Household Gods

He brightened at the sight of her, jumped up with something of his old energy, took her arm as if she’d been an ancient grandmother, and helped her to the bench he’d just vacated. She breathed shallowly to keep from gagging; her stomach was delicate enough without adding the dyer’s effluvium to it. But he was so glad to see her, she couldn’t bring herself to turn and bolt back out into the relatively fresh air of the street.

When she’d caught what breath she could manage, she said, “I wanted – I should go to the cemetery with you. But – “

Gaius Calidius Severus patted her arm awkwardly. “No. No, don’t fret about it. You’ve got your boy and your freedwoman to take care of. And Father wouldn’t want you to put yourself in any more danger, not after you’ve come through this far. We’d need another funeral if you did. He’d hate that.”

Nicole swallowed. Her throat hurt. “Thank you,” she said when she could trust her voice. She felt as if she’d received absolution. But it needed a little more. After a moment she said, “You’re a lot like him, you know.”

Gaius Calidius Severus blushed and ducked his head. Was he remembering the times he’d gone upstairs with Julia? Maybe, maybe not. And, Nicole thought, his father would probably have done the exact same thing at his age. There wasn’t anything wrong with him that a decade and a few cold showers wouldn’t fix. “Now I thank you,” he said. “It’s better than I deserve, but thank you for saying it.” He paused, as if to nerve himself for what he meant to say next. “How are Julia and Lucius doing?”

Titus Calidius Severus would have put Umma’s son ahead of the freed-woman, but he hadn’t gone to bed with her, either. Again Nicole noted the difference without rising to it. The question was kindly meant. That was real concern – real friendship.

She answered him warmly then, and fully. “They’ll pull through, I think. Both of them. They’re almost to the point I was at yesterday when you found me. But Aurelia – “ She stopped to pull herself together. That ordeal would come the day after tomorrow. Even in the fall chill, it wouldn’t wait any longer. “They should be there, and I have to be there. Somehow.”

“They won’t be able to come. ‘ Gaius Calidius Severus spoke with some of his father’s authority. He was right, too; Nicole knew it. She wasn’t any more pleased by that than she’d been when Titus was too damnably right for his own good. “I’ll look after them, don’t worry about that. And as for you, “ he said, shaking a finger under her nose, “hire a sedan chair to take you to the graveyard and back. You should be strong enough by then to manage that. No one will think it’s ostentatious, not when you’ve just got over the pestilence, and not for your own daughter’s funeral.”

Nicole didn’t want to argue with him. She was too tired. She got out of there somehow, not too discourteously she hoped, and crawled back to the tavern and her two charges.

Titus Calidius Severus’ funeral procession rocked and wailed its way down the street that afternoon. Nicole watched it from her doorway, standing very still, holding to the doorpost when her knees started to buckle. There were a few people in the procession after all, and a whole quartet of hired mourners, and two flute players who vied with one another to see how far off key they could go and still be somewhere within shouting distance of a tune. Titus would have had something wry to say about that, and a smile to go with it, warm and a little crooked.

That wasn’t Titus on the bier, that still and shrouded shape. No. It wasn’t anyone she knew. Titus was still alive somewhere. Her skin could still remember the touch of his hands, the way his beard tickled when he kissed her, the sound of his voice in her ear, murmuring words that made her giggle even while they made love. Had she loved him with a grand passion? Hardly. But she’d liked him. She missed him, his dry wit, his comforting presence, even his habit of always being right, rather more than she missed taking him up to her bed on nights after men’s day at the baths.

She still didn’t have any tears. She gave him memory instead, and the strength she could spare to stand in the doorway till the last of the procession had rounded the corner and vanished. Then she turned, and walking slowly, making her way from table to bench to stool to bar, she made her way back up to the two of hers who were still alive, and the one who waited, wrapped in a blanket, for the undertaker’s assistants to come and take her away.

Nicole ended up taking Gaius Calidius Severus’ advice. The sedan chair was like a four-man stretcher with a seat. Riding in it was beastly uncomfortable, but it was far easier than walking – particularly as half the way was sloppy with mud. The sky was ugly as unwashed wool, heavy and gray and full of rain, but none was falling just then. If they were lucky, they’d get there and back again before the threat of rain became reality.