Feast of Sorrow

by Crystal King

  Sotas looked at me, his steely-gray eyes stern. “It is simple.”

  Passia and I both let out an exclamation. Simple? Sotas was not deterred.

  “Yes, it is very simple. You will say nothing to her. You will bow your head or kiss her cheek if offered, but with every touch, with every look, with any word, you will think of only one thing.”

  “And what is that?”

  He waved to Junius, whom we could see in the kitchen beyond where we stood, playing a game with one of the slaves. “Your son. Junius needs you in his life. He needs you to be strong, healthy, and, most important, not in a dungeon, or worse, dead.”

  My friend Sotas, always the wise sage. “Aelia would have told you the same.”

  He was right. She would have said the same.

  • • •

  There was not much to the ceremony, only the hired mourners singing and the priest of Hera saying a few words over the urns that rested on a table in the atrium. I didn’t look at the guests—I couldn’t bear to see the faces of our enemies reveling in our misfortune. I fixed my sight on the ground, or sometimes on Apicata’s dark veil or on Apicius, who was stone-faced and dry-eyed. He stared into the crowd, and when I looked to see where his gaze was fixed it was on Sejanus, who looked downward. Then I recalled what Sotas had told me about the first time Apicius saw Sejanus after their ill-fated affair—over the coffin of Aelia’s mother. I could only imagine what was running through Apicius’s mind.

  Livia did not stay long, thankfully. She was polite and reserved, paying her respects and leaving as soon as it was through. I don’t think she had room for emotion in that dark heart of hers. Sejanus left with Livia to attend Caesar.

  When the rest of the guests had departed, Apicius, Apicata, Sotas, Passia, Helene, and I went to the Gavia family tomb. We trudged through the town in a solemn clump, adorned in black, followed only by our guards for safety as it grew dark. Apicius held Fannia and Apicata held her mother. Two of the guards pulled a wagon with the heavy laudatio stones, etched with the stories of their lives. Helene, Passia, and I carried wine, incense, and fruit for the inhumation. Citizens saw our funereal garb and quickly parted to let us through. They did not want to catch our bad luck.

  The Gavia tomb was close to the gates on the Appian Way, which was typical of wealthy patrician families. It was a massive sepulchre, adorned with statues of the gods and carvings of the deeds of the Gavia family. Apicius unlocked the sepulchre and had the guards open the heavy stone door. We stood outside as Apicius and Apicata entered the tomb and placed our hearts on dark shelves with the other ancestors. Sotas and Helene followed them with the sacrificial items and returned to us immediately after. I could see only the flickering candlelight bouncing off the walls of the entryway but deep inside I could smell the incense and I could hear their cries. I hugged Passia close and she sobbed into my shoulder.

  When they emerged much later, the guards helped us shut the sepulchre and lock it. They took to their spades and placed the laudatio. Fannia’s stone was simple, as was befitting a woman not from our family but given the honor of burial. I noticed Apicius had not included Pulcher’s name.

  “Please, Thrasius, will you read the stones for us? I know I should, but . . . I can’t.” Apicius’s voice wavered.

  I took a deep breath and began with Fannia. “ ‘To the spirits of the departed, Fannia Drusilla, of seventy-four years, you who died at the hands of another. Fate bequeaths your friends only sorrow at your leaving. Fannia, you were a dear friend to the Gavia family and to others, a confidante, and a matron of high status, beloved by all. May the di Manes grant you rest and protection.’ ”

  Apicius choked. He fell to his knees and put his head in his hands. “Please, Fannia, forgive me. I treated you so poorly these last few years, Fannia! Oh, dear gods, please be kind to her, oh, please.”

  Apicius touched me on the arm. “Let me read for Aelia.”

  Ceres! Did you hear me? Take pity!

  Apicius read Aelia’s tombstone through a river of tears. “ ‘Aelia Gavia, wife to me, Marcus Gavius Apicius, mother to our daughter, Apicata Gavia, friend to all, your life was snuffed like a candle at the age of forty-six.

  “ ‘We met for the first time in Minturnae. You were shy and beautiful and made my heart sing like a bird. You told me my words were like honey—sweet and nourishing. The day we married was one of the best days of my life. When I carried you over the threshold you told me you would always love me and would always be loyal to me. And you were.’ ”

  He paused, his tears getting the better of him. He began again, haltingly.

  “ ‘Aelia, you were a true Roman matron. You took care of my household, you gave me counsel and nursed me when I was ill. You gave me sons but fate took them from us. You gave me a daughter, Apicata, who learned from you and is now as strong and obedient as you were in life.

  “ ‘To the end you were a good wife, dying in flames seeking an item you thought would please me. I should have been the one to go to the grave first, not you, you who outshone us all. Natural sadness wrests away my power of self-control and I am overwhelmed by sorrow. I am tormented by two emotions: grief and fear—and I do not stand firm against either. I am destined to long mourning. You will forever haunt my thoughts, my Aelia.

  “ ‘I pray the di Manes will grant you rest and protection.’ ”

  “Aelia! Oh, Aelia! Forgive me, forgive me,” Apicius wailed to the heavens. Apicata threw her arms around her father and sobbed.

  I wished not for the first time that week that I would open my eyes and find it all a dream.

  • • •

  Sotas had had the wherewithal to arrange for a litter to be waiting to take us to the villa. We rode together, curtains drawn, unable to speak. If we weren’t crying we stared into nowhere, drained from the events of the last few days. We let Apicata out at the gates to her home.

  When we arrived at the villa Apicius stopped us before we went into the house.

  “Helene, Passia, wait.” He walked to them and took Helene’s hands. “Aelia gave you your freedom many years ago but you stayed and proved your loyalty to your domina. Thank you for your service. I want you to have the villa in Baiae if you would wish it, and all its slaves. Aelia told me how much you missed leaving. She always looked after you and I know she would want you to have it.”

  Her mouth formed a soft O and her eyes began to tear up again. “I cannot thank you enough.”

  Apicius turned to Passia and took her hands. “I should have listened to Aelia. I should have freed you many times over, all those times when both you and Thrasius came to me with your hard-earned peculium. I was too afraid. But today I free you and your son and we will go to the lictor to make it so. You have been a dear friend to Aelia and Apicata and I cannot thank you enough for your loyalty to them. I hope you and Thrasius will marry and stay here with me. I can give you money or villas but I hope you would consider . . .”

  He faltered, looking at me. “Letting me adopt Junius. In name only, of course. I could never be the father you are to him.”

  My jaw fell open. What he was offering was monumental. It was not unusual for patricians without heirs to adopt, as only a direct male heir could inherit the family name. It would mean my son would be Apicius’s heir. It meant he had an entire patrician world open to him. He could even run for the Senate if he so desired! Passia looked to me and we both indicated our assent.

  “Good. Next week we will draw up the contracts.” He kissed Passia and Helene on the cheek and hugged me, hard. My neck was wet when he pulled away.

  CHAPTER 25

  Passia and I did not marry right away. We could not bear the thought of binding our hearts together in marriage when they felt so broken by the loss of Aelia and Fannia. Apicius was true to his word and freed Passia. When we saw Helene off to Baiae, all the house slaves came to see her go but Apicius stayed inside, locked in his room, no longer able to look upon the woman who had been so close to his wife.


  When I did marry Passia, many months later, it was a small affair, just Passia, Sotas, Junius, and me at home, before the family hearth. That day was a bright spot in what had been a cloudy year. I felt like all the gods were smiling upon me when I took Passia’s hands and we declared our love, almost twenty-six years after we had first laid eyes on each other.

  I did not ask Apicius to attend. His heart hurt too much to see our happiness. While we never spoke about it, I know he noticed the gold ring upon Passia’s finger.

  • • •

  Apicius became increasingly unstable after Aelia’s and Fannia’s deaths. He alternated between bouts of extreme sadness and anger, sometimes within a few minutes of each other. There would be times when weeks would go by and I would think he was starting to let go of their memory, and then something or someone would remind him of his loss and it would start all over again.

  He managed, for the most part, to put on a good show for his clients and for those who attended Caesar and Sejanus’s dinner parties. But inside, I knew he was a wreck. He would come home and fly into raging fits at the slaves, or would lock himself in his bedroom to drink himself into a stupor. It was hard to know which mood Apicius decided to don on any given day.

  I have thought often about why I didn’t just leave then, when I had what I had been longing for most, my beloved. It was more than Junius becoming his heir. Every time I saw Apicius, my heart broke for him. I had my wife and son, but for friends, he had no one but me and Sotas. We were the only ones who had ever stood by him, at first by force, but then . . . then I stayed by choice. He had become my friend, in a strange, stilted sort of way that one might call another a friend.

  • • •

  A year after the fire, Tiberius asked Apicius why he thought he was free from following the laws of marriage. Apicius was forced to comply, but he did so only under great duress and it was I who took the brunt of his wrath.

  “I don’t want her here! Pack her up and put her in my villa in Cumae. Get her out of my sight!” Apicius threw his goblet full of wine across the library, where it smashed against the still-wet fresco on the wall. I rushed over to gingerly dampen the stain before it could mar the costly mural.

  “Let it run! I told the bastard it was terrible!”

  I continued to sop up the liquid, ignoring him. The painter had been back three times in the last month to fix various parts of the fresco Apicius thought unsatisfactory. It was a small scene from when Apicius and Aelia lived in Minturnae. In the center of the fresco were two people walking along the beach with an expansive villa on the cliff above. I had argued with him endlessly not to have it done but he insisted.

  “Everything all right?” Sotas poked his head into the room.

  “Did I ask for you?” Apicius screamed, jowls shaking. Sotas backed out and shut the door.

  I tried to reason with him. “Look, Apicius, throwing things doesn’t change the situation.”

  He kicked the desk, knocking several scrolls to the floor. “Damn ‘Divine Augustus’ and his ridiculous laws.”

  “I agree,” I said, “but the alternative is worse. Taking a wife is the law and it’s a law you can’t disobey—if you do it, then other men will want to stay unmarried and Sejanus can’t have that. You don’t want him breathing down your neck more than he already does.”

  Apicius collapsed into a chair near the window. “Let him try!”

  “You haven’t even talked to the woman beyond the few words you exchanged during the ceremony. She might be perfect for your household, to keep it running smoothly.”

  He waggled a finger at me. “That’s why I’ve got you, Thrasius!”

  “A wife lends you a certain status I cannot.”

  He stood suddenly, knocking over the chair in his anger. “My wife is dead!”

  I shook my head at him and left the room.

  “I think he’s right. Better to send her to Cumae. I don’t think he’s going to come around,” Sotas said. I could hear Apicius cursing inside.

  “Nor do I. We’ll be doing her a favor.”

  I chuckled ruefully and headed down the hall toward the guest chambers, where I imagined that Flora, Apicius’s new wife, was pacing the floor, wondering if her husband would ever exchange words with her. She was barely seventeen and as beautiful as a fresh rose on a June afternoon. I had chosen her for Apicius because of her father’s status and because I had hoped that her beauty might be enough to jolt him out of his dreary mood.

  “He hates me,” she said when I entered the room. It wasn’t a question.

  “No, he hates the idea of being married to anyone other than his dead wife.” I sat down on the chaise near the window and asked one of the slaves to pour us wine.

  She sat across from me on the edge of the chair, poised as though she might run away at any moment. “Tell me, was he very much in love with her?”

  I thought back to all the times when Apicius had neglected Aelia and been unkind. Then I remembered all the gifts he bought her in every port we visited, and how when we would return from a trip he always made sure to seek her out the moment he set foot inside the villa. “He was. And when she passed, I think he realized how much.”

  She nodded, her green eyes dark with uncertainty. “What happens now?”

  I took a long sip of my wine. “He wishes that I send you to his villa in Cumae.”

  Flora shook her head. “I am to be exiled from him?”

  “No, think not like that. You will have all the luxury you can imagine in Cumae. You’ll have a monthly stipend. If you are shrewd, you can make even more money from the villa’s fleet of fishing boats and its farms in the countryside. I’ll send a secretary with you to advise you on such matters. It will be unlikely that you will ever see Apicius again.”

  She picked up the goblet of wine in front of her and drank a healthy dose not becoming of a young woman. I said nothing. I could not blame her.

  “So I am to be alone all my life.”

  “Only if you choose to be.”

  She cocked her head at me, confused.

  “Be discreet. Abort any children you find yourself with. What Apicius does not hear about does not concern him.”

  She sighed with relief.

  • • •

  “We have more pressing things to worry about,” Rúan reassured me a few days after Flora had left. “She wouldn’t have been happy with Apicius.” While it was true that Apicius never again laid eyes on Flora, I saw her occasionally in the years afterward when she came to Rome to visit her family, and I would hear from her from time to time when she needed something. For the most part she was a successful manager of the household in Cumae, upholding Apicius’s reputation in the way I had hoped. I knew from a few of my trusted staff members there that she had taken on lovers, but she never allowed her position to be compromised.

  As for the law requiring Apicius to be married, I’m sure if Augustus had been alive he would not have condoned Flora being sent away—it defeated the purpose of the law, which was to turn around the Roman decline in population. Sejanus, thankfully, had better things to concern himself with. As long as Apicius satisfied the general marriage requirement, he didn’t seem to care, which was fortunate.

  • • •

  Over the following months it became apparent that Sejanus had big plans. He was growing in power, and often when you heard his name, the word tyrant would follow. He began to enact all sorts of laws on behalf of Caesar that were very much to his advantage.

  We were in the kitchen at the Imperial villa preparing for a banquet Sejanus was hosting that evening. Tiberius would likely not be in attendance; we rarely saw Caesar anymore. Not since his adopted son, Germanicus, had died six years before from poison at the hands of the former governor of Syria. All of Rome mourned, but no one more than his father, and he retreated in sorrow to a villa in Campania. He avoided Rome and appeared for only the most important state functions.

  Rúan handed me the bowl of sardines I pointed to
ward. “I forgot to mention, Apicata came to see you today. She said she hopes you will come by soon.”

  I was sad I had missed seeing Apicata. Sejanus didn’t let her leave home often but sometimes Livia would invite her to the Imperial villa and she would sneak by the kitchen in the hope she might see me.

  I poured a flask of oil over the tiny fish. “Did she have the children with her?” Her brood was growing fast, with Strabo at age nine, Capito at age seven, and four-year-old Junilla.

  Rúan shook his head. “No, but she did say Tiberius questioned her at length.”

  That caught my attention. I set down the oil flask. “What do you mean? Why would Tiberius question her?”

  “It was about the old astrologer Apicius used to have.”

  “Glycon?”

  “Yes. He asked her about Glycon and all of the predictions he correctly made. She said he was very insistent on knowing how accurately he read the stars.”

  I scattered a handful of herbs over the sardines. “Curious. I wonder why.”

  Rúan shrugged and tossed the last of the parsnips he’d been chopping into a pot. “Apicata said she couldn’t figure it out either.”

  Glycon had given us too many true predictions. He had known of my son’s birth, of Apicius’s appointment to Caesar’s staff, and, worst of all, he had known about Aelia’s death. I tried not to think of what he had said that hadn’t yet come true—about not seeing the stars of Apicata’s children in the later years of their life.

  • • •

  It turned out Tiberius was equally nervous about predictions he could not understand. The following day he released an edict outlawing foreign rites of any kind, including those of the Egyptian cults and also the Jews. All adherents of what he called “superstitions” were to burn their religious clothing and items or they would be expelled from the city or sold into slavery.

  Apicius and I learned of the edict at the baths, surrounded by gossiping patricians and senators. Tycho and Sotas had already helped us bathe and their practiced hands were massaging our tired necks and backs.