“Mute? Unfortunately for all of you, no, I am not.” I strode to the center of the kitchen. I gazed at each of them as I spoke. “I am Thrasius but you will call me Coquus. I run a smooth kitchen and I expect the best out of my staff. You there”—I pointed to the old woman—“what is your name?”
She arched her brow, deciding whether she should answer me. I stood my ground, staring intently at her until she blinked, her black eyes disappearing behind wrinkles of skin.
“Balsamea.”
“Balsamea, who is second to the coquus in this kitchen?” My eyes scanned the room, refusing to betray my fear to the other slaves. Most were older than me and that would make gaining their trust even harder.
“That would be me, Coquus,” said a man standing near a large jug of garum in the corner of the room. I noted the stamp on the vessel, from Lusitania, one of the finest garum factories in the Empire. Good garum, a sauce made from the entrails of little anchovies, was one of the most important flavors in a dish. I was glad to see I would have access to the best.
“I’m Rúan.” The man stepped forward, wiping his floured hands on his thick kitchen tunic. He was young, still in his teens, with an unusual head of red hair and striking green eyes. I wondered if he was from Hibernia, the large isle off Britannia.
“Rúan, I have a menu which Dominus has instructed me to prepare for tonight’s cena. Have you slaughtered any pigs recently?”
“There is fresh ham from this morning stored in the cellar,” Balsamea spoke up. Rúan glared at her for answering on his behalf, but she didn’t look away from the vegetables she was slicing.
“Good.” I glanced around the room. “Who bakes the best pastries in this kitchen?”
“Vatia has won the praise of Dominus Apicius,” Rúan replied, pointing to a young woman standing behind a low table on the right side of the room. He was Hibernian, his accent so thick that I had to concentrate to understand. Vatia stopped kneading bread long enough to nod her acknowledgment. Her dark, shiny hair was pulled back in a tight knot, which pleased me. Before the end of the night, I planned to tell Balsamea that imitating Vatia would be in her best interest and that she would no longer have the liberty of keeping her greasy locks free in my kitchen.
“Have you prepared the honey cakes?”
Vatia pointed to a nearby pan filled with little cakes ready to slide into the oven. Good. One less thing to worry about. “There are two more tasks for you this evening. You will prepare fifteen rounds of dough, which I’ll use to wrap the hams. I also want you to cook the fried honey fritters for the cena secunda. It seems you are already at work on baking the bread.” I assumed Apicius had invited guests according to tradition, meaning there would be nine guests, symbolizing the nine Muses. Still, I could be wrong and being prepared for accidents was wise. Additionally, there were often uninvited guests, “shadows” or “parasites,” who sat at the ends of the couches and would need to be fed.
“If we do not have on hand melons, saffron, morels, chickpeas, pomegranates, lobster, oysters, pears, and snails, you’d better send the fastest boy we have to the market to get them,” I said to Rúan.
A cry rose from the back of the room. “I’ll do it, I’ll do it!” The voice came from a blue-eyed boy dressed in a ripped tunic, waving his tanned arm around wildly. The boy moved forward. Rúan opened his mouth as if to say something when the boy tripped and crashed into a table. The kitchen slaves shouted as the table toppled, taking with it a dozen brightly colored glass goblets. Several of the slaves lunged to catch some of the glasses but no one was swift enough to save them. They crashed into the tiles, shattering into a thousand rainbow pieces. I closed my eyes and took a deep sigh to keep calm. No doubt those goblets were precious.
“Pallas! You fool! Out! Get out!” Rúan yelled at the boy. Balsamea took him by the shoulder and led him away.
The broken glasses were the least of my worries. Despite the gravity of the situation, I could not stop thinking about Apicius’s last words to me—the instructions not to eat any food I hadn’t directly prepared. I watched the slaves hurry to clean up the mess: Rúan, the ruddy Spaniard with the broom, the girl with the unusual blond hair picking up shards of glass, and all the others milling about. I regarded each of the fifteen slaves, wondering who among them might want to poison me.
CHAPTER 2
It was a massive task. The water clock in the corner of the kitchen showed that I had less than four hours to prepare for dinner. Still, I could not take my mind off that flock of birds we saw, or Fortuna’s unreadable stare. Despite the lack of time, I knew I must have more spiritual guidance. I asked Balsamea where the family’s Lares shrine was located, suspecting her to be one who held to tradition. Approval flickered in her eyes. Rúan, however, snorted and shook his head. It was clear that he thought little of our Roman gods.
Still, he had Balsamea remain in the kitchen and he himself led me to the atrium. He pointed at the tiled recess in the wall that housed several tiny statues of the Lares and Penates, the household gods and family ancestors. Sunshine filtered into the open area of the atrium and glinted off the polished bronze and gold of the statues. I removed a small stick from the wooden box next to the shrine, lit it from the torch flickering nearby, then lit the lump of incense sitting in a golden bowl in front of the statues. The smell of myrrh filled my nostrils. I knelt.
“Whether You for whom this house is sacred are a god, or a goddess, I wholeheartedly pray to You, O holy Lares. Please grant me success today and in all the days following and I shall offer You a honey cake each day I am blessed in the house of Marcus Gavius Apicius.”
I didn’t linger long. Rúan waited for me at the edge of the atrium and together we hurried back through the labyrinthine corridors. For extra measure, I said a few additional prayers to myself as I walked: to Sors, god of luck; to Fornax, goddess of the ovens; to Cardea, goddess of thresholds; and again to Fortuna.
A voice stopped us. “You there!” The command was loud and shrill.
We turned, unsure who the command was directed toward. An elderly woman dressed in rich yellow silks strode toward us, anger etched in her eyes. She looked as if she regularly bathed in unhappiness. Her visage resembled a gorgon, with a nose hooked like a vulture’s beak and dark, squinty eyes. A black wig sat slightly crooked on top of her head. Several strands of wispy silver hair poked out from under the edges like little weed snakes.
She drew near. “Who are you?”
Rúan had fallen to one knee. I too bowed low in deference. “Thrasius, the new coquus.”
“I thought as much. Stand up.”
No sooner than I had, she cuffed me across my chin with the back of her hand. Pain accompanied the scrape of a ring as it cut open my skin.
She stalked off.
I stood there in stunned silence for a moment, wondering what had happened. I stopped the blood with my hand, grateful it was only a scratch.
I felt Rúan’s hand on my shoulder. “Apicius’s mother, Popilla.”