by Crystal King
“Yes. It’s a tough decision. There are too many people attending to decide by throw of the dice.” Apicius dropped a handful of cabbage into the crackling oil.
“What about Aelia’s cousin Lucius Aelius Sejanus, for example. I know him not but Domina speaks well of him. Would he make a good Magister?”
Apicius wrinkled his nose, as though he were recalling something distasteful. I wondered if I had somehow made him angry. Finally, he said, “It’s rumored that he likes to enjoy his drink at parties. I may not want to confine him to such a role. Let’s not worry. Fortuna has been kind to me thus far, and I think she will be again. I’ll consider it later.”
When Apicius talked of Sejanus the tone of his voice had changed, taking on a worried lilt. I glanced over at Sotas. The big man shook his head in warning. Clearly Sejanus had not been a good suggestion. I wondered why.
Apicata burst into the kitchen in a squeal of laughter, a swirl of colored ribbons braided into the dark hair flying behind her. Sotas stood in deference to the young mistress but she sailed by him without a glance. Passia smiled at Sotas, patting his arm as she passed through the doorway into the kitchen. She was breathing hard, likely from having run the length of the house trying to catch up to Apicata.
“Father, Father, can I come to the cena?” Apicata stood at the table on tiptoes, looking up at us with wide doe eyes.
“I’m sorry, Dominus. I did try to explain it was a party for grown-ups,” Passia said.
Apicius reached over the table and affectionately tweaked Apicata’s nose. “It’s not a cena, my little one. It’s a commissatio. Guess how many people can come to a commissatio?”
“Ummm . . .” Apicata held her tongue between her lips as she thought about the answer. “Nine?”
“No, not nine. That’s a cena.”
I shook my head and flashed my hands open and closed behind Apicius’s back, trying to indicate there would be many people.
“Ummm. Twenty?” she said, looking uncertainly at my hands.
“Maybe twenty, maybe more. A commissatio doesn’t always have a certain number of people who can come.” Apicius’s eyes hardened. “However, little one, I’m not sure it is the right place for a sweet maiden such as you.”
Apicata was crestfallen. The corners of her mouth turned down and her lip jutted outward in a pout.
“You shouldn’t frown,” I said in mock warning. “A bird will come perch on your lip!”
Apicata ignored me. She knew how to tug at her father’s heartstrings. “But, please, Father?” she said with a quiet squeak. I tried hard not to laugh. She was too transparent.
Her father sighed and gave in. “All right, you can come for an introduction, but you cannot stay. I’ll let you meet a few of my friends, but then you will have to go back to Passia. And you have to promise me you will work extra hard tomorrow on your Greek lessons.”
“I promise! Can I have a wreath too?”
“Come here, child, I can make you a wreath.” Balsamea held up a handful of hazel flowers and waved them toward Apicata. The girl skipped over to her and climbed up on the bench to help weave the flowers together.
For a few minutes we watched Balsamea show Apicata how to layer the laurel and hazel leaves. Passia came over to the table. “Did you show him?” she asked me, her eyes wide.
“Show me what?” Apicius asked with a mixture of curiosity and suspicion.
My heart began to pound. I wasn’t sure I was ready to show Apicius what Passia was referring to. My palms sweating, I went to a cupboard in the corner of the kitchen, removed a large scroll, and brought it to Apicius. Passia thought it was time I should show him my cookbook.
“This.”
Apicius pondered the scroll for a second. “I don’t understand.” Slowly he unrolled the scroll. The words “On the Subject of Cooking” were written in large letters at the beginning.
“It’s a recipe book. All the best recipes of your kitchen. I’m not quite finished, but thought you would want to see it. I wanted to find a way to commemorate your legacy for generations ahead.”
Apicius stood there, silent, his eyes running over the Latin script. After several quiet minutes Passia and I exchanged a worried glance.
I begged the gods for my master to say something.
When Apicius looked up, there were tears in his eyes and a crooked smile on his face. “Yes! By Jove!” He laughed and it was a happy, strange laugh.
The mixture of relief, happiness, and pride that mingled within me was as great as it was the day I first kissed my beloved Passia. Oh, how I wished I had a stool to sit upon! My knees felt like bent straw.
I leaned over to point at different parts of the scroll, unrolling it across the counter as I spoke. “See, here are recipes for shellfish, patinae with fig peckers or with chicken, a few of our cabbage recipes, and tips for the cook. I added your trick about using eggs to help make cloudy wine clear, instructions on how to preserve oysters, and even Fannia’s recipe for how to make wormwood liquor. I thought about how many cooks don’t have the right information or knowledge. I wanted to help bring the same level of standards to other households that you have in yours,” I continued in a rush. “It is far from finished, as you can see.”
Apicius clasped my shoulder with a firm hand. “Thrasius, you have made me proud. Buying you that day was one of the best moves I have ever made. Have you shown Aelia?”
I shook my head. “No, not yet.”
“I must show her! She will be delighted!” He gathered up the scroll. “I’ll check later to see how the cabbage turned out.” He patted Apicata on the head and left. Sotas stood, saluted me, and followed Apicius out the door.
“That went well.” Passia came around the table to wrap her arms around my neck.
“Better than I had thought. I hope his mood holds. It always tends to sour the closer we get to the start of a party.” I brushed my lips against the side of her cheek, close to her eye, feeling the smooth skin warm to my touch.
At that moment, we were jolted by a shower of petals and leaves from a wreath crashing into the sides of our heads.
“Ow!” Passia exclaimed, jumping back. We looked down to see the remains of a hazel and laurel wreath at our feet.
“Not here in my kitchen,” Balsamea said from the table where she sat with Apicata, who was laughing.
I was amused at her audacity. “You mean my kitchen.” I pulled Passia close and planted a hearty kiss on her lips.
• • •
Many hours later, I went to find Apicius to finalize a few questions I had about serving the meal. Sotas knelt outside the door to Apicius’s bedchamber. The door was cracked open, but Sotas waved me over to the side.
“He’s in a foul mood. You may want to wait until the moment is right,” he warned me in a whisper.
I sighed. As I’d predicted. “Can I wait with you?”
Sotas nodded. “Listen for a while, then decide if you want to stay. Let Aelia calm him.”
I crouched down next to him as Apicius’s voice rose.
“Be gone!” His dress slaves rushed out the door, anxious to be away from their master.
Sotas leaned over to me. “Dominus snapped at them the entire time they were layering his toga.”
I shook my head.
Aelia’s voice wafted from the room. “You like the white stola? Are you sure the yellow silk wouldn’t be better?”
“Aelia, please stop worrying. You look beautiful. We’ve had large parties before and you haven’t been nervous.” There was the clink of cosmetic pots and bottles of nard used to perfume the forehead.
“I wasn’t nervous until you mentioned Ovid would be coming,” Aelia said.
Aelia was not alone in her love of Ovid’s poetry. Passia had read every word the man had ever written. He was considered to be one of Rome’s experts on both love and beauty, and most women I knew owned several of his books. When Passia heard he would be in attendance I thought she might swoon.
There was
the ruffle of a scroll being unraveled. “Could this be one of the sources of your concern? Women’s Facial Cosmetics?”
I remembered the book. Apicius had bought it and other Ovid titles for Aelia two years earlier as a Saturnalia gift.
“I know, I shouldn’t worry. But if he didn’t know so much, how could he write it down? It is as though he were the mouthpiece for Venus herself!”
There was the soft sound of a kiss.
“Aelia, you are the sort of woman Ovid writes his poems about. That mirror cannot show you what I see.”
“I think you exaggerate, husband.”
“No, I do not. At any rate, you know many of the people who will be here tonight. Fannia will help you navigate through all the family names. You know Trio, Celera, and Publius Octavius, and Gaia too.”
Aelia’s voice turned sour. “I don’t know why you invited Octavius. It’s always such a competition between the two of you. Don’t you get tired of showing each other up?”
Apicius was silent. More clink of pots.
“I talked to Apicata about Numerius Cornelius Sulla,” Aelia said, changing the subject.
“Did she understand?” His words were full of concern.
“I think so. She liked the idea of wearing the flame veil and the ‘pretty’ belt, as she described it.”
I eyed Sotas, who nodded his head. A flame veil referred to the traditional Roman wedding veil the color of saffron, and the “pretty” belt was a knotted belt to be untied by the husband on the wedding night. It seemed that Apicius had betrothed his daughter. In truth, I was somewhat surprised he had not done so earlier. Many children of Roman patricians were betrothed at very young ages, to seal family commitment and build relationships.
Apicius chuckled at his daughter’s reaction. “It is a shame that he could not be here to help us celebrate.”
“It’s just as well,” Aelia said. “Sulla is so much older than you are. It might have confused Apicata to see him.”
There was a long silence, then Aelia spoke up.
“Did you deliver an invite to Sejanus?”
“Yes, I did.” I heard Apicius moving toward the door. I stood and backed away.
“It will be good to see him again.” Her voice sounded far away.
“It has been a while,” he said, emerging from the room into the hall where we waited.
He saw me and scowled. “What do you want? Shouldn’t you be in the kitchen?”
“Yes, Dominus, but I wondered . . .”
“Wonder it later. I have too much to do to worry about whatever it is you want. I don’t need to hold your hand. Just take care of things!”
I sucked in a breath, shocked to hear such venom after he had spoken so tenderly to Aelia.
“What was that about?” I asked Sotas after Apicius dismissed us. “He was fine earlier.”
“Did you notice when his mood changed? During his conversation with Aelia?”
I picked up the pace to keep up with the big man. I thought back to the conversation. “When Aelia mentioned Octavius and Sejanus.”
Sotas slowed and glanced around.
“What I tell you must not become gossip in the house. You must be silent. If you are not, I fear for how Fides will punish me for misplacing my trust and betraying the secrets of my dominus.”
I knew he feared the wrath of his goddess more than he feared losing his life. I clapped a hand on his arm—his shoulder was a bit high for me to reach. “Fear not, Sotas. I won’t let you down.”
“Dominus wants to avoid Sejanus,” he said, his voice low.
“But why?”
“Hard to look in the eye a man you’ve bedded when you discover he isn’t the whore you thought he was.”
I caught myself before I exclaimed aloud. I don’t know what I thought Sotas was going to tell me but I certainly didn’t expect that.
“He slept with Sejanus?”
Sotas grunted. “It was nine years ago and we were summering in Pompeii. Dominus met Sejanus at the baths. Sejanus was maybe fourteen, so Dominus would have been about twenty-three.”
Sejanus was a year older than me. I had been living in Pompeii then and we could easily have been at the baths at the same time.
“You’ve been to the baths there, right?”
“I have.” The baths were small and always packed tight like anchovies in oil.
“Right, everyone sits so close together. I noticed Dominus staring at one of the boys. He was what some might call handsome, I suppose. He was fit, with muscles that looked like they could have been sculpted by that famous sculptor, what was his name?”
“Pheidias,” I supplied, looking around to make sure we weren’t overheard.
“Yes, him. Anyway, the boy came and sat next to Dominus. He didn’t say much but he listened to all of our dominus’s stories. He didn’t have a body-slave with him and he was by himself, so we assumed he was a pleb.
“The boy followed him through the frigidarium. They dressed together, still talking. When we left the bath, Dominus propositioned him. I remember gasping aloud. Dominus elbowed me so hard I had a bruise for days after.”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Apicius spoke disparagingly of his friends who had a penchant for young boys. He thought Greek love was vulgar!
“Anyway,” Sotas went on, “within an hour the two were holed up in an inn above a loud popina. You know how much he hates taverns.”
“A popina? I can’t even picture it.” I was amazed at the story. It was out of character for our dominus.
“I ran ahead and secured the room. Thrasius, the amount of money he gave Sejanus for just an hour! Dominus paid him as much as he would have for a new slave. I had to stand outside the room and guard the door, hearing every grunt and groan. I was glad when we left. But then the next day we met him there again.”
“Again?”
“Yes. We met him several times over the course of that summer. Always at that popina and always for an exorbitant amount of money.”
“He didn’t know Sejanus was Aelia’s cousin? And an equestrian?” No wonder Apicius was embarrassed. If other nobles discovered the tryst, it would be shameful indeed. Having sex with slaves and plebs was one thing, but with a patrician—that was a line that was not to be crossed.
Sotas shook his head. “No, he didn’t. He truly thought him a pleb. He identified himself as Lucius and didn’t give his full name. At the end of the summer, Dominus asked him if he could deliver a package for him. The boy agreed. We returned the next day with a parcel. He took it and that was the last we saw of him that summer.”
“But you saw him again at some point?”
“Yes, but that’s not the worst of it.”
We paused until a trio of laundry slaves had passed. When they were out of earshot, he continued. “The parcel was damning.”
“What was in the parcel?”
“A vial of poison, a letter with instructions, and money. A great deal of it, meant for an assassin.”
I covered my mouth for fear I would exclaim aloud. “Whom did Apicius intend to have killed?”
“Publius Octavius.”
I couldn’t believe my ears. “Octavius? Are you serious?”
“I told you that Dominus has hated him for years. Dominus told him once that he wanted to become the gastronomic adviser to Caesar. Not three weeks later Octavius announced his own intent to find favor with Caesar. That angered Dominus to no end.”
“What happened?”
Sotas grimaced. “One night not long after, Tiberius—yes, that Tiberius,” he said, noting the question in my eyes. Tiberius was Livia’s son and Caesar’s stepson. “He was visiting Octavius at his villa. He had with him a young man who was said to be one of Tiberius’s oldest and closest friends, a soldier from his military days. During the meal the man complained that his tongue was numb and that he was growing very cold. He was dead within fifteen minutes.”
“It sounds like wolfsbane,” I breathed. I had been taught at an early a
ge how to distinguish the leaves from that of the radish, as they looked very similar. The poison worked fast. Every part of the plant was extremely deadly and the juice of the plant was said to have caused the death of many a senator over the centuries.
“Tiberius flew into a rage and had his men execute Octavius’s cook and the entire kitchen staff.”
“What about Octavius? How was he spared from having to go to trial for attempted murder?”
“I know not. Perhaps he trusted Octavius, or maybe Octavius convinced Tiberius that his kitchen had been infiltrated.”
“By the gods.” The muscles in my neck tightened.
Sotas gazed down the hallway toward the peristylium, his eyes as cold as flint. “It was a year until we saw Sejanus again, in Rome at Aelia’s mother’s funeral. We were listening to the priests give the blessings to guide Amelia Lamia to the Underworld, and Dominus raised his head, looked across the old woman’s body, and saw him. The gods have frozen the moment in my mind. I can smell the cassia and frankincense. I can hear the chants of the priest. I remember the ancestral masks lining the room. Domina was crying. And the boy, whom we knew only as Lucius, was staring at us.
“Lucius walked next to Dominus and Domina during the procession to the cemetery outside the gates of the city. I walked behind everyone so it was easy for me to see he kept eyeing Dominus. Many hours later, after the fire from the pyre had begun to die down and they were starting to collect the ashes for interment, the boy appeared. Neither of us expected him to reach over, put his arm around Aelia, and hug her close. I remember he told Aelia that Ceres would watch over her mother and make sure her journey across the Styx and to Pluto was safe.