Gunpowder Empire ct-1

by Harry Turtledove

  Were the Romans better than the Lietuvans? Was Emperor Honorio Prisco III a finer fellow than King Kuzmickas? Not so you'd notice. But the Lietuvans were trying to break into Polisso and do horrible things to the people inside. Jeremy was one of those people, Amanda another. The Roman horsemen were fighting to keep the Lietuvans out. Wasn't that a reason to cheer for them? The locals thought so, and Jeremy had a hard time believing they were wrong.

  After a pause, the Lietuvans moved forward again. This time, they did what the man by Jeremy had said they should. They put a double line of pikemen in front of the musketeers. If horsemen came out again, the long pikes would help keep them away.

  Cannon kept booming from the wall. Every so often, a cannonball would knock people over like a bowling ball knocking down pins. But bowling pins didn't keep moving after they were hit. They didn't scream, either. Through the guns' thunder, Jeremy heard the shrieks of wounded men.

  Again, though, the Lietuvans who weren't wounded kept right on coming. When they got close enough, the musketeers touched the smoldering ends of their matches to the vents of their guns. Bang! Bang! Bang! Flame shot from the muzzles of all the muskets. A fogbank of smoke swallowed up the Lietuvan soldiers.

  Bullets cracked past overhead. A couple of them didn't crack past, but struck home with wet, meaty thunks. Blood poured from a Roman artilleryman's face. It was amazingly red. He let out dreadful gobbling cries of pain. One of his pals led him off to a surgeon. What could the locals do for a shattered jaw, though? That wound would have been bad in the home timeline.

  And the man standing next to Jeremy clutched at himself and fell over. One minute, he was handicapping the war. The next, it reached out and grabbed him. He looked more astonished than hurt. He tried to say something, but blood poured from his mouth and nose instead. It poured from the wound in his chest, too. Jeremy gulped. He hadn't realized how much blood a man held. He had to step back in a hurry, or it would have soaked his shoes. After four or five minutes, the man on the flagstones stopped moving. He just lay there, staring up at nothing with eyes that would never close again.

  More bullets whistled by. The civilians on the wall decided that wasn't a good place to stay. They went down inside Polisso in a disorderly stream. Jeremy gaped at the corpse that had been a happy, living, breathing man only minutes before. That could have been me, he thought. If the Lietuvans had aimed a little more to the left, that could have been me.

  Death had never seemed real to him. At his age, it hardly ever did. But the sight-and the smell, for the man's bowels had let go-of that body made him believe in it, at least for a little while. So did the snap of another bullet, right past his ear. He didn't have to be here. He'd come up to see what war looked like. He'd found out more than he wanted to know.

  Roman musketeers were shooting back at the Lietuvans as Jeremy went down the stone stairs and back into the city. He was nearer the end of the stream of civilians than the beginning. He took some small pride in that. As he walked back toward the house where he and Amanda were staying, he wondered why.

  From the inside, Polisso hardly seemed a city under siege, not at first. Amanda's day-to-day life changed very little. The smoke and the smell of gunpowder were always in the air. Jeremy was right. It did smell like the Fourth of July.

  Every so often, a cannonball would crash down inside the city. But that hardly seemed important, not at first. It wasn't as if Amanda could see the damage for herself while she stayed at home. No news crews put it on TV. No reporters interviewed bloodied survivors. It might have been happening in another country. But it wasn't.

  Before too long, the bombardment got worse. The Lietuvans dug trenches and pits so they could move their cannon forward without getting hammered by Polisso's guns. As soon as each cannon came into range, it started blasting away at the city.

  Amanda thought business would go down the drain during the siege. People wouldn't want to leave their homes, would they? They wouldn't want to spend money on luxury goods, either, would they? After all, they might need that money for food later on.

  They came in droves. The people who could afford what

  Crosstime Traffic sold had enough money that they didn't need to worry about saving it to buy grain. As long as there was grain, they would be able to afford it.

  Livia Plurabella came back to the house to buy a watch. She and Amanda were in the courtyard talking when a cannon-ball smacked home two or three houses away. The banker's wife took it in stride. “That was close, wasn't it?” she said, and went back to talking about which pocket watch she would rather have.

  “You were afraid of a sack before, my lady,” Amanda said. “Aren't you worried about one now?”

  Livia Plurabella blinked. “I was. I remember talking about it with you, now that you remind me,” she said. “But now… Now life has to go on, doesn't it? We'll do the best we can to hold out the barbarians. And if we can't-then that will be the time to be afraid. Till then, no.”

  She made good sense. “Fair enough,” Amanda said. Another cannonball hit something not too far away with a rending crash. Amanda managed a shaky laugh. “Sometimes not being afraid is pretty hard, though.”

  “Well, yes.” Livia Plurabella's laugh was a long way from carefree, too. “But we have to try. The men expect it from us. They say they want us all quivering so they can protect us, but they go to pieces if we really act like that. Haven't you noticed the same thing?”

  Amanda didn't know everything there was to know about how things worked in Agrippan Rome. She thought back to the home timeline. Things weren't so openly sexist there, but all the same… She found herself nodding. “I think you have a point, my lady.”

  “Of course I do.” The banker's wife took her own lightness for granted. “Now show me these hour-reckoners again, if you'd be so kind.”

  “Sure.” Amanda held them up, one after the other. “These are the three most popular ladies' styles.” One was metal-flake green, one was eye-searing orange, and one was hot pink. Like the men's pocket watches, they all had gilded reliefs on the back. Amanda had never decided which one was the most tasteless. She wouldn't have been caught dead with any of them.

  But Livia Plurabella sighed. “They're all beautiful.” Amanda only smiled and nodded. If her drama teacher at Canoga Park High had seen her face just then, he would have known she could act. “Which one costs what?” the local woman asked.

  “This one is two hundred denari.” Amanda pointed to the green monstrosity. “This one is two hundred ten.” She pointed to the orange catastrophe. “And this one is two hundred twenty-five.” She pointed to the pink abomination.

  As she often did with customers, she guessed which one Livia Plurabella would choose. She turned out to be right again, too. The banker's wife picked up the pocket watch with the hot-pink case. “This is so elegant, I just can't say no to it. Two hundred fifteen, did you say, dear?”

  “Two twenty-five,” Amanda answered. Again, what she was thinking didn't show on her face. Livia Plurabella wasn't the sort of person to make slips by accident. She'd wanted to see if Amanda would call her on it. Knowing that, Amanda enjoyed calling her on it twice as much.

  “Two twenty-five.” Livia Plurabella's voice drooped. But she nodded anyhow. “Well, all right. We can do that. Draw up the contract.”

  The cannon kept booming as Amanda wrote out the classical Latin. She hardly looked up from what she was doing. Life went on, sure enough. She couldn't do anything about the Lietuvans outside. Since she couldn't, she tried to pretend they weren't there.

  “Here you are,” she said, and handed the contract to Livia Plurabella. The matron read it, then signed both copies.

  She gave one back to Amanda and kept the other. “I'll send a slave with the payment,” she said, as she had before. “And if a cannonball doesn't squash him to jelly coming or going, I'll have a fine new hour-reckoner.” She laughed. “One thing-with the Lietuvans outside the city, I don't have to worry that he'll run off with the money.
”

  “Er-no,” Amanda said uncomfortably.

  Livia Plurabella wagged a finger at her. “That's right. You're the one who doesn't approve of slaves. Well, my dear, if you like working like a slave yourself, that's your affair. But believe you me, the better sort of people don't.” She got to her feet and swept out of the house. All by herself, she made a parade.

  “The better sort of people.” Amanda spat out the words. Then she spat for real, on the dirt in the courtyard herb garden. The idea of slavery disgusted her. Having to put up with it here disgusted her more.

  If she were a slave and her mistress gave her that much money to buy something, what would she do? I'd be gone so fast, her head would spin, she thought. But it wasn't that simple. Agrippan Rome had slavecatchers, just like the American South before the Civil War. Whenever you went into a town, you had to show who you were and what your business was.

  The records would go into a file. That made things easier for anyone who came after you.

  You couldn't even run across the border to Lietuva, not in peacetime. The Lietuvans gave back runaway slaves from the Roman Empire. That way, the Romans gave back runaway slaves from Lietuva. You scratch my back, I'll scratch yours. And the poor slaves who wanted nothing but the chance to live their own lives? Too bad for them.

  There were bandits in the mountains. Some of them were runaways. But that was no life, not really. Few lasted long at it. Army patrols did their best to keep banditry down. And crucifixion had never gone out of style in Agrippan Rome. Amanda shivered. It was an ugly way to die.

  Another cannonball crashed into Polisso. Somebody shrieked. Amanda shivered again. Were there any ways to die that weren't ugly? She didn't think so.

  Bang! Bang! Bang! Before the siege of Polisso started, Jeremy would have said the big iron knocker on the front door made noises like gunshots. He knew better now. The only thing that sounded like a gunshot was another gunshot.

  He went to the door and opened it. The man standing there wasn't someone he knew. “Yes?” he said. “May I help you?”

  “You are Ieremeo Soltero, called Alto?” The stranger was somewhere in his thirties. He was lean and dapper, and had a sly look that said he knew all sorts of strange things. By the way one dark eyebrow kept jumping, some of the things he knew were either funny or none of his business.

  “Yes, that's me,” Jeremy answered. “Who are you?”

  “Iulio Balbo, called Pavo,” he said. He didn't look like a peacock, but he might be proud as one. He went on, “I have the honor to be one of Sesto Capurnio's secretaries. The most illustrious city prefect sent me here to remind you that your official report is due in two days' time.”

  “Did he?” Jeremy said tonelessly.

  “He certainly did.” The secretary smirked. He enjoyed seeing other people in trouble.

  “Doesn't the city prefect have more important things to worry about right now?” Jeremy asked. “Will he read the official report while the Lietuvans knock down the walls and break into the city? Will he take it with him when they drag him away to the slave market?”

  That wiped the smirk off Iulio Balbo's face. “If you are trying to be funny, Ieremeo Soltero-”

  “Funny?” Jeremy broke in. “I'm not trying to be funny. I'm only trying to find out whether the city prefect cares more about keeping Polisso safe or about making sure all the forms get filled out at the right time.” There was a lot of bureaucratic foolishness in the home timeline. He'd seen that. No one who went to a public school could help seeing it. But here in Agrippan Rome bureaucracy wasn't just foolish. It was downright idiotic. And the people who ran things didn't seem to notice.

  Iulio Balbo's eyebrows rose. No matter how sly he was, he was a gear in this ponderous bureaucratic machine. He wasn't likely to see any humor in it, and he didn't. In a voice like winter, he said, “The report is due. It is expected. It is required. If you do not submit it on or before the due date, you will suffer the penalties the laws on the subject lay down. Do you understand this formal notice?”

  “Oh, yes, I understand it,” Jeremy answered. “Do you understand you're liable to go off to the Lietuvan slave market along with the most illustrious city prefect?”

  “Defeatism is a crime,” Iulio Balbo said. “Defeatism in time of declared war is a worse crime. Defeatism while besieged is a still worse crime.” As usual, the locals had precise distinctions between one degree of what they thought crime and another.

  Jeremy was too angry to care. “I am not being defeatist. The city prefect is. He is paying attention to these things that are not important when he ought to be doing nothing but defending the city. If you asked the garrison commandant about it, what would he say?”

  Maybe Annio Basso and Sesto Capurnio were working well in harness. If they were, Iulio Balbo would just laugh at that crack. But he didn't laugh. He scowled and turned red. “Do not try to stir up quarrels between the prefect and the commandant,” he warned. “That is also an offense.”

  What isn't an offense here? Jeremy wondered. “I'm not trying to stir up anything,” he said. “I asked a reasonable question, and you didn't give me an answer. Or maybe you did.”

  “You may be as clever as you please. You may quibble with words however you please. The official report is still due in two days. Remember that. Obey the law.” Iulio Balbo's bow was a small masterpiece of sarcasm. He stalked away like a cat with ruffled fur.

  Muttering, Jeremy closed the door. He was the sort who usually put schoolwork off till the last minute. Without a deadline, he couldn't get interested in what he was supposed to do. Well, he had a deadline now. This was work of a different kind from what he got in school. There, he had to show off how much he knew. Here, he would have to disguise most of what he knew.

  He sat down with pen and ink and paper and got to work. He set out to make the report as confusing as he could. To do that, he started by writing it in classical Latin, not neoLatin. The old language was made for bending back on itself until someone reading it wasn't quite sure exactly what it said. Maybe that hadn't been true when classical Latin was the Roman Empire's usual spoken language. Jeremy wouldn't even have bet on that. Now, though, one of the things officials here used it for was confusing one another. Jeremy intended to use it the same way.

  He tried to make his answers to the questions the locals had asked him contradict one another. He had to be careful with that. If he was too obvious about it, he would get himself in trouble. But if he made his classical Latin fancy enough, nothing was obvious.

  As soon as he figured that out, the official report stopped being a nuisance. It stopped being something he had to do. It turned into something that was fun to do. When he'd finished the first few sections, he showed Amanda what he'd written. “What do you think?” he asked.

  She started working her way through it. She hadn't got very far before she looked up and crossed her eyes. “What are you talking about here?” she said. “It sounds like it ought to mean something, but I don't think it does.”

  “Oh, good,” he said. “That's what I was trying to do.”

  “Will the city prefect let you get away with it?” she asked.

  “I hope so,” Jeremy answered. “The first thing he'll do is make sure we did turn in an official report by the due date.

  That's how I figure it, anyhow. When he sees we did, he may not even have anybody read it right away. He's got other things to worry about, after all-yeah, just a few. And if he does have somebody read it and they decide they don't like it, what can he do? Have us write another one, right? This will buy us time, anyhow.“

  Amanda nodded. She didn't seem to want to meet his eyes, though. That was all right. He didn't want to meet hers, either. They both had to be wondering whether buying time mattered. It certainly did, if the home timeline could get in touch with them fairly soon. But every passing day made that seem less likely. If they really were stuck here…

  Jeremy shook his head. He wouldn't think that. He refused to believe
it. Amanda said, “Before you give this report to the locals, scan it into the computer. That way, everyone will know just what you've told them.” She wouldn't believe they were permanently cut off any more than he would.

  “I'll do that,” he promised. “I just wanted you to see what I was up to.”

  “I like it,” his sister said. “You've got nerve.” She pointed to him. “When you turn it in, make sure you get a receipt from the clerk who takes it. Don't give the locals any excuse to say we didn't follow the rules.”

  That was also good advice. “I'll take care of it,” Jeremy said. “Now I have to finish writing the silly thing.”

  The more of it he wrote, the sillier it got, too. It also occurred to him that telling the exact truth would have been sure to convince officials here that he was out of his mind. Tempting-but no. The secret of crosstime travel had to stay hidden.

  When he carried the official report to the prefect's palace, he saw a few buildings with holes in them. A handful of others had been knocked flat. But the siege, so far, hadn't done all that much damage. Jeremy knew Polisso had been lucky. If a fire started on a windy day and began to spread… That was one more thing he didn't want to think about.

  He gave the report to one of Sesto Capurnio's secretaries- a junior man, not Iulio Balbo. The fellow took it and stuck it in a pigeonhole without giving it more than a quick glance. He seemed surprised when Jeremy asked for a receipt, but gave him one without making a fuss.

  As Jeremy started back toward his house, he thought, Maybe this is one of those stupid assignments where they don't even look at it once you turn it in. Somehow, though, he had trouble believing it.

  There was an ancient stone plaque by the fountain near the traders' house. In classical Latin full of abbreviations, it told how a man named Quintus Ninnius Hasta had given the money to set up the fountain. That plaque had been standing there for two thousand years, more or less. Amanda wondered if anyone inside Polisso knew anything else about Quintus Ninnius Hasta. She also wondered if anyone outside of Polisso had ever heard of him at all.