The Unwilling Vestal Part 34

"True," the Emperor admitted. "Let us specify the middle stair, which has seven steps, if I mistake not. Do you agree to that?" he asked Brinnaria.

"I agree," she concluded.

After Brinnaria had gone, Commodus resumed:

"Now we must decide," he said, "what kind of a sieve she is to use."

Causidiena spoke up, her all but sightless eyes strained towards the Emperor.

"Lutorius and Numisia and I have talked over that question," she said.

"It seems to me that it would be unfair to her for us to decide on a metal sieve. They are always coa.r.s.e and the apertures between the wires are comparatively large. It seems to us that no one could carry water in a copper sieve, not even by a miracle.

"The meshes of linen sieves are the smallest of any made, but the linen does not seem to have much sustaining power. We feel that with a linen sieve not only Brinnaria would be, as Lutorius expressed it, severely handicapped for water-carrying, but that, as he also said, I fear irreverently, that Vesta herself would be too much handicapped in respect to miracle-working."

"A mighty sensible remark," Commodus cut in, "and one with which I concur. You are more of a sport than I thought you, Lutorius."

"Considering only the construction of sieves," Causidiena continued, "we were of the opinion that a horsehair sieve would be the fairest. The hairs are coa.r.s.er than linen threads and finer than copper wires and the apertures between are similarly of medium size, as sieves go.

"Besides, we have ascertained that horse-hair sieves are by far the most usual kind. We are told that in most sieve-shops in Rome all the linen sieves and copper sieves sold do not amount to one-third the horsehair sieves."

"That ought to settle that point," said Commodus. "No one can cavil if we use the commonest kind of sieve, of medium fineness and of normal make.

"As to the question of procuring one we must arrange that Brinnaria may feel wholly secure that it has not been tampered with by some enemy of hers, and, on the other hand, that all persons whatever, to whomsoever hostile or friendly, or wholly indifferent, may be at once and forever certain that neither Brinnaria nor any partisan of hers has had any access to it before the test. Have you any suggestions to make?"

"Yes," Causidiena replied. "Lutorius and Numisia and I have debated that point and have come to a conclusion which we think you might approve.

The best sieve-maker in Rome is Caius Truttidius Falcifer, a tenant of one of our shops on the Holy Street. Not only are his wares reputed the best-made sieves produced in Rome, but he sells more than anyone else and carries a larger stock than can be found in the possession of any other dealer. He is sieve-maker to the Atrium, like his father before him. His horse-hair sieves are the closest and finest of their kind. We use them to sift the flour for our ceremonial cakes. I had some brought to show you. Where are they, Numisia?"

Numisia rose and took from an onyx console a flattish dish-like basket of gilt wicker, containing a number of square cakes. In size and on account of the ridges on them, each looked much like the joined four fingers of a man's hand.

Commodus took one, broke it and munched a piece.

"Very good," he said. "If the excellence of the pastry demonstrates the virtue of the sieve let us consider it proved. I do not see, however, what the cakes have to do with it. But I am entirely willing to agree that Brinnaria is to use a horse-hair sieve made by Truttidius.

"Now, how are we to select the particular sieve so as to convince all concerned that it is a normal sieve chosen at random and not one doctored for the occasion?"

"Our idea," said Lutorius, "was to arrange that Truttidius be present with a number of horse-hair sieves, practically with his whole stock of his best, and that one of those be chosen before the whole College of Pontiffs, perhaps by your Majesty, perhaps by some one of the altar-boys, blindfolded, if you like that idea, or in any other manner which seems good to you."

"That," said the Emperor, "is an excellent suggestion. But would not there be some difficulty in carrying to the Marble Quay so large a number of sieves at once, particularly just when it will be crowded with notables and the neighboring squares and streets choked, even jammed, with their equipages? We should not want to present a numerous gang of sieve-carrying slaves. But if more than two sieves are trusted to each slave, there will be danger of the sieves being damaged in transit. We might find it difficult to select one sufficiently perfect."

"We have thought of that," said Lutorius, "and have devised a solution which we think you might accept. I have arranged to have Truttidius convey some eighty horse-hair sieves to the water-front of the Marble Quay in a flat-bottomed row-boat, such as are used for bringing vegetables to the quays of the Forum Olitorium. The oarsmen can keep the boat nearly stationary off any point of the Quay indicated, and the selection can be made in sight of the official a.s.semblage of all the Senators and Pontiffs."

"That," said Commodus, "is an excellent suggestion. Have it carried out and see to it that only we four know of it and that no one but the sieve-maker and his a.s.sistants have anything to do with conveying the sieves from his shop to the boat and that only the boatmen, the sieve-maker and his a.s.sistants are in the boat, that no one else has been in the boat. I'll detail any number of men you ask for to escort the sieve-maker and his convoy.

"I'll have the river policed and all possible traffic suspended. Any craft that are let through the cordons of police-boats will be made to follow the other side of the river. We'll have nothing off the Marble Quay except the boat-load of sieves and the patrol-boats." He sighed.

"I believe," he said, "that that is all except fixing the day and the hour."

"I suggest," said Lutorius, "the day after to-morrow, the eighteenth day before the Kalends of September, the twenty-third anniversary of Brinnaria's entrance into the order of Vestals, and, I regret to say, the second anniversary of her night expedition to Aricia."

"That suits me," said Commodus.

"And the hour?" Numisia queried.

"Noon," said the Emperor.

Accordingly it was settled that Brinnaria was to face her ordeal at midday on August fifteenth of the nine hundred and thirty-seventh year after the founding of Rome, 184 of our era.

That night Numisia, conferring with Brinnaria, concluded by saying:

"Truttidius enjoined me to remind you to be very careful not to touch the web of the sieve with your fingers. Also he says that, if anybody's finger touches the web of the sieve as it is being handed to you, you are to decline to accept it and to demand another."

"I understand that already," said Brinnaria.

The Marble Quay was that part of the embankment along the left bank of the Tiber which was used by the Emperors of Rome for embarking on their state barges and for landing from them whenever they took part in one of the gorgeous river processions. Also it was used by all members of the Imperial household for starting on excursions by water or when returning from them. It was situated below the north corner of the Aventine Hill, not far from the square end of the Circus Maximus, close to the round Temple of Hercules and near the meat market. Every trace of it has long since vanished, its precious marbles having offered most tempting plunder for builders of every century since the fall of Rome.

In its glory it was a s.p.a.ce about two hundred feet long and nearly a hundred feet wide, bounded by a gentle hollow curve along the river, and enclosed on the other three sides by magnificent colonnaded porticoes.

The shafts of the columns were of black Lucullean marble and fully forty feet high. Their capitals and bases were of green porphyry, the entablature they carried of red porphyry and the wall behind them of yellow Numidian marble. The area was paved with slabs of pinkish and light greenish marble while the copings of the Quay and the steps leading down to the water were of coral red marble, a building material extremely rare and very costly.

At noon on the fifteenth of August the area, lined all round just before the colonnade by a double rank of Pretorian guards, gorgeous in their trappings of red gloss leather, gilded metal and scarlet cloth, was thronged with Senators, Pontiffs and officials of the Imperial Court, to the number of nearly a thousand.

Midway of the crowd, near the head of the middle water-stair, a part of the pavement, ringed about by the lucky dignitaries in the front row of spectators, was left free. In it, by the water-steps, were grouped a selection of Pontiffs, all the Flamens, four Vestals and the Emperor.

The yellow river was almost free of craft; along the other bank some barges were being warped up-stream; nearby only patrol boats were visible.

Brinnaria, standing alert and springily erect, her white habit dazzlingly fresh, fresh as the white flowers clasped at her bosom by her big pearl brooch, looked like a care-free young matron who had had a long night's sleep and a good breakfast. Commodus, looking her up nd down, mentally contrasted her easy pose and the rosiness of her smiling face with the tense statuesqueness and austere, almost grim countenances of her three colleagues. He noticed that her three-strand pearl necklace seemed to become her more than theirs became the other three and that she wore her square, white headdress with an indefinable difference, that there was a difference in the very hang of her headband and in the way its ta.s.sels lay on her bosom. He noted two unusual adjuncts to her attire; a long, rough towel through her girdle and a gold sacrificial dipper thrust in beside it.

"Are you ready?" he asked her.

She looked him full in the face and slowly raised her left arm, stiffly straight, hand extended, palm down, until her finger-tips were almost level with his face and not a foot from it. Holding it so at full stretch she asked:

"What do you think of that? Am I ready?"

Commodus regarded her finger-tips, her face, and again her finger-tips:

"Hercules be good to me!" he exclaimed. "Not a tremble, not a waver, not a quiver. You are mighty cool. You've plenty of confidence. I take it you are ready."

"I am," said Brinnaria. "Where is that sieve?"

From behind her spoke Calvaster. "I have a sieve here."

Commodus rounded on him like an angry mastiff.

"Who authorized you to speak?" he demanded. "You act as if you were Emperor. You are merely a minor Pontiff. Remember that and speak when you are spoken to."

Calvaster, abashed but persistent, stammered:

"I merely offered a sieve."