“Ummm . . .” Apicata held her tongue between her lips as she thought about the answer. “Nine?”
“No, not nine. That’s a cena.”
I shook my head and flashed my hands open and closed behind Apicius’s back, trying to indicate there would be many people.
“Ummm. Twenty?” she said, looking uncertainly at my hands.
“Maybe twenty, maybe more. A commissatio doesn’t always have a certain number of people who can come.” Apicius’s eyes hardened. “However, little one, I’m not sure it is the right place for a sweet maiden such as you.”
Apicata was crestfallen. The corners of her mouth turned down and her lip jutted outward in a pout.
“You shouldn’t frown,” I said in mock warning. “A bird will come perch on your lip!”
Apicata ignored me. She knew how to tug at her father’s heartstrings. “But, please, Father?” she said with a quiet squeak. I tried hard not to laugh. She was too transparent.
Her father sighed and gave in. “All right, you can come for an introduction, but you cannot stay. I’ll let you meet a few of my friends, but then you will have to go back to Passia. And you have to promise me you will work extra hard tomorrow on your Greek lessons.”
“I promise! Can I have a wreath too?”
“Come here, child, I can make you a wreath.” Balsamea held up a handful of hazel flowers and waved them toward Apicata. The girl skipped over to her and climbed up on the bench to help weave the flowers together.
For a few minutes we watched Balsamea show Apicata how to layer the laurel and hazel leaves. Passia came over to the table. “Did you show him?” she asked me, her eyes wide.
“Show me what?” Apicius asked with a mixture of curiosity and suspicion.
My heart began to pound. I wasn’t sure I was ready to show Apicius what Passia was referring to. My palms sweating, I went to a cupboard in the corner of the kitchen, removed a large scroll, and brought it to Apicius. Passia thought it was time I should show him my cookbook.
“This.”
Apicius pondered the scroll for a second. “I don’t understand.” Slowly he unrolled the scroll. The words “On the Subject of Cooking” were written in large letters at the beginning.
“It’s a recipe book. All the best recipes of your kitchen. I’m not quite finished, but thought you would want to see it. I wanted to find a way to commemorate your legacy for generations ahead.”
Apicius stood there, silent, his eyes running over the Latin script. After several quiet minutes Passia and I exchanged a worried glance.
I begged the gods for my master to say something.
When Apicius looked up, there were tears in his eyes and a crooked smile on his face. “Yes! By Jove!” He laughed and it was a happy, strange laugh.
The mixture of relief, happiness, and pride that mingled within me was as great as it was the day I first kissed my beloved Passia. Oh, how I wished I had a stool to sit upon! My knees felt like bent straw.
I leaned over to point at different parts of the scroll, unrolling it across the counter as I spoke. “See, here are recipes for shellfish, patinae with fig peckers or with chicken, a few of our cabbage recipes, and tips for the cook. I added your trick about using eggs to help make cloudy wine clear, instructions on how to preserve oysters, and even Fannia’s recipe for how to make wormwood liquor. I thought about how many cooks don’t have the right information or knowledge. I wanted to help bring the same level of standards to other households that you have in yours,” I continued in a rush. “It is far from finished, as you can see.”
Apicius clasped my shoulder with a firm hand. “Thrasius, you have made me proud. Buying you that day was one of the best moves I have ever made. Have you shown Aelia?”
I shook my head. “No, not yet.”
“I must show her! She will be delighted!” He gathered up the scroll. “I’ll check later to see how the cabbage turned out.” He patted Apicata on the head and left. Sotas stood, saluted me, and followed Apicius out the door.
“That went well.” Passia came around the table to wrap her arms around my neck.
“Better than I had thought. I hope his mood holds. It always tends to sour the closer we get to the start of a party.” I brushed my lips against the side of her cheek, close to her eye, feeling the smooth skin warm to my touch.
At that moment, we were jolted by a shower of petals and leaves from a wreath crashing into the sides of our heads.
“Ow!” Passia exclaimed, jumping back. We looked down to see the remains of a hazel and laurel wreath at our feet.
“Not here in my kitchen,” Balsamea said from the table where she sat with Apicata, who was laughing.
I was amused at her audacity. “You mean my kitchen.” I pulled Passia close and planted a hearty kiss on her lips.
? ? ?
Many hours later, I went to find Apicius to finalize a few questions I had about serving the meal. Sotas knelt outside the door to Apicius’s bedchamber. The door was cracked open, but Sotas waved me over to the side.
“He’s in a foul mood. You may want to wait until the moment is right,” he warned me in a whisper.
I sighed. As I’d predicted. “Can I wait with you?”
Sotas nodded. “Listen for a while, then decide if you want to stay. Let Aelia calm him.”
I crouched down next to him as Apicius’s voice rose.
“Be gone!” His dress slaves rushed out the door, anxious to be away from their master.
Sotas leaned over to me. “Dominus snapped at them the entire time they were layering his toga.”
I shook my head.
Aelia’s voice wafted from the room. “You like the white stola? Are you sure the yellow silk wouldn’t be better?”
“Aelia, please stop worrying. You look beautiful. We’ve had large parties before and you haven’t been nervous.” There was the clink of cosmetic pots and bottles of nard used to perfume the forehead.
“I wasn’t nervous until you mentioned Ovid would be coming,” Aelia said.
Aelia was not alone in her love of Ovid’s poetry. Passia had read every word the man had ever written. He was considered to be one of Rome’s experts on both love and beauty, and most women I knew owned several of his books. When Passia heard he would be in attendance I thought she might swoon.
There was the ruffle of a scroll being unraveled. “Could this be one of the sources of your concern? Women’s Facial Cosmetics?”
I remembered the book. Apicius had bought it and other Ovid titles for Aelia two years earlier as a Saturnalia gift.
“I know, I shouldn’t worry. But if he didn’t know so much, how could he write it down? It is as though he were the mouthpiece for Venus herself!”
There was the soft sound of a kiss.
“Aelia, you are the sort of woman Ovid writes his poems about. That mirror cannot show you what I see.”
“I think you exaggerate, husband.”