A Long Time Until Now (53 page)

CHAPTER 31

The Romans sent another delegation, peaceful, and after some outside discussion, it was agreed they’d cooperate on some ventures, such as a charcoal burn down by the river. The Romans wanted more access to the salt up in the hills, and knew where iron ore could be found. Martin Spencer was excited at that prospect. The lathe had restored some of his faith in his abilities. It was one thing to know how to do something, another entirely to actually do it. They needed a forge. He was starting with the advantage of some hammers, and it was still a daunting idea.

Relations remained cool. The Romans kept their distance out of respect for the guns, and pitched leather wall tents down by the river woods. The Gadorth wanted to avoid the Romans, and had seen what rifles could do. They paddled across from their settlement on rafts. The Urushu were very cheerful with the Americans, but that wasn’t returned. Ten people with finite resources couldn’t be too gregarious or generous.

He still had the gladius from the dead Roman, those weeks back. As swords went, it was very functional, but not pretty. He’d seen much nicer reproductions. It had character, though. He could trace the wrought iron grain of it. As modern edged tools went, it was a piece of shit, but with enough of these and discipline to match, Rome had conquered the known world, and had been so influential he could talk to them without much difficulty.

Back home, it would be worth a fortune in any condition. Here, it was still priceless, until he could produce better steel.

The decorative work on the sheath wasn’t that great, either. He’d seen Pakistani-made knives with better stamping and fitting.

Still, it was a war trophy he appreciated.

He avoided, mostly, thinking about home by throwing himself into work. He was XO, NCOIC, assistant heavy lifter, cultural attaché and hoped to add “village blacksmith” to that.

The charcoal burn was something he knew of but had never done. With Urushu and Gadorth help, the Romans scoured the woods for downed timber from inch thick on up. With their mattocks and spades, and him, Barker and two shovels, they cleared a patch of ground, and turfed it down a foot to remove rocks.

“
Petrae
boom!” one of the Romans explained, in obvious onomatopoeia and gestures. He nodded. A big fire was to follow, and moisture-laden rocks would be entertaining but unhelpful.

The wood they broke and cut, with help from Martin, Dalton, Barker and Trinidad, into foot-long pieces that they stacked upright four high in a circle, with an outside perimeter to brace it, about ten feet across. There was a central log to support it, which they used as a depth marker for the mound. The mound was covered in a foot of earth from the center almost to the ground at the edge, with a small gap.

Barker impressed all parties by lighting a fire with a propane torch. Once there was a nice mound of coals, one of the smallest Romans shoveled them all up, carried them over the dirt cover, and dropped them into the central chimney where the center log had been removed.

It was nightfall, and they’d been eating cheese and dried fish all day. Martin’s guts were in a constant state of irritation now, and he munched some rice cake with bone meal in it. It tasted like chalk. It helped the burn.

From there it turned into a drinking contest, with raw but drinkable Roman wine out of actual animal skins. He shrugged and took a gulp from the neck of something furry.

The wine was awful. Sour wasn’t enough of a descriptor. It was bitter, slimy and tasted of leather.

Between drinks they had to seal cracks in the crust, to keep air out.

“The charcoal is supposed to cook,” he explained to Dalton. “You’re cooking out all the impurities and leaving just carbon.”

“That’s why the small air gap at the bottom only?”

“Right. And notice where they’re standing and holding hides? That’s to limit wind. Once it’s all carburized, we’ll douse the whole thing, first in dirt, then water.”

The night was a haze of carousing and work, interspersed with naps. As the pile slumped, a hole would open in the crust, and flame would jet out into the greedy oxygen. Someone would shout, and the nearest men would pile dirt onto the crack to seal it. Sometimes that would dislodge another crack and start the process again.

In between guzzles of bad wine, they managed to swap dirty jokes with the Romans.

He managed to get one to provide him the essential phrase, and he waited until the crew boss shouted, “Imple foramen!”
Fill that hole!

“Ipsa dixit!”
That’s what she said!

There were laughs. He followed up with, “What do you call that useless piece of skin above the vagina?”

Once the riddle was translated, he said, “
Matrona!
” and that got laughs, too. Then one of the Romans said something about the difference between a local woman and a latrine being that the latrine had a smaller hole and smelled better. Wow, that one dated back that far?

“I understand only half of legionary parents are married. Your fathers were married, but your mothers were not.”

That got howls of mock outrage, and someone asked if the Americans ever fucked their women in the other hole, or were they afraid of getting them pregnant?

About 0400 he realized Caswell and Ortiz were standing back but in sight, holding weapons. Yeah, he wasn’t up for anything himself, being fatigued and drunk, and no one trusted those Roman bastards.

Then someone called out and it was a frantic scramble with shovels and hands to close the bottom of the pile, and start splashing water into any burn-throughs before sealing them with more dirt.

Just about sunrise, the Roman in charge pronounced himself happy with the burn and dismissed his element back to their tents. Martin took that as leave to stagger back up the hill, through the gate, over the footbridge to grandmother’s house, or rather, his hooch, and pass out on top of his sleeping bag, fully dressed.

His last thought as he faded was that they should name the cabin “Grandmother’s House.”

Jenny Caswell barely made it through dinner and was ready to collapse. Alexander followed her to the cabin.

She asked, “You’re crashing, too?”

Alexander said, “Yes, I’m on watch at midnight. It’s getting harder for me.”

“I wish there was more I could do.” Alexander’s thyroid issues required more sleep than before. She felt sorry for the poor woman. They ducked in the real door and inside. The door even had a cat flap for Cal. They shifted around and got onto their respective pallets, and started pulling off boots.

Alexander said, “The sweetbreads seem to be helping a little. I don’t see how they’re a delicacy, though. They were nasty at first, now bland.”

“Good. It’s interesting how much effect certain foods have.”

Alexander shrugged in the dim. “Well, cutting down on starch has helped my weight.”

“That’s more likely the exercise.”

The older woman shrugged again. “That, too.”

“Did you notice how hungover Spencer is?” she asked.

“Yes, his eyes are as red as Oglesby’s skin.”

“He deserved it.” Yes, she felt schadenfreude.

“Oh? Did he drink that much?”

“Yes, but he was swapping alleged humor with the Romans. All demeaning jokes about women. Get a man drunk and you find out what he really thinks about other people.”

“I don’t take jokes like that personally.”

“To joke about it they have to be thinking it.”

“I’ve made jokes about men before. What’s eight inches and white? Nothing. Why is it hard to parallel park? When you’ve been told since you were sixteen that this is eight inches.” She held a thumb and finger apart as she shuffled down into her bag.

“It’s not the same. He’s in a position of authority and privilege. Humor works against the dominant class; from it, it only reinforces inequality.”

“I don’t think I follow.”

“Think about medieval jesters. They could mock the ruling class.”

“I still don’t follow.”

It was hard to explain to someone who didn’t want to get it, who was sick.

She moved on. “Well, let’s change subjects. We’re coming up on a year.”

“Yeah. I guess we’re definitely not going home.” Alexander sounded cold, emotionless. She really loved her family, Jenny could tell, and they were gone.

“So now we have the rest of our lives.”

“It sounds more like a sentence.”

A life sentence, she thought. “In some ways, I guess it is. What do we do?”

“I guess we need to decide if we’re going to be some sexless military unit, or get involved with families.”

“You mean relationships, right?”

“Yes, since I’m sterile. It would still be nice to have someone to sleep and cuddle with.”

“I don’t have much experience with that.”

Alexander said, “Yeah, I figured.”

She probably didn’t mean that the way it sounded.

“I mean, I’ve had lovers, but no one I lived with.”

“I understood. We’re all sort of living together now. Just without the sex and warmth. All the bad parts of barracks and roommates, and none of the good parts of family.”

Jenny said, “I don’t know what I’ll do. The Urushu are aesthetically handsome enough, but they don’t understand sanitation the way we do. The Romans . . . I really don’t like them.”