“We're here.” Jeremy meant here, as in alive-not here, as in the temple narthex. “That's why we're making the thanks-offering.”
And the clerk-yes, amazingly lifelike-smiled and nodded. He understood what Jeremy had in mind. Who would have thought it? Clerks didn't get paid to understand, and so they mostly didn't bother. “Here is your incense,” this one said. “May your god and the spirit of the Emperor look kindly on the offering.”
“Thank you,” Jeremy said. After a disaster, people pulled together for a while. Mom and Dad had talked about how things were like that after the last big quake in L.A., and they always mentioned that. Sure enough, almost getting the city sacked counted for a disaster.
He and Amanda each had a little pinch of cheap incense in an even cheaper earthenware bowl. They walked into the temple's main hall side by side. There in the paintings, the mosaics, the statues in niches, were all the gods the locals believed in and Jeremy didn't. It was almost a WalMart of religion. Dionysus? Aisle 17. Mithras? Aisle 22. Isis? She's way over there by the checkout stands.
He whispered to Amanda. She smiled. But then, all at once, it didn't seem quite so funny. Maybe because he too was feeling the aftereffects of disaster, he suddenly saw the swarm of gods here as something more than superstition mixed with bureaucracy. Whether he really believed in them or not, the gods meant reassurance to a lot of people. And everybody needed reassurance every now and then, especially after a brush with catastrophe.
He went up to the altar in front of the Roman Emperor's bust. Even the line around the neck that showed where one head could replace another didn't bother him today. Wasn't it a symbol of how the Empire went on no matter what the Emperor looked like? It was if you looked at it the right way.
The altartop had been polished to begin with. The touch of lots of bowls with pinches of incense in them had worn it smoother still. The marble was cool and slick under Jeremy's fingers as he set down his bowl. He reached for a twig, lit it at the waiting flame, touched it to the stuff in the bowl, and then stamped it out.
Smoke curled up from the pinch of incense. It smelled more greasy than sweet. It had to have next to no myrrh or frankincense in it. None could have come into Polisso since the siege started. Here, now, that hardly seemed to matter. The thought counted more than the actual physical stuff that went into it.
Beside him, her face serious, Amanda was lighting her thanks-offering. He wondered what she was thinking. He couldn't ask, not here. Locals were coming up to make offerings of their own. He and his sister stood with their heads bent in front of the altar for a little while, then withdrew.
When they got outside, Amanda said, “That's funny. I really do feel better.”
“I was thinking the same thing!” Jeremy exclaimed. “It meant something today. Even if we don't exactly believe, we weren't just going through the motions.”
His sister nodded. “That's right. I was thankful I could make the offering.“
“There you go!” Jeremy said. “I was looking for that, but you found it.”
“I wish I could find some other things that matter more,” Amanda said. “A way home would be nice.”
“I know,” Jeremy said, and then, “I don't know. I just don't know any more.” Lost hope? He shook his head. It wasn't that. He would never lose hope. But he'd lost optimism. Whatever had happened back in the home timeline, it was-it had to be-a lot worse than he'd thought when the connection between there and here first broke.
A cannonball sailed through the air. When you were out in the open, you could really watch them fly. They didn't move too fast for the eye to follow, even if their paths did seem to blur. This one smashed into the roof of a leather worker's shop. Red tiles-they really were a lot like the ones on the roofs of Spanish-style houses back in Los Angeles-crumbled into red dust and smoke. A woman-the leather worker's wife, or maybe a daughter-let out a scream. He was down below, putting the finishing touches on a saddle. He threw it down and ran upstairs, cursing.
“I know how he feels,” Jeremy said.
“I know how she feels,“ Amanda said.
Jeremy thought about that. Then he said, “He can't hit back at the Lietuvans any more than she can.” He waited to see what Amanda would say. It was her turn to do some thinking. In the end, she didn't say anything. But she did nod. Jeremy felt as if he'd passed an odd sort of test.
Rap, rap, rap. Pause. Rap, rap, rap. Amanda raised a pot of porridge several chain links higher above the fire so it wouldn't scorch while she went to see who was at the door. Rap, rap, rap. Whoever it was wanted to make sure she and Jeremy knew he was there. Rap, rap, rap. She wondered if the knocker would come off or if the door would fall down. They'd had it fixed, but…
She almost ran into her brother in the front hall. “Want me to take care of it?” Jeremy asked.
She knew what he meant. The locals would expect to deal with somebody male. She stuck out her chin. She didn't much care what the locals expected. “It's all right,” she said. “They can talk to me. Or they can-” She used a gesture common in Polisso, but not commonly used by girls.
A local would have been horrified. Jeremy laughed. He bowed as if she were the city prefect. “All yours, then.”
Jeremy behind her, she unbarred the door and opened it. Just in the nick of time, too. The man standing there was reaching for the knocker again. “Good day,” Amanda said pleasantly. “No need to do that any more. We knew you were here.”
He blinked and then frowned. By the way one eyebrow went up even as his mouth turned down, he recognized sarcasm when he heard it. That was almost as rare in Polisso as it was in Los Angeles. He said, “You are requested to come to the city prefect's palace at once.”
NeoLatin had separate words and separate verb forms for the singular and plural of you. He'd used the plural, including her and Jeremy. “Who requests that?” she asked.
“Why, the most illustrious city prefect himself, of course,” the man replied. He would be one of Sesto Capurnio's chief secretaries, or maybe his steward. He wore a tunic of very fine wool with very little embroidery on it. That meant he had a good deal of money without much status. Did it mean he was a slave? It might well. Slaves here could have money of their own. They could even, though rarely, own other slaves. Amanda sometimes wondered how well anyone from the home timeline understood all the complications to society in Agrippan Rome. She knew she didn't.
She did know the request wasn't really a request. It was an order. But the fact that the city prefect hadn't phrased it as an order meant she and Jeremy had gained status. It didn't mean she could say no. She said yes the nicest way she knew how: “My brother and I are honored to accept the most illustrious city prefect's kind invitation.”
“We certainly are,” Jeremy agreed.
The secretary or steward or whatever he was looked relieved to hear him speak up. You sexist donkey, Amanda thought. But this whole world was full of sexist donkeys. She couldn't change it all by herself, no matter how much she wished she could. The man said, “Come with me, then, both of you.”
Amanda moved the porridge higher above the fire and made it smaller so the food wouldn't burn. And then go they did, back through the battered streets of Polisso. The gang of slaves they'd seen on their trip to the temple a few days before-or maybe a different gang-worked at its usual unhurried pace to clear away another ruined wall. When they got to the square, Amanda saw that a cannonball had hit the temple. Jeremy caught her eye. She knew what he was thinking. So much for miracles. She nodded.
But she really had felt better coming out of the temple after the thanks-offering. That wasn't a miracle. She knew it wasn't. It still counted for something, though.
Sesto Capurnio's flunky led the two crosstime traders into the city prefect's office. The prefect himself sat behind his desk. The painted busts of several recent Emperors stared out at Amanda and Jeremy from in back of him. Amanda found that slightly eerie, or more than slightly.