Harry Turtledove: Gunpowder Empire

But none of that was the worst. If she and Jeremy were stuck in Polisso, they would have had to become part of the city in a way they weren't now. They would have had to make real friends, good friends, here. If they didn't, they wouldn't have any. How were you supposed to live your life without friends?

When you made friends, though, you went out with them and you did what they did. If they wanted to go to the arena to watch beasts fight or gladiators go at each other, how could you say no all the time? They thought that was good, clean fun. If you didn't, how could you stay friends?

It got worse, too. She and Jeremy were both young. If they had to stay in Polisso, they might-they probably would-end up getting married. Marriages here were usually business arrangements, not love matches like the ones in the home timeline. Even so, how could you live with somebody when you couldn't tell that person what you really were?

And here, if she and Jeremy did marry, they would be bound to marry somebody with money. In Polisso, if you had money, you had slaves. That would have put them nose to nose with something they fought to keep at arm's length. Amanda didn't see any way she could persuade a Roman husband slavery was wrong. Since she couldn't… Could she be a good mistress? Maybe. If she were, would it make her feel any less unclean? She doubted that. She doubted it very much.

She also had one worry that Jeremy didn't. What would having a baby be like in this world without hospitals? Women did it all the time. Polisso wouldn't have had any people if they didn't. But mothers died here from childbed fever. Babies died, too. More than a third of the babies born in Agrippan Rome didn't live to be five years old. How could you love a child if you knew you might lose it the next minute? How could you not love it if it was yours? She didn't see an answer to either question.

Now she wouldn't have to look for one. “Let's go upstairs,” she said.

“Okay.” Jeremy's voice came from far away. Had he been thinking about all the reasons he was glad not to be trapped here? Amanda wouldn't have been surprised.

The door slid shut after she and Jeremy left the secret part of the basement. There they were, back in Agrippan Rome. Amanda sighed. Staying here for another week or two was going to be hard. But staying forever would have been a lot harder.

Jeremy was playing catch in the street with Fabio Lentulo and trying not to get smashed when he heard somebody say, “They're going!” He didn't have much chance to worry about who was going. The apprentice had thrown the ball so that he had to catch it without banging into either a mule or the soldier who was leading it.

“Watch yourself, kid,” the soldier growled with the sour disapproval so many grownups had for anybody younger than they were.

“Sure,” Jeremy said. Even if the soldier's whiskers were turning gray, he could probably whale the stuffing out of somebody who didn't fight for a living. Besides, Jeremy had just made a great catch. He wasn't going to be fussy with anybody about anything.

He tossed the ball high in the air, so that Fabio Lentulo would have time to run under it-if he ran right into the middle of another bunch of soldiers. He didn't. One of the soldiers picked up the ball and flipped it to him. “Thanks,” he said- the legionary could have kept it just as easily.

When he threw it back, though, he tried to take Jeremy's head off with it. Jeremy had won a point in the game, and he didn't like it. Jeremy won another point-or at least kept from losing one-when he snatched the ball out of the air. Fabio Lentulo sent him a gesture that was anything but complimentary.

“Same to you, with olive oil on it,” Jeremy said. They both laughed. Buddies could insult each other as much as they pleased. But if Jeremy had aimed his gibe at Fabio Lentulo's mother instead of the apprentice, he would have had a fight on his hands. In some ways, Polisso and Los Angeles weren't so different.

Two men came up the street toward Jeremy and Fabio Lentulo. One of them said, “Are you sure they're pulling out?”

“By the gods, you can go up on the wall and see for yourself if you don't believe me,” the other man replied.

“They haven't got the nerve to stay and fight it out,” the first man said.

His friend shrugged. “I don't know about that. If you ask me, they're going off to fight the relieving army when it's still too far from Polisso for the garrison here to pitch into 'em from behind.“

They walked on, still arguing in a good-natured way. “Well?” Fabio Lentulo said. “You going to throw me the ball or not?”

“Here.” Jeremy tossed it to him, soft enough for a six-year-old to catch. “Did you hear what they said? Sounds like the Lietuvans are leaving.”

“To the crows with the Lietuvans.” Fabio Lentulo threw the ball so that Jeremy would have to splash through a puddle to go after it.

But he didn't go after it. He just let it fall with a thump. It didn't have much bounce to it. He said, “If they let me, I'm going up onto the wall. I don't know about you, but I want to see King Kuzmickas leave.”

“Why? So you can wave bye-bye?” Fabio Lentulo knew Jeremy and Amanda had gone out to give the King of Lietuva presents.

Jeremy sent back the gesture the apprentice had given him. “No, so I can be sure he's gone. Or didn't you worry about a cannonball coming down on your head or getting sold into slavery?”

“Me, I kept hoping a cannonball would come down on my boss's head. He already treats me like a slave,” Fabio Lentulo answered. He probably wasn't kidding, or not very much. An employer could order an apprentice around much as a master could order a slave. The difference was, an apprentice became his own man once he was trained. A slave was never his own man; he always belonged to somebody else. Fabio Lentulo went on. “Besides, none of that stuff happened to him. His place didn't get hit even once.“ He spread his hands, as if to say, What can you do?

“All right. I still want to see Kuzmickas leave, so I'm going up on the wall,” Jeremy said. “Are you coming?”

“Oh, I'll come,” Fabio Lentulo said. “You're not going to be able to go around town telling people I'm yellow.” Jeremy's challenge would have got a lot of young men in Los Angeles to go with him. Here in Polisso, any of them would have risen to it as automatically as a trout rising to strike at a fly. People here did behave in a more macho way than they did in the home timeline. They thought that was what they were supposed to do, and they did it.

In school, Jeremy had learned nothing could travel faster than light. He didn't think his teachers had heard about the speed with which rumor could spread. He and Fabio Lentulo were part of a line going up the stone stairs to the top of the wall. Grumbling soldiers herded the civilian gawkers along like so many sheep. “Yes, the barbarians are pulling out,” they said. “You can take your gander, if it makes you happy. Mind you don't get your stupid heads shot off. The Lietuvans haven't quit fighting, and they aren't gone yet.”

Jeremy discovered how true that was a moment later. A Lietuvan soldier popped up out of a trench, aimed a matchlock in his general direction, and pulled the trigger to bring the burning match down on the priming powder. The priming powder caught and set off the main charge. The musket went off. A great cloud of gray smoke made the musketeer vanish. The bang of the gun reached Jeremy half a second later- about the same time as the bullet whined past his head. He ducked. He couldn't help it.

When he looked behind him, he saw that Fabio Lentulo had ducked, too. That made him feel better. Now his friend couldn't tease him for being a coward, either. And why did such teasing matter to him? Maybe he had more macho in himself than he wanted to admit.