Household Gods

“You aren’t supposed to understand that much this young,” Nicole said. He shrugged, already halfway through his second prune. She provided the answer he wasn’t about to. In this world, yes, he had to understand that much. Otherwise he wouldn’t survive. She was the one who was lacking here. Her capacity for estimating man’s inhumanity to man had proved time and again that it wasn’t up to, or down to, dealing with the second century. Of course the Germans would lay hold of all the food they could – hadn’t they done it already? Of course they would treat the people of Carnuntum, the people who actually belonged in the city, as expendable. Yes, it made perfect sense. The Serbs in Bosnia wouldn’t have needed it spelled out for them.

Nicole glanced at the spot behind the bar where, once, the plaque of Liber and Libera had stood. Don’t you see? she said in her mind. I’m too… civilized to live in this time. Even if the plaque had still been there, she wouldn’t have got any response. She was bitterly certain of that. She’d made her bed. It was hard and lumpy and uncomfortable, with scratchy blankets and vermin uncounted. She had to lie in it. The god and goddess weren’t listening.

She took a prune out of the bag and popped it into her mouth. It was sweet and good. She had to make the best of things here. She chewed the flesh off the pit, and very carefully, too; and not only because she wanted to savor the taste. The last thing she wanted was to bite down too hard and break another tooth. That would mean, sooner or later, another visit to Terentianus. One of those was enough to last her two lifetimes, and then some.

Food was scarce, but at least, as people were inclined to remark, there was plenty of water. That wasn’t always the case in a siege, Nicole had gathered.

She was just on her way out the door, amphora in hand, headed for the fountain two blocks over, when she nearly collided with Brigomarus. He was in a fair hurry, and he had something tucked under his arm. “What’s that?” Nicole wanted to know, once they’d stopped laughing at the comedy of errors: each leaping back with a little shriek, then doing the “Which way do I go next?” dance till they both stopped and stared at each other.

“What’s this?” Brigomarus brought the cloth-wrapped oblong out from under his arm, grunting a bit: it was heavy for its size. “It’s a present for you.”

“Really? For me?” Nicole couldn’t clap her hands: they were full of amphora. “Show me!”

He obligingly let slip the wrapping and held it for her to see.

She felt the handles of the amphora slipping through her fingers. She felt them, but she couldn’t do a thing about it. The amphora struck the rammed-earth floor and went instantly from pot to potsherds. She didn’t care. She didn’t care at all.

“By the gods, it’s not such a big thing as that,” Brigomarus said, more than a little taken aback. “I happened to notice you’d lost the other one you had up here, and so I thought I’d – “

Nicole hardly heard him. ‘‘Where did you get that?’’ she whispered.

“This?” Brigomarus shrugged. “Stonecutter named… what was his name? Celer, that was it. Pestilence got him, poor fellow. I bought it… oh, must have been toward the end of spring last year, I guess. So when I saw you didn’t have yours up anymore, then Julia told me what happened to it, I thought I’d bring you this one to take its – “

He didn’t get to finish the sentence. Nicole threw her arms around him, being very, very careful of the plaque, and kissed him soundly. There was nothing sisterly about it. When she let him go, he was red from the neck of his tunic all the way up to his hairline. She didn’t care about that, either. With great delicacy, she took the plaque of Liber and Libera from him.

It was the plaque. She recognized it instantly. The carving was sharper and crisper than it had been when the limestone slab sat on her night-stand. Of course it would be. The plaque was much younger than it had been then.

When had Brigomarus bought it? Toward the end of spring last year, he’d said. She didn’t know – she didn’t have any way to discover – exactly when he’d bought it, exactly when Celer had finished it, but she would have bet it was right about the time when she’d taken up residence in Umma’s body. No wonder she hadn’t been able to find it till now. Brigo had had it all along. Had the gods intended that? Had they cared enough to hide it, effectively, in plain sight?

“It’s – perfect!” she said. “Absolutely perfect.”

“I’m glad you think so.” Brigomarus still sounded bewildered. Nicole didn’t blame him. But there was no way she was going to enlighten him. She was only half crazy.