“I merely offered a sieve.”
“None of your concern to offer a sieve,” Commodus growled. “You insult all of us and me most of all. Do you take me to be so unfair as to subject this lady to her test with a sieve brought and offered by her accuser?”
Calvaster was dumb.
“Show me that sieve,” the Emperor commanded.
Calvaster produced from under his robes a copper-hooped sieve strung with linen.
Commodus handed it to Brinnaria.
“What do you think of that sieve?” he inquired.
Brinnaria held it up to the light and looked through the web; held it level, upside down, and looked along the web.
“It is very irregularly woven,” she pronounced; “some of the meshes are three times the size of others. It is very unevenly strung, it bags in two places.” She held it up to her face a moment.
“Also,” she concluded, “it has been scrubbed with wood-ashes and fuller’s-earth. Vesta herself could not carry water in that sieve.”