Household Gods

“I hope not, ‘ Nicole answered, three of the most sincere words she’d ever spoken.

While she was distracted with the kids, a customer came briskly in. He glanced at Julius Rufus, there on the floor, and raised his eyebrows. “He’s got it, has he?” He passed the sick man without evident qualm and sat at a table near the middle of the tavern. “A cup of your two-as wine,” he said, “and some bread and oil.”

Julia served him with a kind of numbed efficiency. While she did that, the kids slipped free of Nicole’s tiring grasp, but didn’t try to get any closer to the sick man. They did hover, big-eyed, clearly waiting for him to do something – bleed, maybe, or vomit spectacularly, or die.

The customer ate, drank. He paid for his order in exact change, and walked out. Either he was as phlegmatic a man as Nicole had met, or he was just plain callous. Or maybe he was both at once.

Nicole had just scrambled herself together and taken thought for spelling Julia at the bar, when Julius Rufus let out a small sigh. A second or two later, Lucius wrinkled his nose. “I think he’s gone and shit himself,” he said matter-of-factly.

The odor that wafted toward Nicole was unmistakable. She felt her own nose wrinkle, and her gorge start to rise. Damn, she thought as she watched a wet spot spread on the front of Julius Rufus’ tunic. “He’s wet himself, too,” she said.

Lucius snickered. “Just like a baby.”

If he’d been within Nicole’s reach, she might have slapped him silly. The impulse was so strong it scared her. “It’s not funny, she said when she could trust her voice. “He’s not doing it on purpose.” She turned to Julia, who was hanging about as if she couldn’t tear herself away. “Fetch me some damp rags, will you? I can’t leave him lying here in his own filth.” Cleaning him was the last thing she wanted to do, but what choice did she have? Unlike Julia, she’d already touched him, already had his breath in her face. She knew she was exposed to the pestilence; she didn’t know whether the freedwoman was. Best not to make it a sure thing.

She swallowed the sour taste of bile, and breathed shallowly so as not to take in more of the combined reek of ammonia and ripe shit. His mouth had fallen open. His eyes were open, too, wide and staring. A moment after she realized she didn’t see him blinking, she noticed she didn’t hear him breathing.

She dropped the dripping rags and snatched his wrist. It was hot, as hot as his forehead had been – maybe hotter. Her finger found the spot outside the tendons, below the fleshy swell at the base of the thumb.

Nothing.

She bore down on the spot, the pulse-spot, where she should feel the beating of his heart. The only pulse she felt was her own. She pressed her palm to the left side of his chest. Nothing there, either. Nothing at all.

“He’s dead,” she said in dull wonder.

“I was afraid of that,” Julia said. “When his bowels let go… that happens, you know. Every time.”

Lucius and Aurelia stared more avidly than ever. A sick man was interesting. A dead one was absolutely riveting.

Gaius Calidius Severus came back while Nicole was still trying to figure out what to do, bringing with him a woman about Julius Rufus’ age and two young men who strongly resembled the brewer. They also had the donkey, from which they’d removed the barrels. Obviously, they’d intended to pack the unconscious man on the donkey’s back, and get him home more easily than if they’d had to carry him.

Nicole had been dreading the moment when she had to tell them the man was dead. It was just as bad as she’d imagined. The men began to bellow, the woman to shriek and wail. “What will we do without him?” she shrilled, over and over. “What are we supposed to do?”

Nicole could think of just one thing. She retreated to the bar and pulled out a toppling pile of cups, and filled them pretty much anyhow. Alcohol was the only tranquilizer the Romans knew. She administered it liberally.

They didn’t thank her for it, or pay her either, but they drank it down. It quieted them somewhat, though the woman couldn’t stop asking what she was supposed to do. Cope, Nicole wanted to snap at her, but refrained.

Still sniveling and weeping, Julius Rufus’ two sons took up his body and draped it over the donkey’s back. It slipped and slid bonelessly; they had to tie it in place. Still without a word of thanks, they set off on their sad journey home, or more likely to the undertaker’s.

People stared as they made their slow way down the street. The cries of Julius Rufus’ widow faded with distance, and sank into silence.

“Times will be hard for them now,” Gaius Calidius Severus said as he paused in the doorway on his way back to work. “I remember how things were when Mother died. They weren’t much different for you, were they, when you lost your husband?”

How would I know? Nicole almost asked, but caught herself in time. Instead, she said, “Times will be hard for the whole city now, if this pestilence is as bad as they say.”