Household Gods

So there, Nicole thought. The annoying thing was that, as he had a way of doing, Calidius Severus made a lot of sense. His own Mithraism, for instance, seemed to be for men only, and especially for soldiers. From what the men at Fabia Ursa’s funeral had said, Isis-worship was a women’s cult. Would Christianity triumph for no better reason than that it was the religion of the lowest common denominator, the network television of its day?

Whatever the reason, she knew Christianity had triumphed – would triumph. Did Calidius’ argument mean it had triumphed in part because more hard times were ahead for the Roman Empire? If they were, how soon? Not for the first time, she caught herself wishing she’d paid a lot more attention to history. If she had, she might know more about the world and times in which she was living.

She hadn’t answered Calidius Severus, and she didn’t have an easy answer handy. Julia grinned at her. “He’s got you, Mistress Umma.”

“And glad of it, too,” Calidius Severus said with a grin just as wide and rather more wicked.

Nicole bit her lip and tried not to look as if she were fretting. If she had any more good to say of Christianity, both of them would start to wonder why.

She chose a safer way out. “Titus told me once I sounded like a philosopher. Now I get to tell him the same thing.”

“What? Me? An old soldier up to his elbows in piss? I get to tell you that’s nonsense. ‘ He sounded gruff, almost angry. Underneath that, he sounded very pleased. He threw another piece of walnut shell at Lucius. Lucius, greatly daring, threw it back. Titus Calidius Severus laughed. Nobody talked anymore about religion, Christian or otherwise.

Two days later, Brigomarus came into the tavern again. The look in his eyes, blank and shellshocked, told her what he was going to say before he said it. She didn’t like him, let alone love him, but he was a creature in pain. “Here.” She dipped a cup of wine. “Drink this.”

“You’re sure you can spare such largess for your family?” The sarcasm didn’t keep him from taking the wine or from draining it in a gulp. It seemed to steady him. He let out a long, shuddering sigh, then gave her the news she expected: “She’s gone. It was peaceful, at the end. She breathed, then she stopped for a bit, and then, when I thought it was over, she breathed one more time, and that was the last.”

Nicole didn’t imagine that he told her this for her own sake. It was something he needed to remember, and to repeat to himself. “I’m glad she didn’t suffer,” she said truthfully. Then, remembering what Calidius Severus had said, she added, “I hope she’s happy in the next world.”

“The gods grant it be so,” Brigomarus said, and fell silent, staring down into his empty cup. Nicole didn’t choose to take the hint, if hint it was. Maybe he was simply preoccupied.

At length he said the other thing that weighed on his mind. “I’m afraid Flavius Probus is coming down with it.”

“I’m sorry,” Nicole said. She had very little use for Ila’s husband, but this wasn’t a disease she’d wish on anyone. “I hope he gets better. Some people do.”

“Yes, some people do.” Brigomarus looked at Nicole as if he was trying hard not to hate her. And what did he think she’d done now? With the air of a man who has run out of patience, he flung words at her. “This is our mother, Umma.”

So. She wasn’t acting mournful enough to suit him. And acting was what it would have to be. She hadn’t known Atpomara well, and certainly hadn’t liked her. But that didn’t remove the essential fact. As long as she wore Umma’s body, she had to act as Umma would be expected to act. She tried to imagine how she’d feel if her own mother died. The parallel wasn’t too far off: even in West Hills, she’d been distant in space and time and interests, and, since the divorce, the distance had grown worse. Sometimes she thought her mother regarded divorce as a fundamental moral failure – her own as much as Nicole’s.

Still, if her mother had died, she’d grieve. It was as Brigo had said: that was her mother.

Out of all that, she drew a sigh that shook a little, and rubbed her eyes that ached with tiredness and stress. “I’m sorry, “ she said. “It’s just… it doesn’t feel real. So many people are dying, so much death, till everybody’s numb. And to have her gone, of all people – didn’t we used to think she’d outlive us all?”

That was a gamble, a stab in the dark, but it found a target. Brigomarus nodded. Even so, he studied her. So many people in Carnuntum had measured her with that steady stare, she was about ready to rise up in revolt. At last he said, “We haven’t been happy with you, so I don’t suppose you’ve been happy with us, either. “ There he went, making her explanations for her, just as everyone else did who’d weighed her and found her wanting. “We’ll have to pull together, that’s all, however many of us are left alive after this pestilence goes back wherever it came from. “

“Yes,” Nicole said. That was safe enough, but she couldn’t bring herself to add to it.