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pet name: Julie,” said Melania. “If no one else is around.”
    â€œHuh?” said Iole, taken aback.
    â€œTell it, Horatia!” Melania called to a junior VV standing at the back. “Let’s see how much of the story you know.”
    â€œLet’s see!” said another Vestal.
    â€œWell,” said Horatia, pushing her way to the front of the group—which by this time had maneuvered Iole back to her small room and, taking up every centimeter of available space, had somehow managed to sit her down at the dressing table. “Not so long ago there was a man named Sulla …”
    â€œ
What
was his name?” asked the group.
    â€œLucius Cornelius Sulla,” said Horatia. “The Senate drew up a list of everyone who Sulla thought was an enemy of the Roman Republic. And if the Sulla didn’t like you, you were on the list. And then Sulla was given the job of carrying out the proscription.”
    â€œProscription!”
    â€œWhich meant that it was his job to condemn you and see to it that you were executed.”
    â€œHarsh!”
    â€œ
Harsh!
”
    â€œWell, one day Julius Caesar’s name appeared on that list.”
    â€œOn the list.”
    â€œLittle boy!”
    â€œHail Caesar!”
    â€œAnd he was condemned to death. But the Vestals found out about it and interceded on his behalf.”
    â€œPut a stop to it!”
    â€œThe man’s alive to-
day
!”
    â€œAnd that is why the Vestals may look Caesar in the eye,” said Horatia.
    â€œCall him ‘Julie.’”
    â€œBecause,” Horatia finished up, “we saved his life and he knows it! He’s ruler, but he knows which side of his bread has the honey.”
    Without warning, as Iole was listening and looking, Horatia moved slightly to the right and Iole caught a fleeting glimpse of two identical faces at the back of the group … incredibly beautiful faces. She nearly gasped as the two women winked at her in unison. Then Horatia shifted again, and the women seemed to vanish.
    â€œExcellent, Horatia! And thank you,” said Melania. “All right, sisters, what we really need now—because
tempus fugit
—are your best makeover tips.”
    â€œOh, and will you just look at this child?” said the woman with the heavy headdress, tilting Iole’s face upward for everyone to see the black and red streaks. “I thought she was going to run away and join the circus.”
    The next instant, as Iole was trying to remember where she had seen those fleeting faces before, her face was wiped clean and there were more than several hands drawing and dabbing, painting and polishing her skin. And there were so many beauty secrets flying into her ears, Iole thought she might go deaf.
    â€œWhite lead and white chalk … white complexion.”
    â€œCharcoal for bad breath.”
    â€œSoot on the lashes and brows. And give yourself one nice long brow. Very pretty.”
    Every once in a while, a question or comment concerning Iole from one woman to another would break through.
    â€œDo you think she was really the prettiest in her family?”
    â€œI know you have to be mentally fit to join the VV priestess-hood, but she can’t seem to grasp any beauty basics. I’m not sure she’s all that smart.”
    Iole craned her head around to pinpoint exactly who it was who’d questioned her intelligence. But then, all their voices began to blend into one cacophonous drone and Iole tried desperately to suppress a giggling fit. She was trying to listen to these women and their ideas but it was being crowded out by the image she was concocting in her mind. She again pictured the group as they had marched up the stairs as one single unit. Then she found herself imagining the Vestals as a pack of lovely and gentle but wild animals allowed to run free in a meadow somewhere. They were tall, shapely, pure white (like Dido), impossibly silly yet