Along with Ila came Sextus Longinius lulus, who hadn’t caught the pestilence in spite of everything; Ofanius Vaiens, who’d survived a milder bout than Nicole’s; and sharp-tongued Antonina and her husband, a mousy little man whose name Nicole never had learned. As funeral processions went in these days, it was a largeish gathering, and kindhearted. None of these people needed to be here; they all must be worn out with attending funerals. And still they’d come to see Aurelia to her rest.
Nicole had refused to hire mourners — another thing that Ila had declined to comment on; really, she had to be ill, if she kept quiet about that — but she had asked the undertaker to arrange for a priest. The one provided was a type that must be universaclass="underline" thickset, florid, with a well-padded middle and an even more well-padded vocabulary. He mouthed platitudes about innocence plucked too soon, and flowers cut down before their prime, and the golden hope of a better world. She’d heard just about the same words, in just about the same plummy tone, on a Sunday-morning Gospel hour. All this man lacked was the shiny suit and the pompadour.
Nicole tuned him out as best she could. She’d asked for a priest, after all. She should have expected what she got. It wouldn’t have been any different in the twentieth century; it hadn’t been when her grandfather died. He’d been a determined non-churchgoer, but the family had been just as determined to give him a Christian sendoff. The priest they found hadn’t known the man at all, had given a eulogy so generic as to be ludicrous, and had referred throughout to the deceased, whose name was Richard Uphoff, as “our dearly departed Bob Upton.”
At least this man got Aurelia’s name right, if nothing else about her. Nicole fixed her eyes on the bier, on the small shrouded figure, seeming so much smaller in death. No larger, really, than Kimberley had been, the night before Nicole vanished out of that world and into this one. This dream turned nightmare, this life suddenly so full of death.
Nicole’s throat was aching-tight. She couldn’t cry. She wanted to scream. Someone else was, away across the cemetery: shrieking and wailing. It wasn’t the voice of a hired mourner; those had their own style, almost like a religious chant. This was too wild, too unrestrained.
That wasn’t the American way of death. Even in a world that had never heard of America, Nicole couldn’t bring herself to indulge in it. She sat in the sedan chair in silence while the undertaker’s assistants laid the body in the small, muddy hole that was all the grave Aurelia would get. Then she had to get out of the chair, and, though she tottered like an old woman, lay one of Julia’s good loaves and a jar of raisins and a jug of heavily watered wine in the grave. She’d wanted to bring Aurelia’s favorite honeyed cake, but she’d thought of it too late. There’d been no time to make one.
It was ridiculous to think the dead child could notice what was missing, or care; and yet it mattered very much. Too much, maybe. The wine was Falernian — that much Nicole could give her. Poor little Aurelia, who’d never had the chance to have much, at least had that to take into the grave with her.
As Nicole knelt by the grave, unable to muster the strength to rise, the skies at last gave up their burden of rain. “Even the heavens are weeping,” He said, proving the Romans were no more immune to sentiment than to the pestilence.
The gravediggers hadn’t been lazing on the grass on this of all days.
Even before Nicole was ready to stand up, they were standing over the grave, spades shouldered like rifles. So shoot me, Nicole thought bitterly. Somehow, she got to her feet, slipping a little on the muddy grass, and wrapped her cloak about herself. Stiffly, unsteadily, she half climbed, half fell back into the covered chair. “Take me home,” she said to the bearers. They hardly grunted as they lifted her. She’d never been other than lean, and now, with the sickness, she was skeletal. And they must be eager to get in out of the rain.
Gaius Calidius Severus was sitting in the tavern, holding the fort as he’d promised. He’d acquired reinforcements since she left: a vaguely familiar man of about his father’s age. They’d been drinking wine: there were cups in front of them. Maybe they’d put brass in the cash box, maybe not. Nicole wasn’t going to worry about it. Calidius Severus was doing her a favor by being here at all. Two cups of wine, or however many it turned out to be, was small enough price to pay.
He greeted Nicole with a smile that seemed just a little bit too glad. He was just a boy, after all, and she’d left him with a heavy responsibility. “Julia and Lucius are asleep, Mistress Umma,” he said. “They woke up for a while, and I gave them some gruel and a little bit of bread sopped in wine, and they even ate a bite each. But they’re still pretty weak. The least little thing flattens them.”
Nicole drew a faint sigh. She hadn’t known till she heard him, that she’d been expecting him to tell her they were worse; they were sinking, they’d soon be dead. But they were better. Notably so, if they were eating and drinking, however little they might be keeping down. “The least little thing flattens me,” she said, “and I was getting better days before they did.”
Gaius Calidius Severus nodded. His relief was still palpable. It made him seem to take refuge in a change of subject. “Mistress Umma, you know Gaius Attius Exoratus, don’t you? He came to call on me, and I asked him over here.”
Nicole remembered the face: he’d eaten and drunk in the tavern a few times, though he wasn’t a regular. She hadn’t remembered his name, if she’d ever heard it. But she could say “Of course I do,” and even sound as if she meant it.
Attius Exoratus nodded. “Aye, we know each other, lad.” His voice was a bass rumble, like falling rocks. “I’d have come anyhow, whether you chanced to be here or not.” He pinned Nicole with a hard stare under a bristle of brows. “It’s a cursed shame he’s gone, Umma. That’s all I’ve got to say. He was one of the good ones.”
Titus Calidius Severus, he meant; he had to mean. “That he was.” Nicole got herself some wine — dipping up a cup seemed so natural now, she didn’t even notice herself doing it half the time — and stood next to the two men. “That he was,” she repeated quietly.
“And young Calidius tells me you just put your daughter in the ground.” Gaius Attius Exoratus let out a long sigh. “Life’s hard. I’m sorry for that, too.”
“Thank you,” Nicole said. There seemed to be more that she should say, but she couldn’t imagine what.
He didn’t seem to find her response inadequate, at least. “We’ve all done too much mourning lately,” he said. Nicole nodded, unable to find words to respond to that. He went on, “I only came by to tell you, it did my heart good to see how happy you made my old mate. We fought side by side, you know, and mustered out within a couple of weeks of each other, then moved here from the legionary camp down the river.” He pointed east. “He was as happy a man as I ever saw, when this lad’s mother was alive. I was afraid he’d never be happy again after he lost her. But you took care of that. He’s not here anymore to thank you for it, so I reckoned somebody ought to.”
“He did let me know,” Nicole said. That was true for her, and had surely been true for Umma. Still, there was more that needed saying, and this time she managed to say it. “It’s very good of you to make sure it’s taken care of.”
“I know how these things should go,” Attius said.