saw him,” Lucius said.

“Me, either,” Aurelia said.

Nicole drew a steadying breath — and pulled rank: a thing she’d sworn she’d never do, every time her own mother did it. “You haven’t seen everything that goes on in the world, even when you think you have,” she said.

The kids shut up, which was exactly what she’d wanted, and Brigomarus said, “Oh. Well then. I guess there’s nothing to worry about, though he looks a little crazy to me. Staring at you like that — you’d think he had designs on you.”

Damn him, just when she’d thought he’d leave well enough alone, he had to turn into the overprotective brother. He was supposed to be at odds with her; not butting into her life as if he had every right to do it.

She couldn’t even speak in the young Christian’s defense. It was too dangerous — for him and for her. And, she had to admit, he did look a little crazy. “He hasn’t given me any trouble,” she said rather lamely.

“Good.” Brigomarus started to turn away, then hesitated. “Stay well. If you don’t, send your slave — “

“My freedwoman,” Nicole said sharply.

He made a sour face. “Your freedwoman. Send your freedwoman to me or to Ila or Tabica. We’ll do what we can for you, in spite of everything.”

They would, too, though they’d make her pay in guilt for every minute. Still — after all, and however reluctantly, he meant well. She thanked him, which he took as no less than his due, and gathered up Lucius and Aurelia. “Come on, chicks. We’ve got a tavern to run.”

Julia had things well in hand. She also had a mark on the side of her neck, which Nicole knew hadn’t been there when she took the children to the funeral. Nicole couldn’t decide whether to ream the woman out or to burst into laughter. In the end, she didn’t quite do either. She was disappointed to discover that she couldn’t find a precise Latin equivalent for hickey.

Business — hers, if not Julia’s — was slow. People were staying away from taverns for fear of catching the pestilence, or else were too sick to leave their beds. Whichever it was, the place wasn’t bringing in much in the way of cash.

“We’re not using so much, either,” Julia said when Nicole commented on it — complained, really, if she wanted to be honest. “A lot of what we sell won’t go stale. It will keep till things pick up again.”

Nicole nodded. That was true — if things ever did decide to improve again.

She spent much of the afternoon grinding flour, until her shoulder started grinding, too. She was stockpiling, figuring to get ahead of the game; then she could have a few relatively easy days later on. The prospect of a break of any kind, relatively easy days, made her work all the harder. She hadn’t had much time off since she came to Carnuntum.

Deafened by the gritty rumble of the quern, she didn’t notice the man who came into the tavern until he rapped the table at which he was sitting. She put on her company face, the one she reserved for customers, with a smile still bright after the long slow day — until she recognized the eyes that lifted to meet hers. Her smile evaporated. “Oh,” she said. “It’s you.”

“Yes, Mistress Umma.” The young Christian smiled. “It is I.” The smile was a little wider than it might have been; his eyes glittered even in the gloom of the tavern. Nicole had seen smiles like that on Hare Krishnas at airports, on Jehovah’s Witnesses who came to the door. The people behind the smiles were usually harmless, but…

She did her best to hide her unease. “What can I get you?” she asked him.

“Bread and wine,” he answered. He was watching her closely — too closely. He noticed how she hesitated on hearing those words. His smile widened. There was triumph in it. “You know the meaning of bread and wine?”

“What if I do?” she said roughly.

“Then you are one of us,” he answered. “You are one of those who know the name of Jesus Christ. You are one of those who know about his Passion, through which we too are resurrected. You are one of those who know judgment is coming for everyone, for even the heavenly hosts, the cherubim and seraphim, if they have no faith in the blood of Christ.”

“What if I do?” Nicole repeated. The young man wasn’t saying anything she hadn’t heard in church and in Sunday school. And yet, there, the world to come had been mentioned, but it hadn’t been at the heart of all her lessons. This world, and living one’s life in clean and godly fashion, had counted for more.

Living in the material world had been easy in the United States. Nicole hadn’t thought so at the time, but now she had a basis of comparison. Titus Calidius Severus had had a point, after all. When times were good, this world was easier to live in, and the next seemed distant, irrelevant.

Times weren’t good now, and they were getting worse. And if the young Christian eating bread and drinking wine in her tavern wasn’t a wild-eyed fanatic, Nicole didn’t know what he could possibly be. “Do not cleave to those who believe not, Umma, even if they be of your own flesh and blood, “ he said with quivering urgency. “Do not, I beg you in the name of the risen God. They go to torment eternal. This pestilence is the sword of God. When you are close to the sword, you are close to God. When you are surrounded by lions, you are close to God. Soon you will meet him face to face.”

“How about when you’re writing things on the wall?” Nicole inquired acidly. “Did you want to be surrounded by lions then? You should have stayed and let someone catch you.”

His head drooped. When it came up again, to her astonishment there were tears on his cheeks. “My body was weak,” he whispered. “My spirit was weak. Here and now, as I speak in life, I should yearn for death with a lover’s passion. I want to eat the bread of God, the flesh of Jesus Christ, and to drink his blood, which is love undying. I pray to be found worthy of martyrdom. And so,” he said, leaning toward her, trembling again with the zeal of the proselyte, “should you.”

His voice, his manner, were compelling. He believed with his whole heart and soul that every word was the absolute truth. Gospel truth, she thought in a kind of dim alarm. And he was determined that Nicole should believe as he did, should take as little notice of this life as she could, the sooner and the better to get on with the next one.

He scared the hell out of her. If somebody gave him the keys to a truck full of fertilizer and fuel oil, maybe he wouldn’t push the button when the time came — he had, after all, run from her. But maybe he would, too, if he nerved himself first. Even the possibility was terrifying.

Carefully, she said, “You owe me three asses.”

He looked so astonished, she almost laughed in his face. It took him several tries, and a fair bit of spluttering, before he could say, “You would put the coin of Caesar ahead of the salvation of your soul?”

“Don’t you fret about my soul,” she said. “That’s no one’s business but my own.”

The Christian’s astonishment changed in tone and intensity. Twentieth-century individualism hit people here hard… the way wine hits people who aren’t used to drinking, Nicole thought with experience she hadn’t had, or wanted, before she came to Carnuntum. She took a deep breath and drove the point home. “And, since my soul is still in my body, I need those three asses.”

Maybe the look in his eyes was pity and love. It seemed a lot more like outrage. He got up, dug in the leather pouch he wore on his belt, found three copper coins, and slammed them down on the tabletop. The tavern’s earthen floor didn’t help him much when it came to stamping noisily out, but he gave it his best shot. His back was as straight — and as stiff — as a redwood.

Julia came in from the market just after he’d flung himself out the door, carrying a jarful of raisins and a bunch of green onions. “What was bothering him?” she wanted to know.

Nicole shrugged as casually as she could manage. “Oh,” she said, “just another dissatisfied customer.”

Julia raised an eyebrow, but mercifully didn’t ask questions. Sometimes, Nicole reflected with a twinge of residual guilt, it wasn’t too inconvenient that Julia had been a slave. Slaves learned, better and faster than most, when it didn’t pay to be curious.

Lazy in the afterglow, Nicole sprawled next to and on Titus Calidius Severus. Her head lay on his chest, one arm stretched across his belly, one thigh draped over him so the rest of her leg lay between his. She was, emphatically, a satisfied customer.