Household Gods

She smiled at the face in the mirror. It smiled back, dark eyes sparkling – no muddy catty green; and those black-brown curls framed it quite nicely indeed. “I’ll do,” she said. “I’ll definitely do.”

She laid the mirror carefully in the makeup case and put it away. The odd feeling of trespass faded as she explored the rest of the drawers in the chest. They held several pairs of thick wool socks, not too unlike the ones you could order from L. L. Bean for winter weekend wear, and tunics of about the same style as the one she was wearing. Some were of wool, others, lighter, of linen. A couple were dark blue, one a rusty brown, and the others not only undyed but not particularly clean. There was a definite limitation to the color scheme here, and not too much regard for hygiene, either. With the tunics she found a pair of woolen cloaks, one old and growing threadbare, the other so new it still smelled powerfully of sheep.

The last drawer, on the bottom, opened less easily than the rest. She had to set her back to it and pull, and hope she didn’t break something. When it gave way at last, she found the drawer crammed full of rags. Dustrags? Cleaning rags? She frowned. They were all clean, but the stains on the ones she pulled out were hard to mistake. Even modern detergents couldn’t always remove the stain of blood.

Bandages, then? Yes, she thought, in a way. Clearly, the Romans had never heard of tampons.

That could be a nuisance. She hadn’t thought about such things when she’d prayed to Liber and Libera to snatch her out of her own place and time. She should have asked them for a stopover at a drugstore. The things she could have brought with her if she had -

Obviously, that wasn’t how it worked. She told herself she didn’t care. She didn’t. She hadn’t prayed for physical comfort or material wealth. She’d asked for equality; for justice. For a world that gave a woman a fairer chance, and a better quality of life. They’d brought her here, hadn’t they? Then they must have given her the rest, too. If a price came with it, if she had to resort to rags for a week a month, then that was a price worth paying. After all, she couldn’t be the only one. Every other woman in this place – in Carnuntum – had to do the same. That was equality, after a fashion.

She couldn’t help thinking that it would be even more equal if the men had to do it, too. But she doubted even gods had the power to change the world as profoundly as that.

She pulled the blue tunic off over her head and picked up the brown, which seemed the cleanest of the lot. Before she put it on, she paused, looking down at herself. It felt strange, like being a voyeur, but she was inside the body she stared at.

It wasn’t a bad body. The Nicole who’d lived in West Hills would have killed to be as slim as this. The breasts did sag a bit, more than her own – her others – had. They were a little larger, too. No bras here, or none that she’d found. The nipples were wide and dark, with the look she’d come to know in her other body, that with the stretch marks on her belly told her that this body had borne at least one child.

She stood briefly frozen. Children? That meant -

No. If she’d had a husband, she would have found his clothes and belongings in the room, and him in her bed, too. This was the room of a woman who lived, or at least slept, alone.

Her mouth twisted. Bless Liber and Libera. After all she’d gone through with Frank, the last thing she either wanted or needed was a husband.

She shrugged into the brown tunic, stooped and picked up the sandals, pulled and wiggled them onto her feet. The straps puzzled her a bit, with their bronze eyelets, but her hands seemed to know how they went. After a few moments she stopped trying to guide them and let them do what they wanted to do. The fingers worked deftly, lacing and fastening.

Then at last they were on and she was standing straight, ready to face the world. “Ready or not,” she said to it, “here I come.”

Unbarring the double door was easy, but it didn’t open. What to do next? When she pushed against the handles, nothing happened. She pushed harder. Nothing. With a hiss of annoyance, she braced her back and pulled. The doors flew inward, nearly sweeping her off her feet. They were not hinged, she saw, but hung on pegs that fit into holes in the lintel and sill. How odd. How unusual. How – primitive? No. Just different.

This whole world would be different, more differences than she had ever known. She had to stop, to swallow the surge of panic. Culture shock didn’t begin to describe it. She groped for the remnants of her former dizzy joy. Most of what was left was simply dizziness. It was still better than the black horrors. She was glad to be here. She had prayed to be here. The gods had given her the language and, it seemed, a little body-knowledge. Surely they’d have given her enough other skills to get by.