[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
be so lucky.
Alarm trickled through Amanda. Official reports were trouble. They meant the
ponderous bureaucracy of Agrippan Rome had noticed the crosstime traders.
Amanda supposed that was bound to happen sooner or later. She wished it hadn't
happened while she was here. It would make life a lot more complicated.
Letting Lucio Claudio see that wouldn't help. If the city prefect asks us for
an official report, I'm sure we'll give him one, Amanda said. In the meantime,
do you want to buy the hour-reckoner for the most illustrious Gaio Fulvio?
Lucio Claudio's nickname meant dark. His scowl certainly lived up to it. Why?
Had he hoped the threat of an official report would scare Amanda? (It did,
even if she didn't show it.) He looked at the pocket watch again. Yes, the
most illustrious nobleman does want it, he said. He wasn't nearly so good at
hiding unhappiness as Amanda was. What is your price?
You know you've chosen the finest hour-reckoner we have, Amanda said. She
vastly preferred a plain old five-benjamin wristwatch herself, but nobody'd
asked her. That one costs five hundred modii of wheat. A modio in classical
Latin, a modius was a little less than nine liters.
That is too much, Gaio Fulvio's man said. The most illustrious nobleman will
give you two hundred fifty modii. Haggling was a way of life here. Offering
half the opening price was a standard opening move so standard, it was
boring.
But Amanda shook her head. I am sorry, sir. Our prices are firm. You will have
heard that, I think. Lucio Claudio scowled again, which meant he had heard it.
He just hadn't believed it. Amanda added, We have fixed prices for all our
hour-reckoners. If the most illustrious Gaio Fulvio would like something
cheaper
That did it. She'd hoped it would. The locals were vain. They showed off, and
took pride in showing off. Lucio Claudio turned red. No! he snapped. Nothing
but the best, the finest, for the most illustrious nobleman. Your price is
outrageous, but he will pay it.
Yes, he would have tried to dicker more if he hadn't known about the
fixed-price policy. Amanda hid a snicker, imagining how Gaio Fulvio would have
lost face if he'd gone out in public with a cheap watch. She said, I thank
you, and I thank the most illustrious nobleman. I will write out a contract
for the sale
You write the classical tongue? You read it? Lucio Claudio said.
Oh, yes, sir, Amanda answered. Many merchants do. It helps us in our business.
Literacy wasn't all that unusual in Agrippan Rome. In a town like Polisso,
Page 21
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
perhaps a quarter of the men had their letters. More knew neoLatin than the
old language, though.
But you are a girl a woman a female, Gaio Fulvio's man sputtered. Far fewer
women could read and write, even in neoLatin. It was a sexist society, no
doubt about it. And neoLatin wasn't valid for most business deals, which made
life harder still.
Amanda enjoyed poking just because the society was so sexist. I am a merchant,
she said proudly.
The pen, like most, was a reed with a hand-carved nib. Penknives really were
pen knives here. Amanda neatly printed a standard sales contract. She gave it
to Lucio Claudio to sign. He read it over, looking for anything wrong. To his
obvious disappointment, he found nothing. Let me have the pen, he said, and
scrawled his name in the space she'd left for it.
I hope the most illustrious nobleman gets good use from his hour-reckoner,
Amanda said, letting him down easy. Not too easy, though: He can have it as
soon as he pays.
Of course. Payment will come to you soon. I'm sure he will be pleased to carry
the hour-reckoner. Lucio Claudio got out of there in a hurry. Amanda closed
the door behind him, then went back to finish her breakfast.
A skinny stray dog gnawed at something in a pile of garbage near Polisso's
main square. It growled as Jeremy and his family walked by. When they didn't
bother it, it lowered its head again.
Poor pup, Amanda said.
She was right. By the standards of anybody from the home timeline, everybody
here was poor. Jeremy knew all the things the locals didn't have. But they
didn't know, and so it didn't bother them. Some of them thought they were
rich. They tried to keep what they had, and to get more. The ones who didn't
have so much wished for more, schemed for more. People, again.
In the square and in the roofed colonnades to either side, farmers and
craftsmen and traders sold everything under the sun. Here a man hawked cups.
Another man carried a tray of sweet rolls and shouted about how good they
were. A craftsman displayed wooden buckets on a stand. A storyteller told a
fable about the Emperor Agrippa and the beautiful Queen of China. Agrippa had
never gone anywhere near China, but that didn't stop the storyteller. Every so
often, someone would toss a coin into the bowl at his feet. A blank-faced
peasant woman stood behind a big basket of onions she'd carried from her farm.
Come evening, she'd go home with the ones she hadn't sold.
On the far side of the square stood the prefect's palace and the temple to the
spirit of the Emperor. The clerks and secretaries and nobles who ran Polisso
worked in the prefect's palace. Soldiers stood guard in front of it. Nobody
was going to give the rulers any trouble. Just for a moment, Jeremy remembered
the guards in front of the Crosstime Traffic office in Moigrad.
Dad pointed to the temple. We'll make our offering. We'll get our certificate.
Then nobody will worry about us anymore.
That sounds good to me, Jeremy said. They were in public, so he couldn't come
out with what he really thought. He felt like a hypocrite, sacrificing to a
spirit he didn't believe in. Dad insisted that hypocrisy greased the wheels
between people. If you always said just what you thought, nobody could stand
you, he'd say. And you'd hate everybody who did it to you. Jeremy wasn't
convinced.
A big blond man in a linen shirt with billowing sleeves and baggy breeches
tucked into boots held up some furs. You want pelts? he asked in accented
neoLatin. That accent and his clothes showed he came from Lietuva. Make fine
fur jacket. Marten? Sable? Ermine?
No, thank you. Jeremy tried not to look at the pelts as he walked by. He
couldn't have been much more revolted if the Lietuvan had tried to sell him a
slave. No one in the home timeline had worn furs for more than fifty years.
The mere idea turned his stomach. True, furs were warm, and this alternate had
no substitutes. But Jeremy couldn't get over his disgust and he couldn't sell
pelts in the home timeline anyway. He sneaked glances at his sister and his
Page 22
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
parents. They all had that same tight-lipped look. They were trying not to
show what they thought, too, then.
Up the stairs of the temple they went. The guards nodded to them. In the name
of the gods, greetings, one of the soldiers called.
Greetings to you, Dad replied. He didn't have to mention the gods. That wasn't
the custom for what Agrippan Rome called Imperial Christians. He went on,
We've just come to Polisso. We need to make an offering to the Emperor's
spirit.
Go ahead,, then, and peace go with you/' the guard said.
Before they entered the temple itself, they paused in an anteroom called the
narthex. Several clerks stood there behind lecterns. Only the very most
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]