Authors: Judith Tarr
Household Gods (24 page)
Which was exactly what she got nowâexcept for the money part, which had just evaporated. Julia was canny, Nicole thought. Behind that open face and simple, forthright manner lay a sharp intelligence.
Intelligence, maybe, but no ambition. Nicole was a little disappointed. “If that's what you want to do,” Nicole said, “yes, I suppose so.”
And God knows I need you to help me get through all the things I still don't know.
“Or you could go to school andâ”
And God knows I need you to help me get through all the things I still don't know.
“Or you could go to school andâ”
Julia looked at her as if she'd gone around the bend again. “School? Mistress, what good would that do?”
Now that Nicole had rather expected. “It would give you more kinds of work to choose from,” she answered. “After all, you can't read or write, can you?” Umma hadn't been
able to, so it was safe enough to assume that her slave couldn't either.
able to, so it was safe enough to assume that her slave couldn't either.
Julia didn't seem to feel the lack. She shrugged indifferently. “What if I could? There aren't many jobs that need it. Clerk for the city, I suppose, or bookkeeperâbut even if I could learn enough or fast enough, I wouldn't want to be locked up all day making birdtracks on papyrus. Besides, those are men's jobs. Who ever heard of a lady bookkeeper?” She laughed and shook her head, as if the notion were too absurd for words.
Those are men's jobs.
Nicole heard the words with sick dismay.
Who ever heard of a lady bookkeeper?
She'd fled California not only for its sexism but for its hypocrisy. Carnuntum was every bit as sexistâand not the least bit hypocritical about it. “What about Liber and Libera?” Nicole asked, a little hoarsely.
Nicole heard the words with sick dismay.
Who ever heard of a lady bookkeeper?
She'd fled California not only for its sexism but for its hypocrisy. Carnuntum was every bit as sexistâand not the least bit hypocritical about it. “What about Liber and Libera?” Nicole asked, a little hoarsely.
“The wine god and his wife?” Julia asked as if puzzled. “What about them, Mistress? They're gods. They aren't bookkeepers.”
“Theâwine god and goddess?” Nicole felt as if she'd been slugged in the gut. What had she done to herself? Of all the deities she would have picked to help her â¦
But they had helped her, snickering at her ignorance, all too likely, but helping her nevertheless. And here she was, in the world they'd chosen for her, and she was damned if she knew what to do about it.
Maybe she was damned. Sunday school had included a long rant on sin and damnation, and a scenic tour of hell. Wine and drunkards had warranted a whole separate dissertation, along with fornicators, whom Nicole had thought of then, in her eight-year-old innocence, as people who had been put to work stoking the furnaces.
It wasn't particularly warm in Carnuntum, but there was plenty of heat inside Nicole's skull. It felt as if her brains were boiling. “Liber and Libera,” she managed to say. “Aren't theyâ” She softened what she'd been about to say: “Aren't they also the gods of liberty?”
Julia thought about it briefly, then nodded. “Yes, I suppose
so. Liberty from careâisn't that what wine does? Frees your soul from worry, lets you forget for a while that life isn't going the way you want it to?”
so. Liberty from careâisn't that what wine does? Frees your soul from worry, lets you forget for a while that life isn't going the way you want it to?”
“Libertyâfrom care?” Again, Nicole's echo was hesitant and filled with a dismay she tried to hide from Julia. That fit too well with what the god and goddess had done, her last night in West Hills. She'd been filled with care then. Liber and Libera had taken her out of it, had sent her back to their time, back to their town, where she'd thoughtâwhere they must have thoughtâshe would be carefree.
She didn't know whether to laugh or to cry. Carefree? Wine, lice, slaveryâand now sexism, too? Some freedom this wasâall the new worries of this time and place, and a whole set of old ones from California, too. It was more than she could take.
She almost prayed to Liber and Libera to ship her back to California. But she wasn't giving up yet, even for Kimberley and Justin. She'd asked for this. She had to make the best of it.
“Mistress?” Julia said. Nicole nodded to show she'd been paying attention, even if she hadn't. “Mistress,” Julia said again, “I was thinking. If I work here as a freedwoman, not as a slave, I'll be able to take men upstairs and keep all”âNicole's expression gave her pause, but she misinterpreted itâ“all right, not all, but more of what they pay, for myself.”
“If you work here as my freedwoman,” Nicole said through clenched teeth, “you will not prostitute yourself.”
“But why not,” Julia asked, “if I'm free and if I want to?” She searched Nicole's face as if she could find an answer there. “Mistress, I don't understand.”
Nicole opened her mouth, then closed it again. Here was an issue she'd never imagined she'd have to face. If a woman wanted to go on selling herself, did another woman have the right to forbid it? She couldn't face that, not on those terms. She sidestepped instead, as she had with Lucius and Aurelia: “Isn't there anything else you'd rather do?”
Julia raised her hands and let them fall. “Mistress, you
keep saying that, but what else can I do? I can cook some and bake some, so maybe I could work at another tavern, but it's hard to find one that doesn't already have its own slaveâand slaves work for free. Remember that woman you wouldn't hire last year because you owned me?”
keep saying that, but what else can I do? I can cook some and bake some, so maybe I could work at another tavern, but it's hard to find one that doesn't already have its own slaveâand slaves work for free. Remember that woman you wouldn't hire last year because you owned me?”
Again, Nicole made herself nod..
Because you owned me.
Julia said it so calmly. She took it for granted. However unhappy she might be as a slave, she never blinked at slavery itself.
Because you owned me.
Julia said it so calmly. She took it for granted. However unhappy she might be as a slave, she never blinked at slavery itself.
“I'm good at something else, too,” she said, “or the men say I am. But I don't want to do that for a living, either. I'd have to take on men I didn't want at all, and I wouldn't much care for that.”
Nicole lowered her aching head into her hands. Had she really expected life here to be simple? In California, she'd always known how to react, what to think, what was right and what was wrong. In Carnuntum, there was no such thing as simplicityânot to her twentieth-century mind.
She settled on the one thing that was simple, the thing she had decided on. “Let's do what we have to do to get you free,” she said, “and then we'll worry about everything else. How does that sound?”
“All right, Mistress.” Even now, Julia sounded more dutiful than delighted. “Brigomarus won't like it, I'll bet.”
“Brigâ?” Nicole needed a moment to recall the name of Umma's brotherânow, effectively, her brother. “Don't you worry about Brigomarus. Just leave him to me.”
“Yes, Mistress.” Julia still sounded dutiful. She sounded, Nicole supposed, very much the way a slave was supposed to sound. The contrast with Julia's usual, freer manner was strong enough to bring Nicole up short, and to stab her with guiltâwhich was probably what Julia intended.
Slaves and children,
Nicole thought.
They're powerless
â
but they can manipulate the ones in power, to get what they think they want.
And hadn't she done the same thing herself more times than she could count, growing up and going to school and working in a law firm that took equity so far and not an inch further?
Nicole thought.
They're powerless
â
but they can manipulate the ones in power, to get what they think they want.
And hadn't she done the same thing herself more times than she could count, growing up and going to school and working in a law firm that took equity so far and not an inch further?
Â
Â
Two afternoons later, Brigomarus breezed into the tavern. Luck was looking after Nicole again. She didn't need to wonder who this casual type was who blew in as if he owned the place. Lucius, who'd been cracking walnuts, shouted “Uncle Brigo!” and tried to tackle him.
He swept the boy up, tipped him upside down, and bonked his head on a tabletop. Lucius squealed in delight. Brigomarus tipped him back upright and set him bouncing on his feet, and pulled a handful of candied figs from his belt pouch. Lucius snatched them as eagerly as if he hadn't been eating as many walnuts as he dropped into the bowl, and danced around the room while Aurelia, who'd heard the uproar and come downstairs to see what was happening, fell on her uncle and held him hostage till he surrendered a second handful of figs.
“Greedy kids,” he said affectionately, planting himself on a stool and thumping the table with a fist. “Let me have some wine, would you, sister? I'd have been back sooner, but they've had us making shields from dawn to dusk. The war with the tribes across the river isn't anywhere near over yet, you mark my words.”
Nicole dipped a cup of Falernian for him, figuring family deserved the best. Maybe Umma hadn't been that generous: Brigomarus' eyebrows rose and he smacked his lips. He downed the cup with as much pleasure as thirst.
She studied him while he drank. He looked like one of Umma's relatives, sure enough. He was, she suspected, a younger brother, though not by much. He was a little fairer than Umma, his eyes hazel rather than brown, but they shared long faces and prominent noses and sharp cheekbones. His beard obscured the shape of his chin, but she supposed it was narrow and rather pointed, like herâUmma'sâown. He was rather good-looking, in a lean and hungry way. If she'd been her California self, she might not have wanted to know him; he looked hard and a little dangerous, though his ready smile and easy manner tended to conceal it.
Lucius pestered him, tugging at his arm, voice escalating into a whine: “Wrestle me, Uncle Brigo! Come on, let's wrestle, come on, Uncle Brigo!”
“No,” Brigomarus said. Lucius kept at him, tugging harder, ignoring Brigomarus' frown and reiterated, “No!” Brigomarus casually hauled off and smacked him upside the head, harder than Nicole had ever hit a child in her life. “Cut it out, kid,” he said. “I want to talk to your mother.”
Lucius rocked with the blow, but he didn't start crying or screaming. “Oh, all right, Uncle Brigo,” he said, disappointed but evidently undamaged.
If he had started to cry, Nicole would have been on Brigomarus like a tiger. As it was, she wanted to yell at him anyhow. It was hard to hold herself back, to be sensible, to keep from giving herself away. Julia was inclined to take Nicole's odd moments in stride. Somehow, Nicole didn't think Brigomarus would be so accommodating.
“What's on your mind?” she asked him, and hoped she sounded enough like his sister to pass muster.
Evidently she did. He answered a question with a question: “What's this I hear about you wanting to set Julia free?”
Nicole's heart jumped, but she held steady. “It's true,” she said. “I do.” She'd had time enough over the past couple of days to frame a response that, from what Julia had said, a person from here and now could legitimately have made: “I decided that I didn't want her to have to sleep with customers to get a little spending money.” She kept wanting to say pocket change, but nobody in Carnuntum knew about pockets.
Brigomarus raised his eyebrows. “What? That never bothered you before.” He sucked on a front tooth, as if it helped him get his thoughts in order. “I hate to lose the money she cost, tooâand if one of those customers knocked her up, the brat would bring a nice piece of change.” By his tone, he might have been trying to talk his sister out of a real-estate deal he thought foolish. Like Julia and everyone else Nicole had seen in this place, he had not the slightest sense that anything was wrong with or about slavery itself.
It drove Nicole crazy. The casual way in which Brigomarus spoke of selling a child for profit made her belly go tight and cold. “Setting Julia free is what I want to do,” she said with unshaken determination, “and I'm going to do it.”
Brigomarus scowled. “Listen, you know it's not that simple.” He paused as if to control his temper, or maybe to come up with an argument a silly woman would understand. “Look, Umma, if you're bound and determined, I don't want to fight over it. Life is too short as it is. Let's do it like this, if you've got your mind set on it.” He waited for Nicole's emphatic nod, then went on, “Let her earn more money and keep more money, so she can pay back what she cost.”
Julia's face fell. Nicole could make a pretty good guess what that meant: with what Julia could make, she'd never be able to pay for herselfâunless she sold her body, and sold it and sold it ⦠. That was partly why Nicole shook her head even more violently than she'd nodded, but only partly. She could not stomach owning a slave for one more instant. And there was no way in hell she was going to compromise with the system by taking money from Julia in return for Julia's freedom. “No,” Nicole said. “I'm going to emancipate her, and that's that.”
“I say you're not going to do anything of the sort.” Brigomarus sounded as revoltingly sure of himself as any senior partner at her old law firm.
“You may be my brother”â
and then again, you may not
â“but you're not my master, so don't treat me as if you think you are,” Nicole snapped. Brigomarus stared at her as if she, or rather Umma, had never spoken to him like that before. If Umma hadn't, she'd probably wasted a lot of good chances. “She's not your slave, she's mine, and I'm going to do with her as I think best.”
and then again, you may not
â“but you're not my master, so don't treat me as if you think you are,” Nicole snapped. Brigomarus stared at her as if she, or rather Umma, had never spoken to him like that before. If Umma hadn't, she'd probably wasted a lot of good chances. “She's not your slave, she's mine, and I'm going to do with her as I think best.”
“As you think best?” Brigomarus' eyebrows had climbed to his hairline in an expression of comic incredulityâbut there was nothing comic about his tone. “And what does that have to do with it? You have a family, Umma, and you seem to have forgotten about it.”
“I haven't forgotten!” Nicole said hotlyâand honestly
enough. She never forgot Kimberley or Justin, either, even in the deep throes of life in Carnuntum.
enough. She never forgot Kimberley or Justin, either, even in the deep throes of life in Carnuntum.
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