From the inside, Polisso hardly seemed a city under siege, not at first. Amanda's day-to-day life changed very little. The smoke and the smell of gunpowder were always in the air. Jeremy was right. It did smell like the Fourth of July.
Every so often, a cannonball would crash down inside the city. But that hardly seemed important, not at first. It wasn't as if Amanda could see the damage for herself while she stayed at home. No news crews put it on TV. No reporters interviewed bloodied survivors. It might have been happening in another country. But it wasn't.
Before too long, the bombardment got worse. The Lietuvans dug trenches and pits so they could move their cannon forward without getting hammered by Polisso's guns. As soon as each cannon came into range, it started blasting away at the city.
Amanda thought business would go down the drain during the siege. People wouldn't want to leave their homes, would they? They wouldn't want to spend money on luxury goods, either, would they? After all, they might need that money for food later on.
They came in droves. The people who could afford what
Crosstime Traffic sold had enough money that they didn't need to worry about saving it to buy grain. As long as there was grain, they would be able to afford it.
Livia Plurabella came back to the house to buy a watch. She and Amanda were in the courtyard talking when a cannon-ball smacked home two or three houses away. The banker's wife took it in stride. “That was close, wasn't it?” she said, and went back to talking about which pocket watch she would rather have.
“You were afraid of a sack before, my lady,” Amanda said. “Aren't you worried about one now?”
Livia Plurabella blinked. “I was. I remember talking about it with you, now that you remind me,” she said. “But now… Now life has to go on, doesn't it? We'll do the best we can to hold out the barbarians. And if we can't-then that will be the time to be afraid. Till then, no.”
She made good sense. “Fair enough,” Amanda said. Another cannonball hit something not too far away with a rending crash. Amanda managed a shaky laugh. “Sometimes not being afraid is pretty hard, though.”
“Well, yes.” Livia Plurabella's laugh was a long way from carefree, too. “But we have to try. The men expect it from us. They say they want us all quivering so they can protect us, but they go to pieces if we really act like that. Haven't you noticed the same thing?”
Amanda didn't know everything there was to know about how things worked in Agrippan Rome. She thought back to the home timeline. Things weren't so openly sexist there, but all the same… She found herself nodding. “I think you have a point, my lady.”
“Of course I do.” The banker's wife took her own lightness for granted. “Now show me these hour-reckoners again, if you'd be so kind.”
“Sure.” Amanda held them up, one after the other. “These are the three most popular ladies' styles.” One was metal-flake green, one was eye-searing orange, and one was hot pink. Like the men's pocket watches, they all had gilded reliefs on the back. Amanda had never decided which one was the most tasteless. She wouldn't have been caught dead with any of them.
But Livia Plurabella sighed. “They're all beautiful.” Amanda only smiled and nodded. If her drama teacher at Canoga Park High had seen her face just then, he would have known she could act. “Which one costs what?” the local woman asked.
“This one is two hundred denari.” Amanda pointed to the green monstrosity. “This one is two hundred ten.” She pointed to the orange catastrophe. “And this one is two hundred twenty-five.” She pointed to the pink abomination.
As she often did with customers, she guessed which one Livia Plurabella would choose. She turned out to be right again, too. The banker's wife picked up the pocket watch with the hot-pink case. “This is so elegant, I just can't say no to it. Two hundred fifteen, did you say, dear?”
“Two twenty-five,” Amanda answered. Again, what she was thinking didn't show on her face. Livia Plurabella wasn't the sort of person to make slips by accident. She'd wanted to see if Amanda would call her on it. Knowing that, Amanda enjoyed calling her on it twice as much.
“Two twenty-five.” Livia Plurabella's voice drooped. But she nodded anyhow. “Well, all right. We can do that. Draw up the contract.”
The cannon kept booming as Amanda wrote out the classical Latin. She hardly looked up from what she was doing. Life went on, sure enough. She couldn't do anything about the Lietuvans outside. Since she couldn't, she tried to pretend they weren't there.
“Here you are,” she said, and handed the contract to Livia Plurabella. The matron read it, then signed both copies.
She gave one back to Amanda and kept the other. “I'll send a slave with the payment,” she said, as she had before. “And if a cannonball doesn't squash him to jelly coming or going, I'll have a fine new hour-reckoner.” She laughed. “One thing-with the Lietuvans outside the city, I don't have to worry that he'll run off with the money.”
“Er-no,” Amanda said uncomfortably.
Livia Plurabella wagged a finger at her. “That's right. You're the one who doesn't approve of slaves. Well, my dear, if you like working like a slave yourself, that's your affair. But believe you me, the better sort of people don't.” She got to her feet and swept out of the house. All by herself, she made a parade.
“The better sort of people.” Amanda spat out the words. Then she spat for real, on the dirt in the courtyard herb garden. The idea of slavery disgusted her. Having to put up with it here disgusted her more.
If she were a slave and her mistress gave her that much money to buy something, what would she do? I'd be gone so fast, her head would spin, she thought. But it wasn't that simple. Agrippan Rome had slavecatchers, just like the American South before the Civil War. Whenever you went into a town, you had to show who you were and what your business was.
The records would go into a file. That made things easier for anyone who came after you.
You couldn't even run across the border to Lietuva, not in peacetime. The Lietuvans gave back runaway slaves from the Roman Empire. That way, the Romans gave back runaway slaves from Lietuva. You scratch my back, I'll scratch yours. And the poor slaves who wanted nothing but the chance to live their own lives? Too bad for them.
There were bandits in the mountains. Some of them were runaways. But that was no life, not really. Few lasted long at it. Army patrols did their best to keep banditry down. And crucifixion had never gone out of style in Agrippan Rome. Amanda shivered. It was an ugly way to die.
Another cannonball crashed into Polisso. Somebody shrieked. Amanda shivered again. Were there any ways to die that weren't ugly? She didn't think so.
Bang! Bang! Bang! Before the siege of Polisso started, Jeremy would have said the big iron knocker on the front door made noises like gunshots. He knew better now. The only thing that sounded like a gunshot was another gunshot.
He went to the door and opened it. The man standing there wasn't someone he knew. “Yes?” he said. “May I help you?”
“You are Ieremeo Soltero, called Alto?” The stranger was somewhere in his thirties. He was lean and dapper, and had a sly look that said he knew all sorts of strange things. By the way one dark eyebrow kept jumping, some of the things he knew were either funny or none of his business.
“Yes, that's me,” Jeremy answered. “Who are you?”
“Iulio Balbo, called Pavo,” he said. He didn't look like a peacock, but he might be proud as one. He went on, “I have the honor to be one of Sesto Capurnio's secretaries. The most illustrious city prefect sent me here to remind you that your official report is due in two days' time.”