Free Floralia by J. L. Farris Page B

not unlike a crown. Some even wore flowery masks: either something made from wood, plaster or leather and painted with vibrant floral motifs, or a mask of actual flowers arranged cleverly.
    Livia saw hares and rabbits darting amongst skirts; goats, left to their own devices, where rooting through fallen flowers and foodstuffs. Revellers staggered to and fro, joyful with wine and merriment, and dancers moved to the music in formations and in pairs – and the music! One could not walk a dozen feet through the Floralia festivities without coming upon a band or a musician of some sort, playing lively and merry music – there were thudding tympans and jangling tambourines, shrilling double-flutes and Pan-pipes, ululating great horns and thrumming citharas.
    One musician in particular drew a second look from Livia : he was a tall young man – a citharode – with dark eyes and a tangle of black, curly hair.
    He was alone on the small platform, sitting on a high tripod stool and strumming away gently at his highly polished cithara. With a voice like silver he sung a sweet but sorrowful paean, and his long fingers worked their deft magic, strumming out a beautiful strain. He was making the cithara weep, as the poets might say, and a small crowd of people had gathered around him, watching and listening in quiet wonder. Neither his voice nor his chords were loud, but they seemed to reach Livia’s ears over the noise and the tumult of the celebrations without effort. He took a moment to look out on his audience as he sang and thrummed, and his dark gaze seemed, for a moment, to settle on Livia. But she may have only imagined it.
    Perhaps the most confronting thing about the festival, Livia found, was the presence of all the street women: there were prostitutes everywhere, many of them distinctive due to their masculine dress, their togas. Many still could be easily identified by their conspicuous lack of dress.
    Up on a small elevated stage, a pair of whores conducted mock gladiator combat, and it was a bizarre spectacle to see. They wore pieces of boiled leather shaped and decorated to resemble gladiator armour, but the armour did not protect the body so much as draw attention to it. One young whore with long auburn hair wore an arm-armour of overlapping leather pieces and an elaborate helmet, both of which had been painted in gaudy colours. Aside from these she was stark naked; she fought, using a pair of phallus-shaped swords, against another young woman who was outfitted similarly. The duel was obscenely lewd. Every movement of the combatants’ mostly-naked bodies was suggestive, and whenever a sword-blow struck, the scream was the sort of cry that one might hear at the brothel, not the arena. Livia blushed and shied away from the obscene performance but found, strangely enough, that she could not stop herself from watching altogether. She looked on, with morbid fascination, as the auburn-haired prostitute presented her rear end to the audience and had her opponent slap it repeatedly with her phallus-sword, bringing up a bright red welt across the milk-white rear end.
    Livia’s face, she supposed, was more or less the same colour as that arse. Embarrassed and intimidated by the rowdy and lustful audience, she moved along quickly, weaving through leering and lurching spectators.
    Soon later she found herself at a wine-seller’s stall. The packed earth at her feet was wet and sodden, no doubt from where wine had been spilled by celebrants – both accidentally and purposefully, as drunken libations in honour of the flower goddess.
    Now, Livia thought, was a s good a time as any to take some liquid courage. She handed the merchant five copper ases and he poured her a generous cup of wine, darkly red but watery.
    She wandered away from the wine stall – not too far, because she would need to return the cup once she was done with it – and took in the sights of the festival as she sipped her drink. She could feel herself