Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 135, No. 1. Whole No. 821, January 2010

Io, Saturnalia! by Margaret Maron

“Many scholars draw parallels between ancient Rome’s Saturnalia, celebrated over several days in late December, and today’s Christmas,” Margaret Maron told EQMM. “The use of evergreen wreaths to decorate the homes, the exchange of gifts, the feasting, caroling, etc. Some even claim that Santa’s red cap is a lineal descendent of the pointed red wool freedman’s cap that everyone wore throughout the festival to denote a temporary equality that added to the cheer of the season. (Incidentally, according to my Latin dictionary, ‘Io’ has the same pronunciation and general meaning as our modern ‘Yo!’)”

In a year of three emperors, my father had the bad judgment to champion publicly the cause of the second emperor and his bad judgment was compounded by a stubborn honor that would not allow him to recant when the besieging armies of the third emerged victorious.

On the first day of his trial, when it became evident that a verdict of treason would be passed against him, my father came home from court, added new codicils to his will, and wrote several letters. Then, kissing me tenderly and bidding farewell to his weeping household, he retired to his inner chamber to open his veins, for by law the property of a man convicted of treason is forfeited to the state; yet if he dies before such a verdict is rendered, he may dispose of his estate as he sees fit.

In thus anticipating the inevitability of his death, my father secured our inheritance.

My mother took this opportunity to end her own existence as well. That poor sickly lady had exhausted her life adhering to the old republican ideals of womanhood, mater and domina. She should have been the vestal instead of my aunt Statilia, who hid in a clothespress when the escort came to deliver her to the chief pontiff.

As the name AEelia Tertia plainly shows, I was the third daughter of AElius Fabius Marius, the only girl child to live past a first birthday. Each of the eight years between my single brother and myself had been marked by funeral rites for pathetic little scraps of humanity that never quite caught the breath of life; and although my mother sacrificed daily to all the goddesses of maternity, those annual beginnings of life which continued after my birth never again quickened into fruition.

My brother she handed over to pedagogues and tutors without a murmur, at the earliest possible age, that he should study all the usual subjects and be trained in martial arts and skills. One of her ancestors had been a general under Augustus, and during the reign of the deified Claudius, another had been part of the raid on Germania that recovered the lost eagles of Varus. Willingly had she dedicated the first locks of my brother’s hair to Mars, god of war.

In the matter of my education, however, she found the energy to resist my father almost to the point of disobedience, for she wished me to learn traditional virtues and to keep me ignorant of everything save spinning and weaving and ordering a household for my husband’s comfort.

“Have I not lived twenty-seven years without rhetoric and philosophy?” cried my mother. “What need has our daughter for aught beyond simple reading and enough ciphering to keep her servants from cheating her in the markets?”

“You have often praised my uniqueness,” Father said drily. “Should not AElia know how to manage her own property in case Marcus Porcius proves less the paragon for her than I have been for you?”

(I had been informally betrothed to the son of my father’s oldest friend since birth.)

In the end, of course, Father’s vigorous strength overrode her pallid weakness and at the age of four I was given tutors of my own and taught all that any boy would learn save military strategy and oratory.

In this, my father’s latent conservatism revealed itself, for he said, “While it is highly unlikely that a girl as willful as you, daughter, will hold her tongue in public, I am not obliged to encourage impropriety by training that tongue.”

With an invalid’s persistence, my mother seized upon this exception and coopted the time that would have been spent upon oratory for training me in more domestic arts. The whippings she gave me for stupidly-done assignments were more numerous than from all my tutors combined; and when she announced her intent to accompany my father to the underworld, I am ashamed to confess that my first involuntary thought was, Now I shall never have to touch a spindle again!

At that, I burst into tears, and Mother was moved.

“Do you then love me after all?” she asked, curious.

I implored her not to abandon me, but the fear that had gripped her during the past weeks had sapped her frail energy.

“I am too tired, child,” she said sadly. “My duty is with your father still. He has provided for your safety. Quintus Porcius will take you into his household until you are wed.”

Her own tears flowed then, for long ago she had woven my flame-colored bridal veil and had spoken fondly of the day when she would dress me for my marriage. Yet, even for that she would not stay, but disentangled her hands from mine and followed my father into their death chamber and closed the door upon me...

With my brother somewhere in Britannia, on the far edge of the empire, the stain upon my father’s honor, and the approach of Saturnalia, the funeral rites for my parents were somewhat curtailed. Nevertheless, my mother’s sister was a well-respected vestal and arranged that all was done with fitting dignity.

And so it was that at the age of eleven, I passed into the household of Quintus Porcius Cassius and his wife Prisca Publius, parents of the youth for whom I was intended. Because of my tender years, my Greek nurse and two of my personal servants were allowed to come with me. Those servants that had not been manumitted or otherwise disposed of by my father’s will were, of course, sold, and loud were their complaints at missing his generous gifts that this season had always brought them.

When the bearers set my chair down inside the domus and threw back the curtain, it took all my courage to step out and face my new family. I missed my mother more intensely than I could have dreamed possible. It was as if I had been sheltered all my life by an enormous oak and now that tree had fallen and I was exposed to a merciless sun. My small fingers tightened upon the golden bulla she had tied around my neck the day I was born, a walnut-sized amulet against evil that all girls wear until their wedding day. On the day of her death, she had opened mine and added a hair from one of her ancestors, then resealed the two hollow halves with wax. “He will keep you safe against the coming dangers,” she promised.

Silently, I prayed for his help as my nurse removed the thick shawl I had worn against the dank winter evening. Prisca Publius and Quintus Porcius came forward to welcome me with kisses. Behind them stood their only child.

Marcus Porcius Cassius! How tall he had grown. And handsome. Although his own bulla shone against his boyish long-sleeved tunic and his black curls were still worn long, the beginning of a beard darkened his chin.

In my mind’s eye I yet can see his friendly smile of welcome. We stared at each other in frank curiosity, having seen each other but seldom, for my mother had kept me close and he had accompanied his father to our home no more than twice or three times. In two years, we would be married, but at that moment, I was very conscious of being still a child when his beautiful dark eyes swept over me and lingered on my chest. On my flat chest, be it said, because I had not begun to bud.

Amusement broadened his smile and in a voice as deep as any man’s, he said, “Gaia?”

Until then I had felt very small and bereft, but now I lifted my chin and met his eyes. “And you are Gaius,” I said boldly.

Everyone around us, even the servants, laughed approvingly at our teasing reference to the vow I would one day speak: When and where you are Gaius, then and there am I Gaia.

I was given one of the choicest rooms along the peristyle, a room that would be flooded each morning by the sun, which was very welcome these chilly winter days. It had belonged to Quintus Porcius’s father, a wise and elderly patrician who had choked on a pigeon bone a few months earlier. Although Prisca spoke of him with respect so that I might fully appreciate the honor she did me in giving me his room, my nurse Marilla soon brought me the servants’ gossip and it was much less flattering. “Wise he might have been, but he swilled his food like a swineherd and a wonder it was that he had not choked long before.”

His death had occurred the same month Marcus was to have assumed the toga of manhood and it would have been unlucky to hold the ceremony in the fall. Instead he would wait until a more propitious day in the spring, even though he had already passed his sixteenth birthday. Marilla also told me that Marcus had thought to have this room once he was a man, but it was considered fitting that I sleep here now, with my nurse and maidservants on pallets beside me.

I quickly learned that Prisca managed her household less efficiently than my mother. The house swarmed with servants, yet the rooms were not swept every day, the brasses did not shine, and even the ancestral busts and masks that hung in the tablinum were not properly dusted. Nor did the servants hold their tongues when she spoke, but seemed to feel at liberty to interrupt with a boldness that would have earned them a whipping from my mother.

Indeed, Prisca was kindhearted and wastefully generous. My bed was softer and had twice the covers I had known before, and a heavy curtain over the doorway kept out the wind. As the winter days shortened and darkened, I was even given a brazier to warm the chamber and pure white candles to light my way to bed, indulgences my mother never allowed.

I slipped into their household like an eel into the fishpond in the middle of the garden, a transition made easier with the approach of Saturnalia. Any other time of the year and I would have been subjected to the most intense scrutiny from the lowest gardener’s boy to the head steward who attended Quintus Porcius at his morning visitations, but preparations for the “best of days” were well in hand when I arrived and excitement filled the domus. Cries of “Io, Saturnalia!” echoed through every room and each day brought fresh supplies from their country estates. Noisy geese and ducks and all manner of game birds arrived in crates for the feasting to come, along with flour, olives, cheeses, and a huge supply of candles that would be given as gifts to all of Quintus Porcius’s clients.

Boughs of fresh, red-berried holly decorated the walls, and my own servants turned their hands to making wreaths of yew and cedar. On the eve of Saturnalia, Prisca let me help her attach silver rings, candles, and sweetmeats to the wreaths that would be distributed to her lesser friends. Her greater friends would receive wreaths adorned with gold earrings and cameos carved in the likeness of various goddesses.

I had assumed my father’s wealth matched, if not surpassed, that of his old friend, yet my mother had never given such gifts as these.

“Oh!” I said when her maidservant handed Prisca a particularly lovely pendant. A large lustrous pearl glowed in the middle of golden flames and smaller pearls glistened around the rim.

“Vesta?” I asked, for I had never seen an image of our holiest goddess except as her embodiment in sacred fire.

She nodded. “It’s for your aunt Statilia. She is very fond of you, AElia, and will no doubt make you her heir someday.”

In those days I cared little about legacies. Of more interest was the beautiful pendant. It hung on a slender gold chain and I slipped it around my neck. Marilla held up a hand mirror that I might admire myself. With reluctance, I handed it back to Prisca, who said, “Your mother told me that you love pearls as much as her sister.”

I was surprised that my mother had taken note of my preference on the rare occasions when she let me play with her jewelry. “They are my favorite,” I said. “She had a ring with a pearl that glowed like the moon, but she seldom wore it. When I am married, I shall wear it every day.”

Prisca gave one of those tolerant smiles that adults usually gave whenever I said something like that and murmured that perhaps I would find such a ring cumbersome when I had babies to tend. That ring is on my finger even as I write these words. In all the years since it became mine, only once has it been removed against my will, and he paid with his life for the insult.

But that is a later story for another time.

Now, she fastened the pendant to a fragrant wreath of cedar and tied the wreath with colorful ribbons. A servant hung it among the others that decorated the tablinum wall next to the atrium. Everything looked festive, and appetizing odors drifted in from the kitchen for the feasting to come.

The natural order of society is reversed during Saturnalia. The low are set high, the high are brought low. Servants are the masters, and masters are the servants. Wine is drunk by all, and everyone feasts every night. Servants are even allowed to play knucklebones and to gamble openly, something forbidden them the rest of the year (although many there are that flout that law!). At night, bands of raucous and sometimes naked revelers roam the streets to sing hymns before the houses, and the days are passed in games and visits and exchanges of presents. All businesses are closed and no work is done except what is needful for the celebration itself. Small wonder that the household was in a ferment of excitement.

Shortly after darkness fell, I retired to my room in the hope that sleep would make the night pass more quickly. Marilla and my maidservants were soon in the arms of Morpheus, but he eluded my entreaties. Memories of past Saturnalias haunted my thoughts — my father’s measured dignity when he and my brother each wore the pointed red wool pileus on their heads and served our servants at their annual feast, my mother’s attention to every detail as she and I poured wine for them. I wondered if she had found peace in the underworld or if it was her restlessness there that made me restless now. After tossing and turning until all the household noises died away, I rose and wrapped a shawl around my shoulders. The floor was icy, but I could not find my house slippers in the darkness and I tiptoed from the room in bare feet, intending to visit the latrine.

The moon lit my way across the peristyle, and as I passed Marcus Porcius’s room, I heard low murmurs and his deep voice mingled with a woman’s soft laughter. Candlelight glowed through a small slit at the top of the heavy curtain drawn across his doorway. So! In addition to a man’s voice and a man’s beard, he partook of a man’s pleasures as well? I remembered similar murmurs from my brother’s room before he left to join his legion, and the servant who slept outside his door was no more wakeful then than the servant snoring on his pallet in front of Marcus’s room now.

I had not taken much notice of Prisca’s servants and could not call to mind the face of any who might have caught his eye, but surely Marilla would know.

When I was finished in the latrine, I peeked into the kitchen, which was next-door. The room was hot and brightly lit by both the flames on the open hearth and a candle on the work table. The cook, a portly man of middle age, gave me a friendly smile as he turned a goose on the spit and basted it with a long-handled brush. “You cannot sleep, young mistress?”

“I keep thinking about tomorrow,” I said. “I don’t see how anyone can sleep.”

I perched upon a low stool at the table and tucked my cold feet under me to watch him work.

“Have you been with the household long?” I asked.

“I was born into this family,” he said proudly. “The old master wished to free me before he died, but I begged him not to. Better a slave with a full belly in the house of Cassius than a freedman who slaves to earn his daily ration of bread.”

He placed a freshly baked honeycake before me, and as I nibbled it, he spoke of the long and noble line that my sons would continue when they were born, the gods willing. By the time I finished the honeycake, the warm room and the drone of his voice had me yawning, and I started back to bed.

A candle still burned in Marcus’s room, but except for a soft snore beneath the heavier ones of the sleeping manservant, there was no sound from within when I passed. As I crossed the peristyle, I thought I saw a movement in the tablinum where Quintus Porcius held morning receptions. The screens had been pulled aside in readiness for tomorrow’s festivities and I could see into the atrium where the moon shone through the compluvium that opened in the ceiling. Moonbeams sparkled on the fountain below. I strained my eyes and whispered, “Who goes there?”

No answer.

I crept closer to the tablinum, so close that I could smell the cedar and yew wreaths that decorated the walls. In the deepest shadows at the end of the long vestibule beyond the atrium, I discerned the dark shape of the doorkeeper asleep on his pallet.

Emboldened that someone was close enough to hear me should I call for help, I went into the tablinum and looked around. There was barely enough moonlight to make out my aunt’s pendant. I wanted to reach up and touch the pearl’s cool silky surface, but even standing on tiptoe, I was not quite tall enough. Earlier in the day, I had thought it more oval than round, but here in the dimness, it looked like a full moon, a moon obscured by thin clouds. If my aunt did make me her heir, as Prisca predicted, then this pearl, too, might be mine someday.

I was not a timorous child, but the ancestral busts and masks seemed to glare at me in silent disapproval of my greedy thoughts, and my chilled feet soon persuaded me that I had seen nothing more than moonbeams on the dancing jets of water. I retreated to my room. Moments later, I was snuggled deep inside my warm covers and knew nothing more until Marilla pulled my toes and said, “Io, Saturnalia, sleepyhead!”

One maid held a basin of water to wash my face and the other arranged my hair after I dressed. From the bottom of my clothespress, Marilla drew forth a pair of beautiful shoes made of soft blue leather and stitched with tiny pearls. With tears in her eyes, she said, “Your mother bade me give you these on this day.”

Choking back my own tears, I took from a locked chest the new tunics Mother had provided for Marilla and my two servants.

The other Saturnalia gifts — small pouches of coins — I would distribute over the next few days.

“I love Saturnalia!” I said. “It’s my favorite festival and I hope it will last a thousand years.”

Marilla laughed. “And why should it not last forever, little goose?”

We hurried out to the atrium where everyone was gathering to leave for the temple of Saturn. All were dressed in new clothes and Prisca’s hair was elaborately styled with ringlets that framed her face and were held in place by golden hairpins set with colored jewels.

“How beautiful you look!” I exclaimed and she beamed as she touched the new hairpins, evidently a Saturnalia gift from Quintus Porcius.

The morning ritual at the family altar was less solemn than usual, but I murmured prayers to Vesta and to my parents, with a special thank-you to my mother for my pretty blue shoes, then followed the others into the vestibule.

Prisca made room for me in her chair while Quintus and Marcus had separate chairs. Most of our servants waited to escort us and to clear the way through the crowded streets.

As the doorkeeper threw back the iron bar to open the tall wooden doors, Prisca suddenly remembered that she and I were to go on to the House of the Vestals after the unbinding of Saturn’s feet and she sent a maid back for the wreath she had made for my aunt. As soon as the woman handed it to Prisca, who was somewhat near-sighted, I was shocked.

“Prisca Publius! Your pearl!” I cried.

She frowned. “My pearl?”

She brought the wreath closer to her eyes and let out a shriek. The gleaming pearl had been replaced with a pearl-sized lump of white wax so cunningly shaped that no one had noticed until now. A moan of fear rippled through her servants, who knew what to expect.

Impatient to leave, Quintus got out of his chair and strode over to ours. “What’s wrong, wife?”

“Look!” she said, holding out the wreath. “Someone has stolen the pearl from the vestal’s necklace!”

“One of my household a thief?” he thundered and his eyes immediately fell on my servants.

“Never!” I said and put my small self between them and his wrath. “Marilla, speak truthfully. Did you take the pearl?”

“Nay, lady. I swear by all the gods!”

My two maidservants dropped to their knees and protested their innocence as well.

Nevertheless, Quintus demanded that they strip and their tunics were thoroughly examined by his trusted head steward. Their bodies were closely examined as well, including every orifice.

Indignantly, I demanded that the same be done to their own servants.

He held up his hand for silence. “Hear me well,” he said, speaking to the entire household. “Let the thief come forward now and you will receive only ten lashes. If you wait until you are discovered, it will be twenty lashes, and you will be sold.”

At this, the women began to wail and the men shuffled nervously.

While Marcus fumed at the thought of missing the opening festivities, the servants who were to accompany us stood naked and shivering as they and their tunics were closely examined.

When the pearl was not found, Quintus bade his steward stay and search the rest of the servants and the rooms. “All of the rooms, Cato,” he said, and his stern glance at my women made it abundantly clear which room was to receive particular scrutiny. “There will be no wearing of the pileus until that pearl is restored and the thief is punished.”

With that, he signaled for the doors to open. We resumed our chairs and our bearers were charged to walk faster than usual. The streets were thronged with merrymakers all headed for the Forum and the Temple of Saturn. Our chair rocked back and forth as our bearers jostled us around slower groups and I was thrown against Prisca, who continued to complain about the missing pearl and what my aunt Statilia would think when we did not arrive as planned.

I told her about my visit to the latrine and kitchen and how I thought I had seen a movement in the tablinum when I returned to my room. “Someone must have been hiding behind a chest.”

“You were about in the night alone?” she asked, her eyes narrowing.

“Not alone,” I said. “Someone was in the tablinum.”

“And you did not waken the doorkeeper?”

“I thought perhaps I had imagined it.”

She made a show of looking at my new shoes, then said, “Your servants know how much you like pearls.”

“My servants do not steal,” I said hotly. “Besides, all three of them were asleep when I returned.”

“Exactly,” she said and did not deign to speak again.

Despite our late start, our bearers made such good progress that we reached the temple a few minutes before the priests arrived to begin the sacrifices. We stepped from our chairs and slowly made our way up to the steps of the temple itself. Even so, we were hard pressed to find space to stand, and I could see nothing until Marcus kindly lifted me in his strong arms.

“What a little thing you are,” he said, holding me by my legs.

“I will grow,” I promised and steadied myself with one arm on his shoulder so I could twist around to see the mighty statue of Saturn, who sat tall on his throne inside the temple. A scarlet mantle was draped over one shoulder and covered his lower body. His legs were crossed, and his feet were bound with red woolen cords.

Almost immediately, the chief pontifex arrived and the ritual began with prayers for the coming year. There was priestly chanting, more prayers, the sacrifices, then the pontifex slowly loosened the woolen cords and freed great Saturn’s feet.

“Io, Saturnalia!” roared the crowd, and heads blossomed with bright red pileii, the pointed freedman’s caps that signified that all men were equal for the next seven days, slaves and senators alike.

In my excitement, my wrist became tangled in the cord of Marcus’s bulla and I almost ripped it from his neck when he set me down.

The new emperor had provided huge public feasts there in the Forum. Despite the urging of his friends, Quintus Porcius allowed us only a few ceremonial bites to stay our hunger before returning to the domus. The servants were glum and apprehensive when we rejoined them, and our return was much slower than our coming.

To no one’s surprise, Cato reported that every inch of the house had been searched and the pearl had not been found. Of course, all that meant was that the thief had been moderately clever. A pearl — even a large one — is easily concealed. New to the house though I was, I could have found many hiding places: the garden was large, the passageways had loose stones, and the same wax the thief had used to fashion a fake pearl could be used to stick the real one to the bottom of a chest or bed.

Before I could follow that logic to a useful conclusion, Prisca had a different thought. Mindful, however, that I would rule this house in her place when Quintus died, she was tactful about it. “Come, AElia,” she said. “I have a Saturnalia gift for you in my chambers.”

Moments later I was standing naked before her as a maid removed my plain white wool tunic and clothed me in a long-sleeved tunica. Over that came my first grown-up stola, a sleeveless green garment that reached my ankles and was girt with bright silk ribbons. The gold shoulder clasps were studded with small colored stones.

“You will soon be a woman,” Prisca said. “For Saturnalia, you may dress as one.”

We both pretended that her desire to please me was all that mattered, and when she tied the last ribbon beneath my nonexistent breasts, I kissed her to express my thanks. I could not tell if she was pleased or disappointed that the pearl was not found among my own clothes.

Out in the tablinum, Quintus sat in his chair of state as patronus of the house. He looked up as we returned and frowned when his wife shook her head. “Cato, bring the lash,” he ordered. “If no one will confess, then all will be punished.”

“Wait, husband,” said Prisca. “Let AElia speak of what she saw in the night.”

With all eyes on me, I described my return from the kitchen and my impression that I had seen someone move from the tablinum into the atrium.

“Man or woman?”

“It was too fleeting for me to say, but when I looked up at the pendant, I did think that the pearl was more rounded than I remembered. Was it not slightly oval?” I asked Prisca.

“It was,” she agreed.

“If it was the thief I saw,” I said earnestly, “then there are at least four who could not have taken it: the cook, the gatekeeper, Marcus’s manservant, and Marcus himself.”

“You came into my room?” he asked in surprise.

“Nay. I heard you snore as I passed your door.”

No one smiled.

“Who else in this household can prove he did not take the pearl in the first part of the night?” asked Quintus in a voice of doom.

“My three servants were asleep when I left,” I told him, “and they were there when I returned. One could not have been in the atrium for she would have had to pass me to get back to our room out there on the peristyle.”

An older women spoke for three who shared her cubicle. “My pallet lies across the doorway, master. I was awake almost all night with a toothache. No one could have slipped past without I saw her.”

Four of the men had similar sleeping places and a similarly wakeful companion, but both servants paled when Cato pointed out that this left them with no one to speak for their own innocence.

“True,” I said with more assurance than I felt. “Yet, were I the thief, I would not clear another. I would try to spread suspicion on everyone. Their very words bespeak their innocence.”

For the first time since the theft was discovered, Quintus smiled, as if remembering something amusing, but he did not explain.

In the end, there were three who had no one to affirm their innocence — two women and a man. These were Sextus, short, fat, and white-haired, a former pedagogue to Marcus and now Quintus’s reader; Lydia, a comely Greek hairdresser of some twenty years; and Dorcas, a plain dark woman whose skills as a midwife were often hired by Prisca’s wide circle of friends.

Sextus and the cook normally shared a cubicle, as did Lydia and Dorcas. But last night, the cook worked late and I had left him in the kitchen immediately before seeing someone move in the atrium. When Dorcas was questioned as to whether Lydia left their cubicle, it was Marcus who answered. “I will speak for Lydia. She slept in my bed last night. All night.”

His words were no surprise to his father. Nor to several of the servants, for I saw them grin. Prisca, however, frowned, and Lydia was careful to keep her eyes cast down. Her face was not beautiful but her hair was the color of ripe wheat and her breasts and hips were soft curves beneath an elegant blue stola that Prisca had once worn.

Lydia and Dorcas were both half a head taller than I, while fat little Sextus was at least two fingers shorter.

“May I speak, Quintus Porcius?” I asked.

He gave me an indulgent nod.

“Which is the servant who brought the wreath to Prisca this morning?”

A fearful woman stepped forward. I took the pillaged wreath from the table in front of Quintus and handed it to her. “Put it back where it was before.”

When she had hung it high on the wall, I told Sextus to bring it to me. Stretch though he might, he could not touch it. When similarly directed, however, Dorcas easily lifted it from the hook.

Quintus immediately handed the lash to Cato and said, “Take her into the garden and whip her until she confesses where the pearl is hidden.”

The midwife fell to her knees in terror. Two menservants grasped her arms and began to drag her across the floor to her punishment.

“Mercy, master!” she cried. “I swear by Vesta I did not take it. You may kill me, but I cannot tell what I do not know! Mistress! You know I have never taken a crumb without permission. I beg of you!”

“Wait!” I said, my mind racing with another possibility. “Cato? When you searched the house, did you search Marcus’s room as well?”

“My room?” Marcus turned in haughty disbelief. “You accuse me of taking the pearl?”

“The patronus bade me search every room,” the steward replied. “I do as I am ordered.”

“The fake pearl was fashioned from pure white wax,” I said. “In my mother’s house, white candles were only for the family, not the servants. Was the candle in his room white or tan?”

Prisca gave an impatient wave of her hand. “My son does not use servants’ candles. Nor does he steal from me. Besides, you said you heard him snore when you passed.”

“I did,” I agreed. “But his candle still burned and I did not hear the hairdresser.”

Lydia looked at me scornfully. “The child babbles. I do not snore, and the candle burned because we were too tired to blow it out.”

Marcus was yet young enough to turn a fiery red at her words and now the other servants laughed outright.

“The hairdresser has a tongue as clever as her fingers,” I said. “Clever enough to fashion a fake pearl from white candlewax and hide the real one in the young master’s room while he slept. With warm wax, she could stick it to the underside of his bed or stool.”

“Search again,” Quintus told his steward.

Dorcas still cowered at our feet. Tearfully, she watched Cato and the others stream toward the peristyle and Marcus’s room, too terrified to hope for reprieve.

Although the others seemed ready to accept my theory, I had misgivings. If Lydia was the thief, why did she not look scared? Why was her face serene? Then her eyes met mine, and I read there a smug taunt. I was now convinced that she had indeed taken the pearl. I was equally convinced that she thought it was hidden where no one could find it.

Could she have swallowed it? Must I suggest that she be made to defecate in the garden like a dog until she passed it?

Her hands were smooth and soft, her fingernails clean and well-kept. Her yellow hair was artfully arranged and tied with colorful silk ribbons for Saturnalia. Surely such a one would not plan to pick through her own dung.

I clasped my golden bulla and prayed to the gods for help.

Lydia and I were the only two not surprised when the others returned to say that the pearl could not be found. I think Quintus wanted to believe me, but Prisca was now ready to defend Lydia. “She is the best hairdresser I have ever had,” she said. “I pay her well and give her my old clothes. She has no need to steal from me.”

“Does Dorcas?” I asked.

“Dorcas has long desired her freedom,” Prisca said. “With what she has already saved and the sale of the pearl, she could buy both her freedom and a shop of her own.”

“Mistress, no!” the midwife moaned as Cato looked questioningly at his master.

“Take her,” he said.

I watched helplessly as two menservants pulled her toward the garden. Her shrieks echoed off the walls.

“Father, wait!” said Marcus. “Must we begin Saturnalia with such unhappiness? Can her punishment not wait until the festival is ended? Given time to think, she may tell us on her own where the pearl is.”

We held our breath as Quintus hesitated. A man of action, his natural inclination was to settle everything immediately, and I feared to see Dorcas beaten bloody until it became clear that she knew nothing. At long last, he nodded.

“Your mercy does you credit, my son. It shall be as you ask. Lock her in the storeroom, Cato. Give her two lashes to taste what will come if she does not confess, then bread and water until the festival is ended.”

As they led a sobbing Dorcas to the back of the house, Quintus Porcius turned to Prisca. “Come, wife.” He gestured to the small hearth there in the atrium where bright flames flickered cheerfully before the family altar. “Let us begin this joyful day anew with fresh sacrifice to the gods.”

Prisca opened a jar of salt and everyone in the household threw a pinch into the fire as Quintus led a prayer to cleanse the house of evil and to ask Saturn’s blessing. Mine was the last pinch of salt on the fire and as the flames danced upward, everyone cried, “Io, Saturnalia!”

Someone brought forth the red freedman caps. My heart was still heavy for Dorcas, but if she screamed when being whipped, I did not hear amid the laughter and merriment that seemed to seize everyone in a giddy frenzy. It was like sunshine after rain. I put on my pileus, but Prisca’s hair was styled too high for her cap.

“Shall I take down your hair?” Lydia asked her and suddenly I knew where she had hidden the pearl.

“No!” I cried. “It’s Saturnalia and I am a servant. Command me to take down your hair, Prisca.”

Prisca laughed. “Very well, AElia. You shall be my hairdresser and then we will both dress Lydia’s hair, for today she is a mistress.”

I was pleased to see that Lydia looked discomfited, but she followed us to Prisca’s chambers and we made her sit on a cushioned stool while I carefully removed the jewels from Prisca’s elaborately curled and pinned tresses. Then I gently combed out the curls, expecting at any moment to see the pearl appear amid her dark hair.

It was not to be, and I must have let my disappointment show, for the jeering gleam in Lydia’s eyes told me that she realized what I had hoped to find.

With a pointed red cap now on Prisca’s head, we both turned to work on Lydia’s hair. My hands were not as gentle as before and she flinched when I pulled too hard on a tangle.

“It’s like spun gold,” Prisca said as we brushed and combed. “The wig maker in Fortuna Street has a new shipment of hair like this from Britannia. Wickedly expensive, but I think I shall have him make me a wig with—”

“Ow!” Lydia yelped, pulling away from the comb I wielded. “Were you truly a hairdresser, AElia, your mistress would beat you for such clumsiness.”

“Better a clumsy slave than a thieving one,” I muttered.

Lydia managed a sad tear, and kindhearted Prisca immediately scolded me for my continued suspicions. “Was it not proved that only Dorcas could have taken the pearl?”

I remained obstinately silent and Prisca misinterpreted. “Oh, child! Are you jealous of Lydia because she has warmed Marcus’s bed? It means nothing. When you are a woman and his lawful wife, I am sure that he will be as dutiful to you as Quintus is to me. You need not fear any servant, even one so pretty as Lydia.”

Lydia clasped Prisca’s hand and kissed it, murmuring such sycophantic words of gratitude and praise that I could not stay to listen.

Out in the front garden, the servants scurried back and forth. The day was sunny and quite warm for December, so warm that their Lord of Misrule, the jolly round-bellied Sextus, had decreed the use of the larger summer triclinium for their first feast. In keeping with their reversed roles, Cato carried out the goose I had seen roasting the night before and Quintus Porcius and Marcus each bore a tray of bread. I joined them with a small jug of olive oil.

While the household feasted, Quintus retired to his chamber and I went out to the garden pool with a bowl of breadcrumbs to feed the fish. Marcus came, too, and sat on the edge of the pool to watch me scatter crumbs on the water.

“Thank you for saving the midwife,” I told him. “You were kind.”

He shrugged away my thanks. “Dorcas was my nurse when I was a baby. She helped my mother birth me. I have asked Father to free her, but Mother will not give up the money she gets for the hire of her services. And Dorcas is not saved, AElia, merely reprieved until Saturnalia is over.”

“All the same, you do not believe she is the thief, do you?”

His face was troubled as he leaned over the fish pond. “No.”

I think it was at that moment that I began to love him and I was grateful that my parents had chosen so wisely. My eyes sharpened as I took in every detail of his being — his dark curls falling over his forehead, his fine features, his manly form clothed in a boy’s white tunic, the golden bulla he would lay aside when he became an adult citizen in the spring, the—

“Marcus, tell me,” I said suddenly. “Did you drink wine last night? Is that why you snored?”

He nodded sheepishly. “More than one cup, I fear, and barely watered.”

“Go find Cato,” I said, “and bring him to your father’s chamber. I think I know where the pearl is.”

By the time they arrived, I had explained my reasoning to Quintus and he had called for Prisca and Lydia, who were still in Prisca’s chamber nearby.

“Look at our bullae,” I said to Marcus. “Both are sealed with a thin line of white wax. My mother opened mine the day of her death and added an extra charm, so the wax is still fresh and white. Yet the wax is even fresher on your bulla. When was it last opened?”

“In the spring,” Prisca said slowly. “When the grandfather died, I added one of his hairs that Marcus might gain his wisdom.”

As Quintus held out his hand for Marcus’s bulla, Lydia made a dash for the doorway, but Cato caught her by her long yellow hair and held on till she sank to the floor and began to wail.

White-faced, Prisca watched as Quintus inserted a thin blade between the two halves of the bulla and twisted gently. There among the other amulets gleamed that lustrous pearl.

“You defiled my son’s bulla with your thievery?” Prisca hissed and slapped the woman who now begged for mercy.

Quintus turned to his steward. “Cato, lock her in the storeroom. We will deal with her later. Then bring Dorcas and all the servants to the atrium.”

When we entered the tablinum from the garden and Quintus Porcius took his seat, everyone crowded in from the atrium. The household was abuzz with the news of Lydia’s guilt and Dorcas’s innocence. Because the one was a fairly recent purchase and not much liked while the other was known for her many years of loyal service, it was a joyful buzz.

“Step forward, Dorcas.”

The midwife came and knelt before her master. Her face was ravaged from crying and dark circles ringed her eyes

“You were wrongly accused and wrongly punished,” Quintus said. “When work resumes after the holidays, I shall invite the magistrate to dinner and manumit you officially, but from this moment on, you are truly a free woman.”

At that, he placed the red pileus on her head and raised her up and kissed her on both cheeks.

Cheers rang from the servants, and I cheered, too. Only Prisca was left frowning as the servants went back to their feast. “I have lost the best hairdresser I ever had and now I must lose my midwife’s earnings as well?”

“I shall buy you a new hairdresser,” Quintus promised.

“See that she is old,” Prisca said, with a wry look at Marcus. “And homely.”

He laughed as Cato melted some red sealing wax and they resealed his bulla in a wax that could not be easily duplicated.

Quintus Porcius smiled at me. “AElius Fabius Marius often boasted to me of your grasp of logic,” he said. “It would seem he did not speak idly.”

I was astounded. “My father said that?”

“Had you not been a girl, he would have made you a lawyer.”

Of all the gifts I received that year, his words were the gift that pleased me most.

Io, Saturnalia!

Copyright © 2010 Margaret Maron