Allyn Allyn - Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine. Vol. 135, No. 1. Whole No. 821, January 2010

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

MWA Grand Master and multiple Edgar Award winner Lawrence Block has been writing a lot of short stories this year. In addition to the following new suspense piece, which has its seed in the economic recession, he’s got stories coming up in Dark End of the Street, edited by S. J. Rozan and Jonathan Santlofer; Indian Country Noir, edited by Liz Martinez and Sarah Cortez; and Warriors, edited by George R. R. Martin and Gardner Dozois. EQMM has another new Block story slated for March/April.