Then Livia Plurabella said, “I've heard you people don't keep slaves. Can that be true?” She wasn't shy about indulging her curiosity.

“Yes, it's true,” Amanda said. That was no secret.

“Really?” The local woman's eyes, their edges outlined with powdered antimony, went wide. “By the gods, dear, how do you ever get anything done without other people to do it for you?”

“We do it ourselves,” Amanda answered. She didn't mention that they had gadgets here no locals could see. Aside from the wrongs of slavery-and its being illegal for people from the home timeline to have anything to do with-having the gadgets made it impossible for the traders to have slaves, too. Too many questions they would have to answer.

Amanda laughed at herself. There'd been answers she wanted to get. But there were also answers she couldn't give.

She'd certainly puzzled Livia Plurabella. “How do you manage that?” the banker's wife asked. “When do you sleep? When do you bathe?”

“We just do what needs doing, as best we can.” Amanda thought she could ask one of her questions now: “How do you own people who are just like you?”

“They aren't people just like me. They're slaves,“ Livia Plurabella said, completely missing Amanda's point. This had to be the first time anyone had ever questioned slavery in the matron's hearing. She hesitated. She was polite, too, in her own way. Then she asked, “You're Christian, aren't you, dear?”

“Yes,” Amanda said. “Imperial Christian.”

“I know Christians have some… some different ideas.” Yes, Livia Plurabella was working very hard to be polite. She went on. “Do Christians have some sort of… interesting notion that slavery is bad? I never heard they-you-did.”

“No, they-uh, we-don't,“ Amanda answered. That was true for all kinds of Christians in Agrippan Rome. It had also been true for Christians in the Roman Empire of Amanda's world. The New Testament didn't say one thing about putting an end to slavery. People hadn't really started opposing it till the rise of democracy in England and America and France suggested that all men should be equal under the law-and till machines started doing work instead of slaves. Even then, America had needed a war to get rid of slavery.

But Amanda had only perplexed Livia Plurabella more. “What have you got against it, then?” she asked.

“We just don't think it's right for anyone to be able to buy and sell someone else,” Amanda said. “And it's always worse for women-everybody knows that. If the Lietuvans took Polisso, would you want them selling and buying you?“

Such things did happen after cities fell. Livia Plurabella turned pale. She leaned towards Amanda and set a manicured hand-a hand probably manicured by a slave-on her forearm. “Is there going to be a war?” she whispered, as if she didn't dare say it out loud. “Is there? What have you heard?”

She'd missed the point again, or most of it. But war was no small thing, either. “I haven't heard anything new,” Amanda said. “All I know is, everybody's worried about it.”

Some of the matron's color came back. “Gods be praised,” she said in a voice more like her own. “A sack is the worst thing in the world. Pray to your own funny God that you never have to find out how bad a sack can be.” She got to her feet. “I will send the slave with the money. No, you don't need to show me out, dear. I know the way.” Off she went, the hem of her long wool tunic sweeping around her ankles.

Amanda wanted to know how she knew about sacks. She also wanted to ask her more questions about slavery now that she had the chance. But Livia Plurabella had done all the talking she intended to do. She opened the front door, then closed it behind her. Amanda sighed. The chance was gone.

Jeremy was tossing a ball back and forth in the street with a boy named Fabio Lentulo and nicknamed Barbato-the guy with the beard. Fabio was Jeremy's age, more or less. He was a skinny little fellow, a head shorter than Jeremy. He'd been apprenticed to the silversmith whose shop stood a few doors down from Jeremy's house. Jeremy had got to know him the summer before. Even then, Fabio had had this thick, curly, luxuriant beard on cheeks and chin and upper lip. Jeremy didn't know if his own beard would be that heavy when he was thirty-or ever.

Playing catch in the street here was an adventure. They had to do it over and through traffic, which paid no attention to them. The ball was leather, and stuffed with feathers. It wasn't especially round. It would have made a crummy baseball. For throwing back and forth, though, it was all right.

Jeremy dodged a creaking oxcart. He lofted the ball over the sacks of beans or barley piled high in the back of the cart. Fabio jumped to catch it. When he came down, he almost got trampled by a horse with big clay jars of wine tied to its back. The man leading the horse called him several different kinds of idiot. Fabio gave back better than he got. Grinning, he sent Jeremy running after the ball with a high lob.

His foot splashed down in a smelly puddle the instant he made the catch. The dirty water-he hoped it was water, anyway-splattered him and three or four people around him. They all told him just what they thought. Since he was as disgusted as they were, he couldn't even yell back.

He flung the ball right at Fabio's nose, as hard as he could. It wouldn't have hurt much had it hit. But it didn't. The apprentice snatched it out of the air. He grinned. His teeth were white, but crooked. “Got you!” he said, and threw the ball back.

This time, Jeremy caught it without disaster. So Fabio thought landing him in trouble was fun, did he? “Why aren't you at work?” Jeremy shouted.

“My boss is down sick, so he didn't open up,” Fabio answered. “Why aren't you?”

“I will be pretty soon, if you don't get me killed first,” Jeremy said, and Fabio Lentulo's grin got bigger. Jeremy threw the ball high in the air. Fabio had to look up to follow its flight. That meant he couldn't watch where he was going. He caught it-and staggered back into one of the four big men carrying a sedan chair. Jolted out of step, the man swore and boxed Fabio's ear. The woman sitting in the sedan chair screeched at the apprentice. Now Jeremy was the one who grinned. “Two can play at that game!” he called.

From then on, it was who could land whom in a worse pickle. How they didn't get killed or badly hurt, Jeremy never understood. That they didn't lose the ball might have been an even bigger marvel.

And then everything, even the ball game, came to a stop. A herald went through the streets shouting, “All who are not Roman citizens or legal residents have two days to vacate Polisso! By order of the most illustrious city prefect Sesto Capurnio, and the most noble and valiant garrison commander Annio Basso, all who are not Roman citizens or legal residents have two days to vacate Polisso! After that, they may be arrested. Their property may be seized. They may be sold as slaves. Hear ye! Hear ye! All who are not…” He started over again, as loud as he could.

“That doesn't sound good,” Jeremy said.

“Sounds like a war, all right,” Fabio Lentulo agreed. “Don't want any stinking Lietuvans around to open the gates at night or something.”

“Why would they want to do that?” Jeremy asked.

The silversmith's apprentice looked at him as if he'd just lost his mind. “Because they're Lietuvans,” Fabio said with exaggerated patience. “They'd rather have their stupid King rule here than the Emperor, gods bless him. They'd rather have everybody bow down to their stupid gods, too-Perku-nas and all the others nobody ever heard of. What do you want to bet they're throwing Romans out of their ugly old towns, too?“

What Jeremy would have bet was that Fabio had never been more then ten kilometers outside of Polisso in his life. He had no way of knowing whether the towns in the Kingdom of Lietuva were ugly. For that matter, he had no way of knowing whether King Kuzmickas was stupid, either. But he believed those things, because he lived in the Roman Empire. If he'd lived in Lietuva, he would have thought the Emperor was stupid and Roman towns were ugly and Roman gods were stupid. Nationalism wasn't as strong in this world as it was in the home timeline, but it existed.