Well, and so be it. She’d been alone when Frank deserted her, and she’d handled that just fine. She could deal with a frustrated and clearly dysfunctional family – after all, it wasn’t her family.

As she’d expected, after a while they ran out of things to shout at her and started shouting at one another. When that palled without her taking notice, they gave up at last and left her, as Marcus Flavius Probus said, to her self-inflicted fate. The peace and quiet then were heavenly, and barely disrupted even by the stream of customers that came flooding in. Nicole greeted them with a wide and welcoming smile, and the first few got their orders at half price, just for being there and not being Umma’s relatives. By that time Julia had come out of hiding and gone to work, so quietly Nicole couldn’t find it in herself to ream the woman out with proper ferocity. She settled for a frown and a hard glance, which made Julia flinch rather more than was strictly necessary – slave reflexes, consciously suppressed as she remembered, yet again, that she was free.

Even after the rain stopped, the street in front of the tavern remained a wallow for several days. Lucius thought that was wonderful, and went out and coated himself in mud from head to foot. Nicole had been more affected by the relatives’ visit than she knew at the time; she had no patience left for muddy small boys. The first time he came in black to the eyes and slopping odorous bits on her freshly swept floor, she yelled at him. When that didn’t take the self-satisfied gleam out of his eye, she spanked him. She didn’t feel nearly so guilty about that now as she had the first time. It was, she told herself, like a rolled-up newspaper for a puppy: a nonthreatening but necessary form of discipline.

She poured a bucket of water over him, and then another one, and then felt like giving him another spanking, because that water didn’t flow at the turn of a tap. She or Julia had to lug it from a fountain. Two buckets’ worth of water didn’t make him anything close to clean, either.

It was, fortunately, a men’s day at the baths. In lieu of running Lucius through a car wash, that would have to do. She went next door to see if Sextus Longinius lulus would take him. The thought of sending Lucius out by himself didn’t appeal to her in the least. City upbringing, city paranoia: maybe it wasn’t necessary here, but then again maybe it was.

When she came in and paused to let her eyes adjust to the dimmer light, the tinker was tapping a dented pot back into shape on a form. He smiled at her. She smiled back. But when she explained what she’d come for, he shook his head. “No, Umma, sorry. Not today. I’m backed up for a week as it is.” She could see it, too: heaps and piles of broken or dented utensils, enough to fill the tiny space and spill out into the room behind. He wasn’t insensitive to her disappointment: he said, “I really am sorry. I wish I could, mind, a bath would be nice. But I can’t. Why don’t you try Calidius Severus across the street?”

“I guess I’ll do that,” she said with something less than enthusiasm. It was embarrassing to keep asking favors of the fuller and dyer. Still, she thought, they were friends even if they weren’t lovers – they were that, weren’t they? If a friend wouldn’t do you a favor, then who would?

She picked her way down the muddy sidewalk back to the tavern. Lucius, for a wonder, hadn’t gone anywhere. He was in the public room seeing how many stools he could pile on top of one another, while Julia rather irresponsibly ignored him. Nicole rescued number four just before it toppled onto a customer’s head, snagged Lucius, and dragged him out into the street.

Lucius didn’t look at all disconcerted by her speed or her vehemence. Adventures were all to the good, he seemed to think, and it was an adventure to get magnificently muddy and throw his mother into fits. Her dire threats about what would happen to him if he “accidentally” fell off the stepping stones into the mud would have got a restraining order slapped on her by any judge in the United States. That meant they were – barely – strong enough to make him notice them.

Titus Calidius Severus was pulling a soggy bolt of linen from a wooden tub when Nicole and Lucius walked into the shop. His arms were blue to the elbow. “Well, well,” he said, laughing as he took in Lucius’ grimy hide. “Have you decided to turn Nubian on us, you young rascal?”

“Maybe.” Lucius sounded as if he liked the idea. He pointed to the dye on Calidius’ forearms. “So what are you? A mighty warrior Celt?”

That didn’t mean anything to Nicole, but it made the fuller and dyer laugh louder. “Maybe I am,” he said. “Maybe I’ll chop off your head and hang it over my door there. What do you think of that?”

“Yes!” Lucius agreed with enthusiasm.

Violence. Nicole’s lip started to curl, until she remembered some of the dire threats she’d laid in Lucius before she trusted him on the stepping stones. That made her blush faintly, which didn’t help her mood a bit. “If you’re going to the baths today,” she said to Titus Calidius Severus, “would you be so kind as to take him with you and get him back to the color he’s supposed to be?” She didn’t call Calidius by his praenomen; that would have felt like using it to unfair advantage.

He nodded at once, with every appearance of goodwill. “It’s been a while since I took him, after all, hasn’t it? We could both use a good scrubbing.” He grinned at Lucius. Lucius grinned back. Calidius Severus’ expression changed slightly. “My, and aren’t you getting to be a handsome boy? Just as well your mother sends you with a chaperon. A good-looking boy in the baths by himself – that’s asking for trouble.”

Lucius shrugged and looked bored. Calidius Severus sighed a little. “Well. You’re young yet. That’s to the good, maybe.” To Nicole he said, “Don’t you worry, Umma. I’ll keep a steady eye on him and keep him safe, and bring him back as good as new.”

Nicole shivered deep down inside. She’d only been worried about Lucius alone in the streets. She hadn’t thought about what might happen in the baths. She should have, too. She’d seen what kind of place they were. If prostitutes came and went there on men’s days, if women gossiped about masseurs who provided extra services on the side, why wouldn’t men who went after boys – chkkenhawks. a gay friend of hers had called them – also prowl there? She looked at Titus Calidius Severus with a new respect. “Thank you very much, Titus,” she said, deliberately and carefully calling him by his praenomen.

He noticed. He smiled, nodded. He didn’t press his advantage. Was he really as sensible as that?

Yes, she thought. He was. Which put him several steps ahead of most of the men she’d known in Indiana and California, let alone Carnuntum.

“Come on, Lucius, let’s get you cleaned up,” he said. Lucius came without hesitation or backtalk. Calidius Severus’ tone was familiar to Nicole, though she needed a moment to place it. When she did, she snorted. In 1950s war movies that even sleazy cable stations didn’t show till three in the morning, the tough sergeant used precisely that tone with the green kid. It worked like a charm in the movies. Nicole had never imagined that it could work so well in reality.

Titus Calidius Severus called upstairs to Gaius to explain where he was going and why. His son came down yawning and chewing on a hunk of bread. He shoved the last of it into his mouth and settled without complaint to the work that his father had left – because the work, of course, would not go away.

Titus and Lucius and Nicole left him to it. After the reeking dimness of the shop, the open air was blinding bright and dizzyingly clean.

Lucius, whose young eyes adjusted fastest, tugged at Nicole’s arm and pointed across the street. “Look, Mother! Someone’s written something on our front wall.”