Household Gods

Business that morning was brisk. Asses, dupondii, sesterces, even a couple of silver denarii clanked into the cash box. Nicole was pleased, but not so pleased as she might have been. Every time somebody coughed, every time somebody sneezed, she jumped. People had been coughing and sneezing in the tavern ever since she’d come to Carnuntum, and no doubt for many years before that. Now she wondered if each cough and sneeze meant a case of pestilence brewing – and if viruses were flying her way, or toward her children, or toward Julia.

A little before noon, Brigomarus came into the tavern. “Uncle Brigo!” Lucius and Aurelia cried out in delight. Nicole, on the other hand, was somewhat less than delighted to see Umma’s brother. By the way he stood, as if he was only there under duress, and by his cold nod, he wasn’t delighted to see her, either.

“How are you?” he asked politely enough, and then the question that seemed more important in Carnuntum than any other: “Have you been well?”

Nicole could answer that, if only to meet politeness with politeness. “Yes, all of us here have been fine, thank heaven,” she said. “And you?”

“I’m as you see. If I’d caught this horror of a disease, I wouldn’t be up and about.” Brigomarus took a deep breath, nerving himself for what he had to say next. “Mother is down with it. I don’t know what her chances are. If I had to guess, I’d say they weren’t good. She still has her wits about her, and she wants to see you. Ila didn’t even want to let you know, but I said I would do it. Just because you wronged the family doesn’t mean we have any business wronging you.”

“I had every right to do what I did, and I was right to do it,” Nicole said stiffly.

“You’re – “ Umma’s brother checked himself. “Never mind. I didn’t come here to start the quarrel over again. Will you come see Mother or not?” To hell with you if you don’t, his tone and posture plainly said.

A deathbed visit to Atpomara, Umma’s disagreeable mother, was about the last thing Nicole wanted. Visiting anybody who was likely to give her the pestilence didn’t rank high on her list, either. But, things being as they were, she didn’t see that she had a choice. She was wearing Umma’s body. She had to take on at least the bare minimum of Umma’s obligations. “I’ll come,” she said.

“Well, good.” Brigomarus sounded pleasantly surprised, as if he’d made the call expecting to be turned down flat. “Let’s go, then.”

“Aren’t you going to stay and play, Uncle Brigo?” Aurelia asked plaintively.

“I can’t,” he told her with more gentleness than Nicole might have expected. “Your grandmother is sick, and she wants to see your mother.”

“Is she going to die?” Lucius asked. In California, a child would have asked the question in tones of disbelief. Lucius merely sounded curious. He knew people died. In Carnuntum, nobody could help knowing it.

“That’s in the hands of the gods,” Brigomarus said. “She wants to see your mother. We have to go.”

The children didn’t beg to go with them, which Nicole found somewhat odd. She’d thought Lucius might, at least. But he stood with his sister and watched them go. They were both unusually quiet, unusually wide-eyed. They’d seen too much death, she thought. They didn’t need to see any more.

Nicole followed Umma’s brother out of the tavern. He strode along for a while with his head down, until they both had to wait as a funeral procession went past. Whoever the deceased was, he’d been important; most of the mourners wore togas, not tunics. Instead of lying on a bier, the corpse was carried in a sedan chair, so that he surveyed the city with his unseeing eyes. A dozen musicians brought up the rear of the procession, making a tremendous racket.

Nicole resisted the urge to clap her hands over her ears. When the procession had passed, while her ears were still ringing with the noise, Brigomarus sighed. “In times like this, I don’t want to quarrel with anyone in my family. Who knows what will happen tomorrow?”

“Nobody,” Nicole answered. That was true in California, too, but seemed truer in Carnuntum. It was also, she realized a little more slowly than she should have, an offer of truce. “All right, Brigomarus,” she said. “I won’t argue with anyone if no one argues with me.”

He pursed his lips. He might have been expecting more, though what else he could want, she couldn’t imagine. Then he nodded. “That will have to do.”

Damn him, she thought in a rise of temper. She was being generous, and he made her generosity seem a paltry thing.

She made herself relax. However grudging his acceptance, nevertheless, he had accepted the gift. It would, as he’d said, have to do.