Not even a vague suspicion of her lover’s former attachment crossed her mind.
Northeast from the center of Tlamco was the Temple of Venus, set apart for marriage and all domestic affairs. It was here that the vestal virgins lived, and taught the young children. It was an oval-shaped structure, with rows of pillars inside, supporting a convex-domed roof of colored glass. The pillars were ornamented elaborately with stucco, rainbow-tinted, each one showing a solid color. The interstices between had mirrors with beaten copper frames placed over the glass itself. The tessellated floor was of black marble, the vessels of exquisitely hammered silver, while the altars were of onyx on copper bases. Passion-flowers, gillyflowers and hollyhocks, emblems of fecundity, were employed in the decorations of the temple for the wedding. Ivy, meaning fidelity; grasses, showing submission; heliotrope, for devotion; syringa and roses, for love, were freely intertwined about the pillars and altars.
On Friday, the day of love and marriage, no blood was allowed to be shed for food.
At the wedding, the vestments of Imos and his assistants were of azure, their ornaments of polished copper, their head garlands of white and red roses, and they carried myrtle and olive branches.
Apple-green and pale rose were the colors of the canopy placed in the southern niche, under which the ceremony took place. It was an open, flaring triangle with a lamp in the apex, having the pedestal of iron, the joint of brass, the bowl of silver, and the center of gold. It had two arms, composed of three metals interlaced in such a manner as to leave a triple conduit for oil.
There were nine wicks; three in the middle, and three in each arm. The lower rim of the pedestal represented a serpent, while the globe was large and double, having compartments filled with colored waters and perfumed so that the air was cool and fragrant.
The lamp was on a revolving standard of polished wood, and at its base were three smoking incense-jars of burnished bronze.
Early on the morning of the wedding, a brilliant pageant formed in front of Setos’s house and marched through the principal streets. It consisted of beasts of burden, and tamanes, loaded with presents for the bride, and also carrying her belongings to Iaqua.
First came the jewel bearers, armed to the teeth, escorted by cavalrymen, brandishing broadswords and performing many feats of horsemanship and skill.