far corner of the courtyard. I gave the idea serious consideration.
“Oh, I know who she is,” said the other woman, a bit broader of beam; I didn’t know that I could take on both of them. “She’s the one the domina tied up bare-naked and flogged in the banquet room.”
“What’s going on out there!” Paulina roared from her cubiculo.
“Tell you what, you get the broom,” said Bony. “I’ll get the mirror. We’ll take our time about it, too. After all, it is not our job to fetch and carry like untitled slaves, so why should we rush? You,” the skinny one poked me in the ribs, “get in there and take what’s coming to you—and to us.”
“The gods are good,” said Broad Beam as they sauntered away. “They’ve sent us a whipping girl.”
An unidentified flying object hurtled into the courtyard just too late to hit the two laggard slaves. I managed to duck. When I looked up again, Paulina was in the doorway looking down at me.
“You!”
The sight of me momentarily diverted her from her rage. I could hear the slaves in the chamber behind her hurrying to set the rooms to right.
“Yes,” I agreed.
“Yes, what?” she prompted.
“Yes, it is me, I mean I,” I corrected the case.
Let her throw the curling tongues at me; let her throw the entire contents of the room. I wanted to stay outside as long as I could.
She frowned. “Yes, domina, delight of my eyes,” she prompted.
“Just say it, toots,” a male voice called from within the room.
“Shut up, Reginus,” said Paulina. “She’s my pedisequa. I’m training her.”
I’d had lots of acting experience at the Vine and Fig Tree, I told myself. Playing Paulina’s pedisequa was just another gig. Another trick to turn.
“Yes, domina, delight of my eyes.”
“With feeling this time.”
“It’s true,” I said thoughtfully. “You’re not hard on the eyes. Glossy hair, smooth skin. Great tits. But you’d look a lot better if you stopped sticking out your lower lip.”
Whatever doom was to befall me, I had the pleasure of seeing the blood drain from her face, then shoot back up in two big red blotches.
“You asked for a mirror,” I said, taking advantage of her speechless shock.
“Very well, then,” she said, recovering with surprising swiftness. “My mirror you shall be. Upstairs. Now!”
I found out what Paulina meant when the skinny one returned. At Paulina’s order, the sullen slave handed the mirror to me and huffily resumed her proper duties as sarnatrix, (mender of clothes)—though Paulina, I noticed, still wore the torn shift. You might think holding a mirror would be a simple job requiring no great skill. In fact it was exacting and exhausting. Paulina sat in the center of the crowded room, while the tontrix and ornatrix hovered over her and three slaves, including me, circled her with mirrors. The only thing more tedious than her minute directions—a little higher, to the right, no, that’s too much, lower, stulta!—was when she settled on an angle she wanted and we had to hold our arms absolutely still, the brass-backed mirrors growing heavier by the second.
Although it was late November now, and the air outside held a distinct chill, Paulina’s chamber was stuffy with heat and smoke from the charcoal brazier and the torches. The tontrix sweated as she rolled Paulina’s thick black hair—that needed no improvement—into long sausage curls, and then wound them one after the other in a rising beehive dome. The ornatrix plucked and shaped Paulina’s eyebrows and outlined lips that were already vivid. Paulina had stopped raging for the moment, but the atmosphere was silent and tense. It was all so different from the same rite at the Vine and Fig Tree with the whores trading friendly insults, the old women cackling over lewd jokes, the little girls competing to help and getting in the way.
At last Paulina’s face and hair were done. The ornatrix and the tontrix stepped back, and Paulina again examined herself from every possible angle. There was a collective holding of breath as everyone waited for the verdict.
“Stola!” She snapped her fingers.
A colorless little woman who’d been standing on the sidelines now stepped forward with a dull looking garment the color of an old bruise. To call it aubergine would have been a stretch. The woman’s hands shook as she held it up.
“Not that one, stulta!”
The woman nimbly skipped just out of range of Paulina’s raised hand.
“But, domina, I thought—”
“No one has my permission to think anything unless I say so. Put it back.” She sighed as if she were a patient long-suffering adult surrounded by backward children. “I told you before. I will have the red.”
“Domina, honey.” I recognized the voice of the man who had called out to me before. He had been standing, almost leaning against the far wall, plainly bored. Now he took a step towards her. “May I remind you that your esteemed pater, the honorable senator Publius Paulus, is calling today and plans to dine.”
“I know my father’s name,” she snapped. “And no, you may not remind me. I’ll do the reminding. You are in charge of my chamber, not my life, Reginus. Just because you belong to my father, and I can’t discipline you myself, doesn’t mean he won’t do worse than I could ever dream of doing if I tell him of your insolence.”
The man made an obscene gesture with his hands, which were hidden behind his back even as he bowed to her, saying. “Yes, domina, delight of my eyes.” He couldn’t quite keep the sarcasm out of his voice.
“As for the rest of you—” Paulina stopped mid-sentence. If she had been a dog her ears and nose would have been quivering; she might have whined softly in anticipation as the voice she strained to hear came closer.
“Quick,” she hissed to her attendants.
For someone who’d taken almost two hours with hair and make-up alone, Paulina jumped into the stola in record time. She could barely stand still as the ornatrix fastened it with a brooch at the shoulder and tried to drape the folds as modestly as possible, which was difficult as the fine, soft-spun wool had a tendency to cling to her curves.
“You,” Paulina shoved the ornatrix aside and pointed to me, “fix my breasts!”
“What?” Her breasts needed no improvement as far as I could see.
“Tie the girdle under them. Push them up. You’re a whore. You know!”
I decided it was useless to point out that when I was a whore I’d had my own ornatrix and a veste. I knew the effect she was after.
“You,” she said to the
