One thing happened after the Lietuvans went away—Jeremy and Amanda started selling pocket watches and mirrors and razors and Swiss army knives hand over fist. That wasn’t just because they’d given them to King Kuzmickas, either. Their goods had always had snob appeal. But now Polisso’s rich seemed to realize they wouldn’t need to spend their last denari on grain. And so they started spending their money on luxuries instead.
After Amanda sold a blue-plate special, Jeremy said, “Shame we can’t start taking payment in grain again, not in silver. But they’d still come down on us for hoarding if we tried.”
“Anybody who comes here from now on will have a hard time insisting on grain,” Amanda said. “I wish that hadn’t happened.” She found more things to worry about than Jeremy did.
Shrugging, he said, “I don’t know what else we could have done. We didn’t have any place to put more grain once the transposition chambers stopped coming. Even if we did, people would have stopped giving it to us after the siege started. They didn’t worry so much about money.”
“I suppose,” Amanda said, in a tone of voice that meant she was still worrying about it.
Jeremy didn’t have the patience to straighten his sister out. (He also never wondered about how much patience she needed to get along with him.) He left the house and went over to the market square to see what sort of gossip he could pick up. (He thought of it as news.)
When he got there, he saw workmen busily repairing the city prefect’s palace. Sesto Capurnio wouldn’t have to worry about drafts or a leaky roof for very long. Ordinary people? What was the point of being rich and powerful if you couldn’t get your roof fixed ahead of ordinary people? Masons patched holes with cement. Carpenters’ hammers banged.
“Good thing the temple next door didn’t get hurt too bad,” said a man in the market square. “The gods would have to wait their turn, too.”
“The gods can take care of themselves,” another man answered. “That’s probably why nothing much happened to the temple. But what about the poor so-and-sos who got their shacks knocked flat? What are they going to do?”
“Same as always,” the first man said. “They’ll get it in the neck.” By the way he spoke and dressed, he wasn’t a rich man himself. When he talked about what happened to the poor, it was from bitter experience.
“I don’t suppose the city prefect would have got hungry if the siege had gone on, either,” the second man said.
The first man laughed. “Not likely! City prefects don’t go hungry. That isn’t in the rules. If you don’t believe me, just ask Sesto Capurnio.”
“I’ll tell you what I believe,” his pal said. “I believe you’re going to get in trouble if you don’t stick a sandal in your big, flapping mouth.” For a wonder, the first man did shut up.
Jeremy bought a handful of pickled green olives from a vender with a crock of them that he wore tied around his neck with a leather strap so that it bounced against his belly. Jeremy savored what salt and vinegar could do for olives. He spat the pits onto the cobbles of the market square. He wouldn’t have done that back in the home timeline, but things were different here.
What would I have been like, if I’d got stuck here for twenty years and then gone home? he wondered. Would I have done things like that without thinking about them, because everybody did them here? I bet I would.
Somebody came into the square at a run. People looked up. That was out of the ordinary, which meant it might be important. And sure enough, the man yelled, “News at the gate! Our army beat the lousy Lietuvans! They’re on their way home, fast as they can go!”
People in the square didn’t all jump up and start cheering. They nodded to one another, as if to say they’d expected as much. Had they? Maybe some of them had. But others wouldn’t want to show that they’d thought anything else was possible. And one man said, “Why didn’t our army come six weeks ago? Then we wouldn’t have had to go through so much trouble.”
Another merchant said, “We’re lucky they didn’t wait till next spring, or till five years from now.”
He laughed to show he meant it for a joke. The men who heard him laughed, too, to show they knew it was one. Jeremy wasn’t so sure. They might all have been kidding on the square. Agrippan Rome was so bound up in rules and regulations, all its wheels turned slowly. The army had to be less sluggish than most parts of the government. And it had done its job here, even if it hadn’t done it very fast.
Would the Romans know what to do with freedom if they got it? They’d done without it for a long, long time.
Jeremy shrugged. It wasn’t his worry, not any more. Sure enough, he was and felt like a visitor here once more, not somebody who might have to put down deep roots. And that suited him just fine. Not living in Polisso for the rest of his life, even if that meant going back to high school and catching up on everything he’d missed, seemed pretty good.
Everything is clean now, in both transposition chamber areas, Mom wrote. They’re running a last few checks, and then we’ll be able to come through.
Amanda raised an eyebrow when she read that. If everything were clean now, her folks should have been able to come straight through now. The technicians wouldn’t be running more checks. She sighed. She could understand why they didn’t want to risk letting a tailored virus loose in Agrippan Rome. Doctors here couldn’t do anything about natural germs, let alone genetically engineered ones.
She said, “Answer. We’ll see you when we see you, that’s all. We miss you. It’s already been too long. Send.”
The words—minus the opening and ending commands—appeared on the PowerBook’s screen. They would also appear on the monitor Mom was looking at back home. When Mom and Dad came into Polisso again, word would be bound to get back to the city prefect. Amanda knew that Sesto Capurnio still half suspected she and Jeremy had knocked their parents over the head and buried them somewhere out of the way.
Well, I don’t have to worry about what Sesto Capurnio suspects, not now, Amanda thought. She was just a tourist again, and she wouldn’t even be that for very long. Burgers. Fries. Milkshakes. Sushi. Lamb vindaloo. Spit flooded into her mouth. She was tired of barley porridge and gritty brown bread.
It’s been much too long, Mom agreed. You don’t know how much we’ve missed you and worried about you. Well, it won’t be much longer. I’ve got to go. See you soon.
“See you,” Amanda said. She’d done plenty of worrying about herself, too. Nice to know somebody else was also doing it for her. That was a big part of what parents were for.
She didn’t want to leave the cellar. Going back into the world of Agrippan Rome, the world of stinks, the world with slavery and without electricity, reminded her of everything she’d left behind. She’d get it back again, though. And she and Jeremy would get Mom and Dad back, too. It was like living in a fairy tale when you got three wishes.
But the three wishes hadn’t happened yet. She just had the promise that they would. What to do in the meantime? The only thing she could see, was to get on with her life. She felt like Cinderella, back with her stepmother and nasty stepsisters before the Prince came along with the glass slipper.
The next morning, she put a water jar on her hip and went to the fountain. She would never be able to go there without thinking of the Lietuvan cannonball ricocheting through the crowd of women that one dreadful morning. She noticed local women also looking at the scars it had left behind on the stonework. The real damage it had done, though, had nothing to do with stonework.
Maria was at the fountain. She and a couple of free women were talking about the victory the Romans had won against King Kuzmickas. People in Polisso hoped it meant the Lietuvans wouldn’t invade again any time soon. Past that, they didn’t much seem to care.
One of the free women waved to Amanda. “What do you think?” the local asked. “You went out there and gave the King presents. Will he try again soon?”
“How can I know that?” Amanda said reasonably. “I just met him for
a little while. I don’t know how badly the legions beat him, either. If they really smashed up his army, maybe he’ll stay in his own country for a while. If they didn’t, though, he might think he’d have better luck next time and try again.”
“Sounds sensible.” The local woman seemed surprised. Maybe she wasn’t used to logically thinking things through. Even back in the home timeline, a lot of people weren’t. That never failed to startle Amanda when she bumped into it, which probably wasn’t sensible on her part.
Maria smiled at her. Amanda cautiously smiled back. The slave girl seemed willing to be friendly, at least to a certain degree, no matter what she believed. Maybe that meant Maria wasn’t quite so strict herself as Amanda had thought. More likely, it just meant the slave couldn’t help being a friendly person even if her beliefs were strict. Maria said, “You seem happy.”
Amanda nodded. “I am happy. I just got a message from my mother and father.” She didn’t have to say the message had crossed timelines to get here. “They ought to be back in Polisso in a few days.”
“Oh, that is good news.” Maria set down her water jar and gave Amanda a hug. Yes, she was a friendly person, all right. “I know you and your brother have been worried about them.”
“A little.” Amanda didn’t want to say how much. She couldn’t say all the reasons why she and Jeremy had been worried, either.
“They will have worried about you even more, what with the two of you under siege here. I’m sure they will reward the messenger when he tells them you are all right,” Maria said. “I prayed that everything would turn out well for you and for them. I’m glad my prayers were answered.”
Amanda didn’t quite know how to take that. “Thank you,” seemed the right thing to say. Stammering a little, she added, “Don’t you, uh, pray for yourself, too? For your freedom?”
“Oh, yes,” Maria answered calmly. “But God hasn’t chosen to hear that prayer yet. In His own good time, He will. Or, if it pleases Him, He will leave me as I am. His will be done.”
She means it, Amanda realized. Understanding that, believing it, was a bigger jolt than seeing how some people wouldn’t think logically. Maria believed, no matter how friendly she was. Believing helped her accept her place. Accepting a low place wasn’t something Americans were used to. Instead, they went out and tried to make it better. People in Agrippan Rome usually didn’t. They couldn’t.
“How do you stand it?” Amanda blurted.
“What can I do about it?” Maria still sounded calm and reasonable. “Nothing, not by myself.” After echoing Amanda’s thoughts, she went on, “Since I can’t do anything, what’s the point of getting upset? It would only make life harder, and life is hard enough as is. I’m more ready to be free than I used to be, I think. Now that you showed me how the alphabet works, I can read more and more, though it’s still not easy for me. I go on from day to day, and I pray, and I hope.”
“Would you like enough silver to buy yourself free?” Amanda asked impulsively. “I have it, you know.”
Maria smiled again and shook her head. “I would rather be your friend than your debtor. It would take me years to pay back that kind of money, if I ever could.”
“I didn’t mean as a loan,” Amanda said. “If you want to be free, I’d gladly pay your owner what you’re worth.” She couldn’t change the whole Roman Empire here. But she could help a friend. If she got in trouble for that with Crosstime Traffic, too bad. She and Jeremy had piled up an awful lot of silver. Freeing Maria counted for more with her than buying grain. She’d had second thoughts about it before. Now that she was leaving…Yes, things seemed different somehow.
The slave girl’s eyes went big and round when she realized Amanda meant it. “You would do that for me?” she said. Amanda nodded. Maria hugged her again. But then, worry in her voice, she asked, “What would I do if I were free?”
“You could go on working for your master, but as a freedwoman,” Amanda answered. “You know his business. Wouldn’t he be glad to have you? You’d be your own person, though. You wouldn’t be his.”
Even that wasn’t a hundred percent true. Freedmen and freedwomen had obligations to the people who’d once owned them. But they couldn’t be sold or mistreated, the way slaves could. And their children would be wholly free.
“I hardly believe my own ears,” Maria said.
“Well, you’d better,” Amanda told her. “I meant it. Take the water back, and I’ll do the same. Then I’ll meet you at Pulio Carvilio’s shop.”
Maria’s owner, a cobbler, was a short, stocky man with a broad face, hairy ears, and scarred hands. “What’s this I hear?” he said in a gruff, raspy voice when Amanda came in. He pushed the sandal he was repairing off to one side and set the awl he held down on the table. “You want to buy Maria from me?”
Amanda shook her head. “No. I want to buy her freedom.”
Pulio Carvilio stuck out his chin, which made his jowls wobble. “She’s a good worker. It’ll cost you. She’s worth five pounds of silver if she’s worth a copper.”
“Five pounds!” Amanda exclaimed. “That’s robbery!” The haggle that followed was the strangest one she’d ever known. She was dickering over the price of another human being. When she let herself think about that, it made her sick, I don’t want her for myself, she thought. I want her to be able to have herself.
She got Pulio Carvilio down to four pounds of silver, but no further. He had the advantage in the bargain. The only reason she haggled at all was that he would have been shocked if she hadn’t. If he wanted to think he’d skinned her in the deal, she didn’t mind a bit.
Once they’d agreed, she and the cobbler and Maria had to go to the city prefect’s palace to make everything official. It turned out to be more complicated than Amanda had expected. Almost everything in Agrippan Rome turned out to be more complicated than people from the home timeline expected. There were endless forms to fill out, most of them in triplicate. Pulio Carvilio couldn’t read or write. That meant the clerk at the palace had to read everything to him, which made the whole business take twice as long as it should have. (Maria could hardly read, either, but the clerk didn’t care about that. Till all the paperwork got filled out, she was just a piece of property with legs.) The clerk and Amanda both had to witness Pulio Carvilio’s mark again and again and again.
And the clerk kept sniffing. “This is irregular,” he said several times. “That a female should make such a purchase…Most irregular.”
“Is it illegal?” asked Amanda, who knew it wasn’t.
He was honest, or honest enough. He shook his head. “No. But it is irregular.”
“Never mind that,” Amanda told him. “Just think of the tax the Empire’s getting.” She had to pay him ten percent of what she was paying Maria’s master. The government said that kept people from freeing slaves on a whim. Maybe it did. But Amanda thought the main purpose of the law was to make the government money.
Finally, all three copies of all the forms were filled out. The clerk nodded to Maria and said, “Congratulations, Maria Carvilia. You are free.” As a freedwoman, she took the family name of her former owner. That was another sign freedwomen and freedmen weren’t so very free after all. Amanda swallowed a sigh. She’d hoped for something better.
And then she got it. The clerk slid off his stool. He opened a drawer in a cabinet behind him. Amanda expected him to pull out one more document. Instead, he held what looked to her like nothing more than a funny hat. But Maria knew what it was. She clapped her hands together. “A Phrygian cap!”
“A Phrygian cap,” the clerk agreed gravely. “The sign of your freedom.” He set it on her head. Except that it was red, not white, and only bulged out in front, it reminded Amanda of a chef’s hat. Not counting her buck teeth, Maria was a nice-looking girl. Even she couldn’t make the Phrygian cap seem anything but ridiculous to Amanda. But what Amanda thought didn’t matter here. Maria’s eyes glowed. The cap might have been odd-looking, but it meant everything in
the world to her.
Amanda wondered how long freed slaves had been putting on Phrygian caps in Agrippan Rome. A thousand years? Two thousand? Longer still? Most of the time, she thought old customs held this world back. Here, she dimly understood what this one meant to Maria.
Pulio Carvilio kissed Maria on one cheek. The clerk kissed her on the other. Would they have done that if she were a middle-aged man? Amanda doubted it. But Maria kept on smiling, so she didn’t say anything.
Then the brand-new freedwoman kissed her and whispered, “Thank you! Thank you! Oh, thank you!” in her ear.
“It’s all right. I’m glad to do it,” Amanda answered. For about half a minute, she felt really proud of herself. Then she thought of all the slaves in Polisso, in the vast empire of Agrippan Rome, she couldn’t free. And that didn’t count the slaves in Lietuva and Persia and the gunpowder empires farther east. Rome wasn’t built in a day. Slavery wouldn’t fall apart in a day, either. Too bad, she thought.
Three raps on the door. It could have been anybody. It could have been a neighbor asking to borrow a cup of olive oil. (Sugar, here, was uncommon and expensive—more a medicine than anything else.) It could have been, but Jeremy didn’t think it was. He ran for the door as if shot from a gun. He got there half a step ahead of his sister. They grinned at each other.
Jeremy took the bar off the door. Amanda unlatched it. There in front of the house stood Mom and Dad. The next couple of minutes were confused. Everybody was hugging and kissing everybody else. Passersby stopped and watched and called out comments instead of ignoring them the way they would have in the home timeline.
“It’s so good to see you!” everyone kept saying over and over.
“Why don’t you come on in?” Jeremy suggested at last.
“Good idea,” Mom said. Jeremy and Amanda both kept looking at her. If they hadn’t heard, they wouldn’t have known she’d had her appendix out. She’d had plenty of time to get better.
Gunpowder Empire Page 23
