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

“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.