Free Saturnalia by John Maddox Roberts Page B

affectation of highborn women but rarely encountered in men except for Egyptian slaves, and this boy was clearly not Egyptian. The only concession to modesty Clodia had allowed him was a gauzy pouch that bagged his genitals, supported by a thin string about his hips. His only other covering was a gilded and jeweled neck ring by which he was chained to the doorpost.
    “Welcome, Senator,” the boy said, smiling to show perfect, white teeth. “My Lady and her guests are in the triclinium.”
    We passed through the atrium with its flanking rooms and its niche for ancestral death masks and on into the peristyle. It was usually open to the sky, but an elaborate awning, decorated with golden stars, had been drawn across it to keep out the cold breeze. Beneath the awning the pool now featured a graceful sculpture of a dancing faun, and fat, ornamental carp disported themselves in the water below. Between the pillars bronze chains supported beautifully wrought Campanian lamps.
    Everywhere I looked I saw splendid works of art and craftsmanship. I also noticed that Clodia hadn’t bothered to inlay the floors with mosaic in the new fashion. Not much point in it, since she wouldn’t be staying. All of her treasures were portable and would go with her.
    “Decius!” Clodia came for me, her gown floating around her body like colored air. She was still one of the most beautiful women in Rome and about thirty-three years old that year, her body unmarked by childbearing, hence the near-transparent Coan gowns she favored. The sheer stuff was woven on the island of Cos and the censors always tried to banit from the City, or at least keep respectable women from wearing it. Clodia’s respect for public morals laws was minimal. Her face was youthful, marred only by a certain hardness about the mouth and eyes. She used cosmetics sparingly, unlike so many women.
    “How good to see you,” she cried, taking my hands in both of hers. “It’s been far too long since I’ve seen you. Fausta told me all about that exciting business in Alexandria. The court there sounds wonderful.” Clodia and Fausta were best friends, even though Fausta was soon to marry Milo, the deadliest enemy of Clodius. Politics.
    “I am sure Princess Berenice will receive you like a queen should you choose to visit,” I assured her. Berenice was even loonier than most Egyptian royalty.
    “Come along and meet my other guests. You know some of them.”
    “Lead on,” I said. “But sometime this evening I must speak with you privately.”
    “I know,” she whispered conspiratorially. Conspiracy was something she enjoyed. “But you mustn’t bring up the subject at dinner. Oh, Decius, I am
so
glad that you and my brother have made up your silly quarrel!” She was laying it on a little thick, even for Clodia. But then she practiced moderation in nothing, not even insincerity. “Now come with me.” She looped an arm through mine and we went into the triclinium, which opened off the roofed portion of the peristyle.
    Here some changes had been made. Clodia did not favor the cozy intimacy of the common dining room, so she had knocked down a couple of interior walls and made one room out of three. As I recalled the layout of the house, she had sacrificed Celer’s bedroom and study to expand her triclinium.The couches and cushions were as lavish as any I had seen in Rome, even in the house of Lucullus.
    “Well, Clodia,” I said, “it isn’t quite as princely as Ptolemy’s palace, but it’s close.”
    She smiled, accepting it as a true compliment. “Isn’t it splendid? There’s hardly a furnishing in the room that hasn’t been forbidden by the censors at one time or another.”
    “Sumptuary laws never work,” I said. “The people who pass the laws are the only ones who can afford to break them.” This wasn’t strictly true, because rich freedmen, barred from higher office, were becoming more and more a fixture in the City.
    Some of the guests were admiring