Household Gods

Longinius left the coin where it was, and gulped down the wine without seeming to taste it. He’d been keeping up a good front, but his face was paler than it might have been, and his hand shook as he set down the cup. “Fabia’s been praying to Mother Isis. Pray the rest of the gods it helps.”

“It can’t hurt,” Nicole said, which was true enough, if a little on the lame side.

Sextus Longinius lulus nodded solemnly; the Falernian was hitting him hard. “Egyptians are the oldest people in the world. If their great goddess can’t keep a mother safe, no god can. She’s had practice, she has.”

“I hope it all goes well,” Nicole replied. That was also true. Whether Isis existed at all, let alone had any power to help Fabia Ursa… well, who knew? Liber and Libera had brought Nicole here, hadn’t they? Maybe Isis would answer the woman’s prayer.

She left Longinius deep in his third cup of wine – the cheaper stuff this time – with Julia to keep an eye on him and the children to help her, and went out across the alley to Fabia Ursa’s house. Just as she reached the door, someone else came up beside her: a lean, determined-looking woman loaded down with a heavy leather sack and what looked more like an adult-sized potty chair without the pot than anything else Nicole could think of. After a moment, Nicole realized it had to be a birthing chair. She’d heard of such a thing somewhere, but she’d never seen one. Compared to the way she’d had to deliver her two, flat on her back with her feet in metal stirrups, the chair looked a hell of a lot more comfortable.

The woman noticed her glance, but misinterpreted it. “Good day to you, Umma,” she said, her voice civil but brisk. “Yes, this is the same chair you had for yours. It was made to last.”

“It certainly looks that way,” Nicole said. The midwife nodded with the barest hint of a smile. She wouldn’t let Nicole take the bag or the chair, but did submit to having the door held open for her. Nicole had resigned herself to picking up the woman’s name from context. She’d done that so often by now, it no longer threatened to pitch her into a panic attack.

In all the time Nicole had been in Carnuntum, she hadn’t ever gone into the living quarters of the tinker’s house. Fabia Ursa had always come to the tavern with her store of gossip, or Nicole had stopped by the shop without going the rest of the way.

Today was no different. Nicole could see why it might make sense for Fabia Ursa to have her baby down below, in the much larger, lighter, and probably cleaner room. The shop had been cleared of much of its debris, the heaped pots pushed against the walls and the tools put away, probably in the box in the corner. In the cleared space, Fabia Ursa was walking with grim determination that Nicole well remembered from her own labor. It was supposed to help move things along. Whether it did or it didn’t, it gave the pregnant woman something to do. When the contractions grew too strong, she’d settle into the birthing chair and get to work in earnest.

Fabia Ursa greeted Nicole with the quick flash of a smile, and said to the midwife, “Aemilia! I’m so glad you’ve come.”

Nicole sighed faintly. Ah, good. This wasn’t as hard as usual.

Four or five other women were crowded into the shop, doing their best not to get in Fabia Ursa’s way. Nicole recognized all but one as neighbors from houses along the street. Some were regulars in the tavern, one or two she’d seen coming and going about their daily business. The last, whom Nicole didn’t know but Umma probably did, had Fabia Ursa’s narrow, pointy face and her quick, birdlike mannerisms. That, then, would be the sister whom Longinius lulus had said he was sent to fetch.

On the work counter, leaning against a dented copper kettle, stood a small painting of a smiling mother suckling a baby. At first glance, Nicole took it for an image of the Madonna and Child. But when she looked again, she saw that the artist had thoughtfully labeled his work: ISIS ET OSIRIS.

Fury roared up in Nicole, startling her with its intensity. How dared these pagans steal this of all images that they might have stolen? There was nothing more sacred; and nothing, except the crucifix, more distinctively Christian.

As quickly as it had risen, the fury died. Hadn’t Fabia Ursa’s husband said something about how ancient the Egyptians were? They had to go back even further from this time than this time did from her own. And if that was so, who had borrowed the symbol from whom?

Well, she thought with a flicker of amusement, and a slightly stronger flicker of annoyance. There she went, thinking pagans stole, but Christians borrowed. The part of her mind that found and marked fine details in legal documents wouldn’t let go of the slip, or let her forget it, either.

Perspective was everything. I am persistent. You are stubborn. He is a pigheaded fool.