Post by Admin on Jul 7, 2016 16:50:28 GMT
Svetovida, Queen of the Tysoti, is welcome to Carthage with pomp and pageantry. Her and her tribe parade on horseback up from the docks towards the governor's palace, their route covered with palm leaves, and their persons showered with petals. Music is played, poems read, and speeches orated. The Romans seem very fond of the Slavic Queen, although she cannot help but notice that they seem to have gotten her name wrong. From the Latin her and her inner circle could understand, they seemed to refer to her as 'the Exile', and the crowds seemed to persistently yell 'Dido! Dido!'
After a formal ceremony of greeting, in which the Queen is presented to the Emperor, Julian III, the Slavs are barracked in nearby houses, and the most highranking of them are given rooms in the palace. If the Slavs had only reached their goal at Ravenna, and had seen Honorius, they would know that Julian's manner was far more modest and human than the semi-divine lord of Ravenna. Julian dressed only a little finer than his council of nobles, smiled, and even winked at one point. Although he was not exactly bubbly, he didn't seem to care if he betrayed emotion, or readjusted his seating position for comfort. He wore a simple diadem, but otherwise came across as a more familiar sort of king than the emperors of Ravenna and Constantinople. Julian had set himself up as primus inter pares, rather than dominus et deus. This sort of first noble more closely resembled the kingships of Germania, although it is sure that he is in fact attempting to hark back to a time when the senate was more than a shouting chamber for adoring the emperor, and when emperors actually saw more of their empires than a handful of core cities.
Following a rest, and the provision of a quiet breakfast - comparatively simple, with boiled eggs, cheeses, bread, oils, olives, figs, and cucumbers - Julian enters the hall once again, smiling. He holds his arms wide apart and embraces the first Slav he comes to. After detatching from a confused Slav before he overstayed his welcome, he wished Svetovida a pleasant morning and asked about her breakfast. "I can get them to make you Punic porridge, you know," he reassured. "It's an ancient recipe from before Africa was even Roman. It's delightfully sickly, if you like that sort of thing. I couldn't eat it everyday, but it is good comfort on a winter's morning, after a stressful night. Or an overly pleasant night, for that matter; who hasn't been as effected by over-indulgence as they have been by over-exertion? - Anyway, I ramble. Would you come this way, my dear Queen?" Julian gestured towards a door, lead Svetovida along a long corridor, up a flight of stairs, and out on to a terrace, standing above a courtyard. Two chairs had been prepared beside a table, and on the table were intricately decorated glasses. The glasses had some sort of vague figure on them, confusing to foreign eyes, of a goaty-looking man prancing about. The true novelty of the glass, as Julian showed with little subtlety, was that it appeared green when on the table, but when lifted up so that the sun shone through it, it turned to a sensual red.
Julian poured wine from a carafe, for himself and Svetovida, and helped himself to an olive, from a bowl beside the wine. "We may talk freely here. No-one will hear." He did not exaggerate. There was not even a slave in sight - a very unusual precaution for a Roman to take, as they very rarely seemed to remember that slaves had ears and tongues too.
After a formal ceremony of greeting, in which the Queen is presented to the Emperor, Julian III, the Slavs are barracked in nearby houses, and the most highranking of them are given rooms in the palace. If the Slavs had only reached their goal at Ravenna, and had seen Honorius, they would know that Julian's manner was far more modest and human than the semi-divine lord of Ravenna. Julian dressed only a little finer than his council of nobles, smiled, and even winked at one point. Although he was not exactly bubbly, he didn't seem to care if he betrayed emotion, or readjusted his seating position for comfort. He wore a simple diadem, but otherwise came across as a more familiar sort of king than the emperors of Ravenna and Constantinople. Julian had set himself up as primus inter pares, rather than dominus et deus. This sort of first noble more closely resembled the kingships of Germania, although it is sure that he is in fact attempting to hark back to a time when the senate was more than a shouting chamber for adoring the emperor, and when emperors actually saw more of their empires than a handful of core cities.
Following a rest, and the provision of a quiet breakfast - comparatively simple, with boiled eggs, cheeses, bread, oils, olives, figs, and cucumbers - Julian enters the hall once again, smiling. He holds his arms wide apart and embraces the first Slav he comes to. After detatching from a confused Slav before he overstayed his welcome, he wished Svetovida a pleasant morning and asked about her breakfast. "I can get them to make you Punic porridge, you know," he reassured. "It's an ancient recipe from before Africa was even Roman. It's delightfully sickly, if you like that sort of thing. I couldn't eat it everyday, but it is good comfort on a winter's morning, after a stressful night. Or an overly pleasant night, for that matter; who hasn't been as effected by over-indulgence as they have been by over-exertion? - Anyway, I ramble. Would you come this way, my dear Queen?" Julian gestured towards a door, lead Svetovida along a long corridor, up a flight of stairs, and out on to a terrace, standing above a courtyard. Two chairs had been prepared beside a table, and on the table were intricately decorated glasses. The glasses had some sort of vague figure on them, confusing to foreign eyes, of a goaty-looking man prancing about. The true novelty of the glass, as Julian showed with little subtlety, was that it appeared green when on the table, but when lifted up so that the sun shone through it, it turned to a sensual red.
Julian poured wine from a carafe, for himself and Svetovida, and helped himself to an olive, from a bowl beside the wine. "We may talk freely here. No-one will hear." He did not exaggerate. There was not even a slave in sight - a very unusual precaution for a Roman to take, as they very rarely seemed to remember that slaves had ears and tongues too.
