Gunpowder Empire

A water jug on her hip, Amanda walked down the street to the public fountain a couple of blocks from her house. She didn't have to bring water back, not when it was piped into the place. But she or Mom went every few days anyway. Women didn't just fill up their jars and walk away. They stood around and chatted, the way men were more likely to do in the market square. Locals said I heard it by the fountain when they meant I heard it through the grapevine.

The last couple of times, Mom had sent Amanda to get water and listen to the chatter. Mom liked to go herself. That she stayed home gnawed at Amanda. Mom kept insisting everything was all right now. Trouble was, she didn't act as if everything were all right.

A girl about Amanda's own age came out of a house not far from the fountain. “Hello, Maria,” Amanda said. “How are you this morning?” She'd got to know the local the last time her family was in Polisso.

“I'm fine, thank you, Mistress Amanda,” Maria answered. She was short and ski

“What do you know?” Amanda said uncomfortably. She had tried and failed to imagine what it would be like to own somebody, or to be owned. If the prosperous potter Maria belonged to ever ran short of cash, he could sell her as if she were a secondhand car. And he could visit indignities on her no car ever suffered. Under local law, every bit of that was legal, too.

“I know God loves me.” Maria did sound convinced of it. Maybe believing that helped keep her from fretting about her fate in this world. She went on, “And I know my master is worrying about the godless Lietuvans again.”

“Is he?” Amanda said. Maria nodded. The Lietuvans weren't really godless. But they did have their own gods. They didn't much like the traditional Roman deities. And they really didn't like the Christian God. In Lietuva, Christians still became martyrs. There weren't many of them there. The handful who did live in the kingdom lived secretly, and in fear. Even in Amanda's world, Lithuania had been the last European country to accept Christianity.

Maria said, “He thinks they will go to war with the Empire. There have been more Lietuvan merchants and traders in town than usual. He says they are all spies.”

The guard at the gate had talked about Lietuvan spies when Amanda and her family came into Polisso. Had he known something? Or had the city prefect or the garrison commander started worrying for no good reason? That could make everybody in town jumpy.

“Why doesn't your family have any servants, Amanda?” Maria asked. “You traders must be rich. You could afford them. Then you wouldn't have to do work like this.” She didn't say a slave's work-it wasn't, or wasn't always, anyhow-but she meant something like that.

“We like taking care of things for ourselves,” Amanda answered. It was an un-Roman attitude, but she couldn't explain the real reasons.

Maria looked puzzled. “But you don't mind doing this?” She sounded puzzled, too.

“It's just something that needs doing,” Amanda said. If it were something she had to do every day of her life, she probably wouldn't have felt that way about it. It wouldn't just have been work. It would have been drudgery. Most of the year, she didn't have to worry about it. Maria did.

Other women at the fountain were talking about the Lietuvans, too. Maybe that meant there was something to Maria's master's alarm. Maybe it just meant they'd all heard the same rumors. Either way, Amanda knew she'd have to tell her folks about it. They didn't want to get trapped in a war.

A lot of the chatter at the fountain, though, could have happened in front of the lockers at Canoga Park High. The women and girls talked about who was seeing whom. They talked about who was cheating on whom. They traded news on where the prices were good, and on who had the best stuff. A couple of them asked Amanda about the mirrors her family was selling.

“How do they give such good reflections?” a plump woman asked. “Nobody in town has ever seen anything like them.”

Amanda went into her song and dance about buying the mirrors from people who lived a long way away. The less she admitted knowing about them, the fewer really pointed questions she'd get.

“It's too bad you won't tell,” the plump woman said.

“Oh, leave her alone, Lavinia,” another woman said. “You mean to tell me your kin haven't got any trade secrets?”

“Well, of course we do,” Lavinia said. “But not everybody's so interested in ours.”

That made Amanda want to fill up her jar and get back to the house as fast as she could. But the women took turns, and cutting ahead would get her talked about much more-and much more nastily-than any trade secrets. She had to wait and smile and pretend she didn't know what Lavinia was talking about.

While she was waiting, though, Jeremy came up the street calling, “Amanda! Amanda, come home quick!”

Ice ran through her. “What's the matter?” she said, afraid she already knew the answer.

Her brother didn't come right out and say it, not in front of all the women. He did say, “Mom needs you,” in a way that could only mean one thing.

“I'm coming.” Amanda started away without a backwards glance.

Quietly, Maria called, “I'll pray for you,” after her. Amanda had told her Mom wasn't feeling well. The rest of the women would soon know the same thing.

Once Amanda got out of earshot of them, she asked, “What is it? How bad is it?”

“Dad thinks it's her appendix,” Jeremy answered. “All the pain is here now.” He rested his hand between his right hipbone and his belly button, then went on, “She'll have to go back and have it out. That's not something to take care of here. They're sending a chamber now, down in the subbasement. He'll go back with her, then come here again as soon as she's okay.”

Amanda nodded. “That's fine. We can manage by ourselves for a couple of days, or whatever it takes. I just want to make sure Mom's all right.”

Her mother didn't look all right, or anywhere close to it. By the dark circles under her eyes, the pain wasn't just in one place now. It was worse than it had been, maybe a lot worse. But she tried hard to stay cheerful. She kissed Amanda and said, “I'll be fine. If it is appendicitis, they won't have any trouble fixing it once I get back to the home timeline.”

Dad and Jeremy and Amanda all helped her down to the subbasement. The chamber appeared in the room fifteen minutes later. Dad and the operator eased Mom inside. Dad said, “I'll send a message as soon as we know for sure, and I'll be back as fast as I can.”

“Okay,” Amanda and Jeremy said together. The chamber door slid shut. A moment later, the chamber disappeared. Amanda looked at Jeremy. He was looking back at her. For a little while, they were on their own.

Five

Jeremy thought people were looking at him. He had to go out in Polisso and pretend everything was normal. Mom and Dad had been gone for only a few hours. Jeremy felt as if his shield against the world were gone, too. Responsibilities weighed a million kilos. If he made a bad mistake, he couldn't pass any part of it on to someone else. It was his.

And he worried about Mom. Appendicitis was something simple enough to fix on the home timeline. But all the same, even doctors said the only minor surgery was surgery you didn't have to have. If something went wrong… Or if it turned out not to be appendicitis, but something worse…

He wouldn't think about that. He told himself so, again and again. It was like trying not to think of a green-and-orange zebra. You could tell yourself you wouldn't. You could tell yourself all sorts of things. The thought kept returning just the same.