Harry Turtledove: Gunpowder Empire

“And I give you one other gift,” Kuzmickas said. “You will have paint or whitewash in your home?” He waited till Jeremy and Amanda gave him puzzled nods, then went on, “If Polisso falls to us, paint a white X on your door. You will not be harmed or enslaved. You will come under my protection. This gift is for you alone. If we see many white X's when we break in, we will ignore them all. Do you understand?”

“Yes, your Majesty.” Jeremy wasn't sure he ought to thank King Kuzmickas for that. He wasn't sure he and Amanda ought to use the gift if Polisso fell, either. It didn't seem fair. But he wasn't sure they wouldn't use it, either. He'd heard too many horror stories about things that could happen in the sack of a town. Instead of saying thank you, he bowed.

That seemed to satisfy the King. “Go back to Polisso,” he said. “Before the summer ends, we will see whose gods are stronger. Yours may be more clever, but mine-mine can fight.”

Jeremy had to pick up the marten-fur jacket. Touching it was as bad as wearing it. I can't be sick till I get someplace where nobody can see me, he told himself again and again as he walked back to Polisso. And he wasn't, quite, though afterwards he never knew why not.

Whatever the city prefect thought, Amanda and Jeremy's visit to King Kuzmickas didn't change anything much. Amanda hadn't expected that it would. The King of Lietuva politely went on with the truce till the two crosstime travelers got back inside the walls of Polisso. Then the Lietuvans started shooting again. They fired one cannon to let the Romans know the truce was over. The Romans shot back with one gun to show they understood. After that, both sides returned to banging away with everything they had.

Amanda liked her amber necklace. She knew what her brother had to be thinking about getting a fur jacket. She would have felt the same way herself. And Jeremy had to keep holding on to it as the Roman officials questioned him about the meeting with King Kuzmickas. It seemed like forever before they finally got back inside their own house.

As soon as they did, Jeremy dropped the jacket. He disappeared into the bathroom at a dead run. Amanda's own stomach heaved as she listened to the sounds of retching.

When Jeremy came out, his face was pale as parchment.

“Are you all right?” Amanda asked.

“I'll tell you, I'm a lot better,” he answered. “And as soon as I drink some wine and get this horrible taste out of my mouth, I'll be better yet.”

“I'll get it for you,” said Amanda, who wasn't sure he could walk to the kitchen without falling over.

“Thanks,” he said when she handed him the cup. He sipped carefully. “Don't want to drink too fast, or I'm liable to throw up again. That miserable, horrible thing!” He wouldn't even look toward the jacket. “I could smell it.“

“What are you going to do with it?” Amanda didn't want to look at the fur, either. She wasn't sure she could smell it, but she imagined she could. That was just about as bad.

“What can I do with it?“ Jeremy answered. ”Even if we weren't stuck here, we couldn't take it back to the home timeline. I can't sell it inside Polisso as long as the siege is going on. Word might get back to Kuzmickas. That wouldn't be good if the Lietuvans take the town. We just have to hang on to it.“

“I'll put it in a cabinet,” Amanda said. “You've had enough to do with it. I'll shove it along with a broom handle or something, so maybe I won't have to touch it.”

“Would you?” Jeremy looked happier. Maybe it was the wine. Maybe it was the thought of not having to deal with the fur any more. It was the fur, all right, for he said, “Thanks, Sis. I don't think anybody's ever done anything nicer for me. When I had to pretend I liked it…” He started turning green again.

“Cut that out,” Amanda said sternly. “I told you I'd take care of it, and I will. Just remember, the acting you did there will make you a better bargainer from now on.”

Her brother nodded. “Yeah, that's true. But you can pay too high a price for some things, you know what I mean?”

“Oh, yes.” Amanda nodded. “I'll deal with it. You don't have to worry about it any more.” She went out to the kitchen. Instead of a broom, she found a mop. That would do well enough. She pushed the fur jacket ahead of her on the floor, as if she were herding along an animal that didn't want to cooperate. The poor martens whose furs went into the jacket hadn't wanted to cooperate. They hadn't had a choice.

There was a chest that held mostly rags. Amanda opened it. She needed two or three tries to pick up the jacket with the end of the mop handle. It was heavier than she'd thought. She could have just stooped and gathered it in her hands, but that never occurred to her. She didn't want to touch it any more than Jeremy had. At last, she managed to get it into the chest. Down came the lid-thud! For good measure, Amanda closed the latch.

She nodded, pleased with herself. The jacket was gone. It might as well never have existed. Out of sight, out of mind, she thought. She shouldered the mop as if it were a legionary's matchlock musket and marched back to the courtyard. “There,” she said.

Her brother let out a long sigh, almost an old man's sigh. “Good. Thanks again. I owe you one.” He laughed. “I don't know where I can find one that big to pay you back with, though.”

“Don't worry about it,” Amanda answered. “This is what family is for.”

“I knew it was for something,” Jeremy said. Amanda stuck out her tongue at him. Almost forgotten by both of them, the siege of Polisso ground on.

Twelve

Jeremy and Amanda both ate meat. Jeremy had never wondered why that didn't bother him when wearing fur did. If he had wondered, he would have said people needed protein, but they could keep warm without killing animals. And that would have been true, but it wouldn't have been the whole truth, though he might not have realized it wouldn't. The whole truth was that he was as much a part of his culture as the people of Agrippan Rome were of theirs. He noticed their quirks. His own were water to a fish.

Since he ate meat, he had to buy it in the market square. With Polisso besieged, there wasn't much to buy: pork every now and then, from people who kept pigs, and what the sellers claimed to be rabbit. Jeremy didn't buy any of that. His bet was that it would meow if you sliced it.

When he brought back pork, Amanda cooked it till it was gray. Back in the home timeline, people didn't worry about trichinosis any more. Here, the danger was as real as a kick in the teeth. All sorts of things you didn't need to worry about in the home timeline could make you sick here.

Even when he'd stopped buying very often, he kept going back to the market square. Women gossiped at the fountains. The square was for men. One drizzly morning, he heard a rumor he'd been hoping for: someone said the Roman Emperor, or at least an imperial army, was on its way north to fight the Lietuvans.

“How do you know it's true?” he asked the man who'd passed the news to him-one of the people who were selling what had to be roof rabbit.

“Well, my brother-in-law told me, and he's pretty sharp,” the fellow answered.

That did not strike Jeremy as recommendation enough. “How does he know?” he asked. “Who told him?”

“You think my brother-in-law would make something up?” The man with the mystery meat sounded indignant. Jeremy only shrugged, as if to say, How should I know? The other man thought it over. Then he shrugged, too. “Well, maybe he would.”

“Terrific,” Jeremy said.

“You want to buy some rabbit?” the man asked him. “If you've got any prunes or anything like that, you can make a nice, tasty sauce for it.”