“Careful there. You wouldn’t want to stab one of your feet, or something worse,” Apicius said with a hint of amusement in his voice.
“You are right, Dominus,” I said, bending to pick up the knife. “I’ll be more careful.” I could feel my face on fire.
? ? ?
I did not sleep with the other slaves in the high reaches of the domus. Instead I had my own cubiculum on the ground floor not far from the kitchen. It was one way that my master doted on me; he always said that he wanted me well rested, not kept awake by whispers and snores of other slaves. It was why I was startled that night when the door to my cubiculum creaked. I was not accustomed to the sounds of others in my room. I slid my hand under my pillow to grasp the knife I kept there. I opened my eyes to the soft light of an oil lamp piercing the darkness.
Passia. I let go of the knife. My heart pounding, I sat up.
She shut the door behind her and put her lamp on the table next to my bed. My every nerve tingled with anticipation upon seeing her closer in the lamplight, her hair cascading down around her face.
Wordlessly she lifted her thin shift up and over her head until she stood naked before me. I was light-headed. She was far more beautiful than I had imagined all those nights in the dark, alone with my hand beneath the blankets. Her body was shapelier than any statue of Venus, breasts firm and taut, with hardened nipples that stood out from a swirl of dark amber. The heart of hair between her legs beckoned me, and when she moved toward the bed, my body responded. All my limbs seemed to reach toward her, desiring to twine around and through her, to converge in a haze headier than any opiate or honeyed wine.
She pulled the blankets down to the end of the bed and looked me over. Then, slowly, her face devoid of emotion, she leaned down and her hand reached out to touch my chest. A shudder of pleasure swept through me. Surely I was dreaming.
She ran her hand across my chest and between my legs, where I was already hard and willing. I gasped when she curled her hand around my penis. I reached up to touch her but she pulled back so that her breast was out of reach.
“Please, come here,” I breathed, holding out my hands, willing her to move toward me.
She did not.
Despite the intense pleasure that was radiating through me, I also felt an underlying current of sadness. She didn’t want me to touch her.
Apicius’s words came back to me. “I will let Passia know she is to make herself available . . .”
I leaned forward and put my hand over hers, stopping her movement. It took everything I had not to let her keep going. The flickering shadow of her breast on the wall nearly did me in.
“Stop.” My voice wavered.
Hesitantly, she pulled back and perched on the bed beside me. I sat up and gathered up the blankets to pull around her lithe, enticing frame.
“I don’t understand.” Her eyes were dark and unreadable.
“Apicius sent you, didn’t he?”
“Yes.” She lifted her hand to move a strand of hair out of her eyes.
I wished those fingers were touching me once more. I struggled to imagine her with her clothes on. I tried to think of carving apart pigs, or to imagine myself standing in a pit of snakes . . . anything to lower the level of my desire.
“Do you want to be here?”
She crinkled her brow, just for a second, puzzled by my question. I thought she would tell me that she did, that she would lie, because she was here by the will of Apicius and it was her duty. I was wrong.
“I do not.”
She leaned over and picked up her shift. I didn’t stop her. I longed to touch the curve of her spine, feel the skin beneath my fingers. But in the space of time between my last and next breath, she was gone.
Oh, Lady Venus, I prayed, please do not let her have slipped away from me.
? ? ?
The next morning at the salutatio, Apicius jostled me in the arm when I took my place standing next to his chair. He winked at me and I returned the look with an awkward smile.
At that moment, thank Fortuna, the first client arrived, one of Apicius’s neighbors, a balding man who I remembered owned swaths of vineyards east of Baiae. I was glad for the interruption; my anger was such that I was sure to have said something that would have warranted punishment for disobedience.
As a patron, Apicius was the benefactor to many individuals, each of whom looked to him for advice, protection, loans, or political connections. In return these clients, a mixture of equites and plebs, would provide important political votes and support, information, hard goods, or favors of all kinds. Every morning all across the Empire, patrons met with their clients at the salutatio to discuss whatever business was at hand.
My first salutatio was the easiest, as I had no real duties other than to watch and learn. Apicius’s secretary did all the work, reminding Apicius of the history of various clients, advising him about decisions that might affect his relationships with other patricians, and helping him decide who would have a seat on his couch for the cena that night. Sometimes he would advise Apicius to instruct certain clients to fulfill particular favors, such as running errands, casting votes on bills in the local senate, or bartering items needed for the household. In some cases, Apicius handled the meeting without assistance. Each client was shown in to meet with Apicius in turn, for five to ten minutes and no more.
At the end of the salutatio, I was overwhelmed with the enormity of what was being asked of me. Sotas had been dismissed while Apicius went to take a bath and he sat with me while I went over the books with the secretary.
“Looks like you might rather be back in the kitchen?” Sotas teased.
“How can I be expected to keep track of all that?” I said, collapsing into Apicius’s open chair.
“Do not fret,” the aged secretary said to me, squinting as he finished taking notes on his wax tablet. “Apicius wants you to advise him primarily. You will have secretaries like me to take notes and inform you. Afterward, we will meet to go over what transpired and you will decide what actions need to be taken.”
I thought the old man would be perturbed that his position was being partially usurped, but instead he was relieved. It turned out that he wasn’t fond of the role. “I’d much rather be behind the scenes,” he confided. I wondered if perhaps I would too.
“It gets easier,” Sotas reassured me after the secretary left.
“It’s the same fifty or so people, and once in a while one of Apicius’s clients from another town will pop in with a request. You’ll get to know each of them and their quirks pretty quickly.”
“I hope so,” I said, but I didn’t feel hopeful.
“I have names for them all,” he whispered, picking up the goblet of wine that Apicius had left behind and downing it with a single quaff. “When your duties are to stand next to Apicius all day you have to make a game of it.”
Sotas gazed off across the atrium as he remembered who had been at the salutatio that morning. “The first one, the guy with the grapevines . . .”