“I will need someone to help me tomorrow morning, to prepare the pastries. Would you like to do that?” Casaverius didn’t realize he was speaking slowly, as if to a child, but Dalcius never seemed to mind and his silences invited the manner. There was no malice in the fat cook, and Casaverius was genuinely pleased when Dalcius nodded to him before going back into the stores. A cook had to have an eye for good workers, his father had always said. It was the difference between working yourself into an early grave and achieving perfection.

“And perfection is in the detail,” he murmured again to himself.

At the end of the long kitchen hall, the door to the house above opened and a smartly dressed slave entered. Casaverius straightened, laying his mortar and pestle aside without thought.

“The master sends his apologies for the late hour and wonders if he may be sent something cold before he sleeps, an ice dish,” the young man said, bowing.

Casaverius thanked him, pleased as always with the courtesy.

“For all his guests?” he asked quickly, thinking.

“No, sir, his guests have departed. Only the general remains.”

“Wait here, then. I will have it ready in a few moments.”

The kitchens went from end-of-evening stupor to alertness in the time it took Casaverius to issue new orders. Two of the kitchen runners were sent down the steps to the ice rooms, far below the kitchens. Casa strode under a low arch and through a short corridor to where the desserts were prepared.

“A lemon ice, I think,” he muttered as he walked. “Beautiful bitter southern lemons, made sweet and cold.”

Everything was in place as he entered the cool dessert room. Like the main kitchen, the walls were hung with dozens of amphorae filled with syrups and sauces, made and refilled whenever the kitchens were quiet. There was no hint of the oven heat in there, and he felt the sweat chill on his heavy body with a pleasurable shiver.

The ice blocks, wrapped in rough cloth, were brought up in minutes and crushed under his direction until the ice was a fine slurry. To this he added the bittersweet lemon and stirred it in, just enough to flavor without overpowering. His father had said the ice must not be yellow, and Casaverius smiled as he noted the color and fine texture, using a ladle to scoop the mixture into the glass bowls on a serving tray.

He worked quickly. Even in the cool room the ice was melting, and the journey through the kitchens would have to be fast. He hoped that one day Sulla would allow another passage to be cut in the rock under his luxurious home, so that the iced desserts could be brought straight up. Still, with care and speed, the dishes would reach his table almost intact.

After only a few minutes, the two bowls were full of the white ice and Casaverius sucked his fingers, groaning in exaggerated pleasure. How good it was to taste cold in the summer! He wondered briefly how much silver coin the two bowls represented, but it was an unimaginable sum. Drivers and carts transported huge blocks from the mountains, losing half in the journey. They were brought down to the dripping darkness of the ice rooms below him, there to melt slowly, but giving cool drinks and desserts for all the summer months. He reminded himself to check that supplies were adequate. It was almost time for a new order.