Household Gods

His frown, right now, said he understood perfectly well that that yes didn’t mean, Yes, let’s do it. “You’ve been funny lately,” he said.

Nicole laughed. Once she’d started, she found she couldn’t stop. Part of it was the wine. Part was the sheer magnitude of Calidius’ understatement, and how little he knew, or could know, how great it was.

He waited with commendable patience for her laughter to run down. When at last it did, he said, “I didn’t think I was that funny.” His tone might have been wry, or it might have been bewildered. With a shrug that matched it, he turned away from her and headed across the street toward his own shop.

She watched him go. She didn’t know what she was feeling. Regret. Relief. A little guilt – and that made her angry, because she’d wished herself into this place to get away from just this kind of emotional bullying. She hadn’t wanted him. Why should she feel as if she’d done something wrong?

She turned abruptly, pivoting on her heel, and stalked into the tavern.

It was empty except for Julia, but, from the looks of the cups and bowls that the freedwoman was scrubbing, business had been brisk just a little earlier. Bread was baking, fresh and fragrant. The aroma of garlic and herbs wafted from the pot over the hearth. Julia had made one of her pot-dishes for the evening trade.

Julia didn’t seem to notice anything odd in Nicole’s face or gait. She was grinning, in fact, and clapping her hands. Nicole wondered dourly what Julia had been up to while she was away.

“Well?” the freedwoman pressed when Nicole didn’t say anything. “Did you have a good time at the beast show?”

Watching animals fighting and killing one another, watching the lionesses pull down and feed on the condemned criminal – no, Nicole had not enjoyed the show. But that wasn’t quite what Julia had asked.

In Indiana and later in California, Nicole had gone to plenty of lousy movies and still come home happy. She didn’t know that happy was the word she’d have used of herself at the moment, and yet… “Do you know,” she said, surprised and not altogether displeased, “after all, I think I did.”

11

Sextus Longinius lulus came into the tavern one day not long after the beast show. He waited politely while Nicole took her latest batch of bread out of the oven. She nodded to him, not particularly surprised. He wasn’t what she would call a regular, but he came in now and then, bought a cup of the middle-grade wine, and drank it slowly as if he actually savored the stuff. Sometimes she thought he came as much for the excuse to get out of the house as for the wine.

Today, however, he seemed oddly tense. He set a shiny brass sestertius in front of her and said, “Let me have a cup of Falernian, Umma. I’m going to be here for a while. Might as well start off with the best. I’ll go back to the cheap stuff later, when I’ve stopped caring what it tastes like.”

Nicole lifted her brows as she drew him a cup of Falernian. She’d never heard him sound so determined about anything.

It dawned on her slowly. Too slowly, if she wanted to be honest about it. She thrust a finger at him. “Don’t tell me. Fabia Ursa’s in labor.”

“She is that,” Longinius lulus said. “Chased me out of the house, too. ‘No place for a man,’ she said – you know how women do. ‘None of your business. Go get the midwife, go get my sister, go get my friends, and go away.’ I knew I’d end up here, and you’re right next door anyway, so I saved you for last.”

Frank had been at the hospital with Nicole when Kimberley and Justin were born. She’d been glad to have him there, holding her hand and coaching her through labor and birth. She hadn’t known he’d fall for a blond bimbo before his son took his first step.

Carnuntum had no hospitals, as far as she could tell. Babies were born at home. And fathers were not welcome in what was obviously women’s work. Female friends and relatives of the mother joined her instead to celebrate the new life. Nicole rather liked that, even if it left the father out of his own child’s first hours. Being there at his children’s births hadn’t kept Frank from running off with the first big-busted babe who came along.

Another sestertius clanked down on the bar, startling Nicole back into the here-and-now. “More of the same,” Longinius lulus said. “Then you’d better go on over. Julia can get me the rest of the way drunk.”

Nicole nodded. “All right. But why -?” she stopped. Why wasn’t that hard, not when she let her brain run for once ahead of her mouth. Fabia Ursa had had two babies already, and lost them both. Her husband wouldn’t have been worth much if he weren’t worried.

Nicole thrust the coin back toward him. “This one’s on me, “ she said firmly. “Everything will be all right. You’ll have yourself a fine daughter or son to be proud of.”