Household Gods

by Judith Tarr

  It bothered Nicole. It bothered her a lot. “What’s going on here?” she demanded.

  Aurelia ran right past the two of them, sparing a giggle that told Nicole she knew exactly what was going on, she thought it was mildly amusing, but it wasn’t half as interesting as the game her brother was playing. She sprang into that with a whoop and a cry, not even needing a toy sword to become a fearless warrior maiden. Still whooping, they rollicked and scrambled up the stairs.

  Julia didn’t move from Ofanius Valens’ lap. His hand went right on rubbing and fondling. Nicole watched it move rhythmically up and down, up and down, raising and lowering her filthy tunic. “Now, now, don’t worry,” he said easily. “I wasn’t going to cheat you.” He tilted his head toward the table. “See, there’s your two sesterces, and Julia’llget her dupondius once we’ve gone upstairs, if she’s as lively as she usually is.”

  “I’ll do my best,” Julia purred. The purr and the smile that followed were polished to a hard, clear — professional — gloss. Ofanius Valens’ hand pumped harder. She rocked with it, still smiling, with little, audible catches of breath that Nicole would have bet were as calculated as the rest.

  They both took the whole thing completely for granted. Nicole didn’t. Julia had been pleased with herself yesterday: she’d made a couple oidupondii for herself. How had she made them? The usual way, she’d said. Was this the usual way? Prostituting herself? Umma must have — no, not looked the other way. Where Julia might get a dupondius for herself if the customer — if the John, mincing no words — liked her, Umma raked in two sesterces every time her slave walked up those stairs. That was good money: more than she took in for some meals. Of course, it also made her a small-time madam. Umma obviously hadn’t cared about that. Nicole did.

  Every time she began to have the shaky beginnings of a feel for the way Carnuntum worked, something like this slapped her in the face. Julia was at Ofanius Valens’ ear again, flicking her tongue down the curve of it. “Stop that!” Nicole burst out, her voice thick with revulsion. Ofanius blinked at her through a visible haze of horniness. Julia blinked in the exact same way, through the exact same haze. They honestly, incontestably did not understand what Nicole’s problem was. “Stop that,” she repeated a little more quietly. “Julia, get off him.”

  Julia did as she was told, automatically, like a child or a well-trained animal. The haze retreated, though enough of it lingered that she kept a hand on Ofanius Valens’ shoulder, kneading it absently as she frowned at Nicole. “What’s the matter, Mistress?” she asked in the tone that had become too familiar, that didn’t quite dare ask, What’s wrong with you? You’re acting weird again! “You see he’s already paid. Like he says, we weren’t going to steal from you. Or are you worried about yesterday? I put the two sesterces in the box each time, just like always. Didn’t you find them when you reckoned up the accounts?”

  Nicole hadn’t known how to reckon up the accounts, or how much to look for, either. She couldn’t say so. She concentrated on the other thing, the more important thing. “Julia, look at me. “Julia was already doing that. Her expression made it clear that she knew it and was refraining from commenting on it. Nicole took a steadying breath and went on with the speech she’d prepared: “You don’t have to go to bed with him, Julia. You don’t ever have to go to bed with anybody for money again. That’s all done now.” She glared at Ofanius Valens. “Food is one thing. Wine is another.” It wasn’t anything she wanted, but it also didn’t seem to be anything in which she had a choice. Here… “This is something else altogether. It’s over, done, finished. Not in this place, ever again. Do you understand me?”

  Ofanius Valens scratched his head. Nicole flinched inside for reasons that had nothing to do with the business at hand. He couldn’t possibly know about those reasons, or the flinch, either.

  He seemed to decide, after a moment’s puzzlement, that argument would get him nowhere. Smart man, Nicole thought. Smarter than most twentieth-century males. He was still a male, however, and he wasn’t any happier than any other male who’d ever been born about being told no, he couldn’t have what he wanted. “I don’t know what you’re getting yourself in an uproar about, Umma. Whatever it is, I guess I’ll just take myself someplace else from now on.” He scooped up his two sesterces from the tabletop, dumped them in his belt pouch, and stalked past Nicole and out the door.

  “And good riddance.” Nicole turned to Julia, a smile at the ready, to receive the slave’s thanks for freeing her from that sordid transaction.

  Julia gave her no such thing. Julia, in fact, looked furious. Her nostrils flared. Her blue eyes glittered. She hissed, a sharp, furious sound.

  Her words were an anticlimax, her tone studiedly mild, but her expression gave away how angry she was. “That wasn’t very nice, Mistress. Now he won’t come back.”

  She doesn’t know anything about freedom. How can she? She’s never had it. Nicole chose her words with care, to soothe Julia’s temper and get her thinking rationally. “Don’t worry about him,” she said. “We don’t need his business, or business like his.” As she spoke, she advanced into the room, till she was close enough to lay a hand on Julia’s shoulder. It was stiff, set against her. “I told you: you’re never going to bed with another man for money. Never again — I promise.”

  Julia’s eyes widened. It still wasn’t gratitude — it was somewhere between dismay and horror. Worse yet was the gleam of tears. “Mistress, why can’t I go to bed with men anymore? What did I do? Why are you so angry with me? Just tell me and I’ll fix it. You can beat me all you like, if that will make you feel better.”

  Nicole’s head shook. Good Lord. Titus Calidius Severus had thought she was angry with him, too. That had been a misunderstanding. What was there to misunderstand here? “I’m not angry,” Nicole said, just as she had to Calidius Severus. “I don’t want you to have to suffer like that, that’s all.”

  “Suffer, Mistress?” Julia tossed her head in amazement. “What is there to suffer? Ofanius Valens knows how to make a woman hot.” Her hips twitched a little; Nicole didn’t think she knew she was doing it. “And even the ones who aren’t very good usually give me something for myself afterwards, because I make them hot. Now that you’ve taken another of your strange new notions, how am I supposed to get any money of my own? That was all I had, Mistress: taking men upstairs. I liked taking men upstairs.”

  Nicole stared. Julia stared back, for once not lowering her eyes in submission. She was shocked enough, and indignant enough, to show for once what must have been her real self. She wasn’t slow at all, or simple either. That was a mask she wore, like the hooker’s mask she’d put on for Ofanius Valens.

  “Ofanius Valens gave you an as at breakfast the other day,” Nicole said. “You didn’t do anything for him then but wait on him and be pleasant to him.”

  “Oh, yes, a whole as,” Julia said scornfully. “And that wasn’t just on account of breakfast, either. He was being nice to me so I’d be nice to him later.”

  An as for a piece of ass, Nicole thought, but she didn’t say it — it only worked in English. What she did say was, “Sleeping with men for money is degrading.”

  Julia shrugged, still sullen and not about to let Nicole forget it. “I’ve heard people say that,” she said. “Usually women who don’t have what it takes. They’re jealous, that’s all. Can’t get any fun, so don’t want anybody else to get any either.”

  “Fun?” Nicole said incredulously. “You call it fun?”

  Julia did a creditable bump-and-grind, with a wild, mirthless grin in it for Nicole. “Sure it is. What else is there in the world that’s anywhere near as much fun?”

  She wasn’t just saying it to be obnoxious, Nicole realized. She meant it. In Los Angeles, there had been any number of things to do besides hop between the sheets. Anything from aerobics to pottery classes to nightclubs to fancy restaurants to biker bars to mall-crawling to… She stopped the mental recitation before it threw her into a funk. Non
e of those things existed in Carnuntum. Nicole had been here only three days, scrambling every minute to keep afloat in a sea of totally new and strange details. She hadn’t had time to be bored. Julia had lived her whole life here, without television, without radio, without movies, without recorded music, without newspapers, books, magazines… without much of anything when it came to entertainment. Nicole remembered when she was a kid in Indiana, when a tornado would roar through, or a blizzard, and the power would go out, in rural areas sometimes for days or weeks; and nine months later the maternity wards in the hospitals would be doing a boomtown business. When there was nothing else to do, people just naturally turned to sex.

  “I mean,” Julia said, sounding like a Latinate Valley girl, “I could get drunk all the time, but you wouldn’t like that, either, because then I wouldn’t be able to work.”

  “No,” Nicole said, “I wouldn’t like that.” Considering how she felt about alcohol, there were few things she would have liked less. But this was one of them. She might have descended from lawyer to tavernkeeper, but by God, she hadn’t descended from lawyer to procurer. “You’re not going to prostitute yourself just to get a little spending money.”

  “Mistress,” Julia said with an air of desperate patience. “It’s not just for the money. You don’t sleep by yourself every night. Or at least,” she added after a pause, “you didn’t till you quarreled with Calidius Severus the other day.” When Nicole didn’t erupt at that — Nicole was momentarily unable to think of anything to say — Julia went on, “Oh, Mistress! I know I’m a slave and you can do whatever you want and I can’t say a thing about it, but you’ve never been as bad as you’ve been in the past few days. If you’ve got it into your head that I’m suffering — how about the pain I feel when I don’t have any money to call my own?”

  Her expression was piteous, but Nicole didn’t budge. Mothers of teenagers heard the same arguments in pretty much the same tone. It didn’t mean a thing, and she was not about to let it sway her. “You will not make money by selling yourself,” she said. Julia dropped her wounded-kitten pose and glared. Nicole glared right back.

  The moment stretched. Nicole drew in a deep breath, then let it out in a long sigh. “I’ve been thinking about this for a long time” — ever since her spirit came to Carnuntum, even if that was only two days — “and now I’m sure the time is right. I’m going to set you free.”

  This time, she was sure Julia would fall on her neck in gratitude. She waited for it, expected it. But, as before, Julia seemed anything but glad to get such a gift. If anything, she looked upset. “But,” she said, “Mistress, what would I do if I was free?”

  Nicole reminded herself again that this was a slave, and probably born a slave. The concept of freedom was alien to her. Therefore Nicole kept her voice light, encouraging. “What will you do? Why, anything you want to. You’ll be free.”

  Julia eyed her warily. “Could I go on working here?”

  “For wages, do you mean?” Nicole asked.

  Julia nodded. She was still wary, with a hint of apprehension, but Nicole had noticed that if Julia got a thought in her head, she couldn’t help but pursue it to its logical conclusion. “Yes, Mistress. Or at least, some wages. Room and board and a little money for myself.”

  Which was exactly what she got now — except 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 and — “

  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.

  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 bookkeeper — but 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. Camuntum was every bit as sexist — and 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.”

  “The — wine 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…

  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 they — “ 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 care — isn’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?”

  “Liberty — from 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 thought — where they must have thought — she would be carefree.

  She didn’t know whether to laugh or to cry. Carefree? Wine, lice, slavery — and now sexism, too? Some freedom this was — all 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” — Nicole’s expression gave her pause, but she misinterpreted it — “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, y
ou 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 slave — and 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.

  “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 simplicity — not 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.”

  “Brig —?” Nicole needed a moment to recall the name of Umma’s brother — now, 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 guilt — which was probably what Julia intended.

  Slaves and children, Nicole thought. They’re powerless — 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?