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Sometimes Rúan would come to visit me, usually slipping in the back entrance and finding me in the kitchen or the garden. One golden fall afternoon he found me at the villa tending to our prized pigs. After our experiments with fattening up ducks to make their livers even more delicious, Apicius and I had decided to apply the same principles to pigs. We kept four of them in a slightly smaller pen than the other swine and had been fattening them up with several pounds of dried figs a day. When they were fat we planned to feed them one last meal, letting them gorge themselves on honey wine until the figs expanded, and then get them so drunk they died. I had high hopes the resulting livers would be one of the best delicacies I had created yet.
I had finished dumping the last of the figs into the pen when Rúan arrived. He leaned his pale torso against the fence and watched them eat. Even after years in the Roman sun he had not tanned; his skin reddened so he tended to avoid the brightest parts of the day. I watched him flick a loose piece of wood off the fence and into the pen. “If this is a success, I will be forced to steal this idea, you realize,” he said ruefully.
“It won’t matter.” I hung the bucket on the peg next to the pen. “By the time Publius Octavius gets his hands on the idea, everyone will already know it came from Apicius.” I did not want Rúan knowing that I did have concern—his skill in the kitchen was strong and could outpace mine if he set his mind to it.
Rúan, fortunately, didn’t seem to have the inclination. “I suppose that word does get out fast. But soon Octavius will have me torturing other beasts in an effort to outdo you. I’m not looking forward to that.”
Rúan had always had a soft spot for animals. He had some crazy barbarian notion that the gods believed they shouldn’t be kept penned up. They should wander the hills and be rounded up once a year before winter. How inconvenient that would be!
“How is it, working for Caesar?” I asked, without envy. Whenever he visited, he had a new tale of Imperial life with which to horrify me.
“For me, not good.” He lifted up his tunic to reveal fresh stripes taken from his flesh. “One of my boys failed to adequately debone a pheasant served to Livia. She casually remarked on the tiny bone she found and Octavius let me have it.”
“You should ask Balsamea to give you some of the salve she makes for the boys.”
“That’s why I’m here.”
I took a seat on one of the stone benches outside the kitchen doors and gestured for him to take a seat on the bench across from me. Tycho appeared with a tray holding glasses of rose water, which he deposited onto the end of my bench before returning to the kitchen.
“Ahh, the life of a freedman agrees with you,” Rúan said.
“I wish I felt freer!” I laughed. “Now tell me, what really brings you here today?”
Rúan sobered. He stared into his water, moving the glass so it swirled up against the sides. “Bad news, I’m afraid. Your curse didn’t work. Sejanus has returned.”
My anger rose like bile. “Damn him to Tartarus!” I threw my glass and it crashed to the ground. Tycho heard the noise and came running from the kitchen.
I waved him inside. My voice shook. “Has Tiberius returned?”
“No, he’s still in Germany. Tiberius sent Sejanus home with a recommendation that he be installed as one of the prefects in Caesar’s Praetorian Guard. The talk is that Tiberius wants to have loyalty in the Guard in the event Augustus dies and he’s forced to return to Rome.”
“Why couldn’t he have taken an arrow to the eye?” I muttered, mostly to myself.
“Only the gods know.” Rúan leaned forward, his voice low. “But I can tell you this, Thrasius. You will have to find a way to hide your hatred of him. Your position as Apicius’s freedman guarantees you will have more direct contact with Sejanus. He’s no longer a regular soldier—a prefect wields much power. Be careful.”
A piece of glass had landed on the tiles in front of me. I kicked it with my foot, wincing as the edge poked my middle toe and brought forth a dot of bright blood.
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A week later, Sejanus sent word to Aelia that he was planning to visit his cousin and her family the next day. Apicius appeared delighted when Aelia told him the news over breakfast but I knew otherwise. Inwardly neither of them was happy. After she left, he stormed out of the atrium, knocking aside one of the youngest slaves who had come with me to pick up the dishes. Later Sotas told me Apicius had spent the morning throwing things around the library, even breaking a precious Greek vase that had been in the family for more than four hundred years.
Sejanus arrived the next day as he promised, promptly at noon according to the sundial. Apicius and Aelia received him in the main atrium. Passia and I hovered in the adjoining room where we could hear through a window that opened to the atrium that had long been covered by a tapestry. It was the first time that Aelia had seen Sejanus since the assault and I worried about her.
They greeted Sejanus, then settled into the couches alongside the renovated fish pond in the back part of the atrium, not far from our clandestine window. Sotas took up a place near us, signifying his presence by giving us two slight taps on the tapestry to let us know he was there.
“Cousin, it is good to see you! How many years has it been?” Aelia was polite, but the warmth she used to have for her cousin was gone.
“Six years. Always victorious but ever so far away from Rome.”
“At least you are returning to a life many soldiers never see,” Apicius said.
“True. Though Caesar likes to live sparsely. It is not as luxurious being in the Imperial villa as many would imagine. Although I must admit the cooking has improved since I last dined with Augustus.”
“I’m sure it has.”
I gritted my teeth. The thought of Rúan feeding Sejanus every day made my stomach roil.
“What brings you here today?” Apicius asked the question we were all wondering.
“Oh, just a friendly visit to my favorite relatives.” Sejanus was glib. “Where is Apicata? How old is she now?”
Passia’s fingernails dug into my skin upon hearing those words. I clamped her hand flat to alleviate the pressure.
“She’s not . . .”
Apicius cut Aelia off. “We’ll send for her! She’s fourteen, and I know she will be pleased to see you. Helene, fetch Apicata please.”
“She will be fine,” I whispered to Passia, more to reassure myself than her. I looked at my lover in the dark of the room and while I could not see the definition of her features, I could see her shake her head. My stomach clenched; I feared she was right.