They made a fine picture. The ceiling of the immense hall was a barrel-vault, of which the beams were stuccoed in cream-white, picked out with gilding, while between them the depth of each soffit was colored an intense deep blue, against which stood out a great gilt rosette. The mighty pilasters, whose gilded capitals supported the vaulting, were of many-veined dark yellow marble, polished and gleaming like the slabs of pale yellow marble which panelled the interspaces. The high-moulded wainscot was of red and green porphyry, somberly smooth and shining. Against it, below the wall-panels, were set great chests of carved and gilded wood, while about the bases of the pilasters were placed groups of settees and armchairs, similarly carved and gilded and richly upholstered. The floor was paved with an intricate mosaic of parti-colored bits of marble, its expanse broken only by the great gorgeous carpet before the throne, by the chair set for Brinnaria, by the onyx table, supported on sculptured monsters like griffons, beside the throne, and by the throne itself, a curule seat of ivory mounted with gold, its crimson cushion glowing, set far out in the room.
Before the throne stood Aurelius, his head bare, the long ringlets of his hair and beard sweeping his shoulders and his bosom, one foot a trifle advanced, the gold eagle embroidered on his sky-blue buskin showing beneath the crimson silk robes, lavishly embroidered with a complicated pattern of winding vines, bright blue and green, edged with gold, which the etiquette of the time imposed upon even a philosophically austere Emperor; on his right Brinnaria, erect and tense in her white official habit, her square white headdress all but hiding her coronet of dark braids, her veil pushed back from her flushed face; the tassels and ribbons of her head-band, her great pearl necklace, the big pearl brooch that fastened the folds of her headdress where they crossed on her breast, and the bunch of fresh white flowers which it clasped, rising and falling with the heaving of her bosom; facing her, splendid in the gilded armor and scarlet cloak of a commander of irregular cavalry, Almo.
“You know why I have sent for you,” Aurelius reminded him. “Speak out.”