Household Gods

“Amazing,” he repeated, and stabbed the amphora’s pointed tip down into the dirt of the street, as he’d done with the empties he used for urinals outside his shop. He set down the raisins beside the jar and, still shaking his head, carried the songbirds back toward his door. On his way he stopped at one of the jars and pissed in it, as unself-conscious as any of the other men who paused there. Seeing that Nicole’s gaze had followed him, he grinned and let his tunic fall. “My own private stock, from my own privates.”

She didn’t know why she smiled. It was a godawful joke. Face it, she told herself. Face the way things are. The way things were was plain. He took it utterly for granted that a man would piss in a pot in a public place. There was nothing either shameful or prurient about male nudity here – that was obvious. Female nudity…

Best not get into that. So: nothing shameful. Even noticing that he wasn’t circumcised, or calling to mind that no one else she’d seen pissing in front of his shop was, either. Like the doors that swung on pegs rather than hinges, it wasn’t any better or worse than what she’d known before. It was just different.

Titus Calidius Severus went inside his shop, leaving Nicole to look after herself. He hadn’t even said good-bye. She didn’t know why that should matter, but it did.

6

She gritted her teeth, picked up the leg of mutton with its pendant fish, and lugged them into the odorous dimness of the tavern. The scent of wine and sweat, must and hot oil, garlic and herbs and unsubtle perfume, struck her like a wall. She clove her way through it.

Julia materialized out of it, imperturbably cheerful as ever, and fetched in the wine and the raisins and the scallions. As she came back in, Nicole asked her, “How are the children?”

“They haven’t been too bad, Mistress,” Julia answered, as willingly as always. If she’d been a babysitter in West Hills, Nicole thought, she’d have been booked from one end of the week to the other. “They’re using the pot more than they should, but I think they’re getting better. Are you all right?”

Nicole’s stomach rumbled alarmingly. She set her teeth and ignored it. “I’m not too bad, either.”

“You were lucky,” Julia said. “A lot of times, when people’s bellies gripe them like that, they keep on shitting and shitting till they die. That’s what happened to Calidius’ wife a few years ago, remember?”

“Of course I remember,” Nicole said. Of course she didn’t, but from now on she would. Titus Calidius Severus hadn’t been two-timing anybody when he came visiting her, then – no, when he came visiting Umma. A point in his favor. Did it balance off that rude remark he’d made about women? Not even close, Nicole thought. That was exactly the attitude that she’d fled in the twentieth century. She’d prayed for a place that was free of it. Liber, Libera – what were you thinking? Couldn’t you understand what I meant?

They didn’t blast her where she stood, but neither did they answer. She was left where she’d been before, face to face with a monumental wall of male chauvinist piggery.

And he’d seemed so decent, too. A pleasant man. A nice man, as her mother in Indiana might have said.

“There ain’t no such thing,” Nicole snarled to nobody in particular. Nobody answered, or even seemed to notice that she’d spoken.

Snarl though she might, fact was fact. And men, it seemed, were men. Nicole dug fingers into a sudden fierce itch in her scalp. Damn, it was getting worse. She needed a shower, shampoo – even a bath would do. All over. In hot water.

Tomorrow was ladies’ day in the baths. She’d live till then. Maybe.

Julia’s voice startled her out of her funk. “Business was good while you were gone, Mistress,” Julia said brightly, “and I got a couple of dupondii for myself. May I keep them?”

Had she slipped her hand in the till? Had she snaked out a good deal more than a couple of dupondii and claimed the smaller amount, hoping Nicole wouldn’t notice? Listening to her, looking at her, Nicole didn’t think so. Her tone was eloquent. She’d asked because she might get in real trouble if she kept the dupondii without asking, but she didn’t think Nicole could possibly say no.

Nicole couldn’t see any good reason to refuse. “Yes, go ahead. That’s more than you got from Ofanius Valens yesterday morning. How did you do it?”

“Usual way,” Julia said with a smile and a shrug. The smile had an odd edge to it, but nothing Nicole could lay a finger on. “Customers thought I was nice.”

“All right,” Nicole said. “Here, will you take the hide off this leg of mutton while I tend to the rest of the things I bought?”

“Of course, Mistress,” the slave replied.

Ihave to set her free as soon as I can, Nicole thought again. The Romans don’t have paper, right? So how bad can the paperwork be?