Household Gods

Marcus Aurelius held up a hand. “I have ruled that the Roman Empire owes you no compensation for what you suffered at this unknown legionary’s wicked hands. That ruling shall stand. Whether you deserve compensation for the wrong you have suffered may perhaps be another question. Alexander!” For the first time that evening, the Emperor raised his voice. It made Nicole start a little. He was soft-spoken by nature and inclination, but she knew, just then, that he had taught himself to be heard across a battlefield.

The man who hurried into the room was none other than the secretary who had been so surprised at Nicole’s petition that he’d actually accepted it. He ignored Nicole completely. Marcus Aurelius beckoned him close and murmured something to him, all but whispering in his ear. Nicole tried her best to eavesdrop, but they were both too skilled at keeping private conversations private.

Alexander glanced at Nicole. His mouth was thin with distaste. “Sir, are you sure?”

That, Nicole heard perfectly clearly. She obviously was meant to. Interesting, she thought: Marcus Aurelius’ subordinates respected him, that was evident, but they also felt free to talk back to him.

“Yes, yes,” said the Emperor of the Romans with the slightest well-bred hint of impatience. “I am most certainly sure.” In Sheldon Rosenthal’s fondest dreams, he was perhaps a quarter as suave as Marcus Aurelius.

With a sigh, Alexander left the chamber. While he was gone, Nicole didn’t know what to say, so she settled for saying nothing. The Emperor seemed lost in thought – meditating on the cares of empire, she supposed.

In a little while, Alexander came back with a small leather sack, which he handed without ceremony to Marcus Aurelius. He left shaking his head. The Emperor, his every movement said, was doing something Alexander could not possibly approve of.

Marcus Aurelius knew it, too; his eyes glinted as he set the sack in front of Nicole. “The Empire cannot compensate you,” he said. “I, however, as a citizen of the Empire, can offer you, privately and personally, some small recompense for your misfortune.”

And you can do it without setting a precedent that you and your successors are bound to follow, Nicole thought. No, no flies on the Roman Emperor, not a one. But, having ruled against her, he could have sent her home with nothing. She’d fully expected that; been braced for it, even tried to formulate some kind of argument that wouldn’t make her look either greedy or presumptuous.

She thanked him automatically, with her eyes on the sack. It was very small. Give her a few denarii, pack her off, rest content that she had no further recourse – how easy for him to do. Easy, and cheap.

It wasn’t exactly fine etiquette, but she untied the string that closed the mouth of the sack. If Marcus Aurelius imagined he could shut her up with a handful of silver…

She shook the sack out on the table. It had hardly any heft to it at all. If it was empty – if this was some kind of bitter joke -

It was a damned good thing she’d kept her mouth shut before she saw what the aide had brought her. These weren’t a few token denarii. They were aurei – all gold, brilliant in the lamplight. Ten of them. She counted, very carefully; picked them up and tipped them into her palm. They gleamed there, more wealth than Umma had ever held in her hand at one time.

Marcus Aurelius didn’t frown at her rudeness. Maybe he even understood it. “I understand that no money can punish your violator, or undo what he did to you. But what money can do, I hope this money will do. The gods grant it be so.”

It was a great deal of money. Two hundred fifty denarii – more than half the price of a slave. A thousand sesterces. Four thousand asses. It was like an incantation, an invocation of prosperity. More than a month’s business – not profit, business – at the tavern. The rough equivalent, in second-century purchasing power, of the price of a Lexus.

Nicole had expected less, and would have settled for it. But the lawyer in her frowned at the ten aurei and reflected that, in terms of pain and suffering, she should have got more. He probably had it, too. If the deep-pockets rule applied, whose pockets – or moneybags – were deeper than those of the Emperor of the Romans? The rest of her knew that wasn’t realistic. Money went a whole lot further here than in West Hills. Nor, by the law of the Empire, had Marcus Aurelius been obligated to give her any compensation at all. It was the action of a good man, a man who gave not because he had to, but because he felt that it was right.