Sotas had had the wherewithal to arrange for a litter to be waiting to take us to the villa. We rode together, curtains drawn, unable to speak. If we weren’t crying we stared into nowhere, drained from the events of the last few days. We let Apicata out at the gates to her home.
When we arrived at the villa Apicius stopped us before we went into the house.
“Helene, Passia, wait.” He walked to them and took Helene’s hands. “Aelia gave you your freedom many years ago but you stayed and proved your loyalty to your domina. Thank you for your service. I want you to have the villa in Baiae if you would wish it, and all its slaves. Aelia told me how much you missed leaving. She always looked after you and I know she would want you to have it.”
Her mouth formed a soft O and her eyes began to tear up again. “I cannot thank you enough.”
Apicius turned to Passia and took her hands. “I should have listened to Aelia. I should have freed you many times over, all those times when both you and Thrasius came to me with your hard-earned peculium. I was too afraid. But today I free you and your son and we will go to the lictor to make it so. You have been a dear friend to Aelia and Apicata and I cannot thank you enough for your loyalty to them. I hope you and Thrasius will marry and stay here with me. I can give you money or villas but I hope you would consider . . .”
He faltered, looking at me. “Letting me adopt Junius. In name only, of course. I could never be the father you are to him.”
My jaw fell open. What he was offering was monumental. It was not unusual for patricians without heirs to adopt, as only a direct male heir could inherit the family name. It would mean my son would be Apicius’s heir. It meant he had an entire patrician world open to him. He could even run for the Senate if he so desired! Passia looked to me and we both indicated our assent.
“Good. Next week we will draw up the contracts.” He kissed Passia and Helene on the cheek and hugged me, hard. My neck was wet when he pulled away.
CHAPTER 25
Passia and I did not marry right away. We could not bear the thought of binding our hearts together in marriage when they felt so broken by the loss of Aelia and Fannia. Apicius was true to his word and freed Passia. When we saw Helene off to Baiae, all the house slaves came to see her go but Apicius stayed inside, locked in his room, no longer able to look upon the woman who had been so close to his wife.
When I did marry Passia, many months later, it was a small affair, just Passia, Sotas, Junius, and me at home, before the family hearth. That day was a bright spot in what had been a cloudy year. I felt like all the gods were smiling upon me when I took Passia’s hands and we declared our love, almost twenty-six years after we had first laid eyes on each other.
I did not ask Apicius to attend. His heart hurt too much to see our happiness. While we never spoke about it, I know he noticed the gold ring upon Passia’s finger.
? ? ?
Apicius became increasingly unstable after Aelia’s and Fannia’s deaths. He alternated between bouts of extreme sadness and anger, sometimes within a few minutes of each other. There would be times when weeks would go by and I would think he was starting to let go of their memory, and then something or someone would remind him of his loss and it would start all over again.
He managed, for the most part, to put on a good show for his clients and for those who attended Caesar and Sejanus’s dinner parties. But inside, I knew he was a wreck. He would come home and fly into raging fits at the slaves, or would lock himself in his bedroom to drink himself into a stupor. It was hard to know which mood Apicius decided to don on any given day.
I have thought often about why I didn’t just leave then, when I had what I had been longing for most, my beloved. It was more than Junius becoming his heir. Every time I saw Apicius, my heart broke for him. I had my wife and son, but for friends, he had no one but me and Sotas. We were the only ones who had ever stood by him, at first by force, but then . . . then I stayed by choice. He had become my friend, in a strange, stilted sort of way that one might call another a friend.
? ? ?
A year after the fire, Tiberius asked Apicius why he thought he was free from following the laws of marriage. Apicius was forced to comply, but he did so only under great duress and it was I who took the brunt of his wrath.
“I don’t want her here! Pack her up and put her in my villa in Cumae. Get her out of my sight!” Apicius threw his goblet full of wine across the library, where it smashed against the still-wet fresco on the wall. I rushed over to gingerly dampen the stain before it could mar the costly mural.
“Let it run! I told the bastard it was terrible!”
I continued to sop up the liquid, ignoring him. The painter had been back three times in the last month to fix various parts of the fresco Apicius thought unsatisfactory. It was a small scene from when Apicius and Aelia lived in Minturnae. In the center of the fresco were two people walking along the beach with an expansive villa on the cliff above. I had argued with him endlessly not to have it done but he insisted.
“Everything all right?” Sotas poked his head into the room.
“Did I ask for you?” Apicius screamed, jowls shaking. Sotas backed out and shut the door.
I tried to reason with him. “Look, Apicius, throwing things doesn’t change the situation.”
He kicked the desk, knocking several scrolls to the floor. “Damn ‘Divine Augustus’ and his ridiculous laws.”
“I agree,” I said, “but the alternative is worse. Taking a wife is the law and it’s a law you can’t disobey—if you do it, then other men will want to stay unmarried and Sejanus can’t have that. You don’t want him breathing down your neck more than he already does.”
Apicius collapsed into a chair near the window. “Let him try!”
“You haven’t even talked to the woman beyond the few words you exchanged during the ceremony. She might be perfect for your household, to keep it running smoothly.”
He waggled a finger at me. “That’s why I’ve got you, Thrasius!”
“A wife lends you a certain status I cannot.”
He stood suddenly, knocking over the chair in his anger. “My wife is dead!”
I shook my head at him and left the room.
“I think he’s right. Better to send her to Cumae. I don’t think he’s going to come around,” Sotas said. I could hear Apicius cursing inside.
“Nor do I. We’ll be doing her a favor.”
I chuckled ruefully and headed down the hall toward the guest chambers, where I imagined that Flora, Apicius’s new wife, was pacing the floor, wondering if her husband would ever exchange words with her. She was barely seventeen and as beautiful as a fresh rose on a June afternoon. I had chosen her for Apicius because of her father’s status and because I had hoped that her beauty might be enough to jolt him out of his dreary mood.
“He hates me,” she said when I entered the room. It wasn’t a question.