Page 13 of Of Love and Treason
“What abouther?” Epimandos asked in his heavily accented Gallic whine.
Paulina heaved an exasperated sigh. “Good morning, Iris.”
“Good morning, Paulina, Epimandos.”
The slave grunted in reply. Iris heard him scooping flour and knocking spice jars against the rim of a wooden mixing bowl.
Paulina’s voice aimed at her. “My bakers’ guild is meeting with the Guild of Grain Millers. The millers are trying to raise prices and limit our purchase amounts.” She nudged a bowl of premeasured ingredients against Iris’s arm. Iris took the bowl and set it on the kneading counter. “They’re idiots if they think we’ll agree to that! They’ll put half the bakers in Rome out of business by month’s end.”
Iris ran her hands through the mixture until it clung together in shaggy clumps, then dumped the contents on the wooden counter. She began to knead. “How long will you be away?”
“Today, tomorrow, however many days it takes for those stubborn, pigheaded, greedy, foul-bellied, fist-clenching—” the colorful diatribe continued until Paulina ran out of breath and ended with—“idiots to bend to my will.”
“We should close shop while you are away,” Epimandos said.
Paulina ignored him. “Speaking of stubborn and pigheaded men, Epimandos will still have to run the deliveries when the baking is complete, which leaves only you to watch the front counter while he’s away.”
Unease prickled her gut, but Iris kept her reservations to herself. Arguing hadn’t done Epimandos any good. “All right.”
“But who is going to watchherif I am gone?” Epimandos protested. “She is going to give wrong change, and everyone will think we are cheating them—or we will be robbed, and she will not even know.”
“Iris is perfectly capable.” Paulina snapped a palla around her head and shoulders. “There’s a bell on the door. She’ll know when customers come and go. She knows where all the bread is and how much everything costs. She’s counted end-of-day earnings for me before—with fewer mistakes than you, I might add. But to set your worries at ease, you can take over as soon as you’re back.”
Iris stifled a giggle at Epimandos’s horrified squeak.
“I’ll be back when those dull brains come to their senses.”
One did not cross Paulina. She would get what she wanted or wouldn’t set foot in the bakery until she did. Paulina was fierce and shrewd. A widow who operated a business where men ran the world had to be. Iris wasn’t sure why Paulina put up with the sniveling whine of her slave but knew she trusted Epimandos more than any other person. She never listened to him, but she did trust him.
“If she makes idiots bend to her will, what does that make us?” Epimandos muttered. Iris let him complain and focused on the dough. This one was especially nutty.
Iris guessed aloud, “Pistachio and dried cherry. These must be the hand buns.”
“Do not overknead it, or they will not be soft, and no one will come back to buy them, and we will go out of business and starve to death.”
“You’re a dear little ray of midnight this morning.” Iris smiled since it would irritate him. “You must have slept well.”
“This will end terribly.”
“You’re right. Perhaps we should slit our wrists and give up now.” Iris flipped the dough and shoved the heel of her hand through the middle.
“I am going to check the outdoor ovens.” He moaned. “By now they are probably too hot, and everything will burn.”
Iris sighed as the door shut behind him and turned her attention to the dough. She loved the bakery. The routine, precision, independence, and aside from this morning, there were never any surprises. They made the same bread every day in the same order. In Paulina’s Bakery, she found security, purpose, control. The market outside might change daily, new stands cropping up to trip her, a table jutting out where there hadn’t been one before, but here? Never.
Until today.
Her stomach prickled again. The dough went baby-skin smooth beneath her hands. She gave it one last pat and dropped it into the dough bowl, ready for the proofing oven Epimandos had developed. The long, low brick tunnel had a door on each end, and every night Epimandos built a fire inside the tunnel to heat the plaster-covered bricks just enough to allow the dough they placed inside to rise without baking. No other bakers in Rome had developed such a thing, and the bread and pastries from Paulina’s were famous for their pillowy softness.
Iris pushed the bowl into the proofing tunnel as far as her arm could reach and replaced the wooden door. As she kneaded, she slid bowls of dough through the tunnel one after the other until they emerged from the other end. By the time each bowl reached the far door, the dough had risen enough to punch and shape. Over theyears, she and Epimandos had honed the timing as perfectly as the changing of the Praetorian Palace guards.
As she replaced the proofing door, Epimandos handed her another bowl. They worked in silence. The only sounds were the creak of Epimandos’s scales, the scraping as he mixed the dough into shaggy crumbs, and the rhythmic thump of Iris’s kneading.
“Do you want to hear something strange?”
“No.” Epimandos clacked a lid onto a jar. “But why do I have the feeling you are going to tell me anyway?”
His attitude would not deter her today. Her heart beat harder at the memory. “The other day, as I went home, I met a Christian in the market. He said he would pray for me to see again.”
