“Please, husband. I need you now. Do not go away to Rome. The signs are all wrong. Lightning broke apart our tree in the courtyard earlier this week. And a crow landed on the windowsill yesterday!”
Apicius looked at his disheveled wife and sighed. “I must. I am expected in Rome for an important convivium that I dare not miss. Fannia invited Consul Messalla Corvinus. You know I want him to commend me to Caesar Augustus. I cannot miss this opportunity.”
I was alarmed at my master’s lack of empathy. Aelia had been sick for days, and only in the last two had rallied back toward some semblance of her old self. No longer fighting to live, she was free to mourn the loss of her child. Already the slaves were wagering on how soon it would be before Apicius divorced her. He needed a male heir and she didn’t seem to be capable of providing one.
“I have been here for you, night and day,” he continued, sitting down next to her. “You are getting well, my love, and will be on your feet soon enough. You yourself said you had a dream about a gazelle last night. See? Swift travel is in my future. And when I return, there will be plenty of time to try for another child.”
Aelia laid her head on Apicius’s shoulder, sobbing as he held her tightly. I exchanged a glance with Sotas. I was glad to see the tender, if rare, side of our dominus.
Apicius stroked her hair. It was hard to hear his whisper. “I promise you, Aelia, I will never leave you or send you away from me. I love you and will be home to you in a fortnight. I go to bring the name of the Gavii greater fame and fortune, all to benefit our family.”
Aelia wiped away the tears from her cheeks with the back of her hand.
“Come,” Apicius said to me, Sotas, and the slaves who had helped pack his trunks. “We should make haste. It’s a long journey ahead.”
I groaned when I realized that the reason he had asked me to stay with him was that he meant for me to attend him as well. Since I had taken on his morning salutatio duties, he seemed to want me with him more and more often, much to my chagrin. I did not want to leave Baiae, or, more important, Passia. I wished Aelia’s dream of a gazelle would be prophetic, but traveling with Apicius was rarely swift. Apicius’s roofed carriage, called a carpentum, was especially heavy, adorned with gilded statuary on each corner post and bedecked with thick red curtains. Because of the weight, instead of mules, a team of oxen pulled it on the open road. A small contingent of slaves dressed in bright colors waved red and gold flags ahead of us, clearing peasants out of the way. Armed guards flanked the carriage and protected the party. It was always a spectacular ordeal to travel with Apicius. I was sure it would be slow and arduous for all except my master, who would be ensconced in the carpentum, gambling or listening to poetry by the clients who always found ways to hitch a free ride when he traveled to Rome.
? ? ?
The journey was as I feared. A trip that normally took two days took four. On the first night, it rained heavily, leaving several slaves who slept on the wet ground feverish in the morning. The second day was even worse.
The ambush came in the afternoon, when the sun was at its highest point. The robbers seemed to come out of nowhere, cresting over the hills on horseback, waving their swords in warning.
“Stop the carpentum and put down your weapons,” one of the robbers yelled through the cloth that masked all but his eyes. His accent marked him as one of the peasants who lived on the back side of the great mountain Vesuvius.
The carriage rolled to a stop but none of the guards put his weapon down. The slaves who had been walking, including me, huddled against the carpentum in fear. Apicius’s guards circled around us, their long rectangular shields forming a wall to hold us safe within.
Apicius had given Sotas a kindness and let him sit in the carpentum for a few miles. When he stepped out of the carriage, an audible gasp arose from the robber closest to me. Sotas was always an imposing figure, but when he traveled, he kept a monstrous spatha at his side. The sword was longer than a typical gladius, and was used by gladiators in the ring. I had never seen a spatha as large as the one that Sotas carried and it seemed that the bandits had not either. Apicius’s guards parted their shields to let Sotas pass through. He held his sword out in front of him.
“Ask me to put my weapon down again,” he boomed.
The bandits hesitated, their horses dancing nervously. Then, without warning, one of the robbers spurred his horse forward, intending to slash at Sotas as he rode by. It was not the move of a professional marauder.
Sotas effortlessly cut the man’s hand off and the sword clattered to the ground, the hand falling away when it hit the dirt.
“Who is next?” Sotas pointed his sword at the robbers.
Two of them immediately turned and rode off, and the others did not hesitate long before following suit.
“Are they gone?” Apicius sounded bored. He peered through the curtains.
“They are gone, Dominus,” Sotas assured him.
“Good. All of us, we must make haste!”
Apicius pushed us hard, making us run for much of the distance until we reached the next way station five miles away. He hired extra soldiers to accompany us but the intrusion had left everyone on edge. When we arrived in Rome, we all were weary except for Apicius, who was oddly rejuvenated.
Fannia greeted us warmly at her villa on the Caelian Hill. Apicius’s clients had already departed—they had secured their ride to Rome and would seek him out again only for the return. Apicius dismissed most of his slaves into the care of Fannia’s steward. Sotas and I both longed for the reprieve that the other slaves had while Apicius was in Rome, but instead we found ourselves standing on one side of the atrium while Fannia caught up with Apicius.
“Some honey water will refresh you.” She flicked a finger toward a Nubian slave.
Fannia wore a white tunica with an emerald green stola that complemented her auburn hair, piled high upon her head with far too many ringlets framing her face.
Apicius took a seat on the couch opposite his hostess. The midday sun streamed through the atrium overhead.
“You’ve repainted!” Apicius said with delight as he gazed upon the intricate frescoes decorating the atrium walls. “But aren’t you treading a bit on the scandalous?” He gestured at the depiction of Bacchus with his wine-bearing nymphs. I wondered the same thing myself. The cult of Bacchus was not well accepted; Caesar didn’t like how rowdy the god’s festivals had become.
Her laughter rang through the room. “What the world needs is a good old-fashioned Bacchanalia, I say!”
“Shame about that pesky little decree against them,” Apicius teased.
She snorted her derision. “We don’t have to call it a Bacchanalia, now, do we?”
Apicius laughed.