Aurelia's reception room could not compare to a Palatine atrium, but it was quite large enough comfortably to hold the dozen or so women who had invaded it. Open shutters looked out onto what was commonly regarded as a lovely garden, thanks to Gaius Matius in the other ground floor apartment; his was the hand had found roses able to bloom in the shade, coaxed grapevines into scaling the twelve storeys of latticed walls and balconies, trimmed box bushes into perfect globes, and rigged a cunning gravity feed to the chaste marble pool that allowed a rearing two tailed dolphin to spout water from its fearsome mouth. The walls of the reception room were well kept up and painted in the red style, the floor of cheap terrazzo had been burnished to an appealing reddish pink glow, and the ceiling had been painted to simulate a cloud fluffed noon sky, though it could claim no expensive gilding. Not the residence of one of the Mighty, but adequate for a junior senator, Brutus supposed as he sat watching Julia, watching the women; Julia caught him, so he looked too. His mother had seated herself next to Aurelia on a couch, where she managed to display herself to good advantage despite the fact that her hostess was, even at the age of fifty five, still held one of Rome's great beauties. Aurelia's figure was elegantly slim and it suited her to be in repose, for one didn't notice then that when she moved it was too briskly for grace. No hint of grey marred her ice brown hair, and her skin was smooth, creamy. It was she who had recommended Brutus's school to Servilia, for she was Servilia's chief confidante. From that thought Brutus's mind skipped to school, a typical digression for a mind which did tend to wander.