“Not so much modest as careful, as a foreigner is expected to be,” said Sanct-Franciscus as the musicians brought out two branches of brass tintinabula and four small mallets with which to strike them; the melody they played was Greek, and soon their singer joined in, spinning out the bittersweet lyrics with little attention to their meaning.
“Not that ‘Young Wife’s Lament’ again,” said Cecania. “Everyone’s heard it.”
“Still, it is engaging,” said Sanct-Franciscus.
Cecania gave a moue of disgust. “If such sentiments please you.”
“They would,” said Sanct-Franciscus, “if they were presented more appropriately. The singer does not understand the meaning of the syllables she is singing.” He resisted the urge to join the musicians: perhaps later, he thought.
“So you have taste in music, do you?” Cecania inquired, making a world of possibilities fill the simple question.
“I have found it to my liking,” said Sanct-Franciscus, thinking that for the first five hundred years after his death, he had no interest in the art; only after he had arrived in Egypt had he developed a fondness for songs and the sound of instruments. “Over time.”
“Over time,” Cecania repeated. “Then music is part of the story of your life. That must be a fascinating tale.” Again she licked her lips slowly with the tip of her tongue.
“Hardly that,” said Sanct-Franciscus, and watched Cecania mull over his response. It was all so predictable, he thought, their appetites and the satiation without fulfillment. How they devoured everything, and how little nourishment they gained!
She lolled back against the cushions on the rise of her couch, one arm extended as if in negligent summons. “I told Vulpius that I want a young man who might be mistaken for a gladiator—without the scars, of course, and not too brutal. What did you ask for?”
Before Sanct-Franciscus could frame his answer, Fabricius stood up and held up his goblet. “This is to wash away the old year, and to welcome the new,” he announced, and drank deeply, two little rivulets of wine brimming down his chin and onto his clothing.
Vulpius signaled to Leontius. “The second course,” he commanded. “See to it.”
The steward nodded, ducked his head, and stepped back from the door in order to pass on the orders to the waiting slaves. “Do not intrude; do your work invisibly. Step lively, remove what is left, then serve what you have brought. Do not spill anything,” he warned the six. “Bring what is uneaten out and take it with you to the kitchen.”
Each tray being carried held a wide, shallow crockery bowl containing fresh mussels and seafood forcemeat in a thick, gingered sauce; this delicious offering was accompanied by stacks of buttered griddle-bread. The slaves set these down on the tables, saluted Vulpius and his wife, picked up the platters from the first course, then left the dining room promptly and in good order.
“Well done,” Leontius approved once the slaves were in the corridor again. “Next, fingerbowls and napkins, then comes the squab in apricots and spiced broccoli with leeks in pepper-oil.”
“After that, the shoats stuffed with chopped figs, apples, and onions,” said the senior slave, a Gaul called Cepin.
“You’ll need help serving them. Alert three kitchen slaves to be ready to assist you.” Leontius clapped his hands to send them on their way, but called after them, “You will have your convivium when this is finished.”
“Oh yes,” said Cepin in happy anticipation. “Cook is making the chickens ready for spitting once the stuffed yearling calves are served, so we will not have to wait long after the masters have finished to begin our meal. We’ll have the chickens and fish-and-celery stew and rabbits in gravy and anything the masters haven’t eaten, as well as many breads for us, as is the custom. And we’ll have the entertainers and musicians to dine with us at the end of the night—those not busy elsewhere.” He grinned, showing uneven teeth, three of which were missing.
“And griddle-breads,” added another slave. “Cook has a tub of batter.”
“Then to your work,” Leontius said, and went back into the dining room, ducking his head again to his master.
Vulpius had risen from his couch and was approaching the musicians in the reception room. “Come in with us; bring your instruments. You may play while we dine; the others may rest in anticipation of a busy time ahead.”
The musicians hastened to obey; they held their instruments carefully, and stayed near Vulpius as they moved through the couches.
“I like the look of that flute-player,” Lucillius said to Sanct-Franciscus, smiling expectantly. “Flute-players have agile lips and fingers.”
“I suppose they must,” said Sanct-Franciscus, who played the flute tolerably well himself and knew its demands. “Light, quick fingers are often needed.”
“Rather like that thief you spared,” Lucillius said, and laughed. “Vulpius told me you tended to his injuries at the prison.”
“I did.” Sanct-Franciscus waited while Lucillius had his goblet refilled.
“Why did you bother?” Lucillius asked.
“No one else was likely to do it,” said Sanct-Franciscus.
“I don’t imagine he thanked you,” Lucillius said as one of the serving slaves came to remove the platter from the first course, and his body-slave refilled his goblet.
“Actually, he did,” said Sanct-Franciscus, not adding that he had offered Natalis a position in his household upon his release from prison; he nodded toward Lucillius’ wife. “This may not interest you, Domina.”
“It doesn’t,” she said, sounding both half-drunk and bored; Docilla Adonica Tiberius, Domina Lucillius, scowled at her husband, then smiled at Sanct-Franciscus. “You could be interesting, however.”
Sanet-Franciscus gestured an apology. “I ask your pardon, Domina, but it is not the custom of my people to—”
“Not another man of restraint!” she exclaimed, pursing her lips in disgust. “Are you one of those strict Christians? Not the ones who share everything, but the others, who are forever pestering decent Romans and making a display of their religion to the denigration of all the rest? They have been beating up patrons of the lupanar and the Guard there hasn’t been able to stop them. I didn’t think Vulpius would be so foolish as to invite anyone of that stripe to Saturnalia.”
“No, I am not a Christian,” said Sanct-Franciscus. “I am an exile.”
Adonica considered this, sighed, and signaled the slave for more wine. “I’ll have to wait for a bit, then.”
“Never mind my wife—she’s becoming fatigued,” said Lucillius.
“After such a Saturnalia as this has been, I am surprised you are all still awake,” said Sanct-Franciscus with a slight smile.
Lucillius chose to laugh at this observation. “Truly. We Romans are a hearty breed, and it takes more than a few nights of feasting and drinking to flatten us. Not even war has exhausted us.” He accepted a linen square from the slave carrying the basin of lemon-water before dunking his hands into the warm liquid. While he dried his fingers, he added, “Foreigners often see our enjoyments as weakness, not what they are: the strength of the people; we have fortitude, and that requires great jollity. For as we must be powerful and resolute in purpose, so we must be able to make the most of our entertainments, in all forms, so that we do not become despotic. Just as we fight with a will, so we feast and drink with a will.”
Overhearing this, Caio yelled out, “True! True!”
“Even our women are mighty,” said Lucillius, glancing at his wife, who glowered at him in return.
“That they may be,” said Fabricius, joining in. “But they are also the true flowers of Roma. Nothing so fair as they can be found outside our walls.” Although the praise was genuine, his expression was salacious and earned him a sharp stare from his wife, which he pointedly ignored.
The slaves carried in the third course and set the broad platters down, then the plates of griddle-bread. With the musicians striking up a little march, they left the diners alone once more.
“Mussels,” said Peregrinus eagerly, using a griddle-bread to scoop up the food. “You had them from—?”
“From Neapolis, preserved in brine, of course,” said Vulpius.
“Ah, Neapolis,” said Peregrinus, and took a large bite before calling out, “Bring me my evening’s slave!”
“My guest commands,” said Vulpius, and called out to Leontius, “Bring the pleasure-slaves. All of them.”
“At once,” said Leontius, and left his place at the door to go around the atrium, where rain was falling, to the waiting room. “You,” he said to the twenty slaves waiting there; all were dressed well and had been carefully groomed and anointed with fragrant oils for the evening. “Come with me. They are asking for you.”
The arrival of the pleasure-slaves was greeted with cries of delight; Leontius had already told the slaves to which couches they should go, and they passed among the guests without confusion.
Only Sanct-Franciscus remained without companionship; he watched the guests seize upon their pleasure-slaves much the same way they were guttling their food, thinking they were hungry as wolves, preferring excess to appreciation; the very touching he sought most was valued least here. He rose, so as not to be conspicuous, and went to the musicians. “Would you mind if I borrowed your lyre?”
The musician looked up, mildly startled. “It … it is valuable, honestiorus.”
“No doubt,” said Sanct-Franciscus reasonably. “I will not harm it; if it should be damaged tonight, I give you my Word I will replace it.”
After a brief inner struggle, the musician surrendered his instrument. “Do you know how to play?”
“Tolerably well,” Sanct-Franciscus answered as he tried the strings, and adjusted one of them to a truer pitch.
“Well, you have an ear,” the musician conceded.
Sanct-Franciscus ducked his head and began to play a lively paean to the sun that he had learned from the god who changed him, more than twenty-three hundred years ago. It was fairly unsophisticated, but the tempo was quick and the tune rapturous, just the accompaniment this occasion called for.
Cecania studied Sanct-Franciscus from her couch as if trying to decide if she should make another attempt at captivating him; then, with the most minimal of shrugs, she extended her arm to the pleasure-slave who waited at her side; around her most of the other guests were beginning to engage their pleasure-slaves in titillation, except for Caio, who had a young man and a young woman already bent over him, making him ready for his gratification while he continued to dine. Vulpius and his wife had three pleasure-slaves between them—two men and a woman—trading them back and forth as they made the most of their own celebration. The household slaves continued to serve food and drink.
The night wore on, the seven courses of the banquet were served with increasing display; the guests ate to repletion, visited the vomitorium, and ate more, all the while engaging their pleasure-slaves in an increasingly wild exhibition of desire and lubricity, concupiscence mixing with gormandizing. Through it all, Sanct-Franciscus played songs from every part of the earth he had visited. When exhaustion overtook the guests, and Vulpius ordered the entertainers to perform, the musician remarked to him, “You are among the best I have heard. My lyre is privileged to have you touch it.”
“How gracious of you,” said Sanct-Franciscus before making his way through the tangle of guests and slaves, trays and platters and discarded garments, in order to return to his couch, the only one among the guests who was not luxuriating in the bounty of the last night of Saturnalia.
Text of a letter as written by Rugeri in Alexandria to Sanct-Franciscus in Roma.
My master,
I have been told by Domina Clemens in a letter sent three months ago that you have not been receiving the letters I have been sending you, one every other month, for all of last year. This troubled me, for it seemed more than mishap or coincidence that so many letters should fail to reach you, and I determined to discover the reasons for these failures. I began by discussing the matter with your shipping-agent, and, having seen to my satisfaction that he was not to blame, I looked closer to this household. To my chagrin, I discovered that the letters had been taken by Perseus, the clerk I bought from the Byzantine merchant, and he was selling the information in the letters to various merchants and suppliers. I apologize most earnestly for my lapse in judgment, and I ask you to pardon my inability to protect our communications as I should have.
Beyond this admission, I must also tell you that Perseus has not disclosed how many of my letters—or yours—he has taken, and so I am at a loss to know what you know of my present circumstances. Are you aware that I made a gift to Hebseret and the Priests of Imhotep in your name? Do you know that I have ransomed nine of your crew from the Aeolus, and that all but one of them have returned to your service? Have you received a copy of the agreement I have made with the weavers of the upper Nile for linen and cotton? I ask that you send me word of what you last heard from me, and I will see you have copies of all I have sent to you since.
I will also pledge to put all the letters into the hands of your captains myself, entrusting them to no one but the captains. This one will go to Epimetheus Bion, of the Pleiades, who is set to depart as soon as the present weather clears. I will also send a copy to Domina Clemens, by the Zephyrus, which sails for Ravenna in three weeks, weather permitting.