7
Nicole was surprisingly glad to see the street she’d come to think of as her own, and the tavern that technically was her own, even after the pleasure of a bath and a romp through the market and the rich indulgence of sticky buns. She’d even got the baker to throw in a basket with a broken handle, no good for displaying his wares but more than good enough for bringing a sampling home. She’d eaten one, too, and Aurelia had had two and was sulking slightly at being denied a third.
Aurelia scampered through the door ahead of her. She paused, licking sticky fingers and letting her eyes adjust. “Hello!” she sang out to the dark within. “I’m — “
She stopped. Her eyes made out shapes that came clearer the longer she stared.
“Oh, hello, Umma,” Ofanius Valens said. He was sitting on a stool. Julia was sitting on his lap. His right arm circled her waist. His left arm had hiked her tunic up to her knees so his hand could slide between her legs. Her tongue was doing something monstrously lewd to his ear.
Lucius rampaged up and down behind them, joyfully oblivious, or else so used to the sight that he didn’t even think it was worth noticing. He swept his toy sword hither and yon, leaping and stabbing the defenseless air. “Take that, you miserable barbarian! Ha!” He whooped and brandished the sword. “By Jupiter! Right in the guts!” What Julia was doing with Ofanius Valens didn’t bother Lucius.
It bothered Nicole. It bothered her a lot. “What’s going on here?” she demanded.
Aurelia ran right past the two of them, sparing a giggle that told Nicole she knew exactly what was going on, she thought it was mildly amusing, but it wasn’t half as interesting as the game her brother was playing. She sprang into that with a whoop and a cry, not even needing a toy sword to become a fearless warrior maiden. Still whooping, they rollicked and scrambled up the stairs.
Julia didn’t move from Ofanius Valens’ lap. His hand went right on rubbing and fondling. Nicole watched it move rhythmically up and down, up and down, raising and lowering her filthy tunic. “Now, now, don’t worry,” he said easily. “I wasn’t going to cheat you.” He tilted his head toward the table. “See, there’s your two sesterces, and Julia’llget her dupondius once we’ve gone upstairs, if she’s as lively as she usually is.”
“I’ll do my best,” Julia purred. The purr and the smile that followed were polished to a hard, clear — professional — gloss. Ofanius Valens’ hand pumped harder. She rocked with it, still smiling, with little, audible catches of breath that Nicole would have bet were as calculated as the rest.
They both took the whole thing completely for granted. Nicole didn’t. Julia had been pleased with herself yesterday: she’d made a couple oidupondii for herself. How had she made them? The usual way, she’d said. Was this the usual way? Prostituting herself? Umma must have — no, not looked the other way. Where Julia might get a dupondius for herself if the customer — if the John, mincing no words — liked her, Umma raked in two sesterces every time her slave walked up those stairs. That was good money: more than she took in for some meals. Of course, it also made her a small-time madam. Umma obviously hadn’t cared about that. Nicole did.
Every time she began to have the shaky beginnings of a feel for the way Carnuntum worked, something like this slapped her in the face. Julia was at Ofanius Valens’ ear again, flicking her tongue down the curve of it. “Stop that!” Nicole burst out, her voice thick with revulsion. Ofanius blinked at her through a visible haze of horniness. Julia blinked in the exact same way, through the exact same haze. They honestly, incontestably did not understand what Nicole’s problem was. “Stop that,” she repeated a little more quietly. “Julia, get off him.”
Julia did as she was told, automatically, like a child or a well-trained animal. The haze retreated, though enough of it lingered that she kept a hand on Ofanius Valens’ shoulder, kneading it absently as she frowned at Nicole. “What’s the matter, Mistress?” she asked in the tone that had become too familiar, that didn’t quite dare ask, What’s wrong with you? You’re acting weird again! “You see he’s already paid. Like he says, we weren’t going to steal from you. Or are you worried about yesterday? I put the two sesterces in the box each time, just like always. Didn’t you find them when you reckoned up the accounts?”
Nicole hadn’t known how to reckon up the accounts, or how much to look for, either. She couldn’t say so. She concentrated on the other thing, the more important thing. “Julia, look at me. “Julia was already doing that. Her expression made it clear that she knew it and was refraining from commenting on it. Nicole took a steadying breath and went on with the speech she’d prepared: “You don’t have to go to bed with him, Julia. You don’t ever have to go to bed with anybody for money again. That’s all done now.” She glared at Ofanius Valens. “Food is one thing. Wine is another.” It wasn’t anything she wanted, but it also didn’t seem to be anything in which she had a choice. Here… “This is something else altogether. It’s over, done, finished. Not in this place, ever again. Do you understand me?”
Ofanius Valens scratched his head. Nicole flinched inside for reasons that had nothing to do with the business at hand. He couldn’t possibly know about those reasons, or the flinch, either.
He seemed to decide, after a moment’s puzzlement, that argument would get him nowhere. Smart man, Nicole thought. Smarter than most twentieth-century males. He was still a male, however, and he wasn’t any happier than any other male who’d ever been born about being told no, he couldn’t have what he wanted. “I don’t know what you’re getting yourself in an uproar about, Umma. Whatever it is, I guess I’ll just take myself someplace else from now on.” He scooped up his two sesterces from the tabletop, dumped them in his belt pouch, and stalked past Nicole and out the door.
“And good riddance.” Nicole turned to Julia, a smile at the ready, to receive the slave’s thanks for freeing her from that sordid transaction.
Julia gave her no such thing. Julia, in fact, looked furious. Her nostrils flared. Her blue eyes glittered. She hissed, a sharp, furious sound.
Her words were an anticlimax, her tone studiedly mild, but her expression gave away how angry she was. “That wasn’t very nice, Mistress. Now he won’t come back.”
She doesn’t know anything about freedom. How can she? She’s never had it. Nicole chose her words with care, to soothe Julia’s temper and get her thinking rationally. “Don’t worry about him,” she said. “We don’t need his business, or business like his.” As she spoke, she advanced into the room, till she was close enough to lay a hand on Julia’s shoulder. It was stiff, set against her. “I told you: you’re never going to bed with another man for money. Never again — I promise.”
Julia’s eyes widened. It still wasn’t gratitude — it was somewhere between dismay and horror. Worse yet was the gleam of tears. “Mistress, why can’t I go to bed with men anymore? What did I do? Why are you so angry with me? Just tell me and I’ll fix it. You can beat me all you like, if that will make you feel better.”
Nicole’s head shook. Good Lord. Titus Calidius Severus had thought she was angry with him, too. That had been a misunderstanding. What was there to misunderstand here? “I’m not angry,” Nicole said, just as she had to Calidius Severus. “I don’t want you to have to suffer like that, that’s all.”
“Suffer, Mistress?” Julia tossed her head in amazement. “What is there to suffer? Ofanius Valens knows how to make a woman hot.” Her hips twitched a little; Nicole didn’t think she knew she was doing it. “And even the ones who aren’t very good usually give me something for myself afterwards, because I make them hot. Now that you’ve taken another of your strange new notions, how am I supposed to get any money of my own? That was all I had, Mistress: taking men upstairs. I liked taking men upstairs.”