Master of the Revels

by Nicole Galland

  The meat had been cut into bite-sized chunks in the kitchens, so now the diners simply scooped them directly from their plates into their mouths. One attendant offered a hand-washing basin between dishes, and another doled out fresh napkins.

  I took in all these details while discarding a series of hapless notions about how to convince Livia to Home me.

  The sisters lounged in the alcove to the right of the visitors, with the steward as their silent third; Thalia and Arria sat upright on the floor between the two alcoves, playing a dice game while their mistresses ate. I was seated with them, my stomach rumbling at the scent of roasted rabbit and spiced wines. The alcove arrangement made it awkward for the guests and the sisters to speak to each other without calling out, and this was not a calling-out sort of evening. So each table kept its conversation to itself.

  The room had deceptive acoustics, due to the arching alcove ceilings. Where I was sitting, I could hear both tables clearly and had to hope Quince wouldn’t realize that.

  “I am telling you, brother,” Quince was saying, returning to some earlier conversation, “those beautiful golden tesserae—”

  “Oh, I agree,” said Hanno. “But the mistress has requested that I re-create the same mosaic here on site, and there is no place for them in my design.”

  “I am not denigrating the Nine Muses, of course,” said Quince, “but since all of that effort has lamentably been wasted, consider this. I believe if the mistress saw these new tiles, she would beg you to incorporate them into the mosaic, especially as it will be in her bedchamber, and so she will be treated to the effect many hours of the day. I urge you to show her those gold tesserae before continuing.”

  Hanno tipped his head thoughtfully to the side, noncommittal. “It’s a much bigger project to design something new from scratch.”

  “Let me work with you on it,” said Quince. “As an apology for failing to protect your precious work. Let me help you rise from the ashes of this tragedy. Who knows, together we may create something better than the sum of our parts. You’re a good man, an excellent designer, and a consummate artisan, and I believe men such as yourself should be celebrated.” (I thought this was laying it on a bit thick, but Quince always gets results.) “I particularly relish a man of Carthage being given his due in Rome. After all, it is your countrymen who found the minerals to make the tiles so brilliant.”

  Hanno considered this. “And you have a motif in mind?”

  “As I was saying back in the village, these particular tesserae, because of how they catch the light, would be a marvelous medium for images of the sun and stars.”

  “But the ordinary natural world is not the kind of decoration well-bred Romans are interested in,” said Hanno. “It isn’t exotic or elevated enough.”

  “But it would be innovative,” said Quince earnestly. “The empire thrives on innovation. For instance in politics, with the invention of the tetrarchy—”

  “The tetrarchy is a disaster, brother, it won’t last,” said Hanno. “I’ve lost track of all the usurpations. My money is on Constantine as sole emperor within a decade.”

  “—and architecture and engineering,” continued Quince. “Why not the decorative arts? The Romans have been echoing the Greeks for centuries, surely it is time to forge something entirely new, distinctively Roman, instead of just borrowing from the Hellenic culture. It will be the talk of centuries. In fact,” Quince said, lowering his voice. I shifted my weight toward Livia’s table, as if I weren’t listening. “Here’s a clever idea that has just jumped into my head this moment. If we are to use the astronomical motif, I mean. Centuries from now, natural philosophers and mathematicians will work together to create a superior science of the heavens.”

  Hanno had a warning smile in his voice. “You people who are Sent from else-when must not spread your knowledge to us benighted souls, or you shall push the world out of balance and there can be dreadful consequences.”

  “But that’s not what I’m doing,” said Quince in his best confiding voice. “I’m suggesting something that’s subtle but will have excellent consequences for Livia’s family. You can spell it out for them and earn their admiration.”

  “I already have their admiration,” said Hanno comfortably. “I inherited it with my father’s workshop and reputation. Do you know he designed all the mosaics of this compound and oversaw each room? Practically dictated every individual tile, and there are nearly thirty million of them. That freed me to become a master at such a young age, as I was executing the designs he promised to all the lesser noblemen around Marsala.”

  Genuine admiration warmed Quince’s voice. “Your father designed this compound?”

  “The floor mosaics. He farmed out some of the standard mythological creatures and geometric designs to his apprentices, of course. But all the original and singular images—the great hunt, or the couple copulating on the master’s bedroom floor—that was all him. A great man. A genius. I am but a journeyman compared with him.”

  “I see his genius in you,” said Quince. “I believe you can rise to be worthy of it. Let me guide you.”

  A pause, during which Hanno presumably gestured him to continue, but I was keeping my eyes fixed on the dice game. The girls were making playful faces at each other because they weren’t allowed to whoop in the dining hall.

  “A comet would be an excellent use of the golden tiles,” Quince said.

  “A comet is not a very interesting shape, though, is it, brother?”

  “There was a comet that appeared about ten years ago, when you were a youth. Do you remember it? Very bright. It must have been recorded in all the almanacs.”

  “I remember it. My mother and father were transfixed by it.”

  “That same comet will appear again in sixty-five years.”

  Hanno chuckled. “I’m sorry, brother, but you’re mistaken. A comet is a disturbance in the heavens sent as a message. It appears and then it’s gone. Everyone knows that.”

  “This one will return three-quarters of a century after it was last seen. And then after another three-quarters century. And then again, after the same time has elapsed. And then again. For untold thousands of years into the future.”

  A pause. “How do you know it is the same comet?” asked Hanno Gisgon.

  “Even if it’s not the same comet, there are a series of comets that appear according to a predictable period, only nobody has noticed yet. But if you create a mosaic that displays a comet with an orbital periodic reappearance—and then the world comes to know that there is such a comet? Will you not be celebrated, and your family celebrated because of you?”

  Another pause. “That is a long time to wait, to gain this recognition.”

  “Just predict its next appearance, then. Maybe something simple. Show the comet of your youth on one side of the image, with depictions of events from that same year . . . and then find a decorative way to depict the passage of three-quarters of a century, and then, on the far side of the image, depict the exact same comet, tile for tile. Sixty-five years hence, once that comet reappears, your genius shall be recognized. Your family’s fame and fortune will be guaranteed. As will your patron’s—and you can tell him so. I will be willing to tell him myself, as a gesture of making up for my failure to prevent the loss of the original mosaic.”

  “I am intrigued by this,” said Hanno cautiously. “But I would have to be very particular about the setting of the tiles. There is a sacred spell encrypted in the floors of this compound, a few lines in each room. My Nine Muses design dutifully replicated the sacred words in the current mosaic that’s about to be covered over. If I create a design, I must take care to include these words in the new design.”

  A pause. I stopped pretending to watch the dice game. “What are you talking about?” Quince asked.

  “My father taught me his substitution cipher. There are more than thirty different color tiles used here, and in his encryption, each one is a substitute for a letter of the alphabet or an Arabic n
umeral.”

  “Interesting,” said Quince.

  “Yes. He put the colors in the order of the rainbow, amended with grays and browns, and the letters they correspond to in the order of the alphabet. The reddest red is A, the red with a little orange is B, and so on. He would include the decryption key somewhere in the border of each room. That is how he encrypted the floors.”

  “With a . . . sacred spell?” asked Quince. I wanted to glance over to see his expression but couldn’t risk his noticing me.

  “Oh yes,” said Hanno, with expansive offhandedness. “Among the millions of tesserae in this compound is a blessing for the family, for my father was devoted to Livia’s father.”

  “And the blessing is a sacred spell?”

  “That depends upon your definition of sacred and of spell. When it is deciphered, it tells you how to defeat death.”

  “I’m sorry, what?” said Quince.

  “You heard me, brother,” said Hanno. “I told you, my father was a genius.”

  “Right. Clearly. Of course. However, if I may point out, or rather ask: If he knew how to defeat death, why isn’t he alive now?”

  “How do you know he isn’t?” Hanno said, his tone playful. “Maybe you appear to die and then come back to life three days later and ascend to Heaven. I’ve been hearing rumors about that.” He laughed heartily, and I remembered Livia, on an earlier Strand, gushing about his laughter.

  “Please start back at the beginning and explain this,” said Quince. He sounded rattled, by Quince standards. “You say your father learned to defeat death. From where, from whom?”

  “Zosimos of Panopolis, our family friend who is now creating a new branch of knowledge he calls ‘alchimia.’ The blessing on the floor here contains some verses of his great work Cheirokmeta,” said Hanno. “It is very esoteric, and Father was never a student of such things. But he knew there was a powerful mysticism underlying all of it, and so he asked Zosimos for some choice lines to use. He wanted to literally cement words of protection into the very ground the family walked upon. Then he created the substitution cipher for the tesserae. To him it did not even matter if it was ever decrypted—to his mind, just the fact that it existed meant it functioned as a protective blessing.”

  “But, brother, if you believe this is true, why haven’t you decrypted it so you can have that blessing for yourself?!” I could not tell if Quince was trying to keep himself from mocking laughter or if he actually believed that Hanno was one ciphered algorithm away from immortality.

  “My brother!” said Hanno. “I am not in need of any magical protection! Let the unhappy or the infirm worry about such things. Life is my blessing.”

  There was a sizable pause. Finally Quince got back on target: “So you’re saying that you’d consider changing the design to comets—and using the very beautiful new tiles and ensuring your descendants’ fortune—as long as you can encode that room’s sacred words into a new mosaic.”

  “I will consider it,” said Hanno. “And I thank you for this inspiration! I drink to you, if you allow it.”

  “If it’s a toast from you, brother, I’m honored.”

  They cheered and drank. Next, honey-sweetened cannoli were served.

  Meanwhile, in the other alcove, the sisters were discussing which tunics they wanted laundered tomorrow, to wear the day after tomorrow.

  I could hear the boredom in every syllable out of Livia’s mouth. Livia could recite reams of Horace’s iambic poetry; she could critique Pliny’s “Epistle to Vespasian” from his Natural History; she had created a cheat sheet detailing Livy’s History of Rome; she even knew Earth revolved around the sun! But her lively brain was in the wrong alcove to do anything about it. Julia was no intellectual slouch herself, but she had the good fortune of her passions aligning with this DTAP’s gender norms. She was all about headdresses.

  After dinner, I was reunited with the blacksmith (he, of course, didn’t experience it as a reunion), and the fetter was welded around my ankle. Livia charmed it and gave me a demonstration of what would happen should I wander more than ten paces from her. I still bear the burn marks.

  We retired to Livia’s chambers.

  “Well, I have saved you from leprosy, so you owe me something,” Livia said in a matter-of-fact way.

  “I’m giving you the truth,” I said.

  “That has yet to be determined. Until it is, I require something else.”

  “I have nothing else.”

  “Of course you do. You have yourself.”

  “I lack all domestic skills, but my father laid tiles for a living, so I might be of use to Hanno Gisgon,” I said immediately.

  She gave me a funny look. “We’ve plenty of slaves and menial servants for such things. I mean your life, not your body.”

  “Mistress?”

  “Entertain me with stories of your own life and times. I’m bored to death with Virgil and Homer. Even Menander—comedies are only funny the first time. Do you still worship Jupiter? Have any Christians survived? Give us a new story, from your own time. Tell us of your heroes.” She gave me a warning grin. “Or I will make your anklet very hot.”

  I needed to capitalize on her interest in me, but sharing historical data was out of the question. What she really wanted was stories. Most of her favorites, or at least the ones she was familiar with, were about travelers. I know plenty of stories about travelers and can even recite from memory whole passages of novels I read when I was young. Although the one that first sprang to mind was too aggressively vernacular to translate fluently to Latin. So instead of reciting it, I began to synopsize Huckleberry Finn.

  It didn’t go well. The premise made no sense to the girls. Yes, Huck was on a journey—but a journey from something rather than to something was feckless and cowardly, and no such character could be a hero. And a runaway slave? That just wasn’t a thing. Livia ordered me to stop the nonsense. Adjusting parameters, I tried to pitch them Star Trek, but don’t be stupid, Melia, who would choose to travel far from home to someplace they weren’t intending to either conquer or develop advantageous trade relations with? A foolish waste of capital and resources—even Thalia could see that. Try something else, something epic, in which a tragic hero must endure an agon that fate has thrust upon him. Duh, Melia.

  What could I do in response to this, other than resort to the mythology of my own childhood? And so I began:

  “When Mr. Bilbo Baggins of Bag End announced that he would shortly be celebrating his eleventy-first birthday with a party of special magnificence, there was much talk and excitement in Hobbiton.”

  They loved parties of special magnificence.

  Livia allowed me to continue. I tweaked the depiction of the Shire and the birthday party to their tastes. Bag End was a palatial cave, and all the guests were men with six-pack abs. By the time tall, bare-chested Frodo made an appearance, I was their Scheherazade.

  Which, it turns out, was not a smart long-term strategy.

  “I shall convince Father you are guilty,” Livia said contentedly, hours later. “I shall ask him to make you my attendant for life, since you’re too old to be a courtesan. You shall spend the rest of your years telling us this extraordinary tale of reluctant wanderers.”

  Arria pointed to my ankle fetter and burst into laughter. “Melia! You are yourself a ring bearer!”

  “Not the same,” I growled.

  “You’re Mistress Livia’s personal Frodo,” she insisted, cackling.

  My storytelling had continued beyond their usual bedtime. Arria and Thalia went through their familiar evening housekeeping rituals. I pulled off my borrowed tunic and was finally able to cash in on my “strange” physique. As she was closing the shutters, Arria commented on what a good butt I had for an old lady (did I mention I’m thirty-two?), and Thalia, covering the brazier for the night, expressed admiration for my abs. This had been my “in” on the previous Strands, but if I cashed in on it now, that would only make Livia more determined to keep me as her new
pet.

  “Where I come from, women exercise a lot,” I said with a shrug.

  “Really?” said Livia, interested. Oh, great. Now everything about me made me interesting. I should have stuck with Huckleberry Finn; maybe by now I’d be cleaning toilets or doing something else that put me below her radar. “We must learn more about that. Tomorrow you will demonstrate your routine. In the palaestra.”

  “Are you crazy? We can’t go into the palaestra when there are male visitors here!” said Julia, thrilled. “That’s shameless!”

  “We’ll go first thing in the morning,” announced Livia, and the others squealed.

  The next morning, from a stone chest containing her father’s exercise equipment in the palaestra, Livia removed several sets of hand weights and a ball. We spent the next half hour or so playing an improvised late-antiquity version of volleyball, and Livia decided that the subligar must be shortened so we could move more freely about the room—a space immeasurably larger than any they had ever frolicked in.

  I tried—and still try—to take some comfort in the surety that even if I were to spend the rest of my life here in captivity, I would have an affectionate and indulgent owner. For the record: that is very cold comfort. But I was winning her good regard, which might at least let me influence her regarding the mural.

  When Livia finally called an end to the ball-playing, even I, with my greater lung capacity, was exhausted. All four of them were red-faced, their hair falling over their eyes, and they found it hilarious to point out these beauty flaws in each other.