“I know you,” she said. “From the ship?”
“You are mistaken, dear sister. We have not met before,” said Ms. Señales.
Jenny seized her hand. “Are you sure?”
Scipina broke her grip. “It is forbidden to touch an elder of the temple.” To Ms. Señales she said, “Go and make yourself pure again.”
Jenny watched the Carleton’s signals officer go. She had a thousand questions bubbling in her head, but to the stern Scipina she simply said, “I’m sorry. I don’t know all the rules yet.”
“We will forbear,” said the priestess. “Because you are new. Next time you transgress, there will be correction.” Jenny put a hand to her heart, remembering the pain.
She clipped dead flowers for a long time. The pain Jenny had endured was considerable, but it took more than punishment to change her mind. None of these weirdoes knew how hard she trained—the muscle aches, the pinched nerves, running on bad knees, or how she placed second at the 2052 Champions Club Cup with an untreated broken wrist.
Something else: the “goddess” left a clue behind about the source of her power. When Jenny got up, freed from the terrible pain, she distinctly smelled the sharp tang of ozone. Ozone, she knew, was made when high voltage electricity passed through ordinary air. Ceres, however dangerous, was plugged into a wall socket somewhere.
As the sun set on the day, the Carleton’s people were scattered across Eternus Urbs. Hans Bachmann was face to face with an enigma of his own. His master, the scrivener Piso, had all the equipment Hans expected a Roman scribe would have: racks of drying parchment, pots of ink made from soot and olive oil, and long tables where patient workers hunched, copying one long manuscript onto fresh scrolls. What Hans did not expect to find was a hand-powered printing press with cast lead type.
“Magister, what is this?” Hans asked, stunned by the sight.
“You are a bumpkin,” Piso replied. “I thought you were educated! Do you not know the stilus apparatus, the writing machine?”
“I know what it is, magister! I never thought to see one here! It is . . .” He started to say “It is an anachronism!” but he didn’t know how to say it. Nor could he find a way to say the printing press was invented a thousand years after the Roman Empire fell, so how could there be one in the Latin Republic?
“We’re very modern in Eternus Urbs,” Piso said. “The barbarians of Ys or Ardennus may not have writing machines, but we certainly do.”
Hans examined the press closely. It resembled the ones he had seen in Mainz, in the Museum of Printing. It had a heavy frame of wood and a big hand-cut wooden screw held together with wooden pegs. The bed on which pages were printed was a slab of marble. Lying in a frame on the bed were lines of backward letters cast in lead. Hans tried to read the backward text.
“Here, dolt,” said Piso, handing him a printed broadsheet. It was a big sheet of paper, thirty inches square. In bold Latin font it proclaimed:
BARBARIANS ON THE FRONTIER!
THE WOLVES OF YS AMBUSH REPUBLIC TRAVELERS!
CONSUL SEPTIMUS GLORIORUS VOWS REPRISALS
XVIII LEGION RECALLED FROM THE NORTH TO FACE THE BARBARIAN THREAT
THE FIRST CITIZEN’S WATCHWORD IS VIGILANCE!
In smaller type, the broadsheet described debate in the Senate about how best to punish Ys for its insults to the Republic. Hans soon grew bored reading it. Even in this weird retro republic, government proclamations were unbearably dull.
Piso had an order to print two thousand of these sheets. All over the city there were simple kiosks where government information sheets were posted. Apparently, Piso had been busy printing these sheets lately. Ys was being very troublesome, which was good for Piso’s business.
“We met some Ys soldiers,” Hans began, but Piso walked away to bawl out one of his employees for dropping a small jar of ink.
Hans thought he might get to operate the press, but no such luck. Piso set him to scanning finished sheets hanging on clotheslines in the sunny courtyard in the center of his house. It was bright there, and hot while the sun was out. Not a breath of wind stirred inside the four walls. Hans inspected sheet after sheet for errors or misprints. When he finished a batch of fifty or so broadsheets, a pair of skinny boys came in, took them down, and hung up fresh ones. Only 1,950 to go, Hans thought wearily.
When he did find a poorly printed letter, he had to write it in by hand with a slim, brushy-tipped pen. At first Hans tried to match the rigid Roman font with his brush strokes, but after thirty or forty corrections, he simply wrote in the correct letter and let it go at that. If Piso noticed, he didn’t complain.
After sundown, most of Piso’s workers went home. Being a desolo, an “abandoned one,” Hans would eat and sleep in Piso’s house.
He ate with the family. Piso’s wife, Avia, was a slim, dark-haired woman who barely spoke in her husband’s presence (a situation he seemed to prefer). Piso had two sons, Castorius and Pollux, who were twins. Castorius was in the army, in the city’s X Cohort. Pollux worked for his father but had his own home next door.
Piso also had a daughter, Lidicera. She looked a lot like her mother, with smooth black hair down to her waist, sharp black eyes, and advanced ideas of her effect on men. She served Hans during dinner, leaning over him to pour wine mixed with water in his cup, passing him a platter of olives and hard-boiled eggs. She was pretty hot, and she knew it. Hans instinctively knew if he showed her any attention, Piso would throw him out on the street—and maybe have him beaten for daring to covet the boss’s daughter.
Of all the people Hans had met in this strange Roman fantasy world, Lidicera was the only one who asked him where he came from and what he did before he reached the Republic. He tried to tell her (and her mother and father, seated nearby) about Germany and Europe in the twenty-first century. He couldn’t. Though his memory of his own past life was clear, when he got to a term for which there was no word in Latin, he simply could not speak. He tried to say “personal data device, airplane, European Union,” or any modern place-name in Germany and found himself unable to render any of these things in Latin. He felt foolish, brow furrowed and stammering as he tried to describe the Carleton and his voyage.
“Ships are unsafe,” Piso said flatly. “I’d never get on one.” Hans asked why.
“They sink, don’t they?”
“I can’t imagine living anywhere but the Republic,” Avia said. “All those barbarians . . .”
“Were there girls with you on your voyage?” asked Lidicera.
“Yes, quite a few.” Hans wondered where Jenny, Julie, Eleanor, and Linh were right now.
She leaned forward, resting her chin on her hands. “Were they pretty?”
Hans glanced her way and saw everything she wanted him to see. He quickly shifted his gaze to his employer, who was gnawing a roasted chicken leg with frightening efficiency.
“I suppose so,” Hans said. “One girl was—” He thought about the shipwreck. “They were all brave and intelligent.”
“Is that so important?”
“I think so.”
Lidicera smiled a lot. Apparently, she found him amusing. Fortunately for Hans, when her father finished dinner, the meal was over for everyone. Avia lit a lamp and led Hans to his place to sleep. It was in the attic, among stored bundles of printing paper and tall jars of parchment rolls. A pallet of straw and a very dusty blanket were his bed.
“Good night,” Avia said. “Somnus take you soon.”
He was tired. His knee ached, too, though he thought it was getting better. Avia left with the lamp, leaving Hans in total darkness. When his eyes grew accustomed to the dark, he saw slender white beams of light filtering in through chinks in the terra-cotta tiles. Exploring, he found a hatch in the roof. It was heavy, but he got it open. Cool air rushed in.
The light was from the moon. He hadn’t seen it in so long, he�
�d almost forgotten to expect it. Because it was so full and round, Hans wondered how he had missed it for so many nights.
He could see down to the street. People came and went, some on horseback but most on foot. A trio of young men staggered past, singing a drunken song about Luxuria’s House of Pleasure. Must be a brothel, Hans thought.
Someone touched his arm lightly from behind. Hans almost leaped through the hatch.
Lidicera laughed, covering her teeth with her hand to muffle the sound.
“Nervous, aren’t you?”
“You shouldn’t be here,” he said, alarmed. Visions of the dead soldier who tried to molest Julie Morrison and the others filled his head. If Piso appeared, Lidicera was the just the type to cry rape.
“It’s my house. I go where I please. What were you looking at?”
He moved away as far as the hatch frame would allow. “The moon.”
“I like her, too.”
“‘Her?’”
“Diana, the goddess.” Lidicera held out her tan arms to the white globe in the sky. “‘Pale goddess, queen of virgins, keep me safe,’” she recited.
She looked at Hans. “I used to say that every night.”
“Oh? What do you say now?”
“Now I pray to Venus.”
A muffled voice downstairs called Lidicera. Hans suggested she go.
“Yes, yes. It’s only your first night here.” Lidicera faded into the shadows. Her voiced drifted back. “I hope you’re with us a long time, Ioannus.” That was Johann, rendered in Latin. When Lidicera said it, it sounded like “Yonus.”
Angry words drifted up through the floor when Lidicera met her mother. Hans closed the hatch and went to his meager bed. It took a surprisingly long time for him to fall asleep.
Chapter 16
Julie listened hard to the darkness. It was alive with little noises: bumps, creaks, groans, and faintly muffled voices. She had been in Luxuria’s house three days, but every nightfall lent the place an entirely different, frightening flavor.
By day it was a spacious, four-story building in the Fourth Ward, a block from the large but tacky temple of Venus. They had come right through the square in front of the temple, so Julie got a good look at it (she thought it was Luxuria’s house at first, given the way her new mistress kept referring to it as “our house”). The temple was built entirely of alternating courses of rose marble and red granite, which made it look like a fancy candy shop. There were a dozen or more great statues in the square, mostly muscular males barely dressed. Luxuria explained these were images of Venus’s most famous lovers: Mars, Vulcan, Adonis, Anchises, and so on. Venus got around. Julie knew Mars was a planet, and Vulcan was the home of Mr. Spock, but the other names were ancient gibberish. One beefcake in a loincloth looked pretty much like another.
Compared with Venus’s pink palace, the house of Luxuria was tasteful, even plain. The ground floor was whitewashed, and the upper floors half-timbered over brick. There was a garden between the front door and the street, surrounded by a seven-foot-high wall. Large double gates protected the entrance to the garden. A guard minded the gates. He was a giant of a man, nearly seven feet tall. Simply dressed, the giant didn’t wear one of those big knives the macho Republic types liked so much. Julie guessed when you were as big as this guy, you didn’t need weapons.
He was called Ramesses. Julie laughed when she heard the name. Luxuria asked her to explain. Ramesses was the name of an ancient king. Why was that funny? Julie couldn’t bring herself to explain she knew the name from ads for condoms.
Luxuria’s garden was delightful. Neat as a hospital, it was crowded with flowers and herbs serviced by a cloud of golden bees. Julie was not into flowers herself, but her mom was, so she knew many of the varieties by sight. Luxuria noted her interest.
“You know flowers?”
“A little,” said Julie. “Do you want me to tend the garden?”
Luxuria replied, “I do all the gardening myself.”
A slave boy, seven or eight years old, opened the door for them. Inside, the entry hall was shaded and cool. A mechanical fan, wafted by an elderly slave tugging on a rope, stirred the air. Four women lounging on couches stood up as Luxuria came in. A female slave took her mistress’s cloak and silently disappeared with it.
“Maia, Hypatia, you’re free, are you?” Two of the women, good-looking in a loose, lush way, smiled and agreed. “Hera, how’s your cough?”
A slightly older woman, maybe thirty, coughed a bit in reply. Luxuria frowned.
“Go to Dr. Dioscorides at once. No one wants a bedmate wheezing and coughing all over them.” The woman called Hera bowed and hurried out.
The last woman had Asian features, which surprised Julie a little. She had seen quite a few African people sprinkled among the Latins, but no other Asian people so far. This woman was short and plump, and smirked a lot. Unlike the others, she did not seem at all intimidated by Luxuria.
“Roxana. Was the proconsul here again this afternoon?” Luxuria asked.
“Yes, domina.”
“Were you good to him this time?”
Roxana made a mocking gesture of surprise. “Of course, domina! I treated him like a god.”
“Which god? Not Uranus, I hope.”
Roxana bowed her head. She said, “No, domina.” Julie could hear the sarcasm dripping from her voice.
The older woman slave brought Luxuria a book. Julie peeked over her shoulder and saw it was a ledger filled with columns of names and figures. Luxuria checked the total at the bottom of the last page and sniffed.
“Not good,” she said, closing the ledger softly. “Revenue is definitely down.”
“Competition?” Julie said.
Luxuria handed the book back to the slave. “Sameness. In my business variety means success. I will be improving our variety soon.”
It took Julie too long to realize what Luxuria meant. As the older woman beckoned her to follow her into the heart of the building, Julie’s knees went rubbery.
“I can’t do this,” she said.
Luxuria paused in the doorway. A few steps away, Roxana sat down on a couch, plainly watching and listening.
“Anyone can do it,” Luxuria said calmly. “Anyone.”
“Not me!”
“Why not? Are you promised to serve a goddess as a virgin? You do not look the part.”
Julie struggled for a way to say what she wanted to say that didn’t sound too offensive, and gave up.
“This is a dirty business! It’s demeaning! I won’t be part of it!”
“She’s a princess, that’s it,” Roxana observed. “Bred to marry some prince of her parents’ choosing.”
“Hold your tongue!” Luxuria said. “Come, girl. None of us know what the gods have in store for us. What you do here may not be what you fear.”
She held out an arm. Slowly Julie walked past her through the curtained door.
From her couch Roxana recited, “‘Truly, Eros, thou art a dunce, and dost thou know the garment from the Man; every harlot was a virgin once, nor canst thou change the Olympians’ plan.’”
Luxuria let the curtain fall behind them. Julie muttered a pungent word.
“Someday I shall have Roxana’s throat cut,” Luxuria said quite casually. “But you, my girl, had better beware of her. She has powerful patrons who enjoy her favors. A word from her in the right ear, and you might end up in the river Styx.”
“Are you afraid of her?” Julie asked.
Luxuria passed her in the gloomy corridor.
“No. I have friends, too.”
She led Julie through a maze of halls and doors. The house was pretty quiet that time of day. They passed a kitchen, where trays of refreshments were being prepared. Julie saw pieces of glistening brown meat on skewers, bowls of figs and strawberries, and what looked like long
breadsticks being dipped in melted butter. Her stomach growled, but Luxuria kept walking.
They emerged in a shaded courtyard. All these Latin houses seemed to be hollow in the center. In the center of the yard was a marble fountain. Water streamed out of a statue of a winged teenage boy standing on one side of the fountain. Julie rolled her eyes at the “art.”
Several wooden tubs lay by the fountain, heaped with dirty laundry. Luxuria pointed to the tubs.
“Your first job is to get these clean,” she said. Julie was so astonished, Luxuria had to repeat herself, a task she plainly did not relish.
“You mean, I don’t have to—?” Julie cast a glance at the floors above.
“What, you? A reluctant virgin? There are some who put on an act like that, but not in my house. For now, you do laundry. Later, you may assist in the kitchen.”
Julie felt like kissing her. Hand washing laundry was no fun, but it was better than the alternative.
So she washed. The water was cold, and there was no soap, so Julie had to get down on her knees and scrub with her hands. She washed sheets, towels, and odd underclothes that were kind of like old-fashioned slips she’d seen women wear in old movies. Her first batches were not clean enough, so she had to scrub them again. She did this until nightfall, and the next day, and the next. Her hands turned red and her knees ached, but any time Julie felt like complaining, she looked at Roxana, Maia, Hypatia, and the other women and decided her problems were not so bad.
Only at night did she feel afraid. Sometimes she had to deliver wine or hors d’oeuvres to one of the rooms. She did as she was told, but she always kept her mouth shut. Julie saw things, things a sixteen-year-old girl seldom saw (or wanted to see). No one bothered her though. The male customers treated her like furniture, and the women did as their natures demanded.
Roxana was sarcastic and cruel, but a woman called Amalthea turned out to be quite kind. Amalthea was only eighteen, but she had been working for Luxuria more than a year. Maia was a widow who had lost her farm when her husband was killed in a barbarian raid. With no other means of supporting herself, she came to Eternus and ended up working for Luxuria.
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