? ? ?
After the divination, Apicius was agitated. There was no more friendly discussion on the way back to his domus, which was a short walk outside of town. I was glad for the silence. It gave me time to think about the whirring of birds still spiraling in my mind. The last time I’d seen birds fly in such a manner was the morning my previous master, Maximus, had fallen dead as his slaves were helping him don his toga. If birds foretold death to Maximus, what did the flock of pigeons mean for Apicius? Did they mean anything for me? Terror held court in the circle of my heart.
This terror took new form when I saw the vastness of the estate where I was to work. Apicius lived in a grand domus that rested on a high ridge with sweeping views of the Tyrrhenian Sea. It was larger and more elaborate than any I had seen, despite the fact that I’d been owned by three different patricians, each among the very rich. I was not prepared for the opulence of the house that lay before me. Apicius led us through a labyrinth of painted corridors that sometimes opened toward the ocean and the beach below. We passed through the peristylium, and I almost gasped aloud. The courtyard was immense, and laden with fountains and small running streams. Flowers bloomed everywhere and the rich smell of thyme permeated the air as we crushed the growing herbs against the stones beneath our feet. In an unusual design for a domus, one side of the peristylium was open toward the sea, and specially rigged gates could be closed to create a wall against the elements if the need arose. The size of the house was massive. I tried to imagine how many slaves worked for Apicius. There must have been hundreds.
“Sotas, take the boy to the kitchen and start him working,” Apicius ordered.
A sour taste rose in my mouth. “But, Dominus, I need more time to . . .”
As soon as the words escaped my mouth I knew that I should not have said them.
Apicius whirled around. “Do not question me. Sotas will take you to the kitchen, where you will cook me the cena meal you described, with two exceptions. I don’t want Parthian chicken. Instead, you will cook me your ‘specialty’ ham in pastry and there will be lobster instead of mussels.”
Then his tone changed. “Eat no food tonight you did not prepare by your own hands. If you must partake of food other slaves have made, make them taste it first. And under my explicit instructions, you are not to touch any food that one of my guests asks you to taste, understand? Find another slave to taste but you are to take the utmost care for your own well-being.”
What had happened to the last cook? A lump of panic rose in my throat.
Apicius put a hand on my chest and thrust me in Sotas’s direction.
“How did I anger him?” I asked Sotas when Apicius was out of earshot. I had to look up to meet his eyes—the top of my head came only to his chest.
“It wasn’t you. It was the haruspex.”
“Why did he want to buy me so badly?”
Sotas gave me a crooked smile. “Because you’re a good cook, or at least you were the night Apicius ate at Maximus’s house. Apicius still talks about that meal. He wants that for his own table. He wants someone who will help him become gastronomic adviser to Caesar. He is expecting you to be that person. As for money, you’ll find he has a lot of it and he spends it freely.”
“I don’t understand. The reading for the haruspex was terrible.”
Sotas laughed but it was a bitter sound. “Didn’t you notice what he was whispering to himself the whole way back?”
I remembered only Apicius mentioning the part about judgment in the Underworld and I said as much.
“Exactly. Apicius heard what he wanted to hear. The part about success, what was it . . . ?”
“The more he works toward success, the more his sky will darken. Sounds like failure to me.”
“Yes, that. He’s angry and worried now, but by morning he will have convinced himself the failure part was never said.”
I remained silent.
Like the domus itself, the kitchen was the largest I had ever seen, full of bustling slaves preserving food, cleaning pots, and cooking on the three large hearths. The fresh, sweet essence of honey cakes wafted through the air, mingling with the acrid smell of vinegar and the rich aroma of smoking meats. The kitchen was loud and hot despite the ocean breeze drifting through the open windows. A red long-tailed hound lay in one corner, asleep with his tongue hanging out one side of his mouth. A large sundial in the garden was visible through the kitchen window. I had only a few hours to prepare an elaborate meal.
I counted fifteen kitchen slaves. They all appeared to be cooking, not serving, and I guessed there must have been at least a dozen more elsewhere who served the courses of the cena. A few prepubescent youths wandered in and out of the kitchen, likely errand runners. I could barely breathe—by the gods, how was I going to manage all these people? I knew how to run a kitchen, but only a small one, with three slaves and three servers—nothing on the scale of what appeared to be expected of me in the Gavian household! My moment to worry passed quickly, for after we entered the room, Sotas rang a large bell on a shelf next to the kitchen door and all the slaves stopped their work, their faces shining in the heat. He pushed me forward into the room and presented me to the kitchen.
“That the new coquus?” an older, mostly toothless woman asked from her post at a low counter where she was pickling parsnips. Her long gray hair, streaked with white, was loose and cascaded down her back. I wondered how much of it found its way into the food.
“He’s your new boss. Don’t make him angry,” Sotas warned, and headed back into the depths of the house.
I watched him go, unsure of what I should do. The kitchen staff waited for me to speak but I could not find a thing to say. A huddle of women plucking chickens and pheasants kept working, looking from me to the birds and back again. The dog lifted its head expectantly. After an uncomfortable silence, the toothless woman spoke up. “Are you mute, boy?”
The words of my former master Maximus came back to me. He had always said that there would be certain times, despite my status as a slave, when I would need audacity and sheer brazen nerve. In those moments I should assume that all around me understood that I knew best. For the first time, I understood the truth of Maximus’s words. If I didn’t speak and react with authority, I would never have the respect of the staff, and given all the money Apicius had spent on me, I had better gain that respect fast.