? ? ?
In the morning I went to the school as I always did. I was exhausted. Passia and I had lain awake late, talking, making love, and planning for the child to come. It was a night of deep emotion that felt right at the time, but as I walked to the school, I began to regret staying up all night. Even worse, as the hours of the day wore on, my attention started to drift. I found myself staring out the window when the students practiced how to wrap pork in a pastry crust, now a dish I was known for. I struggled to keep my eyes open when I realized the room had gone silent.
Someone behind me cleared his throat.
I jumped, not expecting to be interrupted from my reverie. A burst of energy rushed through me when I realized it was Apicius who stood before me.
“Master Apicius!” I realized as soon as I said the words that the title was unnecessary, a habit of the past. My face grew hot at the mistake, knowing the students were watching us intently.
“Continue!” Apicius waved a hand at the class. Reluctantly everyone turned back to their dough.
“To what do I owe the pleasure?” I said, hoping my voice didn’t reveal my nervousness. Apicius hadn’t come to the school in more than a year, trusting me to manage it entirely.
“Let’s step into your private rooms and talk.” He looked serious, his brow wrinkled, as if he were pondering a difficult problem.
I left the class in Tycho’s trusted hands. I followed Apicius out of the kitchen and down the hall to my room, where I worked on the cookbooks and wrote out the recipes I had tested in the kitchen.
Apicius walked over to my desk and picked up one of the wax tablets with one of the latest recipes for our cookbook on meats. He scanned the words, put the tablet down, and leaned against the desk.
“It’s time, Thrasius.” Apicius looked at me gravely, fingering the purple edge of his toga.
“Time for what, sir?” The end of my employment? To sell Passia? To take a trip? Expand the school? What on earth could warrant this visit?
He reached into the folds of his toga and pulled out a small papyrus scroll. The red wax seal indicated it was a legal document. My heart leaped so high I thought it would escape my body and soar toward the sky. Oh, Jupiter! Was he going to give Passia to me?
Apicius handed me the scroll with a broad smile. I rarely saw joy in him anymore. He spent much of his time and energy on how to convince Sejanus to come through on his promise to lessen Publius Octavius’s influence in Caesar’s villa, especially now that Caesar’s health was failing.
“Open it!” he urged. I was reminded of Apicata as a child, wanting me to read her a poem.
I unrolled the scroll. It took me a moment to register the contents. When I did, a bolt of disappointment as wide as the hand of Jupiter slapped me to earth.
It was the deed to the school.
“Well?”
“I don’t know what to say, sir.”
Apicius took my surprise for pleasure. “There are two caveats.”
“And they are?” I squeaked, still staring at the scroll. I scanned the page for the fine print, which I found as he spoke his next words.
“The school keeps my name and I continue to receive ten percent of the proceeds.”
It took everything I had not to burst out laughing. The school barely broke even! My heart sank. How on earth was I going to manage the costs of the school on my own?
I didn’t have the heart to show him how disappointed I was. “Thank you. I am without words to express my gratitude at this gesture.” I forced a smile.
“Good!” He clapped his hands on my shoulders and pulled me in for a rare hug. “You deserve this more than anyone I know.”
Indeed. But why did this seem more like a punishment than a reward?
Then I understood. “Did Glycon put you up to this?” I asked.
Apicius chuckled. He squeezed my shoulder again. “Only partly. He suggested I take a look at my investments—that some would be better in another’s hands than in mine.”
How gullible could he be? Of course Glycon would want a say in Apicius’s investments! I started coughing to hide my dismay.
“Careful there,” Apicius admonished, clapping me on the back.
? ? ?
That evening Apicius and Aelia were away, dining at Trio and Celera’s villa down the street. To my dismay, Glycon was holding court in the atrium when I arrived. He was lounging on a chaise, eating a bowl of grapes and entertaining questions from Passia and a handful of other slaves. A curtain of irritation fell across my mood.
I sat down next to Passia. “Leave us,” I said with a wave to the other slaves, who immediately scurried away.
“He’s a trickster,” Balsamea hissed as she shuffled by. Her health had been failing and it pained me to see how slowly she moved. “He is bad news, bad news,” she muttered as she left the room, leaning on her cane.
Glycon never heard a word. “Thrasius! I hear you are a lucky man today!” He waggled a jeweled finger at me.
“Apicius gave me the school,” I explained to Passia. There was no joy in the admission.
She, however, thought it was wonderful. “That’s fantastic, Thrasius!”
Tycho entered, bringing me a glass of wine from my stores. I took it, grateful that he was so intuitive. I sipped the wine, willing myself to stay calm. Glycon had turned my life upside down and I wasn’t happy about it.
The astrologer seemed to recognize my discontent and changed the subject. “You asked about Mistress Apicata?”
Passia perked up beside me. “Please, tell us what you know of her stars.”
As the words slipped from her mouth I realized there was a part of me that did not want to know.
“Her stars are tangled. They darken and shade the planets. She will have more babes but I fear they may not live to see the age of their grandfather Apicius.”
“What do you mean? They will be stillborn?” Passia placed a hand protectively on her stomach.
“No, my lady. They will grow, but, alas, I do not see how their paths will lengthen as she becomes older.”
My patience had run out. “Stop being cryptic, old man. Be frank. You might want to sugarcoat it for Apicius but don’t for me.”
Glycon stared at me, saying nothing, just stroking his damn beard. I did not break the stare. Eventually, he nodded. “Apicata leads a troubled life. I see a difficult marriage for her. She will have two more children but I cannot see their stars in Apicata’s future. This could mean several things. It could mean they will die. It could mean they will be sent away, or it could merely mean they will be insignificant. The stars are not precise.”
Oh, Jupiter! I prayed that my first impressions and Balsamea were right, and the astrologer was a sham, but it was hard to have conviction. He knew about our babe and he knew something that had disarmed Sotas.
Unease crept over me. I suspected it would be a long while before it departed.