By Phineas Redux
Contact – phineasredux003@Gmail.com
—OOO—
Summary:— Xena and Gabrielle become embroiled in an annual Festival in Rome which annoys one of the duo no end.
Note:— There is some light swearing in this tale.
Disclaimer:— MCA/Universal/RenPics, or whoever, own all copyrights to everything related to ‘Xena: Warrior Princess’ and I have no rights to them.
—O—
“Oh, no!”
Gabrielle’s response to their arrival this day in Rome was triggered by the realisation that it was the first day of the almost month long Festival of Saturnalia; a Festival where everything in the Social line was turned topsy-turvy—house-owners becoming servants, servants becoming pseudo-house-owners for the extent of the Holiday, and everything being at opposition to the normal run of the World. Xena was quite capable of bending with the flow, if only for the short term, but Gabrielle had strict ideas of how the Social World was formed and maintained, and the Saturnalia went against every iota of these personal beliefs.
“It’s only a Holiday, gal.”
Gabrielle wasn’t calmed by this weak excuse.
“Well, it shouldn’t ought’ta be’s all!”
“We’re goin’ to an Inn, anyway. Won’t affect us much.”
“Probably be worse than a private house.” The Amazon Queen not to be reassured. “The servants there’ll probably be out of all control, for the whole never-endin’ period. An’ if ya think I’m gon’na be a servant to anybody, especially ordinary servants, like a dam’ slave, y’can think again, lady.”
Xena eyed her blonde companion with a light smile.
“What about give an’ take, darlin’? One of the few times in the year slaves an’ servants have a chance to break free an’ have some fun.”
Gabrielle shook her head determinedly.
“Slaves, o’course; but servants? They get paid to serve, it’s their callin’; they ought’a know their place, an’ stick to it. If a kitchen servant, at our Inn, comes along an’ orders me t’get her a goblet of wine while she reclines on a chaise-longue wearin’ her mistress’s’ clothes an’ eatin’ grapes you know what my response’ll be, lover?”
Sadly, Xena did indeed know what the relevant retort would be.
“Gab, it’s a Holiday; a mutually acknowledged official Festival, dating from the Gods know when. You start making waves you’ll find yourself in a citadel cell while the servants an’ slaves carry on havin’ fun. Look at it that way.”
“No!”
“Oh!”
Half a clepsydra later, standing in the public room of the Inn they had chosen as their haven of rest during their visit, the Amazon faced the first of her trials related to the Festival she so deeply despised.
The Inn’s crowded public chamber, where everyone and their Aunt had seemingly assembled round a variety of tables and benches to drink and eat, was filled with a mass of merry-makers; merry-makers instantly recognizable as a curious mixture of the serving classes and upper classes. Curious in that the two classes had taken each others’ roles in the usual societal hierarchy. The ordinary servants, from near and far, were now collectively sitting at table raising arms and calling for food and drink while the attending pseudo-servants were in fact the owners and family of the establishment. The curious fact being that both groups seemed to be taking equal enjoyment from the enterprise, much to Xena’s interest and Gabrielle’s disgust.
“This is intolerable!” The Amazon Queen sneering at the sight.
“No it ain’t! It’s just Life, ducks.”
Gabrielle gave her other half a scathing look which, if intercepted by the Medusa would have done for her instantly, but which the Warrior Princess shrugged off without injury.
“Look at that table over there! A servant girl sitting drinking ale while her employer brings the amphora? That just ain’t right!”
“Only for a few days, give ‘em their freedom for that, at least.”
“Yrrgg!”
Another half a clepsydra later they had returned to the safety of their room on the upper floor of the Inn, Gabrielle laying their packs out on the wide bed flinging clothes and implements all over the cover, Xena standing-by spectating with a wide smile.
“Your usual method of setting-up camp, I see!”
“It’ll all come right in the end, just wait. Anyway, ain’t you got anything worthwhile to contribute that’ll help?”
“Ooh!”
This conversation was here interrupted, probably prudently, by a knock on the room door; Gabrielle, of course, rushing to answer.
“Yeah? Say, ain’t you the owner? Where’s the servant for delivering messages?”
“She’s down in the saloon eating apple-pie.”
“Dear Gods!”
“Here, can I help?” Xena coming to the woman’s rescue before the blonde Amazon could entirely lose the rag. “A scroll for us?”
“Yes, ma’am.” The lady obviously much relieved to talk with a rational person. “Just delivered at the entrance a moment ago—thank you.”
With which hurried adieu she turned on her heel and scarpered down the passageway before Gabrielle could bring her main armament to bear.
“What’s it say? Who’s it from? What d’they want? How abo—”
“—buttoning the lip? Thanks.” Xena taking control imperiously as usual. “It’s from Lady Julianna, on the Esquiline Hill; says can we visit this evening for a quiet symposium.”
Gabrielle was nonplussed.
“A quiet symposium? Don’t think I’ve ever come across that variety before? The few other one’s we’ve attanded here in Rome usually havin’ ended in unparalleled orgies enough t’blow the mind!”
“Think she means one that isn’t focused on serious political or moral topics. We won’t be meeting Socrates or Plato there, I mean. Orgies? When did they ever happen? Must’a missed ‘em myself! What have ya been up to in my absence?”
Gabrielle was unsympathetic to this explanation or question.
“We won’t anyway, meet Socrates, I mean; this not being Athens; or haven’t you noticed this last few weeks?”
“Darlin’, sometimes even you begin t’get up my left nostril, y’know!”
“Sorry, I’m sure. Take it we’re goin’, then?”
Xena gave the subject serious thought.
“Opposed to staying-in here for the evening—with you, in your present mood? Of course we’re goin’! Hurry up an’ get ready.”
Gabrielle stood frowning over this reply, dissecting each phrase for content and meaning before accepting the worst option.
“That’s just nasty, Warrior Princess! Get ready? I’ll have ya know I’ll be ready a full clepsydra before you, as usual; that’s a fact no-one can oppose.”
“Har!”
—O—
The villa on the Esquiline was by its nature a regular example of its kind; which is to say, it was outwardly opulent, being faced with green marble and designed to show off a splendid pillared portico protecting the main entrance; the whole building being built on three floors including two main wings with sloping red-tiled roofs. At the entrance a group of men and women awaited the arrival of the guests in the usual manner; except that this evening they were made up of the actual owners and family members not the true servants; Gabrielle once again finding it necessary to comment on this unwelcome reversal of roles.
“Greetings, Julianna; though if you think for one moment I’m goin’ t’copy a servant an’ spend the evenin’ cossetin’ an’ pampering the real servants you can think again, is all I got’ta say on the matter.”
Julianna, a Lady in her early thirties, smiled composedly having had many previous interactions with the Amazon, these helping to target her reply wisely.
“Don’t worry, Gabrielle; We certainly allow the servants some level of free rein during the day, but that stops here in the early evening. Have no worry, from now for the rest of the night we shall all enjoy our respective places in society as usual. That includes the morning meal as well, by the way. The servants won’t have their daily freedom for the Festival till later in the morning, when you both have safely gone about your business, supposing you stay overnight.”
“Thank Artemis for that!” Gabrielle openly relieved.
When they weren’t taken up with serious topics affecting the citizens as a whole symposiums—a form of entertainment taken over wholesale from the Greeks by the conquering Romans, and enjoyed thereafter to the full as only reveling Romans could—such party’s revolved around lighter aspects of daily life; most obviously shown on this occasion by Julianna’s expert directing of the way the conversation went, even respecting the amount of wine on offer.
“I only allow one krater of wine on the table; it saves any unseemly excess, you know.”
She explaining this as the guests lay on low couches round the open space in the middle of the large room; a central low marble table loaded with goblets, the wide krater of wine in question being the centrepiece.
Apart from the Princess and Queen there were three other guests, two men and a woman. The men were polar opposites, at least in age; the younger clean shaven man hardly seemed out of his teen years, while the well bearded elder was, by contrast, somewhere in his late forties. The woman was in fact a young damsel around her early twenties with long free-flowing dark auburn hair and pale complexion, she dressed in the Germanic manner with leather leggings, thick boots and a wide loose shirt instead of a peplos or toga.
And here another social difference made itself felt from the outset; the men drank in the Roman manner, taking their wine pure and straight as it came from the krater. The women, on the other hand, drank in the Greek manner, watering their goblets in the ratio of two units of water to one of wine, as all respectable citizens should no matter the occasion.
This habit usually caused contention between the warrior women, because Xena, of course, tended to the Roman style if not intercepted quickly, while Gabrielle always lived and breathed by the standard Greek method.
Their couches were placed head to head just a hand’s-breadth apart so contributing to easy and quiet interchange no-one else could hear if done properly.
“You didn’t water that goblet—I saw.”
“Just this first, I’ll mess up the next one’s, OK?”
“Hurrph!”
“Xena-Gabrielle, may I introduce my guests?” Julianna taking command of the opening proceedings, while the servants glided silently round seeing to everyone’s needs. “Here is my old friend, Marcus Attianus, with the young Horatius Livianus to his right-hand. Also Liane, a German Lady. Gentlemen—My Lady, Xena, Warrior Princess of Amphipolis, and Gabrielle of Potidaea, Queen of the Northern Amazons.”
With this necessary introduction accomplished they settled to enjoying the evening, raising their first goblets to each other like old and trusted friends.
“We don’t see so many visitors from the Germanic lands here in Rome—glad t’meet you, Liane.” Gabrielle offering the welcoming hand.
“No, true.” Liane smiling in greeting herself. “I come from the Narastae Tribe, which is at peace with Rome, so no trouble there.”
“Glad t’hear it.” Xena shrugging somewhat disdainfully. “One of the few tribes who aren’t in the Emperor’s bad books. Ever since that debacle with the Seventh Legion almost all the Germanic Tribes have been reviled as enemies of Rome.”
“Times will, no doubt, change for the better I’m sure.” Julianna trying to perceive the silver lining to the dark cloud. “Anyway, what I thought we might talk about tonight is Art in all its manifestations. Art itself, sculpture, painting, furniture design, and architecture. That sort of thing.”
“What about Literature?” Gabrielle standing-up for her favourite. “My best times are spent with scrolls, old as well as new.”
“Well, I categorize Literature on its own; but no reason why we shouldn’t include it along the way.” Julianna accepting the offer. “Is your goblet full, or would you like a top-up?”
“I’m easy, thanks; and Xena’s fine too.”
“Hey, gal!” The Princess reacting to this instantly. “I’ll be the one who decides when I need more, thank you very much.”
“Only tryin’ t’help’s all.”
“Well don’t.”
“What do you think about the New Architecture?” Julianna stepping-in to switch the conversation onto safer topics. “Painted and sculpted architraves on buildings, private as well as Public? Temples, I mean.”
“Ostentation! Gaudiness for its own sake!” Xena setting forth her opinion without hesitation. “Shows, forgive me Julianna, the degradation of the Empire in all its squalor.”
“That doesn’t sound good for the Empire’s reputation.” Marcus Attianus speaking up for his comrades in arms. “Not all Romans are tarred with the same brush, you know.”
From Xena’s expression it was clear she entirely disagreed with this suggestion.
“I find it rather charming, all in all.” Julianna smiling at her audience. “Colorful and interesting; makes the buildings less dominating and cold, I think.”
Xena gave something like a snort, addressing her goblet again with more than ordinary interest.
“Like everything else in existence architecture must, by its very substance, move on—move forward.” Horatius Livianus giving his side of the argument. “If not we’d all still be living in a community of mud huts, wouldn’t we? Isn’t that the general basis of Heraclitus’ writings?”
“Many of those old philosophers wrote the most outrageous nonsense, y’know.” Xena as usual taking no prisoners. “Have ya read any of the Natural Sciences scrolls they came out with back then? The silliest ideas; f’instance, d’ya wan’na eat a handful of live spiders wrapped in boiled seaweed t’relieve a stomach-ache? Just askin’s all.”
From the young man’s reaction it was perfectly obvious he would rather pass on this decidedly arcane, if not wholly archaic, medicinal remedy.
“—or cover yourself in goat poo to clear up a minor skin condition?”
“I had to—” Gabrielle impelled to recall a long-mislaid memory.
“—or tie a live toad on your forehead with a silk scarf to help with a headache?” Xena pushing forward, partially to cover her partner’s unwanted reminiscences. “All sorts’a things like that. Load of nonsense, the lot of it.”
“Are you corralling, oh, Plato and Socrates in the same pen?” Marcus raising an eyebrow. “Surely they had relevant and intelligent moral subjects to discuss?”
Xena shrugged dismissively.
“One or two bright sparks don’t sanction the bulk of the other mere scribblers.”
“Discretion!” Marcus making a serious point with a determined tone. “And a certain level of intelligence. People can decide for themselves what is good and what isn’t, surely?”
“Not really.” Gabrielle butting-in forcefully. “I’ve seen a lot of ordinary people; peasants in tiny villages out in the Campagna an’ elsewhere. They have little knowledge but a great deal of credulity. Strolling Rhetors who should have more sense come round telling them fancy stories based more on imagination than reality, and their listeners believe it all, because why not? Not a great way to make definitive moral decisions.”
“Perhaps we should move on.” Julianna making a much needed executive decision. “Does anyone have an opinion on the new additions to the Forum? The new paintings and reliefs around the exterior of the Temple of Jupiter?”
At this point the discussion was interrupted by the appearance of five servants laden with trays bearing choice foodstuffs and kraters of fine wines, including several still sealed dust encrusted red clay amphora, some 60 years old, of the famed old vintage Falernian. As they went about their duties Gabrielle couldn’t resist stirring the embers of a fading fire.
“What’s your name?” She addressing one of the two women slaves there.
“Doria, ma’am.”
“Have you been enjoying yourself in the Saturnalia these last few days, Doria?”
Suspecting a loaded question—which in fact it was—Doria paused, glancing towards her mistress in the meantime.
“Answer the Lady, Doria, everyone is friends here during the Festival, as you know.” Julianna clearly hoping for the best.
“Well, ma’am, yes, ma’am.”
Gabrielle clearly thinking this no answer at all, merely grunted, shuffling on her couch, looking instead to the wine krater just placed on the low table before her.
“Xena, bring over that red glossy terra sigillata bowl full of fresh water on that other table and add it to this krater, thanks, there’s nice.”
The Warrior Princess looked suitably appalled at this request.
“Are ya out’ta your mind, girl? Those slaves’ve just filled the krater with two amphora’s worth of sixty year old Falernian! Are ya mad, or what?”
In reply, being well-used to this level of mutiny in the ranks, Gabrielle simply gave her paramour The Look!
“Oh, dam’!” Xena finally complying slowly and with the least amount of agreement possible.
Juliana, catching Xena’s expression of sincere regret at the impending desecration of a fine old wine, took pity on her guest; though at what looming likely cost to her health from irate Amazons she hardly realised.
“As the Hostess may I be allowed to make the final decision? I order that the Falernian be left to itself; only the lighter wines, the Alban and the Caecuban, being diluted with water.”
“Adulterated, more like!” Xena getting in, as usual, the last word.
“What?”
“Nuthin’, carry on.”
Gabrielle on her part slouched on her couch fuming inwardly at her Queenly authority being so ruthlessly ignored; not the least rub being watching Xena happily filling her silver goblet with the dark amber of the untouched vintage wine.
“Hope it chokes ya!”
“What was that, dearest?”
“I said—oh, get on with it; bet I have t’carry ya home this evenin’ draped over my shoulder like so many times before.”
“Can’t hear ya, mumbling too low.” Xena pretending ignorance and naivety together; two moral stances she had never been able to accomplish successfully, now being a further obvious failure.
Julianna meanwhile had another revelation to reveal to her unsuspecting guests.
“I understand the Head Priest of the Temple of Saturn here in Rome has agreed to host a Public celebration tomorrow in the nearby Via Figillata, and has asked if you both, Xena and Gabrielle, act as his honorary Sibyl assistants during the course of the Festival.”
Xena raised an uninterested eyebrow before returning to sampling her precious wine; Gabrielle on the other hand, was appalled.
“What? Help organise an unbounded orgy cum debauched Bacchanalia? Are ya kiddin’?”
“That’s what the Head Priest asked,” Julianna rather enjoying her news than not. “and as you know Head Priests are not to be trifled with over details of their calling.”
“Oh, just dam’ great!”
—O—
The evening panned out, in the end, almost exactly as Gabrielle had anticipated; the Banquet was over, the well-pleased and dined guests dispersed, Julianna had taken a fond farewell of her honored Greek visitors, and Xena and her Amazon comrade, having decided to go home to their Inn, now stood in the street outside the closed villa. Gabrielle was in full control of her senses, while the same could not be said for the Princess beside her; the cold night air having had a sudden highly deleterious effect on what passed for the dark-haired woman’s equilibrium.
“You, madam, are as drunk as a Scythian boar!”
“Was’sat, gal!” Xena busy turning over in her mind which of three available dirty songs would be suitable to singing publicly at the moment.
“Come on,” Gabrielle grabbing the arm of her sozzled partner. “this way—”
“There was a young gal from Andros; She—”
“No, she didn’t!” Gabrielle taking control efficiently and shutting down the unasked for and highly unwanted performance before it could get into full swing. “Come on, or the Dawn’ll be here before we get t’bed. Ya wan’na get t’bed, don’t ya?”
This, of course, only passed to set the Princess’s mind on another track.
“Yeah, ha-ha, you’n me both, babe. Or as many others at the same time as needs be, hee-hee! Depends on the size o’the bed, don’t it?”
“Gaah!”
Two streets down the Esquiline Hill they came to a further obstruction; a street party that was obviously determined to sing and play and dance, and especially drink wine, till the appearance of the very Dawn which Gabrielle was working so hard to avoid.
“Oh, look, friends!” Xena taking entirely the wrong attitude. “Let’s go over an’ join ‘em. Hope their wine’s good!”
Before the Amazon could react Xena, bringing her well-honed skills to bear for entirely the wrong reasons, had slipped from her grasp and headed for the swirling mass of happy dancers.
“Oh, Gods!”
By the time Gabrielle had reached the fray Xena had already sunk her first helping of wine and refilled her goblet from the large krater available on a trestle table surrounded by other Sybaritic pleasure-seekers.
“What are you, babe?” The Amazon disgusted with her partner’s actions. “A sponge, or what? How much dam’ wine can you sink in one sitting, may I ask?”
Xena laughed loudly.
“As much as the cask it comes from can hold, lady—ha-ha!”
“Great Goddess Artemis!”
This particular group seemed made up from a preponderance of the female sex; there were a handful of men, but they were definitely in the minority, which suited the Warrior Princess completely, she fixing her gaze on a tall brown-haired young woman dressed in the Germanic manner in leather breeches, boots, and shirt.
“Ho! A German Lady! Lady, come dance with me!”
Before Gabrielle could interfere Xena had grabbed the not unwilling lady and started an intricate Macedonian dance with her. As the German had no idea of the dance’s moves, and Xena had really barely more, the whole thing rapidly descended into the two women simply pirouetting round each other with unconnected steps for a few breaths before Gabrielle came to the rescue of either the one or the other, grabbing Xena’s arm and pitilessly pulling her aside.
“Good Artemis, Xena! Behave yourself! Put that goblet down, an’ let us get on our way, for Dear Hera’s Life!”
“I’m enjoyin’ myself!”
“Clearly, an’ I mean t’stop it!” Gabrielle’s Amazon nature coming inexorably to the fore.
“Wan’na stay, want more wine.”
“Hah!” Gabrielle having her own ideas on this subject, grasping the Warrior’s wrists and dragging her along the street away from further temptation. Although smaller and lighter than her companion Gabrielle was tough and stronger than unwary opponents often surmised. Her grip on the unsteady Warrior was unwavering and willy-nilly whether she would or not Xena found herself taken down the street to calmer climes and lesser enticements.
“Where’re we goin’?” Xena coming to an awareness of her position in the dark night, though flares were set up all along most of the streets lighting the way for the multitude of still frolicking citizens, slaves, and servants.
“On the way home t’our lodgings, babe.” Gabrielle sighing profoundly as they walked along, her eyes sharp for any other annoyance on the way.
By this time Xena’s unbounded drinking was beginning to catch up with her capacity to control her absorption of the same; in short she had begun to feel sick.
“I feel sick!”
“Oh, Gods!”
And then, of course, the Princess stood by her word; or bent double as she threw up into the gutter, anyway.
“There-there!” Gabrielle having stepped hurriedly aside to avoid the worst of the spectacle. “Feel better now, dear?”
“Uurr! Gaarr!”
“Take that as a yes.” Gabrielle shaking her head hurriedly. “Come on, gim’me your arm, I know the way home—this way, lover.”
—O—
The piazza before the front of the Temple of Saturn the next morning was crowded with a mass of citizens, slaves, servants, Senators, merchants, and plain visitors from afar, all determined to spend the coming day having as much personal fun as each could squeeze into the limited hours available.
By the large altar set before the imposing line of pillars encircling the Temple, a double row guarding the front façade, a group of Priests in resplendent robes stood by as several performed rites associated with the appropriate needs of the Festival now under way. The Head Priest was especially magnificently robed while five or six female Sibyls by his side wore far plainer ankle-length thin almost transparent linen stolae’.
Xena and Gabrielle, on the other hand, felt somewhat under-dressed by comparison; their clothes those which they wore daily, they having had no more dazzling or appropriate costumes to hand that morning.
“My headache’s gettin’ worse.”
Gabrielle sighed mournfully as she listened to this whispered groan of agony.
“Your own fault, dear.” The Amazon bringing all her famous cold sympathy to bear.
“Ooh, thanks a lot, gal.”
“Only yourself t’blame, after all.” Gabrielle unsympathetic to all cries of woe. “That dam’ Falernian came—you saw it—and then drank like a parched traveler in the desert. End result, shame, indignity, an’ a headache t’equal a Giant’s. Who’s t’blame for that, may I ask, eh?”
“Iirph!”
“Anyway,” Gabrielle changing the subject as the Head Priest came to the end of a lengthy invocation. “looks like we’re gettin’ on t’wards some kind’a conclusion here; won’t be long before we can cross the finishing line an’ escape, I think.”
The Princess, assailed as she was by unseen Blue Demons, shook her head, not a wise move in the circumstances.
“Oo-arrgh!”
“Don’t forget we have an open invitation to visit Lady Viola later t’day. She’ll be a lot of fun; I like her a lot.”
The Warrior, meanwhile, was staring round through pain-wracked bleary eyes at her surroundings.
“Oh, yeah? Perhaps you might need’ta re-arrange your schedule; looks like the Head Man here’s comin’ over t’drag us further in’ta the present fray.”
The Head Priest, a tall well-built individual with a thick head of dark hair and a beard that seemed determined to finally reach his waist, approached with a wide smile of welcome.
“Greetings, Honored guests. It is not often the Temple receives such visitations—the famed Warrior Princess Herself, and no less than an actual Amazon Queen—Honor indeed.”
Xena looked as she did on all such occasions—bored; Gabrielle looked slightly miffy, not liking the Priest’s intonation at all or the way he glanced pointedly at her as if assessing her physique at a slave market.
“I am Drussus Maximus Agricola, Head Priest of the Temple of Saturn, and am privileged to host the presence in our fair city, the greatest in the world, at this happy time of celebration of such highly refined visitors. Look around, is it not a fine reflection on the Temple and its followers that the piazza here before the Temple is so crowded that not one flagstone beneath our boots is visible? A huge and gratefully accepted honor—”
“If he mentions Honor just once more I’m gon’na lose my thread an’ do something decisive!”
Xena glanced sideways as she listened to this whispered, but savage in tone, declaration; knowing her partner was well able to carry out to the letter such threats when pushed just that foot-stride too far.
“Hold your hosses, lady; just hot air—relax.”
Drussus looked about him once more, waving a proprietorial arm as if this part of the City actually belonged only to him—which was in some respects more or less true.
“Look, the citizens clamour for more, and who are we, on this great Occasion, to refuse them?”
“Uh-oh!” Gabrielle suddenly realising she was in the van of the firing-line.
“A Warrior Princess capable of fighting a whole Legion on her own and, who knows, perhaps succeeding!” Drussus thinking he was weaving a dream in the air, wholly unsuspecting of the truth of his words. “And an Amazon Queen renowned for her upholding of the ancient customs of her Tribe of female warriors.”
“Oh, no!” The Queen in question finally realising, far too late, where this unctuous diatribe was headed.
“Would it not be a great event if you, dearest Queen, were to exhibit your Tribe’s celebrated accomplishments in the realm of Dance for the present populace? It is the time of the Saturnalia; it is a Festive Occasion of the most important worth; the citizens wish to be, indeed must be entertained. So, in the light and frolicsome vein of the Saturnalia, may I respectfully suggest you might perform one of your far-famed Amazonian dances before us all here today for our unrestrained pleasure and delight?”
Gabrielle turned pale, looked across the assembled heads of the massed crowd listening to this, and turned even paler.
“I’m not dressed for such! I mean, I need—”
“The Sibyls here will escort you into the Temple, where adequate dress awaits your Honored presence.” Drussus on top of this get-out clause like a champion.
“This bunch o’assorted thu—er, cits, don’t really—”
“Yes, they do, mistress!” Drussus well versed in overbearing rhetoric when such was needed. “Look, they are all on tenter-hooks to see you dance before them—such an Honor!”
Gabrielle glanced at her companion, seeking some way out she had not yet thought of, but in vain. Xena, mightily entertained than not, felt her headache slipping away with every passing moment.
“Go on! They want it; Drussus wants it; Great Tartarus, I want it! Go on, don’t spoil the dam’ party so early!”
Gabrielle, assailed on all fronts, gave in but not with any element of content in the matter.
“You are such a—a—a boor, d’ya understand that, you—you—you Amphipolian ass!”
“Madame!” A tall blonde-haired Sibyl in a far too clinging see-through thin linen stola touching the Amazon’s arm with delicate fingers. “This way, the robing chamber awaits.”
“Oh, F-ck!”
But she went with the woman all the same, there being no other course open; her parting glance back to Xena being one, however, decidedly lacking in mutual Love or Romantic appreciation.
—O—
The style of attire most favoured by the working Sibyl of the numerous Roman Temples scattered wholesale across the City was the all-clinging thin linen stola. It stretched from neck via a ribbon-held waist band, to the ankles, and was as transparent or not as the texture of the linen cloth chosen allowed. On entering the small room where the Sibyls regularly donned their daily attire Gabrielle was not surprised in the least to find her chosen dress, although still a stola by name, was in fact so transparent it might as well have not existed as a piece of clothing at all for all it covered or hid.
“I might as well be nakkid!”
The Sybil attending her merely raised an enquiring eyebrow in a wholly condescending manner, as if open to and able to allow any suggestion on the part of her Honored visitor.
“No!”
So, when she exited the main multi-pillar guarded Portico again Gabrielle was attired, if the term stretched that far, in an Egyptian-weave white stola so thin it constantly wafted in the light breeze, revealing to the watching crowd through its barely rudimentary texture every inch of her form from head to bare toe as through a veil shimmeringly; the stola’s actual presence allowing just that level of cover enough to thwart local moral codes, but only in the word not the form. Even Xena, when the Amazon Queen glided out onto the level piazza before the Temple altar, surrounded by almost as equally lightly clad Sibyls, was drawn to give a gasp of outright pleasure at the sight.
The necessary musical accompaniment, mostly flutes, trumpets, and lyres, was provided by an almost complete orchestra standing to the side of the Temple, they having been recruited to their position and function much earlier in the morning—the Head Priest being that sort of man who regularly thought ahead.
Even Gabrielle’s well-honed Amazon traits had earlier failed to recognise the presence of the musicians or else her stay at the Temple would have been far shorter; her exit from the scene being much more in the form of a hurried escape than a friendly leisurely leave-taking. Now, however, the knuckle-bones had landed as they had and her fate was sealed—a dance in Public, showing off her deep understanding of the Amazon persona through the mode of Dance: to her an expression of Love for her People—to the spectators an erotic dance of high sensual and stimulating quality eminently suited to the much debased morality of the Roman crowd all round.
However, what the crowd felt and how Gabrielle herself perceived her performance were two opposing viewpoints. To the crowd a young sprightly female hardly dressed at all was comporting herself for their pleasure in an entirely sensuous and wanton manner; while Gabrielle in her heart, once she had become used to the present setting and atmosphere, found herself more and more lost in her performance, so well accompanied by the skilled musicians that she soon abandoned all awkwardness and let herself go fully as the dance took over her entire soul.
Pale ivory arms weaving in the air, legs slipping and sliding in tune with the music; body a constant scintillation of movement from side to side as she danced across the flagstones, now bending forward, now arching her back, now thrusting ahead, now holding back; her facial expression constantly changing with the mood of the music and her inner feelings. As she danced she became ever more uninhibited, as were the famed Greek Maenads, until eventually at the climax of the dance she leapt across the flagstones in unrestrained joy of her movements, thin stola catching in the wind, her form underneath glinting in the strong golden sunlight; legs, waist, chest, neck, arms, and head, fully in league with the musicians instruments as if she herself were a musical note wafting in the breeze and not merely a base human form at all. Then the climax came; the music bellowed its final cry of joy and Gabrielle, exhausted, twirled one last time before falling to the granite floor to roll across the stones in ecstasy and at last lay sprawlingly supine, in complete gasping abandonment to the moment.
A long silent pause ensued; the crowd entranced by what, at last, they had come to realise was a work of pure Art taking place before their very eyes—then a wild cacophony of applause split the air as they reveled in their delight at the performance: Xena too adding her cries of joy to the masses.
Gabrielle rose to her feet leisurely, gazed around as if still in a trance, smiled gently as if hardly understanding the strength of the pleasure she had just given her spectators, then grinned widely as she took it all in, Xena striding up to grasp her arm.
“Well done—beautiful! Great stuff, gal!”
“They liked it?”
“They sure did, babe.” Xena grinning now herself. “Come on, let’s get ya back in the Temple, so’s ya can get dressed again. What you’ve got on ain’t enough t’call a pocket handkerchief, y’know.”
“Yeah, I do know.” Gabrielle laughing now herself. “Thought it was less than a little at the start, but it’s turned out OK: not sayin’ I’d want t’repeat it anytime soon, though.”
“I should hope not.” Xena nodding like an elderly chaperone. “Come on, back t’the Temple a’fore ya catch a dam’ tertiary fever or worse!”
—O—
Lady Viola, of the famed House and Family of the Corneliae, was a woman who knew her place in Society—pretty much close to the top thereof! She also caressed a long-held personal belief that she had the tone and nature of the Common Public close to her heart; whether wisely, truthfully, or realistically who was to say? Anyway, she had organised a street party this day for the surrounding tenants of the houses of several adjacent streets, they all congregating on the open piazza before her own luxurious villa. The tables groaned under the weight of their exotic comestibles and kraters of wine; the citizens, slaves, and servants, were heartily partaking of the same in between making new, if temporary, friends, and the general feeling abounding everywhere was one of folk of all social levels determined to have a dam’ good day, and perhaps the ensuing evening and night, come what may.
Xena and Gabrielle had managed to arrive fairly early in the afternoon, after the Amazon had clad herself in her accustomed attire once more, they visiting their Inn room to pull themselves together after the morning with a rapidly taken nap and light meal; but now they were ready for the fray once again, not only because Gabrielle had regained her lust for Life and become more relaxed and accepting of the unrestrained antics going on all over the City presently, as well as in her particular personal neighborhood.
“Having fun?”
Gabrielle grinned at her lover.
“Yeah, pretty much, now. You?”
“Oh, I’ll get there, dependin’ on where the amphorae of Falernian are being hidden from view.”
Gabrielle sniffed loudly at this.
“Take so much as a second goblet of white wine this coming six clepsydra an’ I’ll descend on ya like a Scythian raider on a school-children’s bun party!”
Driven to it, Xena curled a supercilious lip, while making sure her blonde companion didn’t notice this blatant act of mutiny.
“Ladies, how nice of you both to come!” Lady Viola, a woman in her later thirties, giving forth with all of her renowned democratic nature. “You find me as a contemporary mirror image of my usual self, me acting for the afternoon as a servant girl. Quite fun, don’t you think? Opens the mind astonishingly, if taken in the right way, I assure you. Why, I’ve found out things about my servants and slaves working days I never knew before, and very informative they are, too. White or red? I have amphora to hand of either.”
The Princess instantly pointed to the amphora of red, goblet already in hand; Gabrielle giving her partner yet another breath-quenching glance which, of course, bounced off without injury to the victim.
“White wine, Gabrielle?”
Faced with having to make the choice, or be seen as the party-pooper incarnate, the Amazon crumbled at the knees.
“Oh, OK—white, thanks. Just half-full, that’s more’n enough.”
One of the triggers to joining in with a party’s shenanigans, when unused to doing so, is for the party members of the first part to simply grab the party member of the second part and, willy-nilly, make them join in whether they wish to or not. This is what happened next to the still slightly unwilling Amazon, Xena by her side far more in the zone and ready to join in any silly nonsense that might be ready to kick-off.
What it turned out to be was that a young female no-longer-slave for the Festival gripped Gabrielle’s hand and, smiling the while, dragged her over to an open space on the flagstones of the street.
“Milady! How about a game of hit the spike! All you do is throw this hollow metal circle way over to that spike in the ground, oh, thirty paces off. The nearer you get the better; if you actually circle the spike you get a big prize, a free amphora of wine.”
“I’m in!” From the Princess.
Gabrielle gave her paramour another seething glance, knowing full-well while doing so the absolute uselessness of the action; and four breaths later Gabrielle found herself standing, surrounded by a laughing crowd of other temporarily ex-slaves, servants, and general citizens all waiting to see how expert she might be at the game.
Sighing somewhat mournfully, but bringing her ingrained Amazon courage to bear on the situation Gabrielle smiled slightly, let this form into an actual grin, then laughed outright, throwing the last of her laments and worries to the wind; not that there was any such breeze present at this time of the afternoon—Aeolus, Boreas, and the rest of the Anemoi Wind Gods obviously having gone off somewhere far distant in Olympus to celebrate their own version of the Saturnalia.
“Oh, OK! Watch this, then; bet I hit the spike first go!”
The less than encouraging mocking groan of disbelief from her assembled spectators did nothing to hinder the brave Amazon in her focus on the job in hand. There was the wood spike, rather a long way off certainly; here was she, an excellent representative of her Tribe; and here also was the metal circle, some hand’s-breath in diameter, in her own hand. What more was there to do but make sure circle and spike met at the earliest opportunity?
There was a long pause while she measured by eye the distance between the two; she raised the metal implement in her left hand, narrowing her eyes; then with an indrawn breath threw the chakram-like weapon in a long arch from her straight held arm. The gleaming circle of metal flashed in the sunlight as it scythed through the air, its direction and aim straight as an arrow; then there was a twirling series of flashes as the circle landed four-square on its target, circling round its stem as it slid down to finally come to rest on the underlying flagstone, the hunter having hit her prey fairly and squarely.
There was a moment of silence then the crowd erupted in a swelling roar of abandoned approval.
“Couldn’t’a done better with my chakram!” Xena giving praise where fully due.
Gabrielle blushed crimson, flicking a glance at her sweetheart that she broke instantly after, feeling as embarrassed as she had ever done in her life, but also vastly delighted, even honored, by the few words.
“Oh, just one o’those things; couldn’t do it again if I tried a hundred times, probably.”
“To the Winner the spoils!” Lady Viola at their side with amphora in hand. “Here you are, Gabrielle, enough wine to knock you and Xena flat for seven days straight!”
“Oh,—” Gabrielle taking the prize with another blush.
“I’ll give it a go, sure!” Xena wholly unembarrassed and raring to get at it.
But the wily Amazon had thought of a wonderful escape clause to this moral impasse.
“I’m gon’na donate it to the slaves an’ servants on-goin’ street party here; we needin’ t’get on back to our Inn room as it is. No arguments, lady.”
“Oh, p-ss an’ bother!” The disappointed Warrior Princess thwarted at the last hurdle.
—O—
The next morning dawned bright and gay, which was, as one might expect, in direct contrast to the feelings of the majority of the citizens, servants, and slaves of the entire city of Rome—their combined headaches being so sublime and terrible the vibrating deadly aura of their massed pain actually reached Olympus to give even the Gods a hard morning via unwanted empathy.
“Rise an’ Shine, gal!”
“F-ck that, lady!”
Contrary to expectation it was the sprightly Amazon who had uttered the first invocation, while the less than mettlesome Warrior by her side abed had groaned the latter despondent refusal.
A full clepsydra later they both sat at the long bench in the Inn’s Public room staring at the bowls of steaming aromatic porage set before them by the servants in attendance, now all returned to their usual services. Gabrielle examined her breakfast with no great desire though she meant, like the warrior she was, to eat the healthy mess to the last grain; Xena, on the other hand, gazed at her bowl as if it were full of hemlock.
“Saturnalia’s over; yesterday the last day. We’re back t’normal from t’day on.” She, the Princess, trying bravely to direct her attention towards something other than food or, Great Gods Above!, drink!
Gabrielle only nodded abstractedly at this information, picking up her pewter spoon with an expression reflective of determination to get a nasty job done as speedily as possible.
“Who invented this mess? Whoever it was, they shouldn’t have!” Raising the loaded spoon to her mouth with a soundless but wholly apparent groan. “What was that?”
“The Saturnalia’s over, is all.”
“Oh-ah,—graah, just as awful as I expected!”
But the Princess had one last barb ready in her quiver, and wasn’t in the least chary of using the same.
“There’s one thing t’look forward to, babe!”
“Oh, yeah—uurgh?”
“Yeah, this time next year—just another short year away, mind—the Saturnalia’ll be back again! How’s about that, my little brown-eyed Amazon?”
“Eat your dam’ porage, woman, dam’mit!”
The End.