by Crystal King
I slid onto the bench next to him. Sotas was looking in the direction of Sejanus, who was talking with Apicius, Fannia, and Aelia. Apicata played with Perseus beneath their feet. Sejanus was more charismatic than the day I saw him drunk in Baiae, his features even more finely chiseled, his eyes a touch bluer and the smile more devious than I remembered.
“Bastard,” Sotas said. “He remembers me. You watch him, and tell me what you think. Even if that day hadn’t happened, there is something wrong about him, something underhanded and wicked.”
“He’s the man who wanted to accost Apicata at the market in Baiae.”
Sotas stared at me, his eyes widening. “Are you sure?”
“As sure as you are sitting next to me.” I seethed. “He said that Apicius owed him a favor. I tried to warn Dominus but he wouldn’t listen.
“Tell me, Sotas, if Sejanus has such evidence on Apicius, why hasn’t Apicius tried to kill Sejanus?”
Sotas cocked an eyebrow at me. “You mustn’t talk of such things.”
“Why not?”
“Apicius hates Sejanus but he’s on his way to becoming a Praetorian—the best of Caesar’s guards. If anyone would die in an attempt to stop him, it would likely be him for even thinking it. The investigation into his death would be relentless, and the consequences painful and deadly—to all around Apicius.”
He turned back toward the party. I watched with him, marveling over the web that the Fates wove for us—it was truly tangled.
At length, the flutists moved off and I could hear the conversation.
“Your daughter is delightful!” Sejanus was saying to Aelia. I gripped the edge of the bench and bit my tongue as he spoke. “She is a living testament to the good looks that seem to follow the gens Aelia.”
Aelia smiled. “Cousin, you flatter me.”
Sejanus had set the tone for the evening with the clear slight against the Gavia clan. “It’s only a shame I share the name through adoption—not blood—or who knows how much more attractive I might have been!” Nearby guests laughed at the joke but to me it seemed the true intent was to point out that Apicius had, at least at one time, found him attractive. Sejanus looked at Apicius directly as he spoke, a smile on his face.
Apicius gave away nothing. He waved over a boy with a tray. “Have you tried the fried hare livers, Sejanus?”
Apicata jumped up and down and smiled at her father. “May I? May I?”
Her father smiled. Apicata could always melt his heart. “Only one and don’t share with Perseus!”
The serving boy lowered the tray so she could reach for the liver but not so low that the jumping puppy could steal treats for himself. She snatched a morsel and popped it into her mouth. I knew what she tasted, a sublime mixture of textures, the crispy breaded exterior and the smooth, sumptuous richness of the liver itself. The combination is unexpected. When I first introduced the recipe, it immediately became a family favorite.
Apicata turned to Sejanus. She did not appear to recognize him from the market. “Oh, you must try! These are my favorite!”
“If you say so, I must try!” Sejanus reached for the tray. He took a bite of the liver and surprise registered in his eyes.
Sejanus reached for another liver. “Where on earth did you find your cook?”
“Baiae.” Aelia reached for her own sample. “Thrasius’s cooking is always exceptional. Wait until you try the hyacinth bulbs!”
“Hyacinth bulbs are one of my favorites.” Sejanus ran his fingers affectionately through Apicata’s hair as he talked.
I stared, wondering what his intentions were. My right eye began to twitch.
Apicius nodded at Passia to come forward and collect Apicata and her puppy. The girl went begrudgingly and only after Sejanus had planted a kiss on her forehead and promised he would visit again soon.
“There are rumors your father will be named consul,” Sejanus said to Aelia.
“I have heard the same.” Octavius joined the conversation. He carried a napkin full of sausages. His mouth was full and the corners of his lips were slick with grease. “Aelia, you must be so proud!”
“It is well deserved,” Aelia said. “He has worked hard to be a good senator and it’s wonderful to see him rewarded.”
“Have you seen him much since you came to Rome?” Sejanus asked. He already seemed to be acquainted with Octavius.
Apicius spoke up. “He dined here last week, with Seneca the Rhetorician and his wife.”
“Did anyone tell you about Corvinus?” Octavius shook a sausage at Apicius.
Aelia spoke up before her husband could. “Is he all right?”
Octavius licked his lips. “Oh, he’s perfectly fine. In fact, he’s decided it’s time to retire.”
I wondered why Fannia hadn’t mentioned it to Apicius when she’d talked to him earlier about Corvinus. I could see a surge of excitement rush through Apicius and knew he was thinking through all his clients to determine if he could call in favors with those who held sway with Corvinus and could recommend him. The spark of hope died in his eyes with Octavius’s next words.
“While he’s heading to his farm in Tusculum, I’ll be taking on his work for Augustus. Now that I’m back from governing Egypt, Caesar wanted to make sure I was kept busy.” He stuffed another sausage in his mouth and chewed.
“Splendid news,” Apicius managed to say. But it was not splendid news. To have Octavius win the coveted adviser post was the worst news imaginable. I was sure Apicius wanted nothing more than to go throw himself into the Tiber.
“Congratulations,” Sejanus said, but he raised a knowing eyebrow at Apicius. Apicius did not return the look, and only continued to smile pleasantly at Octavius.
“Thank you,” Octavius said, his point having been made. “Oh, Apicius, I heard about that nasty business with your mother.”
Apicius froze.
“What a she-devil you were spawned from!” The insult in his voice was clear. “I’m sure you were right to exercise your paterfamilias with that woman.” He smacked his lips.
“You are out of line!” Aelia spoke up. I was surprised at her audacity, to assert herself so to one of Apicius’s guests.
“Aelia . . .” Apicius warned, glaring at her. Deflated, she stepped back a pace.
“Now, now, Octavius, we should stay out of the affairs of others, don’t you agree?” Sejanus said pleasantly.
Octavius didn’t respond but he dipped his head in deference before walking away to talk to a cluster of senators who stood nearby.
“It must be good to be close to family again,” Sejanus said, turning the conversation. “I, for one, am glad to be here. Just as Rome was becoming a bit of a bore, my dear cousin and her husband come and throw a party!”
Aelia beamed but Apicius said nothing, only gestured for a servant to refill their wine. He tilted his glass in a toast, then downed it fast, as though he hoped the wine would wash everything away.
Despite that bitter moment, the rest of the party was lovely. My cherubs and nymphs wove through the crowd with trays of food and glasses of wine cut with water by Trio, whom Apicius had asked to be the Magister of Revels. The highlight was Ovid. He was a striking man with sandy-brown hair framing a boyish face, despite his middling age. It was no wonder all the women in Rome fell at his feet.
Ovid cleared his throat and a hush fell upon the garden. “I have heard my host has a young daughter with a hound by the name of Perseus.”
Aelia cried out in excitement.
“I am working on a book of the great tales of all the gods. I am not far along, but I can tell you this story, of the great Perseus for which Apicata’s pet is named. This portion of the poem occurs right after his triumph over the monstrous gorgon Medusa. Perseus asked Atlas for a night’s rest but Atlas, wary of an old prophecy that said the son of Jove would overthrow him, refused.”
Ovid took a sip of wine and began, his voice rising above the clusters of guests standing around the garden.
But Atla
s, mindful of an oracle
from Themis, of Parnassus,
recalled these words, “O Atlas! mark the day
a son of Jupiter shall come to spoil;
for when thy trees been stripped of golden fruit,
the glory shall be his.”
Fearful of this,
Atlas had built solid walls around
his orchard, and secured a dragon, huge,
that kept perpetual guard, and thence expelled
all strangers from his land. Wherefore he said,
“Begone! The glory of your deeds is all
pretense; even Jupiter, will fail your need.”
Thus Perseus was forced to fight the great Atlas, and realizing he could not win, he brought the gorgon’s head forward and turned Atlas to stone, fulfilling the prophecy.
I thought back to the reading Apicius had received the day he purchased me. For some reason, it seemed to be a marker for my master, a prophecy of a sort. I wondered if, like Atlas, it would become a self-fulfilling prophecy. “Ultimately, you will be judged in the Underworld by how our world and the world of the future perceive you.” I’d often heard Apicius repeating that last line. In the years since the reading he had shaped his life in relation to those words. He was obsessed with creating a life that would render him memorable to all.
I peered across the garden to where Sotas stood in the shadows. Sotas might be able to protect Apicius from all outwardly harm, but I doubted anyone could protect Apicius from himself.
PART IV
4 C.E. to 5 C.E.
PATINA OF PEARS
Core and boil the pears, pound them with pepper, cumin, honey, passum, liquamen, and a little oil. Add eggs to make a patina, sprinkle with pepper, and serve.
—Book 4.2.35, Compound Dishes
On Cookery, Apicius
CHAPTER 10
Now that we were in Rome, Apicius became more focused on public appearances, enlarging and redesigning his villa, including expanding the snow cellar at great expense. He gave me funds to purchase additional slaves for the kitchens in both Rome and Minturnae to accommodate the larger parties we hosted. His name was bandied about among Rome’s finest. That summer he hosted many influential patricians, including the governors of Egypt and Carthage, who were both in Rome for the ceremony honoring Caesar’s adoption of Livia’s son, Tiberius, as heir.
When I could, I continued to work on the cookbook. The task was harder than I’d first imagined. Sometimes one recipe would take me weeks to perfect. Only then could I inscribe the recipes onto the page. Fortunately, Apicius took to the idea of a cookbook like snails to milk.
“Only the best, Thrasius, only the best,” Apicius said one afternoon, nearly a year after I first showed him all the recipes. He clapped me on the back as I unpacked a crate of wine just delivered from Greece. “This book will make many a new chef into demigods of their masters’ kitchens, but none of them will be able to truly re-create what I am doing, Thrasius. No one else will have this wine, or the same pine nuts from Sardinia. Or the same green walnuts, gathered in the moonlight during the feast of Fortuna! Their wine will be plonk, their pine nuts from the trees in their backyard, their green walnuts fallen and dark. They will think they are tasting a bit of Elysium, but only diners at my table will know true ambrosia!”
I had to bite my tongue when he talked like that, as though the recipes were his doing, not mine.
“You are his,” Passia told me matter-of-factly one afternoon when I was ranting about my master’s claim to the recipes I had so painstakingly researched. “Therefore the recipes are his.” She stroked my hair, soothing me. “Until you have your freedom, all you do is his. You have what many would sell their souls to Pluto for. Take your happiness where you can. Do not whine like a child over that which you cannot change.”
She was right. Apicius treated me well and he gave me great freedom to explore what I loved most—cooking. Few slaves had such opportunities.
We began to travel every few weeks, seeking out the best ingredients for the recipes. At first the trips were an adventure. I missed Passia very much, but I was also secretly pleased that my master felt such dedication to the recipes I devised. We went to Egypt, where we found a recipe for bottle gourds; in Sicily we learned an old olive relish recipe; in Byzantium we discovered salted tunny fish; and in Syria we purchased huge jars of the juiciest dates I have ever eaten.
Still, while I freely admit that I enjoyed access to such luxury for my cooking, I worried about my dominus’s obsession, mostly because it rarely went well for those around him. Apicius spent great amounts of time and money on luxuries that did not turn out to be what he thought they would. Which is what happened the time we went to the northern coast of Africa.
We were in Minturnae, spending a few weeks near the shore, when I learned of the trip. It was time for the salutatio and Apicius had seen only a handful of his clients. Apollo’s chariot was not even high in the sky and already the heat was unbearable. I was looking forward to taking a few moments to stand in the snow cellar to cool off.
Apicius grew more impatient with his clients as the morning wore on. After a time, he leaned over and whispered in my ear, “I don’t have time for this. I’ll see one more, then send the rest away.”
I swallowed the anise seeds I’d been chewing to freshen my breath. Why was he so anxious to end the salutatio? Was he thinking of returning to Rome early? The family had arrived in Minturnae only a few days before, and aside from being able to celebrate Neptunalia in our old home, part of the reason we’d come was to influence the votes of his clients. The governor of the province wasn’t convinced it was necessary to extend a crucial road into Minturnae, and as a result, it was going to a regional vote. The road, Apicius had argued to his clientele all morning, would bring more trade to the town. That was true, but Apicius had a different motive—he wanted Caesar to purchase his unused marshlands to transform them into a raised road leading more directly into Minturnae. Such an agreement would be lucrative indeed.
I cleared my throat and read off the next name on my list. “Numerius Priscus Mato will receive the last audience of the day,” I said to the men standing in the atrium. “The rest of you may partake from the tray of honey cakes and apples as you leave.”
The named client, Mato, was a pale freedman who stood hunched over, much like many older ex-slaves who had once worked on the salt flats beyond Ostia carrying heavy slabs of salt day in and day out. Apicius wasn’t fond of the man, who had gotten drunk at one of his cenae a few years prior and had broken a costly amphora of wine. Although it took more than a year, Mato, without having been prompted to do so, paid back the cost of the wine. It didn’t matter. Apicius’s opinion of him had permanently soured; he had little love for drunkards.
I felt bad for the man. He’d made a mistake and had worked hard to fix it. It bothered me that the effort went unnoticed by my master.
“Priscus Mato, what favor do you seek this morning?”
Mato kept his eyes downward. “It’s my son, little Mato. He’s very ill. I fear for his life.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. You should make an offering to Asclepius,” Apicius said, raising a hand to wave Mato away.
“That’s why I came to you, Apicius. I’d like to take him to the Asclepeion in Rome but I need money for the trip and the offering. Please, will you help us? I will do anything you ask, vote for anybody you say, give you anything in my power.”
Apicius idly ran his fingers across the jeweled goblet that held his morning wine.
Mato dropped to his knees. A flash of sun from the opening in the atrium shone directly into his face and he squinted, forcing tears from the corners of his eyes.
“Get up,” Apicius said sharply. He had never liked displays of womanly emotion.
Mato struggled to get to his feet. Sotas stepped forward to help the man but stopped when Apicius snapped his fingers. After a moment Mato stood and wavered unsteadily. Desperation shone in his eyes.
Apicius crooked a finger at his client. “If I give you the money for the trip and for a box of snakes for the temple offering, you must agree to give me your boy as a slave when he has been healed.”
I exchanged a worried glance with Sotas. This was unprecedented cruelty on the part of our master. To pay for such a trip and the sacred snakes would be but a trifle, a few denarii at best. To ask for the life of the man’s son was hardly a fair exchange. I did not like this dark side of my dominus. Worse, it had come unbidden. I could not fathom what drove Apicius to be so callous.
Mato’s mouth fell open at Apicius’s proclamation. “You know not what you ask of me, Apicius,” he said in a low voice.
Apicius stood. His chair was on a raised platform, and the added height, although slight, gave Apicius the appearance of towering over his client. “I do know what I ask, Priscus Mato. I ask for the life of your son in exchange for the money I will give you to save it.”
The blood visibly rose in Mato’s face. He trembled but his voice did not shake. “I suffered at the hands of men like you, Apicius. For thirty-five years I toiled and bled for the doings of others. I scraped together my meager peculium to buy my freedom and the freedom of my sons. Death would be better for him than slavery.”
“Very well, death may be what he will receive.” He flicked a finger at Sotas. “Have him removed.”
Sotas gently led the man toward the door. My heart lurched with each step he took.
Apicius snapped his fingers at me as he stood. “Come, Thrasius, accompany me to the library.” I followed, deeply concerned about my master’s cruel mood.
“Dominus—” I began as we left the atrium. He didn’t break his stride when he cut me off.
“I don’t want to hear it, Thrasius. If you say one word to me about that drunkard, I will take away your time with Passia.”
He heard my sharp intake of breath.
“Don’t think that it’s escaped me just how much that girl means to you. You would be wise to keep that in mind.”