Household Gods

Her hand, she discovered, had risen to the side of her jaw. Damn that tooth. Tylenol would take care of it, but they wouldn’t have that here. They probably didn’t even have aspirin.

“I’ll just have to make the best of it,” she said to herself. “I can do that. I can.”

Someone opened the front door of the building across the street: a stocky, balding man with a dark beard going gray. The sign above the door read, TCALIDIUSSEVERUSFULLOETINFECTOR, all the letters run together. Nicole needed a moment to separate one word from the next in her mind – T. CALIDIUS SEVERUS, FULLO ET INFECTOR – and another to read in Latin instead of English. It came to Titus Calidius Severus, fuller and dyer – after a moment’s alarm at infector, which meant different things in English and Latin.

The man stabbed the pointed bottom of a large amphora into the dirt just to one side of the doorway. He waved and gri

“Er – thank you,” she said. Exactly how well did Umma and this – Calidius? – know each other?

Well, she thought with an i

The fuller and dyer retreated into his shop. Nicole had barely begun to relax before he came out again carrying another amphora, which he thrust into the ground on the other side of his doorway. He waved again, this time without the grin and the greeting, and went back inside. His building looked like hers: one story in front, two in the back, living quarters set over a shop. From the look of the buildings up and down the street, this whole district was much the same.

A man in a dirty gray tunic paused in front of Calidius’ shop. He hiked up the tunic. Nicole, staring in blank astonishment, saw that he wore no drawers, or loincloth either. He took himself in hand, casual as if he did this every day, and urinated into one of the amphorae. A strong yellow stream arced out and down, dwindled, dribbled, and gave out. He shook himself once or twice, let the tunic drop, and went on his way with a sigh of relief and a nod for Nicole.

It took all she could do to nod back. Every instinct of Midwestern upbringing and Los Angeles survival training was yelling in outrage. But there was no mistaking what the two tall jars were for, or that the man had simply been doing what was, for this place and time, his civic duty.

So did the next one who came by, a man of much higher social status from the look of his crimson tunic and halfway clean toga. He was as casual as the first one had been, as coolly matter-of-fact, and as unconcerned by the presence of a spectator – and a female spectator at that.

Wonderful, she thought. I’ve got a public pissoir across the street from my restaurant. That should do wonders for business.

Nicole Gunther-Perrin would have marched straight off to complain to Calidius. But Nicole Gunther-Perrin was wearing the body of a woman named Umma. Should she, shouldn’t she? What could she get away with?

While she dithered, she became aware, distinctly and unmistakably, that someone had come up behind her. Whoever it was was silent, and she certainly couldn’t see through the back of her head, but for the first time in her life she realized someone was nearby solely by smell. With a gasp she regretted as soon as it was out, she spun.

The woman who d come up behind her gasped, too, in evident alarm, and ducked her head so low that she seemed to be babbling into the loose fold of tunic over her ample breasts: “I’m sorry, Mistress Umma, I’m sorry, I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to startle you. Please believe me.”

“It’s all right,” Nicole said automatically. She was shaking, not so much from startlement now as from the proximity of another human being from this world, this time. People passing by, people across the street, were distant enough that she could, if she had to, pretend that they didn’t count. There was no pretending this woman was anything but real. Every sense said so: sight, sound, smell so strong she could taste it – and, if she dared reach out, she could touch, too. She kept her hand in a fist at her side, and, as she’d done when she first woke, took refuge in the recording of details.

The woman was younger than she was, somewhere in her twenties, maybe, and half a head taller than Nicole – than Umma. However tall that was. Her skin was fairer than Umma’s, almost like Nicole’s own. Her eyes were gray, her hair neither blond nor brown and very, very dirty, rudely hacked into a bob like those of Liber and Libera on their votive plaque.

Her hands and face were clean enough, but her bare feet were black, not simply dirty like Nicole’s – Umma’s, Nicole reminded herself. She wore a stained, shabby tunic, shabbier than any of those Nicole had found in the chest of drawers. The body under that tunic was ripe, with wide hips and full breasts whose nipples thrust against the wool, but the odor that came off it went far past ripeness.

“I’m sorry I slept so late that you were up before me, Mistress.” The young woman’s words still tumbled over one another, as if she had to get them all in before someone stopped her. “It won’t happen again, I promise it won’t. ‘

Nicole recognized that nervousness, though it seemed exaggerated. Employee in front of employer when employee was noticeably late. She knew the feeling herself.

With sympathy came a rush of relief. If this woman worked for her, then she had a guide, somebody to walk her through the things she needed to live in this world. She hadn’t known how badly she wanted something like this till she had it. She wanted to fall on the woman’s neck and thank God – or gods – for the gift.

Common sense kept her where she was, and made her say, “It’s all right. No harm done.”

Nicole had just, not entirely advertently, observed the cardinal rule of any lawyer or executive in a new job: make friends with the staff. Do that and they’ll do your job for you, show you the ropes without your having to ask.

It seemed to work with this – what? Waitress? Cook? Hired girl? Her face lit up. “Oh, thank you, Mistress! What a kind mood you’re in today.” She was almost beautiful when she smiled. With the stink that came off her, though, who would want to get close enough to her to notice? She went on eagerly, almost too fast to understand: “Shall I make breakfast for you, Mistress? Still plenty of bread from yesterday. Or I could – “

“No,” Nicole said before she fell over herself trying to please. “No, that would be fine.” The body she wore was suddenly, ferociously hungry. It wanted to be fed now.

The – employee, Nicole guessed she could call her – smiled happily. She was as simple as a child, it seemed – nerves and shakiness one moment, puppy-eagerness the next. “Good! Good, then. The children should be down any time now. I’ll see they’re fed, too, Mistress. Everybody’s sleepy today – everybody but you, Mistress Umma. ‘ She ventured another smile.

Nicole smiled back. It seemed unkind not to. The result was mildly startling: another of those wide, delighted grins. As the younger woman turned and went back toward the counter, she was humming under her breath.

Damn, thought Nicole, she’s easy to please. Men might think so, too, the way she walked. Dawn Soderstrom had swiveled her hips like that, but she’d needed heels to do it. Anyone who could manage it barefoot had determination, and one hell of a limber spine.

Once the woman was gone about her business, backfield in motion, odor, and all, Nicole could focus on what she’d said. She – Nicole – Umma – was mother to – two? three? how many? – children she’d never seen before.

And what about Kimberley and Justin, back in West Hills, back in the twentieth century? It hit her with a force so strong it knocked the breath out of her. All the while she’d been veering between panic and selfish delight, she hadn’t spared a moment’s thought for her own children. It might almost seem she was glad to be shut of them – to escape the daily drag of responsibility, the interruptions, the disruptions. Had she been hoping she’d be spared that here? Was she so terrible a mother?