Household Gods

“I don’t know,” Nicole said with a shrug that wasn’t nearly as innocent as it looked. “Have I?” Before Umma’s brother could dig her in any deeper, she hurried them both back to the subject at hand: “What else do you know? How badly is the war going for them? Do they talk about it?”

“Not in any language a civilized man can understand. They grunt and bark like a herd of hungry pigs. But even when they’re babbling among themselves, the names of towns don’t change that much. The past few days, they’ve been talking about Savaria and Scarabantia – and those aren’t that far down the road from Carnuntum. If the Emperor is coming this way, he’ll be here before too long.”

The Emperor. Nicole had hardly given a thought to him since she came to Carnuntum. His words didn’t dominate TV, radio, the papers, and the newsmagazines, as an American President’s did. There were no media for the Roman Emperor to dominate. If it hadn’t been for his coins, she wouldn’t even have known what he looked like, or what his name was. Marcus, Marcus Aurelius. According to the coins, he was a middle-aged man with a beaky nose, a receding chin a beard couldn’t quite hide, and curly hair that looked as if it needed brushing.

All of which told her exactly nothing. People didn’t talk about him at all, or seem to think about him much, either. Brigo certainly didn’t sound awed at the prospect of an imperial visit. “Is he coming himself,” she asked, “or is it just some general leading the army in his name?”

“From what I’ve heard, he’s leading his own army,” Brigomarus said. “He took the field himself farther west, I know that. Whether he’ll beat the cursed Marcomanni and Quadi and come this far – there’s no way anyone can know that.”

“I hope he does,” Nicole said fervently.

Brigomarus rolled his eyes. “Oh, by the gods, don’t we all,” he said. “I can’t think of anybody in Carnuntum who’s done well under the Germans. Except…”

When he didn’t go on, Nicole thumped him on the arm. “Come on – who?”

“The undertakers,” he answered promptly – and hastily threw up a hand.

“Don’t throw that cup at me! They got more work than they deserved during the pestilence. The Germans gave them even more. They’re getting cursed rich.”

“Maybe they are,” Nicole said, “but I don’t expect they’ll cry too hard when the Germans go.”

She wouldn’t be sorry to see them go, either – preferably out on their ears. She wouldn’t be sorry, if she was perfectly honest with herself, to see the lot of them killed. She’d been pretty young when Saigon fell to the North Vietnamese. When she thought about it, she realized how much the Vietnam War had colored her attitude toward war in general. She’d thought the Gulf War a waste of money and men, fought mostly over oil – never mind the rhetoric about democracy and freedom. But now, from the middle of a war, she didn’t just remember how rapturously the people of Kuwait had welcomed the soldiers who drove out the Iraqis. She understood right down to the bone why the Kuwaitis had been so overjoyed. She was ready – more than ready – to plant a big fat kiss on the first Roman legionary who came tramping up the street. And if there was blood on his sword, all the better.

Brigomarus slapped the bar in front of her, startling her back into herself. “You seem to have things here pretty much in hand. How are you fixed for food?”

“Not too bad,” she said, which was only a slight exaggeration. “We’re hungry, but we aren’t – quite – starving. And you, Brigo? If you need help, we can spare a little. “ She couldn’t, not really, but neither was she – quite – on the edge.

Umma’s brother shook his head. “No, thank you, we don’t need anything. I’m hungrier than I ever wanted to be, but I’m not dying of it.”

She drew a breath and nodded. She was relieved, there was no point in denying it. Every scrap she didn’t share was that much more for Lucius and Julia and herself. “We’ll just keep our heads down and hang on, and wait till the Emperor comes.”

Till the Emperor comes. It sounded like a fairy tale she might have read to Kimberley, not one of the real, old, grim ones, but one of the sugar-coated, saccharine-overloaded, sweetness-and-light fables that were deemed safe for impressionable young children. But there was nothing either sweet or harmless about Carnuntum. The little blue birds would have gone into somebody’s pot, and the pretty butterflies been trampled underfoot by a horde of marching Germans. It would take more than a pastel prince to rescue Carnuntum. It would take an emperor.

Nicole hoped, a little crazily, that he didn’t try to buy himself any new clothes. “I hope he comes soon,” she said.

“So do I,” Brigomarus answered. “So does everybody – except the Quadi and the Marcomanni. And they’re the ones with the most to say about when he gets here, or if he gets here at all.”