Pandora Gets Greedy (6 page)

“Well, seeing all of us today—with no Hera in sight—just might be the boost she needs, Gray Eyes,” Hermes said, popping his head into the enormous food-preparation room. “Sorry, make that Gray Eyes times two. Hello, Minerva.”

“Hermes.”

“And you never know,” he continued. “Pandora is one of the most unusual maidens I have ever met. Spirit, guts, courage … I have to believe this is a temporary slump. You two almost ready to go?”

“We've just come from scouting and the procession is in full swing!” Mercury joined in, his head just above Hermes'.

“We only need to season this,” Minerva said.

“What are we having?” Dionysus asked, tottering in from the hall.

“Baked dormice,” Athena answered, without turning from the cooking pot.

“Love it!” sang Bacchus, skipping past Dionysus, a wine bottle in his hand.

“You'll love it later, Uncle,” said Minerva. “It's for the
evening meal. Excuse me, but is that Venus's magic girdle in your hand?”

“Uncle Dio,” Athena said, turning her head to look at Dionysus. “Why is Aphrodite's undergown on the top of your head?”

“Wellllllll,” Dionysus answered, pulling off the gown and waving it like a scarf. “It happened like this …”

“We wanted to have a little impromptu music session with Phoebus and Apollo,” Bacchus cut in. “But Ceres and Demeter had turned their ankles on the stairs and the golden boys were debating about the best way to heal the ladies. So then we thought we'd trim our hooves, y'know, make a good showing since we're all going out soon …”

“But Ares and Mars were fighting over who got to use the lavatorium next,” Dionysus took over. “So we, Brother and I, just
happened
to wander up to the roof of the insula and who should we
happen
to spy but Aphrodite and Venus. They had just come back from checking in on that little maiden. One of Pandora's friends …”

“The smart one,” Bacchus interrupted.

“… right, the smart one. And they were sorta lying around … sorta …”

“Sunbathing!” Bacchus giggled.

“And we just wanted to make certain that they get a nice tan,” Dionysus went on.

“A nice allover tan!” Bacchus said, doubling up with laughter and nearly falling on the floor. “And if they don't have anything to cover up with …”

“You
stole
their clothes?” Minerva asked.

“Okay,” said Hermes, turning for the stairs. “Well, Mercury and I gotta run!”

“Stay right where you are!” barked Athena. “You two are not going up to the roof. Dionysus, Bacchus, give Minerva and me their clothes and girdles right now;
we
will take them up as soon as I finish seasoning this dish. Honestly, the nerve!”

“I wouldn't blame them if they turned you two into drunken raccoons after you stole their things,” Minerva agreed, taking the goddesses' clothing, placing it on a chair, and turning back to the cooking pot. “Now, Sister, which wine to use? Diluted or undiluted?”

“I say undiluted,” Athena said, turning to the storage shelves and reaching for the bottle. “Where's the wine?”

“I hear someone calling,” Bacchus said, tearing out of the room. “Don't you, Brother?”

“Huh?” said Dionysus. “Oh! Oh, yes! Coming, Zeus!”

“They've stolen the wine!” Minerva cried.

“I'm going to turn them into raccoons myself. Father
isn't
calling you, you overgrown Satyr!” Athena said, tossing her wooden spoon onto the counter. “Now give me that wine!”

Both gods fled on their goat hooves to the upper levels of the insula as Athena and Minerva tore after them, trying in vain to grab the wine bottles from their hands.

Hermes and Mercury tiptoed over to the cooking pot and Mercury was about to lift the lid.

“Don't touch that!” yelled Minerva from the stairwell.

Mercury yanked his arm back.

“How do they always know?” he whispered.

Just then, there was a shriek from the stairwell and Aphrodite and Venus ran into the food-preparation area, completely unclothed with only their long, golden hair covering everything that needed it, followed by Bacchus and Dionysus.

“Do you have our clothes?!” Venus shouted.

“Gosh,” said Hermes, all innocence. “They were around here somewhere.”

“There!” shouted Venus, pointing to the chair.

“We just want to say we're sorry!” pleaded Dionysus, he and Bacchus racing after the goddesses as they dashed away, hurriedly flinging on their garments.

“How about a hug?” called Bacchus.

There was a long moment of silence as Mercury and Hermes just stared at the spot where Venus and Aphrodite had been only moments before.

“I think that may have been worth the entire trip,” Hermes said, slowly.

“Even if Pandora doesn't succeed,” agreed Mercury, still rapt.

“Pandora? What's a Pandora?”

Athena and Minerva bolted back into the kitchen. Hermes and Mercury simultaneously pointed in the direction everyone had run off.

“How did they get
by
us?” Athena said, sprinting with Minerva close behind.

Suddenly there were two loud thuds.

“OW!”

“Sorry,” Hermes heard Minerva—or was it Athena—say. “We're after the wine.”

Diana and Artemis stumbled into the kitchen, each one rubbing her shoulder.

“Everyone has completely lost their minds!” Artemis said. “They're running around like a spooked herd of sacred cows!”

“Zeus and Dad are getting ticked off. They want to leave already. Now,
we
are ready to go,” said Diana to Mercury. “You?”

“Ready,” said Mercury.

“
Stop sneaking up on me!
” Juno screamed from an upper floor.

“It's like she's here in the room,” Artemis said quietly.

“It's a voice that carries, certainly,” agreed Hermes, flicking a piece of lint off his toga.

“
And stop shooting arrows at me, you little gorgons!
” they all heard Juno shout.

“Cupid and Eros still trying to make her fall in love with the furniture?” asked Diana.

“
I will take those arrows and give you both such a …
”

“Looks that way,” said Mercury.

No one said anything for a long time, but everyone was trying to imagine Juno gazing lovingly at a couch or a chair or a floor rug.

“Dinner smells good,” said Artemis after a moment.

“Sure does,” said Diana.

At that instant, a puffed-up blowfish sailed into the room and stuck in Diana's elaborate hairdo.

“I've got a fish on my head, don't I?” she asked calmly.

“I would have to say … yes,” Mercury said.

“A little help? Wanna just send that back this way?” came a call from the large front room. The two messenger gods and the two goddesses of the hunt strolled out of the food-preparation room.

“Over here?” said Poseidon, waving his arms and splashing about in his traveling tank. “Right here? Thanks! Right here?”

“Here, please?” said Neptune, splashing Poseidon with his tail. “Right here. Thanks so much.”

“Oh, you bet I'll give this back,” scoffed Diana as she
began to climb the stairs to the second level. “Artemis, will you help me get the fish out of my hair?”

“Absolutely.”

“C'mon!” said Poseidon. “We're playing puffer-toss and I'm up three to one!”

“Only because you cheat!” argued Neptune.

Suddenly, there was a blinding flash and Zeus and Jupiter were standing in the middle of the room. They listened for only a moment to the commotion going on all over the insula. As they both turned to look at each other, they clapped their hands once simultaneously and, after another brilliant flash, all the immortals, Greek and Roman, stood before them, impeccably dressed.

“We have had just about enough of all of you,” said Jupiter.

“We have given you all free reign to do, see, mingle, and roam about as you please,” Zeus went on. “Now Jupiter and I wanted to see this new ruler among his people; this Julius Caesar who will become so powerful and do so much for Rome. We asked only that you be ready to attend one tiny little celebration and you ingrates can't even manage to do that.”

“What do you have to say for your miserable selves?” Jupiter spat.

“Sorry,” someone said from the corner of the room.

“I'm sorry.”

“We're sorry.”

“Uncle Dio stole the wine …”

“Do you still have the wine?” Dionysus whispered to Bacchus.

“No wine,” said Zeus.

“
We
were ready!” sang out Artemis and Diana.

“Kiss ups!” someone whispered.

“Stop!” Zeus said.

“We're off!” Jupiter said.

“Wait!” Minerva cried.

Everyone watched as she and Athena waved their hands toward the food-preparation room. Then the goddesses turned forward again.

“Had to put out the fire under the dormice,” Athena said, as if everyone should have already known that.

“Away!” said Jupiter and Zeus together.

The next moment, the large room was completely empty; only a single wine bottle remained, rolling lazily in the middle of the floor.

The throng in front of the Theatre of Pompey (one of the few monuments built by Pompey that Julius Caesar had allowed to remain after their battle) was so thick that Pandy and Alcie had climbed onto the second tier of an enormous marble fountain to get a better view and avoid being crushed. From there, Pandy was able to assess just how tightly the crowd was jammed in.

The square in front of the curved theatre was actually large, but almost all of Rome was in attendance so it appeared quite small.

“That is some wild building,” Alcie said, looking at the front facade: a huge, three-tiered, perfect semicircle of arches. “Although I'm not really feelin' why Caesar decided this was the best place to slam together thousands of people.”

“You should see it inside,” Pandy said. “Get this …
it's all based on our amphitheaters back home in Greece. The Romans sorta stole our idea, but instead of building into a hillside for support, they figured out a way to put this whole building on its own foundation. And, there aren't supposed to be any permanent structures for plays or speeches or things like that inside the city walls, because the Senate doesn't want the people being … how did one senator put it? Oh yeah, ‘being whipped into madness.' So Pompey got around that here by adding a temple dedicated to Venus, I think, at the very back. Now it's big-time sacred and stuff. Clever, huh?”

Alcie was just staring at her.

“And you know all this … how?”

“This is where the Senate meets.”

“And puts on plays?”

“Gods! No, falafel-brain. The Theatre of Pompey is where the Roman Senate meets for now.”

“Oh,
this
is where you and the senator work?
This
is where you go every day?”

“He works. I get him water.”

“That's work.”

“This building is just a temporary thing until their regular building is redone. That place, the regular one,
was
called the Curio Cornelia … after the last ruler, Cornelius, or something. Julius Caesar is having it completely rebuilt and named after him, so the whole
Senate has to meet here until the Curio Julia is finished.”

“Hermes' toenails,” Alcie said, dropping her voice. “Caesar's got an ego the size of the Parthenon. Hey! Maybe it's a lesser evil we can capture: ginormous ego!”

“I think we took care of that when we put Vanity in the box. But from what I've seen, it's different with this guy. I hear some of the senators talk about Caesar before he became ruler; when he was leading the Roman army all over someplace called Gaul. How he was right down in the middle of the battles with his men. And everyone could tell that it was him because he was the only one wearing purple. They say both armies could see this purple speck flying from one battle to another, wherever the fighting was worst. So his men had a lot of respect for Caesar because he was hacking and slashing right alongside them. And, of course, they won. Caesar seems to really care about Rome and the people; he just wants to leave his mark, y'know?”

“I still think tearing down a perfectly good building just to put up another perfectly good building is dumb.”

Rufina, seeing that two house slaves, one of whom she happened to despise, had a better vantage point than she did, insisted that she wanted to stand on the platform instead and kept hitting Alcie's legs in an effort
to knock her off. At one point, Alcie kicked Rufina—not hard, but hard enough.

“Mother!”

“What is it?” Varinia said absently, paying no attention to her daughter.

“That wretched slave kicked me in the head!”

“Hmmm?” said Varinia, turning her gaze from the crowd and surveying the situation.

“I want to stand up there and I want
that
one put to death!” Rufina cried, pointing to Alcie.

Alcie pretended to be absolutely engrossed with the scene around them and looked around innocently.

“Blessed Minerva!” Varinia said. “Stop it, Rufina! Just stop it! I am sick to death of your complaining about that girl. As if I don't have enough to worry about with your father these days. And you cannot stand up there; it would be unseemly for someone of your status to allow people to stare at your feet, wondering about the shape of your legs and such. Children and slaves, fine; but not you.”

Alcie grinned at Pandy, then stuck her tongue out at Rufina, who glanced up just in time to see it. Rufina said nothing, but her face became very serious before she looked away.