Household Gods (66 page)

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Authors: Judith Tarr

BOOK: Household Gods
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Swemblas laughed. “Ho! Ho, little woman, you make good jokes! Carnuntum is ours now. We will enjoy it. You Romans are too weak to stop us. If you were not, we would not be here.”
He was honest, she granted him that.
You have what we want, and we're strong enough to take it away from you. So we damn well will.
The twentieth century had spilled more blood than this small-time butcher ever dreamt of, working toward proving that greed and violence were not to be tolerated in an enlightened world. Here in the second century, greed and violence were the virtues of the hour. And who was she to tell them otherwise?
One of the Germans sat where he could see at an angle out the door. He pointed, laughed, and said something in his own language that made his friends echo his laughter.
“What's funny?” Nicole asked Swemblas, emboldened by the knowledge of his name and by the promise he'd made her.
He actually condescended to explain. “We are many drunken Germans, and here is also a drunken Roman.”
And there he came, staggering along the street. Nicole saw the stagger first, before anything else. Her lip curled in anger and contempt. Carnuntum had fallen, and this idiot could think of nothing better to do about it than soak himself in wine.
Then he lifted his head, and she gasped in recognition. It was Gaius Calidius Severus. He'd never get drunk at such a time. He'd gone off to fight; there was no way he'd come back sloshed, even to drown his sorrow at defeat.
“He's not drunk,” she said suddenly. “He's hurt.” She ran
out past the staring Germans, caring only that none of them tried to stop her.
Her lover's son had lost his sword. When he turned his head to stare blankly at her, the left side of his face and his beard were crusted with dried blood. Her eye followed the track of it to an enormous lump above and in front of his ear.
He stopped, swaying, and blinked at her. “Mistress Umma?” he said doubtfully, as if he wasn't sure he knew her.
One of his eyes had a large pupil, the other a small. Concussion. “Gaius,” Nicole said sharply, hoping the sound of his name would help him focus. “What hit you?”
“I don't know.” His voice was vague. He winced. “I have an awful headache.” He peered down at his right hand, and opened his eyes wide in surprise. “Where did my sword go?”
“I don't know,” Nicole said. Maybe he'd dropped it when he got hurt. If he had, he was probably lucky. The Germans would have been sure to set upon an armed man, where an unarmed one might be—appeared to have been—a figure of fun. “Where have you been all this time?”
“Wandering, I suppose,” he said, still in that dreamy, foggy tone. “I only remembered where I live a little while ago.”
Nicole nodded. Concussion indeed. She didn't want to bring him into the tavern; no telling what her unwelcome guests might decide to do. She pointed him toward the door of his own shop. “Go in there. Go upstairs. Lie down, but
don't
go to sleep. You might not wake up. I'll come and check in on you as soon as I can.”
He started to nod, then stopped with another wince. A small hiss of pain escaped him. “I'll do that.” He hesitated, then added, “We lost, didn't we?”
The legionary's corpse still lay in the street, though Germans had stolen his sword and armor. The body of Antonina's husband sprawled not far from it. There were no dead Germans. All of those were alive, well, and roaring their way through a drinking song behind her.
“Yes,” Nicole said dryly in a lull between verses. “We lost.”
“I thought so,” he said. He looked around a little more alertly than before. “What happens now?”
“I don't know.” Nicole took a deep breath. If it struck him as normal to stand in the middle of the street talking about the fall of Carnuntum, and with no fear of the enemy either—maybe, after all, it wasn't invariably fatal to be an adult male in a conquered city—then he was still sufficiently fuddled to be in need of a keeper. She turned him bodily and pointed him toward his own door. “Don't worry about it now. Just go in, go upstairs, but remember: try to stay awake. Julia or I will check on you as soon as we can.”
He didn't argue with her, which was also an indication that he wasn't quite right. He went where she directed him, into his shop. She heard the slide of the bar in the door, and drew a sigh of relief. Some of his wits were scrambled, but some still worked. If he could keep from falling asleep in the next few—minutes, she decided; she'd send Julia over right away, and make her stay there. Julia's methods of keeping him from falling into a coma might not be exactly family fare, but if they worked, Nicole didn't care.
But first, as long as Nicole was out, there was one more thing that needed doing. Her stomach crunched at the thought of it. But who else was there?
She slipped back into the tavern. Nobody appeared to notice her. They were all either drowning in the beer that was holding out now the wine was gone, or snoring on the tables or between the stools.
Julia was still standing behind the bar. She greeted Nicole with a look of joy that stabbed Nicole with guilt, but the guilt would be worse if Nicole didn't do this second errand. Nicole spoke as softly as she could and still be heard: “Will you be all right here by yourself for a little while? I have to check on poor Antonina.”
Julia's face fell, but she kept her chin up regardless. “I suppose it will be all right,” she said. “If they were going to
throw us down and do what they did to her, they'd have done it by now.”
Lucius had gone upstairs not long before Gaius Calidius Severus found his way home. None of the Germans had given him any trouble. One of them had picked up his wooden sword from the floor, thwacked him on the bottom with it, not very hard, then handed it to him. The German had laughed, even when he glared, and called him something in German that got Lucius a round of salutes. He'd kept Lucius by him for a while, plying him with walnuts and coaxing him until finally, unwillingly, he smiled. Then the German let him go. The man was still there, still eating walnuts, swapping war stories with a tableful of his fellows. There was no scarlet brand on his forehead, nothing to mark him as rapist or murderer. He was rather ordinary, really. Shave him, cut his hair, dress him in jeans and a shirt, and he'd be just another big blond guy in a bar.
Nicole knew better. She slipped out of the tavern again and walked warily down the street to Antonina's house. When she was out in front taking care of Calidius Severus, it had been one thing; she'd been in sight of the tavern, and under Swemblas' protection. Antonina lived just far enough to be out of reach if another barbarian happened by, and happened to be hungry for blood or a woman or both.
But no one accosted her. The street was deserted. She made it safely to the door, and knocked.
No one answered. She knocked again. Still no reply. A chill ran down her back. Antonina might have hanged herself, or slit her wrists, or thrust a knife into a vein. After what the Germans had done to her, she might not want to live. Nicole knew enough of rape trauma to know that, and to be seriously afraid.
This was Nicole's worst twentieth-century nightmare come to life. Men with unlimited license to do as they pleased, with and to women. Next to this, Tony Gallagher's crude come-on in the office had been the height of Old World courtesy.
She braced to knock yet again, but hesitated. Hadn't the
German pounded on the door before he dragged Antonina out? She must think there was another barbarian out here, looking for more sport.
“Antonina?” she called. “It's Umma.”
Something stirred inside, a rustle, a muted scrape. Nicole sagged in relief. It might not be Antonina—for all she knew, it was a rat scuttling across the floor—but there was something, someone, alive in there. She knocked again, less peremptorily.
“Go away!” Antonina snapped at her from within, as sharp as ever, and deeply exasperated. “Leave me alone.”
Nicole almost laughed. Yes, that was Antonina, all charm and sweetness. “I want to help, if I can,” Nicole said.
The door opened abruptly. Antonina glared out at Nicole. “Help what? Help spread news of my shame through the whole city?”
“No!” Nicole protested. Damn, if only she'd found a spare hour a day to serve on a crisis hotline. She knew what those operators were supposed to do, but not how they were supposed to do it. She'd been too busy divorcing Frank, raising two kids, making partner …
She breathed deep and let it out slowly. Patience. That much she knew. You had to be patient. “Look. What happened wasn't your fault. No one should think any less of you because of it.”
Antonina stared at her as if she'd never seen her before. After a stretching pause, she said, “You'd better come in.” Nicole gathered her wits and did as she was told. Antonina shut the door behind her and barred it tightly. “Don't want those murdering demons coming by and seeing us,” she said.
“I should think not,” Nicole said. Voice soft, movements slow. It worked with animals; why not with a severely traumatized human? They stood in a darkened room, darker than the tavern had been, with all the shutters closed tight, and one stingy lamp burning. The room was full of shadows: shadows draped over furniture, hung on the walls, piled on the floor.
Antonina's late husband had been a tailor. These weren't
shadows. These were cloaks and tunics and hoods, some cut, some half-sewn, some all but finished and waiting for the final touches. Bolts of cloth stood against the far wall, some with pieces cut and hanging, others bound up tightly. The air was full of the odor of new wool.
“I'm sorry about your husband,” Nicole said. “He was a brave man.”
“Castinus?” Antonina snorted. “Sure he was brave. He was stupid.” Nicole couldn't think what to say. Antonina sounded as if she'd barely known the man at all, still less loved and married him. “Stupid,” she repeated. “He never in his life did anything so—so—” Then, to Nicole's lasting astonishment and considerable dismay, she gasped. Her eyes opened wide. And she cried out, a great, raw wail of pain and loss. Tears spilled down her cheeks. She flung herself into Nicole's arms and wept as if her heart would break.
Nicole unlocked the joints that had gone rigid when Antonina sprang at her, and stroked Antonina's filthy hair as she had Lucius' earlier. “Yes. Grieve. It's all right. It's good. Let it all out. You'll feel better.”
“I'll never feel better!” Antonina cried. Then she stiffened. She pulled away from Nicole and looked about wildly. “I have to be quiet. They'll hear me if I'm not quiet.” And yet, as she looked around, as she saw the evidence of her husband's labors wherever her eyes fell, a new, long wail escaped her, and she dove again for what security she might find in Nicole's arms.
“It's all right,” Nicole said somewhat lamely. “I'm sure it's all right” And then, bitterly: “They like hearing women mourn. It reminds them how bold and brave and downright manly they are, to give us cause to weep.”
“Barbarians,” Antonina spat, in between spasms of tears. She clung to Nicole for a very long time. When she pulled away, it was sudden, as if she'd brought herself forcibly under control. Tears still dripped from her eyes; her nose was running. She wiped it on her sleeve. No handkerchiefs here. No Kleenex. She looked at Nicole through those red and streaming eyes, and sniffed loudly. “Thank you,” she said
with what for Antonina was considerable graciousness. “The way things usually are between us, I hadn't expected this from you.” She paused to draw a long breath. “Sometimes it's not so bad to be wrong.”
“No,” Nicole said. “It's not.”
Antonina sniffed again, almost her old scornful sound. “I can tell why the barbarians didn't bother you. What did you do, take a bath in the chamber pot? I wish I'd thought of that.” This was good, Nicole thought. Antonina was herself again, more or less.
Nicole answered the question with some pride: “I took Julia across the street to Gaius Calidius Severus' and splashed us both with the really ripe stuff.”
“That
was
clever,” Antonina said, “though I'd have thought Julia would have enjoyed taking on a dozen or so stalwart Marcomanni.” Yes, she was definitely on the mend: she was up to being bitchy again.
Nicole sighed. “If Julia wants to sleep with the Germans, she probably will, and there isn't much anybody can do about it. But if she doesn't want to, they have no right to force her.”
“They have a right,” Antonina said bleakly: “the right of the strong over the weak.” She held up a hand before Nicole could speak. “Yes, my dear, I do understand you, but when has the world ever paid attention to a woman's rights?”
“Not often enough,” Nicole had to concede.
Antonina nodded. She had no idea how long that would continue, but neither did she have any idea how much better things would get. Los Angeles of the Nineties, warts and all, was an infinitely better time and place for a woman than second-century Carnuntum.

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