For that matter, who could guess what diseases lurked in the milk here? Pasteurization was as unheard of as aspirin or carpets.
Titus and Gaius Calidius Severus pushed past her, not exactly rudely, and settled themselves at the table with the others, calling for wine. “The Falernian,” Calidius Severus senior said. “Why not? This is an occasion.” When Julia brought it, they lifted their cups in salute.
Her eyes went wide. Odds were, nobody had ever done that for her before — who would, for a slave? Her fair skin showed a blush as bright as a sunset, rising from the neckline of the tunic all the way to her hairline.
Gaius Calidius Severus watched as Nicole did, most attentively. If he’d been any more attentive, he would have thrown her down on the floor then and there.
Nicole coughed, rather more sharply than she’d intended, and said, “I think we all know why I asked you to come here. I wanted to set Julia free the formal way, but my brother has made it plain he won’t sign the document, and my signature by itself isn’t good enough. “ And to one damned warm climate with that clerk in the town hall, too, she thought. “So I’ll set her free the informal way, among friends.” She held out her hand. “Come here, Julia.”
Julia came, walking slowly, as if in a formal procession — or as if she didn’t quite believe it all was real. Nicole set a hand on her shoulder. It was stiff, held still by a clear effort of will. “Friends,” Nicole said, “it is my wish that this woman should no longer be a slave, but should now and forever after be a freedwoman. You are witnesses to the fact that I am manumitting her in this way, and that I no longer claim her as a slave.”
“I’ve heard lawyers in togas who didn’t talk that fancy,” Titus Calidius Severus said admiringly. Nicole looked at him in surprise and sudden, completely unaffected delight. He could have searched for a long time before he found a compliment that suited her better.
She was, she discovered, smiling widely and more warmly than she could remember doing, ever, in Carnuntum. She had to reel herself in, to remember the rest of what she’d planned. She went around behind the bar and rummaged in the box she’d found there. “I’ve written the manumission right here on papyrus: one copy for Julia and one for myself. If you please, you two Calidii and you, Longinius lulus, should sign them as witnesses.”
Julia’s eyes and mouth were wide open. “Mistress! I didn’t know you’d done that.”
“Well, I did,” Nicole said robustly, “and you don’t have to call me Mistress anymore, either. You’re free now, just as I said you would be.”
She’d printed out the manumissions in block capitals, that being the universal style in Carnuntum. The reed pen she’d bought with the papyrus sheets worked about as well as a fountain pen, except she had to re-ink it every line or two. She’d spelled the Latin by ear and by guess, but she’d seen from signs and graffiti that she wasn’t alone in her uncertainty.
Titus Calidius Severus mumbled to himself as he read one copy. “Not bad. Not bad at all. Nice and clear, nothing too pretty, no flowers of rhetoric, but it gets the job done. I’ve seen lots worse.” He seemed to be surprised, too — probably because no one expected a woman to show even basic literacy, let alone a decent writing style.
Gaius Calidius Severus agreed with Nicole’s impatience. “Come on, Father, leave off. This is no time for literary criticism. “
Titus Calidius Severus shot his son a narrow glance, but he didn’t seem inclined to pull rank. “No, it’s not, is it? Umma, where’s the pen and ink?” Nicole brought them to him. He signed his name on each sheet of papyrus, and his son followed suit. Both of them wrote with great labor and effort, tongues stuck out, as if they were a pair of second-graders. Nicole couldn’t have proved they weren’t, either, not by their handwriting. Which of them had the more painful scrawl was hard to judge, but neither would be entering a calligraphy contest any time soon.
Sextus Longinius lulus couldn’t write at all. He made his mark instead, a sprawling Roman numeral six — VI — for Sextus. The Calidii Severi witnessed it. There didn’t appear to be any stigma attached to his illiteracy, no patronizing looks or one-syllable explanations. Some people wrote. Most didn’t. That was the way the world was.
Once the documents were signed, witnessed, and duly executed, Nicole handed one copy of the manumission to Julia. “Here you are,” she said. “I don’t think we can get much more official than this, not without Brigomarus. Head up, now, and eyes front. You’re a free woman.”
Everybody clapped and cheered as if at a play. Julia clutched her sheet of papyrus in stiff fingers. She looked glad — oh yes, very glad indeed. But apprehensive, too, if not outright terrified.
Maybe she had a point, at that. She’d been dubious about the idea from the beginning; had done her best to impress on Nicole that freedom wasn’t a purely abstract thing. It meant changes, profound ones, in her status, in her position, in her mode of living. Suddenly, she wasn’t property anymore. She was her own person, with rights and privileges, but with responsibilities too. Slaves had none of those things, nor anything else but what their masters gave them.
Nicole might have been tempted to drop the whole thing, to let Julia go on as before, bound but safe. But she couldn’t bear the thought of owning another human being. She knew — she’d known for a while now — she was going through the manumission at least as much for herself as for Julia.
“Now we celebrate! “ Gaius Calidius Severus declared. “Wine all around, on me!”
Everyone cheered again. Through the last of the noise, Titus Calidius Severus said with a degree of indulgence, “Look at the kid spending my money. I’ll have to buy the next round, I suppose.”
“No,” Nicole said firmly, squelching them both. “The first round is on me.” She filled six cups from the amphora of Falernian — yes, even for herself. She might drink the cheap stuff for meals and the middle grade the one time she set out to get seriously drunk, but this called for the heavy artillery. To hell with the unleaded, she thought. One cup of premium in the tank won’t hurt.
It was definitely sweeter and stronger than the wine she was used to. Everybody sipped slowly, with suitably appreciative noises, just like a wine tasting at Spago.
Because she’d served the good stuff on the house, Gaius Calidius Severus bought a round of Falernian, too. Left to himself, Nicole suspected, he would have been more likely to order the two-as wine.
Just as Julia fetched the cups for Gaius Calidius Severus’ round, Ofanius Valens squelched in from the rainy outdoors. He hadn’t shown his face in the tavern since Nicole had pried Julia off his lap.
Well, Nicole thought, if he did have to show up, now was a good time for it. Teach him a lesson, and a good one, too.
Sure enough, he looked at the gathering by the bar, with a particularly keen glance at Julia, and asked, “What’s going on?”
“We’re celebrating,” said Julia. “I’m free.” She sounded more cheerful about the idea, now she had a cup of Falernian in her.
Ofanius Valens smiled with apparently unfeigned pleasure. “Now that’s worth celebrating,” he said. Nicole smiled back at him, a little smugly, until he added, “You cost me the same old two sesterces the last time.”
Nicole waited for Julia to throw something at him or pick up a stool and brain him with it, supposing he had any brains north of his crotch. But Julia’s laugh was loud and obviously genuine. The men in the tavern laughed, too, but they were men. What else could you expect from them? Only when Nicole heard Fabia Ursa giggling did she realize the joke wasn’t out of line here. Local community standards.
No matter what the local community thought, she didn’t like it.
“Next round is mine,” Ofanius Valens said, fitting himself into the party as if he had every right to do it.