Household Gods

Even so, he was holding his own, even driving the German back with thrusts and stabs of his weapon. Then a second German, loping down the street, took in the situation with the blue flash of a glance, grinned, and hacked him down.

That’s not fair, Nicole thought. As if there were anything fair about the game these men were playing. All’s fair in love and war. Love she’d thought she knew. And this was war.

The big redhead’s sword swung up. It came down with a sound like a cleaver smacking a side of beef. Just like that.

The legionary screamed, a shrill wail like a woman’s, breaking into a wet gurgle. The German’s sword rose and fell, rose and fell.

The second German, who’d stood back to rest and watch, waded in after a while and joined in the butchery. The gray iron of their blades was red with blood. With every stroke, scarlet drops flew wide, spattering the walls and the street.

The redhead stopped first, looked down at the red glistening thing that just a few moments ago had been a man, and said clearly, “Dauths is ist.”

He’s dead, Nicole thought. That’s what it means.

The second German threw in a last, contemptuous blow, laughed – a weird, wild sound – and loped off down the street. The other followed at a trot.

Nicole didn’t want to look down. But she had to. She had to know. The Roman lay in a scarlet pool of blood. His head was almost severed from his body. His arms were hacked almost out of recognition; his armor was split and torn. His bare legs beneath the pleated military kilt were intact and almost unbloodied. And they twitched, grotesquely, as if he were still in some way alive.

No. Not with his head at that angle. He was dead, as the German had said. Very, very dead.

The contents of Nicole’s stomach stayed where they belonged. That surprised her a little. She was keeping it at a distance; closing it off in a small, tight compartment, and sitting firmly on the lid. Eventually she’d blow. But not now and, if she was lucky, not soon.

She could think clearly, therefore, and think through what this meant. Last year in the market square, she’d seen the Marcomanni and Quadi as gangbangers strutting around on enemy turf. If gangbangers killed a cop, the force hunted them down. But what if gangbangers killed off the whole force? That question wasn’t rhetorical, not here. And she was going to learn the answer to it.

After the first two Germans disappeared, others trotted down the street, swords in hand, moving like wolves on the hunt. Some of the blades were bloodied, some not. A few of the barbarians wore the same kind of armor as the legionaries – captured, maybe – and some wore chainmail. Not a few wore simple tunics and trousers, no armor at all except for the dubious protection of a leather vest. They all wore the same expression: fixed, intent, as if they were casing the place. But it was more immediate than that. They were looking for more Roman soldiers to kill.

Julia looked ready to climb into Nicole’s arms, if Lucius hadn’t already been there. “They have the city,” she whispered. Her face was white with fear. “If they have the soldiers’ camp down the river, too, the gods only know when we’ll be rescued. If we ever will. If – we don’t -“ Her voice trailed away.

Lucius hadn’t said a word since before the legionary fell. He slipped out from under Nicole’s arm and ran upstairs. Nicole started after him, but held herself back. If he needed to be alone, she’d let him. She’d go up in a little while and see if he was all right.

But he came down almost as soon as he’d gone up, clutching his wooden sword. Nicole had never liked or approved of it, but she’d never quite got round to taking it away from him. She held herself back now, with an effort that made her body shake. If he needed that comfort, she wouldn’t take it away from him.

He sat on a stool near the back of the tavern, with the sword in his lap. He sat there for a while, stroking the wooden blade.

Suddenly, violently, he flung it away. “It’s just a toy,” he said bitterly. “It can’t hurt a thing, except maybe a fly.”

Nicole walked over and put her arm around him. At first, he tried to shrug her away. Then he clung as he had at the window, and started to cry. The tears were as bitter as his words. She held him close and rocked him as she would have rocked Justin.

People were shouting in the distance, with a new note in it, a new urgency. It was a word, one single word. “Fire!”

For a heartbeat or two, idiotically, she listened for sirens. No fire engines here. God knew what they had; maybe nothing, though more open flames burned here than she’d ever seen in one place. And even if there was something, what could anybody do about it while the city was being sacked?