become a little repetitive and dull for the head chef, but now, with his three sauciers, he could farm out the most irritating tasks, and the pride in his famed dish made any trouble worthwhile. Claudius had forbidden the staff from allowing the recipe out of the Palatine kitchens, and visitors were rarely treated to the delicacy, unless the emperor wished to tease someone.
The meal had been in progress for almost half an hour. Melicos redoubled his speed. He just simply had to get the dish there in time!
Another door opened in response to a shout, and he pelted into the main residential area, the sounds of muffled conversation drifting back through the doorways, backed by the music of a masterful trio.
Melicos pinched the bridge of his nose as he ran. He couldn’t afford to mess this up. The emperor wasn’t a person given to extremes of violence, unlike his predecessor, but even he would have trouble here, and Agrippina would be harsh to say the least.
Her attitude toward the kitchen staff had been made abundantly clear in her first month on the Palatine, following her wedding and accession. It had come to her attention that rats had been spotted in the kitchen and stores of the palace. Her violent outbursts and rabid demands that every brick of the kitchens, stores and servants’ quarters, well over a hundred rooms and passages in all, be cleaned by hand and washed down with vinegar and exterminators be brought in to deal with the vermin.
Ridiculous. Rats were ever present. The lady of the Palatine could demand whatever she wished, but there would always be rats in the lower levels. They were a fact of life, like birds or sunsets or slaves.
And thus, inadvertently, it had been Agrippina that had caused all of this, thought Melicos as he ran, gritting his teeth. Years now of scrubbing damp, decayed brick, and leaving out traps, hiring burly charlatans who would come with a box, display a dead rat they probably brought with them, collect their cash and leave. All because the lady Agrippina detested rodents so much she would turn the Palatine inside out to deal with them.
And in those years it had become apparent that she held the staff in little more esteem than she did the rats, though this disgust and enmity was mutual, he had to admit. Whatever the emperor saw in her, none of the staff could understand. And as for her obnoxious brat of a boy…
The voices were loud now and the music almost present. Melicos came to a halt in the vestibule and paused to recover his breath. No matter the urgency, one did not burst into the emperor’s presence at a run, heaving in gasps of air. A half minute would be enough to compose himself, straighten his tunic, and round the corner to present the dish to Claudius and his guests.
He could only hope he was still in time.
The dish of suilli smelled succulent and appetising, much as the last one had.
The one that had been delivered half an hour ago.
The one with the ‘special sauce’.
There would be an investigation as to how the rat poison ended up on the delicate mushrooms. Melicos could trace the chain of events in his mind clearly enough. The last exterminators they had in were a real haphazard lot with no sense of decorum or order. One of them, probably the Gaul with the disturbing squint, would have left the poison on the shelf while he worked and forgot to collect it afterwards.
Banathes, the Syrian saucier, would have reached for the powdered garlic and salt and his hand inadvertently closed on the wrong jar; the poison had looked so like the garlic mix that even Melicos had had to sniff it to be sure.
Someone would die for this, certainly. Melicos just hoped it wasn’t him. Poor Halotus, the emperor’s taster, would have had the first taste, but he would only have had a little bite, so the poison would likely work slowly on him and give him a bad few days of digestive trouble. But eaten in bulk…
Melicos mopped his perspiring brow and took a deep breath, rounding the corner into the busy triclinium with steady breath and a carefully blank expression.
The emperor Claudius lay on his couch, lounging next to Agrippina, the witch plastered in so much white lead that she looked more like a statue of herself. Other guests, including the insidious and oily Otho, lay around listening to the soothing music, chattering away without a care in the world.
Trying to conceal his nerves, Melicos strode purposefully into the room and bowed, scanning the table.
His heart sank.
The empty silver platter stared back at him, mocking his tardiness.
Halotus the taster stood at the side of the emperor’s couch, gnawing on a dormouse in honey. Agrippina smiled at her husband, the white lead straining and ready to crack. Claudius was frowning, but very much alive, stroking the witch’s cheek. Melicos heaved a sigh of relief and crossed the room, producing the silver dish of suilli with a flourish and sweeping away the empty platter, replacing it smoothly.
“Why Melicos” the emperor smiled. “More? You spoil me.”
The chef took a deep bow, his mind racing. Perhaps the emperor had been feeling unusually generous and had shared them all around, administering a mild dose to everyone? Or perhaps this was all a mistake and Banathes had not reached for the wrong jar. Whatever the case, Claudius seemed happy.
With a smile, Melicos turned and strode across the room toward the exit.
Behind him there was a loud gurgling and rumbling, like the noises that issued from the drains of the Cloaca Maxima as it heaved and groaned under the weight of a heavy storm flow; like an archway about to collapse after a tremor; like a man’s digestive system trying to cope with enough poison to kill a hundred vermin.
All conversation stopped and Melicos found that he had halted mid-stride.
The emperor’s voice was shaky and a little high.
“Oh dear. I think I shat myself.”
Aftermath in the Ludus
Tarentius sat up slowly.
It was still dark and he was hungry. So hungry. When was the last time he ate? Must have been before the last bout. The lanista had given them all a good solid meal of pork, bread and vegetables to help build both strength and courage for the fight. And the fight finished hours and hours ago. Sometime in the early afternoon. It must have been half a day ago; no wonder he was so ravenous.
Throwing off his scant cloth cover, he climbed off the pallet and stumbled in the darkness. He knew the layout of the ludus intimately and could easily find his way to the kitchens with his eyes shut. This late into the night, all the others would be asleep in their cots and the only lights burning would be the torches and lamps in the lanista’s apartments and office. Perhaps in the kitchens too if it was more ‘early’ than late, the slaves preparing the gladiators’ morning meal.
Shuffling with a tired gait out into the hall, he could hear the rumbling snored of Braxus the Thracian, a sound like a collapsing insula. Beyond was the familiar wheezing, whistling snore of Paris and then the strange whimpering, dog-like night noises of the two young Numidians retiarii. Even with bad direction sense, and old hand here could navigate just by the sounds.
He must have been absolutely exhausted after that last bout, to have fallen asleep early and missed the evening meal. He couldn’t remember falling asleep or being shouted, but then the bastards who ran the place would hardly fall over themselves to make sure he got his meal. Even with five successful fights under his belt, he was still a slave, and any meal they didn’t have to cook was money saved.
Tarentius growled as he pondered on the unfairness of the situation. One day he might emulate Spartacus and give the lanista a taste of his own lash.
After supper, though.
Grinning, he saw the flickering torchlight from the kitchen doorway as he turned the corner. Someone was busy doing food for the morning. He wondered if they had something tasty to spare?
Rounding the corner, Tarentius entered the kitchen, fixing his gaze on the young Gaulish cook and licked his desiccated, shredded lips.
“Mmmm… braaaaaiiiinssssss….”
The cook fainted.
