by Crystal King
“And why ever not?” Aelia asked, echoing my own thoughts. Disbelief made her every word rise in pitch.
“Because I said so. Thrasius does not need distraction.” His voice was hard. He ruffled through the scrolls on his desk, refusing to look his wife or me in the eye. “You are both dismissed.”
I stood there, slack jawed, until Aelia took me by the arm and walked me out of the room. Sotas gave me a look of sympathy before he closed the door behind us.
“Do not despair, Thrasius!” She put her hand on my shoulder. “I will keep trying. I do not know why his heart is so cold. You are his world.”
It was evident in her voice although she did not say the words. I was often more important to Apicius than she was. May the gods bless her, save that one morning before we took the ship to Carthage, she had never expressed jealousy, only care, for me and for Passia.
“No, Domina, it is you who are his world. I just raise his pedestal on this earth a little higher.”
She smiled kindly at me. “Have you asked Passia? Will she be sad to learn this news?”
I shook my head. “No, I would not be able to bear her disappointment as well. I did not tell her I was asking Apicius today, but we always dream about truly being wed.”
“Keep your dream. Together we will change Marcus’s mind.” She hugged me again, tightly, before turning to go. Helene, whom I had not noticed, but of course was always where Aelia was, swept past me to follow her mistress.
I returned to my cubiculum, where I could gather my thoughts. I did not want Passia to see the sadness and anger that enveloped me like a blanket. Why would Apicius deny me? Without me he was nothing. In the last ten years I had toiled endlessly on his behalf. He would have no clients if it were not for me, no school, no cookbooks, and no claim to any fame. He was nothing, absolutely nothing, without me.
When I had closed the door, I ripped off my slave plaque and dashed it against the wall. A large piece of fresco came off and fell to the ground. I would likely have to pay for the repainting myself but at that moment I cared not. I wanted to tear apart my room, but I refrained, not wanting to have to explain my actions to Passia. So I left the clay lamps alone. I did not tear the pillow to shreds. I briefly contemplated dashing my little effigies of Edesia, Hestia, Fornax, Fortuna, and Jupiter against the wall, but their wrath was bound to be much worse than that of Apicius. Instead, I lay on my pallet and stared at the ceiling, wishing the sky would open and dash my dominus to pieces.
• • •
The next few days passed in a blur. I had several classes to teach and there were many preparations to make before Saturnalia. The holiday was one of the biggest of the year, a week of great feasting and gift giving. It was even legal to gamble. The slaves were, with the exception of flagrant disobedience, exempt from punishment, and we all wore freedman’s caps. The previous year, Caesar Augustus had attempted to shorten the holiday from seven days to three, but all of Rome rioted. People threw stones at the Forum when the Senate was in session and took to burning effigies of Augustus in front of the temple of Saturn. Augustus was forced to concede and that year he promised to distribute an extra grain ration to the plebs.
I worked hard with Rúan in the kitchen in the days before the holiday—if we could prepare much of the food ahead of time, it meant less work for all the slaves during the week. While the reversal of the master and slave roles was one of the highlights of the Saturnalia, we still had to make ready the grand banquet and the dinners, even if we were allowed to also sit at the tables and partake. Apicius, Aelia, and, that year, Apicata would serve the main dishes to the slaves, but we still cooked all the meals.
On the afternoon of the first day of Saturnalia, I was in the kitchen sitting on the tiles with Balsamea, Passia, and Apicata, helping them wrap presents, when Tycho burst through the door, out of breath.
“Master, you must . . .” He gasped for air. “You must hurry.”
I jumped to my feet, knocking over a box of clay knucklebones Apicata had made as a present for Rúan.
“What’s wrong?” I reached out and put a hand on Tycho’s shoulder.
“I’m not sure. Fannia arrived and she is in a panic. Sotas took her to Apicius but she sent me to bring you to them. She said it was urgent.”
Apicata stood up to come with me. Balsamea took her hand. “Stay with me, Apicata.”
“I’m old enough to know what’s going on! And you can’t tell me what to do.”
“Stay, little bird. Please. I beg you.” At eleven she had begun to realize that, as we were her slaves, she had the right to demand whatever she wanted of us. I was glad she didn’t then.
“Fine,” she said, pouting. She picked up the knucklebones that had scattered across the floor. I exchanged a worried glance with Passia, then darted after Tycho down the hall.
When I arrived in the atrium, Fannia waited, wrapped in a thick wool cloak. Her hood was still up and I could not see her face. Two slaves were dressing Apicius to go out, wrapping his legs with woolen strips to keep him warm beneath his toga before putting on the red shoes denoting him as a patrician. Another handed me a cloak and a pair of boots.
“Put those on, Thrasius,” Apicius commanded. Anger tinged his words.
Puzzled, I complied. Questions that I did not dare voice swirled through my mind in a flurry. Why was he wearing his formal toga and shoes? Why had he given me his clothes to wear? Was it me he was angry with? Where were we going?
We didn’t leave by the front doors. Instead we hurried through the slave hallways to one of the back entrances.
He gave stern commands to the guards outside. “No one leaves or enters this villa and no one is to know we have left. If anyone comes to the doors you will tell them I am ill and am not seeing visitors, even if it’s Caesar himself. If I find that anyone, and I mean anyone, has disobeyed me, I will put to death the guilty party along with every other slave in this household. I will buy all new slaves when their blood runs across the tiles. Do you understand?”
Apicius turned and glared at me, and I realized I had let forth an audible gasp. To suggest death for nearly a hundred of his slaves seemed rash and I was taken aback. Apicius’s stare ripped into me and my heart began to pound. If he was angry enough to kill slaves and a cadre of his guards, what would he do to me if I were to anger him?
“Yes, Dominus,” the guards said in unison. The head of Apicius’s personal guard accompanied us through the halls and vowed he would convey his words to all who watched the house.
• • •
In moments, the three of us were sitting in Apicius’s litter rushing across the back roads of the Palatine down toward the Forum. I was glad I was given a heavy cloak to wear. December had proven much colder than usual.
In the litter, Fannia and Apicius ignored me. Fannia pulled off the hood of her cloak to reveal a blond wig full of thick curled ringlets piled up along the sides of her head. She seemed like a woman trying too hard to look young.
“Are you sure, Fannia? Very sure?” Apicius held the edges of his toga in his hands and wrung the fine wool between his fingers.
“My spy is trustworthy. Remember, that’s how I knew about the death of General Varus at the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest before the rest of Rome heard the news.” Fannia pulled her cloak tighter around her shoulders.
I was desperate to ask questions but dared not.
Apicius tightened his hold on the folds of his toga. I could see his knuckles turn white. “I don’t understand. Why now?”
“It’s my fault. I saw them at a party last week. I was stupid. I taunted them, boasting of that dinner you held for Claudius. I gushed like a child opening a Saturnalia present about all the food and how marvelous every dish was. I gloated about my place on the couch. I should not have, Apicius, I know. I know.”
My heartbeat quickened. Who was she talking about?
I couldn’t hold my tongue any longer. Terror filled me—that I might never see Passia again.
“Please, tell me what is happening.” My voice sounded disembodied, as though someone were speaking into a long hallway and I stood on its other end.
“I can’t believe this.” Apicius buried his face in his hands. I thought he must not have heard me. Fannia did, but only gave me a sympathetic look.
I risked a peek between the curtains. We had reached the Forum and Sotas and the other slaves were running the litter along one of the side roads—a curious choice. We always took the main road through the center of the Forum. Apicius always wanted all of Rome to see he was passing.
After a short silence Apicius sat up, bracing himself as the slaves carrying the litter jostled us across the stones of the Forum. I let the curtain fall. His gaze fell upon me.
I saw fear in those eyes. Fear I could not understand. Fear that seemed to find its center in me. When he spoke, his voice shook.
“Livia intends to demand your purchase for the Imperial kitchen.”
It was as though a spear had pierced my breast. I fell back against the pillows behind me, unable to comprehend the words I had heard. If Caesar’s wife demanded my purchase, Apicius would have no choice but to comply. I would be forced into service in the Imperial kitchen, subject to the whims of Octavius, Livia, and Augustus. I would never see Passia again, or if so, only in stolen moments that would endanger my life if I took them. I might not see Apicata or Aelia or Apicius again. I would likely never earn my freedom, or have any semblance of it.
“Can she do that?” My voice cracked. I already knew the answer.
“Right now she can,” Fannia asserted. Despite her answer she seemed optimistic.
The litter came to a stop and Sotas parted the curtains for us. He helped us out and when I had adjusted my cloak I saw we were in front of the Curia Julia, the meetinghouse recently completed by Caesar. It was the center of many judicial activities of the Forum.
Apicius placed a hand on my shoulder and led me into the building, Fannia and Sotas following behind. Both Apicius and Fannia kept looking over their shoulders, as if anxious that we were being followed.
The interior of the Curia Julia was both austere and beautiful. Dim winter sunlight slid into the room through large windows high up on the building’s walls. Torches lining the perimeter gave the room further light, flickering off the shiny purple and yellow marble floor and its intricate design of cornucopias and rosettes. At the end of the hall was an altar adorned by a large marble statue of Victoria, goddess of victory, who stood atop a globe. One long arm and delicate hand extended a carved wreath. In front of the altar was a table behind which a magistrate held court. The benches in front of the balding judge were full of people clapping their hands—for what reason I could not discern.
Apicius hurried to the front of the benches. To my surprise, Trio, Celera, and one of their patrician friends, who was familiar to me, already waited there. Fannia and Sotas hurried away to sit next to them, leaving me to stand, confused, with Apicius.
The magistrate’s assistant, the lictor, a strapping young man with unusual sea-blue eyes, came forth and whispered in Apicius’s ear. Apicius’s response was hushed. He withdrew a large money pouch from the folds of his toga and handed it to the man, a bribe to move us to the front of the line. He bade us follow him to our seats near the front of the room. The lictor walked to the table and leaned over and spoke briefly to the magistrate. The magistrate rubbed his bald head with a gnarled hand as he listened.
The crowd in the room was unusual, a mixture of patricians, equestrians, and numerous slaves occupying the benches. Suddenly it dawned on me why we were there. My heart began to pound so loudly I thought Apicius might hear it. I had dreamed of this day my entire life, but never did I expect it to unfold the way it did.
The magistrate beckoned us toward the table. When we reached him, the judge picked up a long smooth stick, the festuca, and handed it to his lictor. My suspicion was confirmed. My knees went weak.
The magistrate indicated that I should face Apicius. I turned toward him, praying to Libertas that my legs would not give out from under me.
The lictor moved into position behind me.
He laid the festuca on my head, pressing the heavy stick against my hair and speaking loud enough for all to hear. “I declare this slave a free man of Rome—vindicatio in libertatem—a citizen who is free to earn a living, own property and slaves, and take a wife under the full spirit of the law of our Caesar, Augustus. What say you, patrician?”
Apicius hesitated. Conflict played across his face. The silence was unbearable.
When he finally spoke, his voice held none of the worry I’d heard in the litter. “I, Marcus Gavius Apicius, declare my slave, Thrasius, vindicatio in libertatem. I also give him his peculium, which he has earned through years of service in my household. It is my desire that he continues to work for me, under salary, within my accommodations, as a loyal freedman.”
He spun me around and said the words that gave my freedom finality: “Hunc hominem liberum volo.” To complete the ritual, he pushed me gently away from him and toward my freedom.
I stepped forward a pace. The magistrate’s voice rang across the Curia. “I declare this man, Marcus Gavius Thrasius, to be registered in the census as a free citizen of Rome.” My skin tingled with the words. I was free! I could now earn my own money, travel, vote, and do nearly anything I wanted. I had never known such wonder to fill my heart.
The lictor tapped me on the shoulder and I turned around. He pointed at the plaque around my neck. “You won’t need that anymore.”
I pulled it off my head and stared at it, hardly believing I would never have to wear the nameplate again. In all my years, save sleep or the bath, it had rarely left my person. The lictor handed me my new pileus, the soft, felted gray, conical cap signifying my status as a free man. I stared at it in wonder.
“Put it on!” Fannia urged from her spot on the bench.
I did. And then I understood why all the people were clapping when we’d come in. This time, the clapping was for me.
• • •
It was over before I had any chance to process what had happened. We signed all the paperwork; Trio, Celera, and a friend of theirs had come as witnesses. Apicius paid the court my peculium, thus buying my freedom. Then he whisked Sotas, Fannia, and me into the litter and we hastened toward the villa.
“Thank you, Dominus,” I said as soon as we were settled into the pillows. I was overwhelmed and not sure what else to say.
My former master smiled at me. “You’ll have to break that habit, Thrasius. Call me Apicius!”
Fannia cackled at my discomfort. “What a wonderful Saturnalia present, right, Thrasius?”
“I am honored. It was unexpected . . . Apicius.”
Apicius seemed pensive. “I had always planned to give you your freedom, Thrasius, but I have to admit, not like this.”
Fannia patted my knee twice. “You must know that Apicius is being selfish. Livia can’t buy you if you’re a free man!” Her words were teasing but the truth within them left both Apicius and me feeling awkward. Apicius averted his eyes from mine.
I realized I had the upper hand but I found I had no desire to press it. “I would like to continue working for you, but . . .”
“Of course, of course, I’ll pay you four hundred denarii a month. You’ll also have your apartments at the school, and I’m sure there is a country cottage in my holdings somewhere that would suit you as well.” He gesticulated wildly with his hands while he spoke.
I tried to keep my face impassive. As always, what he suggested was far beyond what was necessary. The salary alone amounted to what Caesar paid his Praetorian guards! I felt guilty accepting such a figure—I knew better than anyone how much he spent versus how much he brought in. But I also delighted in the thought of having so much money. Money I could perhaps contribute to Passia’s peculium.
“Thank you. That is very kind—”
He broke in again, desperation in his tone. “And a monthly am
phora of Falernian wine.”
Fannia winked at me. Surely she must have known how outrageous his offer was. “What about his first toga?”
Apicius clapped his hands. “Yes! Your first toga, Thrasius! I will buy you a fine one indeed! Perfect. It’s settled!”
The first night of Saturnalia—and my freedom—was one of the most memorable nights of my time in the Gavia household. Ironically, since I was free, it meant I had to help Apicius, Aelia, and Apicata serve the dishes during the Saturnalia feast. Passia delighted in this new development.
“Slave, my hands are sticky. Come, wash them. Bring the perfumed water.” Passia waved at me with a finger slick with honey. She was radiant, lying on the couch next to Helene. Both were dressed in new stolae that Aelia had gifted them for the holiday.
I grinned and rushed forward with the basin and a towel. “Permission to speak,” I asked her as I took her sticky hand in mine.
She smirked. “Permission granted.”
I slowly ran the damp towel across each slender finger. I kept my voice low so only she could hear. “Later, my dear Domina, I would be delighted to wash you in private.”
She raised an eyebrow at me. “I think you will have to prove yourself first, boy.”
I bowed in front of her, my head on the tiles. “I will do anything you require, Domina.”
“Good. Now fetch me some more honey fritters. And you will clean my hands again, when I call for you.”
I winked at her. “Yes, Domina. Anything for you.”
That night our lovemaking tasted sweeter than all the honey in Iberia.
• • •
Apicata found the situation confusing. “Why doesn’t my father grant Passia freedom too?” she asked at the cena on that first evening, when she was helping Aelia and me load up trays with dishes for the second course. Apicius was in the triclinium serving as the scissor slave to Sotas and Rúan.
Passia glanced at me, bemused. Aelia looked alarmed and took hold of the situation.