Household Gods

She glanced at Julia. The freedwoman had looked frightened before. Now she was stiff with terror. “Mistress,” she said in a small, tight voice, “if that gets any closer, we’ve got to run. I’d rather take my chances with the Germans than stay here and burn to death.”

“If the city’s burning,” Nicole said, “the Germans will be running, too.” Nicole took a deep breath, to steady herself, and nodded. “We’ll run if we have to. The shouting’s coming – yes, from the north, and the west, past the market square. The fire may not be able to go around an open space that big.”

“Maybe.” Julia cocked her head, listening. “Yes, north and west – I can hear it, too. I think you’re right. Please the gods, I hope you’re right!”

They sat in the gloom and waited. Nobody spoke. Lucius fidgeted for a while, then pulled his dice out of the pouch at his belt and squatted on the floor, playing a game of one hand against the other. The rattle of dice in the cup and the dull clatter as they rolled out on the floor struck counterpoint to the distant sounds of fighting and of terror.

Nicole sniffed. Did she smell smoke? Of course she smelled smoke. She always did in Carnuntum. No one ran screaming down the street, pursued by the lick of flames. What had Nicole heard once? Fire was fast, yes. Faster than anyone could imagine who hadn’t seen it.

More than once she tensed to jump up, grab whatever she could grab, and take her chances with the Germans. But some remnant of sense kept her where she was. As long as there was no sign of fire nearby, she was infinitely safer behind the barred door of the tavern than running in panic through the streets.

Julia had been sitting still in what might have passed for bovine calm except for the darting of her eyes. “I hope Gaius is all right,” she said suddenly. She spoke young Calidius Severus’ praenomen without self-consciousness. Why not? She’d gone upstairs with him both here and over the dyer’s shop. If that didn’t entitle her to call him by his first name, what did?

Once upon a time, Gaius’ father had complained that Nicole didn’t call him by his praenomen. She’d learned that courtesy, and a great deal more.

God, she missed that quiet, practical man with the infuriating habit of being right. His son was going to grow up just like him; she could see the signs.

If, she thought, he lived through the war. If any of them did.

There’d been a long lull, a quiet space in which no one ran past, enemy or friend. Then a new wave of Germans poured in from what had to be a breach in the wall or a gate forced open. Most still carried swords, but they weren’t so wary now. They moved at walking pace, traveling in pairs and threes, gawking at the sights. If they’d had cameras, they would have been taking snapshots. They looked like tourists, not like men who expected to have to fight their way through the city.

It took Nicole a distressingly long time to understand what that meant. It was over. The Germans had won.

And to the victors went the spoils. One of the Germans pounded on a door a little way down the street from the tavern. A moment later, Nicole heard the barbarian let out a happy grunt, like a pig in a corncrib. A moment after that, a woman shrieked.

“That’s Antonina,” Julia said, her voice the barest thread of whisper.

“Let me go!” Antonina cried, fear and anger warring in her voice. “Let me -“ The sharp sound of flesh slapping against flesh cut off her words. She shrieked again, high and shrill. The German laughed. He didn’t seem to mind the noise at all.

He wasn’t alone, either. From the sound of it, there was a whole pack of them out there, yipping with glee and calling back and forth in their own language. The words weren’t comprehensible, but the tone was all too plain. So was the tone of Antonina’s scream.

Nicole didn’t move from her seat well back in the tavern. Her head shook of itself. They couldn’t, she thought in disbelief. They wouldn’t.

Stupid. Of course they could. And if they wouldn’t, why had she and Julia doused themselves with stale piss?

From where she sat, she could see through the front windows, at least to the middle of the street. As if he had known that, a great hulking brute of a German dragged Antonina into the frame of the windows and threw her down. Nicole watched in sick fascination, unable to move to her neighbor’s rescue, and unable to look away. The rest of the gang crowded in, overwhelming Antonina. She got in one good kick before they had her spread-eagled on her back.