“Nothing whatever, your Majesty,” said Lutorius, “if you take that view of the matter.”
“Perhaps,” Commodus admitted, “there may be something in your suggestion. Suppose we make the stipulation that she must carry the sieve of water from the brink of the river to the top of the steps.”
“The number of steps,” Lutorius reminded him, “varies at different points along the Marble Quay.”
“True,” the Emperor admitted. “Let us specify the middle stair, which has seven steps, if I mistake not. Do you agree to that?” he asked Brinnaria.
“I agree,” she concluded.
After Brinnaria had gone, Commodus resumed:
“Now we must decide,” he said, “what kind of a sieve she is to use.”
Causidiena spoke up, her all but sightless eyes strained towards the Emperor.
“Lutorius and Numisia and I have talked over that question,” she said. “It seems to me that it would be unfair to her for us to decide on a metal sieve. They are always coarse and the apertures between the wires are comparatively large. It seems to us that no one could carry water in a copper sieve, not even by a miracle.
“The meshes of linen sieves are the smallest of any made, but the linen does not seem to have much sustaining power. We feel that with a linen sieve not only Brinnaria would be, as Lutorius expressed it, severely handicapped for water-carrying, but that, as he also said, I fear irreverently, that Vesta herself would be too much handicapped in respect to miracle-working.”