Chapter 12: The Archbishop’s Wife

I awoke with Nevianne’s arm cast over me carelessly. Her lips were about two inches from my ear, and she was snoring softly. That was what had awakened me.

Or maybe it was the slightly suppressed noises coming from the sex show taking place on the other side of the room. There weren’t any lights on, but the moon was high and it was shining through the open windows, almost like a spotlight on them. Houses hereabouts weren’t big on open windows on the ground floor. Such windows as there were, were small and the shutters were securely latched at night. Second floors had bigger windows for ventilation, especially given Agus’ usual summer humidity. There were burglars, of course, but there were also lots of “Cave canem“ (“Beware of the dog”) signs. You entered a yard at your own risk.

The sex show involved a young couple, maybe a year or two younger than Nevy. They were naked as a pair of eggs. The boy was slim, his body pale. He had thick black hair and lots of enthusiasm. The girl had long, thick hair that also looked black in the moonlight, a face that looked like it might be pretty, and small, perky breasts that were under a pair of fondling hands at the moment. She was straddling her lover and they were having a high old athletic time.

Nevianne poked me in the ribs. She often communicated like that. She was pretty good at it, in fact. “Don’t watch!” she hissed. I guessed the sound of my eyelids parting had awakened her.

It took me a few moments to translate from Saxon-English, so she just took me by the hair and pulled my face down to be kissed, followed by patting my cheek. “Where’d they come from?” I hissed back. “Who are they?”

“The archbishop and his wife,” she whispered. “Give them their privacy!”

“That’s not them,” I whispered. “That’s a pair of teenagers!”

“I think it’s worth learning how to do that,” she told me sweetly. “We won’t always be young, my love.”

First I had to translate, then I started to ask what she meant. Then I caught on. Old Simon had told me that transformation took a lot of energy. I had thought he was referring to the process itself.

“I think you’re right,” I told her, stroking a sweet protrusion. “As soon as I learn how to make fire, I want to learn that!”

“Not until we’re married,” she warned.

“Just learning how won’t hurt anything,” I assured her, patting the loveliest butt I’d ever seen or felt. “It never hurts to be prepared.”

She nibbled my neck in return.

Morning rolled around and the archbishop and his wife were their (very) old selves again, though I thought they looked more relaxed; it’s hard to tell when they’re that rickety. Nevy and I and her Mom and Blæda rubbed the kinks out of each other’s backs and necks. Nannakussi and family did the same, then hurried off to get our breakfast. Church floors are hard, but since Simon and Helen slept in their sanctuary too, we weren’t complaining.

There was a bathroom of sorts downstairs. We dumped the chamber pot, washed it out, did our morning business, then washed our hands and faces and shared the toothbrush. There was a kitchen area, where the Nannakussi family had breakfast waiting for us. It consisted of peaches, plums, apricots, a hard and fragrant cheese – a cross between Romano and Provolone, to my taste buds – and rewarmed bread. From the expression on her face, Chulëntët had started the fire for the bread. I made a face at her and she gave me donkey ears in return. I thought she might be lacking respect for her elders, so I thumbed my nose at her, wiggling my fingers just to make sure...

“You will learn to make fire today or tomorrow,” Helen told me, gumming her breakfast bread. I tried not to look. “Today, I think.”

“Good,” I replied. “And what next?”

“Not transformation. Simple spells, perhaps.”

I could feel my cheeks turn red. She knew I’d watched! I could tell by her expression.

Chulëntët was chattering to her nuxa (daddy) and showing him just how to wave his hand to make fire. Damned if he didn’t. Winky couldn’t raise so much as a spark, which put her in the same talentless category as me. But my servant could set fire to a chunk of maple or oak without raising a sweat, to his own great surprise.

“We’ve got to get some fresh clothes,” I said by way of changing the subject. My clothes smelled worse than I did, and I stank.

“They will clean them for you at the thermae,” Archbishop Simon told me. I was happy to hear they still had Roman baths. I thought it would be neat to go to one. “Give them to the shopkeeper inside the door and she will have them ready for you when you leave.”

I asked how much the baths cost and was surprised at how cheap it was. They were a city service and the cost was nominal – a pentanummi per person. The pentanummi was five nummi. There were forty nummi to the follis, which was the biggest coin currently in regular circulation. There were 420 follis to the solidus, which was about a half ounce of gold, .993 fine. I think the pentanummi might have been the Imperial equivalent of ten cents.