Free Gordianus The Finder Omnibus (Books 1-4) by Steven Saylor Page B

stood eight feet tall, so tall that the top of its head grazed the ceiling. The thing had a stern, almost manly face and wore a crown made of serpents. At first glance I assumed that the pendulous objects adorning her torso were breasts, scores and scores of them. A closer look at the curious way in which the orbs were grouped made me realize they must be testicles. In one hand the goddess held a scythe, the blade of which had been painted bright red.
    ‘What?’ A muffled voice rose from the cushions. Caecilia floundered for a moment. The slave girls each took an arm and helped her up. She spun around and looked at us in alarm.
    ‘No, no!’ she shrieked. ‘That stupid eunuch! Out, out of the room, Cicero! You weren’t to come inside, you were to wait outside the curtain. How could he have made such a stupid mistake? No men are allowed into the sanctum of the Goddess. Oh, dear, it’s happened again. Well, by rights you should all three be sacrificed as a punishment, or at least flogged, but I suppose that’s out of the question. Of course, one of you could take the place of the others – but no, I won’t even ask it, I know how fond you are of young Tiro. Perhaps this other slave—’ She glanced at my iron ring, the mark of a common citizen, and seeing I was no one’s slave threw up her hands in disappointment. Her nails were unusually long and stained red with henna, in the Egyptian fashion.
    ‘Oh, dear. I suppose this means I’ll have to flog one of the poor slave girls in your place, just as I did when that eunuch made the same stupid mistake last week with Rufus. Oh, dear, and they’re so delicate. The Goddess will be very angry. . . .’
     
    ‘I don’t see how he could make the same mistake twice. Do you think he does it on purpose?’ We were seated in Caecilia’s reception room, a high, long hall with skylights above and open doors at either end to admit the breeze. The walls were painted in the realist fashion to reproduce a garden – green grass, trees, peacocks, and flowers on the walls, blue sky above. The floor was green tile. The ceiling was draped with blue cloth.
    ‘No, don’t answer that. I know what you’d say, Cicero. But Ahausarus is far too valuable to be got rid of, and too delicate to punish. If only he weren’t so scatterbrained.’
    There were four of us seated around a small silver table set with cool water and pomegranates – Cicero, myself, Caecilia, and the young Rufus, who had arrived ahead of us but had known better than to enter Metella’s sanctum, preferring to wait in the garden instead. Tiro stood a short distance behind his master’s chair.
    Metella was a large, florid woman. Despite her age she appeared quite robust. Whatever colour her hair might originally have been, it was now fiery red, and probably white beneath the henna. She wore it piled high on her head, wound in a tapering coil held in place by a long silver pin. The pointed tip poked through on one side; the needle’s head was decorated with carnelian. She wore an expensive-looking stola and much jewellery. Her face was covered with paint and rouge. Her hair and clothing reeked of incense. In one hand she held a fan and beat the air with it, as if she were trying to disperse her scent about the table.
    Rufus was also redheaded, with brown eyes, flushed cheeks, and a freckled nose. He was as young as Cicero had indicated. Indeed, he could have been no more than sixteen, for he still wore the gown that all minors wear, whether male or female – white wool fitted with long sleeves to deflect the eyes of the lustful. In a few months he would put on the toga of manhood, but for now he was still a boy by law. It was obvious that he idolized Cicero, and equally obvious that Cicero enjoyed being idolized.
    Neither of the nobles showed any discomfort in accepting me at their table. Of course, they were seeking my help in a problem with which neither of them had any experience. They showed me the same deference